If you have an interest in Australian
politics, you’d be aware that a Senator from Queensland who is also currently
Australia’s Attorney-General generated a flood of opinion when he
responded to a Question in the Senate with ‘People
have a right to be bigots, you know’.
Some days later, following an interview
with one of the Australian Human Rights Commissioners, an outspoken ‘repeal
advocate’ – the journalist followed the Commissioners line of argument with the
obvious question… culminating in the N-word
trending nationally.
In the weeks since, public debate has
moved from emotional gut reaction, to personal disclosures of victims and
observers, and now we’ve arrived at the theoretical, touching on:
– the merits of bigotry (so
far nil that I could see);
– the risk to free speech
(those with the most strenuous complaints to the threats to their freedom of
speech, continue to have more access to speech, the means to pursue defamation
and at worst at slight risk of racial abuse);
– the case that was cited as central to
efforts to repeal (was lost because as per the finding the offending
articles 'included 19 errors of fact and one gross error of fact)'; and
– ‘what is freedom of speech?’ (falsely
attributed to Voltaire, and confusion around what John Stuart Mills actually
meant by ‘freedoms’ because few have actually read first hand, preferring
to be falsely informed or take a wild guess).
So how is your Easter? I’d wanted to use
my guest blog spot to share some of my thoughts on Indigenous story telling,
and what I think a person would do well to keep in mind when making use of the
new technology that continues to come our way.
But the furore
surrounding the proposed repeal of section 18c of the Racial Discrimination Act
has eclipsed my literary pursuits, with no sign of waning on Twitter – my usual
platform for commentary - until at least the deadline
for submissions. [30 April 2014]
Social media can’t force people read,
but it can give a voice to both the marginalized and the powerful. It magnifies
the cycle that surrounds many Indigenous issues – outrage, division, retreat –
because it is so easy to tap out a tweet, a blog or an opinion piece. However
Indigenous issues compete with 24 hour news cycles, engaging commentators and
professional provocateurs of social media, ensuring a constant flow of
tantalizingly, easily accessible information.
In short, people get bored or readily
distracted. If you’re not directly affected – if you can comfortably expect to
never be racially abused, and to very rarely be called upon to intervene when
you see it happen in front of – you have the luxury of taking quite a relaxed
point of view.
Yes, it pollutes your view of the world,
but how you engage in it, what depths you need to navigate to keep your chin
above its murky depths is a choice you get to make.
Indigenous people, especially those who
look a certain way – and depending on the situation it could be due to the
darkness or the lightness of their skin – are in perpetual readiness for
something to happen.
It may just be that comment – that you
have heard week in, week out for your entire life. It could be more pointed,
and depending on what circles you move in, it could feel like an interrogation
at a writers festival in front of an audience of two hundred people.
Or perhaps you wrote an opinion piece
that was shared on Facebook over 600 times and a whole lot of people wanted to
tell you what they thought about it, starting with ..I’m not racist but, or I
don’t agree that…, or ‘the author is deficient’ in some way – lets count them,
because of not fighting back and giving up (vague criticism); being too
conservative (vague again); being too opinionated; using the wrong tone;
suspected of merely having ‘a short term political agenda’; or my personal
favourite (not really) that I have ‘missed the real question’ altogether, despite
it being my opinion and my life.
It is just so…wearisome. In fact, if the
Indigenous person would just stop talking about it, we could all focus on
something more positive. Or lately, isn’t it better that people get to say
whatever vile lie that pops into their head. Isn’t that better than just
thinking it?
Well, no. It’s not. And the only people
with staying power in the racism debate are the victims of racial abuse, and
the people who think treating some people with the rough end of free speech is
what makes for a better society.
Rather than listen to someone tell me how
bereft they feel at not being able to racially insult people, I’d rather
discuss story telling. Stories that would have people less inclined to tolerate
and on occasion contribute to the continued ‘not racist but’ dehumanization of
Indigenous people.
If we talked more about the contribution
that Indigenous Australian’s have made to Australia, for instance. Not in the
thousands of deaths that made land available, but from the labour and land
management skills of the generations of Indigenous people that built
Australia’s prosperity.
An enduring example was the development
of the pastoral industry, and the proud tradition of Australian sheep and
cattle properties. Livestock only reached pastoral properties across Australia
because of the Indigenous jackeroos and jilleroos who drove on horseback from
one side of the country to the other, over the last hundred years.
My mother was a jillaroo, and came from
a family of station workers. Very few of them ever received a full wage, and
most died before the state (Qld,
NSW and WA) made arrangements to
make partial payment. Though ‘payment’ barely describes the paltry sums on
offer to workers, many of whom were already deceased.
But for some, this is ancient history – Stolen Wages,
which were only relatively recently settled, is an awkward conversation,
particularly if your family or industry benefited from enforced servitude, and
is another example of why some observers encourage Indigenous people to grow
another layer to that thick skin they suggest will make racial insults easier
to bear.
So let’s confine our conversations to
timeframes and events that people are comfortable talking about. Let’s start
with the Boer War, 1902, when 50 black trackers
were rounded up and sent to South Africa.
Technically
the majority weren’t enlisted, though it’s highly unlikely that in 1901 black
trackers – at least fifty of them – decided to move to South Africa of their
own accord. There are records that they left Australia, but no confirmation
that they returned. Research is limited but indicates that return travel was
impaired by the White Australia policy in operation at the time. People are
very cautious in the telling of this sorry story and – to my mind – truly
shocking treatment of Indigenous people. ‘Leave no man behind’ is a mainstay of
war stories, after all. Descendants of these Indigenous service men
certainly didn’t forget – how could you, that’s the sort of story that
people would continue to tell for generations, regardless of your heritage.
There’s been a history of those who
remain unconvinced certain events occurred. This was certainly the case with
the Stolen Generation though these days – post The
Apology - people accept more readily that children were removed and their
families deeply traumatized.
Bio
Siv Parker is an award winning writer, blogger and tweets from @SivParker.
Links
Hansard Senate March 24 2014 Questions
without notice Racial Discrimination Act Senators Peris & Brandis
‘People have a right to be bigots, you
know’.
Human Rights Commissioner Tim Wilson
says race hate laws are bizarre, unequal
Amendments to the Racial Discrimination
Act 1975
Stolen Wages
Aboriginal pastoral workers seeking
compensation for years of unpaid labour
New project to shed light on legacy of
Indigenous diggers
Claims 50 Aboriginal trackers left
behind during the Boer War
