Desert Storm - the politics of place and space

In the Middle of Somewhere...the politics of place and space

Eve Vincent

The colonial imagination has always conceived of the desert as harsh, inhospitable, remote and unknown. Recent Indigenous political organising in the South Australian desert insists otherwise. To the Indigenous peoples whose countries constitute 'South Australia' the desert is life sustaining, intimately known and understood. This point has been emphasised by the Arabunna 'Lake Eyre Going Home' camp and the current Irati Wanti campaign, which is the focus of this article. Both of these struggles demonstrate that current government policy and nuclear interests in the South Australian desert rely on invocations of the desert as an uninhabited wasteland. This article is concerned with the confused relationship between the conflicting understandings of the desert outlined above, and the Woomera2002 gathering. Linking 'out of sight, out of mind' regressive political projects - such as the Woomera detention centre and the proposed low-level radioactive waste dump - is seen as an encouraging convergence of concerns. However, I note with disappointment recurring references to the site of the detention centre and Woomera2002 protest camp as isolated, harsh and in the middle of 'nowhere'.

Academic theorising about space can traverse some pretty abstract territory. However, some recent reading in this area has helped me understand the ways in which complex relationships to space and places are always culturally specific. I want to draw attention to the instructive double meaning offered by the word 'space' itself. Whilst conjuring up the image of a void, and a vastness, 'space' is simultaneously never empty of meaning. According to the work of seminal theorist of space, the French Marxist Henri Lefebvre, 'space' is never untouched, there is no conceptual terra nullius. Space, Lefebvre cautions, cannot be seen as the passive locus of social relations, the backdrop to human activity, or a receptacle that is filled with or emptied of meaning. Lefebvre introduces us to the 'active, operational and instrumental role of space'. Although Lefebvre is concerned with a very particular dialectic - how late capitalism continually erases and reproduces urban space - for our purposes Lefebvre indicates that space is intimately bound up with relations of power. And, put simply, power is integral to colonialism, embedded in every colonial encounter and relationship. The construction of new spaces is an important praxis of the settler-colonial project - the act of invading territory and possessing land. Exploring, settling and naming can all be understood as colonial spatial practices.

The first of these, 'exploring' the arid interior, obsessed a series of British explorers who shared some common assumptions, and familiar fates. (Lots of them died, or only survived by relying on the knowledge of Indigenous people belonging to 'undiscovered' country.) The centre of Australia remained an alluring geographical enigma throughout the nineteenth century, regarded as an uninhabited blank space, and a potentially fertile expanse for pastoral settlement. Unsuccessful epic quests by Edward John Eyre and Charles Sturt finally debunked the myth of the inland sea and river system and the idea of the desert as 'wilderness' took hold. We can see this understanding at work in a 1955 statement by Howard Beale, Minister of Supply in Menzie's government. In an announcement to the public about the plans to set up the Maralinga atomic testing range Beale remarked -

"The whole [nuclear testing] project is a striking example of inter Commonwealth cooperation on the grand scale. England has the bomb and the knowhow, and we have the open spaces ... and a great willingness to help the Motherland. Between us, we shall help to build the defences of the free world and make historic advances in harnessing the forces of nature".

At the time of making this statement the British had already been testing nuclear bombs in the South Australian desert for two years, and Beale's comment is indicative of the priorities of the British and Australian governments. The interests of empire were to override any concerns for the region's Indigenous communities, many of whom were still travelling across their traditional territories, whilst others lived and worked at missions and pastoral stations.

The first British tests on mainland Australia took place at 'Emu Field', a claypan 480 km northwest of Woomera, in October 1953. The first of these, 'Totem One', was detonated despite meteorological advice that the day had no wind sheer and would produce 'unacceptable' levels of fall-out. A dense radioactive cloud rose from the test and drifted northwest. Its particles did not disperse, and Anangu (Aboriginal) people clearly remember the 'Black Mist' which passed over Wallatina and Welbourne Hill. Collected 'Bomb testimonies' tell of a strange light, a burning smell and the 'smoke that caught us'. The Black Mist was responsible for sudden outbreaks of sickness and death. Among those affected and still dealing with the legacy of radiation exposure were members of the Kupa Piti Kungka Tjuta and their extended families.

The Bomb testimonies referred to above have been recorded as part of the Irati Wanti - The Poison, Leave It campaign. This is the inspiring campaign of the Kupa Piti Kungka Tjuta against the proposed radioactive waste dump. Based in Kupa Piti (the non-indigenous place name 'Coober Pedy' is based on Kupa Piti - the Yunkunytjatjara words for 'white men's holes'), Irati Wanti was initiated by the Kungka Tjuta, a council of senior Antikarinya-Yunkunytjatjara and Kokatha women. These are women with deep cultural knowledge and strong leadership roles in their communities. They have been talking up strong against the proposed waste dump since 1992 when the search for a 'suitable site' for a remote National Radioactive Waste Repository (which will entail shallow burial of low-level wastes) began. Governmental site selection criteria precluded the selection of land with 'significant cultural and historical' value. This demonstrates from the outset the inability on the part of non-indigenous power bases to conceive of Australian space as Indigenous land. A non-indigenous framework only identifies the 'sacred' status or 'heritage' value of each site. In a statement issued to the Government the Kungkas explained:

"We are speaking strongly for the land. The Tjukur - the dreaming - the Law runs through the land. It's very important Tjukur that cannot be disturbed. There is nowhere in that land where you can say there is no culture."

The Government's preferred site for the dump has now been identified. It lies within the Woomera Prohibited Zone, which will make it easy to alienate Indigenous rights to land, and limit the potential for protest.

Drawing on a long history, the government and nuclear industry interpret the desert as dead, disused space. The Kungkas repeatedly express that the Government doesn't understand the country.

"We are telling you the desert lands are not as dry as you think. Some of us are very old women and we know. We have lived on these lands all our life. We know the country, we understand about water."

The Kungkas are survivors of an extraordinary history, uniquely positioned to comment on the dangers of the nuclear industry. They speak with authority about country they know, understand and inhabit. Accepting their knowledge and authority demands that we shift our perception of desert space, in order to realise that this is the Kungkas' country, it is their home. Theories about space and power can help us do that, by realising that naturalised assumptions are deeply political, open to interrogation and re-formulation.

Sitting in the dust under the smear of stars over Easter, 400 km up the highway from the Woomera2002 gathering, I felt like people had missed the chance to make an important cultural shift. Lots of people talked up 'making the connections' between the 'out of sight, out of mind' political logic employed by the Federal Government in the case of the detention centre and waste dump. But a lot of talk still characterised Woomera as a wasteland, and I didn't see much work go into making those connections concrete. Instead I sensed that a more predictable link was drawn, between the isolated and harsh imprisonment endured by detainees and a popular reading of the desert itself as isolated and harsh. Frequently these were conflated, in a new kind of mythologising. 'Making the journey' assumed epic overtones, as if people were travelling to an unknown, ugly waste-space on a political quest. Like so much non-indigenous travel, physical and imaginary, in this region, I got the feeling that people were insensitive to alternative ways of moving through the desert: reading the country as a detailed map of Anangu history and culture.

Despite the urgency that underlines refugee activism it's still important to reflect on our assumptions, language and interpretations, to resist getting too comfortable within our known critical positions. Listening to the Kungkas' stories, testimonies and statements is a good starting point to begin un-learning our cultural and implicitly colonial conditioning. Listen to the old people, the Anangu people, who were born in the manta, the earth..."We know the country. We know the stories for the land..."

Big thanks to Nina Brown, Camilla Pandolfini and Sam Sowerwine. Love ya work.