Time to put house in order<\/p>\n
By Rob Goodfellow and M. Dwi Marianto<\/p>\n
YOGYAKARTA (JP): In a recent article, the Australian historian
\nGary Hughes examined a document which described in gruesome
\ndetail the unprovoked slaughter of old men, women and children by
\npolice.<\/p>\n
His article, based on unreleased papers from the Victorian
\nState archives, detailed a massacre of \"natives\" in southern
\nMelbourne nearly 150 years ago.<\/p>\n
A survey party consisting of colonial police butchered an
\nentire tribe in cold blood. Elders, women and children were
\nrounded up and put to the bayonet, their bodies left to rot in
\nthe sun.<\/p>\n
The whole \"incident\" was officially covered up under the
\norders of Governor La Trobe.<\/p>\n
Despite the passage of time more than this particular incident
\nhas remained hidden. Indeed, even with all the ill-founded
\ncontroversy surrounding the Australian High Court's \"Mabo
\nDecision\" on native title and the recent \"Wik Judgment\" on
\naboriginal land rights and pastoral leases, public debate remains
\nin the most part characterized by a curious \"conspiracy of
\nsilence\".<\/p>\n
For many Australians, it seems as if white society conspires
\nto promote a fairytale version of history, one dominated by the
\nheroic exploits of pioneers and settlers, to the complete
\nexclusion of another story, one of ethnic cleansing and genocide.<\/p>\n
While some white historians such as Butlin and Reynolds have
\ndiligently analyzed the tragic history of aboriginal Australia
\nunder colonialism, European Australians continue to display an
\nembarrassed reluctance to discuss the infamy of their
\nforefathers.<\/p>\n
And when someone does speak up they are accused of \"guilt
\nmongering\", of \"living in the past\", or of presenting a one-sided
\n\"black arm band version of history\".<\/p>\n
Nothing, however, could be further from the truth. White
\nAustralians simply do not honestly debate \"the aboriginal
\nquestion\" at all. In fact most people don't even acknowledge that
\nthere is a problem, and because of this a dark chapter in our
\nhistory remains outside the national consciousness, and outside
\ngenuine reconciliation.<\/p>\n
Perhaps one reason why Australians are so quick to criticize
\nthe human rights abuses of other countries, is that as a people
\nAustralians lack a degree of self-criticism which would otherwise
\ngive our high moral position credibility.<\/p>\n
Many Australians relegate the crimes of the colonial period
\nto history, while continuing to live comfortably with the present
\nday consequences of nearly 200 years of flagrant human rights
\nabuses. Indeed even in the 1990s, the aboriginal people of
\nAustralia have the lowest life expectancy and the highest infant
\nmortality rates in the developed world.<\/p>\n
At the root of this national tragedy lies the hitherto
\nsubordinate legal status of the aboriginal people. At the time of
\nthe European \"discovery\" of Australia in 1770, the continent was
\ndeclared to be \"Terra Nullius\", Latin for uninhabited.<\/p>\n
Both the early colonists and the policy makers in England
\nmaintained that because Aborigines had not enclosed or cultivated
\nland, it followed that they had no right to sovereignty, which
\nunder the English Common Law had to be based on individual
\nownership, or in short, private property.<\/p>\n
In the frenzied scramble for pastoral land in the period
\nbetween 1788 and 1850, the colonial office in London was faced
\nwith the decision of having to moderate what they couldn't
\ncontrol.<\/p>\n
\"Squatters\", or quasi-aristocratic land owners, staked illegal
\nclaims on great tracks of aboriginal land, often on the \"other
\nside of the frontier\", beyond the law and beyond control. To deal
\nwith the situation, administrators felt they had little choice
\nbut to grant pastoral leases in the hope that the problem of what
\nto do about the natives would go away.<\/p>\n
But in reality legislators probably hoped that pastoralists
\nwould solve the \"aboriginal question\" with the saber and the
\nmusket. In many cases they did, as Hughes's paper demonstrates.
\nThe problem was, however, that the land was not uninhabited at
\nall. And the problem is that the aboriginal people somehow
\nsurvived.<\/p>\n
The old adage, \"those who do not learn the lessons of history
\nare destined to repeat its mistakes\" now haunts this generation
\nof Australians. In 1997 the aboriginal people have reemerged from
\nthat place beyond history to call to account the grandchildren
\nand great-grandchildren of those responsible for what would now
\nbe termed \"ethnic cleansing\", or \"crimes against humanity\".<\/p>\n
On June 3, 1992 the highest court in the nation handed down
\nwhat was perhaps the most important legal decision in the history
\nof the European settlement of Australia.<\/p>\n
The High Court recognized in law that the aboriginal people
\ndid in fact hold a form of \"native title\", and that in certain
\ncircumstances this had survived British colonization.<\/p>\n
More than 200 years after Europeans began to dispose the
\nnative people, an Aborigine, Eddie Mabo, an Elder of the Meriam
\nTribe of the Murry Islands, Cape York (North Queensland) filed a
\nsuit on behalf of his people to have the High Court recognize
\nthat Australia was not \"Terra Nullius,\" but rather \"Terra
\nAboriginal\".<\/p>\n
The High Court decided that because the Meriam People could
\ndemonstrate continuous occupancy of their land they were entitled
\nto be recognized as having \"title\".<\/p>\n
In a legal sense there was nothing particularly radical about
\nthis. The \"Mabo Decision\" simply recognized that in those
\nremaining parts of Australia where native people still occupied
\ntheir traditional lands that these same people may be recognized
\nas the owners of the land by the High Court.<\/p>\n
However, in a social sense \"Mabo\" promised a dramatic
\ndeparture from the past for all Australians, black and white -- a
\nturning point, the basis for a new relationship between
\nindigenous and non-indigenous Australians.<\/p>\n
\"Mabo\" was thus more than a victory for Aborigines. It was an
\nopportunity for all those who believe in a fair, democratic and
\nsocially progressive Australia. But was it?<\/p>\n
The Australian sociologist Stuart Macintyre draws our
\nattention to an advertisement he saw posted on the notice board
\nof a Daly River (Western Australia) Pub: \"4 Sale: Gas Ovens,
\nGerman-made. Will accommodate at least 30 coons (Aborigines).\"<\/p>\n
Macintyre suggests that this type of comment continues to
\nrepresent middle-Australia's comfortable stereotype of white
\nracism: crude, semiliterate and exotic.<\/p>\n
And while liberal-minded \"decent\" Australians conveniently
\nclaim to reject this form of racism, they collectively ensure
\nthat even the \"Mabo Decision\" has little impact on the status
\nquo.<\/p>\n
Indeed the great advantage of \"Mabo\" has been that it has
\n\"soothed\" white guilt at little or no expense. By restricting
\nclaims to vacant Crown Land and by insisting that under \"Mabo\"
\nclaimants must demonstrate a traditional and continuous
\nattachment to the land, legislators have essentially restricted
\nnegotiations to areas which nobody wants anyway.<\/p>\n
Significantly, since the \"Mabo Decision\" was announced in
\n1992, only 12 hectares of mainland Australia has been
\nsuccessfully claimed under the Native Title Act -- the
\nculmination of a six year battle by the Dhungutti People of
\nCrescent Head, New South Wales. The High Court's 1996 \"Wik
\nJudgment,\" however, is very different.<\/p>\n
The \"Wik Judgment,\" named after the Wik People of Northern
\nQueensland, settled the issue of whether the native title granted
\nunder \"Mabo\" could co-exist with pastoral leases, the same leases
\ngranted so hastily by the British Foreign Office in the 1880s.<\/p>\n
And further, whether pastoral leases granted under the now
\nabandoned legal view of Australia as being uninhabited land,
\nextinguishes aboriginal land rights.<\/p>\n
\"Wik\" then is history with a bite. It is the turning of a
\nprocess begun nearly 200 years ago. It is the consequence of
\nwrong policy. It is racist white Australia's worst nightmare,
\nwhich is why it has caused such \"concern\" amongst members of
\nPauline Hanson's One Nation Party who in their hearts deeply
\nresent having to negotiate with Aborigines in the first instance.<\/p>\n
\"Wik\" is confronting. It has provoked outrage on the part of
\npresent day pastoralists, particularly the largest and most
\nwealthy landowners, because it cuts to the core of the issue --
\nthe illegal disposition of aboriginal lands.<\/p>\n
With the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games only two years away,
\nAustralia is bursting to represent its best face to the World, to
\nshowcase Australian European civilization as a model of human
\nrights, progress and moderation.<\/p>\n
But will white Australians seize the opportunity to address
\nthe wrongs of past and the present? For pastoralists,
\nunfortunately, the answer to \"Wik\" is to legislate away
\naboriginal people's basic human rights, that is as a means of
\nprotecting \"private property\" and ensuring the \"efficient and
\nproductive use of land.\"<\/p>\n
For the aboriginal people, \"Wik\" is a historical opportunity
\nto exercise a great Australian virtue -- \"a fair go for
\neveryone.\"<\/p>\n
How can Australia dare to raise human rights concerns with
\nother nations if it is not prepared to put its own house in
\norder?<\/p>\n
The world is watching for Australia's response.<\/p>\n
Rob Goodfellow is a researcher based in Wollongong Australia.
\nDr. M. Dwi Marianto has a PhD from Wollongong University.<\/p>",
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