Musical Dispatch from the Front- Intelligent Parasitism– May 2015
Ní féidir teacht ar Gaelacha na hAlban ar Google Translate mar sin tá a shocrú don Ghaeilge. Beannachtaí chun tú go léir,
In March 2012, a Musical Dispatch titled Metaphors and Euphemisms was launched into Cyberspace. Yet another modest contribution to the accumulation of meta-data.
In the Dispatch, the Scottish Clearances where alluded to as an earlier example of Closing the Gap.
“The 19th.Century Scottish Clearances were driven mainly by greed and xenophobia. When it became far more “economically viable” to run sheep in the Highlands than have “non-viable” communities of Scots minding their own business and not playing the game, refusing to become English, these populations were disempowered, stigmatized and their social (tartan) fabrics torn apart.
Back then there were no bulldozers. The homes were torched.
From Wikipedia: “…the widespread evictions resulting from the Clearances severely affected the viability of the Highland population and culture. To this day, the population in the Scottish Highlands is sparse and the culture is diluted…… Although the 1901 census did return 230,806 Gaelic speakers in Scotland, today this number has fallen to below 60,000….”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DK9uyioAPZU The landlords carried out “Improvements” to their estates. The improvers said the eradication of the Gaelic way of life, with its antiquated Clan loyalties and low rates of return, was necessary to bring the Highlands into the modern era- I guess they were Closing the Gap.”
If all this sounds familiar In the light of the latest push to close remote communities in Western Australia, it does because it is. As the French say c’est la même.
The Hebrides off the west coast of Scotland are some of the last remaining bastions where Gaelic is spoken.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxVlmUn3K8g
They are also where in February 1941 the ironically named SS Politician ran aground with a load that included 28,000 cases of whisky. The locals invoked the Law of the Sea and proceeded to salvage the cargo. Local Customs officer Charles McColl had at least one thing in common with modern day Australian assimilationist officials, he lacked a sense of humour. McColl succeeded in having locals pursued and prosecuted. None of the whisky had paid a penny of duty, and he railed against this loss to the public purse, not unlike modern day Australians that rail against tax payers money being ‘wasted’ on Aborigines. Never mind that very little of the obscene amounts being spent actually trickle down to said Aborigines, and never mind that Australia is about to embark on spending $40billion on half a dozen submarines, not even likely to be built by Australians. But I digress.
Charles McColl’s campaign culminated with the hull of SS Politician being dynamited much to the disbelief of the locals. They were perplexed and flummoxed and not a little pissed off. As Angus John Campbell, was quoted, “Dynamiting whisky. You wouldn’t think there’d be men in the world so crazy as that!” Well sadly such crazy men continue to exist and flourish. We continue to be perplexed and flummoxed and not a little pissed off by them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TehFZ38kt6o
Opposition to the bulldozing of the remote Kimberley community of Oombulgurri prompted West Australian Aboriginal Affairs Minister Peter Collier to say that demolition was necessary to reduce further vandalism and theft… I wonder what Angus John Campbell and the residents of Barra island would have made of that?
A plebiscite was recently held in Scotland in which the question was posed ‘Should Scotland be an independent country?’ the Highlands returned a 47% yes vote, and 53% No.
As a non resident non Scottish person I fully accept that it isn’t for the likes of me to decide the future of Scotland, I none the less feel I’m allowed an opinion and was greatly disappointed but not surprised by the result of the referendum. When the Banking sector threatened to pull out of an independent Scotland, I thought it would have the same effect as Charles de Gaulle had in Quebec in 1967. “Piss off and mind your own business” (Emmerder et l’esprit de votre propre entreprise– according to Google translate). It wasn’t to be. Our illustrious Prime Minister is also allowed to have an opinion, and he has many: ‘‘I think that the people who would like to see the break-up of the United Kingdom are not the friends of justice, the friends of freedom, and the countries that would cheer at the prospect…are not the countries whose company one would like to keep.’’ is part of what he said in England. The colloquial Australian expression summing up such utterances is ‘sucking up’.
In August 2009 James Anaya, the former UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, criticized the NT Intervention which he declared “further stigmatizes already stigmatized communities”. Our former illustrious Opposition indigenous affairs spokesman (Tony Abbott) told ABC Television at the time that “I think this is the kind of nonsense we are used to from these armchair critics,”
Why does this make me think of the Goose and the Gander? (must be my warped mind- you wouldn’t think a single dose of LSD half a century ago would have such long lasting effects).
Britain is about to have an election, and a delicious irony is that the Scottish National Party is likely to hold the balance of power. I vaguely remember hearing the phrase ‘intelligent parasitism’ which came to mind in relation to the current situation in the United Kingdom. Holding the balance of power in a Great Britain, is likely to be of greater advantage to the Scottish population than being an independent not so Great Scotland.
So I looked up Intelligent Parasitism. Anthropologist A.P. Elkin used it to describe a stage in Australian Indigenous adjustment to the overwhelming forces of Colonialism.
In 1996, R. McGregor wrote ‘Intelligent Parasitism- A.P.Elkin and the Rhetoric of Assimilation’. I hope to get the time to read it. I wonder if R. McGregor’s ancestors were subjected to the clearances, they probably were.
In January 2012 a Musical Dispatch titled ‘The Business Intelligence front Door’ was launched into cyberspace. It referred to Don Watson’s book ‘Bendable Learnings’.
“Centrelink is quoted five times in ‘Bendable Learnings’ including:
The Centrelink contact point for statistics, previously known as the Knowledge Desk is now known as the Business Intelligence Front Door.” and from a Centrelink brochure on multi-cultural services: “If you cannot read, this brochure tells you where to get lessons. (¿Que?) Are we dealing with a talking brochure?
More importantly the Musical Dispatch quoted Mahatma Ghandi:
Mahatma Ghandi was charged with “bringing or attempting to excite disaffection towards His Majesty’s Government” (Yakara! Heaven Forbid!)
He was invited to make a statement to the court on 23rd March 1922 at Ahmedabad, India, and subsequently sentenced to six years imprisonment under Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code.
This is part of what he said:
“The greater misfortune is that the Englishmen and their Indian Associates in the administration of the country do not know that they are engaged in the crime I have attempted to describe. I am satisfied that many Englishmen and Indian officials honestly believe that they are administering one of the best systems devised in the world, and that India is making steady , though slow, progress. They do not know, that a subtle but effective system of terrorism, together with an organized display of force on the one hand, and the deprivation of all powers of retaliation or self-defence on the other, has emasculated the people and induced in them the habit of simulation. This awful habit has added to the ignorance and self deception of the administrators.” (my emphasis)
Further along in his speech Mahatma Ghandi said: “In my humble opinion, Non-co-operation with evil is as much a duty as is Co-operation with good”
Na toghcháin sa Bhreatain ar siúl, mar sin seol mé níos fearr as seo i gcás fuair mé mícheart é!
Gach an chuid is fearr mo chairde, go dtí an chéad uair eile
Frank
Somewhere over the rainbow…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1bFr2SWP1I