I have deliberately left out the subject of Indigenous passive resistance in this website, because it is a stereotype that has been used to perpetuate the myth of Aboriginal people being too lazy or disconnected from land ownership to defend their territory against foreign invasion. However, this doesn't mean the stereotype isn't/wasn't sometimes true. Although, it is different from the way colonial society has constructed it...
From The Kaia Kakkib
The Kakkib li Dthia Warrawee'a (pictured above), songman, doctor and spiritual leader of the Ya-idt'midtung people in the Snowy Mountains of Victoria, has this to say about passive resistance:
"If someone has the potential to come to your house - or your nation - to make war on you, make it difficult, resist by all means; but if you join in their bad behaviour, you have only taken your universe down to their level. If you feed violence into the universe - violence will be your reward. If you resist, and reason, you may lose your kin - but you will be rewarded with the spiritual, social and intellectual growth of your aggressor (in time) and, therefore, the positive growth of Aildt*. One day, Australia will learn - and grow; I'm patient enough to await the growth."
* "Aildt" is a concept from the Ya-idt'midtung philosophy of Kirridth Yortharrngba, referring to the oneness of all things. It is one of the four tenets of the philosophy, which include Adtomon (living true to Aildt), Dwongtjen (a varied perspective), and Linj (living in the now). Who said Aboriginal languages had no abstract nouns? Who said Aboriginal lore was primitive mythology?
From My Experience
It has taken me years to fully comprehend and take on board the tenets of Kirridth Yordtharrngba. I have spent most of my life fighting, and have only relatively recently given up on violence as a solution to problems. I still have trouble controlling my rage at the predations of invasion I see around me every day (as you may have noticed on occasion in my writing) but I'm getting better at it.
A Nature Metaphor
Here's an example of my increasing ability to attempt patience and non-violence, and move towards passive resistance approaches:
We have a lot of camphor laurel in this country. It is a noxious and poisonous invasive foreign tree that has destroyed thousands of miles of creeks and rivers, and continues to spread. It smells like bad medicine and kills everything around it. For years I was consumed with rage every time I saw one of these trees. No matter how much I hacked and killed and burnt, there always seemed to be more of it. Then one day a friend told me about how this horrible weed actually saved a native species from extinction.
In the old days, there were millions of topknot pigeons about - they were plump and tasty, and a staple food. Unfortunately, the invading Europeans liked them too, and shot them out almost to the point of annihilation. But then the last few pigeons started eating the camphor berries. It tainted their meat with its disgusting vicks vaporub smell, and so people stopped eating the birds. So in a way, this poisonous invasive monster of a tree saved the pigeons from extinction.
How could I hate the tree after that? Sure, I still need to clear it away wherever I see it - it is not Adtomon (see four tenets above). But I don't necessarily get consumed with rage everytime I see it anymore. And I consider doing things like planting strangler figs to choke them out, instead of cutting and poisoning.
The Lesson Learned
I've decided to see colonialism the same way. Yes, it's bad. Yes, it destroyed an entire branch of my ancestry by forcing them to adopt an alien culture and abandon their heritage. But something good must have come from this - although I don't see it yet, there must be some "pigeons" that have escaped out of the whole mess. So nowadays I try to wait patiently as the Kakkib has instructed (albeit with occasional outbursts and demonstrative tantrums!) I am hoping that the ideas on this site will be like strangler figs - small suckers to begin with, but growing slowly into giants to embrace and smother the weeds of colonial myths and inequalities.
