We Are All From Somewhere Else by Ruth Padel

Author:Ruth Padel [Padel, Ruth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473582187
Publisher: Random House

Did oak trees spread to England after the ice age, or colonise it? Shift the language and you shift the perspective. Even with algae and fish, that word ‘colonise’ entails pushing out what’s been there before, like marine species from the Red Sea triumphing over Mediterranean fish. A successful human colony or settlement means turfing someone else out; or else killing them, enslaving them or taking them over. For residents, the advent of a new species or tribe means invasion; as the City of Sydney recently acknowledged when in its formal account of its history it changed the words ‘European arrival’ to ‘European invasion’. ‘In respect to the Aboriginal community,’ said the Lord Mayor, ‘it’s very important.’

In histories of many other civilisations you find the words ‘The X Invasions’. Han Tribes into ancient China, Dorians into ancient Greece, Mongols, Normans, Vikings, conquistadors, Pilgrim Fathers – they rode, sailed or walked into other lands and created a new culture on top of – and often at the expense of – something else. Unless there’s been an ice age or a Great Flood, there’s no clean slate.

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