"We will remake our future so it is as beautiful as our past, but to take this path we need to prepare ourselves, discipline ourselves and believe in ourselves. If we have to start again, working in the sand, with dedicated teachers, then so be it."
The former Australian of the Year (1992) was the first Aboriginal to become a school principal.
I didn't know that until I Googled him. I knew he founded the band Yothu Yindi.
Love this song which was co-written with Paul Kelly: Treaty (1992 Best Song of the Year ARIA)
These guys are basically cultural superheroes in Australia - or were once. They even got a treaty promise from then Prime Minister Bob Hawke.
Of course, it didn't happen. The Australian Constitution is a fearful creature which assures the Constitutional Monarchy, Massive Government and well, I suppose they did manage to change it to recognize the Aboriginal people as citizens in 1967.
Yothu Yindi's song was a powerful political statement that resonated in the hearts and minds of many Australians - perhaps a band of "illegal asylum seekers" or "queue jumpers" (Joke! I see them as refugees if they have a legit claim to asylum) should put out a hit song, hey? I'm sure Channel Ten's Australian Idol could feature them in their upcoming season - or even Seven's new talent X Factor.
Culture actually makes culture - it's organic. Politicians they react to culture and if people feel fear it's easy to fear monger than to allay fears - isn't that how WWII started?
It's amazing the impact poets have on a society - if there's no poetry in a person there's probably one hell of a lot of arrogance and ignorance.
There's a lot of poetry in Galarrwuy Yunupingu - and he learned his ABC's drawing the alphabet with a stick in the sand!
On the weekend, he wrote a column in the Weekend Australian about education which contains some really good power points.
Pity the newspaper didn't put it up online so I could link to it.
I'll just quote a few lines.
He starts:
"The first time I heard the word "school" I was about seven, living with my extended family on the Gove Peninsula in the Northern Territory under the strict eye of my father. I spoke no English and knew no white people."
He goes on to explain how he only went to school out of respect for his father who decided that it was as necessary to learn the white man's language and culture as it was to maintain his traditional heritage and language.
Yunupingu explains how his father was taking his lead from an ancestoral hero named Ganbulabula who made a habit of looking up and to the future.
I don't know but this sounds like a worthy kind of Australian hero to me - don't you think? I think that as we head to a national election politicians generally should keep these few things in mind as they formulate the words they speak and policies for our future.
At the recent X/Media conference I attended there was an Indian entrepreneur, a former journalist, who is busying himself with building a comics/animation studio that produces native stories about the superheroes from their ancient culture.
Gotham Chopra's Liquid Comics is collaborating with the likes of John Woo and Guy Ritchie, Nic Cage and Hugh Jackman in a fight against terrorism - yes you heard me!
He explained how as a TV journo a few weeks before 9/11 he was in Pakistan visiting an Islamic school to talk to the Imam about whether the fears of the West were justified. The school had a large poster of Osama Bin Laden on the wall. Chopra was on a plane bound out of New York when the planes struck the Twin Towers. His plane was diverted and he made his way to Ground Zero to cover the story and then help out as a volunteer.
But it was something he saw in Pakistan which made him think: Where the hell was Superman? He could've stopped this.
He had talked to a student, a boy who was wearing a Superman t-shirt, at the school. And the Imam then answered his question about whether the West need fear with another question. "Who do you think should be afraid of who?" - he was referring to cultural domination as an act of terrorism against their heritage.
And so Liquid Comics was born.
Galarrwuy Yunupingu laments, not disbanding Yothu Yindi but the disbandment of his school which deprived people in his homeland the opportunities he enjoyed to stay home and be educated in both English and Gumatj. He ends his column with these words of hope:
"My father's vision will be renewed at this year's Garma Festival which starts on August 6 at Gulkula near Nhulunbuy. The theme is "looking up to the future".
"We will remake our future so it is as beautiful as our past, but to take this path we need to prepare ourselves, discipline ourselves and believe in ourselves. If we have to start again, working in the sand, with dedicated teachers, then so be it."
When the pilgrims' ship, The Mayflower, dropped anchor in Plymouth, Massachusetts, (in what became the USA) in 1620 they didn't have immigration papers or identification or passports.
UCLA Film School professor, screenwriter Richard Walter, tells a little story about how he needed a passport to teach in Nevada as proof of US citizenship. And an expired passport would not do for they had to be sure he hadn't renounced his citizenship.
This is state of paranoia against illegal immigrants in Nevada - the laws put the onus upon employers to make sure they don't employ illegal immigrants.
(Kind of like trying to renew an expired Australian passport really - but really!)
Everyone in the audience laughs when he jokes about the uni's claim that they don't discriminate - "They treat everyone badly". Boom-boom.
"Art is the lie that makes us realise the truth" - he says, quoting Picasso. So when writing a screenplay, he advises, lie through your teeth!
Making films is not like painting pictures - you can't be discovered after you die you must be appreciated for the work you do while you live.
No point in making obscure films which don't make money & reach a lot of people. Shakespeare was a phenomenon in his own time - as was Sophocles.
Interesting.
Walter wrote the first two drafts of American Graffiti for George Lucas but his name doesn't appear on the credits because of union / industry conventions. His friend "George", along with Steven Spielberg, may be the Sophocles and Shakespeare of our art & times.
Thanks to Star Wars, George has eclipsed Walter, a successful author and screenwriter as well as honoured educator with tenure at UCLA, but Walter makes another good point.
He asks: "Isn't it enough to be privileged to lead an artistic life?"
UCLA graduates have won or been nominated for Oscars for the past three years - Sideways, Milk, Benjamin Button.
Spielberg has hired UCLA graduates to write 10 projects including Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones 2&3, and War of the Worlds.
"So much arts education is about tearing down & negative criticism," he says. "We are affirming, encouraging, healing. It's a miracle to be involved in creative expression.
"It's so unique to the species. We should rejoice and celebrate and not tear down. We put the safety of the artist first."
When it comes to teaching comedy they get the likes of Neil (The Odd Couple) Simon. "That's like God himself to give a sermon on Sunday." (paraphrased)
Walters says stories spiritually nourish people, underpin culture and make the human race unique.
The tears you cry in a movie are no different to the tears you cry in real life - the grief, the laughter, the anger is real.
If you can make people feel then you successful - the difference between a successful writer and a failed writer apparently is time.
It takes time and discipline to write. Most people give up.
I think the question should be how much are you prepared to sacrifice?
People complain about Hollywood but might it not be easier in Australia if we did have our own "Hollywood" - isn't it called an industry?
One more point Walters makes: American movies - every one of them (I'm sure he's exaggerating) - is sold overseas into markets all over the world.
Why? He thinks it's because they are made by immigrants who tell stories with universal themes which may on the face of it be American stories but tell us what it is to be human.
I had to laugh tho when I opened his book because the first thing I saw was his advice on creating characters: Do not write stereotypes.
Does anyone think that Australian films, media, TV are full of stereotypes? Packed to the Rafters even? Joke! ;) But really ... Walters also thinks that middle class values are antz pantz.
There you go.