Booze Territory

Short Blacks

by Anna Krien

On a Tuesday morning, I make my way to the Gap View Hotel for a drinking session starting at 10 a.m. I'm told this is one of Alice Springs' three notorious 'animal bars' … As I wander around, a Sudanese security guard approaches me, his face concerned. Am I lost? he wants to know. In a way, I am. I don't want a beer. It's 10 a.m., for Chrissake.

In Booze Territory, Anna Krien takes a clear-eyed look at Indigenous binge-drinking – who does it, why, and what it means. She visits bars brimming with morning drinkers and investigates alcoholic after-effects ranging from extreme violence to extraordinarily high rates of cirrhosis of the liver. This is an essay which never fails to see the human dimension of an intractable problem and shine a light on its deep causes.

Anna Krien is the author of Night Games, Into the Woods and Quarterly Essay 45: Us and Them. Her work has been published in the Monthly, the Age, the Big Issue, The Best Australian Essays, The Best Australian Stories, Griffith Review, Voiceworks, Going Down Swinging, Colors, Frankie and Dazed & Confused.

Genres: Nonfiction, Essays, Politics

46 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 1, 2015

About the author

Anna Krien is the author of Night Games: Sex, power and sport, which won the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award, Into the
Woods: The battle for Tasmania’s forests and Us and Them: On the importance of animals (Quarterly Essay 45). Anna’s work has been
published in the Monthly, the Age, the Big Issue, The Best Australian Essays, Griffith REVIEW, Voiceworks, Going Down Swinging, Colors, Frankie and Dazed & Confused.

Reviews

[Stephie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don't feel like I took that much away from this, other than that Alice Springs has a serious drinking problem. I don't really understand what Krien was trying to argue, or if she was trying to argue anything at all.

So binge-drinking is endemic in certain aboriginal communities? Krien never goes into the 'why', which I would find far more interesting and constructive. She talks about the 'how' -- pubs that open early and serve ridiculously cheap alcohol and the government's mostly failed attempts to prohibit sales. She didn't go into the human rights issues of alcohol and welfare restrictions or really talk about why it has reached that point. It actually felt a bit racist, this white person talking about Aboriginal drinking issues, speaking about them as if they have no autonomy and it's in their very nature to binge-drink. She speaks to various white people about the problem, but never once seeks out an Indigenous person's perspective.

I guess I was expecting this essay to impart some kind of insight or pose some interesting questions instead of being a matter of fact, white person's travel diary of a culture she didn't try very hard to understand.

[Arlie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was going to give this 1 star but the last couple of pages (where she talks about how she's a binge drinker and once got so drunk at a party she shat herself and barely made it home alive) are kind of an interesting moment of what looks like it could be self-reflection

[Evan Micheals · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved Anna Krien’s book “Night Games” so much when I read it a few years ago, that I have been listening to interviews of hers and I like her stuff. I have decided to read everything she has written over the next year.

Booze Territory was the shortest and I was able to smash it out in an afternoon. She investigates the problems with the consumption of alcohol in the Northern Territory Indigenous people, mostly Alice Springs. What I like about Krien’s writing is that she presents the narrative, without making explicit what she think or telling you what to think. She is a sane writing, in an era where journalists look for “an angle”.

She shows an understanding of the nuances of the issues. The City vs Country divide. People who makes the rules, and the people who have to live with them. Unintended consequences. Human rights vs Community Safety. The ethics of having rules based on the colour of a person’s skin when these rules have a measurable effect in improving the welfare of Indigenous people. It is not easy. Can racist rules have positive effects? I can fully understand the well-meaning Publican who is accused of being racist no matter what he does. I can fully understand him washing his hands and allowing people just to get on with self-destruction, when Big City types tell him what a terrible actor he is in the plight of others.

She manages to present the characters in her narrative with sympathy in whatever role they play. I look forward to reading more of her work.

[Lulu · Rating 3 out of 5]

This felt like an explanation not offering much in regards to solutions but rather what is happening in the top end. I lived in a dry community for years while my mum and step-dad ran the local clinic. I saw the children who had alcohol-fetal syndrome. I would have loved if Anna drove deeper into the history of booze and how it was used against Aboriginals; it provides context and the impact of generational trauma. Now that the alcohol laws have been removed recently. It makes you wonder what the outcome will be? I often felt that while living in the dry community it felt like a get rich quick scheme when whitefellas would go and run the local shop; charging ridiculous prices for fresh(ish) food, while coke and other unhealthy foods were cheaper. The problem in my mind lies in that white governments are not listening to the voices of elders and their communities. Such a rich diverse culture is dying out due to historical colonialism and new forms of neocolonialism.

This short essay paints the picture, hoping those that read it will dig deeper and learn more regarding this issue.

[steph · Rating 3 out of 5]

This essay got me thinking about what are the best incentives for human behaviour to change. Would taxes curb alcohol abuse or would education? While Krien reflects specifically on the Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory of Australia's relationship with alcohol, the overarching concepts seem applicable all round.

Specifically on the subject of alcohol's impact on Indigenous communities though, Krien does a good job of outlining the complexities, outlining "the ramifications of entangling drinking rights with equal rights." What a sensitive and complex issue. I finished this essay with no more answers but curious to see whether alcohol will follow in the footsteps of nicotine. Can we save ourselves yet?

[Ellen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A thoughtful exploration of a confronting issue. Krien doesn't pretend to know all the whys and wherefores on the topic, but she brings to the table plenty of research and her own personal reflections. Adding Indigenous voices would have made this a more well-rounded piece.

[Daniel]

A real page-turner, I couldn't put it down!

[Emory Black · Rating 4 out of 5]

[cw: murder, violence, alcoholism, racism]

I enjoyed this book because it gave me a perspective I'm not often exposed to. I have lived in rural areas, but they have always been predominantly white. The only place I've lived with a significant Indigenous population has been Redfern, but I was too young to understand or care about what was going on around me.

I think that I need to read more about this issue in order to understand it better. I feel like this book could possibly have delved more into Aboriginal perspectives, and talked about how the alcoholism is a symptom of some much deeper issues (as is my feeling). Instead it seemed like a lot of white people spoke about the 'Aboriginal drinking problem'.

That said, it is pretty horrific. I can also understand the desire to drink to destroy the reality around you. To constantly pour it all down your throat and blot out everything, not caring about what happens while you're blacked out drunk. I hope that we can create a place/space/society where less people feel that way one day.

[Terrifying of Goats · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bleak and disturbing travelogue through aboriginal lands wrecked by addiction and violence. Krien observes the hangers on, the wrecked families, the alcohol merchants, without any strong bias, while recounting the legislation and ideological squabble that have led to this situation. There is a good balance of on the ground journalism and academic research, that connects the statistics to the lived reality of the brutual and brutualised places she visits. Absorbing if dismal read.

[Louise Omer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thoughtful essay on governmental policy towards Aboriginal problem drinking.
I enjoy Krien's researched approach, but was unnerved by the lack of blackfella's voices. Where were the elders? The grieving mamas? Instead of just secondhand stories about their opinions. Of course it may be a case of access and translation but there are enough accounts of white people summarising the indigenous experience.