On the ABC News this morning (7.45am on ABC 774), Les Malezar was speaking saying that overnight the United Nations had said that Australia should make a Treaty with the Aboriginal people of Australia. (Apologies: have looked for an ABC text link but have been unable to find one).
The idea of a Treaty has always been rejected by white politicians of all persuasions. Some have said that a treaty usually comes after a war. Mmmm...? When will Australians officially recognise the Aboriginal wars in this country and the frequent fightback of Australia's First Nations for the integrity of their land and access to their land?
The idea of a Treaty, nonetheless, is no newfangled 21st century idea dreamed up to annoy the whitefella. It has a long - and proud - history even among white Australians.
An Aboriginal Treaty Committee operated in Australia from 1979 to 1983 chaired by H.C. "Nuggett" Coombs. Its purpose was to promote the idea of a treaty among non-indigenous Australians.
The names on this advertisement calling for help were:
Mrs Eva Hancock
Mr Hugh Littlewood
The current Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia, Robert French, says that it is possible for Australia to make a Treaty with Aboriginal Australia.
Some of us who have been around Aboriginal stuff for a while will still be cautious about such a statement even from such a distinguished man with a keen interest and experience in Aboriginal matters. Chief Justice French was President of the National Native Title Tribunal (1994-1998). You see, for Aboriginal Australia, the concept of Treaty is based on sovereignty, based on the fact none of the more than 700 First Nations of this land ever ceded their sovereignty in any legal way to British rule.
Can white Australia deal with the concept of Aboriginal sovereignty which is the driving force of Aboriginal Australia's call for a Treaty? My view is that it would be a bitter pill for many white Australians to swallow.
A major driving force behind the dual concept of sovereignty and treaty was Kevin Gilbert, the distinguished black writer and poet. Kevin Gilbert's work is carried on to-day in the life and work of many, many people - not least by his widow Eli Gilbert. I include artwork by Kevin Gilbert below along with some significant thoughts by Hugh Littlewood of the Aboriginal Treaty Committee.
"Justice denied"
By Hugh Littlewood
My first contact with the Treaty Committee was in answer to Dr Coombs' search for someone to do the mundane tasks of ordering the finances, creating an office and keeping the records of the Committee. A person of high ability in mundane tasks, I suggested I could be useful. (There didn't appear to be too many others offering.)
I had a great deal in common with the vast majority of other white Australians. I knew little about Aborigines and less about a 'Treaty'. But I began to learn. I learnt that the role of the Committee was to publicise the perception of a problem and to educate the community towards the resolution of that problem.
Basic to the nature of our society is a need for the formal recognition of relationships between individuals and groups. We seem to be inherently unable to accept a moral position without its ratification by law or code.
While superficially a Treaty would be a mechanism to give justice to Aborigines, it always seemed to me that I, and my ilk, would be the greatest beneficiaries. Aborigines have a clear sense of their cause and their relationship to and with this country. It is we who flounder, patronising or exploitive, unprepared to commit ourselves to a relationship with the Aboriginal people. We lack the directive of law or history to bind us to this country.
I have learnt about loss. I have been able to stand before an ochre painted wall in Central Queensland and realise that what I saw had been made meaningless for me by sheer pig ignorance. How easy it would have been to be a participant of the mind rather than an observer on tour in the country where I was born.
I have learnt about justice denied. Without a clear definition of purpose, my Australia will continue to avoid facing up to the fact that we have denied human rights and often humanity itself to the Aboriginal people. I have seen the alacrity with which we will support our actions by legal precedents which excuse the past, and which will forever be used, unless we are prepared to join in a new foundation.
I have learnt that a group of people prepared to work for a cause can change the order of things. The support given to the Treaty Committee has surpassed our expectations. We may be castigated for "preaching to the converted", but I believe each of those "converted", you in fact, and certainly me, has achieved a deeper understanding; for some a move from sympathy to commitment; for others a focus for that commitment.
An Aboriginal Treaty is not a panacea.
Its creation will lead us all into areas of painful self-examination.
But it will be something that we have done for ourselves, by ourselves.
The Committee may be disbanding
but I hope the major enterprise is just beginning.
~~~~~~~~~
Related reading:
Its coming yet--: An Aboriginal treaty within Australia between Australians
Treaty-Making & Australia: Globalisation Versus Sovereignty
Living Black: Blacks Talk to Kevin Gilbert
The Remote (Australian) Aborigines - (Aboriginal policy and practice)
Outcasts in White Australia (Pelican)
The Destruction of Aboriginal Society (Pelican)
Aboriginal policy and practice (Aborigines in Australian society)
A matter of justice
A Human Pattern: Selected Poems
The Equal Heart and Mind: Letters Between Judith Wright and Jack Mckinney
Judith Wright (Australian Writers & Their Work)
Woman's Song: Australian Settings of Poetry By Judith Wright
The Poetry of Judith Wright
We Call for a Treaty
Portrait of a Friendship: The Letters of Judith Wright and Barbara Blackman 1950-2000
With Love and Fury: Selected Letters of Judith Wright
~~~~~~~~~
Related reading:
Its coming yet--: An Aboriginal treaty within Australia between Australians
Treaty-Making & Australia: Globalisation Versus Sovereignty
Living Black: Blacks Talk to Kevin Gilbert
The Remote (Australian) Aborigines - (Aboriginal policy and practice)
Outcasts in White Australia (Pelican)
The Destruction of Aboriginal Society (Pelican)
Aboriginal policy and practice (Aborigines in Australian society)
A matter of justice
A Human Pattern: Selected Poems
The Equal Heart and Mind: Letters Between Judith Wright and Jack Mckinney
Judith Wright (Australian Writers & Their Work)
Woman's Song: Australian Settings of Poetry By Judith WrightThe Poetry of Judith Wright
We Call for a Treaty
Portrait of a Friendship: The Letters of Judith Wright and Barbara Blackman 1950-2000
With Love and Fury: Selected Letters of Judith Wright
Further reading:
For the Well-Beloved: Judith Wright and Nugget Coombs
I am a Native person "Status Indian" from Canada. Although I have faced some discrimination I am also granted some very important "Treaty Rights. I believe the balance in Canada falls somewhere between the Australian and African Experiences. In Africa where full soverienty was acheivced you had a complete collapse and can hardly be claimed to be a desirerable outcome. here in Canada we have been compensated financially and with access to health care and education however our people still lag behind the general population. Antway I am simply saying that I am pretty satified with the way in which the Government of Cabada has finally resolved many issues although it took a long long time. The Australia outlook seems different can this be atttributed to the different type of settlers who went to Australia Vs Canada, just a thought
ReplyDeleteDear Anonymous, thank you for dropping by. I will have to run your last sentence to see what some think.
ReplyDeleteMy own understanding is that the first settlers did not understand Australian Aboriginal social structure and therefore could not relate to it in an appropriate way. I guess there may be some who won't like that summation either.
Australian Aboriginal social structure does not have a head person like white society does. The structure is more oligarchical. So it's a bit difficult to say "Take me to your leader". You could say "I would like to consult with your elders." That would be a start except that Aboriginal Australia is not one entity. It comprises more than 700 nations. Within those nations are various groupings and clans - each with their own elders.
Come to the modern day where the whitefella structure is highly bureaucratic and likes one size fits all policies and solutions. This sort of thinking does not really fit Aboriginal society either. On the whitefella side (and I am a whitefella whose 5x great grandfather was on the ship with Capt Cook and his son came to Australia in the 1830s), I do think we have (and we aren't the only ones) dark places within of racism and social hierarchies. We also, like so many people across the Planet Earth, want to grab land for all sorts of reasons. This in itself leads to conflict and frequently ends up impoverishing one side and enriching another.
In Australia, many wonder how different things might have been or could be if there was a Treaty established among equals. So far there is no really concrete proposal around this idea.
The other thing is to respect Aboriginal self-determination and to consider Aboriginal people as citizens who need to receive the same respect, rights, entitlements and services as other Australian citizens. And, finally, there are people on the planet - not just in Aboriginal Australia - who don't think that modern, Western, industrialised and technocratic society is the greatest thing since sliced bread. In short, there are people in the world who have trouble finding their place within social structures defined by modernity. I'm not sure modern Western society has found a way to negotiate this dilemma, yet. We demand that people fit. We do our best to enforce that by subtle and not so subtle economic and social pressures. When people react with negative results in the face of these pressures, modern Western society seems to have no comprehension of where to from this place.
I think we have to start treating all people with respect and as equals. Governments (and some others) need to approach people of the First Nations with a bit of humility. While there may be positive elements to Australian mainstream society's interaction with Aboriginal Australia, we have plenty to be humble about - and I reckon we ought to start showing it. True humility, respectful consultation and recognition of the status of the people of the First Nationals could be a start to getting us all on a new footing.