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Mutant Message Down Under

If you are fan of this book...

then please read the following documents to find out
what the Aboriginal people of Australia have to say about this book
(which was written by a non-Aboriginal),
why they (and others) find it so deeply offensive,
and why they even want it banned.

The following links are to various articles and documents that detail how and why the Aboriginal peoples of Australia find this book deeply offensive.

All of these documents are authentic.

Here is my own perspective about this book...

When I read the book, I was immediately repelled by it. I found it to be the most offensive book towards native/indigenous people that I have ever read. 

People are very needy for Earth-based spirituality. In this society we are so very very far removed from the Earth, that we will be drawn like moths to a flame to anything that even hints at a more fundamental, more spiritual-based & Earth-based way. This book outlines a utopian society, very spiritually advanced and close to the Earth -- so it draws us in.

I have spent considerable time with "Native" people, so I am no stranger to Native ways and the Native way of being (although Native cultures vary widely around the world, there are threads that are common to all of them). Perhaps this is why I found the book so offensive - I know them and their ways fairly well, and not from an intellectual point of view, but from a human, living perspective. And, generally speaking, the picture that the book shows of native people is so very very far from who and what they really are, that it actually degrades them. In my opinion, it pauperizes Native people all over the world into new-age "touchy-feely" noble enlightened beings. And they have little enough dignity left as it is!

So, I was determined to place this information on the website so that others could be exposed to the other side of this book.

-- Walter Muma

Links

  • Magabala Books - Broome, Australia - "Magabala Books is an Indigenous Australian publishing house. We publish works by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander authors and editors. We also provide advice and publishing services and invite a wide variety of manuscripts. 'Magabala' is the Yawuru word for the bush banana, found in northern and inland Australia. Like the bush banana our organisation spreads the seeds of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures by recording, publishing and promoting this unique literature in Australia and throughout the world."

  • Friends of Kapululangu Aboriginal Women's Law and Cultural Centre - "Kapululangu Women's Law & Culture Centre was set up by Aboriginal Women Elders of Wirrimanu (Balgo) in Australia's Great Sandy Desert to assist them to maintain traditional Culture, teach the younger generations and enable them to look after sacred sites and perform women's ceremonies."

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