All the contents of this house have been boxed up,
sold, or given away. In a
short while, the rental company will relieve me of the keys. I don’t live here
anymore. But this was never mine to begin with. That is not to say that I did
not inhabit this home, or that I do not wonder what lies in its future. I will
have memories long after I leave this country, but they are momentary in the
wider span of the histories that precede mine and legacies that will extend far
after I have moved on from this place. Already, the agent has been showing the
house to prospective tenants. The time will come when, like the rest of this
gentrifying neighbourhood, this old house will give way to some postmodern
condominium development: at once a conglomeration of the like-minded and
-monied and, yet, each unknown to the next in their atomisation. As one form of
lifestyle dwelling replaces the other, what else will be lost?
They call this
region the Yarra. But even as it harks back to the past, it is not a name that
can be relegated to the mists of time. When I first got to Australia, I was
struck by the acknowledgment of Aboriginal history at most public events. As
preamble to their own presentations, speakers pay deference to indigenous genealogy,
noting the traditional ownership of the land and of Aboriginal elders past and
present. In my experience, such awareness of Native peoples in the United
States is something that is not generally part of public rhetoric, as is much
the case in Goa. Nonetheless, I began to introspect on the effect of such
vocalisations of Aboriginal awareness as in the Australian case and, moreover,
how such performances participate in the continued effacement of the present
realities of indigenous peoples.
When the tribal
identities of Goa’s First Peoples are recognised, it is often in the service of
usurping the cultural expressions of these marginalised groups for the purpose
of promoting the notion of Goan authenticity or tourism culture – and, really,
one would be hard pressed to differentiate between these practices of cultural
consumption. For instance, note the ubiquity of the so-called ‘Kunbi dance’
performed both at public functions in Goa and the diaspora, but also on the
Panjim cruise boats catering to tourists. It is such performances of
multiculturalism that need to be questioned for their insidiousness.
Accordingly, as much as one might think themselves conversant with indigenous
traditions or in a position to be deferential to Aboriginal legacies, such
efforts are always fraught with consigning indigeneity to the past while still
consuming the traditions of those very peoples as if they no longer exist.
Consider
Aboriginal feminist writer Celeste Liddle’s distrust of Australia’s Recognise programme,
which she describes as “a government-sponsored ad campaign removed from grassroots Indigenous opinion.” In a blog entry this month, Liddle features a
photograph of the symbol of the Recognise campaign as it appears on the side of
a Qantas jet, right by the national carrier’s own kangaroo logo. She reveals
the cynicism of the manipulative PR at play, saying: “Yet another gigantic
corporate entity decides to show mob just how much it wants us to be
Recognised. Doesn't that just give you those warm and fuzzy feelings?” Indeed, what
Liddle queries is how ineffectively rhetoric and performance translates to
change on the ground.
This ground that I was privileged to occupy belongs
to the Wurundjeri people of the Yarra region. I come away from it the richer by
not possessing it, by knowing it was never mine. For there is a history far
greater than this moment, and I am still learning how to belong to it.
To see the print version of this post as it appears online, visit here.
