No Climbing at Uluru

We all go through a process to learn the things we don't know. I first heard of the Australian rock formation called Uluru because of the film Picnic at Hanging Rock, back in the 1980s. Maybe then, maybe later, I learned it was "actually" called Ayers Rock. But of course that's the English name, and its original or real name is Uluru, which I learned some time in the past few years.

(I've never been to Australia and I doubt I ever will go there, given my commitment to not flying any more than is absolutely necessary, so I hope that excuses how long it took me to learn this. If I had been in the country, I think I would have known it long ago.)

Uluru will be closed to climbing as of today. This is at the will of the Anangu people, for whom it is a sacred place and who finally "own" it under Australian law. This New York Times article gives the rundown and is what prompted me to write about it, because so many aspects of this story are troubling metaphors for how people from the dominant culture interact with our world.

The Anangu have asked climbers to not ascend Uluru for decades because it is a holy place, but they were ignored by many. Do people climb Notre Dame in great numbers? I don't think so.

But just now, as the official closing was about to happen,

climbers have flocked to Uluru...in recent months in numbers not seen for more than 15 years. On Friday, about 1,000 people gathered at the site to climb the rock a final time.

The flood of climbers is a reminder that a segment of the population remains resistant to some of the decisions Indigenous people make when ownership of land is returned to them.

"The question that hovers over all of this is why should the Anangu have to justify their rules," said Tim Rowse, a historian and emeritus professor at Western Sydney University. "People who say they accept ownership without accepting control have not really considered what the word 'ownership' means."

This need to experience a thing yourself as an individual, and the belief that your need overrides other cultures' rights, are aspects of Western individualism and cultural supremacy.

The article goes on to say visitors express confusion about the "dualities" of what they are allowed to do at Uluru:

While Uluru is so sacred to the Anangu that there are certain parts that they do not want photographed or even touched, they welcome visitors to tool around its base or take art lessons in its shadow.

I read that and thought, what? No one is confused about having different rules for different parts of a place (think: how we use our bathrooms vs. our kitchens, for instance), and if they say they are, they're trolling. They're just insensitive to the wishes of a people they see as lesser and who has something they want.

I hope the non-Anangu people who come there are still open to learning that it's not their place, literally, and this begins a new era for these Indigenous people.