“You have no history” was the common complaint
of Australia by European immigrants I grew up with. Their history is the
lattice windows of village life or perhaps the rock work of Stonehenge. That
history is structure that blinds them from the natural history of Arnhem land
that perpetuates the myth of land in terra nullis. There were no monuments,
there seemed to be no history.
I suggest the cute windows or rustic hut of
a pioneer or convict is also a myth because we see history though the lens of
our own story. The story of school documentaries and Time Team. We don’t experience
history directly. We experience our story as told by media, our parents, and at
times we find letters and artefacts that reshape our personal land collective
memories.
History is memory, shaped and reshaped .
Unfortunately governments want myths of glory to hide national shadows. 
