Greer on Aborigines
The front page of The Australian today has this article,
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,19213838-601,00.html
highlighting the problem of overcrowding in the houses of Aboriginal communities. The photograph, which I can't seem to find on the Internet, displays a very unpleasant kitchen in a three-bedroom house occupied by ten people - apparently commonplace in the communities concerned. In my eyes, it is a problem. But then the issue of interference arises. Are Aborigines happy to live in conditions that we ourselves would refuse to be subjected to? I for one do not think so. But, who am I to know?
Where should the governments of this country draw the line? I have no strong stance on what the approach to Aborigines should be, the reason being that I simply do not know what the answers are. But Germaine Greer said something to Andrew Denton on Enough Rope in 2003 that really got me thinking, and it's stayed with me since.
GG: ...we agonise about Aborigines, but we still think of them as our problem.
AD: And what are they?
GG: They're themselves. We're their problem. And WE are the problem that WE can solve.
AD: And how do we solve it?
GG: Well, I'm saying, "Think." Think about different ways of doing things. Think about a different set of priorities. We keep raising… Every 10 years we have a new solution for the Aborigines. We've driven them half-mad with our mad solutions.
We're going to be separatists. We're going to be integrationists. We're going to be…we're going to load you with money, then jump all over you because you don't know how to spend it. We'll give you our own nominees to run your society, then we're going to tell you that they're corrupt. Well, why do you think they got the job in the first place? This is Australia. Jesus! And the unfortunate Aborigines are just saying, "Listen, we…you give us a new set of forms to sign every five years, and we've done it. We've played every game."
It's just unspeakable, the misery we put these people through. Stop thinking about them as our problem to solve. Try a really novel thing, try leaving them alone! And instead look at why we first of all deny our closeness to them, deny the extent to which they've interpenetrated our society, so that it's a big startlement, you know, when a popular talk show host turns out to have history, everyone goes, "Oooh, oooh, oooh," as if he's suddenly grown horns. There's much more interpenetration between our communities than people are prepared to admit.
We are alike, but I would rather think of us as an Aboriginal nation than as of some sort of mad colonial country with zoos for the containment of the original inhabitants.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,19213838-601,00.html
highlighting the problem of overcrowding in the houses of Aboriginal communities. The photograph, which I can't seem to find on the Internet, displays a very unpleasant kitchen in a three-bedroom house occupied by ten people - apparently commonplace in the communities concerned. In my eyes, it is a problem. But then the issue of interference arises. Are Aborigines happy to live in conditions that we ourselves would refuse to be subjected to? I for one do not think so. But, who am I to know?
Where should the governments of this country draw the line? I have no strong stance on what the approach to Aborigines should be, the reason being that I simply do not know what the answers are. But Germaine Greer said something to Andrew Denton on Enough Rope in 2003 that really got me thinking, and it's stayed with me since.
GG: ...we agonise about Aborigines, but we still think of them as our problem.
AD: And what are they?
GG: They're themselves. We're their problem. And WE are the problem that WE can solve.
AD: And how do we solve it?
GG: Well, I'm saying, "Think." Think about different ways of doing things. Think about a different set of priorities. We keep raising… Every 10 years we have a new solution for the Aborigines. We've driven them half-mad with our mad solutions.
We're going to be separatists. We're going to be integrationists. We're going to be…we're going to load you with money, then jump all over you because you don't know how to spend it. We'll give you our own nominees to run your society, then we're going to tell you that they're corrupt. Well, why do you think they got the job in the first place? This is Australia. Jesus! And the unfortunate Aborigines are just saying, "Listen, we…you give us a new set of forms to sign every five years, and we've done it. We've played every game."
It's just unspeakable, the misery we put these people through. Stop thinking about them as our problem to solve. Try a really novel thing, try leaving them alone! And instead look at why we first of all deny our closeness to them, deny the extent to which they've interpenetrated our society, so that it's a big startlement, you know, when a popular talk show host turns out to have history, everyone goes, "Oooh, oooh, oooh," as if he's suddenly grown horns. There's much more interpenetration between our communities than people are prepared to admit.
We are alike, but I would rather think of us as an Aboriginal nation than as of some sort of mad colonial country with zoos for the containment of the original inhabitants.
posted by Anthony Stoddart @ 9:10 PM
3 Comments:
At Wed May 24, 06:49:00 PM,
Sarah said…
What exactly did she mean by 'try leaving them alone', though? Leave them alone with no welfare, keep neglecting the health and nutritional needs of aboriginal children, ignore the extremely high rates of smoking that contribute to a life expectancy 20-30 years less than all other australian? Leave what alone?
She's right in that whatever the hell we're doing just isn't working though.
At Mon May 29, 09:11:00 PM,
jenniferlouisewright said…
Anthony - am not sure if you are au fait with the wonderful (Aussie) ABC satire 'The Games' starring the delectable John Clarke and Gina Riley? Well your post reminded me of an episode which I saw, in which a guy played John Howard (bloody Howard ...) and issued an apology to the Aborigini (spelling?) population. It was really quite beautiful and moving, especially coming in the midst of the razor sharp wit of that programme - head to http://www.abc.net.au/thegames, but for the sake of time, here is the text of that speech:
APOLOGY MADE BY JOHN HOWARD ON THE 3RD OF JULY ON NATIONAL TV
Any other John Howard who wishes to make this announcement should apply for copyright permission here, which will be granted immediately.
Good evening. My name is John Howard and I'm speaking to you from Sydney, Australia, host city of the year 2000 Olympic Games.
At this important time, and in an atmosphere of international goodwill and national pride, we here in Australia - all of us - would like to make a statement before all nations. Australia, like many countries in the new world, is intensely proud of what it has achieved in the past 200 years.
We are a vibrant and resourceful people. We share a freedom born in the abundance of nature, the richness of the earth, the bounty of the sea. We are the world's biggest island. We have the world's longest coastline. We have more animal species than any other country. Two thirds of the world's birds are native to Australia. We are one of the few countries on earth with our own sky. We are a fabric woven of many colours and it is this that gives us our strength.
However, these achievements have come at great cost. We have been here for 200 years but before that, there was a people living here. For 40,000 years they lived in a perfect balance with the land. There were many Aboriginal nations, just as there were many Indian nations in North America and across Canada, as there were many Maori tribes in New Zealand and Incan and Mayan peoples in South America. These indigenous Australians lived in areas as different from one another as Scotland is from Ethiopia. They lived in an area the size of Western Europe. They did not even have a common language. Yet they had their own laws, their own beliefs, their own ways of understanding.
We destroyed this world. We often did not mean to do it. Our forebears, fighting to establish themselves in what they saw as a harsh environment, were creating a national economy. But the Aboriginal world was decimated. A pattern of disease and dispossession was established. Alcohol was introduced. Social and racial differences were allowed to become fault-lines. Aboriginal families were broken up. Sadly, Aboriginal health and education are responsibilities we have still yet to address successfully.
I speak for all Australians in expressing a profound sorrow to the Aboriginal people. I am sorry. We are sorry. Let the world know and understand, that it is with this sorrow, that we as a nation will grow and seek a better, a fairer and a wiser future. Thank you.
John Howard, July 3, 2000
At Tue May 30, 08:59:00 PM,
Anthony Stoddart said…
I am a big fan of 'The Games'. I own the first series on DVD. Unfortunately, the ABC have not released series two on DVD. I heard it had something to do with some legal problems they were having with the IOC. It's absolutely brilliant. John, Bryan and Gina are absolute classics. John Clarke & Bryan Dawe appear together on the ABC each Thursday night for about five minutes. Clarke plays the role of a notable Australian politician (whoever is in the media spotlight at the time) and Dawe is the interviewer. Biting satire.
Thank you for pointing that speech out. We have a lot of work to do. Though it is seldom discussed openly, there does still exist a massive chasm between white Australians and Aborigines. Talk of reconciliation was blown out the window quite some time ago.
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