In 2009 I wrote a book called Firestick Farmer.
The book tells the story of a radicalised Aboriginal academic named Jim Farmer who preaches violent resistance against what he calls Australia's illegal occupation.
Adverting to the indigenous practice of farming by fire, Jim begins to suggest fire as a weapon of resistance, and eventually as a means of driving the occupying powers out of Australia.
With the assistance of an unidentified foreign power intent on destabilising Australia’s current regime, Jim eventually drags the whole country into a violent conflagration, resulting in complete catastrophe for indigenous and non-indigenous people alike.
I have never been sure whether I should publish Firestick Farmer.
That’s partly to do with faults in its narrative structure.
The section that is rendered in Jim’s voice is (I think) powerful and persuasive. A shortened version of it was considered good enough for publication in a short story collection a few years ago.
However the balance of the book - a first-person recollection by Jim’s best friend – has never come up to my expectations, mostly because it has never achieved an acceptable level of verisimilitude.
These faults in structure are not my only reservation.
I have been concerned that in publishing the book, I might be seen to be preaching or promoting the sort of violence that is depicted in the storyline, even though that is the exact opposite of my intention.
I have also been concerned that the book might encourage individual aboriginal people, or those who sympathise with their plight, to set fires as a means of political expression or agitation, notwithstanding (again) the fact that the book speaks for the exact opposite approach.
These concerns were triggered again by the events of Australia Day 2018. I experienced a very nasty sense of déjà vu: a sense that real-world events were beginning to converge with the facts of my fictionalised world.
It was not the size or scale or vehemence of Aboriginal protests. Australia Day has long been a battleground between indigenous groups and various parts of mainstream Australia, and I don’t expect this antagonism to abate until we “Change The Date”.
Rather my concerns came from the unprecedented specificity of the threats that were made.
The media reports were various but they included one indigenous spokesperson quoted as saying: Fuck Australia, I hope it burns to the ground.
That spokesperson later indicated that these threats were not intended literally, but to me at least they seemed eerily specific.
Another indigenous group were credited with saying:
[We] will not rest until we burn this entire rotten settler colony called Australia, illegally and violently imposed on stolen Aboriginal land at the expense of the blood of countless thousands, to the fucking ground, until every corrupt and illegal institution of white supremacist, patriarchal, capitalist settler colonial power forced upon us is no more.
More than half a year has passed since these events.
Having given the matter a significant amount of thought, I have decided that I should publish Firestick Farmer, even though (like the rest of my oeuvre) there is a very good chance that it will receive almost universal acclaim absolutely no recognition from anyone.
The two question that drove me to write the book are as urgent as they have ever been.
First: given their history of subjugation, exclusion and dispossession, why has there not been a widespread outbreak of violent radical sentiment amongst Aboriginal people?
Second: given this same history, how long will it be until the inevitable descent into violence occurs?
When you look at the complex set of “objective” conditions that might cause radicalisation to occur, you see why this question is so urgent. Aboriginal people suffer outrageously inflated rates of chronic illness, lowered life expectancy, violence and sexual assault, addiction, poverty, and incarceration.
Some of the more subjective factors that drive radicalisation are also rife. A sense of injustice and/or exclusion from the benefits of society, a narrative of ethnic or cultural oppression and dispossession, a sense of victimisation at the hands of a privileged cultural majority.
So what is the answer?
The truth is: I have no idea.
And what is worse: the professionals who are tasked with addressing these issues also seem to have no idea.
For example the 2008/09 “Close the Gap” strategy is now recognised to have almost completely failed in its goal to deliver a very basic set of improved health outcomes to Aboriginal people.
And when it comes to the subjective factors that drive radicalisation – narratives of injustice, dispossession, and victimisation – conditions are worse right now than I have ever seen them.
Despite so many pious words, so many acknowledgements and welcomes to country, and despite an enormous expenditure of money, it seems we are no closer to solving these issues than we have ever been.
Indeed in terms of the potential for radicalisation and violence amongst Aboriginal people, things may never have been worse.
P. Julian
21 August 2018
All of my books arenas available to read (free!) online at my website. Go to
https://www.pjulian.net and follow the links.
To go direct to Firestick Farmer go to
https://www.pjulian.net/firestickfarmer
Or you can purchase on Amazon.
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