Preamble

A lot of organizations now have a preamble when a meeting is started recognizing, Aboriginals and their ancestors. I don't have any issue going along with it because I think the coming of europeans the most significant history this Australian continent has ever seen.

I was reading the 'Quakers Handbook of Practice and Procedure in Australia' and was struck with their preamble. It is everything which I would want to say...

 

Quakers in Australia acknowledge that we live and worship on the lands of Aboriginal and Torres StraitIslander peoples, country which gives them physical and spiritual identity and is filled with the spiritpresence of their ancestors.

We acknowledge:

the sovereignty of Australia’s First Peoples over the land we inhabit;

that the land was taken from them at devastating cost, with no just resolution;

that this trauma is ongoing and diminishes us all;

that our testimonies call us to be in right relationship with all peoples, the land and ourenvironment.

Therefore we seek in our daily lives:

to educate ourselves about the true history and present reality of Aboriginal and Torres StraitIslander peoples, and uphold their right to self-determination;

to acknowledge within ourselves, and bring into the light, that which contributes to the debilitatingeffects of racism, insensitivity, lack of awareness and misrepresentation;

to work towards justice and peace, and healing for us all.

 

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Tom Keneally, The Daughters of Mars

 

Tom Keneally, The Daughters of Mars.

I don't read Tom Keneally lightly. Having read Schindlers Ark and been scared forever. Yes another novel on the horrors and stupidity of war.

The Daughters of Mars is based on the experiences of two Australian sisters who are nurses who follow the Australian troops; as they wage war in the Mediterranean and France.

As a nurse and an Australian I found many connecting stories to my story. A nurse, put under pressure and the distress at times it can cause. But what the nurses in the story and during that period went through was incrediably traumatic. The wounds of World War One, the maming through bullets, shrapnel and shells. Yet worst of all gass. Which attacked the centeral nervous system and lungs in a horrific maner. Somthing which I would never want to go through.

The stories of nurses coming from 'Bush nursing homes in Gipsland' amused me. Phillip Island's hospital as mentioned to me by many of the older locals was a 'Bush Nursing home' Now unfortunatley there is nothing.

The name 'Monash' which I am likely to phone as our client is an inpatient; or drive along; or the education institution. But to think of the reason behind the name Monash the general; It never occurs to me. Though I always knew he was a famous guy, I never realized the idolision of him at the time of ordinary Australians.

One theme that interested me was a Character called "Kierman". A Quaker or as they said at the time time "Family of Friends". He as an orderly the closest you would get to a male nurse during that period.

What interested me about him was his faith, or his acknowledgment of where he was at in a holistic way, from the horrors of war around him and how he interacted to it. Naomi one of the sisters and Kiermans fiancé had this to say about her experience :

"...or was it a genuine spiritual instinct of her own which made her feel that she could inhabit this silence? Other religions began with certainties and pronounced them from the start of their rituals. The Friends seemed to have no certainties and humbly waited for the voice to emerge. These people did not seem to anticipate or even feel sure that anything would grace them with a visit. That attracted her. She had never been in an uncertain Church before."

I write rather enviously of Naomi's experience!

It's a good book, one worth reading if you like Australian History or Australian Nursing history. His characters never let you down with there development on the intricacies which surround them.

4/5

 

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