indigenous politics
29 Jan 2009
What Is The Australian Story?
Before we contemplate questions of national identity and a new date for Australia Day, we need to consider where we are at in the Australian story, writes ANTaR's Peter Lewis
As we collectively sober up from yet another Australia Day weekend it is an opportune time to reflect on the ambiguities and inadequacies of celebrating a nation's achievements and cultural diversity on a day that represents the beginning of what Indigenous academic Anne Pattel-Gray has termed "The great white flood".Even from a non-indigenous perspective, our annual "celebration of a nation" sits oddly with the actual events of 26 January 1788 when the British Empire began its dumping of convicts here. It's hardly a celebration of the founding of a nation, such as in the United States, or of the signing of a treaty (albeit one whose text has been continually disputed) such as in New Zealand.
Australia Day in its current form just highlights the confused identity of a nation founded on theft. A nation built on the shifting sands of stolen land.
This year the Australia Day Council named Professor Mick Dodson as Australian of the Year. It is to his credit that Dodson immediately highlighted the inappropriateness of celebrating national unity on a day that divides the nation between the survivors of invasion and the inheritors of the spoils of that invasion.
I'm not surprised that our federal Government and Opposition quickly shut down debate on this issue. It's not only a politically "courageous" (to borrow a Yes Minister phrase) suggestion for governments to consider, it's actually a reflection of our national reality: we don't have a prospective new Australia Day date because we are yet to do something significant as a nation to mark our national maturity.
For a start, there is too much unfinished business. One of the reasons for Professor Mick Dodson's appointment as Australian of the Year was his work on the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. Its 339 recommendations largely remain unrealised, not to mention the recommendations of the Bringing Them Home report, and the various documents of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation: the Declaration Towards Reconciliation, the Roadmap Towards Reconciliation and the Council's Final Report. There are still deaths in custody, there is still a disadvantage gap, there is still a gap in cultural understanding and respect. Reconciliation is unfinished.
We have, at least, apologised to the Stolen Generations.
The apology, along with the "welcome to country" at the opening of a new parliamentary term, does represent a critical shift in the body politic and meta-narrative of the nation. More than a decade after the Bringing Them Home report had raised the consciousness of Australians concerning the policies of Indigenous child removal, and after 10 annual "sorry days" to remind the public of the need to acknowledge the experience of the Stolen Generations within the nation's story, the federal parliament and the prime minister of Australia finally said "sorry".
In response to the apology, Lorraine Peeters, a member of the Stolen Generations, presented Rudd with a glass coolamon. Within it was a message that not only thanked him for saying sorry but established a vision for the future: "We have a new covenant between our peoples — that we will do all we can to make sure our children are carried forward, loved and nurtured and able to live a full life."
As the former Chairperson of the Secretariat for National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care, Muriel Bamblett, pointed out: "The use of coolamon as the carrier of this message is significant as coolamons were often used to carry newborn children in Aboriginal communities. Now it is the carrier of the future for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous children alike".
Recently the Victorian Attorney General, Rob Hulls, aligned the apology with a new sense of meaning for Australia Day:
"The ambiguity of this sorrow and celebration, this duality, is one that this nation has really struggled to come to terms with fully in its relatively short life. Until early last year, we had not truly, formally, properly, begun to make right the wrongs ofdispossession, we had not truly acknowledged that the land that is now known as Australia was founded on a denial of its first peoples.
"That's why I thank the Prime Minister for the moving and respectful apology he gave on behalf of the nation in federal parliament last February. Because of that simple act, this Australia Day is unlike any other. It's one which finds us at a new beginning, the first day of a truly collaborative journey to maturity."
While I'm sympathetic to the Attorney General's sentiments and appreciate his acknowledgement that sorry is but the first step, I believe there is more to do. If we are to avoid the apology becoming a "con job" as some respected Aboriginal commentators, such as Gary Foley, suggest, we need to move beyond the right words to implementing the right actions.
Indigenous policies — federal and state — are still subject to what Muriel Bamblett has termed "the fog of colonisation". National policies are largely tainted with the Howard government's anti-self determination and pro-"mainstreaming" approach. The Howard government's Ten Point Plan (or Eight and a Half Point Plan after Senator Brian Harradine managed some very minor amendments) still determines native title cases. And land rights appear to be a forgotten utopian dream.
So if we are to address questions of national identity, let alone a new date for Australia Day, we need to consider where we are at in the Australian story.
We need to feel both honour and shame about who we are as a people and interrogate our backgrounds and histories for both their buried treasure and skeletons in the cupboard. I'm not on about guilt. I'm not on about pity. But you can't have pride if you don't acknowledge shame.
Coming to terms with reconciliation is therefore not just a question of Indigenous identity but also non-indigenous identity. The terror of colonisation and terra nullius is a nightmare from which we all must try to wake. We non-indigenous people need to learn how not to be racist.
Fundamentally it's about understanding how power and privilege affects us all. American feminist scholar Peggy McIntosh suggests that there are at least 50 ways in which white people are unknowingly privileged and are made powerful by being part of the dominant culture.
For example: I can arrange to be in the company of my race most of the time. If I need to move to rent or buy or if I need credit my skin colour will not be an obstruction to getting the property. I can turn on the telly and see my race widely represented. I can swear, get drunk, dress in second hand clothes, not answer letters without people saying how typical of my race. I can do well without being called a credit to my race.
Rather than participate in our historic ethnocentrism, cultural insensitivity and covert/overt racism I want to go down a different road. A road travelled by many white activists before me. A road led by Aboriginal and Torres Strait leaders of vision and strength who rarely get a look in on the media stage.
It's only when we all take this journey that we will become citizens of an honourable, mature nation which values and respects the rights of its First Peoples and then — only then — all of its peoples.
And when that day comes we should celebrate and call it something. I suggest "Australia Day".
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Great piece, Peter
There is much to think about here.
ANTaR continues to do fine work.
http://www.antar.org.au/
Graham Ring Darwin
"It is to his credit that Dodson immediately highlighted the inappropriateness of celebrating national unity on a day that divides the nation between the survivors of invasion and the inheritors of the spoils of that invasion. "
Great to hear such bold and truthfully spoken words.
Also some other great quotes from this article:
"We non-indigenous people need to learn how not to be racist. "
…and …
"Rather than participate in our historic ethnocentrism, cultural insensitivity and covert/overt racism I want to go down a different road."
Well said Peter. The first step is acknowledging this cultural *ignorance* and ‘ethnocentrism’ (as you put it) - a step which, in my experience, seems ridiculously hard for most non-indigenous Australians I’ve met. You can’t, as you say, change anything, until you acknowledge - seriously acknowledge - the wrongs that you (we) and your(our) ancestors have been responsible for, either by instigation or by continuance.
So, first and foremost, we need to get some respect for the people and cultures of the nations of Australia. That means unclouding the ignorance. We need to all take steps to meet local indigenous elders, get to know the real name for where we live, learn a little (if you’re lucky enough to live somewhere where the local language is still living) of the local lingo. We need to be humble enough about the process to learn something. We need to stop thinking we’re ‘better’ and start to question the misplaced and ignorant ethnocentric colonialist conditioning we’ve grown up with.
We need to stop being patronising and thinking its our job to decide *how* to fix local problems (rather than it merely being our job to help facilitate changes agreed on by the local leaders). We need, of course, to stop screwing remote communities on behalf of mining companies, the USuk militaries, the tourist industry, etc, and publicly acknowledge this is a major problem and not just an aside. We are putting economics *before* people. That is shameful. We need to accept high court rulings on land rights with humility - and be at least a little embarassed that it took a couple of indigenous men in the late 20th century to expose the lie through the high court rather than us having thought of it ourselves. It *should* be embarassing, because we tend to think of ourselves as quite enlightened.
We need to campaign for land rights and Wik legislation again, because the general apathy about the swift degradation of Aboriginal land rights belies a position that is covertly racist. Did we, for example, stand by in the face of the IR reforms, or turn out enmasse to protest? If we care about how certain legislation affects *us* but not about the often far more crippling legislation negatively affecting Aboriginal populations around the country, we can’t claim any unity or ‘Australian spirit’.
… maybe then - much later - we can start to think about national, unifying pride (if we’re so inclined).
cheers - a great article, Derek
The points Peter Lewis makes are good ones, although the road to making our indigenous peoples full participants in this nation is a long one, and shows no sign of quick progress: even aboriginal leaders, and their supporters fail to agree on practical steps and priorities needed.
I do agree 26 January should cease to be our ‘national day’ - its main symbolic resonance is the celebration of Sydney’s white settlement - and with this the start of a dark page in indigenous history. Apart from this it has little meaning outside NSW - and can revert to being a single-state event.
This Sydney-centric ‘national’ mindset was demonstrated by the previous prime minister’s decision of contempt (as one Sydney-sider) in NOT residing in the national capital. When we achieve the 2nd Commonwealth of Australia (i.e. a republic) in future, that date can be selected as a valid national day without any historic baggage.
Good article. It’s worth wondering what Australia is all about…where is Rudd taking us? What are our major goals and aspirations? What do our children have to look forward to?
Can it really just be consumerism, working for overseas companies or administering everyone else? Surely it’s worth our having some higher purpose as a nation?
When will Australia come to peace?
The other day we heard Barack Obama speak of peace, "that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace."
He invoked, "We will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist."
Kevin Rudd spoke of clenched fists during the National Apology last year. "We have had sufficient audacity of faith to advance a pathway to that future, with arms extended rather than with fists still clenched."
Both Rudd and Obama agree, it is our actions that make history.
In a reconciled future, as the Prime Minister said forthrightly, "the injustices of the past must never, never happen again … where we harness the determination of all Australians … of new solutions to enduring problems where old approaches have failed."
Just over a week ago, I watched and wept at the young people so dislocated in Adrian Wills’ magnificent documentary, ‘When the Natives get Restless’ on ABC1. It illustrates searingly the processes of dislocation wrought upon a community that is largely Aboriginal, that took place when the NSW Government demolished the Gordon Estate in Dubbo, NSW. As one one young lad said: "No, I don’t want to be in Dubbo anymore you know, because all these houses and all that shit get knocked down. And it’s all starting to die out man."
What of these boys’ dreams in the new Australia? These little children.
Australia must not delay in taking up the call for peace that is now truly international. No more bickering and partisan politics, no more stale arguments. There must be a continuing dialogue that resolves once and for all the illegitimate foundation of Australia as a nation state.
The dilemma of the Australia Day date could be solved if we truly came of age and became a republic.
On that day we could, through an updated Australian Constitution, celebrate a day of national unity that also included words of reconciliation to the indigenous peoples of Australia.
And as the Aboriginal symbolic use of a coolamon as a gift suggests, we could also approach reconciliation as the rebirth of the nation, a nation that now included a reference to this prior occupation of Australian lands by indigenous peoples in its Constitution.
Australia Day would then mean all Australians could celebrate both Republican Day and Reconciliation Day as one nation on the same day!