Contentment

"Somebody" spread herself all along the sun-soaked sofa at lunchtime, so the other body in the household sat on the floor. Bean was such a picture of contentment that I decided to leave her be.

I have just finished reading "Unsheltered" by Kate Grenville, who is probably best known for writing "The Secret River" 20 years ago. That first historical novel was based on the story of her great great great grandfather settling on the Hawkesbury River in NSW.

This new book takes up the story of her wider family; not in fiction, but to explore the impact of her ancestors' arrival and settlement upon the Aboriginal people of that area of the country. It is a heartfelt, raw and sometimes confronting expose of the invasion and conquest by white Europeans, and the continued inability of most of their descendants and others who have arrived from overseas, to recognise and respect the catastrophe which unfolded following James Cook's appearance right through to 2025.

She wrestles with her personal response to what happened, and to attitudes today. And I have been left with so many questions about my feelings about my own ancestors and the privilege into which I was born. 

At what cost to other people was that privilege given to me? Many of my ancestors will have done unspeakably awful deeds - in the British East India Company, as ship owners dealing in the transAtlantic Slave Trade, and as beneficiaries of the Highland Clearances, to name just three that I know of.

Whatever their deeds, part of their motivation was to make life "better" (however that might be defined) for their children, grandchildren, and so forth. Thus I am one of the recipients of their efforts, although I abhor some of the methods by which family 'betterment' came about.

While I can't celebrate their behaviour, it feels churlish to condemn it. It was for my benefit after all. Am I ungrateful to be well-educated? Am I unhappy to have had a well-fed, a well-sheltered and a well-loved childhood? Am I ungrateful to have been given opportunities because of my position in the UK class system? Do I regret being the person I am as a result of all of that, and of the genes which make up Mima? Does it matter that some of my genes are inherited from slave traders, colonial invaders, ruthless killers?

So many questions...and hardly an answer to be found. Not yet at least. 

The only thing I have resolved so far is that my ancestors are not me. And I am not them. We are unique. 

And maybe the best I can do is to behave differently from them, because I know differently from them.

It would be so much simpler to be a dog.