totally Oz

The game of ‘what if’ took another turn recently, when a colleague opined the desirability of going back in time and putting a premature end to the life of a certain mid-century bureaucratic tyrant, to the purported benefit of the nation’s Indigenous peoples.

It got me thinking.

To make a real change to Indigenous history it would be necessary to take out the explorers.

Willem Jansz, who may or may not have made landfall on Cape York but nevertheless saw much he wanted to report, arrives back at the overly gilded offices (don’t blame them – they invented the stuff) of the Dutch Admiralty, 1606, in a state of high excitement:

“Your excellencies, I found a…”

BLAM!

“Mijn god! What? What just happened?”
“Verdomme! He’s dead. Shot. But by whom?”

Seventeen years on, Jan Carstensz stands before the captains of the Dutch East India Company:

“Sirs, you won’t believe it, but south of Batavia there’s a huge…”

BLAM!

Abel Tasman, 1642:

BLAM!

And on to the British. William Dampier, 1688:

“Your worships, I don’t know how the Dutch missed it, but I have discovered…”

BLAM!

“I say; what on earth?”
“He’s been shot, poor chap.”
“But who; how???”

And so on and on. The whole continent and its inhabitants remain a secret.

Until, of course, Google Earth is invented. And then, Seattle, 1996:

“Holy shit, come look at this. Wha’ the fuck?”
“Jesus H. Christ. Look at that fucker. It’s enormous. Get me a coffee.”