Save the Dreaming: A simple plan to rescue Aboriginal culture and make Australia great

By Brian Morgan

A BOOK TO CHANGE AUSTRALIAN HISTORY
Save the Dreaming sets out what author Brian Morgan calls a synchronized four-step plan to rescue Aboriginal culture and make Australia great.
Editorial reviews have called this book a “game-changer” and a “breakthrough” in the long fight for Aboriginal rights and in the fight for a republic in Australia.
The Aboriginal people of Australia have struggled for more than two centuries for justice and for an end to abuse. They have fought for an apology for stolen children and stolen land, for recognition, reconciliation, a treaty, constitutional change, for land rights and more.
What if we could resolve all of these matters in one fell swoop, once and for all?
What if, in doing so, we could make Australia a truly exceptional place on the world stage, admired everywhere for our compassion and our wisdom?
What if Aboriginal people, for the first time in more than two hundred years, could feel honoured and accepted and recognized. What if we could start to mend broken hearts?
What if every living Australian could achieve a sense of self-worth and pride in righting the wrongs committed for so long?
What if we could do all this and much more with one simple plan?
After 228 years and endless talkfests about land rights, a treaty, reconciliation, recognition, constitutional change and all the rest, Aboriginal people have achieved virtually nothing. Save the Dreaming says we need a new mindset and a plan, and both are offered here.
Author Brian Morgan is urging politicians to save the Dreaming and urging all Australians to support the concept. All the details are on his website and there is also a Facebook page at Savethedreaming. He wants people to talk about Save the Dreaming and to spread the word about it, because, he says, this is an opportunity for every living Australian to right the wrongs of more than 200 years.
Editorial reviews and comments:
Toby Morris, publishing professional:
Save the Dreaming is beautifully written, lyrical and lucid in its story of Aboriginal life and brutally honest in its description of the impact of the British invasion more than 200 years ago. Brian Morgan argues for an inclusive republic that has Aboriginal people at its heart. This is one part of his four-step plan to “save the Dreaming”, which, he says, must be synchronized and run together. They are compelling and, I believe, could well be the breakthrough needed in Australia’s history. I highly recommend it.
Kyle Everingham, book reviewer:
Save the Dreaming is an important book for Australia. Every Aussie should read it. Brian Morgan wants to create a Save the Dreaming Team, made up of indigenous and non-indigenous Australians to push politicians to adopt his “synchronized” four-step plan. The book is very well written by an award-winning journalist and author. Intriguing and very well researched.
Name withheld by request, Aboriginal elder:
This Save the Dreaming book covers pretty well everything Aboriginal people want and says the fighting about land rights and human rights can be stopped very quickly. I don’t think we’ve had a plan like this before to change everything. I just asked for a short version of the book because I’m not much of a reader, but I’m glad I read this. I think we all should read it.
Freda Hollingsworth, book editor:
Written by a genuine writer and well researched, Save the Dreaming is the breakthrough book Australia, and especially Aboriginal people, have long awaited. It should be the start of something big.
Bill Templeton, journalist and book reviewer:
Two hundred years of abuse and stolen children and stolen land and hell on earth for Aboriginal people, and here’s a way to end it all quickly, simply and sensibly. This is a game-changer and we all should read this book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brian Morgan
• Release date: Jul 26, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370593200

Brian Morgan

30 years in my trade and I have had the pleasure of meeting so many lovely people. As a man of strong principles, I soon decided to work for myself. I’m an experienced and skilled kitchen fitter, thriving on completely satisfied customers. However, nothing annoys me more than trivial complaints when there are so many in the world with so little! As an optimist in life, I always try to focus on what I have, not what I don’t; always trying to see the good in others and aspiring to help others whenever I can. Who knows what I’ll do next!

Book preview

Save the

Dreaming

A simple plan to

rescue Aboriginal culture

and make Australia great

Brian Morgan

***~~~***

Dedication

Dedicated to my paternal grandmother, who came to me in a dream while I was writing this book, 65 years after telling me: You have Aboriginal blood in you, and you should be very, very proud. Sarah Ann Annabel Morgan (Bridge), Grandma, it took me a long while, but I have tried to make you proud at last.

Acknowledgement of Country

The author and publishers wish to acknowledge that the Aboriginal peoples are the traditional owners of the lands of Australia upon which this book will be read. We would also like to pay our respects to all the elders of this land, past and present.

The author wishes to acknowledge the elders, past and present, of his own people, the Biripi people; the Darkinjung people, on whose lands this book was completed and published; and the Dharawal people, on whose lands the book was conceived and initially researched. In particular, he wishes to acknowledge the elders, past and present, of the Mardudjara people, whose story is told as part of this book.

The author and publishers acknowledge the important and increasing role Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people must continue to play within the Australian community. We respect their strength, resilience and capacity, and, in particular, we acknowledge their spiritual relationship with their country.

***~~~***

This Smashwords eBook edition first published for world-wide distribution in 2016 by The Writers Trust. Copyright 2016 Brian Morgan and The Writers Trust. The right of Brian Morgan to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.

This book is distributed by Smashwords and is associated with the author’s website and Facebook page, located at www.brianmorganbooks.com and www.facebook.com/Savethedreaming.

Thank you for downloading this ebook. You are welcome to share it with your friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form. Please also encourage your local or school library to download the book from their favourite ebook retailer or Smashwords.

Thank you for your support.

A print version of this book is also available.

***~~~***

What if…

The Aboriginal people of Australia have struggled for more than two centuries for justice in their own land and for an end to abuse. They have fought for an apology for stolen children and stolen land, for recognition, reconciliation, a treaty, constitutional change, for land rights and more.

What if we could resolve all of these matters in one fell swoop, once and for all?

What if, in doing so, we could make Australia a truly exceptional place on the world stage, admired everywhere for our compassion and our wisdom?

What if Aboriginal people, for the first time in more than two hundred years, could feel honoured and accepted and recognized. What if we could start to mend broken hearts?

What if every living Australian could achieve a sense of self-worth and pride in righting the wrongs committed for so long?

What if we could do all this and much more with one simple plan?

What if…

Come. Please. I have stories and a vision to share.

Brian Morgan

***~~~***

The Story of the Bloody Big Cart

(This little story will serve as a preview of what’s in the book)

The Aboriginal people have a cart. A Bloody Big Cart. It has to be big, because it holds all their culture, traditions, history and spirituality. Everything they treasure.

And it also holds other stuff. It holds all their hopes, dreams, wishes and demands. Demands for justice, recognition, reconciliation, land rights – for everything that’s been taken away from them since 1788, and is still being denied them. You know the stuff I mean. There’s been endless talk about it.

It’s a Bloody Big Cart.

Now, as you know, a cart needs four wheels to work, to get anywhere. And, for two hundred years, the various whitefella governments have been saying:

You want wheels? Of course. You can have as many as you want. There’s a wheel for land rights, for stolen children, for constitutional change, for deaths in custody, for reconciliation, recognition, a treaty – as many as you want.

Every time people started to talk about, say, land rights, governments said: Sure, here’s a wheel for that. Push it around as much as you want.

And the Aboriginal people, with whitefella help, pushed and pushed and the wheel went round and round. But the wagon, with only one wheel, went nowhere.

Every time the subject changed – to say, deaths in custody or a treaty or whatever, a new wheel was rolled out and the previous wheel pushed out of sight behind the shed.

Out of sight, out of mind.

With only one wheel at a time, the Bloody Big Cart, with its heavy load of Aboriginal pleadings for justice, went nowhere.

For 230 years, that cart got nowhere.

Then suddenly, out of the blue, someone had a brainwave: Hey, why don’t we try four wheels at once?

And someone said: Hey, what about using the four parts of the Save the Dreaming plan as the wheels? And there was great rejoicing among the people, because, here, at last, was a way to get the Bloody Big Cart working.

They said: Yes, let’s get the cart working and going places, then we can make it better as we go. We can give it a lick of paint or a bit of grease – whatever we need to make it go better.

So, in 2016, 228 years after this land was usurped for the British Empire, whitefellas and blackfellas came together to force the government of the day to hand over the four wheels needed to get the Bloody Big Cart moving all over Australia.

And everyone wondered why on earth that cart had never been allowed to work before.

***~~~***

Table of Contents

Author’s note

Introduction

BLACKFELLA STORY

The dreamtime of creation

Living in the Red Desert

The Decision and the Chase

Alone but together in a savage land

A desert dying in the drought

The desperate search for the djirlbi

WHITEFELLA STORY

Our shame. Our disgrace

A plan to save the Dreaming

Land rights (Step 2) are crucial

Why we need a treaty (Step 3)

What might a Treaty (Step 3) look like?

The Republic of Australia must be inclusive (Step 4)

We need a new mindset

Our link to antiquity

A truly Australian culture

MESSAGE STICKS

Message stick for blackfellas

Message stick for whitefellas

Let’s do it!

A call to action: Save the Dreaming

Can you share this vision?

APPENDIX

Resolution for an inclusive Republic of Australia

UN Universal Declaration on Human Rights

UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

Kevin Rudd's Sorry Speech

The long road to a republic

A Song of the Republic: Henry Lawson

Our National Anthem

Selected Bibliography

Acknowledgements

***~~~***

Author’s Note

This book has been in my head for many years and, through circumstances beyond my control, its message is now urgent and vital. I’ll explain that later. If you are Australian, please forgive me if I grab you by the collar and drag you into this book with me. It’s a trip we should all take together, and, as you’ll see, it’s something we must all do together, and quickly.

I want us to take this country from good to great, and to do so with a clear conscience – something that has eluded Australians since 1788. In one decisive moment in our history we can absolve the shame of how we treated the First Australians and, together with them, set Australia on a path we have not dared to dream before.

I have a vision to share and I want you to help make it happen, and to change history, because one person cannot.

I have stories to share. Please come with me.

It’s a fact: many white Australians just don’t get Aboriginal people and the way they sometimes have to live. I want to help white Australians better understand black Australians, as my small way of saying sorry to all Aboriginal people for the wrongs they have suffered for more than 200 years. But, more importantly, I want to offer my vision of a plan to very simply end the recognition and reconciliation and treaty and other endless debates, restore Aboriginal culture, and make this nation truly great.

I should state that, though my skin is white (and I have the skin cancers to prove it), I carry Aboriginal blood in my veins. I might be the whitest Aboriginal in the country, but I am proud to belong to the Biripi (Birpai) people of Taree, though life’s pathways kept me from living with them.

I didn’t discover this until I was about 10. My grandmother on my father’s side told me, emphatically and often, that I had Aboriginal ancestry from up Taree way. Taree is on the mid-north coast of New South Wales and I have relatives up there on my grandmother’s side and my grandfather’s side.

That Taree mob is in your blood, and you ought to be very proud of it, my grandmother said. She never lied to me.

And, indeed, I am mighty proud of my Aboriginal ancestry, even though I was brought up in a white family that always denied, vehemently, any Aboriginal connection. These were the days of the White Australia Policy. But it’s time for me to declare my Aboriginality and I repeat my grandmother’s words to my own descendants.

In 1976, a council of Aboriginal tribal elders proclaimed that all Australians with even the smallest amount of Aboriginal blood should consider themselves part of the Aboriginal people. Well, I have Aboriginal heritage dating from my grandmother to my great great great grandfather - and I am delighted.

My story does permit me to see Australia through both the blackfella’s and the whitefella’s eyes.

However, fragments of knowledge do not amount to full knowledge. I am not an initiated elder, so I am not entitled to reveal certain secret, sacred stories and rituals of the people I am writing about. I have told what I could, in whatever way I could, to tell the story, but not offend.

And I have to advise that some people named in this book have now passed on.

This book, in various forms, was in my head for many years, during which I learnt much about Aboriginal culture. Along the way, I read a great deal, from the early anthropologists to many Aboriginal writers, and learnt a lot directly from Aboriginal people themselves. I learnt some of the skills of hunting and gathering, of finding food (bush tucker) and water in various terrains, but, most of all, I learnt about the Ancestral Spirits and about how people lived, how they revered the land and everything that grew and lived upon it, and how it was vital to protect the land and every sacred thing and being on it.

At a young age, I was conscious of the then unmet need for an apology to these dispossessed peoples for the theft of their land and of their children, and for the many injustices and horrors inflicted upon them, both intentionally and unintentionally. I remember a few clashes with teachers over it in the days of white Australia. At first I could not see how Aboriginal people could ever accept reconciliation with those who had made them suffer so much. However, as I learnt more about their nature, their culture and their spirituality, I realized that real impediments to reconciliation sat squarely on the side of attitudes within white Australia.

Very gradually, I came to a determination to use everything I had learnt, every skill I possessed, to tell the story of the beauty and strength and character of Aboriginal culture. And I invite you to leave behind any values, beliefs or prejudices that might colour your view, and to step into the Dreaming with me, eyes wide open, because that is where we’ll find the Aboriginal people.

We cannot live now as Aboriginals lived, but we can embrace their history and we can embrace their culture – and we should. We must. And I believe the sad and sorry state of many Aboriginal people right now is a direct result of being dragged, one way or another, from their culture, their belief systems, their country, and left, defenseless, in the white world, which offered very little of value for them at that time.

There are a number of concepts I have used in this book, which will not ring quite true to Aboriginal people, but they are necessary to help white people understand the original Australians. And language and spelling is always a challenge.

Even the name of the Aboriginal people whose story I tell is a matter of conjecture. Some say Mandildjara (Bill Peasley) or Mardidjara or Mandudjara or Martu, while I’ve chosen Mardudjara, as used by anthropologist Robert Tonkinson, who lived with them at Jigalong in Western Australia.

When I speak of Aboriginal people, I include, of course, Torres Strait Islander people.

But details are not a real concern in light of my major objective - to show what the real Australia could be - if we have the heart for it. We must reconcile our differences and share the vision of a great Australia. And we must start now. Please, come with me.

There is a real sense of urgency about this, and all we need is a fresh mindset and a plan.

***~~~***

Introduction

This book is in two parts, which I’ve called Blackfella Story and Whitefella Story. I unashamedly call this an important book, because it links the Australian need for a republic with the way to end, at last, the endless gabfests about Aboriginal recognition and reconciliation and treaties and land rights and justice and constitutional change.

The solution is simple, if we have the right plan. There is still much to be done, but Aussies will do the work that will create a beautiful future for this country. There is, however, a real urgency about this now and the time for rhetoric is over.

The really hard yakka has already been done; we just need to finish the job.

The Whitefella story is the most vital part of the book, but the Blackfella story tells the story of Aboriginal culture and tradition so that non-indigenous Australians can understand the sad and terrible history and current plight of Aboriginal people.

Every Australian should know the history of the people whose lands, customs, beliefs and lifestyle we tried to destroy 230 years ago, and are destroying still. We have had a shameful part in the almost total destruction of a proud and blameless people. After long and unbelievable abuse, we now have the opportunity to change the course of Australia’s history and strive for forgiveness for the wrongs we have committed.

All of us.

To tell the story of the Aboriginal people, I’ve chosen to write about the last two Aboriginal people to live as nomads in Western Australia’s Gibson Desert, and their heroic and epic struggle, alone in some of the most inhospitable terrain in the world, to keep the traditions of their people alive. It’s a story that stunned me when I first heard it.

I think all Australians should know this story.

The fate of the Gibson Desert people was set in motion when explorers and prospectors crisscrossed this country to find pasture land and gold. At least five explorers crossed Mardudjara lands – Warburton (1873), Forrest (1874), Giles (1876), Wells (1896) and Carnegie (1896). Prospecting expeditions came in, but found nothing to excite their interest at that time, except at Wiluna, far away to the south.

Early in the twentieth century, a series of permanent wells was established across the desert – along what is still known as the Canning Stock Route (mainly disused now,