https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2455-1021
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ABSTRACT
This article examines how speech and speech acts are central to Othering First Nations people in Australia. Werner Herzog’s film, Where the Green Ants Dream (1984), centres around a fictional Dreaming story about green ants, which connect individual ancestral beings with the creation process, as well as forming the basis of First Nation law and culture. The Dreaming story projected in this film is intertwined with a specific nation of First Nations people and their connection and relationship to their Country (land). The film reveals an uneasy relationship between Dreaming and the positive law. In projecting First Nations people’s speech and speech acts within the context of a trial, the film illustrates how the adversarial nature of the law (English common law versus First Nation laws and culture) does not always adequately deal with hard cases. This film manifests the trauma and violence of the white settler state upon First Nations people to illustrate the shortcomings of Australian legality and how the state reckons with the Other.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Professor Kieran Tranter from Queensland University of Technology for his feedback on earlier drafts and the Law, Literature and Humanities Association of Australasia for the opportunity to present my thoughts on this topic. I would like to also thank the reviewers for their valuable feedback.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Correction Statement
This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
Notes
1 Kim D Weinert, Kieran Tranter and Karen Crawley, ‘Australian Lenses on Law, Lawyers and Justice’ in Kim D Weinert, Kieran Tranter and Karen Crawley (eds), Lawyers and Justice: Through Australian Lenses (Routledge 2020) 3.
2 (Lucki Stipetic, 1984).
3 Weinert (n 1) 4.
4 Requiem, Op 48 (1887)–(1890); Green Ants 0:23–1:42.
5 Green Ants 1:43–2:05.
6 Green Ants 2:06–3:40.
7 Green Ants 10:45
8 ibid.
9 Green Ants 10:40.
10 Green Ants 11.30.
11 Green Ants 12:19–12:35.
12 Green Ants 8:41–8:49.
13 Green Ants 9:14.
14 Green Ants 12:42–12:44.
15 Green Ants 13:27–14:45. The imagery of past violence earned Herzog criticism and was labelled as disrespectful by some First Nation leaders. Andrew Hurley, ‘Whose Dreaming? Intercultural Appropriation, Representations of Aboriginality, and the Process of Film-Making in Werner Herzog’s Where the Green Ants Dream (1983)’ (2007) 1(2) Studies in Australasian Cinema 175, 183–84.
16 Green Ants 14:41.
17 Green Ants 15:33.
18 Green Ants 16:14.
19 Green Ants 17:28–17:32.
20 Green Ants 19:09.
21 Jeremy Waldron, The Right to Private Property (Claredon 1988) 239.
22 Green Ants 28:13.
23 Green Ants 28:19–28:46.
24 Ulrich Oslender, ‘Decolonizing Cartography and Ontological Conflict: Counter-Mapping in Colombia and “Cartographies Otherwise”’ (2021) 89 Political Geography 1, 8.
25 Green Ants 37:46.
26 Green Ants 38:15–38:59.
27 Green Ants 22:22.
28 Green Ants 42:58–43:10.
29 Green Ants 44:13.
30 Green Ants 46:11.
31 Green Ants 48:06–49:35.
32 Green Ants 55:44.
33 Green Ants 56:11.
34 Green Ants 59:14–59:31.
35 Green Ants Extra, Director’s Commentary 19:54.
36 Thomas Elsaesser, ‘An Anthropologist’s Eye: Where the Green Ants Dream’ in Timothy Corrigan (ed), The Films of Werner Herzog – Between Mirage & History (Methuen 1986) 151.
37 Green Ants 1:01:18.
38 Green Ants 1:02:50.
39 Green Ants 1:17:18.
40 Green Ants 1:17:48–1:18:13.
41 A larrikin is a person best known for being mischievous, uncultivated and a rowdy person. Sandra Hall, Critical Business: The New Australian Cinema in Review (Rigby 1985) 3.
42 Green Ants 1:20:48.
43 Green Ants 1:21:19.
44 Green Ants 1:22:30–1:23:33.
45 Green Ants 1:16:06.
46 Green Ants 1:24:46.
47 Green Ants 1:25:35–1:25:58.
48 Mabo v Queensland [No 2] (1992) 175 CLR 1, 36 (Brennan J) (Mabo).
49 See Yanner v Eaton (1999) 201 CLR 351 (Gleeson CJ, Gaudron, Kirby and Hayne JJ) [17].
50 See Mabo (Brennan J), 58. His Honour was citing Cooper v Stuart (1889) 14 App Cas 286.
51 Thalia Anthony and Juanita Sherwood, ‘Post-Disciplinary Responses to Positivism’s Punitiveness’ (2018) 3(1) Journal of Global Indigeneity 1 <https://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1046&context=jgi>.
52 Robert Williams, The American Indian in Western Legal Thought – The Discourse of Conquest (Oxford University Press 1990) 8.
53 Daniel Lavery, ‘No Decorous Veil: The Continuing Reliance on an Enlarged Terra Nullius Notion in Mabo [No 2]’ (2019) 43(1) MULR 233, 247.
54 Phillip Adams, ‘The Wrath of Herzog’ The Australian (Sydney, 11 June 2011) <https://www.theaustralian.com.au/life/columnists/the-wrath-of-herzog/news-story/b7abbb95af8fc77c79bcea10fea9c97f> accessed 11 June 2020; Thomas Elsaesser, ‘An Anthropologist’s Eye: Where the Green Ants Dream’ in Timothy Corrigan (ed), The Films of Werner Herzog – Between Mirage & History (Methuen 1986) 139. The arthouse film Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972) earnt Herzog international acclaim for its ‘unremitting and overwhelming vision’. Stuart Jeffries, ‘Aguirre, Wrath of God: No 11 Best Arthouse Films of All Time’ The Guardian (Melbourne 20 October 2010) <https://www.theguardian.com/film/2010/oct/20/aguirre-wrath-herzog-arthouse> accessed 13 February 2022. Two years later, The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1974) won Herzog the Jury Grand Prize at Cannes. Brad Prager, ‘Werner Herzog’ Oxford Bibliographies (2017–2018)<https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/news/2017/September?t:state:client> accessed 5 May 2019.
55 Milirrup v Nablco Pty Ltd (1971) 17 FLR 141 (the Milirrpum case).
56 ibid. This case attempted to recognize the Yolngu clan’s tenure in land.
57 Mabo v Queensland (No 2) (1992) 175 CLR 1.
58 Nancy M Williams, ‘Stanner, Milirrpum, and the Woodward Royal Commission’ in Melinda Hinkson and Jeremh Beckett (eds), An Appreciation of Difference: WEH Stanner – Anthropology and Aboriginal Australia (Aboriginal Studies Press 2008) 207.
59 John Fogarty and Jacinta Dwyer, The First Aboriginal Land Rights Case More or Less, 191 <http://www.futureleaders.com.au/book_chapters/pdf/More-or-Less/John-Fogarty_Jacinta-Dwyer.pdf> accessed 20 June 2020.
60 Daniel Lavery, ‘“Not Purely of Law” – The Doctrine of Backward Peoples in Milirrpum’ (2017) 23 JCULR 53, 54–55.
61 The Milirrpum Case, 244; Robert Van Krieken, ‘From Milirrpum to Mabo: The High Court, Terra Nullius and Moral Entrepreneurship’ (2000) 23(1) UNSWLJ 63, 67.
62 Milirrpum 246–47.
63 Williams v Attorney-General for New South Wales (1913) 16 CLR 404; Council of the Municipality of Randwick v Rutledge and Others (1959) 102 CLR 54.
64 Robert Van Krieken (n 61) 67.
65 William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (The Legal Classic Library, 1765) Book 2.
66 Barbara Hocking, ‘Aboriginal Law Does Now Run in Australia – Reflections on the Mabo Case: From Cooper v Stuart Through Milirrpum to Mabo’ (1993) 15(2) Syd LR 187, 191.
67 Leo Zaibert, ‘Rules, Games, and the Axiological Foundations of (International) Criminal Law’ (2016) 16 Int CLR 346, 349.
68 Matthew Kramer, HLA Hart: The Nature of Law (Polity Press 2018) 68–69.
69 HLA Hart, The Concept of Law (2nd edn, OUP 994).
70 Timothy Corrigan, ‘Producing Herzog: From a Body of Images’ in Timothy Corrigan (ed), The Films of Werner Herzog – Between Mirage & History (Methuen 1986) 3. See also Antony Fredriksson, ‘The Art in Documentary Film and Werner Herzog’ (2018) 22(1) Film Philosophy 60.
71 Matthew Kramer (n 68) 75.
72 Grant Lamond, ‘The Rule of Recognition and the Foundations of a Legal System’ in Luis Duarte D’Almeida and others (eds), Reading HLA Hart’s The Concept of Law (Hart Publishing 2013) 115.
73 Hart (n 69) 251–52.
74 ibid 252.
75 Frederick Schauer, ‘On the Open Texture of Law’ (2013) 87 Grazer Philosophische Studien 197, 201.
76 Hart (n 69) 128.
77 Brian Bix, ‘HLA Hart and the “Open Texture” of Language’ (1991) 10(1) Law & Phil 51, 66.
78 Hart (n 69) 129.
79 ibid 126, 129.
80 Green Ants 1:07:03–1:07:9.
81 Kim D Weinert and Kieran Tranter, ‘The Empty Centre: The Hallowmen and Representations of Techno-Political Elites in Australian Public Life’ (2020) 18 (11) ESLJ 1.
82 Hart (n 69) 129.
83 ibid 129–30.
84 Milirrpum 272.
85 Hart (n 69) 130.
86 See, for example, Ward v Western Australia (1999) 159 ALR 483.
87 Aileen Moreton-Robinson, The White Possessive: Property, Power, and Indigenous Sovereignty (University of Minnesota Press 2015) xii. See also, Kirsty Duncanson, ‘Being Engaged in Colonial Critique by Mojo Juju’s “Native Tongue”’ in Kim D Weinert, Karen Crawley and Kieran Tranter (eds), Law, Lawyers and Justice – Through Australian Lenses (Routledge 2020) 144, 164.
88 ibid. Alison Vivian and others, ‘Indigenous Self-Government in the Australian Federation’ (2017) 20(1) AILR 215, 215–17.
89 Lisa French, ‘David Gulpilil, Aboriginal Humour and Australian Cinema’ (2014) 8(1) Studies in Australasian Cinema 34, 41–42.
90 John Gardiner-Garden, ‘From Dispossession to Reconciliation’ (1999) Commonwealth of Australia Parliament Research Paper (Research Paper, 29 June 1999) <https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp9899/99Rp27.#major> accessed 20 July 2020.
91 Cole Kirkby, ‘Law Evolves: The Uses of Primitive Law in Anglo-American Concepts of Modern Law, 1861–1961’ (2018) Legal Studies Research Paper Series No 18/77, The University of Sydney Law School, 18.
92 Hart (n 69) 274.
93 Irene Watson, ‘Buried Alive’ (2002) 13(3) Law & Crit 252.
94 Hart (n 69) 270.
95 Green Ants 17:05–17:19.
96 Green Ants 17:27–17:44.
97 David Scott, ‘Colonial Government’ in Jonathan Xavier Inda (ed), Anthropologies of Modernity: Foucault, Governmentality, and Life Politics (Wiley 2008) 31.
98 Aileen Moreton-Robins, ‘Introduction’ in Aileen Moreton-Robinson (ed), Sovereign Subjects – Indigenous Sovereignty Matters (Allen and Unwin 2007) 3.
99 Watson (n 93) 257.
100 Greta Bird, ‘Koori Cultural Heritage: reclaiming the past?’ in Greta Bird and others (eds), Majah: Indigenous People and the Law (Federation Press 1996) 100–28.
101 Green Ants 1:01:58–1:03:34.
102 Amartya Sen, ‘Violence and Civil Society’ in Amartya Sen (ed), Peace and Democratic Society (Open Book Publishers 2011) 11.
103 Green Ants 1:04:08–1:04:11.
104 Green Ants 1:04:35.
105 Green Ants 1:04:57.
106 [1916] UKPC 53.
107 Green Ants 1:05:43–1:06:33.
108 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (GEM Anscombe tr, 2nd edn, Basil Blackwell 1974) 223.
109 Green Ants 1:09:08–1:09:21.
110 Green Ants 1:10:01.
111 Green Ants 1:10:11–1:10:14.
112 Green Ants 35:16.
113 Green Ants 39:34.
114 Green Ants 39:19–38:23.
115 Laura Joseph and Honni van Rijswijk, ‘Going Bunta on Western Law – Violent Jurisdictions, Melodrama and the Australian Carceral Imaginary in Wentworth’ in Kim D Weinert and others (eds), Law, Lawyers and Justice – Through Australian Lenses (Routledge 2020) 280.
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