Writings

Hindmarsh: Equal before the law?

(National Outlook, May 1995)

In Slouching Towards Bethlehem Joan Gideon writes about the visit to Pearl Harbor: 'I took that bright pink boat to Pearl Harbor on two afternoons but I still do not know what I went to find out, which is how other people respond a quarter of a century later. I do not know because there is a point at which I began to cry, and to notice no one else. I began to cry at the place where the UTAH lies in 50 feet of water, water neither turquoise nor bright blue but the gray of harbour waters everywhere, and I did not stop until after the pink boat had left the ARIZONA or what is visible of the ARIZONA: the rusted after-gun turret breaking the gray water, the flag at full mast because the Navy considers the ARIZONA still in commission, a full crew aboard, 1102 men from 49 states. All I know about how other people respond is what I am told: that everyone is quiet at the ARIZONA.'

I mention this because of the strange fact that the ship remains in commission, 'a full crew aboard'. A check with a US Naval Attache confirms Dideon's 1966 report and the fact that the vessel is still in commission in 1995 (the most recent commissioning being in 1991). This is a memorial, surely, but more than a memorial. It is a sacred site to American citizens. Not just a place on a map – but a modern day form of animism practised by an advanced technological society.

In the dispute over Hindmarsh Island (Kumarangk) the proponents and supporters of the bridge argue that the Ngarrindjeri women are guilty of deception as to the nature and importance of their sacred sites. They state that these privileges do not extend to other Australian communities. The anthropological and archaeological evidence is dismissed. There has been no attempt to understand the symbolic imagery implicit in the bridge project. Anthropologist Dr Deane Fergie says: "It occurs to me that it may be that what the women haven't been able to articulate clearly is that the problem with linking Kumarangk (Hindmarsh Island) and the mainland together by a bridge is precisely that a bridge goes over the water. It is a shore to shore, direct and permanent link, unlike the barrage or ferry cable, unmediated by water. It would make the system sterile and barren." In conflict are two cultures and two peoples.

Recently, again in the United States, the Walt Disney Corporation proposed a theme park development adjacent to a Civil War battleground, not, be it noted, on a Civil War Cemetery. The proposal was defeated. This defeat, the first for the Walt Disney Corporation, indicates that there are limits beyond which corporate America may not transgress.

What would happen if a geological survey discovered oil beneath the ARIZONA? Would the United States Government override the Navy, de-commission the ship and allow drilling? I very much doubt it.

The claims made by the Ngarrindjeri women fall, in part, into this category of concern. As well as being an 'increase' locality, there is widespread evidence of skeletal remains. Some years ago, not far from Hindmarsh Island, I came across such a site. A sand dune had moved, leaving exposed a group of full skeletons, arranged in a circle. These were the remains of people who had died it in the smallpox epidemic. On that same trip I found a drinking shell. And everywhere there are shell (kitchen) middens. The entire region is imprinted with the life of the tribes. And that this is so must have been known by the principles of the company.

Binalong Pty Ltd (nice friendly name) belongs in the category of the Walt Disney Corporation. The main function of the marina which the proposed bridge would serve is entertainment. Quite reasonably, the Ngarrindjeri women raise no objection to a second ferry.

Dr Geoffrey Partington (Sydney Morning Herald, March 13, 1995) writes of the possibility of 'communal conflict', an unwise contribution to the national debate, I would have thought.

In his article he neglected to mention the smallpox epidemic which all but wiped out the population of Hindmarsh Island 150 years ago. He forgot to mention the forced removals of survivors to Point McLeay, Meningie and Murray Bridge. He is clearly a somewhat partial observer.

He makes a lot of those sealed and clearly addressed envelopes and betrays considerable ignorance about the procedural difficulties.

Animistic societies and practices always work in secrecy. They always entrust specific knowledge to certain persons in the tribe. That is the way the genii locarum (the spirits of the place), their names and attributes, are honoured and preserved. As true in contemporary Japan with Shinto, fibre optics notwithstanding, as in Aboriginal cultures. On North Terrace, Adelaide, a vestigial remnant from the old medieval European guilds may be read on the Freemasons' building. The inscription reads: "Audi, Vidi, Tace" (hear, see, keep quiet).

Some secrets are to do with life, its value; others are less noble, crass.

What is in conflict are the codes of secrecy of two very different cultures, one of which is severely and savagely damaged. It should come then as no surprise that there happens to be considerable distrust of those Binalong-hired professionals of whom Dr Partington speaks. After recent events I wouldn't trust any of them.

Australia may well be a republic in the near future. However the change of status will be cosmetic unless there is agreement by both sides of the Parliament that sacrilege, the theft of the sacred is a serious offence.

The 20th century history of Southern Hemisphere republics gives little joy. I hope Australia's will be different. It would seem to depend on the outcome of this case in the Parliament and at Kumarangk/Hindmarsh Island.