SMOOTHED OVER HISTORIES

 With a day of remembrance just behind us it is perhaps time to really think about the histories that define us and the ways that they do. Australians remembering war increasingly comes with a set of contested and contestable ideas.

The ways we remember on some days, and the things we remember, come loaded with myths and comfortable imaginings. Our WARmyths we tell ourselves define us but we need to be more careful in our remembering if we want to be comfortable in our skins.

"Tasmania’s Black War (1824-31) was the most intense frontier conflict in Australia’s history. It was a clash between the most culturally and technologically dissimilar humans to have ever come into contact. At stake was nothing less than control of the country, and the survival of a people." 
Nicholas Clements  Link

"Yet a decade ago, Australian historians were locked in a furious debate, known as the history wars, about whether the Black War was actually a war at all. The antagonists included Henry Reynolds and me, who argued that the colonists had conducted a long and bloody guerrilla war with the Tasmanian Aborigines for possession of Tasmania." 

Lyndall Ryan   Link

QVMAG Collection Launceston

Would it be a big mistake to imagine this board as a 'proclamation of war'?

Would it be a big mistake to imagine this cup as a 'war trophy'?

Would it be a big mistake to imagine this island as 'war plunder'?

CLICK ON AN IMAGE TO ENLARGE

PONRABBEL on ROTTENrow

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ROTTENrow on the Tamar in Launceston just up-river from Kings Wharf is where, traditionally, ships and boats of various kinds that have reached the end of their usefulness have been left to the elements. The Maritime Board left PONRABBEL to her fate on ROTTENrow in the 1960s after salvaging her engines and superstructure down-river at Beauty Point – Launceston's new port. She was no longer needed to keep the port of Launceston accessible, so now she lay there waiting for her ultimate fate whatever that may be.

PONRABBEL: On Tamar The Video

There was this myth about that the PONRABBEL lay at her rest just off Tamar Island but not so. It is the PLATYPUS that is there and PONRABBEL ... well she is tied up on ROTTENrow just along from Kings Wharf on the Tamar in Launceston pretty much as she was abandoned the 'Marine Board'.

Since there is a DRONEassisted video showing us the PLATYPUS it was must to get the PONRABBEL on video so as our 'mascot' could be appropriately celebrated. On Thursday April 16 at 10.30 am sharp Ian Norton and Lachlan Macfarlane arrived at Kings Wharf to make the video.

At 12.30 they left PONRABBELcentral after a cup of tea with the video complete and ready for uploading. It needs to be said that Ian needed to duck into the city on business for 45 mins during that time but production was not held up. 

This is a demonstration of what can be done if you do not put too many stones in your road. Great work Ian and Lachlan – AND THANK YOU! Welcome aboard TEAMponrabbel!

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE VIDEO

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE VIDEO

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE VIDEO

MESHADA #1

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If you have nothing to be afraid of there is always your shadow. Jung gives us something to ponder whist contemplating our shadow ... “Be silent and listen: have you recognised your madness and do you admit it? Have you noticed that all your foundations are completely mired in madness? Do you not want to recognise your madness and welcome it in a friendly manner? You wanted to accept everything. So accept madness too. Let the light of your madness shine, and it will suddenly dawn on you. Madness is not to be despised and not to be feared, but instead you should give it life...If you want to find paths, you should also not spurn madness, since it makes up such a great part of your nature...Be glad that you can recognise it, for you will thus avoid becoming its victim. Madness is a special form of the spirit and clings to all teachings and philosophies, but even more to daily life, since life itself is full of craziness and at bottom utterly illogical. Man strives toward reason only so that he can make rules for himself. Life itself has no rules. That is its mystery and its unknown law. What you call knowledge is an attempt to impose something comprehensible on life.”  ― C.G. Jung, The Red Book: A Reader's Edition

POSTCARD BACK

Nick Hackett has sent a POSTcard back to Lonnie from Melbourne to tell us what he is up to currently. This is EDGYblacksmithing with a gentle twist in its tail. As they say, watch this space.

NICK'S BLOG ... CLICK HERE

THE TASMANIAN TIMELINE

CLICK HERE

To see the timeline that some choose to forget of ignore

This timeline was produced by Dr. Shayne Breen, Geography & Environmental Studies, University of Tasmania(link is external) with additional Flinders Island information from Maxine Roughley, CEO – Flinders Island Aboriginal Association Inc.(link is external)

More:http://nationalunitygovernment.org/content/tasmania-timeline-history-first-nations-people

Richard Fidler & Quentin Beresford talk about The Rise and Fall of Gunns and other things

CLICK HERE TO ACCESS THE PROGRAM ONLINE

People in the Tamar/Esk Region know all too well that Gunns Ltd. was a massively profitable forestry business that at its peak had a market value of one billion dollars and that it is no more. The memory of the business is being quietly cleared away from the cultural memory of the city that was once synonymous with with Gunns name.

Richard Fidler in his conversation with Quentin Beresford reminds us just how Gunns, the forestry,  enterprise, was both hated and admired by different sections of the Tasmanian public. Indeed, its power was feared by both state and federal governments .... SEE THE MONTHLY ESSAY: OUT OF CONTROL The tragedy of Tasmania’s forests By Richard Flanagan – Click Here 

In 1989 the Chairman of Gunns tried to swing an election result to his liking, by attempting to bribe a politician to cross the floor. When Gunns Ltd. fell over in 2012, it was one of the biggest corporate collapses in Australian history.

Further information and listening Quentin is a professor of politics at Edith Cowan University and worked as a journalist for Hobart newspaper The Mercury in the 1980s.

The Rise and Fall of Gunns Ltd  is published by New South. 

You can either listen to each Conversations interview by clicking on the audio or you can download each interview as an mp3 by right clicking on the 'download audio' link. To subscribe to the Conversations podcast, paste http://www.abc.net.au/local/podcasts/conversationspodcast.xml into your podcasting application or visit our podcasting page . 

Is your pumpkin as good as my pumpkin