°Enjoying democracy
From Rednecks, Eggheads and Blackfellas, by Gillian Cowlishaw, in the chapter titled “Enjoying Democracy”:
the paraphernalia of everyday life on a station was a compelling element in the pastoralists’ domination of their untutored workers; the mastery of pragmatic technology confirmed their grasp of the meaning of the world. It is technologies of governance, systems of political representation, of funding and accountability and practices known as democracy, which are now being taught with the same assumptions as were attached to farming technologies in an earlier time. These are the necessary tools for the Aboriginal people’s future, an invariant reality, a morally neutral common sense. Aborigines are now being enticed into exercising the same rights as whitefellas, rights which are supposed to ensure that we are all equal citizens.
Sharply ironic.
