I really appreciate you responding, Paul, like you have. It means a lot to me. Its nice to know how deep a resonance my piece has had with you. I am ashamed to say that when writing the piece I knew little of the Frontier Wars, in Australia; the aptly named ‘forgotten war’.
Having done a little research there is no doubt it should be recognised in the Australian War Memorial and ANZAC Day, as it was a war fought to preserve the very origins and sanctity of the land, now called Australia, by its indigenous people and as you rightly state ‘First Australians’. If Australia is to mean what the Australians consider their ‘character’ to personify, then it must pay honour to the very first blood sacrifice made for the land and for the country, as Gallipoli was for the white settlers of Australia. It’s not being recognised, is once again the endemic cultural racism of the powerful and the white colonial settlers. It is quite shocking to hear of the huge number of Aborigines murdered and of course the ridiculous ‘official’ death toll?! And for me the use of biological warfare in Queensland when flour was poisoned with strychnine is an utterly inhuman act.
No true warrior code would ever have allowed that to happen. The Trojan War lasted for 10 years of course which seems insignificant when compared to the slaughter and suffering of The Frontier Wars in Australia, yet the resonances are profound and I have no doubt the Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders would have connected deeply with Homer’s tragic tale of the Fall of Troy. Although ‘The Women of Troy’ would have no doubt seemed as if Homer was talking directly to them and their suffering as it does to those native peoples who have been colonialised and subjugated.
I wish you well in your own battle to right a very serious wrong and a wrong that could be corrected by an acknowledgement of the bloody birth of Auatralia in the massacre of the First Australians. It is the very least that they deserve. But of course many would rather not face this very ugly truth.
If I can help in any way over here in the Motherland let me know.
