Caroline Fraser Book Launch
Last week I had the privilege of hosting a book launch here in Parliament House. Caroline Fraser launched her first novel, Jocelyn’s Journey, published by Ark House Publishing, a wonderful story of love and triumph told against the tragic history of colonial Australia. It was my privilege to write the foreword to her book.
A number of speakers were present at the launch, including Pastor Peter Walker, an indigenous Christian Minister, Mr. Roger Milliss, a journalist, historian and author of Waterloo Creek: The Australia Day Massacre of 1838, and Mr. Peter Charles, a high school teacher and librarian who spoke about the educational aspects of the book. We also had the pleasure of hearing a didgeridoo solo played by Ronny Guivarra, and observing a beautiful indigenous arts and crafts display. I wish to acknowledge a number of parliamentary colleagues who were present at the launch, including Reverend the Hon. Fred Nile, Ms Judy Hopwood, Ms. Pru Goward, and the Hon. Marie Ficarra.
Jocelyn’s Journey begins on a stony, rutted track heading nowhere as Jocelyn faces the grim reality of her husband’s recent death. Jack, a Christian Aboriginal, himself a widower with a young child, walks beside Jocelyn in her grief, sharing his faith and easing her burden. In her journey, Jocelyn is confronted by her own latent racism, judgemental attitudes and selfishness, which she struggles to deal with. Learning that Jack was a “stolen child”, she comes face to face with the brutal realities of Australia’s past treatment of its indigenous people and the legacy of suffering that many still endure. Flashbacks take the reader into Australian pioneer history and Kamilaroi history.
As she travels the trails of pain and suffering with Jack’s birth family, Jocelyn learns that the only way to reconciliation, giving and accepting real forgiveness, and coping with and overcoming life’s injustices and frustrations, comes from a deep relationship with God, which she did not have. The last leg of the journey, and the beginning of a whole new journey, brings her to a stunned standstill when she discovers the shocking secret of her own past.
Caroline Fraser’s motivation for writing Jocelyn’s Journey is the culmination of experiences she encountered while growing up when her father became principal of the school in the Moree Aboriginal Reserve. As a young white child, Caroline realised how much Aboriginal people were kept separated from the wider community and the contempt in which they were held by many. Aboriginal people were considered second-class non-citizens, segregated from the white community in every area of life. For example, Aboriginal people were not allowed in the town swimming pool. Caroline Fraser was there when Charles Perkins and the Freedom Riders came to Moree and took the Aboriginal kids to storm the forbidden swimming pool.
Aboriginal people were not even allowed to try on clothes in dress shops. This was justified by the belief that Aboriginal people were dirty and would ruin the clothes so they could not be sold to anyone else. The local hospital had segregated wards, detached from the rest of the hospital, for dealing with Aborigines. While conducting initial research for her novel, Caroline discovered horrific truths about the dark side of Australian history. Largely due to the influence of evolutionary thinking, a belief was held by many of our colonial forebears that Aboriginal people were not really “human” as they were not so far advanced on the evolutionary scale. This belief led to the Australian Museum listing Aborigines as Australian animals. The museum issued instructions on how to kill Aborigines without spoiling the specimens, and transported hundreds of Aboriginal brains to England for so-called scientific study.
Because Aborigines were seen as not fully human, many squatters considered them as vermin, and poisoned their waterholes and gave them flour laced with arsenic. Many bands of squatters carried out massacres of Aborigines to clear the land and stop the attacks by Aborigines on their animals and crops, as if they were no different from kangaroos or dingoes. Is it any wonder that many Aboriginal people are still scarred and carry a victim mentality today? In her concluding remarks to the audience, Caroline said:
“I hope that as white people read my story they may come to some kind of understanding of the hurts that Aboriginal people have suffered and acknowledge that there is still a great deal of heard within the community. Reconciliation is an interactive process; an apology by one party and forgiveness by the other. May we all remember Chronicles 7:14: “If my people who are called by my name shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from Heaven, forgive their sins, and heal their land”.
I hope that everyone who travels with Jocelyn on her journey will not only find the message of salvation, forgiveness and reconciliation but also enjoy reading Jocelyn’s Journey.
