B. Wongar

Thought-provoking biography of a Serbian Australian with an emphasis on the plight of the Australian Aborigines since the European colonization of the continent, and especially in relation to the uranium mining in their ancestral lands.

The story itself doesn't flow well; it jerkily switches back and forth in time and place: events happening in Australia, Serbia, and a few other locations, in the decades between the 1960s and the 1990s. Sometimes this was so confusing that I couldn't recall what had happened before and what had still to happen.

The recurrent spelling errors and typos were annoying. I'm not sure how many times the Serbian village of Trešnevica (or Trešnjevica) was written as Tre{nevica (with a curly bracket instead of an š). Only a few times it was spelled correctly.

The author also proposes some unfounded theories about Aboriginal history. For example, he insists that dingoes came to Australia about 50,000 years ago, together with the first Aborigines. The 'proof' for this is that, according to him, they needed that time to evolve into three subspecies. The accepted theory is - and it still is in 2013 - that dingoes arrived in Australia a few thousand years ago, as companion dogs of Asian seafarers. There are no 'subspecies' of the dingo. The dingo itself (Canis lupus dingo) is a subspecies of the wolf (Canis lupus). There are three regional varieties (alpine dingo, desert dingo, northern dingo) with a few distinct physical characteristics, but these are no 'sub-subspecies'.

Still, the book is important because it draws attention to the fact that the Australian Aborigines have been - and still are - one of the most oppressed and abused tribal peoples in the world. In some respects Australia has made some steps in the right direction, but there is still a long way to go. The message of the book is still valid today.… (meer)