“Whitefella Jump Up” seems to be a book for Australians by an Australian and initially I got a strong sensation of prying into other people’s business in a matter that could concern me only very, very marginally. In fact my interest was so slight that the first time I took the book up I abandoned it after a very few pages. Yet the theme treated here is one that has touched most peoples and most lands at some point in history: the old occupier versus the newcomer.

The question raised in the book is why, after well over 200 years in Australia, white Australian settlers are still just that: white Australian settlers. Why they (in spite of swearing to the contrary, perhaps) haven’t really rooted and why their extraordinarily beautiful land isn’t somewhere to flourish in but just a merciless place to escape from into one of the big cities along the coast where nigh on eighty percent of the population, scant as it is, is concentrated.

Germaine Greer’s theory is that the “settlers”, instead of feeling prejudice towards the land’s original occupants, the Aborigines, should begin to realize that having been born down under they have acquired aboriginality and are a true part of the place; instead of insisting on using the land in the way northern hemisphere land is used, they should turn to the Aborigines and discover their secrets learned in thousands of years of survival: that had they done this right from the beginning a lot of misery would have been avoided.

It was only after I visited down under that I managed to finish the book and appreciate Greer’s point though I think some of her logic is a trifle lop-sided: the effort to unite and live in a friendly, collaborative co-existence must come from both sides, after all.

Obviously the “whitefellas” must make thorough amends for their atrocious past behaviour towards the Aborigines but the Aborigines must take steps forward too, principally by understanding that even though they were geographically isolated and exclusive proprietors for eons, their role as an occupied people, when that inevitably came about, was shared with very many others, the world over. They had simply benefited from a longer spell of possession than any one else - a period which was bound to end because the world is just one and space must be made for all. And if there is one thing that is not lacking in Australia it is exactly that: space.

Written in the best Greer style (orange box and banner, waving) this is a short book which does touch on some very important points - it should be remembered that the world is shrinking, distant “down under” is getting nearer by the day and Australian problems do, in fact, concern us all in one way or another.

The best bit of this volume, however, comes at the end when Greer’s Australian friends and foes dash in to have their say with some wisdom, quite a bit of ranting and the occasional faulty logic - and here the feathers really start flying!