Apocalypse and the Indigenous Imagination

I’ve recently found myself searching for a way to frame the interconnected realities of today and yesteryear. Within my mind, countless questions fling around like multiballs in a pinball machine, as I frantically hit the buttons trying to stop them from falling through the cracks. 

As the earth’s temperature rises, the human condition gets colder. Although there’s a whole lot of beauty that remains, it’s rapidly fading like light into dark. And although it’s all masquerading in plain sight, most are too distracted to do anything about it; Most are content to look past or through the malaise in pursuit of the next superficial hit, anxious for the dopamine from that next purchase or social media post. 

This has left me asking whether we are in the midst of the apocalypse or are we already in the dystopian throes of a post-apocalyptic state, albeit hurrying towards the next apocalypse? If we’re in the throes, then when did the last apocalypse end and what are the remnants that we can either rebuild from or seek to destroy? And within all of this, how can Indigenous imaginings and memories remedy the calamities that seem programmed to expand? More importantly, how do we protect, cultivate and exercise these gifts within the avalanche of decay?

I recognise  I have been exploring these thoughts, and eventually wrote this piece, from a Country that I am not born out of. I’m fluently speaking a foreign language that doesn’t belong to my tongue and using a mode of communication that will forever be alien to these shores. 

Although this personal positioning is littered with signposts of dispossession and displacement, and marred by the residual impacts of a frontier war and colonial project that refuses to cease, contemporary methods of accounting pervasively codes my reality as primed for upward social mobility.  Using these metrics, the promise of a better baseline of misery is derivative of one’s ability to distance themselves from the things that sustain them – be less of who you are and more of who we want you to be. 

Sirens pollute neighbourhoods, as police continue to punish and criminalise communities  that their employers have indentured in poverty. Around the corner, 10 and 11 year olds sit in solitary confinement for more than 20 hours a day as swathes of people continue to debate whether or not that’s acceptable and if they can do more of it. As if that’s a debate that even needs to be had.

The colonial project continues to insist on an exclusive sovereign right that does not, cannot or will not ever exist, as they sell off and hand out Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ living lands, waters and skies to other foreign interests for plundering and domination. 

Whilst neighbouring islands are being swallowed by rising sea waters, and our own communities are ravaged by mass extinction, resource depletion, raging infernos,engulfing floods, con-artists and clowns (also known as politicians and bureaucrats), self-destructively  sacrifice eternity in pursuit of modernity. 

When there’s nothing left, I have no doubt that they’ll still be asking “if the economy can grow forever”. But I suppose reaching absolute oblivion is an impossibility. There’s no way that the private sector wouldn’t have solved everything before then. What creates a crisis is always best placed to solve it.  Shame on me, or anyone else, who dares to think that the master’s tools are incapable of dismantling the master’s house. 

Hell hath no fury like an imperialist coalition of nation-states determined to uphold their hegemony and self-indulging rules-based global order. This is aptly supported by proxy corporate Simptanks and a mendacious media industry with an ensemble of writers thumping the drums of war. ‘Australia’ will soon be operationally locked into a multi-generational AUKUS agreement and transformed into a full-service hub for nuclear submarines. Despite having no input in the doomsday decision, we know whose communities are earmarked to house the inevitable masses of nuclear waste.

Cogs in the colonial machine,  those ‘thought leaders’ who are the knowers of little and tellers of everything, are also now shouting from the mountaintops that democracy at home and abroad is under threat. With a straight face, the very people whose existence consists of fiction and fable, have concluded that we are now moving into a complicated post-truth world. The lies and myth that have sewn together their realities have now unbearably been replaced by a new suite of tales. If it isn’t already, soon left will be right and up will be down. 

Within this mere percentile of carnage that immerses this continent and its surrounding islands – – Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples continue to disproportionately bear the consequences. 

As local thresholds of tolerance and apathy strengthen, and large sections of society continue to lull in a deeper slumber, our social determinants deteriorate. Although it’s positioned as a culmination of individual and community based choices, the reality is this is an inevitable feature of colonial designed violence. Irrespective of what they say in their Acknowledgements of Country, we are the necessary collateral damage for the establishment and longevity of colonial reign.

The overarching strategy to eradicate or assimilate, which are different versions of the same thing, hasn’t changed. And just like the pokies are used to launder money for criminal enterprises, our communities are positioned to wash taxpayers money back into private hands. We are the lemons that never run out of juice, being squeezed by those with an unquenchable thirst. 

The theft of our children and criminalisation of Indigenous women are putting more down payments on properties and paying off more mortgages than ever before. Poisoning communities and plundering their lands continue to be the lifeblood of shareholder dividends. Blood that we are to believe is washed clean from their hands by the purifying waters of Reconciliation Action Plans, NAIDOC morning teas, annual pilgrimages to Garma, and statements of support for The Voice.  

And every time the problems of colonial creation come to the fore, and the communities they’ve ravaged rise out of resistance or distress, more money is dedicated towards the same strategies, institutions and service providers to reproduce more of the same violence. 

We are a profitable not-so-merry-go-round that everyone wants a seat on, oftentimes even our own, which muddies the already dirty waters. Whether it be Reconciliation, Economic Development, Lifestyle Choices, or the omnipresent proposal of a Voice To Parliament via a referendum, too many doctrines of progress are riddled with assimilatory definitions of success and theories of change that further entrench the status quo., often forcing our communities to either align with, or wholly absorb into, institutional aspirations at the expense of our own. The more things change, the more they stay the same. 

I was recently fortunate enough to speak with Professor Chelsea Watego and Dr David Singh about the politics of refusal and the power, possibility, clarity and dignity that resides in  our sovereignty. In refusal and participation, our world’s open up when we do things on our own terms and in alignment with our own ways. 

Although the colluding systems and forces attempt to portray otherwise, it is we that are born out of, belonging to and in relationship with these living lands, water and skies. It is we, who have continued to rise since the first human sunrise, that know who the fuck we are, , where we’ve come from and ultimately, where we can go. Irrespective of how comfortable people decide to make themselves, nobody knows this place like we do. Although it shouldn’t require a reminder, there is a difference between those that are born out of here as opposed to those that were born here.

Citizens of the world and elders of the globe, our languages and laughter have been lighting up these lands for longer than the mind can imagine. Our governing systems, social structures and ecological science have been refined for generations. In the face of ongoing violence, we remember the harmony, peace and abundance that once engulfed this continent. A treasure trove of stories, we vividly remember what was and know what can be. Our vantage point boasts a great reverence and although infiltrated and contaminated, our collective aspirations are the closest thing to pure.

Dr Mary Graham asks if there will ever be a used by date for Empire? Or will the Empire simply dominate behind another face? To answer the original question, my analysis and instincts conclude that we are still in the midst of the apocalypse. The war that they’ve waged continues and thus, the apocalypse continues; often unabated.  By continually expressing our ways of being, knowing and doing, we give ourselves the best chance to restore balance, attain justice and free our families. Anything else ensures that the Empire’s face will continue to be shrouded by its hood.