Woodfordia 2023/2024: A Brush With Truth and First Nations Political Theory January 12 2024

Today’s music is of one of my new projects, Aljamía.

It’s hard to believe three years have passed but I’ve finally made another post. I’ll spare you the details but I moved away from Wordpress, and converted this whole site to Hugo. Somehow this page has been drawing a lot of traffic, which made my bills quite high unnecessarily. I don’t update this nearly enough. This means comments don’t work (it’s a static site), but if you would like to comment, please email me and I’ll add your comment at the bottom of an article.

While there might be many subjects to write about since 2020, I’d like to start with Woodford Folk Festival. I have been going for a few years (my first Woodford was back in 2011/2012), and in later editions, I’ve been lucky to be given a chance to be a part of musical volunteering. The job is straightforward, to actively run, facilitate, host music sessions of any kind in their session space. This year I did Irish sessions, but I also did Scottish, slow tunes and teaching by ear.

One of the things that has been interesting over the years is Woodford’s active engagement with indigenous communities. This year was no exception, with lots of great projects featured. I went to a few gigs, and a couple stood out to me.

Arrkula Yinbayarra from Borroloola, Australia

Their show at the Sand stage, which had dancing, singing, and talks, but more importantly, demonstrated the process of retaining important historical fact through song and dance.

Two examples that stuck with me were the Airplane Dance which retains the knowledge of a WWII plane crash and the rescue done by first nations; and the trade with Makasar from Indonesia (which pre-dates european arrival).

Part of the offering of that stage is a chance to join talks and yarn circles about different topics. Their talk about their songs and process made an impression on me for its autonomy, while these songs seem to be about some kind of intercultural exchange, which tends to be a patronising western spin, they have a lot more about history, actions taken, and self contained information, totally independent from external cultures. This is especially important when for example the history of trade with the Makasar directly contradicts imperial settler narratives.

Yirinda from K’gari, Australia

I had the chance to catch Yirinda’s live show once, and it was fantastic. While fundamentally art music, the performance itself included a lot of practical information about songlines and dreaming stories. While this juxtaposition is pretty common, I found their particular take to have a lot of experimental edges to it, and the mix of strong synth sounds, rich bottom end (bass + string section) to be a strong show.

Aboriginal Political Thought: A Dialogue With White Australia

This talk stood out to me. First because it was by incredibly accomplished first nations scholars 1 2 3, and second because it was specifically about political thought. I have to say the thought of political theory and first nations being a possible talk and research topic never crossed my mind. This talk was incredibly strong, starting with the strength of the speakers words.

Overall, they outlined how fundamentally different the systems in Australia are from the ones brought in by invaders. The overall thoughts on the referendum were also very interesting. They deconstructed the process, the language used, the framing, and how it was deep down yet another attempt at assimilation. In a way, I imagine the no vote from an indigenous person as an act of resistance, whereas a yes is an act of bridge building. Both exist, and should exist, together, and therefore I don’t think I have a straightforward answer to how I would vote now (even though I can’t vote), whereas before this talk I was strongly in the ‘yes’ camp.

As I sat there I began experiencing a range of emotions, and quickly wrote some notes for the Q&A. I was beginning to feel this was a unique opportunity to engage at the level I am comfortable in (politics), and ask specific philosophical questions. I was also incredibly nervous, which is strange, considering I don’t have any fears of public speaking or performing in public.

I stood up and began with an acknowledgement: thanks to first nations for their truth telling and resistance, and that thanks to them I had become aware of the lies of my own upbringing in a colonial country. I acknowledged the brutal history of my country, and spoke of how the first nations truth telling had created all kinds of emotions of shame and guilt, and thanked them for that awakening.

I then spoke about my own family history, with a strong socialist and communist history in fighting fascism, racism and colonialism. I then affirmed my own actions as an anarchist, and how when I moved here, I felt most at ease with first nations people. From here, then, I asked whether a political framing from the south european left could be mapped in any way to Aboriginal political systems. The answers were shattering.

The first, and most direct answer, was that Law and Lore are fundamental concepts, so Anarchism cannot exist within this system. The second one was a more in depth explanation, referring to how ideologies in general cannot be mapped to local law because the totality of references is fundamentally different, in that indigenous knowledge include geography (Place) as one of the root concepts, whereas ideology, regardless of which one, will always have its roots in conflict, strategy, power and alienation of one group by another. It’s this alienation that is core to european political thinking that makes it incompatible in its entirety, and therefore, I was told I had to learn an entirely new system. Fair enough, it had taken me 13 years, but I had finally gotten clarity on this very niche topic that is dear to me.

After the Q&A, the presenters offered a yarn circle, and I joined them. In comparison, this was a small circle, with maybe 20 people. Within this circle, for another two hours, we discussed and yarned about the general topic of politics, law, treaty, along with a lot of truth telling.

At this circle, a lady sat next to me, and at one point, she thanked me for my candour. Turns out her experience was similar to mine, except she was the daughter of migrants that never assimilated, and had always felt Dutch. As she participated in an first nations women healing ceremony, she began to cry uncontrollably, and was hoping for help understanding what happened. The elders in the circle said they couldn’t help, but that the sense of finding yourself, who you really are, is the beginning.

I intervened, because I had experienced the same thing. We as europeans are brought up with the sense of conflict and strategy, regardless of whether our families instil that on us or not. That mindset is directly at odds with the way first nations approach others.

What made us emotional was experiencing, for the first time, radical acceptance.

As Rumi¹ once wrote,

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
There is a field. I’ll meet you there.

Maybe we can adapt it.

Out beyond ideas of strategy and conflict,
There is a yarn circle. I’ll meet you there.

Thanks for reading.