Wednesday, May 01, 2019

Book Review: Follow the Rabbit Proof Fence

Follow the Rabbit Proof Fence by Doris Pilkington Garimara

This book was written by the daughter of one of the girls who took the long walk following the length of the rabbit-proof fence in Australia. Have you ever seen the movie "The Rabbit-Proof Fence" ? If not, you should watch it. Look for it on Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon Prime. It is excellent. It's the story of three Aboriginal girls who were taken unwillingly to a boarding school (a nice term for what it really was) far from home. They escaped almost right away and walked all the way back home. They found their way by following the rabbit-proof fence. Their strength and skills at surviving in a harsh environment were amazing.

I like the Aboriginal vantage point of this book. The reader sees the history through the eyes of the country's original inhabitants. It's quite different from what is portrayed in European-based history books. One line I loved was something like this: leave it to the whites to build a rabbit-proof fence: a fence that doesn't even work and that is brought on by their own mistakes.

Sadly, the way Aborigines in Australia were treated parallels what we whites did here in what is now the USA. Too bad the Brits didn't learn from our mistakes before they sent folks Down Under. What a different world they could have created.




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