{"id":18098,"date":"2021-09-08T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-09-08T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pocolit.com\/?p=18098"},"modified":"2025-01-06T19:28:02","modified_gmt":"2025-01-06T18:28:02","slug":"bruce-pascoe-and-dark-emu-a-green-library-conversation-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pocolit.com\/en\/2021\/09\/08\/bruce-pascoe-and-dark-emu-a-green-library-conversation-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Bruce Pascoe and Dark Emu: A Green Library Conversation (Part 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In February 2021, Bruce Pascoe published a new book, <\/em>Loving Country: A Guide to Sacred Australia, co-authored with Vicky Shukuroglou. In the course of our Green Library series<\/a>, we were lucky enough to chat to the acclaimed author of <\/em>Dark Emu: Aboriginal Australia and the Birth of Agriculture<\/a> about this earlier book and his work cultivating Aboriginal farming methods on his farm in eastern Victoria.<\/em> This is the second part of the interview, find the first one here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lucy Gasser of poco.lit. (LG): <\/strong>One of the things that I found made Dark Emu<\/em> such a compelling read was its register: it encompasses an almost breath-taking array of research across multiple disciplines, but it isn\u2019t jargony or academic sounding. How do you see or frame yourself and the work that you do: you describe yourself as a writer of fiction, but you also seem to be a researcher, a scholar, a story-teller, an activist and a practitioner\u2026 Is there a driving motivation that unites these pursuits for you? Or would you frame what you do altogether differently?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bruce Pascoe:<\/strong> I had a huge desire for justice, which once again came from my mother and father, who are the most just people I\u2019ve ever met. That became the standard for me. But also I\u2019m a writer; I\u2019m a fiction writer; I like to write as well as I can. I love words. If you can\u2019t tell a story about important things without using jargon, I don\u2019t think you\u2019re a writer. There has to be artistry. Just as in Aboriginal life, where stories are told with such compelling detail and with such beauty of language, there\u2019s no excuse for using bad prose. But universities seem to revel in it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LG:<\/strong> In Dark Emu, <\/em>you describe an aquaculture complex on the Darling River at Brewarrina that is possibly amongst the oldest human-made structures on earth. Could you tell us more about this, and are there any communities using these designs today?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BP:<\/strong> The fact we can\u2019t say for sure that it\u2019s the oldest human construction on earth is because the government withdrew funding for that study. If you could prove that \u2013 and it will be proven eventually \u2013 you could buy ten jumbo jets as an enterprise, fill them with Americans and Chinese and bring them to Australia every day of the week just to observe the world\u2019s oldest human construction. But such is the power of religion and colonialism, that we refuse an economic benefit. We withdrew funding when it seemed obvious that this was a very important world structure \u2013 whether it\u2019s the oldest or not, it\u2019s a very important structure. But because of colonialism, you could not drag an Australian to that structure with ten horses, because we are so resistant to the idea of Aboriginal excellence. Colonialism is a powerful tool, and religion is even more powerful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LG:<\/strong> And are these practices in use today?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BP:<\/strong> We\u2019re trying to reinstate them culturally. Just three weeks ago, we were at Wallaga Lake and looking at a structure that was absolutely ingenious –  the building for humans without steel machinery, to move stones ten times the weight a human could lift without a device \u2013 a device was created to move these stones to create a weir in the water. It\u2019s primary advantage was to use the power of the sea, so that fish could be caught in that way. We are trying to reinstate that, so that we can put the stones back in place that have been bulldozed out of the way. And we want young Yuin men and women to be able to use that weir. Things like that are happening all over the country now. Aboriginal people are reasserting their rights to practice. Our ambition is that we can set that fish trap to work again, and that Aboriginal people can catch fish in that way and sell that fish, and at the same time, tell that story of the fish trap to Australia and the world. And once again the world will likely take up that offer much more quickly than Australians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LG:<\/strong> Could you tell us a bit about Dark<\/em> Emu\u2019s<\/em> first publisher, Magabala Books?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BP:<\/strong> Magabala Books is an Aboriginal publishing house in Broome, Western Australia. Google that, you\u2019ll find that\u2019s in an inconvenient part of Australia, very remote, beautiful town, wonderful people. It\u2019s an Aboriginal-owned enterprise. Two of the biggest publishing houses in the world knocked back Dark Emu<\/em> before Magabala picked it up. I\u2019m so proud of that. Magabala was very quick to take it up. The book has been very successful, and Magabala, after having looked after my first five or six novels, and not made any money from them, suddenly had a success. It\u2019s been very good for us. I now don\u2019t feel guilty about how Magabala looked after me in the early days, and they are able to expand their operation. But what Australia needs to know, and what the world needs to know, is that this is an Aboriginal publishing house. They\u2019ve produced some incredible books and are preserving culture, promoting culture, creating new writers, new artists. And, as with Young Dark Emu<\/em>, creating designers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LG:<\/strong> Did you, and did Magabala, anticipate the enormous success of the book, or did it come as a surprise?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BP:<\/strong> Well, I did, and I told them. When Dark Emu <\/em>first came out, I told them: You\u2019re going to have to print 10 000 of these. They said no and printed 1 500, because they\u2019re cautious; they\u2019ve got no money. But I knew it was going to be successful because I knew the reaction I was having from Australians. It might sound like I\u2019m being harsh to Australia, but Australia has changed its mind. There are thousands of Australians wanting to investigate the past, who are sick and tired of being told drivel about the history of the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A lot of Australians are now investigating the truth, and that is what is driving Dark Emu<\/em>: it is being driven by the curiosity of Australians. And if we are ever to do anything in education, we must save curiosity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LG:<\/strong> My impression of one of the larger arguments that Dark Emu<\/em> makes is that a better understanding of history could help to make a more just present and a more sustainable future. In what specific ways, related to what you do in the book, would you go about producing a more just present? And what might a more sustainable future look like?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BP:<\/strong> Well, I think: we promote curiosity. So people aren\u2019t believing the unbelievable. What this farm is doing is, we\u2019re growing the old grains, that those \u2018explorers\u2019 saw the Aboriginal people growing. We\u2019re growing the old tubers. As soon as I finish this, I have to go and harvest seed because that seed is gold for us. We\u2019re growing plants from this seed in order to show Australians that we can grow our vegetables in a far more sustainable way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We also have an educational purpose. We\u2019re not here to read out the bible, or to read out a textbook. We are here to talk about ideas, to inspire curiosity so that we might have a better world, have a more just world \u2013 this is what it\u2019s all about. The fact that we\u2019re growing that grain is to produce a better world, a more sustainable environment and agriculture. But really, it\u2019s about people and justice, so that Aboriginal people can again become part of society in this country, both economically and spiritually.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think there are sites in this country \u2013 and I don\u2019t want to brag \u2013 within twelve months people will know, that the oldest village in the world is in Australia, and that means that Australians invented society, along with architecture, the canoe, and art. What it also says is that it is possible for humans to develop a society where they do not go to war. If we can show that in this country, there was a different philosophy that insisted that you do not go to war for land, it changes everything. It makes land more sustainable, it makes our population come under control because we can\u2019t just keep stealing land and growing more people, because if we\u2019re responsible for a portion of the land, we\u2019re also responsible for the people on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Green Library<\/a> series was supported by the Berlin Senate, and sought out authors who write about nature and the environment, while reflecting on colonial contexts and power structures.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the second part of the interview, Bruce Pascoe talks about ancient places, buildings and practices of Indigenous Australians that are valuable for a more sustainable future. He also introduces the publishing house Magabala Books. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":18094,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2479,143],"tags":[832,860,859,230,2730,2731,861,2597,2732,834,2733],"class_list":["post-18098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-green-library","category-interview","tag-aboriginal-australia","tag-agriculture","tag-aquaculture","tag-australia","tag-bruce-pascoe-en","tag-dark-emu-en","tag-farming","tag-green-library-en","tag-magabala-books-en","tag-sustainability","tag-yuin-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pocolit.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pocolit.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pocolit.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pocolit.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pocolit.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18098"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/pocolit.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18098\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18130,"href":"https:\/\/pocolit.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18098\/revisions\/18130"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pocolit.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pocolit.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pocolit.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pocolit.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}