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Poverty in Australia

Massacre of the Aborigines

Van Diemen's Land, as Tasmania was then known, was first settled by the British as a penal colony in 1803. Convicts who were deemed difficult were sent here for punishment, and it quickly became infamous as a bitter land of sadism, terror, and violence.

The arrival of the British was a disaster for the four or five thousand Aboriginal inhabitants of the island. The British actively engaged in genocide, which succeeded by 1876, when Truganini, the last pure-blooded Tasmanian woman, died.

Truganini witnessed the total destruction of her people during her lifetime. She was born around 1812, and her life was a long series of horrors. Her mother was stabbed to death by sealers, her sister abducted and killed by sailors, and her fiancé was murdered while trying to save Truganini from being kidnapped and raped.

She lived through a period when Aborigines were shot on sight, tortured, and forced into slavery. A final solution was attempted in 1830, when the authorities formed the "Black Line," a battalion of some 5,000 soldiers and citizens, who marched in a line across the island, shoulder to shoulder, trying to kill or capture the native people. In 1834, the last 150 Tasmanian Aborigines were gathered up and transported to a mission on a small island off the northern coast called Flinders Island, where they were converted to Christianity. The majority did not survive the experience. Only 34 Aborigines were still alive in 1847, when the government allowed them to return to Tasmania.

Truganini was the last of her people, and her last request was that she be buried with dignity. "Don't let them cut me up," she begged as she lay dying. "Bury me behind the mountains." She had good reason to fear. There was considerable scientific interest in Aborigines at this time, based on the mistaken notion that they were the "missing link" between ape and man. Following the death of William Lanne, the last Aboriginal man, his body was horribly mutilated. His head, hands, and feet were cut off and stolen -- all in the interest of science.

Truganini's body was buried, but the Royal Society of Tasmania later dug up her remains. Her skeleton was strung together with wires and displayed in the Tasmanian Museum until 1951. A century after her death, her last wish was finally granted in 1976. Her bones were removed from the museum, cremated, and scattered in the water around her homeland.

 

Source: PBS: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/australia/16c.html

 

 

 

Poppy Day and Other Observances

 

Remembrance Day  is also known as Poppy Day throughout Great Britian, Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand (ANZAC). 

The day is closely associated with a poem, "In Flanders Field" written by Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae of the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps.  In May, 1915 when after watching the death of a close friend in Belgium he wrote the following poem:

 

In Flanders Field

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep,
though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

 

McCrae died in 1918 and so did not see the end of the war. His poem was printed on December 8th, 1915 in an issue of Punch and soon became the unofficial anthem of the soldiers in the trenches where it was memorised and passed on by word of mouth.

In 1918, an American woman Moira Michael, wrote a poem in response to "In Flanders Field," titled "We shall keep the faith." In her poem she promised to wear a poppy to honour the dead, this was where the tradition to wear a poppy on Remembrance Day was first begun, a tradition that is still in existence today.

 

We Shall Keep the Faith

Oh! you who sleep in Flanders Fields,
Sleep sweet - to rise anew!
We caught the torch you threw
And holding high, we keep the Faith
With All who died.

We cherish, too, the poppy red
That grows on fields where valor led;
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies,
But lends a lustre to the red
Of the flower that blooms above the dead
In Flanders Fields.

And now the Torch and Poppy Red
We wear in honor of our dead.
Fear not that ye have died for naught;
We'll teach the lesson that ye wrought
In Flanders Fields.

 

In the United States poppies are not necessarily associated with Veterans Day, but rather are traditionally sold on Memorial Day.

 

 

Yahya Al-Samawi

Born in Iraq in 1949, Yahya Al-Samawi has been living as a political refugee in Australia. The author of more than eight collections, he has been largely concerned in his latest works with political themes, which address, among other issues, Iraq’s predicament in the years following the Gulf War and his opposition to the regime.

 

Phil Lamb

Austrailian soldier, average age of soldier was 20, and each saw combat for a period of one year

“Confusion,” appears in an anthology, Sorrow is Knowledge: Poetry from Vietnam War, compiled by Audrey Greenway and published in 1992.

 
Confusion

Hangin’ on to the old days of wearing jungle greens,
Hiding from life with the donga for a screen,
Reliving those days in our head,
Hard times, fear, bloodshed and dread.

Not easy to displace those chaotic days,
Plucked from civvy street and youthful ways,
Surfin’, footy, sheilas, J.J’s, summer fun,
Conscripted, inducted, grenade, rifle, gun.

No time now for civilian troubles.
Learn, conform, don’t argue, all at the double!
“What’s goin’ on here dickhead” instructor’s scream,
Don’t let your mates down jack-man you ain’there to dream
Or you’ll be back squadded, don’t let down the team.”

Get on with it, don’t think of slumber.
You don’t have a name, only a number.
To your new army mates you must be dependable.
To the brass hats up top, well, you’re expendable.

Then off to sunny Queensland, that where you train,
Up hill, across creeks, ticks, leeches, rain.
Observe, survive, overcome pain, “Be a man”!

“To fight for a grateful country.” Those were the words
That were used.
“And when you get back you’ll be heroes on the six o’clock news.”
But we weren’t, we were spat on, called “child killer”
And abused.
What kind of welcome home is that?
No wonder we’re bloody confused!

Questions for Reflection: “Confusion”

  1. Why might a soldier find comfort in “hanging on” to the old days? How is the poet relating those days in his head?
  2. What was this poet’s life before going to war? How might his life be similar to or different from young people today who leave their lives to enter into a war?
  3. How does the poem indicate that his life changed dramatically when he became a soldier? 
  4. What is a soldier’s responsibility as referred to in this poem?
  5. Why is this soldier poet confused? How might he reconcile this confusion? Do you think that young warriors of today’s wars have the same confusion? The same dismay?


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