American Lessons In Rebellion for Newman

QUEENSLANDERS, we have the seeds of rebellion.  History has some pertinent lessons for those casting themselves out of the ship, and for those of us watching the whole thing from onshore.

If my fellow Queenslanders are curious about what the recent defections from the ruling Liberal National Party may mean, here are three lessons of rebellion we can take from the American War of Independence in the 1770’s.

One lesson is that in the first stage of rebellion, those who have been moved “outside the pale” do not blame their leaders for their disaffection, but the leader’s deputies.

Here in Queensland, Clive Palmer firstly censured Seeney and Nicholls for causing dissent within the LNP.  Initially he appealed to Campbell Newman to control his deputies. 

King George III, a not-so-benevolent monarch

In the early stages of the American War of Independence, the colonists blamed the ministers of King George III for the conflict.  They appealed to the King to reign in his ministers.

The First Continental Congress in Philadelphia in 1774 hoped that “royal indignation” would “fall upon those designing and dangerous men, who daringly interpose themselves” between the King and his subjects, driving them towards rebellion (p.198, “The Long Fuse”, Don Cook).

After the Boston Tea Party, Benjamin Franklin in January 1774 presented a petition from the Massachusetts Assembly to the British Privy Council.

The petition appealed to the King’s “wisdom and goodness”, urging him to remove the Massachusetts governors, who were blamed by the colonists for initiating the current strife (p.183, Cook).

After the first battles of the war at Lexington and Concord, the Continental Congress presented the “Olive Branch Petition” to the King George III, calling upon his kingly qualities to prevent further hostilities.

And what was the reaction of the British government and King George III to these appeals?

In response to the Massachusetts petition, members of the Privy Council abused Benjamin Franklin in terms that shocked some British parliamentarians.

In response to the Olive Branch Petition, the King and the British government purposely ignored the appeal and declared Massachusetts to be in a state of rebellion – they virtually labelled them all outlaws.

"The Long Fuse" by Don Cook

And here we arrive at the second lesson of rebellion relevant to Queensland politics.

The vitriolic reaction to the “rebels” actually increases the chances of success of their rebellion.  A better tactic would be accommodation of the rebels.

The British escalated the rejection of the pleas of the American colonists into punishment and retribution.  That in turn led to resilience and resistance. 

If the British and their King had responded with accommodation, they would have very likely retained the American colonies, for right until the end the Americans professed their loyalty to the King.

But the vindictive British reaction only pushed the rebels into stiffer and more determined resistance.

Once cast out of “the family”, there is no need for rebels to temper their dissidence.  They’re never going back, so they don’t need to hold back.

We can see in the 21^st century that accommodation should have been reached by the King, but that lesson has been overlooked since the second half of the 20^th century.

Instead of remembering the lessons of the American War of Independence in 1774, we almost always recall the lesson of Munich in 1938.  And that lesson is that accommodation must be called appeasement.

After Joseph Chamberlain foolishly decreed that his deal with Hitler over Czechoslovakia meant “peace in our time”, reaching "arrangements" has been seen as dangerous and foolhardy.

In explaining why he persisted in Vietnam, Lyndon Johnson constantly referred to the “dangers of appeasement”, believing that allowing the Viet Cong to get their way would lead to, well, the collapse of democratic freedom.

Ironically, he should have heeded instead the lesson laid out by his rebellious forefathers.

So as we see a steady trickle of Queensland LNP members walking themselves off the plank, we should not forget that the earliest rebels blame the deputies, not the leaders.

And secondly, vindictive retribution by the leader and government actually increases the chances of success of the rebellion.

And what of the all-important third and final lesson from the American War of Independence?  That will have to wait for next week’s article …

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Living in "The Biggest Estate on Earth"

RELEASED quietly about a year ago is one of those rare Australian books – one that will change how you see your country.

“The Biggest Estate on Earth” by Bill Gammage describes how the lush, verdant and productive character of Australia in 1788 was no accident.  It looked this way because of the systematic and precise way it had been managed by Aboriginal people.

The title comes from the pens of the earliest white explorers.  Account after account described how they found the land undulating with alternate grassy meadows and forest patches, like an English gentleman’s country estate.

They were astonished to discover a land dominated by well-spaced large trees, with a lack of undergrowth and an abundance of long swishing grass.

The way Gammage compiles these colonial impressions, collated for us to read in one place for the first time, is a masterful display of the historian’s art.

He can genuinely alter how we view our land and our past, something that few historians can claim.

A farm without fences.

Gammage describes how this land was managed and moulded by pre-1788 people, how subtle dams were built, water channels cut, and how fire was used to replace plant communities.

Australia, he writes, was a farm without fences.  It challenges what we define as a farmer or a primary producer. 

Bill Gammage (Nat Library Australia, Louis Seselja)

If you replanted the top of every yam you used, so as to create hectares of yam fields, and continually weeded it, as happened on Cape York, I’d call that being a cultivator or a farmer.

If you built fish weirs and constructed wooded channels to guide water, as happened on the Darling River, you were engaging in aquaculture on a grand scale.  And the produce was harvested on a scale that ensured longevity in the food supply over differing seasons and many lifetimes.

“The Biggest Estate On Earth” changed how I see fire in the Australian landscape.  I once derided those with an urge to burn the land as red-eyed fire fanciers.  Gammage has demonstrated how it is an essential part of the landscape and many plant communities, a primary resource and a tool. 

But we tend to use it as a blunt club upon the land, using it in fiery ignorance, whereas it was once used as an instrument of supreme delicacy.

There were many different types of fire, and Gammage describes how just one valley had four different types of fire regimes.  There were “cool” fires, fires used for burns every two years, or every 50 years in a different place.

And they were never allowed by Aboriginal people to roar into the incinerating infernos we know today.

 

First Australians, Scientific Land Managers.

In our lifetimes, the First Australians have gone from being seen as indolent inhabitants of Terra Nullius to prudent and scientific caretakers and cultivators.  “The Biggest Estate On Earth” will significantly add to this evolving realisation.

And “scientific” is not a loose term.  Bill Stanner in 1969 wrote that Arnhem Landers used country classifications “as accurately as any ecologist”.

Gammage writes of one grass plain in a eucalypt forest in north east Victoria (page 72).  It is drained by a small creek, and slopes gently to the west where the creek drops away over a 5-metre cliff.

It is in fact a “brilliantly placed trap”, writes Gammage.  “Wallabies panicked on the plain would flee downslope and crash over the cliff, and the survivors would be ambushed in the narrow gully.”

It was a template repeated across Australia, created by fire and stone axes, and a masterful example of landscape design.

Whenever I take the time to stop and gaze over the landscape, I now try to image what it would have been like pre-1788.  If there are a lot of spindly trees on a north-facing slope, I think it was once a paddock, now being colonised by trees after the loss of the fire-burning regime.

Any large tree with a massive trunk may well have been there for over 200 years, and it is there for a reason.

Still, “The Biggest Estate on Earth” is not an easy book for everyone to read.  It is a catalogue of land practices, and has pile upon pile of detail and examples.  It can be a botanist’s bibliography of plant species and their ecosystems.

But it is a book whose importance and impact will grow and grow over the years.

Take time over Christmas to read it, slowly and with perseverance, and read it somewhere you can look over the Australian landscape.

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Small Winemakers, Big Taste

A FIELD of wine bottles stood before me.  Perched on a dozen trestle tables, they seemed alert and just calling out to be popped open.

And you don’t have to just look and drool and wish.  You can try any of them.

Look what we found:  a field of wine at the ASWS

The Australian Small Winemakers Show is held at Stanthorpe each October.

If you’re curious about what other wines are out there, the ones not confined within your local bottle shop, make a date to come and drool and sip. 

It is a wine show birthed from the Stanthorpe Show Society, and it has grown to be a festival-like event to show off the best from small Australian wineries.

Housed in one of the showground pavilions, it is a laidback and intimate wine show.  There is a non-pretentious feel, and is run by grinning and enthusiastic volunteers.

Best of Australian Boutique Wines

What will you have, asked Jim Armstrong, one of the volunteer wine stewards.

I dunno, what do you think?

The Champion White, he said promptly, and poured a taste of the Harewood Estate Wines Mount Barker Riesling 2012.

Jim is a local teacher and grape grower, and an unabashed advocate for Australian riesling.  

“Riesling has been out of favour for a while,” he said, and added with pride that Australian rieslings are “right up there with the very best”.

You’d hardly recognise a modern Australian riesling if you haven’t been on speaking terms for a while.  A taste of the Mount Barker will send your eyebrows up to your hairline in surprise.

The Harewood Estate Riesling is a young, medium-bodied wine with an orange peel and rosy bouquet, but it tasted and behaved in an extraordinary manner.  

Initially smooth over the tongue, it then leapt around the mouth.  And then it stayed and stayed as it slid down the back of the mouth.  More, please.

 Champion Chardonnay and Sparkling

Two other wines created a similar reaction.  The 2006 Chardonnay from Palmer Wines in Western Australia, the Most Successful Exhibitor Trophy winner, was also a keeper.  Who would think a six year old bottle of chardonnay would be as perky as a toddler on red cordial?

It had the body and hue of a semillion, and spread in a melted butter way through the mouth.  But it tasted like a classic Western Australian chardonnay, all lively honeydew, citris and cut grass.  Ooh, I thought, I hope they are still selling it.  More, please.

I still keep thinking about the Ghost Rock Catherine Sparkling Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.  The bouquet of this Tasmanian sparkling wine leapt out and bristled the nose hairs, as I was hit by the smells of molasses and crushed cane.

On the palate there was a sweet yeasty taste and a light fruity body.  It lingered on the tongue, with a warming and long taste in the mouth.  More please, and a ticket to Tassie, too.

I think the best wines evoke a memory, and take you back to a warm, cuddly place.  Palmers and Ghost Rock both did that.

You can’t possibly taste all the wines at the ASWA, though I did try for a while.  The best approach is to be selective.

Try one a variety, try medal winners, or simply try what the stewards recommend.  Don’t feel cheated if you can’t make your way through that field of bottles.

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Refugee Politics: With Heavy But Hardened Hearts

“I hate this issue.  It breaks my heart.  So complicated.”

So streamed this tweet, as a recent Q&A episode on ABC television again tackled the issue of refugee incarceration.

Within that simple tweet lies the intense but contradictory strands of a newly-emerging public response to the treatment of asylum seekers.

An image that calls up many responses - in each of us.  Courtesy SMH.

This new public response comes as the “here come the boats” issue is dragged into the political arena once again, as the government reopens the isolated Nauru detention centre.

Yet the response does not look like the freshly-minted righteous anger – for or against - we first witnessed.

Simply, many of us are now prepared to admit solutions like incarceration on Nauru are cruel.  And many of us are also prepared to let it go.  

It causes us genuine anguish to see these ordinary yet determined people placed in a proto-jail.  But our distress makes us want to look away, and hope the issue will die down or simply go away.

These are the threads I am sensing.

Firstly, many of us have built up empathy for refugees and asylum seekers.  Most Australians are now more likely to take a refugee into their home, or give them a chance at a job.

Secondly, our national response does embarrass a surprising amount of us.  “Fortress Australia,” sneered another Q&A tweet.  “The rest of the world is laughing at us.”  I know, we know.

Thirdly, we will not take to the streets to fight against incarceration.

Are we accepting this new development because it takes it off the front pages?  That bringing back the Pacific Solution actually deprives the strident and vituperative nationalists of an opportunity to air their xenophobic views?

And here’s a fourth strand.  The articulation that refugees who arrive by boat should get no advantage compared to those stuck in refugee camps elsewhere, is popular.

It calls to our sense of fair play, even though many of us logically know that it isn’t fair.  It isn’t a case of who was first, and who is pushing into the line.

There is a surging mass of millions of displaced people all over the world, and they cannot stand in an orderly line like they are waiting for service at a coffee shop.

A refugee camp - Australians understand the urge to flee.  www.elpais.cr

And the fact that there are millions of people who would risk so much for a new life in Australia touches a deep-held fear in our national psyche, a barely-glimpsed dread we have held for 200 years and may be reflected somewhere in each of us.

As the tweet said, it is heartbreaking and complicated.  As well as personally confronting.

We could say “the boat people” matter is a fault line that divides people in Australian politics, but too many of us see it is a personal fault line within us.

On Q&A Federal Minister Peter Garrett bravely said “no one takes comfort” in the Nauru solution.

A more profound defence than that is impossible.  He could only focus narrowly on the simple retort that the new solution stops lives from being put at risk, and punishes people smugglers.

Singer Billy Bragg said on Q&A that “a country must be judged on how the weak and dispossessed are treated”.  We know we cannot meet this test.

That is another burden to put on our heavy hearts, but it won’t be enough to break their new hardening.

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