[P2P-F] Fwd: New Australia

[Michel Bauwens]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: David Week (Assai) <dew at assai.com.au>
Date: Tue, Jul 1, 2014 at 10:54 PM
Subject: New Australia
To: Michel Bauwens <michel at p2pfoundation.net>, Michael Bier <
michael.bier at chl.org.au>


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Australia

New Australia was a utopian socialist settlement in Paraguay founded by the
Australian New Australian Movement. The colony was officially founded on
28 September 1893 as Colonia Nueva Australia and comprised 238 adults and
children.

Paraguay was chosen as the site of the settlement. Lane recruited many, and
the first ship left Sydney in July 1893 for Paraguay, where the government
was keen to get white settlers and had offered the group a large area of
good land.

The founding of the settlement was of interest to left-wing thinkers
worldwide; of the settlement Peter Kropotkin said,

The fact that men and women, who have made Australia what it is, are
compelled to migrate from it, speaks volumes in itself. 'Make the land, be
the dung which renders it productive, build the centres of civilisation
which render it valuable – and go away!' That is the true picture of modern
capitalist management. The same here, the same at the antipodes – always
the same!

http://www.argentinaindependent.com/travel/travelfeature/new-australia-the-australian-colony-in-paraguay/

William Lane’s autocratic leadership soon led to dissent. The pledges to
teetotalism and the ‘colour line’ he had required of the new settlers had
seemed logical back in Australia – but here, surrounded by the temptations
of beautiful Guaraní women (in a country where roughly 80% of the
population were female) and caña, the local sugar-cane rum, they proved
highly contentious.

As one of the colony’s descendents, famous comic-book writer Robin Wood,
put it to me: “Lane had two rules: 1) No booze. A group of Irish, Scots and
Australians? Come on! And 2) No hanky-panky with the natives. For a
socialist, he was very racist, and very stupid.”

Riven with tension and disagreement, the colony soon split into two. The
original New Australia abandoned communal ownership, dividing up into
private family plots, while Lane established a new colony, Cosme. Even more
isolated than Nueva Australia, Cosme struggled on until 1909 – but Lane
himself left in 1899 after it became obvious his grand plan was doomed to
failure.

http://www.migrationheritage.nsw.gov.au/exhibition/objectsthroughtime/1893-the-new-australia-colony-collection/

Paraguay was desperately trying to rebuild itself after the devastating
Triple Alliance War of 1864-1870 wiped out most of the nation’s young
men. Paraguay’s population was reduced from 525,000 to 220,000, leaving a
majority of women, children, old and disabled.

Mary Gilmore eventually returned to Australia and in a 1959 interview
Gilmore said:

It was purely communistic. I wouldn’t say it was a success, but I certainly
wouldn’t say it was a failure. The reason it had to break up, or
disappear, is because William Lane would only have British people in it…


About 2,000 Paraguayans can trace their ancestry to the 500 unionists who
have names like Wood, McLeod, Burke and Murray. Some of their descendents
are still on the same farms today.

Many descendants of the New Australian utopians have since migrated to
Australia. Despite this however the Australia Government does not grant the
descendants of the New Australian utopians special migration consideration.



-- 
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