Dear friends,
The English title of one of my favourite Zen Koans (tales) is A Cup of Tea. It tells the story of a meeting between a learned professor and a Zen master:
Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen.
Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor's cup full, and then kept on pouring.
The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. "It is overfull. No more will go in!"
"Like this cup," Nan-in said, "you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?"
I was reminded of this story after I had read Professor Geoffrey Blainey’s column Before we vote, let’s get all our facts in order (The Weekend Australian, July 1, 2023). His analysis and opinion made me sad, not because it was full of half-truths, misinformation, and disinformation but because I had hoped that an eminent and learned professor of history would be able to approach the issue with an open mind, putting aside his biases.
Professor Blainey opens his columns noting that,
Without doubt, the Indigenous people have had many legitimate grievances about their sufferings and slights ever since British convicts and marines arrived in 1788. Hosts of Aboriginal people were killed in frontier conflict, though the historians’ statistics of death tend to contradict each other. Most Indigenous people died from diseases to which they had no immunity, and such deaths far exceed those suffered in warfare since 1788.
This is right, I say, but the diseases, historians believe, were most probably brought to this ancient land by the ‘British convicts’ and ‘marines’ or colonizers.
He ends his column with the words:
Indigenous people hope to gain a major say in shaping a beneficial treaty with the Australian nation; they demand a truth-telling tribunal dominated by the Indigenous; and they call for the right at times to influence vital spheres such as foreign policy. They will also break the golden rule of democracy: one person, one vote.
No, not at all, I want to say to Professor Blainey. No, this isn’t what the ‘Voice’ aims to achieve.
I find some solace after reading two essays in the July 2023 issue of The Monthly.
In his essay, A Firelight Stick on the Hill, Patrick Dodson confesses that ‘[he has] written and dictated most of the notes for this essay from a hospital bed,’ where he was receiving treatment for cancer. ‘In Aboriginal years,’ he writes, ‘I am very old man. I do not expect that another opportunity to improve our lot will come around in my time left.’
I don’t wish to summarize Dodson’s essay because no summary or paraphrase will capture the tone and gravity of his thoughts and feelings. But I want to cite two brief paragraphs from the final section of the essay:
Non-Indigenous Australians are slowly starting to realise some spiritual connection to this land. They’re starting to realize that as human beings they have to find a better way of living and respecting the environment, as they also exploit its resources for the quality-of-life factors that we all enjoy. The balance of that has yet to be struck, so that the complexity of economics on the one hand, and the complexity of what Yawuru call the bugarrigarra, the Dreaming, can marry up.
There’s no division in my beliefs. There are different ways of looking at how the world works, but what should motivate and drive people’s beliefs and values are matters of honour, integrity and respect for other people’s traditions, rights and interests.
Richard Flanagan in his essay, The Voice and our inauthentic heart, tries to make an argument, ‘… as a non-Indigenous Australian writer,’ asking ‘… why the voice matters also to non-Indigenous Australians and, I believe, Australian writing.’
I like the way Flanagan begins his piece by citing from an essay ‘… by a then 18-year-old Yolngu woman called Siena Stubs,’ in which she highlighted the way the Yolngu and other indigenous peoples in Australia and elsewhere live and experience various strands of time simultaneously. Flanagan ends his wonderfully eloquent article with the words:
The voice to parliament is the question mark that now appears over our country and, by implication, our literature. For us to be secure, for us to prosper, the answer lies not in relentless exploitation, nor more inequality, nor yet in reckless acts of external aggression to please larger countries. The answer lies in us and our land, and the way we answer this great question later this year. I hope, I pray, that our reply will be yes.
The two essays in The Monthly and Professor Blainey’s column in The Weekend Australian can be accessed by visiting:
https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2023/july/patrick-dodson/firelight-stick-hill
https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2023/july/richard-flanagan/voice-and-our-inauthentic-heart#mtr
I notice that the Professor Blainey’s column isn’t behind the so-called ‘pay-wall’ and therefore easily accessible. It appears that the column has generated widespread support from the readers of The Australian. I am worried that soon quotes from the column will be picked up by social media platforms run by the supporters of the ‘No’ campaign.
I wish The Monthly would also make its two essays freely available to all readers so that misinformation can be exposed.
I hope you can find time to read the three pieces and talk about them with your friends and colleagues.
The drop in the support of the ‘Yes’ campaign in the polls is alarming.
Thanks once again for your support and with best wishes to you all.
Subhash