The politics maelstrom of Indigenous issues can distract from
what my preferred work is these days, having first spent thirty years in
Indigenous affairs - I am a storyteller. I’d like to dedicate Part Two of my
Easter long read guest spot to story telling, and also acknowledge the great
loss to her family, community, friends and admirers of an Indigenous writer of
international renown who passed recently.
Doris Pilkington Garamara the novelist and
screenwriter was best known for her book filmed to international acclaim -
‘Rabbit Proof Fence’ [2002]. An award winning writer, her accounts of child
removal practices and the impact on their mothers in WA is an exceptional
contribution to Australian literary and cultural life, and provided the
narrative for the findings of the Bringing Them Home report.
I was working in the arts and through
some contacts we’d gotten hold of a copy of Rabbit Proof Fence from the
Director, Phillip Noyce, with permission to hold a free community viewing. The
small hall was full with mostly Aboriginal people. The audience was deathly
quiet for the duration of the movie. And then in one of those lucky
connections, I was invited to chaperone the author for a Q & A screening at
Albury/Wodonga.
On protocol – and there are many that
ensure the respectful
and effective approach to Indigenous filmmaker - if an older Aboriginal
lady is touring with a film – her film - my inclination would have been for her
to be accompanied by a member of her own family. I felt a tremendous honour to
be asked but I felt embarrassed that the organizers had thought it more
appropriate to have me – a stranger – escort her, especially as they’d
gone to the trouble to have me travel from outback NSW to the NSW/Victoria
border city.
It was at the town’s main cinema
complex, and mostly women, it looked like we’d have a fairly substantial pool
to throw up questions during the Q and A with the author scheduled to
immediately follow the screening.
Following introductions, Doris and I
returned to the Lobby. I recall there were some occasional chairs but set well
apart. To sit together we shared a seat for one. I’d just met someone I was in
awe of and now I was trying not to squash her.
I hope she knew I was doing my best to
ensure her comfort for the two day visit, especially as her gentle words and
determined spirit went on to inspire a change of direction in my life. It was
because of her that I decided I too wanted to win the David Unaipon award. (I
won in 2012). Like her, my first books will see the light of day when I’m
starting my 50s and a grandmother. And just like many Aboriginal writers today,
I write because we have stories that we want people to know. With so little
research, some may be the first time these stories are told beyond the circle
of family or community. Or they supplement research by filling in the gaps of
the lived experiences.
Screenings are synchronized down to the
minute and she was a professional. My most vivid memory of this remarkable,
talented and dignified woman was when we moved to the door to wait for the
credits to roll.
You may recall the ending, the final scene is of the two sisters – Molly and
Daisy – as they were when Rabbit Proof was filmed.
‘I never watch that scene’ she told me,
so she stood outside the door, in a deserted lobby while I waited at the back
of the cinema till they’d faded from view, before walking Doris down to the
front as the lights come up and the audience broke into warm applause. It had
clearly been a harrowing experience for some, and many looked tear stained and
haunted.
The questions were respectful and
reflected the extent to which the broader community were coming to terms with
the Stolen Generations. And then there was one that changed the mood.
I’d noticed her sitting in the middle of
the audience, by herself. Her arms were crossed in front of her body and she
sat tightly screwed into her chair. Horizontal stripes and a short neat
hairstyle.
Her question went something like ….’
Aren’t claims of stolen generations taking the black arm band movement too far.
And I don’t have anything to be sorry about because I wasn’t there’.
The question would have made more sense
if it had been asked when the audience member was still in a state of complete
ignorance rather than after having sat through 94 minutes of a dramatized
account of a true story.
And then I took the Tony Jones approach
and informed her ‘ I’ll take that as a comment’ but she would not be stopped
from commenting. On and on it went. Clearly distressed, she was now quite
agitated and talking over everyone in the cinema. Ok, she was yelling. And then
the audience started to murmur and hiss at her to stop.
It wasn’t a great way to finish the
event but most were already emotionally drained by the experience. Slowly
making our way to the exit and out on to the street and I saw the horizontal
tee coming our way.
And then my eye caught a face I knew.
Though I’d never met her, I was familiar with who Shellie
Morris was from seeing her in my travels in the Northern Territory. ‘I know
you’ she said, and we embraced on the footpath. Something about our public
display of affection stopped the horizontal tee in her tracks. She turned
around and walked away.
Over a decade later, maybe she feels the
same or maybe she has moved on like most people who accept this chapter in
Australia’s history.
At any time the exploits of
three children walking 2,400 kms (1500 miles) is an extraordinary story. At the
time there was a desire and a willingness to invest in the making and the
viewing of that film.
I’m frequently asked for recommendations
for Indigenous reading and I recommend all of Doris Pilkington Garimara’s works
:
Caprice, A Stockman's Daughter, (UQP, 1991)
Under the Wintamarra Tree, (UQP, 2002)
Home to Mother, (UQP, 2006) ** children’s version of
Rabbit Proof Fence
And where are we today? Stories about
identity and bigotry would seem to the order of the day. But there is far more
to the Indigenous experience than skin colour and how it feels to be racially
vilified. In the context of Indigenous diggers from over a hundred years ago,
no mention whatsoever is made of the colour of their skin, but they were
referred to as black trackers, and were expected to be willing to die for their
country.
If I was going to make comment at all it
would be this – when we are living, we’re directed to grow a thicker skin in
our determination to be treated as human, and accepted as Aboriginal, but when
we die, no one argues that we were Aboriginal. The test for identity is that a
person identifies, is accepted by and has connections with the Indigenous
community. There is no legal reference to skin colour.
And yet some continue to want to raise
it again and again if only to hear the sound of their own voice, much as the
wearer of the horizontal tee from Albury Wodonga. She had a freedom to speak,
and then as now I have freedom to decide how I respond, and these days I choose
writing and filmmaking. Just as I did a decade ago, I can continue to
acknowledge a wilfully blind point of view, and embrace the Aboriginal
experience.
BIO
Siv Parker is an award winning writer, blogger and
tweets from @SivParker. Her next publication is in a new anthology being
launched at the Melbourne Emerging Writers Festival in May 2014.
For more opinion by Siv Parker on racism and the RDA, please
read.
Repealing the race hate laws isn't
'freedom' to Indigenous people
Demonising people of colour is no way to
make society safer
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/14/sexual-assault-western-sydney-race?CMP=ema_632&commentpage=2
