Poem: A Black Armbanded History

A Black Armbanded History

Roll Up! Roll up and see the show,

armbanded historians in a row,

spreading revisionism as they go,

weaving distortion to and fro.


Saying Robert Menzies was the greatest

— greatest liar:

that he never set the world on fire.

Got us involved in the Vietnam war

and falsified what we were fighting for.

Unemployment then was one per cent;

but you never paid Aborigines rent

— for land you stole.

You never paid a god damn cent

claiming intervention,

heaven sent.

missionaries christianised, without repent.

I wish to Christ you'd paid the rent.


Rewrite history if you must

but you know we will not trust

the things you say that used to be

if they don't concur with our memory.

Take us back to the 1960s

to the lies we told back then

when girls were wives and lovers

and boys were fighting men.

Greed was just a word we used

— that we applied to others —

girls were everything that's nice

they were just wives and lovers.

When White Australia set the pace

poor and Black knew their place

they knew that they were a disgrace

that they had failed the human race.

Aborigines understood their shame

they knew why we apportioned blame.

That we placed their kids in institution

to prevent their destitution:

that we took their land for development,

progress was god's commandment.

We knew that come what may

we would have to wait another day

before we dreamt of equal pay.

Take us back to that time when

girls were wives and lovers

and boys were fighting men.


John Tomlinson

From GLW issue 263