Living on Stolen Lands: If you do one thing today, go out and get this book

What is this about?

Living on Stolen Land is a book of prose, divided into different section in which Ambelin Kwaymullina explores concepts and what those concepts mean to Indigenous peoples, and they are ones that Westerners have never tried to understand.

What else is this about?

This is an opportunity to learn, to understand Indigenous culture, and to understand why time has long since come for change.

Blurb

Living on Stolen Land is a prose-styled look at our colonial-settler ‘present’. This book is the first of its kind to address and educate a broad audience about the colonial contextual history of Australia, in a highly original way. It pulls apart the myths at the heart of our nationhood, and challenges Australia to come to terms with its own past and its place within and on ‘Indigenous Countries’.

This title speaks to many First Nations’ truths; stolen lands, sovereignties, time, decolonisation, First Nations perspectives, systemic bias and other constructs that inform our present discussions and ever-expanding understanding. This title is a timely, thought-provoking and accessible read.

There is no part of this place
that was not
is not
cared for
loved
by an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander nation
There are no trees
rivers
hills
stars
that were not
are not
someone’s kin

 

If you’re seeing the Black Lives Matter Australia protests on TV and are trying to understand the anguish and anger that fuels those protests, or trying to explain it to anyone else young or old, please read Ambelin Kwaymullina’s Living on Stolen Land and give it to anyone and everyone you know.

This book is a slim volume of prose, but every word is a gut punch that will linger with you longer after you have finished. Kwaymullina has a mastery of prose that conveys the anguish of colonisation, anger at the dismissal of Aboriginal culture and connection to the land because it simply does not translate to the of Western understanding.

But she also writes of how (Western) people need to change their way of thinking about what it means to be a settler on a land that isn’t theirs, and to try and understand Indigenous people, and their stories, concepts and ideas that have existed long before Western settlers arrived to this land.

The book is broken into different parts, and Kwaymullina’s writing is stark and uncompromising in each of the four sections in this book. In each she lays out the assumptions Western culture and people have made about Indigenous people and their culture:

You Are on Indigenous Land

Perspectives

The Long Con

Pathways

In each section she explores what aspects of these mean to Indigenous people — like in Sovereignties (a chapter in You Are on Indigenous Land) she writes about how in Indigenous systems, to be an individual means you are part of a collective, living life in a way that affords every other life the same opportunities as you do.

Or how linear time is a Western concept, and Westerners find it easier to call Indigenous people backward because they view time differently.

There is a section in Perspectives that struck a chord with me — she talks of Western processes that demands action by a certain date for projects that are supposed to benefit Indigenous people, yet Indigenous groups are the last to be asked for their input, and forced to work to a Western concept of what is supposed to help them. I’ve seen this happen, in projects where Indigenous organisations are asked for their input with days to a deadline, and then Western project leads are upset when they’re called out on how little time they’re giving Indigenous organisations to assess projects, risks and so much more.

I want to articulate something about this book, but I feel everything I write is woefully inadequate, so please bear with me: I don’t much enjoy books written in verse or prose, as the case may be, because I feel like so much escapes me; that the meaning behind the verse/ prose is something else entirely, and I am just not getting it. Kwaymullina’s writing doesn’t ask you interpret, this is her story and she is telling you exactly what she wants you to know.

This story, this book is hers to tell — please read it.

Living on Stolen Land is out on 1 July 2020.