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January 26, 2008
It's Australia Day. Flag waving day. Officially it is a celebration 220th anniversary of the arrival of the first fleet in Sydney Cove. A celebration that is yet to recognize that this was also an invasion and an occupation of land occupied by Indigenous people.
Kathleen Petyarre, My Country / Bush Seeds, 2000, acrylic on linen
Marcia Langton writing in The Australian writes in terms of the perpetual Aboriginal reality show:
The very public debate about child abuse [amongst Indigenous people] is like Baudrillard's war porn. It has parodied the horrible suffering of Aboriginal people. The crisis in Aboriginal society is a public spectacle, played out in a vast reality show through the media, parliaments, public service and the Aboriginal world. This obscene and pornographic spectacle shifts attention away from everyday lived crisis that many Aboriginal people endure: or do not, dying as they do at excessive rates.
She says that this spectacle is not a new phenomenon in Australian public life, but the debate about indigenous affairs has reached a new crescendo, fuelled by the accelerated and uncensored expose of the extent of Aboriginal child abuse.
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