My mum just took me and my sister Claire to coffee at this cute place at greenwich. it has some excellent second hand books there, and i always find myself discovering many gems - there are often books about iconography and symbolism in western and other cultures.
In this case, i found a very interesting book by Peter Pierce, called "The Country of Lost Children: an Australian Anxiety". I have only read about 15 pages, but so far i find it fascinating.
The stages of colonial anxiety are reflected in this motif in Australian art and literature. Early examples include Fredrick McCubbin's images of the lost child, and Picnic at Hanging Rock. These reflect the relationship between colonialists and the land, in particular, land tenure, and an anxiety about entitlement to the land. More modern examples in Australian popular culture include the disappearance of Azaria Chamberlain.
The Stolen Generations are the corrollary of this. The dispossession of indigenous children in this way was the main vector of cultural destruction of Aboriginal nations in the 20th Century.
What I find interesting is the way that this motif continues to be played out, now with the unresolved disappearance of the toddler from an immigrant Muslim family in Campbelltown through the window/ flyscreen of her own home several months ago.
(and on that point - yesterday there was a 'peace train' from Bankstown to Cronulla organised by their local youth councils to commemorate the 1 year anniversary of the racially-oriented disturbances there- I want to find out how it went!)
At the moment I am really excited to be reading books. I haven't been able to do this unhindered for a long long time. I finished George Monbiot's Heat a few days ago, and fully recommend it to everyone. I am hoping to read it over again, this time extracting useful information we can use in our campaigns to avert global warming.
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