From the desk of Roland Rocchiccioli – 10 November

We would be outraged if someone went into St Paul’s Cathedral and had a picnic on the High Altar; or organised a two-up game in the sanctuary at St Patrick’s Cathedral.

IMAGINE what would happen if anyone tried to roast a pig on a spit in the grounds of a synagogue; however, it is perfectly acceptable for non-Indigenous tourists to clamber all over Uluru, and as the need takes them, to defecate and urinate. If that obscenity were to happen in a Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or Hindu place of worship, the relevant law enforcement authorities would, quite correctly, be called-in to investigate. No stone would be left unturned; no avenue of investigation overlooked in tracking-down the perpetrators of the religious blasphemy; however, because Uluru is a huge rock out in the middle of Australia, the majority seemingly believe, if indeed they even take the time to think about it, the desecration is less egregious. While no-one questions the importance of our man-made places of worship, many are sceptical of the sacred site claims by the Aboriginal people; however, if they were to climb all over the National War Memorial in Canberra there would be, as sure as night follows day, an almighty ruckus. Imagine if they tried to affix a climbing chain to the roof of one of the cathedrals? The perpetrators would be arrested, hauled before the Courts, and, in all likelihood, thrown into jail; but because Uluru is an Aboriginal sacred site it does not matter. It is not only hypocritical, it is disrespectful, and tantamount to a sacrilege.

This ancient land is spirited by the ghosts of those men and women who have lived here for as long as maybe 60,000 years. I know it from experience. I wrote about it in my childhood memoir, And Be Home Before Dark. Halfway Creek was, as the name suggests, halfway between Leonora and Gwalia, twin towns one mile apart, and connected by a gravel and bitumen road which melted in the blazing heat. It is the land of the Wongi people. Often times during school holidays I would walk there with my two dogs, Puppy and Tippy. Always, when we came to a particular spot, which was clear of any trees and scattered with white quartz rock, the dogs would stop dead in their tracks, their hackles would rise, and they we run around an imaginary boundary and wait for me on the other side. Always, when I walked through this quite large area I would get a cold shiver, regardless of the temperature, which, during summer on the edge of the Great Victoria desert, could be as high as 120-degrees Fahrenheit.

Disappointingly, the grazier responsible for the installation of the climbing-chain on Uluru, and the removal of which he questions, referred to Uluru as Ayers Rock; in the same way that some white supremacist Anglo-Saxons persist in referring to Mumbai as Bombay, the name given the city by the British during its disastrous 200 year occupation and rule of the sub-continent, the consequences of which still echo down the annals.

There is no overwhelming reason to climb Uluru, other than you can, and you want to! If we, as the white invaders, are serious about reconciliation, then we need to turn our minds, seriously, to those intangibles of the Indigenous culture; their spiritual complex of religious beliefs and existence. The Dreamtime stories are as a much part of their lives as the bible is of ours, irrespective of whether you believe, or not.

Uluru, and the rest of the Aboriginal sacred sites scattered across the country, are to them, what our cathedrals, churches, synagogues, mosques, and War Memorials, are to us. The Traditional Owners have a deep connection to our land, and it is high-time we started being a little more respectful of their ancient heritage.

Roland can be contacted via [email protected] and you can hear him on 3BA every Monday morning from 10.30am