Top 10 Cat Memes

 

*Disclaimer, if you are sensitive, not good with criticism or a white supremacist, this blog is not for you.*

colonisation.

A great thing if you were British in the 1700s because you had a lot of power, and land, and money, with a touch of questionable ethics. These days colonisation doesn’t seem like a great thing because it really wasn’t if you weren’t white.

Australia was ‘discovered’ by Captain James Cook in 1769, but obviously, there were already people living in Australia before colonisation, with the Indigenous people having lived here for more than 50,000 years. But the British decided, “ehhh, they don’t look like us, I don’t care about them, this land is mine,” and kind of took over. They could have been nicer and asked, but deep down they knew that would never work and decided on brute force. 

colonisation

Having your population annihilated and massacred seems like an easy way to ensure generational trauma and problems with identity. (Spoiler Alert: It is.) Especially with how the Australian government decided to treat Indigenous peoples in the 1900s (cough cough stolen generation). 

Samuel Wagan Watson is an Australian poet of Aboriginal, German, and Irish descent and is known for his poems that critique Australian society and its complex relationship with the legacy of colonisation. (Great poetry, but it could be a tad easier to understand)

In “white stucco dreaming”, Watson gives white stucco a symbolic meaning, a representation of the whitewashing that has occurred throughout the history of colonised Australia, most notably the stolen generation. The reference to “a bad white paint job” also alludes to the history that the Australian government has with trying to eradicate Aboriginal culture. The visual imagery also evokes a general sense of neglect and carelessness, reflecting the attitude that the Australian government had towards Aboriginal people. However, Aboriginal culture has not disappeared and the government more or less just gave Aboriginal people more problems. Like a never-ending identity crisis.

Turns out that being forcefully whitewashed can do some harmful shit to your individual identity and cultural identity as a whole. Not really knowing who your parents are and where you come from can really lead to a problematic relationship with your identity. Being told you are not who you are? Pretty traumatic experience.

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Wagan Watson explores this confusion more in ‘labelled’, questioning his identity. “Full blood?/half blood…/half breed!/half caste-” The use of enjambment disrupts the rhythm, emphasising the weight of the titles placed upon him. Additionally, the variety of syntax used also reflects the absurdity of the labels placed upon him. This makes us wonder about how our prejudices affect others and the power our opinions have. Why must there be a label placed upon people? Why does society have an obsession with placing people in boxes? Unlike cats, humans do not belong in confined spaces. 

Isn’t it adorable?

(If you have not realised by now, I like cats. A lot. Maybe just a bit too much.)

Cats don’t really have a problem with identity – they know they’re cats, we humans think they are cats and want them to be the cute, furry cats they are and they know it.

Again, it’s adorable

On the other hand, the Australian government and society haven’t really had a good history with reaffirming Aboriginal identity. It’s more like they did the complete opposite. Having an identity crisis nowadays however does seem to be a bit of a trend, with everybody seemingly trying to find themselves.

In “white stucco dreaming”, the persona reminisces about their childhood in the final stanza, feeling like a “dreamtime fraud”. This hints at the divide that Aboriginal people may feel with their identity, especially due to the assimilation that the government enforced. This fraudulent sense of identity is detrimental,  especially when considering how hard it is to reconcile with your roots, even more so when you don’t actually know where your roots are.

However in “labelled” Wagan Watson also expresses taking control over his own identity, perhaps showing that we can have a say in how society sees us. The poem overall depicts him taking control after having been forced into an identity. Wagan Watson likens himself to a horse, using zoomorphism to depict the dehumanisation that Aboriginal people have been subjected to. Having been told that you are one thing and then having society change their mind obviously leads to confusion, with him evidently being told he is a horse but the doctors telling him that he is human. This can also be seen as a criticism of the efforts that the Australian government has made to reconcile with the Aboriginal people, to try and make amends for the horrors that they committed. 

The government has tried to include an Indigenous voice in parliament. However, the vote did not go through, perhaps because as a nation, we are still prejudiced against Aboriginal peoples. But maybe, it is also because the bill was fucking vague. Yes, it was a step the government took but was it because they wanted to reconcile with the Indigenous people or was it because of public pressure and about maintaining a good public image?

The Australian government??

So has Australia really gotten better with time? Aboriginal identity in the eyes of the public is still overall negative, with higher rates of crime and mental illness. But is this a true representation of Aboriginal people, or have we as a society made the environment too hostile for them to even try and make a comeback from the shitty British people?