I told you already that I have chosen Easter Island as a metaphor for our Earth somewhere in the next century.

The last sentence of the preface by William Mulloy is very illustrative: "Given the decline of the Island’s culture, we should consider the parallels between the behaviors of the Easter Islanders in relation to their limited resources and our cavalier disregard for our own fragile natural environment: the earth itself. This is more, therefore, than an account of the rise and fall of an extraordinary prehistoric culture; if Easter Island seen as a microcosm of our own world, then this is, indeed, a cautionary tale relevant for the futures of all humankind".

Tom de Booij

Darwin, Australia, 10 May 1999

Dear Reader,

The Easter Island has made such a great unexpected impression on me, that I have to know more on the recent history of the Island. Since the Dutchman Jacob Roggeveen, as the first european, saw the Island on Easter Day 5 April, 1722 at 5.30 p.m., much has happened since then. Quite a lot has been written and studied on the old lost civilization, but only a few publications can be found on the history since 1722. I have met a Swiss Jozef Schmid, who knows much about the recent history. He became in love of the Island and is there already 8 years.

Where on Earth you find people who are direct descendants of people who recently created a highly civilized society. The civilization who built the enourmous statues, up to 80 tons and were capable to transport these statues over tens of kilometers.(The Maois). The downfall of this civilization only happend so recently that it will be quite possible to reconstruct what has happened since then. It is an example how people can still survice up to the present. The study of the way of their survical may give us some clues and hints the way we have to survive next century, when probable the light will be turned off. This forms the reason that Jozef Schmid , my friend in Holland Peter Delahay(Foundationt Vulcanus) and my self decided to form a foundation Astro-Ego with as first project " How can we survive?"(The fourth question published in my first travel report). In order to answer this question we will start to study the history of the Easter Island since 1722. At first we will assemble all written material on this subject.Secondly we will visit the Island during a couple of months in order to interview people from the Island who pretend to be directly related to the people who built the gigantic statues. At the end of te 19th century there were only 111 people left on the Island after foreigners have killed or taken them form the island as slaves to the continent of South and North America. We have at the moment a population of nearly 3000 people living in a close community. The way they live, I felt quite some resemblances with the way our Reizigers of Holland are lliving togethetr. With great feeling of solidarity, taking care of the old and the sick. Anyhow quite different from the way of living in our electronized, mechanized, unpersonalized society. I asked quite a number of people on the Island if they are able to survive when the light will be turned off. No aeroplanes from the mainland, no gasoline for their cares. Without hesistation their answer was:"YES". How many people in my country Holland will give the same answer? 

The only people I can think of are the Reizigers. People who lived until 1968 a nomadic life and knew how to survive. As already explained in my recent article they were driven in 1968 in big concentration camps where they were not anymore able to execute their professions. Still they have been able to survive and have kept their own culture. Strangely enough in the middle of this century almost the same happend on Easter Island. The people were forced by the Chileans(who confiscated the Island last century) to stay in a restricted areas of the Island fenced by barbwire,witn two exits garded by police forces. Only during daylight and with a special permit they could leave the area. Only in 1964, after some hard and fierce fighting and actions, the fences were removed. Well this only is one of the many examples to demonstrate that the people of Easter island have suffered much and were still able to survive.

I left the Island Sunday 2 May with destination Tahiti. I left the island with great pain in the heart to say goodbye to the family I stayed during the last 10 days.Their warmth, their hospitality has been overwhelming. I caught the virus:RAPUNEUSIS POIKUS(The name of the Island is Rapa Nui and the most remote part of the island where the stone statues were erected is called Poike). The only way to cure this aggressive virus will be to return to the Island as soon as possible!! 

It was quite a cultural shock to arrive in Tahiti, full of tourists,traffic jams etc. I went with a ferry to the beutioful Island Moorea to the west. With a bicyle I made the round tour of the Island (75km) This gave me the occasion to talk to the local people, who ressembled remarkable with the people from the Easter Island.They were however more infected with the tourist virus. A second cultural shock came when I landed a day later ( by passing the dating line) in New Zealand. Everything was green and clean. The people were very polite but with love. They gave me no warm feeling as the people of Easter Island. The original people, the Maori are still there, but well dominated bu the white people. I was told that the receive money from the government in order to keep quiet.(Compare this with the money the Reizigers received from our government since 1968!) A bus trip to the North (200 km)gave the opportunity to see the landscape, but I could not feel any connection between the land and the people. They are not integrated with nature. The samen feeling I had visiting places where white people stole the country from the originals and succeeded to finish off their original culture. (Unites tates,Argentina, Chili etc).

Now I am looking forward to meet people who live in Australia for 50.000 years: the Aboriginals. I hope that I can still meet people who kept their original way of life. We will wait and see. Tomorow I will leave Darwin and go to Katherine.I hope to get a permission to visit an Aborinal community. Till then  all the best wishes from DOWN UNDER.

Tom de Booij

Miri, Sarawak, Malaysia, 4 June 1999

Dear Readers,

It has taken some time to integrate my thoughts about my visit to Aboriginal country. It may still be a report written by a confused mind, but anyhow this is what am thinking 10 days after I left Australia and travelling in a completely different country:Malaysia. These adventures will be described in my fourth travel report. Well, dear readers be prepared for a highly negative experience.Since 9 may, I visited the original country belonging to the Aborigines. But what a great disappointment I have experienced during my stay. 

Lets start with my first encounter with the Aboriginal people. 350 km South of Darwin, in the town of Katherine, I got finally ,with quiet some difficulty, the pernmision to visit an Aboriginal community. I entered an iron gate of a house, where a complete family (20) were sitting on the terrace and in the garden. It was 2 o'clock in the afternoon. Except two childern of 3 to 4 years old, everybody was drinking beer or a liquid that looked like alcohol of a purer form (the man said:"THIS IS GOOD STUFF" probably methyl alcohol). I explained to them the purpose of my world tour. "Oh you want to see the Aboriginal culture. This is our culture" he said. He was holding his glass of beer in front of my eyes with a fierce look in his eyes. 
This first cultural shock was unfortunately not the last one. In a social club of the dry community Jabiru in the National Park, the aboriginal have still the opportunity to drink beer as much as they like.In this respect I will quote some sentences of the minutes of council meetings in respect to this social club."Since the release of the report Era  we have unilaterally banned the takeaway sale from the Jaburu Sports and social club for a period of six months. This action generated a major protest from the population of Jabiru.Aboriginal drinkers have since then attempted to compensate for that restriction by travelling to the Mary river and Bark hut roadhouses to produce take-away supplies". When I visisted this club I saw a complete family totally drunk and playing the slotmachines, not for some small money .I have seen how they changed hunderd of dollars for coins at the bar. I had a conversation with a women called Heidi. She was proud of her German name. She was quite drunk, but tried to behave well,but all of a sudden she bursted out in saying:"You white men, you killed us all". 
The third example of my sad experiences was, when we were looking for a doctor in the town of Buranga. This because we found an Australian couple along a dirt road in the middle of the bush in a totally smashed car. The man apparently was badly hurt.The nearest town was 30 km away. When we entered the town we asked for the hospital. The first person we encountered was a women of about 60 years old, but so drunk that she could not speak a word. The second person was a man, also terrible drunk but while he was waggling on his feet, pointed in the direction where the hospital should be situated. 
The fourth example is when I was in a shop in a dry Aboriginal communuitry. There was a big poster on the wall with the following text: "DO NOT SNIFF PETROL" Youngsters from the camp are smuggling from nearby petrol stations their drug.

Well, these are my personal experiences and are examples of the widespread problem:ALCOHOLISM. I went to different libraries in order to check my experiences.Unfortunatley I found similar observations. In a Social impact study of the Jabiru region of 1997, I found the following sentences:
"There is a major alcohol problem in the community and concern about its effects on womens, children and family life. Domestic violence and childern left uncared for and growing up with violence and neglect are a common occurance.Young childern running around unsupervised at night, parents fighting, property damage and antisocial behavior.Women are losing their culture.Traditional knowledge, craft, stories and rituals are not being passed on, because people are more concerned with basic needs as food, shelter and health. Many children are not going to school because they have no food, money or packed lunch. The disruption of sleep and consequent neglect from parents drinking and fighting makes it difficult for childern who go to school to concentrate or function to their full capacity". So far some quotations of this report. 
It is not strange that only 7% of the childern reach a 12 year certificate.There is no obligation for the Aboriginal childern to go to school. What to think of some other figures of the statistics found in official reports: "Aboriginal people die 20 years earlier than the white Australians;40% is unemployed;1 non-indigenous to 15 Aboriginal prisoners,whereas they form only 1.6% of the total Australian population". I also read a transcript of a speech of Colin Tatz from the Macquerie University who have worked since the seventies wtih the Aboriginal people:
"The scale of Aboriginal drinking is cosmic even galactic. For me the alcohol is the agent , the avenue the effector of carnage that is taking place. Having survived because they had to - having survived the trading men, the whaler and sealermen, the church men, the beef and cattle men, the welfare men and now the mining men - there is no longer the challenge to go on,a kind of selfgenocide? Unlike our ordered societies where educational and technological changes evolve over time, Aborigines have been elided and telescoped across 300 years of industrial and technological revolution in some 30 years". He ends his speech with the dramatic words: "So with sadness and with some perhaps permissable impatience I look... at my 54 communities and my pessimism, returns, unbounded".
Patrick Dodson, an Aboriginal, published a paper in  1998 "Will the circle be unbroken". I quote some remarkable statements. " We were told that we could be equal if we hanged - if we stopped being ourselves, left our country, forget our laws, abandoned our social and cultural autonomy.It could be shed,like a snake sheds its skin. Left behind on the earth, until blown away with the winds. The whites acted to proscribe and determine the indigenous circle of survival, they all positioned themselves as the judge of what was the best for the indigenous people.Whether that was for the common good or for the vested interest was never clear for the blackfella perpective". He ends his paper: "We must today make a move toward a healed and reconciled nation. Tomorrow, the question will be academic".

The whole problem boils down to the fact that the Aboriginal people are not grown up in their culture with our most basis need in life : MONEY. For them it means nothing, only a way to buy alcohol in order to forget their misery. Not only the government gives them plenty of money without asking a recompensation, but they also get a lot of money from the mining companies for the rights to mine uranium and other valuable minerals from their sacred land. This money destroys their culture and especially their pride and identity. I call this without hesitation:
"MENTAL GENOCIDE". This happens in a country were next year the Olympic games will take place. It will be good then to remember that 300.000 original owners of the Australian land are still discriminated, their culture destroyed and are given money to keep them quiet and to to get drunk. The whites in Australia especuially in the South are not at all concerned about these problems. I had quite a number of conversations with the so called 'red necks' who openly said to me:
"We should kill them all, they are a nuisance, they are a pain in the neck. They get plenty of money and are not willing to work and to adjust to our culture. My answer to these red necks is: "Just let them alone, do not give them your conscience money. Let them take care of themselves. They are be more capable, then we are, to survive in the next century, when the lights will be turned off". But if we continue with this outrageous politics to give them money without any obligation from their side, we will finally succeed in destoying them, not only physically, but far more worse: also mentally!

I end my report with what a member of Parliament for Perth Mr R.M.McLean has said: "We have to ask ourselves what is the rationale behind providing communities and individuals with large amounts of cash? What is the rationale behind requiring them to work? What is the rationale behind the councils we have established? It is the 'white man's way'". Indeed Mr McLean you just said it! When tourists come to Australia on organised tours (these are extremely expensive),they are shown the Aboriginal culture and also their products of arts. The art products are sold not by the Aboriginal them selves but by other non-indigenous Australians. I have never seen an Aboriginal standing in the numerous shops selling against high prices their art products. Maybe a large amount is fabricated somewhere else but surely not in such great quantaties by the Aboriginals. They are far to much gone by the alcohol to produce all these objects. What I have have seen, is kept away from the tourists. This is very sad because the foreigners could put pressure on the Australian politicians especially with the Olympics is sight, in order to help improving the life of the Aborigines. Maybe we can start on the internet with a fierce  attack on the Australian government especially to their prime minister Howard. In todays newspaper there was just an article on the Aboriginal problem. Borneo post Friday, June 4 1999, p.15: "A historic draft of declaration aimed at achieving reconcilation with Australian Aborigines was released on Thursday only to run into controversy when Prime Minister John Howard said parts of it would be have to be changed". Howard has resisted calls for both an apology and a recognition of Aborigines custodianship in the past. 

Well my third travel report comes to an end, fortunately my fourth report will be far more pleasant to read. I have been travelling in Sarawak . A complete other world, full of hope for the future. Were people live who owns the land and can practise their own different cultures. Tomorrow I will go for seven days tracking trip in the jungle with the gatherers and hunters of the Penan Tribe. Last week I assisted a great festival in the middle of Sarawak among the Ibans, formely coming from Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo). They were formely practising head hunting. Fortunatly they left my head on my shoulders, maybe to chaotic or radical? My best wishes from Asia, the continent of tomorrow? 

Tom de Booij.