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  Interview: Germaine Greer September 7, 2003 Reporter :Jana Wendt  Australia's most famous feminist and activist for a myriad of causes, Germaine Greer has taken up the cudgels for Aboriginal Australians in an essay to be published tomorrow. It's called Whitefella Jump Up: the Shortest Way to Nationhood, and makes the controversial suggestion that we become an Aboriginal republic, perhaps known as the Aboriginal Republic of Australia, so that we will all become Aborigines. And living up to her outrageous reputation in this exclusive interview, Germaine Greer also talks to Jana Wendt about her love of good-looking young boys ...Transcript GERMAINE GREER: I live in an Aboriginal country, I was born in an Aboriginal country, I'm third generation born in an Aboriginal country. If I was saying that about France, it would be understood that I was French. If I say it about Australia, could it be understood that I'm Aboriginal? That Australian means something like Aboriginal. It doesn't mean European, certainly doesn't mean white Anglo-Saxon Protestant anymore. Perhaps it means that and if it meant that, what would that mean? What can I do with that idea? JANA WENDT: OK, but in clear terms, to get a grip on what you're proposing, you are proposing that we consider ourselves to be part of an Aboriginal country, declare ourselves an Aboriginal Republic? GERMAINE GREER: It would be ridiculous in one sense because Aboriginal is a funny word. It means "there from the beginning". And so it's not like saying you're French or Indian or something. But it seems to me the best word. I mean, there is no reason why you shouldn't reinvent a word. We could see ourselves as identifying with hunter-gatherer peoples. It would be an amazing thing to do. JANA WENDT: It's an amazing proposition, and you know as well as I do, that people listening to you now saying that will say she's bonkers. GERMAINE GREER: Well, that's all right. I don't mind. They've called me mad ever since I was born. JANA WENDT: But you're suggesting that we reinvent ourselves as a nation of 20 million people, for the sake of 400,000 Aboriginal inhabitants? GERMAINE GREER: No, no, I didn't say that we'd do it for them. In fact, they may be extremely disobliged by the whole idea. JANA WENDT: So we're doing it for us? GERMAINE GREER: Ourselves, we're the people who need to do it. JANA WENDT: And why do we need to do it? GERMAINE GREER: I think we will never be at ease with ourselves. It is interesting, isn't it, that I wrote the stuff I wrote in my essay about abuse of alcohol in Australia. Alcohol was used by the settlers as an anodyne. Before they could make anything else they made alcohol. It wasn't just what was being unloaded and being trafficked by John Mcarthur, they were making it in every humpy in the country. What was the pain they were trying to deal with? It was, from one point of view, the pain of not belonging, the pain of not being at home. JANA WENDT: At the heart of that, at the heart of that dysfunction, is a sense of guilt and shame, that we're in a country that's not our own? GERMAINE GREER: The thing we cannot admit to because it's so scary. But if I asked people why does it seem to you so strange that we would identify with black Australians, that we would want to insist on a spiritual affinity with them, we wanted to make them, as it were, the typical Australian rather than Paul Hogan or Crocodile Dundee, or whoever. It's interesting in that case you did have an attempt to reintegrate, that he wanted to put out that he was black in some sort of way. Why are you so shocked at that idea? And if you stare at yourself long enough in the mirror you'll realise. The reason why you think "Don't be ridiculous" is because somewhere, right inside you, is a conviction of your own superiority. That we cannot live with. JANA WENDT: Is that really the reason, or is it the fact that simply by virtue of, sadly, of numbers now, most white Australians have very little to do with black Australians? GERMAINE GREER: I think they're having more to do with black Australians than they did before. They're everywhere now. Most Australians watch sport, hypnotised by sport, which itself is displacement activity, I think, and how many Aborigines are now the face of Australian sport. JANA WENDT: You're proposing an Aboriginal Republic, the idea of a Republic was anathema to the majority of Australians. Why would it suddenly become attractive now with the word Aboriginal in front of it? GERMAINE GREER: I don't think it was anathema to Australians, the idea of a Republic, it just didn't have any substance. It had no more charisma than Malcolm Turnbull and you need a bit more than that. JANA WENDT: You pitch this new Aboriginal Republic to me now, you're the new Malcolm Turnbull. GERMAINE GREER: What do you have instead of a Governor-General? It is ludicrous Australia has a Governor-General. I mean, for God's sake, how embarrassed do I have to be for my poor country a Governor-General. So what you have instead? Well, you have a council of elders. Who are they? They will people versed in the law. What is the law? Well it might be the law of an Aboriginal group. That would be very difficult and divisive. Or it could be a body of law, meaning 'lore' as well as 'law' that is evolved out of an intelligent interaction between Australians of all kinds. JANA WENDT: You said earlier that we'd be doing this for us, that is for white Australians. What's this going to do for Aboriginal Australians? GERMAINE GREER: Well, the most important starting point for my essay is that I don't want to problematise Australian Aborigines, I don't want to speak on their behalf, I don't want to exceed my brief. They will do with it what they want. Separatists... JANA WENDT: Or they won't do it at all, right? GERMAINE GREER: Well, it probably won't ever happen. It's an idea. Australians don't run with ideas. Most of their ideas are pinched from somewhere else. JANA WENDT: OK, but rewinding the tape, I ran some of these ideas past Senator Aiden Ridgeway, for instance, and he said you smile, why? GERMAINE GREER: Never mind, go on. JANA WENDT: He said that it struck him that it was something that might make white people feel better about themselves but had no tangible benefit for Aboriginal Australians. GERMAINE GREER: Doesn't mean any increase in kid money, you're quite right. JANA WENDT: You're not taking his comments seriously, are you? He is saying that it's going to make us feel it may make us feel good. But why take away the opportunity of Aboriginal Australians to use their own race as a reason for achieving their aims? GERMAINE GREER: That's a very strange idea. To use their own race as a means of achieving their aims. I can't use my race as a means of achieving my aim. That would be disgraceful. I can't go about saying I deserve X, Y and Z because I'm part Danish, part Swiss. What nonsense. That is nonsense. And it's the way that Aboriginal politics have gone so far and it's something I don't want to get involved in. But one of the things I thought one of the things to me is important is that Aboriginal people shouldn't be ripped off by a group of Aboriginal professionals or professional Aboriginalists who get them involved in ruinists and extended court battles over kinds of legal title that are not, as far as I can see, justified. JANA WENDT: So are you saying that Aboriginal politics itself has been damaging to Aborigines generally? GERMAINE GREER: I don't want to be heard to say that. JANA WENDT: But you think it? GERMAINE GREER: Well, I don't know about Senator Ridgeway, but you have to ask yourself how someone like Geoff Clarke ends up in a position he ended up in and it's the same question, the same post-colonial question that you ask when you say how did Idi Amin end up in the position he was in. This is part of the pathology of colonialism. JANA WENDT: Now Germaine Greer, you've come with this big idea, big idea... GERMAINE GREER: Just an idea. JANA WENDT: ..it's a big idea, I have to ask you about another idea, your forthcoming book on boys. I have to ask what's the attraction? GERMAINE GREER: You better read the book, girl. You've read this one. JANA WENDT: I'd love to, I'd love to. I haven't seen the book but what is the attraction? GERMAINE GREER: You'll see when you see the book. JANA WENDT: OK... GERMAINE GREER: There's 200 illustrations. It's there for all to see. JANA WENDT: But are we talking post-pubescent boys and admiring their form, is that what we're talking about? GERMAINE GREER: We're talking about the fact that there is a time in a man's life when he is not yet a man and not still a child, where he maybe more likely than any other time at his life, he may be very, very beautiful. If you look at Russell Crowe today, can you remember what he looked like when he was 18? He was gorgeous. JANA WENDT: So you prefer the 18-year-old Russell Crowe? GERMAINE GREER: I think so. And I think any woman of taste would prefer the 18-year-old Russell Crowe. JANA WENDT: But what is the attraction in this for Dr Greer? JANA WENDT: Nothing. I mean, nothing more than anything else. Nothing more than the attraction in my rainforest, which is costing me a good deal more blood, sweat and tears than writing the boy book ever did. I mean, you have to be blind not to see that Western art is not predicated on the female nude, it's predicated on the male nude, the nude beardless male. Beardy nude males aren't nearly as cute. JANA WENDT: Is that so? GERMAINE GREER: Definitely. JANA WENDT: When I asked you before what Australians make of you, is this what appears to be wild swinging from a lofty topic like an Aboriginal Republic to boys that sometimes puzzles people? GERMAINE GREER: Well, the boy book is just quite as lofty a topic, really. It's not actually about perving on boys. This is the Australian spin on it. Again, you know, don't present people with an idea in Australia because they'll just stand on it. So if they want to talk about Germaine Greer's collection of boy pictures they can go right ahead. They happen to be in the greatest art galleries in the world. I don't own any of them. JANA WENDT: So this is a study in aesthetics more than eye candy? GERMAINE GREER: What's the difference between aesthetics and eye candy? JANA WENDT: You tell me, is there no difference? GERMAINE GREER: Well, if you talk eye candy, you see, you're not talking about something you're going to debauch or abuse. You're talking about looking at something beautiful and saying how beautiful. I think it's a shame that we don't well, D.H. Lawrence said it before me, why do men wear those awful clothes? Why can't they dress as once they did with, you know, one leg red and one leg green and a little nipped in jacket with a little skirt and big broad shoulders and a little hat cocked on the side of their head. Whatever happened to the beautiful page boys that thronged the streets? Where did they go? They're all slouching around in trousers eight sizes too big with baseball caps on backwards because they're so anxious not to be thought of as beautiful but ever mother knows that her son is beautiful. JANA WENDT: So bring back the page boys and... GERMAINE GREER: No, no, I'm not telling people what to do. They can do whatever they like. I'm just pointing out to them something that is already there. I mean, women have women are going and watching the Chippendales and sticking $10 bills in their G-strings. All right girls, you've got eyes, Now can we show you something really beautiful? Forget the Chippendales vulgar, pumped up and completely commercial look at something truly, truly beautiful. Look at the unconscious beauty of a 16-year-old boy. It doesn't mean you're going to rip his pants off or penetrate his bodily orifices. You paint still life without being hungry. JANA WENDT: Germaine Greer, thank you very much. |
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