How Much More Weirder Can the Dark Emu Hoax Get?
Uncle Bruce Pascoe, a Yuin, Bunurong and Tasmanian Aboriginal man has just won (jointly with a transgender activist ) the Australian Humanist Award of 2021, given to recipients who show outstanding contributions to Humanism, where “Humanism is a framework for living an ethical, meaningful and compassionate life without relying on supernatural forces."
How odd is that?
One of the main criticisms of Pascoe by academics Peter Sutton and Keryn Walshe in their new book, Farmers or Hunter-gatherers? The Dark Emu Debate, is that Pascoe failed to understand, (especially one might have thought as "as an Aboriginal man") that Aboriginal society relied 100% on spirituality (via 'increase ceremonies', The Dreaming, spirits and sorcery, etc) for the essence and control of their daily lives and the bounty of plants, animals and fish on which they depended. To them, it was inconceivable that man could be a “humanist” and directly interfere with their ‘world’, for example by farming or domesticating livestock to pro-actively produce food. To them, essentially all decisions and phenomena were viewed in relation to their spirits and philosophy, and not in relation to their human practical value or desires. In other words, one could say Aboriginality is incompatible with Humanism.
So how on earth can Uncle Professor Bruce Pascoe accept on the one hand, an award for living and promoting a ‘humanist’ life and then, on the other hand, tell Australians we need to rediscover the indigenous ways of philosophy and spirituality in the way we treat Mother Earth (a ‘supernatural’ notion?) and grow our foods?
Ah, but then this contradiction is what makes a hoax truely legendary!
