Can resistance stand alone? Memorial conference considered

with Nicholas Clements and Peter Stanley

The Australian War Memorial recently held a conference, ‘Imperialism and Resistance: Australia’s First Wars’, which it described as a milestone in the development of its first gallery devoted to Australian frontier conflict – we’ll call them the Australian Wars – and the renewal of its galleries covering the New Zealand Wars, the Sudan campaign, the Boxer Rebellion and the South African (Boer) War, 1845 to 1902.

The Chair of the Memorial Council, Kim Beazley, opened the conference. He has popularised - and used again at the conference - the phrase ‘the dignity of resistance’, to remind us that First Nations Australians were not just massacred and poisoned by settlers, soldiers and police, but that they fought back as well – they resisted.

Memorial Director Matt Anderson had cautiously foreshadowed the conference at Senate Estimates last year, showing willing but still insisting that frontier conflict would share space with some of those Imperial expeditions for Queen Victoria.

The gallery-sharing idea quietly slipped away earlier this year as the Memorial committed to 204 square metres of space for the Australian Wars on their own. There was caution still, however, in the promotional poster for the conference: no frontier battles but soldiers marching through the streets of Sydney about to embark for the Sudan in 1885. (They arrived in Africa after the fighting was over but nine of them died of illness.)

The conference then submerged the key question of the recognition of the Australian Wars at the Memorial beneath the theme of First Nations people resisting takeover by British invader-settlers and the British Crown - Imperialism and Resistance. There were parallels with Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, even the United States.

An interesting session heard Memorial curator, Margaret Farmer, sketch the journey to finally recognise frontier conflict, quoting from various Council documents, and Bliss Jensen (Director, Gallery Development), who outlined the sorts of ‘stakeholder consultation’ and ‘audience survey and focus group’ methodology they had already started.

Keynote speakers, Rachel Perkins and Professor Henry Reynolds, eloquently reinforced their previous arguments about the foundational importance of the Australian Wars and why they should be featured in the Memorial. Their remarks in The Australian Wars documentary are still the best summary of why the conflict matters.

It was [said Reynolds] whether or not they could control the way the land was managed, and it was ultimately about their very survival and the very survival of their cultures and traditions. It was war because of what it was about, not the way it was fought. And my view is, not only was it war but it was our most important war. One, it was fought in Australia, two, it was fought about Australia and, three, it determined the ownership and the control, the sovereignty of a whole continent.

Rachel Perkins, Arrernte and Kalkadoon woman, showed a segment of the documentary and spoke of standing on land that had seen a massacre of her ancestors.

My evidence for war is that my people’s land is owned by others in vast cattle stations … Until it is recognised as a war and memorialised as a war, it will never be entirely over.

Among other papers, Samuel White, Army Fellow at the Memorial, demolished the furphy (and later published) that wars needed to be declared to be defined as wars, and Tasmanian historian, Nick Clements (The Black War and Tongerlongeter) nailed the importance of the Australian Wars and added this in an email to the author after the conference:: ‍

Far from undermining my national pride, seeing the Australian War Memorial honestly acknowledging and commemorating our founding wars would make me truly proud to be Australian. When commemoration of frontier war happens - and surely it must - we will look back on this time of handwringing and obfuscation with embarrassment - just as we now blush when recalling that homosexuality was a crime in my home state until 1997.

Not everyone agreed. Former prime minister, Memorial Council member, and now author of a history book, Tony Abbott, was the third keynote speaker, saying that the Australian frontier story should be told, ‘but not here’ – that is, not at the Memorial, which should be a place of pride and unity. He seemed not to have considered that the story could be shared between a number of institutions, just as the story of Australian uniformed service is told by the National Archives, the National Museum, the National Gallery, shrines and memorials in the states and the regions, and war cemeteries around the world. Not a difficult concept to grasp, for a Rhodes Scholar. (His published speech appeared in a couple of places later and he also spoke on News 24.)

Around 250 people came to the conference and there were more online. We counted seven members of the Memorial Council (out of ten non-ex officio) in the audience. There’s a full list of the speakers and topics here. (Mina Murray was an apology on the day.)

Some speakers seemed not to fully grasp that the intent of the conference was to help the Memorial understand what its galleries should deal with. On the other hand, Defending Country representatives found a refreshing - and new - willingness among Memorial folks (including Council members) to discuss issues. It was nice, after years of constructive criticism of the Memorial, to find ourselves more on less on the same page with it. Some dark forces around Quadrant and The Spectator constituted a third group but they were thinly represented at the conference.

The Memorial has long been nervous about the reaction from traditional Anzackers to its moves to recognise the Australian Wars. Concluding the Memorial’s submission to the current parliamentary inquiry into racism against First Nations people, Memorial Director Matt Anderson said,

We are under no illusions; this work will be challenging. We understand that regardless of what we put in our galleries, print in our publications/website or host in public programs, it will be too much for some and not enough for others.

The Director said little at the Conference and mingled less, though he published an explanation of the Memorial's position later (paywall).

The conference audience was possibly 75-80 per cent in favour of recognising frontier conflict at the Memorial. A trap might be, however, that the Memorial will wilt under the weight of conflicting expectations. Anglo-Celtic Anzackery will not subside easily.

We hope that the Memorial can run another conference in three years’ time, after the Australian Wars Gallery has been opened and when Australians’ awareness of this part of our history has advanced to the point where we no longer need to submerge the fact of resistance.

Advanced to a point also where we can see that uniformed service people sent to overseas wars and First Nations people fighting within Australia were all defending Country and all deserve recognition in our national memorial.

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We welcome a response from the Memorial and will publish it without amendment, taking account of our Moderation Policy.

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