The Prime Minister’s Idea of Practical Reconciliation
My concern is that current policies recognise no distinct role or status for Aboriginal people in our political, social and economic life. The issues are addressed on assimilationist lines. Only the other day, I heard the Prime Minister say that the best way for indigenous people to gain access to the bounty and good fortune of Australia was for them to be absorbed into the mainstream. The Government’s response to the Reconciliation report in 2002, took a similar approach in rejecting “action which would entrench additional, special or different rights for one part of the community.” Carried to its end, this essentially assimilationist approach would mean the eventual disappearance of Aboriginal tradition and culture - their knowledge and spiritual connections to this land built up over tens of thousands of years.
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The unique and rich culture of Australian aborigines must never be lost, instead all Australians ought to be proud of it and consider themselves fortunate to have an Aboriginal population which has contributed so much to Australia, its tourism, art, culture and to Australia’s place in the world (apart from the poor treatment handed out in recent years which has reduced Australians standing in the world).
In this entire debate there is altogether too much simplification of the issues. Specifically, the idea of multiculturalism and cultural diversity is boiled down to the choice between a minority black Australia existing within a white-dominated country on one hand, or total assimilation, under the guise of ‘absorption into the mainstream’ on the other.
This is a false choice and erroneously leads to those of us who argue for the retention and revitalisation of indigenous culture to be criticised as acting contrary to the interests of aboriginal people by preventing their accessing the mainstream. The criticism is not justified. Rather, the view that joining the mainstream is better than sticking with cultural identity is equally contrary to indigenous interests.
I’m all in support of reconciliation, but not the neo-assimilationist idea of reconciliation that the government heralds. We need to right the cultural wrongs of our appalling colonial history.
S Africa has an elegant new Constitution, but reconciliation is marred by African nationalism. Is touting
one's own' and establishing anational’ (instead of merely a human identity) an inevitable process on the way to political maturity? Heroes of earlier colonial history are set at nought. No thanks for anything they have done. Many whites emigrated from impossible conditions in Europe; worked their butts off to survive here, and always voted against the Nationalist govt., to no avail. Amature' view of history and politics would acknowedge the contribution made to development here, by the (advantaged’)settlers.Whites are being punished retrospectively for the `sins’ of their fathers. How does one deal with this phenomenon?Prime Minister Howard’s attitude is wrong and counterproductive - as is his strange persistence in refusing to have his government say SORRY to Aborigines.
However, equally wrong and counterproductive would be imposing Apartheid on Australia; if it was wrong for South Africa then it is certainly wrong for Australia too. So too is unwanted Assimilation, whether forced [as in the bad old days] or through financial pressure today.
There’s nothing wrong with having specific special privledges for Aborigines so long as in doing so, nobody is harmed. [For instance, limiting the appointment of Governors and Governors-General to anyone with at least one ancestor born in Australia prior to 1788]. If it takes special laws and funding to raise our fellow Australians out of poverty, to reduce rates of morbidity and mortality among them, to preserve and share what’s left of their heritage, to give the young people some hope …. then let’s not mess around, let’s just do it!
The Howard Government has been busily severing the social contract which traditionally we elected Governments to deliver.
Witness the privatisation of our universities, the cuts to education and welfare. Now the latest is Julie Bishop’s plan for schools to invite “corporate sponsorship” because “education is beyond the means of Government.”
It is outrageous, yet along with everything else, the silence from the community is deafening.