Beyond Reconciliation
Dennis Foley, Oodgeroo Unit, Queensland University of Technology
Owen J Wordsmiths Room, S Block
Gardens Point, QUT.
May 26, 2003
Recognition of Country
Thank you for attending and joining in this discussion. I realize that the majority of if not all of you are interested in the process of reconciliation and I am obviously preaching to the converted, having said this please do not feel intimidated by my words, I doubt if my frustration and anger is leveled at anyone within this room.
I speak as a member of the Gai-mariagal clan, commonly referred to as Guringah. My family links include most of the Eora clans, the Yuin, the Wiradjuri, Bungalung and Gamilaroi. I speak only as a representative of my family; I do not speak as a representative of these nations.
Beyond Reconciliation?
As a topic this is daunting.
Was the reconciliation process that we witnessed launched in the twilight stages of the Keating Government a success? Did it have any achievements? Or was it a process that enabled black and white community ‘leaders’ the opportunity of rubbing shoulders to feel warm and fuzzy. What did it really achieve? I have trouble seeking out positive answers to this question.
Some would say that the reconciliation process kept a number of printers in full time employment producing masses of glossy brochures and information sheets. To me, what the reconciliation process did, the march across the Harbour Bridge and so many other activities, it gave me a sense of hope.
Then along came John Howard and the nimble flame of hope that was kindled was extinguished!
However, having said that there is always hope when people come together to correct social injustice.
To illustrate reconciliation in process, a non-indigenous postgraduate student of Celtic origin, whom I hold close to my heart recently undertook some research in the Central Desert country. To ensure that she did not succumb to a disillusion of the exotic black as she was venturing into a community that has many positive attributes I wrote this poem to maintain a level of sobriety.
Grandmothers Tears
The numbing of the rain
hides the tears as another Belfast Catholic is placed into a muddy pit.
Cut down by a Protestant bullet
he will never see manhood
or raise children.
And his girlfriend stands there, barren!
Her eyes, they twinkle like raindrops on a windowpane,
and his grandmother
dry eyed.
The tears were all used up
too many graves ago.
And in Woorabinda a child is born,
premature
nothing of the little girl,
a spasm of agony
as she lays there in grotesque spasms.
A petrol-sniffed baby
Complicated with the mothers alcoholism.
A child with no hope
and possibly no right to live
as it will never speak,
or function in a human manner.
The grandmother just holds her,
eyes glistening
but she holds in her wimper.
And an eleven year old in Thargaminda
tries to get out of bed
and get to the toilet,
clutching her guts as she stumbles
leaking blood and the refuse of rape.
Her uncle punched her into submission
then fucked her to destruction.
She will sniff petrol within a few days
to get rid of the feel of dirtiness.
But it will not go
it will remain till she dies.
That's one thing water (or grog) never washes away.
And her grandmother will cry at her early death,
adding tears to a parched earth
linking her to the Irish women
as the oppressed are bound
to extirpation at the hands of a system.
I did not want my lady to forget the social problems that are endemic in our
communities, which permeate our society. I wanted her to feel my pain that all
of us feel as Indigenous Australian’s, far too often. I also wanted to
remind her that in her own culture there are still blatant anti-reconciliation
situations; we are all hurting.
When we deconstruct the reconciliation process then, and look towards, beyond reconciliation, how do we do it?
It seems to me that the reconciliation process was ‘us’ coming to the table to reconcile with European Australia. I did not feel that white Australia came to me?
Indigenous Australia still feels the effect of assimilation policies; we suffer the pain within our families or as individuals of stolen generations. The rancid taste of racism lingers in our senses. We are angry and frustrated as an example the Beattie Governments handling of the lost wages, the protraction in Native Title and the loss of Traditional Owner sovereignty.
Yet beyond Reconciliation as an Indigenous person I am at a crossroad, do I remain angry?
Do I remain frustrated and full of hate?
Do I go on educating future generations, my children and grandchildren so that they too grow up and also mirror mine and my forefathers hatred and frustrations?
Or is there a solution?
There is, but it means acceptance of our people. Acceptance of our laws, lores, land management, and religions.
I am talking equality!
Some talk of a treaty! In a treaty there is a basic understanding or acceptance that the parties are mutually acceptable of each other, there is a common ground, they are equals. In Contemporary Australian society Indigenous Australian’s are not treated or seen as equals by the current government or for that matter a sizeable proportion of the population.
The current Prime Minister parades our sporting achievers around in tokenistic fashion when on the other hand he creates racist policy in a ten point plan, destroys Indigenous governance and a hysteria of blame the victim for their own mismanagement in the recent reconstruction of ATSIC and funding cuts.
The devolution in Indigenous policy that we are witnessing today is no less oppressive than the orchestrated precision of the military extirpation of my mother’s people from 1789 to 1836.
Beyond reconciliation, where are we going?
The child born into foetal alcohol syndrome, the youth prostituting themselves for petrol so that they may forget for a brief moment what it is like to be black; their hopelessness. The Teenager in a shopping centre toilet, chroming to also obtain a brief interlude that is the reality of an oppressive ‘white’ Australian society. The young men and women sexually abused, the domestic violence sufferers and their abusers. Most (if not all) take a path of self-destruction in their life’s journey that perpetuates the negativity of life that is Aboriginal Australian society.
Then there is the incarcerated, the mentally abused, the hungry, the unemployed, the unemployable, the uneducated, the unskilled, those without much hope.
What does reconciliation and the future hold for them?
One of our greatest problems is poverty. Ghandi acknowledged that poverty was the worst form of violence; reconciliation needs to also address economic reform. Indigenous Australia is searching for its basic rights. “And is not peace in the last analysis basically a matter of human rights, the right to live out our lives without fear or devastation” (JFKennedy).
Peace, human rights, poverty eradication. This is the foundation stone of what I want as an Indigenous Australian. At the moment we do not have this, we are not at parity with white Australia.
Reconciliation means coming together, when one party is not equal we cannot reconcile; there is no beyond.
Yet to witness examples of this we need not venture to the Brisbane fringe. Within QUT we have young minds that will be future schoolteachers who within the oppression of a western pedagogy are taught that Indigenous schoolchildren have special needs as students. The standard colonial stereotype. Western epistemologies within some areas of this institution still see us through the haze, the gaze that appears as the exotic black. This needs to be changed; to be addressed and permanently buried.
However we are different; our history of oppression and our position on the social stratification of Australian society makes us different!
Yet I refuse to be oppressed any longer; this is beyond reconciliation for me! Perhaps it would be more honourable to die as a warrior at one of Howard’s bullets, than to perish at an early age with cardio-vascular disease or diabetes and wishing I had gunna do this or gunna do that.
As a Koori it is time that I face my demons beyond reconciliation. My education is my asset; I refuse to accept second-rate pay levels, second-rate job opportunities. It is easier to hate and be negative, now is the time to be positive and move on from the poor black fella me rut.
I can do it: we can do it.
Equality is not a myth, it is achievable and it is real.
For something to be equal we need acceptance, we need solidarity within Australian society. We need to develop networks within our people and we need the love, assistance, empathy of our white brothers and sisters. But, do not patronize us, let us develop and make mistakes.
The Prime Minister and others like him are not of this process. They are users and abusers.
Think carefully when you next vote, but more importantly to the non-indigenous in the audience; live your life as an Australian, not as a member of a conquering race.
This is what beyond reconciliation means to me!