"People got together and looked at the conundrum of humanity. What it is like to be human and what it is like to be human in company with other humans, and sought to solve the problem of what you do with an animal that can be violent and cruel and selfish and at the same time can be kind, loving and honourable and selfless. How do you manage an animal like that?
Those old people, over what length of time I don't know, decided that in order to manage those humans that everybody would have a house, everybody would be fed, and everybody would take part in the culture.
It is an enormously powerful philosophical statement, it is an enormously profound cultural development unmatched in the world. And that is not a bragging right. Perhaps it was the isolation, who knows? But over a very long period of time people came up with the concepts. The idea that everybody is involved in the culture I think is a mighty one. That's what binds people together and I think that's what meant that young aboriginal people generation after generation after generation re-adopted the same old democratic, egalitarian principles."
transcribed from https://abcmedia.akamaized.net/rn/podcast/2019/09/bia_20190902.mp3
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bigideas/
Diversity in arts, culture and the creative sector. Monday 2 September 2019
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/weekend-australian-magazine/bruce-pascoe-the-man-behind-dark-emu/news-story/231cefabce2f0103de26b6402fef0e3f
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/postcolonial-blog/2019/mar/11/a-big-jump-people-might-have-lived-in-australia-twice-as-long-as-we-thought
Bruce Pascoe, Dark Emu
Magabala Books Aboriginal Corporation, Broome, Western Australia
www.magabala.com
