Title: Maybe Tomorrow
Authors: Boori Monty Pryor and Meme McDonald
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Published: 4 January 2010
Format: Paperback 208 pp index
Category: Memoir
RRP: 24.99 AUD
This is a revised edition of Boori Monty Pryor’s story of his life, his pain, his joy and his hopes in a new anniversary edition that was first published in 1998.
Boori Monty Pryor was born in North Queensland. His father is from the Birri-gubba People of the Bowen region and his mother is from Yarrabah Reserve near Cairns, a descendent of the Kunggandji and Kukuimudji Peoples.
Monty has worked in film, television, sport and music. He has written several award-winning children’s books with Meme McDonald who is a graduate of the Victoria College of the Arts Drama School. She has worked as a theatre and festival director, writer, photographer and most recently, she has worked on film projects.
This is an inspirational story in which Monty takes the reader from the Aboriginal camps on the edge of Cairns to the basketball court, the DJ console, on to performance and storytelling around the country.
Monty comes from a family of eleven children. In 1982, he lost his young brother Kenneth who hanged himself at twenty-eight. In 1988, he lost his young brother Paul who hanged himself when he was twenty-eight. Then in 1994, his sister Kim hanged herself when she was thirty-eight.
Monty believes the reason for the deaths of his close kin is about “trying to fit into white society”. He attributes suicidal ideation to ongoing mistreatment and lack of respect for being Aboriginal. He believes that there is a lot of anger in Aboriginal society because people struggle to find a sense of identity and they perceive their problem as being black and Aboriginal. Their fear is they can’t win and it stays with them until it is too much to bear.
Monty says he wrote this book to encourage non-Aboriginal people to seek to learn about Aboriginal culture; to see it as a beautiful way of life: the land is the giver of life. It is our mother. It’s like the vein of life. He has a message for all Australians:
To feel happy about yourself, you must feel happy about the place you live in. To feel happy about the place you live in, you must get to know that place. To get to know that place, you must ask the people who have lived there the longest, Aboriginal People. We have the key that can open the door to the treasures of this land.
Maybe Tomorrow is full of personal stories. Monty tells of the pain he has suffered for being black and Aboriginal. He tells a story of applying for a DJ job and being frankly told being black wasn’t a problem but being Aboriginal was. He says that “took racism to another level”. The Human Rights Commission in Canberra took on his case and the nightclub had to make a sizeable payout.
Monty says he has learned through his experiences as an Aboriginal person that to avoid getting hurt physically and mentally through prejudice, he must seek personal stability in the face of the negative attitudes around him. Once he has that stability inside himself, he can begin to work on changing the attitudes of the people around him.
Monty says the same goes for reconciliation; it must begin inside the person. Monty began his voyage to reconciliation from day one, Invasion Day January 26th. He says we have to admit that these events did happen in our history—how can we reconcile something that has not been acknowledged and understood? There has been enough avoidance, he says; we have to acknowledge the past so we can accept it and move on to a better future.
Respect is a stream that flows through this book. Respect your elders, respect each other, respect the things that are growing around you, respect the two ways of being in this land, respect where your food comes from, respect the differences between people, respect Indigenous people as the first peoples of this land, respect their cultures.
Monty Pryor ends his book on Prime Minister Kevin Rudd saying “sorry” to the Stolen Generations of Aboriginal people. So many people gathered in Canberra; so many tears were shed. Sorry is a little word that was a long time coming. Monty is positive about the future: I can see right there in front of me, the face of a nation changing.
reviewed by Paul W. Newbury
This entry was posted by pnewbury on Monday, March 1st, 2010 at 12:00 am and is filed under Book Reviews.
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