The Bush: Travels in the Mind of Australia, inspired by Don Watson

Some thoughts inspired by Don Watson, interviewed by The World Today at @SydWriters'Fest on soundcloud. His latest book: The Bush: Travels in the Heart of Australia, Penguin Australia. (2014)

First there is the outstanding and unbelievable voracious appetite for destruction of all things Australian by European colonialisation. To 'wipe it all away' in this newly established British colony, also known as the 'blank slate' of Terra nullius. Proceeding with the 'business as usual' expansionist progress paradigm, all endemic flora and fauna had to disappear. The indigenous owners of the land "felt the full force of Australian colonial brutality" (source). The inflexible aliens found themselves in an alien land and strained to recreate their place of origin that they were habituated to.

The amazing point is not only 'the scale of destruction', but its perpetual continuation right into 21st century contemporary society and landscape. 'The Great Australian Silence' permeates and it is coupled with an inability to confront reality. The mental state is one of oscillating between learning disability and ‘intentional ignorance’, commonly known as denial.

The long list of inconvenient truths about climate disruption, massacres of indigenous people, land degradation and biodiversity impoverishment are overwhelming.

The mind manufactures defense mechanisms for a required state of permanent 'feel good' existence. A delusional unwillingness to face reality is coupled with a melancholy across generations. Like a social transgenerational epigenentics the uncleared deeds of the past linger in the minds of the present. Existence in rural and sub-urban isolation, bereft of meaning, populates the minds with roaming packs of 'black dogs': mental illness, depression and suicide. The others busy themselves with Anglo pragmatism to get things done by recreating the status quo.

A bit of bush lore, Aussie 'nature' (45,000 years of Aboriginal land stewardship) or #wildoz add to the pride and puffs up the chest. Most of the time one is propelled by fossil fuel machines, racing through the paved bush at 100 km/h.

Isolation also molded the psyche of national insecurity, stuck on an island in the Asian Pacific region. Sliding from a democracy without a bill of rights into an oligopoly of vested interests. A withering sovereign state replaced by (semi-) private instrumentalities.



'The bush' is still clear felled in the country, native vegetation is bulldozed and residents of the major cities seem to hunger for tree free cities (10/50) to go with the diy heatwaves. The majority of Australians huddle in cities, mostly along the coast. The bush is still unknown to most. It is a place to dump the weedy garden clippings, fly-tipping or empty the dogs.

The mind is caged by fence posts.


Images:
Henri Rousseau,  La Femme en rouge dans le forêt, (detail),1886
Caspar David Friedrich, The Monk by the Sea, 1808


Listen:
After a lot of laughter and giggling, the audience demands 'something positive'! at the end of the interview...