Category Archives: History

The cemetery – stories of the past

The bushes on the left bank have swallowed some of the grave stones

Last year Peter and I had gone on a conducted tour of Kingston’s convict ruins with a descendant of the Christian family. I’d strongly suggest that anybody going to Norfolk for the first time attends the tours. The guides are mines of information, telling stories of convicts and jailers, painting a vivid picture of the past. I wrote about that visit here. The old jail was a horrible place and some of the jailers were sadistic brutes.

There’s not much to see in the rectangle that forms the main walls of the prison. The stone was taken away to use elsewhere, some of fairly recently. I’ve seen a black and white photo from the 1920’s where some of the cell walls were still intact. It was no doubt used to rebuild the lovely Georgian mansions along Quality Row. At least one of the homes, fully restored, is open for visitors. There’s also a museum for HMS Sirius, flag ship of the First Fleet which sailed into Port Jackson in 1788. She took the first settlers to Norfolk Island and sunk just off the coast of Kingston in Slaughter Bay.

We headed for the old cemetery. We’d been there before but it deserved more time. Again, it’s worth going with a guide and some of what I say now I heard last year.

The cemetery is still used. Wandering around the more modern parts you’ll see the same surnames repeated: Christian, Bailey, Adams, Buffet, Quinlan – all the descendants of the Pitcairn Islanders who arrived in the 1850’s. There’s no undertaker on Norfolk. If someone dies (as happened when we were there) an announcement is made on the local radio and the Norfolk and Australian flags are flown at half mast. Some of the locals dig the grave for the price of a couple of cartons of beer. Everyone is invited to the service via the radio.The grounds are well-tended and maybe because it was Christmas, many of the graves had flowers, mostly artificial, long-lasting colour.

Pass between four large gate pillars though, and you walk back into time. This was where the dead from the first settlement and the second settlement were buried.

There aren’t many gravestones from the first settlement which ended in 1815, but we found a few. Although there were convicts in that settlement, Norfolk was not at that time a penal colony. That came later – and convicts were given little recognition. A simple wooden cross marked their place and they have been destroyed by the wind and the salt spray. The ground we walked over has been x-rayed. It’s packed with bodies. I expect there are records of who was bried but the markers are gone. Many of the gravestones are illegible for the same reason. Gravestones and in some cases mausoleums were erected for the officers and men of the guard units and their wives and children. Some convicts have gravestones – those executed for mutiny or similar, and also the female convicts.

Walking over the grass I was reminded of the rediscovered cemetery on Rottnest Island where aboriginal prisoners were buried without recognition. It seems any kind of convict got the same treatment. Reading the gravestones it is obvious that life was harsh. Many men were Irish, and many died young. Many children died. Quite a few men drowned while crossing bars, or fishing. There’s no record of the many convicts who drowned as they crossed the channel from Kingston to Nepean Island to cut stone blocks for the buildings.

Come with me and visit some of these past lives, footnotes in the journals of history. Some tell a story, some are simply names but all were people who lived.

This grave is hidden under sculpted bushes that were supposed to be along the edge of the cemetery but have engulfed several graves.

All the grass you can see covers bodies. It’s full.

Not everybody died young

 

 

One hundred years

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow…

One hundred years ago, at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, the guns fell silent along the Western Front. It was an armistice. The peace treaties were not signed until 1919 but the fighting had ended. Exhausted Europe heaved a sigh of relief.

It was dubbed ‘the war to end all wars’, the last of the old style of warfare where armies dug in and faced each other over disputed ground. So many deaths, so many injuries. From an Australian point of view, ‘from a population of fewer than five million, 416,809 men enlisted, of which over 62,000 were killed and 156,000 wounded, gassed, or taken prisoner.’ [1] Drive to any country town in Australia and you’ll find a war memorial that lists the names of those who went to war and died. Listed under the 1914-18 war you’ll find so many with the same surname – brothers, cousins – from the same family. They were all volunteers, making the long journey to Turkey, and then Europe, to fight for Mother Emgland.

If Gallipoli was bad, the mud and slush and gas of Flanders was much worse, if that’s possible.  What’s more, the Australian Government expected families to bear the cost of bringing the bodies home, so Belgian, French, and Turkish cemeteries are the final resting places of Australian lads who’d joined up for an adventure. But they’re not all in the manicured graveyards. They’re still finding bodies in the fields of France.

The countryside itself was devastated by years of shelling. Parts of France are still listed as -no go zones’ all these years later. The story of the ‘red zones’ makes fascinating reading.

It’s hard to get one’s head around the fact that not twenty years after the peace treaties were signed, it was on again with a new generation of young men and women pitted against each other.

Lest we forget?

All too easily, I fear.

And it seems the President of the United States who went to Europe to remember the fallen on this one hundredth anniversary, did not attend the ceremony because of the rain. Unbelievable.

A side trip to Dresden

Dresden’s main square

It’s not very far from Berlin to Prague, so when we left Berlin on Sunday morning, we made a brief visit to Dresden, which was famously incendiary-bombed by the Allies in World War II. The city suffered under GDR rule, but has been rebuilt since the reunification.

This was a walking tour, and I’ll confess the details are a bit hazy since it was a while ago – and, you know, sick. However, I remember the bit about Augustus the Strong, who built much of the resplendent architecture in the city. Dresden is a spectacularly over-the-top Baroque confection, with lots of grandiloquent flourishes, in keeping with Augustus himself, who liked to host grand balls and such. He was a bit of a lad, fathering kids by a succession of mistresses. His great ambition, though, was to be a king – in which aim he succeeded, becoming King of Poland twice. He was quite happy to convert to Catholicism to reach that pinnacle, so there are two main churches in town – the Frauenkirche, in the central square, and the nearby Catholic cathedral.

By Deutsche Fotothek‎, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7937907

The Frauenkirche, in particular, was effectively demolished in the bombing. For years the residents prevented the authorities from removing the rubble and making it a carpark, while secretly collecting and numbering pieces for an eventual restoration. Which, of course, has happened. I think this achievement is a tribute to the tenacity of the people of Dresden.

You can see the restored building in the top photo of the post, the tallest one with the dome.

Here’s the story.

Part of Augustus’s palace

Beautifully decorated columns in arcadian style

And something a little more Celtic

As you can see from the photos, it was a damp and miserable day in Dresden, but we managed to avoid most of the showers by hiding indoors. As usual, the old town has cobblestones, and you can buy a sausage-in-a-bun from several stalls.

It’s a pretty town, that would have been much nicer in less inclement weather. But that’s Europe in October, I guess.

The porcelain parade of kings

A closer view

Most of the damage in the famous bombing of the city was caused by fire. Because of that, one notable survivor was the magnificent frieze of rulers, which was made of – porcelain, for which, of course, Dresden is famous.

The bombing itself has remained controversial. I’ll let you read about that yourself. In my opinion the Allies usually took care not to destroy places with little strategic value and lots of history, such as Heidelberg and the Rhine castles. War is nasty, whatever happens. Still, February, 1945 was very close to the final days of the war.

After lunch we drove on to Prague, passing along the banks of the Vltava River in the late afternoon. Tomorrow we would visit the castle.

The train to Berlin

The Brandenburg Gate taken through a wet window

We caught a train to take us from Warsaw to Berlin. We were in the first class carriages, but as Pete said, “If that’s first class I’d hate to be in economy”.  I can’t say it was a train journey to remember, just a track through Eastern Europe on an overcast and drizzly day, stopping now and then at a station. Once again, Tomas had suggested bringing along some food, since there might be a restaurant car – and then again, maybe there might not. As it happened, there was a a restaurant car, and the service did provide coffee and a cake. You could buy beer and wine, and food, but we were happy with our roll. It’s a long trip – most of a day, which I spent reading, or playing solitaire. But, since this trip was a series of unfortunate events, I wasn’t really surprised when something went wrong.

Tomas was at pains to tell us we shouldn’t get off the train at the first Berlin station (Berlin East). We would be going on to the central station. However, it seemed we’d arrived just after tropical storm Xavier (the remains of a hurricane that had hit the Caribbean a week or two ago) had cut a swathe through Berlin. We’d noticed the tops of trees whipping around in the wind, but it had been much worse. Trees were down, power lines were cut, and the normally reliable rail service in the city was in chaos. We couldn’t get to central. So we all hopped off the train and mooched around the railway station while Tomas organised a bus to take us to the hotel.

Storm damage from Xavier

If you’ve travelled much in Europe, you’ll know most hotel rooms are tiny compared with Australia. That wasn’t true in Eastern Europe, where I think the hotels are more recent. That’s especially true in Berlin, which was flattened in the war, and the Eastern parts stayed in a pretty parlous state until after reunification in the nineties. Our room was almost a suite, with enough room to host a party, and a splendiferous bathroom. The down side was that the cost of a shot of Scotch was in keeping with the surroundings – we bought a bottle at a supermarket for about the same money.

By this time we were both tired and ill from constant coughing and lack of sleep. The bark was so bad we could have hired out our services to a security firm. I was sneezing a lot, too. This was not flu – no aches and pains and fever, but even so, we had an eye on the long haul flight back to Oz in a few days’ time, so we asked to see a doctor. He arrived in due course, and prescribed a decongestant during the day and pills to reduce the coughing at night. So off we went to find an apothecary. In fact, we had to do that twice. The first time the assistant gave us smaller packages with not enough pills to cover the doses, and (of course) we didn’t notice until we sat down for coffee (which was at least good coffee). Back to the pharmacy. The pharmacist apologised, and said they didn’t have the items we needed, but she could have them in by 3pm.

Since it’s warm and dry in shopping malls, we stayed there for some time, and pinpointed a couple of places to buy lunch, and dinner. We noticed a big food item in Berlin was ‘sausage with curry sauce’. I’m partial to sausage, but not with curry sauce, so I asked if it came without the sauce. I was told it wasn’t a good idea, because the sausages weren’t very nice. Like the coffee in Slovakia, this was a cold war leftover. You hide the horrible sausage with curry sauce, and now it has become a Berlin staple. The waiter did tell us where we could get good sausage, though, at a nearby restaurant. So we had dinner there.

Sans Souci palace. Yes, just a single story

Once again we missed the city tour which had taken in Checkpoint Charlie, the remnants of the wall, and the Brandenburg gate, but the next day we passed all those places on the way to the leafy suburb of Potsdam, so at least we got to see them from the bus. We also got to see the extensive damage from storm Xavier, with trees down in many places. Well-heeled Berliners live in Potsdam and around the Wannsee. So did the aristocracy in the past, and there are a number of palaces. One of the best known is Frederik II’s  (the Great) bijou palace, Sans Souci. It’s quite small, but elaborately decorated. Frederik loved the place, and wanted to be buried there. That request was not honoured – until 1991, when his remains were interred in the crypt Frederik had prepared. (You can find the story here – it’s short) He was a fascinating man, a King of Prussia who came close to uniting Germany before Bismarck finished the job in 1870, a scholar and a soldier, and very likely gay. It’s well worth reading a little about him. Oh, by the way, no photos allowed inside the palace. But you probably worked that out. The tour was conducted with precision, with groups waiting until the previous group had left a room before being ushered through.

Some of the lovely gardens at Sans Souci

After our visit to the palace we went to  Potsdam, a nice little village with cobble stoned streets and old houses, where you could buy a sausage-in-a-bun with mustard. Then it was back to Berlin.

Potsdam High street

As the Holocaust featured so much for me on this tour, I have to say something about Berlin’s holocaust memorial. We drove past it in the bus, and Pete took the picture with his tablet. There’s no immediate recognition of what this thing is – it looks like a collection of packing cases, or shipping containers, arranged in lines over several acres – 4.7 of them, as it happens. “What’s that?” I asked.

The Holocaust memorial

“The Holocaust memorial,” the guide said. “Kids use it to jump around and take selfies.”

I was seriously unimpressed. To me, the place is unrecognisable as a memorial, certainly not from this angle. It seems I’m not the only one who was underwhelmed, as evidenced in this article in the New Yorker. The author says what I think, only better, and I urge you to read it. As I mentioned in my post on Auschwitz, people of my generation know about the Holocaust. The challenge is to make the next generations understand. This monument isn’t helping at all. Yes, kids take selfies there. The particularly disturbing aspect of those selfies is that the kids tag them as ‘jumping on dead Jews’ or similar. That means they have at least a rudimentary knowledge of what those blocks represent.Not enough is being done to ensure they understand the reality.

Literally tons of overwhelming evidence – documents, designs for the gas chambers, eye witness accounts from such people as Eisenhower and Patton as well as survivors, photographs taken in secret, and photographs taken proudly by the SS – attests to the fact that the Nazi regime deliberately set about exterminating the Jews. Despite that, there are Holocaust deniers, people who suggest that the whole thing was a conspiracy by the Allies to demonize the German people. Let me direct you to Snopes, where denial of the Holocaust is examined,

I’ll finish this post with one small observation. The Nazis killed about 6 million Jews, but they deliberately targeted many other groups, as listed in this article from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum site.  If you require context to absorb those figures, in 1938 the population of Australia was about 6.8 million people. The Nazi regime deliberately murdered many more than the whole population of Australia.

And here, dear reader, I will leave behind talk of the Holocaust. From Berlin we travelled to Prague, and from there home. But before we left Europe there was one last unfortunate event. That’s for next time.

Tiny little flying things

I confess I haven’t had the camera out recently – too busy sweating over a hot keyboard. But I have gone back to look at some of my old files and while some of the photos aren’t sharp enough or large enough for commercial use, they’re not half bad for all that. We all miss seeing the smaller things in our world. I’ve shared a few of those photos with you further down.

TDADD-ebook-webOn the writing front the new story is being beta-read so I hope to have it out there next week. I also received a wonderful email from someone who had just finished reading my historical novel, To Die a Dry Death. Here’s a little of what she had to say.

“Thank you for writing a brilliant book that I have enjoyed very much and just this very second finished. In the past year I have become very very ( obsessed my friends and family might say 🙂 about the Batavia . I work at sea, and whilst on a flight, saw a small piece about it in a history magazine I buy to expand my mind on boring flights… and it has totally gripped me

I have read several books on Batavia so far and enjoyed yours immensely and would just like to thank you very much for all the work you put into it and made the characters ‘come to life’ more so for me than the other books, which all differ in style as I know you appreciate.”

This sort of thing means so much to me. Not everyone is going to like what I write – that’s okay. But it feels wonderful to know I’ve reached someone, that I’ve told the story in a way that worked for them. So, dear reader, thank you so much.

Now on to the micro monsters.

A tiny praying mantiss. That story about cannabalising the males after sex isn't completely true

A tiny praying mantis. That story about cannabalising the males after sex isn’t completely true.

You know the story about their mating habits? Turns out it’s only true 30% of the time. https://insects.about.com/…/praying-mantis-cannibalism.htm

This butterfly was laying eggs - but this shot shows all four wings

This butterfly was laying eggs – but this shot shows all four wings

A European honey bee on rosemary

A European honey bee on rosemary

An Australian native blue-banded bee on a salvia. These bees are tiny, solitary little creatures, and very fast. I went through a lot of digital 'film' to get this

An Australian native blue-banded bee on a salvia. These bees are tiny, solitary little creatures, and very fast. I went through a lot of digital ‘film’ to get this

This dragonfly is a rescue. It was drowning when I took it out of the swimming pool. It's drying itself off.

This dragonfly is a rescue. It was drowning when I took it out of the swimming pool. It’s drying itself off.

Don’t believe everything you read on the internet

1270187Even if you find the same story written in many places. You’ll all have heard the quote from Josef Goebbels, Hitler’s propaganda minister. “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” It doesn’t even have to be a lie. If people believe something, they will repeat it.

I received an email yesterday from Bob Sheppard (someone I don’t know) questioning my little article about Abraham Leeman (it’s here). Popular understanding is that Leeman was a junior officer on the Vergulde Draeck (Gilt Dragon) which was wrecked on the West Australian coast in 1656. The story goes that he was in command of the ship’s longboat which made the hazardous voyage up the WA coast then across to Batavia. When he arrived, he was dispatched on the Waeckende Boey to search for the survivors. (And the cargo – the Dutch East India Company was nothing if not pragmatic.) While searching islands not far from modern day Perth, Leeman and the thirteen men with him were abandoned. He had to do that voyage up the WA coast all over again.

It’s a remarkable story. And how do we know all this? Leeman wrote a journal, which was translated and published in James Henderson’s book, Marooned. I read that book many years ago and told the story in that blog post. I saw references to this double trip all over the net. Well, it had to be true, didn’t it?

Bob Sheppard didn’t believe it.

He asked me if I had any primary evidence that Leeman was on board the Vergulde Draeck. And no, I didn’t. Neither, it seems, has anybody else. Bob pointed me at an article he’d written about Leeman which I feel pretty much proves his case. Mea culpa. I do know better. In my research for the Batavia ship wreck I read many stories about a lad being decapitated with one blow from a sword. Reading the primary source (Pelsaert’s journal) the story is clearly not true. Here’s my article about that.

So my thanks to Mr Sheppard for correcting my mistake. Oh, and by the way, that quote from Goebbels? That’s not true, either. Read all about it here.

Batavia’s Graveyard is being excavated at last #history

TDADD-ebook-webIt’s been a while since I wrote a Batavia post. It has also been a while since Beacon Island (Batavia’s Graveyard) has been vacated and the fishing shacks removed. With those impediments to a proper investigation out of the way, teams of archaeologists and anthropologists are getting down and dirty, excavating the island for more skeletal remains from 1629, in the aftermath of the ordeal faced by the survivors from the wreck of the Batavia. If you’re not familiar with the story, please check out my historical fiction page, or make a note to do it later.

Here are three articles from the team working on the island.

Fragments point to more skeletons being discovered on island after Batavia shipwreck

Unearthed grave sheds light on Batavia shipwreck mass murder

Batavia mutiny: More human remains uncovered by archaeologists at Beacon Island

I’m hoping the searchers find the remains of the predikant’s family. (Predikant is the Dutch word for pastor) In one horrifying night the predikant’s wife, six of their seven children, and their maid, were slaughtered by men acting on the orders of Jeronimus Cornelisz, leader of the gang controlling the island. The predikant and his oldest daughter were spared – the daughter because she was desired by Cornelisz’s lieutenant and the predikant because he might prove to be useful. Pelsaert’s journal records that the bodies were dumped in a mass grave on the island.

It seems 13 bodies have been found so far. When you consider that many of the victims – numbering around one hundred – were drowned, or their bodies thrown into the sea – that’s a good start.

Here’s a short excerpt from my book To Die a Dry Death. The predikant (Batiaensz) and his daughter Judyck are dining with Cornelisz, his lieutenenant (van Huyssen) and Lucretia. Cornelisz and van Hussen have been talking about hunting with hawks, back in Holland.

________________________________________

Lucretia sipped her wine. Hunting. The animals they chased with hawks were almost as defenceless as the poor people on this island. She heard noises, muffled voices in the night. The cold of dread froze her hand. A woman’s cry, abruptly ended. Then a high-pitched scream that curdled the blood, as quickly silenced.

Judyck jerked to her feet, lips parted, eyes staring. “Roelant.”

Van Huyssen pulled her down. “It’s nothing, dearest. Not your concern.”

“That was Roelant. I’d know his voice anywhere.” Judyck pulled away from van Huyssen, but he held her fast.

“Not your concern,” he said again, the words sharp, commanding.

Lucretia caught the girl’s eye. Hopeless terror. Not fear for herself, but for the child. She wondered if Bastiaensz would say anything but he sat rigid, watery eyes fixed on Cornelisz.

Cornelisz ignored him, ignored Judyck and continued the previous conversation as if nothing had happened. “Did you catch hares, rabbits?”

Chuckles from outside, voices muttered. Lucretia was sure she’d heard Mayken’s name. The knot in her stomach twisted, tightened. Silent, appalled, she signalled to Judyck with the barest shake of her head. Say nothing, stay still.

“With snares.” Van Huyssen kept his hand tight on Judyck’s arm. “Although sometimes we let the dogs loose and let them run. Often, there isn’t much left when they bring the prey back, all battered and bloody.”

Somewhere in the settlement, a scream swiftly ended in a gurgle.

Is it worth revamping an old book?

TDADD-ebook-webHave you ever gazed forlornly at your first ever publication and wondered whether you could have done a better job? I know some of you have. I guess that’s one of the wonderful things about the ease of electronic publishing – fixing errors and typos is so easy. So when the rights to my one and only historical fiction book, To Die a Dry Death, were returned to me, I decided to give it my best.

TDaDD has had a chequered history, moving from one publisher to another three times, each without much sales success, despite a number of excellent reviews. During the years since I first wrote the book, I’ve been able to visit the Abrolhos Islands, and I described that visit in a post. At that time I wondered whether my descriptions of the landscape matched the reality, so when my rights were returned I wanted to check. Accuracy in details are so important when describing something that really happened.

Bear in mind that each time the book changed house it was edited and copy edited before it was re-released. Even so, I’ve written quite a few other books since TDaDD was first launched, and practice in writing might not make perfect, but it sure does help. I started reading from page one (as you do) and soon found myself thinking I could have expressed a few parts a little better. I soon built up a head of steam and ended up adding over a thousand words to the MS.

I thought it was worth pointing out the main faults I found – especially bearing in mind this book has been edited at least six times. It’s a useful lesson in self-editing.

‘Said’ isn’t as invisible as you might think

Sometimes it’s just plain unnecessary

Here’s an example:

“I believe it,” said Pelsaert. “It’s just the sort of thing Adriaen was capable of. Fancy offering a woman like Lucretia gold to submit to his will.” He jerked his head at Cornelisz. “Go on.”

This could just as easily be:

“I believe it. It’s just the sort of thing Adriaen was capable of. Fancy offering a woman like Lucretia gold to submit to his will.” Pelsaert jerked his head at Cornelisz. “Go on.”

Telling instead of showing

It takes more words to paint a picture, but it’s usually worthwhile.

This:

A soldier approached with a canvas collar, brought from the Sardam. It sat tight around Cornelisz’s neck, a funnel all the way around his head to above the level of his nose. That done, they strapped him to a frame built for the purpose so he could not move or tilt his head

Became this:

The men approached with a canvas collar, brought from the Sardam. They fastened it tightly around Cornelisz’s neck, forming a funnel all the way around his head to above the level of his nose. That done, they strapped his arms and legs to a wooden frame built for the purpose so he could not move, then fastened the funnel to the frame so he couldn’t tilt his head.

Poor scene transition

By that I mean from one sentence to the next we’re suddenly somewhere else, forcing the reader to work it out. No-one ever mentioned that as an issue, but I noticed it, so I’ve fixed it.

Not enough in the character’s head

This was interesting, because at the time I thought I was doing that, revealing the character’s thoughts to the reader. Sometimes I did, but sometimes I didn’t. This isn’t a fault per se; not everyone writes like that. But I do, and I felt it would add to the reading experience.

In the end, I’ve added about one thousand words. Which means I added rather more than that, since I took out a lot of ‘said’s. But I have not changed the plot, or the characters in any way. The cake was baked. I just added a bit of icing.

Was it worth doing? I think so. I believe I’ve made an already good book a little bit better. I hope readers will agree. And I really, really LOVE the new cover. Thanks to Rebecca Poole of Dreams2Media for her patience and skill in realising my vision. I also rewrote the blurb, which I believe reflects this incredible true story much better than the previous versions.

So here it is, for better or for worse. Any bets on whether it’ll now be a best seller? Let’s just say I ain’t holding my breath.

To Die a Dry Death

TDADD-ebook-webSurviving the shipwreck was the easy part

1629. Shipwrecked on an uncharted reef thirty miles off the coast of Australia, two hundred men, women and children scramble ashore on tiny, hostile islands. There is no fresh water and the only food is what they can salvage from the wreck, or harvest from the sea.

The ship’s officers set out in an open boat on a two-thousand-mile journey across uncharted ocean to seek help. But there’s not enough food and water for everyone on the islands to last until a rescue ship arrives. One man will stop at nothing to ensure that he is among the survivors.

But adversity throws up heroes. Soon there’s war between two groups, both determined to be there to greet that rescue ship when it arrives. If it arrives.

The terrifying true story of the Batavia shipwreck. Contains graphic violence.

 

 

 

Maybe now the ghosts will rest in peace

Beacon island, Traitor's Island and Morning Reef from the air

Beacon island, Traitor’s Island and Morning Reef from the air

I read today in a newspaper article that systematic excavation of Beacon Island in the Abrolhos group off the West Australian coast has begun with the discovery of a new grave.

That might not mean much to many of you, but it does to me. Beacon Island is the modern name for Batavia’s Graveyard, the site of one of the most despicable episodes in Australian maritime history. In 1629 the Dutch merchantman Batavia was wrecked on a nearby reef. One hundred and eighty survivors managed to make their way to the tiny, desolate coral outcrop we call Beacon Island. The ship’s captain and most of the officers took the Batavia’s long boat and made a perilous journey over uncharted waters to the city of Batavia (now Jakarta) to fetch help. When rescuers returned five months later, they discovered that in their absence about one hundred men, women and children had been murdered. Jeronimus Cornelisz, who had been the Batavia’s undermerchant ( a senior position in the Dutch East India Company), recruited a group of thugs who systematically did away with the old, the inform and the very young. I’ve written more about the history here.

Although many victims were drowned, or were killed and their bodies disposed of in the sea, some were buried. We know this because the facts were recorded in a journal, and some remains had already been found on Beacon Island. However, over the years the wreck of the Batavia passed into the pages of history and the location of the ship, and the island where the subsequent events took place, were forgotten.

The wreck site was finally located in 1963. But by then, fishermen had discovered the rich grounds around the Abrolhos Islands and built shacks on some of them – including Beacon Island. If I remember correctly, one victim’s skull was found when a clothesline was being erected. So excavating this important historical site had to be balanced against the rights of the fishermen who used their shacks in the few months of the fishing season to earn their livelihood.

Now, at last, the shacks are gone.

I’ve heard Beacon Island is not a comfortable place to be, especially at night. It has been called the island of angry ghosts for a reason. I hope the archaeologists find the graves of the Predikant’s wife, six of his children and their maid. They were slaughtered in one hideous attack, and (according to the journal) their bodies buried somewhere in the shallow ‘soil’ of Beacon Island.

Congratulations to the powers that be in Western Australia. Beacon Island should be preserved as a historical site, no less important than places like Port Arthur in Tasmania. Perhaps with some recognition, some of those angry ghosts will rest in peace.

I’ve written a book about the wreck of the Batavia. You’ll find links to the book, an article about why I wrote the book, and a number of historical articles.

I’ve also been privileged to visit the Abrolhos Islands Wallabi Group, where the drama unfolded. Here’s my description.

 

Future Politics – is democracy dying?

picture of Sunset on the Houses of Parliament, London

Sunset on the Houses of Parliament, London

I recently read an article in iO9, about the potential shape of future political systems. And it got me to thinking, as these things do. I have a BA(Hons) in history. Part of my honours year was a fascinating study of the French, American and Russian revolutions, and the rise of Fascism in Italy and Germany. The broad brush similarities between these apparently disparate events is there for all to see. In essence, a powerful autocracy is weakened by allowing the influence of the educated middle class. It all looks like everything will be rosy in the garden, but then the rabble rousers see an opportunity and rouse the rabble. That’s when the random killing starts, and mob rule and fanatics take over, while the people at the top get rich. Animal Farm, anyone? After a while, everyone recognises that this can’t continue. A small group sets up rule, which, more often than not, leads to a new dictatorship, for example Napoleon, or Stalin. Yes, I know this is an over-simplification. Spare me the detailed ‘yes but’s. Let’s look at a few modern examples.

  • Yugoslavia. Tito kept a lid on the ever-present simmering ethnic tensions in the Balkans. He died, the attempt at democracy failed, war and genocide broke out. Without Tito, a state like Yugoslavia cannot exist.

  • USSR. Gorbachev recognised the writing on the wall. He was the moderate intellectual wave. Then Yeltsin took over in Russia and attempted a form of democracy, but the economic situation was such that the poor became poorer, gangsters became rich and lawlessness was rife. Now, Putin is working steadily at establishing himself as a second Stalin. Including grabs of territory.

  • Iraq. Nobody disputes that the late Saddam Hussein was a tyrant. But while he was in power, most ordinary Iraqis could go about their business. Sectarian violence didn’t happen – not that we heard about, anyway. When the Americans invaded his country, all bets were off. We only need to look at the newspapers to feel sympathy for that strife-torn country. It will not survive the overflow of sectarian violence pouring in from Syria.

  • Iran. Under the Shah, this was a westernised, modern country. Then the Ayatollah Khomeini took over. Salman Rushdie, a resident of another country, was in fear of his life for writing a book, and the American embassy was besieged. Now it’s an Islamic state where women are second class citizens and ‘democracy’ is a farce.

  • And these are just a few.

Which leads to the question, what about democracy? Here’s Wikipedia’s explanation of democracy. Does it work? I wonder, I truly do. I believe democracy can only work where it develops within the country. It cannot be imposed by anybody else. It’s a fantasy to imagine that Western armies can roll into Afghanistan and impose democracy on the population. Democracy must be based on an educated population which understands the concept. Let’s remember that the original Greek democracy didn’t include everyone. Slaves and women weren’t considered part of the voting population. For a true democracy, everyone must be enfranchised. In Australia, women were able to vote in Federal elections in 1902 – but aboriginal people were not able to vote until 1962.  So real democracy in Australia only goes back to 1962.

Increasingly, I’m seeing ‘democracy’ around the world going to hell in a hand basket. Minorities and women are being marginalised. Equality is a farce. The rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer. Big business runs our countries for the benefit of a few. Some super-rich individuals earn more than some nation states. Only a handful of democracies work as they should, places like Finland, Sweden, Norway and Switzerland; small countries with educated populations – where the state pays to educate people. Sure, workers pay high taxes, but the state provides education, health care and social security for all.

 

I wish it was like that everywhere, where people got off the endless ‘productivity’ bullshit bandwagon and recognised this is the only Earth we’ll ever have. Forget about why the climate is changing. It is. And our oceans are dying, the rainforests are being cleared for palm oil, extinctions are soaring, population is ballooning, fundamental fanaticism is exploding as marginalised people grope for simplistic answers.

 

From all of this I see two things.

  • Isaac Asimov’s psychohistory, as postulated in his Foundation books,  will probably exist in the future. We will be able to predict what is likely to happen next in a society on a large scale, with reasonable accuracy.

  • And the best, most stable, most efficient form of government is a benevolent dictatorship or an oligarchy based on merit. No wonder Asimov postulated a Galactic Empire.

Yes, I think ‘democracy’ has run its course, or will have run its course in the foreseeable future. What do you think?