Date: Tue, 15 Aug 1995 13:39:48 +0930
From: pstewart-AT-arts.adelaide.edu.au (Peter Stewart)
Subject: A bridge of the mind and the colonial canon
"Royal Commission into the Hindmarsh Bridge Affair",
Adelaide, the Supreme Court Building, sombre
nineteenth century Victorian court house Monday 14
August, 1995
The public sphere redesigned:
On Monday 14 August
various lawyers spoke to an application,
initiated by a lawyer representing a "dissident"
woman, Ms Dorothy Wilson, to say that this witness
felt intimidated by the public and requested that her
evidence be heard in private. Long discussion was held on
this regarding the powers of the Royal Commissioner. It was also
claimed that a consequence of the stress caused errors in the
transcript for which corrections were allowed.
Is that how it works?
Following this came the question of the definition of the public. Even old
Jurgen Habermas might have some consternation at the imputation that
the press were separately defined as not members of the public,
but the press. He might not consider that this
constituted the "ideal speech situation" to
engender "true rationality".
The Media was not excluded,
indeed it would appear the
possibility of their exclusion
was only mentioned briefly.
The media sat in the jury box
of this Supreme Court building room
- used for the day because of the
threat of the curse announced by lawyer,
Mr Abbot. It seemed curious that a
white Anglo male lawyer could announce
an Aboriginal Woman's curse and
so lead to the exegesis from that
building. To return to the media,
possibly they were hearing silent
applause for their role in the
esteemed trade in truth and the
dissemination of information within
the public sphere. One only has to
read the opinions expressed in the
l o c a l
newspaper
" The
Adelaide
Review "
to see
there might
be
some
verity
in the
occasion.
Lawyers frequently wear pin strip suits some with a broad charcoal
background and contrasting to a thin blue vertical stripes, others
have a
fondness for broader stripes balancing the background grey. The stripes?
I have heard they symbolize the power of the law - the bars of
punishment, the weapon of the law. A crumpled suit, topped
by short cropped brown hair rose to full height and announced to "Ma'am",
(Royal Commissioner Iris Stevens), that it represented "Channels 7, 9, 10
The Advertiser, The Australian and associated media." And left the
court.
The media in its pre-eminent geo-political position sat silently, their
role as solely constitutive of the real public sphere seemed out of sorts
with the coverage of the event and there need to have a lawyer represent
them as they were not only the whistle blowers on the "fabrication" but
also possibly have some considerable role in what might by some be
considered to be a fabrication or at least over enthusiastic
representation of dissent.
I wonder if this was the kind of public sphere Habermas had in mind as
the heir to the nineteenth century coffee house and multitude of
informal
sources of information and myriad newspapers and magazines empowering the
public to make assessments of justice and truth?
Discursive subliminals
The narrative of anger and its relationship to the politics of denial.
Some think it proven that there was a fabrication, why I asked?
"Because I could see she was lying on the TV" ?
Yet the Commission is as closed to the public as often as not
because of Section 35 of the "Aboriginal and Historic Relics Act,
South Australia", which refers I understand to not talking in
public about the existence of sacred sites for the reason that
to protect sites secrecy is a useful means.
What then becomes bizarre is such a constant subjection
of the Commission to Section 35 indicates that much time
is spent discussing the details of such secret sacred
business - of dreaming places symbolic universes and physical
imprimatur which it is alleged does not exist.
This common use of Section 35 suggests a
recognition of the existence or possible existence of such matters.
Yet the charge is based on the notion that because
the Dissident women were not told then It cannot exist.
"Constructing indigeneity" (The Empire Writes Back p.135)
Anger stalks the interstitial zone between the domains
of Indigenous and Colonial exiles. There is no bridge
but the Royal Commission into the Hindmarsh Bridge Affairs.
There is no bridge! The meta-discourse, or one of them
if such a thing could be, is the psychical construction of
a bridge that "Tomanwendiji", See Cultural dissent article
contrasting the mythology of the Tomanwendiji a development
orientated tribe to that of the Ngarrendjeri (I dont know
who this tribe might be butI have heard someone has suggested
that it might be related to the Developers the "want to be"
Bridge Builders "Tom and Wendy Chapman" but I personally dont know:
Narratives of title in competition:
There was not any real violence during the colonisation of Ngarrendjeri land.
At the time of colonisation the overwhelming
cause of "population decline", the deaths
of a great many Indigenous people, the cause? Measles.
What was not raised was the possible impact of
the appropriation of the land, or the usurpation of
resources in one of the most densely populated and
bountiful Indigenous countries a riverine/marine
culture or violence or the threat of violence,
Women seized and taken to Kangaroo Island and kept
as sex slaves who became so desperate they to escape
attempted/succeeded to swim 22 miles to the mainland
through cold water, tidal rips and the domain of the white pointer.
The estimation for the number by Dr Phillip Clark,
a witness, person,
who asserted in evidence and before
that there was no "Secret Sacred Women's Business,
ranged from 70 to 80% population decline due to small pox
in the nineteenth century. A weapon that some contemporary
nations continue to reinvent. A question arises whether
this oft cited effect of the process of colonisation
has any relation to the perception that such a narrative
is also a narrative of assuagement?
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