A Warrior For Peace
Arguably Australia's most flamboyant Aboriginal character, and the most widely known internationally, Burnum Burnum's story is that of a personal quest full of contradiction. Middle-class success sits alongside political activism; naivity beside great foresight; the bid for peace and reconciliation beside bitter rivalries and court action; media triumphs beside ridicule; powerful spirituality beside personal frailty.
From his institutionalised upbringing, as one of the Stolen Generation, Burnum found early success in the white world through his sporting prowess and his determination to forge a meaningful career as a public servant and family man. Born Harry Penrith in 1936, in the 1960s he searched for his Aboriginal identity and joined the battle for Aboriginal rights, eventually claiming the name of his great-great-grandfather, Burnum Burnum, the Great Warrior, of the Wurundjeri people.
This book takes us on wild rides around the Australian bush, stamping across the political stage as an Independent, a Liberal candidate, a Democrat; finding affinity with the hippy culture; grappling with the power struggles of the Aboriginal establishment. His story takes us to the depths of the gambler's despair and the heights of international acclaim, planting the Aboriginal flag beneath the white cliffs of Dover, his great cosmic joke for Australia's Bicentenary in 1988.
But above all this book reveals Burnum Burnum's lifelong heroic struggle to achieve his central idea - an Australia beyond black and white.
