Like every other colonised Indigenous person across the world, there exists inside of me a relentless rage. An anger that blazes night and day at the injustice and theft we have endured. While making your flat white and carrying it to your table, I was grimacing inwardly at the capitalist cement cage I found myself in. While gently placing the cup and saucer at your table and serving you with a smile my muscles raged at the learnt behaviour of servitude, my apron a colonial heirloom of all the Aboriginal women before me who smiled through gritted teeth to survive. Being your servant felt like an injustice to my ancestors, I did it as long as I needed to Survive and then I quit. Resistance. I write poems and make my ‘rent’ (read: ransom) entertaining you. You hear poetry, rhymes, rhythm. We hear a survival mechanism. I make my money; Survival, and write against the colony, towards Aboriginal emancipation; Resistance.
The intersection of these polar modes of existing is not a sweet spot so easily found. For me, it’s involved tears, anger, damaged relationships, quit jobs and fluctuating mental health. It’s meant taking money I didn’t always want to take and sometimes refusing money when I needed it. But in this sweet spot, there is a tiny window of possibility and hope, that teeters and wanes depending on the day. It is through the genres of Indigenous Futurism and Speculative fiction that I have been able to amplify that hope and expand on what is possible.
Larrakia, Kungarakan, Gurindji and French writer and performer Laniyuk. Source: Laniyuk
You hear poetry, rhymes, rhythm. We hear a survival mechanism. I make my money; Survival, and write against the colony, towards Aboriginal emancipation; Resistance.
While taking a class on Aboriginal Literature I was introduced to the world of Speculative Fiction and Futurism. Genres which allows the author and reader to engage with a version of our realities outside of the constraints of what is ‘possible’. This rebuttal is a conversational favourite from white colonisers. ‘Yeah but is that really possible? It’s not realistic’. Friends, family, workmates and peers have often responded to me on conversations around Sovereignty and Aboriginal self-determination with the limitations of what white supremacy deems as ‘possible’. Move to Mars? Let’s pursue with the same rabid enthusiasm that motivated the colonisation of countless peoples and lands (read: White people can take whatever they want)! Absolutely!
Allow Aboriginal people control over our lands and lives? IMPOSSIBLE.
Reading Indigenous Speculative Fiction and Futurism revealed to me that at some point, I had subconsciously accepted the colonial limitations of possibility. I had, on some deep level, conceded to the white imagining of an Aboriginal-less future, that at some point we would just ‘die out’. As a writer I’ve started writing my own futures, hoping to plant the seeds of the world I want to live in (sooner rather than later). The practice of dreaming our futures allows ourselves to be honest and vulnerable with what it is that we actually want and need. Whether that be Aboriginal schools, healthy, flourishing languages, an end to child removal, incarceration and of course, Land Back.
Friends, family, workmates and peers have often responded to me on conversations around Sovereignty and Aboriginal self-determination with the limitations of what white supremacy deems as ‘possible’.
Taking what I have learnt from Speculative Fiction I am creating a lens through which to view my life and the world. It has become more than just a genre, I am carving a way of life that allows me to survive in the present and build towards the future. Writing our own futures creates a road map to them. It sets intent and invites people into that imagining and on an individual level, it’s strengthened my overall mental health. I am able to see this time and place in the context of a legacy of Aboriginal existence and resistance. I can see that 250 years is a small bump in the road of our story compared to our flourishing existence since the beginning of Creation. That in the future, we will tell our children of this time with great heed and warning and remind them that we have always been here and we will always be here.
This story is edited by Mununjali author for SBS Voices and is part of a essay series inspired by the 2020 theme 'Always Was, Always Will Be'.
Laniyuk is a Larrakia, Kungarakan, Gurindji and French writer and performer of poetry and short memoir. She contributed to the book Colouring the Rainbow: Blak, Queer and Trans Perspectives in 2015, has been published online in Djed Press and the Lifted Brow, as well as in print poetry collections such as UQP’s 2019 Solid Air and 2020 Fire Front. She received Canberra’s Noted Writers Festival’s 2017 Indigenous Writers Residency, Overland’s 2018 Writers Residency and was shortlisted for Overland’s 2018 Nakata-Brophy poetry prize. She runs poetry workshops for festivals, moderates panel discussions, and has given guest lectures at ANU and The University of Melbourne. She is currently completing her first collection of work to be published through Magabala Books. Instagram: @laniyuk Twitter: @laniyuk.
National NAIDOC Week (8 – 15 Nov 2020) celebrates the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Join SBS and NITV for a full slate of NAIDOC Week content. For more information about NAIDOC Week or this year’s theme, head to the official NAIDOC Week website. #NAIDOC2020 #AlwaysWasAlwaysWillBe
