Beyond Australia Day
Tuesday, 30 January 2018
| Glenn Loughrey
Changing the date of Australia Day is a distraction. There, I’ve said it. It is not that the issue is not one to be considered at some time, but the energy being focussed on it by politicians, by media and on Facebook could better be spent on addressing the issues that count.
Australia Day is offensive, not for the day or the date, but for what it represents – the ongoing genocide of Aboriginal[1] People in this country in which all non-indigenous people are complicit. Now, I can already hear people drawing breath ready to defend themselves – they weren’t there, they didn’t make the decisions, it was a long time ago and more. The truth is you were there because you are here and you have benefited directly from the eradication of Aboriginal People from their land.
As Peter Carey says, 'You wake up in the morning and you are the beneficiary of a genocide' - you are complicit. The property you own, the businesses you work in, the government and councils who service you and the churches you worship in are all built on stolen land. This land was stolen at the cost of the blood of Aboriginal People.
William Cox is alleged to have said in 1824 that the only solution was ‘the eradication of this vermin … And that includes women and children’.[2] The result? By 1872, no tribal person existed in the area around Mudgee in NSW. Dynasties were built, churches bequeathed and infrastructure developed as a direct result of the destruction of local people.
Churches, particularly the English State Church, not only benefited directly from, but also played a significant role in, the destruction of culture, language and spirituality. This continues with churches seeking to convert Aboriginal People from their spirituality to Christianity, continuing the destruction of culture and the assimilation or mainstreaming of Aboriginal People. Aboriginal People should be allowed to maintain their spirituality and culture and not be required to forego such to be accepted in society. If, being fully able to determine their own spirituality, they make a conscious decision to become Christian, then so be it, but they must not be coerced to do so by others. This is important as the process of evangelisation has led to the loss of culture and cohesiveness of Aboriginal society and can amount to genocide under the UN Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
Australia continues the project of genocide on our people. The 2007 Northern Territory Emergency Response suspended the Racial Discrimination Act, stealing once again the property and land of more than 70 communities across the Northern Territory. This intervention was as illegal as the invasion of this country by the English. The intervention continues and benefits only white people who participate as workers of the organisations that now rule these communities. This includes well-meaning young people who go into the communities as teachers, nurses and administrators and benefit financially as a result.
What is lost on white Australia is the deep trauma felt by Aboriginal People as a result of 229 years of genocide. Self-harm, suicide, violence, substance abuse and more find their roots in the dislocation of people from their country, law, language, ceremony and kin, and from their song-lines and tribal governance structures. Spend some time in talking circles alongside mob and it doesn’t take long to feel the despair in the lives of those around you. You feel it in your body. This despair can only be rectified by something other than symbolic acts. Simply moving Australia Day or converting people to Christianity is insufficient to deal with the grief and loss Aboriginal People have experienced and continue to experience. Doing something more may eventually lead to the date being changed - it will come naturally and will not need to be forced because we will all agree.
What is that ‘something more’? It includes the following:
- Recognise our sovereignty over this country. This country was not ceded and therefore we remain the only sovereign people in this land. It is to be remembered that in Aboriginal culture the land is sovereign because it holds within it everything that Aboriginal people need for existence – law, tradition, language, ceremony and kinship. The land owns the people; the people do not own the land. The land has birthed the people; that is why they are the sovereign people of this land.
- Recognise and accept our language, law, ceremony and culture. Recognise and accept that we continue to have the right to enact our tradition on our own country without interruption or control. This is because we are the only people with legal sovereignty, because the country was invaded and no treaty or reparation was made for those affected by the war that followed and that continues.
- Support Aboriginal people in their demands for a sovereign treaty and a Makarrata. This is their response to the request to develop a way forward by the Commonwealth government in 2017, and it is the only place to begin. The word ‘sovereign’ is the key. As already explained, Aboriginal People are the sovereign people of nations that were invaded and no treaty or agreement has been made to share sovereignty. Therefore Aboriginal sovereignty is still in place and, unless the Commonwealth government recognises that sovereignty and treats with Aboriginal people as equals, there is no going forward for either.
- Resist the temptation to have an opinion. First listen to those directly affected by the ongoing oppression and racism. Much of what is used to form opinions is based on half-truths and innuendo from shock jocks and sensationalist media, chance encounters people have on or around Australia holidays or something they have heard from another who heard it from someone else.
- Resist the temptation to help. We can do it for ourselves if we have the resources and space to do so. Much of the help Aboriginal People receive is paternal – ‘we know what you need better than you do’. Much of this help has not improved the situation but has reduced many Aboriginal people to be dependent on others to fix it. It is this kind of help that has instituted the reliance on welfare, for example. We require a sovereign treaty to return our capacity and dignity, not more unasked-for help.
- Call out our churches for the ongoing role they have played in the destruction of our culture and spirituality, the taking of land for churches and the continuing proselytising of aboriginal people. The proselytising is often done for the benefit of those sharing the Gospel and does not involve true engagement with and of the people and their needs. As noted before, if Aboriginal People have control of their land, are fully self-determining and are culturally aware, then they can and will make positive decisions, including the decision to accept the Gospel message.
- As Christians, fight for reparation for the churches’ role in taking children and breaking up families. Apologies and inclusion in constitutions are only symbolic. Churches are to find ways to do treaty with local Aboriginal communities and to pay reparation for the taking and use of the Aboriginal Peoples’ land.
- As Christians, seek forgiveness from Aboriginal People, undertake reparation and pray that God is merciful towards the churches’ continuing blindness. Whatever story the church and Christians tell about themselves is not matched by the experience of our people. The relationship between the church and Aboriginal People is conflicted, and becomes more so as more and more of the story is heard. The role the church played in the mission era and the assimilation or Stolen Generation era, and the events considered in the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse, have had a major impact. Much of what the church did in these eras may have been deemed to be benign or helpful by them, but were a part of the overall strategy to destroy a people and their culture. Almost every radio interview I do finishes with the question, ‘Why should we trust the church?’
In the last two weeks, I have met with mob who are deeply traumatised by a system that benefited the church. The destruction caused by this ongoing trauma is powerful and real. These people are waiting not just for a ‘sorry’ but for the cessation of hostilities and reparation for the years during which the churches have used their land to speak against them. They are waiting be treated as real people, given back the land that was stolen and respected with the right to be in charge of their own people and land.
The dislocation of Aboriginals from their country (which holds their entire law and identity), the destruction of sacred sites and song-lines, and the taking of children from families (which is now occurring at rates never before experienced) have resulted in deep inner personal and generational trauma. This trauma is expressed in addiction, violence, self-harm and suicide. It is further accelerated by the out-of-control incarceration rates, below third world levels of education and health, and more.
One of the healers is a sovereign treaty recognising Aboriginal people. This would lay the foundation for addressing the compound nature of the trauma experienced by individuals and families, which requires cultural awareness and, in particular, mindfulness of the complex nature of Aboriginal culture. For example, the word ‘Uluru’ is not only a place name but also a family name. To use that name for anything other than the recognition of a place requires permission from the family whose name it is. Therefore, we now call the statement developed there ‘The Statement From the Heart’. And there is much more.
We have had many false starts in our journey to freedom; the 1967 referendum, Mabo, Rudd’s Apology and the Statement From the Heart are but a few of many. I fear we cannot experience another. We are hoping that a sovereign treaty is the real deal and we call upon all Australians to work with us to right the wrongs of the past and the present.
Further Reading
Bruce Pascoe, Dark Emu: black seeds: agriculture or accident? (Broome, Western Australia: Magabala Books, 2014).
Colin Tatz, Australia's Unthinkable Genocide (Curtin, ACT: Xlibris, 2017).
Bronwyn Carlson and EBSCOhost, The politics of identity: who counts as Aboriginal today? (Canberra, ACT, Aboriginal Studies Press: 2016).
My website, https://www.redshoeswalking.net/category/indigenous/, contains articles I have written on this subject.
Glenn Loughrey is a Wiradjuri man and Anglican priest at St Oswald’s, Glen Iris. He is an artist who explores his identity and story, and was a finalist in the Doug Moran Portrait Prize 2017. He is engaged in the dialogue for treaty, sovereignty and self-determination for Aboriginal people.
Photos
Thumbnail image: Australia Day speaks of the replacing of one culture with another by building the legacy of those who died. This painting contains around 25,000 brown dots representing the more than 65,000 Aboriginal people killed in the invasion wars. These are then overlaid with the church, Harbour Bridge, Opera House and Sydney Cricket Ground, as well as houses and farms depicting the ongoing destruction of people and culture.
First image: Exile: Self Portrait of the Artist as an Aboriginal Man, which was Glenn Loughrey’s finalist in the Doug Moran Portrait Prize 2017.
Second image: Treaty is about the tenuous process of bring the two sides together to sit in the centre an talk. It will be hung as a banner on St Paul’s Cathedral in Melbourne for most of 2018.
[1] Through out this document I use the word Aboriginal instead of First Nations People or Indigenous. Aboriginal is the word most people use to describe themselves. The other two terms are either terms used to describe people in other nations such as the United States of America and Canada (‘First Nations People’) or as a generic term at an international level (‘Indigenous’).
[2] Bruce Elder, Blood on the wattle: massacres and maltreatment of Aboriginal Australians since 1788 (Frenchs Forest, NSW: New Holland, 2003). While there is discussion about exactly which Cox said this, William or his son George, there is no question as to whether it was said.