Brown study

Three hundred years ago, the Australian people lived, if not the life of Reilly, a satisfying existence, in which they understood their place in the world, how they fitted and who they were. They could not control their environment exactly, but they had learned its workings over thousands of years, and could use it to their advantage.

They barely survived the intrusion of white Europeans that began in the late eighteenth century because of England's need to punish its poor for not being able to survive in an economy run for the benefit of a privileged few. (A need that still exists today -- who can fool themselves that the motivations for workfare and the workhouse are not the same? We run an economy that does not adequately provide for all, and cover up our shame by blaming the victims.)

It's notable that a similar intrusion, in New Zealand, although it also caused conflict and inevitably the destruction of the native economy and largely its culture, has had a different outcome (an accommodation that at least does not leave the indigenous people utterly hopeless and devastated, even if it has not proved equitable).

I am perfectly happy not to take a "black armband" view of history (this, nonAustralians might not understand, is how the right wing here describes history that reckons the whites did anything wrong in causing the deaths of thousands of the indigenous people, including the entire population of Tasmania or that considers the arrival of the Europeans as anything but a spectacular triumph of the modern world). I think concentrating on whether we should express sorrow for what we did is largely counterproductive. We should concentrate on what we're doing now.

This makes me feel profoundly sad. Instead of taking affirmative action, forcing open the racist structures of our nation, and uplifting this very much benighted section of it so that they can share in our enormous wealth, we feel we have the right to treat them like, what, children, animals? What do the Liberals think the Aboriginals are?

Do they ever stop to think how they would feel if they were told they could have a petrol station in their suburb if their kids kept their faces clean?

I believe truly and honestly that all human beings are much the same under the skin. I do not believe that we differ in intelligence, sensitivity or moral ability (although we differ, greatly, in education, how that sensitivity is moulded and directed and what we consider moral). What is more, I believe that not sharing that belief can only be the product of indoctrination or plain lack of education, because it is so obviously true.

***

Andrew Bolt wrote the other day that we are not racists because we voted Casey Donovan our Pop Idol, and she is part-Aboriginal. Leaving aside that it is mostly youngsters who vote for Pop Idol, this was an interesting thing to say. Take a look at Casey. She's a pleasant-looking young lady and what you might describe as pleasantly tinted. Now take a look at Yothu Yindi. Now they're black. (They rock, by the way, and for me they are a tremendous example of how a minority message can be conveyed using the majority cultural expression -- I believe that multiculturalism is far more about how cultures can enrich one another than about how they must be kept as islands.) Needless to say, Casey was not covering any Yothu Yindi on her way to triumph. My point, in case you were wondering whether I had one, is quite simply that racism is far more than not liking dark skin! Just because people don't consider looking a little exotic as a bar to being voted a Pop Idol (which is a singing competition, after all) doesn't mean they aren't bothered by a person's being from another culture. (I wonder how many people reading Bolt's drivel exclaimed "I never knew she was a boong".) What Bolt doesn't recognise is how patronising his view is. "Look, we're not racist! We voted for an abo." Yes, now give one a job, you cunt.

We don't have too many Aboriginal lawyers, doctors or even teachers. Aboriginal MPs are a bit thin on the ground too. Actually, truth to be told, Aboriginals themselves are a bit scarce in our major cities. There's a guy plays the didge in the Queen Street Mall, and I used to see a family around and about in Coorparoo when I lived there, but frankly, you see more Africans than indigenous people in Brisbane. (Perth has more of an Aboriginal presence. I suspect this is because of its later development and lesser attractiveness to farmers. Darwin, I'm told, does too, and of course so do the inland cities of NT, but these are not particularly populous, so a small number would go a lot further.)

I wonder whether many Brisbanites appreciate the irony of living in suburbs with Murri names but having not a single Murri in their street or even in the neighbourhood.

***

We are told that Cathy Freeman is a great role model for Aboriginals. We all love Kathy. Who didn't shed a tear when Cathy won the 400 in Sydney? I know I did, and I hate the Aussies' winning at anything. I thought it was a wonderful gesture that she lit the Olympic flame, because yes, she is iconic for all Australian people.

But what's the message? Your only way out is to be good at sports. Frankly, Cathy is not a great role model for anyone. She's a good runner but frankly she's just so-so as a human being. (Well, most of us are!)

There are quite a few Aboriginal sportsmen. All get labelled "role models" for the indigenous kids. The message is clearly "practise your footy and forget your books -- you've got fuck all chance of making it as a lawyer".

***

The thrust of the right has long been that indigenous communities should "deserve" our "help". There are a couple of Uncle Toms among the Aboriginal community who sing from the same sheet. Meanwhile, Aboriginals suffer poor health, lack educational opportunities, fill our jails and occasionally find themselves "falling down the stairs" in police stations (I could not believe my ears when I heard on the news that Cameron Doomadgee might have become injured by falling on some concrete steps -- black guys stopped falling down the stairs in London police stations twenty years ago, when the police was purged of racist coppers and we started doing something about it).

But I say they don't need to deserve a goddamned thing until the descendants of the people who destroyed their way of life, and have done very well out of it, have raised their standard of living, by whatever means, to the same as even poor whites enjoy. This is not done, I feel, by treating them like idiots, or by making them jump through hoops for the amenities the white majority take for granted.

posted by Dr Zen @ 2:15 pm