New Norcia and Australia's inconsistencies

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Western Australia may be famous for its vast open spaces and large distances, but fortunately, there are also quite a few points of interest within a two-hour radius of Perth. One of these is New Norcia, Australia's only monastic town, a measly 132km from the big city. The settlement was founded in 1846 by Spanish Benedictine monks as an Aboriginal mission with the aim to 'civilise and evangelise', in accordance with the European ideals of the time. Until 1900 New Norcia was shaped by Bishop Rosendo Salvado. Born in a village in Galicia, not far from the Portuguese border, Salvado entered the Benedictine Order at age 15, where he climbed the ranks from monk to priest and finally bishop, until he was sent to Western Australia in 1846 to establish a bush mission for the conversion of Aboriginals to Catholicism. Salvado appears to be almost universally romanticised as protector of the local indigenous people, "roaming with them and sharing their bush life", as the Australian Dictionary of Biography states. New Norcia's official website says he had a "sympathy for indigenous culture that was rare in his day" and that when news broke of his death in 1900, "the local Aboriginal people cried and wailed for three days".

J. and I pick up our mate Daniel from his single-storey house in one of Perth's innumerable faceless suburbs. Via Roe and Tonkin Highways, we pass by scenic Swan Valley, famous for its wineries and up-market culinary delights, and through the historic town of Guildford (established in 1829 on the Swan River), we connect to the Great Northern Highway. A few kilometres later we are in woop woop; no more houses, only the road, the endless horizon, blue sky, red sand and shrubs. At least until we get stuck behind several road trains, those delightful, humongous multi-trailer trucks carting heavy machinery up north, to WA's booming mining towns in the real woop woop. Needless to say, they are a little hard to overtake. After we finally manage to pass by the first set, a few kilometres further there's more of them. Even the country roads start getting crowded these days in Australia. Not as bad as the traffic within Perth, which is a complete and utter disaster, but still, what happened to that remote Australian feeling?

The further north we go, the more the cars thin out. Before long, we reach New Norcia. There is something surreal about seeing posh Spanish colonial architecture in the middle of nowhere in the most unlikely of countries. The buildings seem to withstand the dry heat of WA a lot better than the humidity of South America, where many a former Jesuit mission is in a state of complete decay. But then, the monastic town does have significantly more funds to help maintain its heritage. More on that later.

When we see the big group of old people in the Visitor's Centre, we decide against joining the guided tour that is about to start. Armed with leaflets, we embark on a self-guided tour. Amongst other things, New Norcia contained two "orphanages" for Aboriginal children. How many of these were stolen from their parents is a point of heated contention and will most likely never be known. But orphans they were certainly not, my inner linguist tells me your parents must be dead in order for you to be classified an orphan. Pretending they are dead doesn't count. Interestingly, the tourist brochure fails to mention that New Norcia played a part in the Stolen Generations until well into the 1970s. Instead, they present their mission as a centre of education, peace ('Pax' is the motto of New Norcia's Benedictine monks) and hospitality. These days it's big business here, money rules supreme, just like anywhere else in WA. People go crazy for the self-produced olive oil and the bread baked daily by the monks, which is even sold in Perth. Tourists arrive from all over the country. They also offer accomodation and catering for school groups, really any group of 30-200 people.

It may be understandable that they are reluctant to mention any involvement in Australia's dark history in their own publications, but shamefully, neither do newspaper articles ("A bush idyll of Spanish art" - Sydney Morning Herald) or the oh-so-critical Lonely Planet. In its 2007 edition of Perth and Western Australia, it says that "New Norcia will always be associated with what has become known as the 'stolen generation'...", a part that has magically disappeared in the 2011 edition, and certainly not due to all-new research (seeing that new LPs are mostly lazily edited copy & paste-jobs). Another interesting omission was made: "...today the working monastery holds prayers and retreats alongside a multi-million dollar business producing boutique breads and gourmet goodies". The phrase "multi-million dollar business" was left out in the latest edition. Any conspiracy theories? Angry monks lobbying for the removal of anything negative associated with the humble Benedictine Order? Who knows...

At the cemetery, one can find three types of graves: fenced-in graves with elaborate tombstones for the most important people, like abbots and their families; simple, but well-maintained graves with identical white crosses for the monks; and unnamed plots marked by cheap, rotten white crosses, some of which have toppled over and nobody has seemed to have bothered sticking them back into the ground. Buried in the latter are, unsurprisingly, Aboriginals. Bishop Salvado's massive mausoleum-like tomb is located in the centre of the graveyard.

Inside the Abbey Church, several naïve paintings adorn the walls. One of them depicts a fallen Jesus next to his cross while a sombreroed Mexican, an Eskimo, a Brit, Aboriginals, a geisha, a Native American, a Buddhist, an Arab and an astronaut watch on. What the deal with the astronaut is, I'm not sure. Another one shows a stoned-looking Jesus with an extremely elongated face and yet another one an Aboriginal Jesus. Don't most of these paintings amount to blasphemy?

We do the obvious and buy some white bread, olive oil and dukkah in the gift shop and get coffee in the nearby café. For those who don't know, dukkah is a mix of nuts, spices and herbs that goes extremely well with bread. To my surprise, it's an Egyptian invention, thus the word is derived from Arabic, not adapted from an Aboriginal language, like I thought. We sit down on a bench for a delightful little picnic. The bread turns out to be quite good, although it takes more to impress a German when it comes to bread. But dipped in olive oil and topped off with dukkah, it tastes delicious and quite different to what I'm used to anyway.

On the way back we stop at Bells Rapids, a scenic spot in the Avon Valley where an annual whitewater race is held. After a little hike along the lake, we call it a day. There's still a lot to explore in WA, that's for sure. Sometimes it pays off to read between the lines, ask some more questions and do your research, although what you discover might not always be the most comfortable thing. Never trust the official Australian version, they tend to gloss over anything that could cast a damning light on the country.

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Photos

Bishop Salvado statue
Founder of New Norcia
1814-1900