Canberra's monuments, museums and government buildings had changed but little since the Sullivan's last visit ten years ago. The streets ran as straight and wide as ever but Dave and Grace, two tourists from Melbourne, knew that the living city, the weekday city, not the dead Sunday city, provided the real clues to the capital's future. To their shock and bewilderment, they found that the real Canberra was turning yellow. The Sullivan's sensed that this massive transformation in flesh and blood was infinitely more meaningful to them than any display of the latest glorified plastic artifacts in the galleries. So they were at least partly prepared for the sidewalk spectacle which awaited them on their second day in town, as they headed for Parliament House.
A deep male voice was bellowing through a bullhorn. 'What colour are the Swedish babies?' A small group of demonstrators answered, 'The babies are brown.' The bullhorn blasted out, 'What colour are the Canadian babies?' 'The babies are brown!' was the reply. 'What colour are the British babies?' 'The babies are brown!'
The words struck the Sullivan's as nonsensical. They had just been to Canada and had seen plenty of white babies (along with a lot of brown ones). Anyhow, what was all this impassioned roaring about little babies? Usually people lined up in front of Parliament House to shout slogans which a person could understand: 'Land Rights not Uranium!' 'Ban the bomb!' 'Don't dam the Franklin!' Consumed by curiosity, the Sullivans ventured closer to a spot where several hundred equally fascinated tourists had surrounded an intrepid band of fifty or so youthful demonstrators, many of whom were waving little Eureka flags.
It was all so cryptic. Maybe this was some of that left-wing street theater which the Sullivans had heard about.
Suddenly the man with the bullhorn had had his fill of babies. 'I want to live in an all black country,' he yelled. His followers responded in perfect unison. 'You have thirty countries to choose from.'
'I want to live in an all-yellow country.'
'You have twenty countries to choose from.'
'I want to live in an all-brown country.'
'You have sixty countries to choose from.'
'I want to live in an all-white country.'
'You must go to Iceland.' The demonstrators pretended they were shivering.
'Iceland is not enough!'
'Then we must seal the borders! Seal the borders!'
The demonstrators kept up the chorus for nearly five minutes. Fifty healthy lungs can be ear-splitting. The Sullivans looked at each other with curious smiles of bafflement. Here were young white people of English, Italian, German, Irish and French extraction, showing the same kind of gusto that TV had taught their kind to save for important things like beer-swilling, pop concerts and football games.
Next, several demonstrators passed through the crowd with leaflets, while the chant picked up again.
'Who are the racists? Is there integration in Peking?'
'Everyone is yellow!'
'Who are the racists? Is there integration in Bombay?'
'Everyone is brown!'
'Who are the racists? Is there integration in Nairobi?'
'Everyone is black!'
'Then who the hell is integrated?'
Grace Sullivan caught a winning smile from the 'head cheerleader' as he posed this question. He might be steamed up about something - God only knew what - but it was clear that he was enjoying himself.
'London is integrated!'
'Paris is integrated! New York... Toronto... Berlin... Stockholm... Vancouver... Canberra...'
'All of the world's white people are integrated!'
'So they will die.'
'Most of the world's black and brown and yellow people are segregated'.
'So they will live.'
The old Sunday school anthem was injected: 'Red and yellow, black and white: they are precious in His sight. God loves people of every color!'
'Let the white people live.'
'How can they live?'
'Seal the borders in Canada! Seal the borders in Australia! In Denmark!'
At last something clicked in Dave's head. It had taken fifteen minutes, but two very simple mental constructions had finally found their way to each other: his discussion with Grace the night before about the change in Canberra's population and the present pageant. How could he have been so dense? Just then a leaflet reached him, with a message of such clever simplicity that he was almost distracted from the little geographical skit unfolding before him.
'What do these people mean?' Grace asked. Dave explained, as the chorus continued.
'Sweden is going brown.'
'No more Ingrid Bergman.'
'America is going brown.'
'No more Cheryl Tiegs.'
'France is going brown.'
'No more Cathrine Deneuve.'
Now Grace also understood.
'1 billion Chinese.'
'Every one yellow!'
'700 million Indians.'
'Every one brown!'
'120 million Japanese.'
'Every one yellow!'
'80 million Nigerians.'
'Every one black!'
'70 million Germans.'
'The cities are going brown!'
'60 million British.'
'The cities are all going brown!'
'Save us! Save us! Save us!'
'The cities are all going brown!'
'France... Canada... New Zealand… Australia...'
The chants were lengthy, but never tedious. For those still seeking the key, they were an intriguing mystery. For those who suddenly understood, they were becoming a sort of soothing reality-therapy.
'No race has ever survived without a homeland!'
'Where is our white homeland?'
'Our homeland is Australia!'
'Australia will soon be yellow!'
'We are the real minority!'
At this point some demonstrators started screaming, 'Save us! Save us!' They were 'out of sync' for the first time. Some of the tourists began to find the carrying-on a bit uncouth. So the follow-up was more reality therapy:
'What is our problem?'
'We are cowards.'
'What is our problem?'
'We are too polite.'
'What is our problem?'
'We are too apathetic.'
'What is the solution?'
'Courage!'
'What is the solution?'
'White separatism!'
'What is the alternative?'
'Death!'
'What does Bob Hawke stand for?'
'The death of Australia!'
'What does Don Chipp stand for?'
'The death Of Australia!'
'What does Andrew Peacock stand for?'
'White suicide!'
What do we stand for?'
White survival!'
'What do we need?'
'National Action!'
'When do we need it?'
'Noooowww!'
At this point, the demonstrators burst into an old Vietnam War protest, 'Join us! Join us!' Some of the tourists had already been doing exactly that, at least mentally. After all, they were a long way from home; no one knew them here. They grabbed up printed copies of the questions and answers that were being handed out.
Dave thought to himself as he was handed a leaflet, that public opinion had been on the side of the protestors for years, but the laws that were implemented back in 1984, to halt so-called 'race hate' propaganda, had frightened most concerned people into silence. Yet land rights in relation to certain cultures such as the Aborigines and the Timorese were defended with an almost fanatical zeal by the Establishment. But public opinion on these extraneous issues little altered the fact that a great race was dying, and in this part of the world its death would be more imminent. Already the population of Asia was approaching 3 billion - Dave's own research had verified that. By the year 2000, according to a Club of Rome report written as far back as 1970, and the Brandt Report written 8 years ago in 1980, it was estimated that the non-European population of Asia would double to 4 billion. At that moment Dave Sullivan heard one of the young demonstrators say as she was handed a leaflet: 'Why should we be expected to give up our land, our culture and our heritage to accommodate a race that already populates nearly half the earth?'
The fifty original demonstrators (since swollen to seventy) included some of the politest, and softest-spoken people remaining in the nation's capital. Their reticence had been the foremost problem with which their leaders were forced to deal. A few participants had been permitted to start with sunglasses, which they rapidly discarded. Others had been told that they could remain silent until the spirit moved them. Every last one had felt unbearably silly screaming about 'brown babies' and such at the beginning. People had given them such queer looks. But it was a summer Sunday and only the out-of-towners were about. Still, 'How did I let myself get conned into this?' was the mumble on everyone's lips.
A lot of very careful thinking about white psychology had gone into the planning of this unique demonstration. Almost a hundred people, aged forty and under, including a half a dozen or so children, had been initially contacted. Those expressing interest had been assigned numbers and visited personally at home by the chief organiser. He had taken pains to explain to them what they would be confronting in their own psyches: a potentially deadly form of self-conscious individualism. It would be just the opposite of every low-key demonstration, but it would bear a disconcerting resemblance to an Aussie's behaviour at any football game.
Two weeks before, a practice session in a nearby meadow had tested their equipment and slogans, and helped get their lungs into shape. Rather ominously, only 42 had shown up. Afterwards, a group of these had piled into a car and called upon several of the backsliders. The latter appeared moved by all of the painfully hoarse voices.
When the big day came, everyone knew the rules. This was to be, like most of the Black land rights demonstrations, as passive and 'non-threatening as possible. Anyone bringing outside propaganda would be expelled. Participants were asked to monitor one another as they mingled with onlookers. The demonstration was to deal solely with 'human conservation', specifically the survival of White Australian culture. If whales and rivers could command such exclusive treatment, then why not people?
The leaflet's question and answer session was skillfully illustrated to address the typical fears and taboos. A swarthy man was shown asking, 'What about me? I'm Italian?' The reply was curt, 'Since when do Italians want to live in a world without their fellow Europeans?'
From a second picture came the defensive challenge, 'Listen here, my sister just married an Asian. I think he's a great bloke, and I don't want any trouble.'
The response used the same kind of abrupt, inarguable logic, 'Just because your sister happens to marry an Asian, should one of the world's three major physical types clam up, lie down and die?'
A third picture, 'My wife and I just adopted a bunch of Vietnamese kids.'
'What's done is done. Have a nice family. But we don't think that you're quite so ugly that no one in the future should look like you...'
The Sullivans had seen and heard enough. They understood that here was the kind of transcendent issue which came along once in a lifetime. Grace thought of their best friends, the Yamasukis, and felt that this matter would concern them equally. And if it didn't? Well, perhaps they really weren't the best of friends. Thinking back on his years of ecology activism, Dave Sullivan could only sputter, 'Why, this thing is bigger than the Franklin River!'
Source: Janus: Quarterly Journal of Progressive Nationalist Philosophy and Ideas, 1983/4, issue no. 2, Spring/Summer, p. 16-20.
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