{"id":5800,"date":"2026-04-22T02:21:52","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T02:21:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/?p=5800"},"modified":"2026-04-22T04:21:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T04:21:00","slug":"uluru","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/?p=5800","title":{"rendered":"Uluru"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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With our time in Australia running out, we went on a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Uluru in the heart of Central Australia. One of the sacred sites of First Nations Australia, the place’s aura is hard to express in words. Some observations after the jump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

We stayed in the Ayers Rock Resort, the catch-all tourist accommodation near the sacred site and park entrance. I couldn’t help but do a little background reading on the site and past controversies, tightly linked to the Land Rights Act of 1983 and the subsequent return to Native Title of the national park containing Uluru and the nearby Kata Tjuta. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sale to the Indigenous Land and Sea Corporation in 2010 for an inflated A$300m+ made headlines<\/a>, with many suggesting at least incompetence if not malfeasance. The saga was brought back to memory as recently as last year, when the resort changed hands for much less than the original purchase price, this time being sold to an American PE backed Journey Beyond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The resort is now more than 40 years old, and while kept in good shape, it shows its age and architectural obsolescence in places. I was surprised to learn that the place is self-sufficient in water usage–i.e., the water reservoirs it taps are replenishing naturally thanks the sparse, but pretty regular rainfall the area gets. A propos, we visited in an almost unprecedentedly green stretch, with recent, frequent rains turning the normally red area into an endlessly verdant sea of grasses and flowers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Uluru and Kata Tjuta are magical places, perhaps also owing to the fact that our knowledge of these sites remains restricted. While our (French and German) guides told us what they knew–and they were both good–they scratch the surface, intentionally, only hinting at the vast knowledge that is there but uneasily shared, for good reasons. Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property and Restricted Knowledge are mechanisms designed to allow First Nations people to manage and control their own heritage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There have been many instances of misappropriation, a famous one involving a fellow German Carl Strehlow and his son Ted. Carl was a missionary west of Alice Springs during the turn of the 19th century. His writings, and those of his mission-born son are among the most detailed accounts of Aboriginal cosmology, rituals and culture that have ever existed–problem being though that much of what was shared with them was intended to remain private. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ted’s life account is fascinating, and a short snippet can be read here<\/a>. Also owing to the cultural sensitivity of writing down sacred knowledge (which, if it leaves its intended circles, risks being falsified, altered and de-contextualized), Ted’s 1971 book “Songs of Central Australia” was never re-printed after the first run of 500 copies, and thus commands stellar price tags<\/a> today. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Much of the work of the Strehlows remains locked near Alice Springs, with access to the collection requiring permission by Arrernte Elders. A related example of this cultural misappropriation and decontextualization is Bruce Chatwin’s “The Songlines”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How Australia is dealing with its First Nations people has indeed been one of the most interesting and also most difficult things to get my head around while living down under. I should have paid much more attention to it beyond reading what little there is published on the Guardian et al, and the one book<\/a> on the topic that I managed to read since we moved here four years ago–Melissa Lucashenko’s wonderful Edenglassie<\/em>. Lucashenko’s recent commentary<\/a> on “social cohesion” was very good I thought. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A good friend of mine has dived in a lot deeper into the subject matter, also as he feels responsibility to the land from being a regenerative farmer in the north of NSW. Also a more recent implant into Australia, his deep affection for the soil and respect for the Aboriginal people has only given me a hint of the depth and multilayered connection they had, have and will always have to this beautiful continent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We came here in late 2021, and the Aboriginal flag was soon afterwards installed on Sydney Harbour Bridge. Our daughter knew their kindergarten’s Acknowledgment of Country within a few weeks of her starting. A revealing SBS documentary<\/a> made big waves around that time, too. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, there has been a growing backlash against the recognition of the original owners of this land, most notably during last year’s Anzac Day in Melbourne, where neo-Nazi hecklers disturbed<\/a> the Welcome to Country ceremony, and ensuing reports that the majority of Australians wants these rituals to stop entirely for their allegedly divisive nature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How did our trip to Uluru fit into all this? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I guess it constituted a sort of homage or pilgrimage to the Land that we’ve been on for the last four years, and are about to depart again for other shores. Without ever knowing too much about the Traditional Owners or interacting with them, we leave with a deep sense of awe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We also leave with a sense of the complexities of\u00a0First Nations sovereignty\u00a0and\u00a0reconciliation. And we’re shocked about the destitution and socioeconomic disadvantage First Nations people continue to face. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last but not least, I find it hard to fathom the national pastime of real estate speculation in the context of the large-scale Dispossession and theft of indigenous property. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Far from a one-off past act, this is in fact an ongoing process, it is “recursive” and there is a significant body of research<\/a> suggesting that the commodification of unceded land–every real estate transaction–perpetuates this dispossession.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With our time in Australia running out, we went on a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Uluru in the heart of Central Australia. One of the sacred sites of First Nations Australia, the place’s aura is hard to express in words. Some … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-australia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5800"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5800\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5808,"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5800\/revisions\/5808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}