Reconciliation and Colonial Power

Indigenous Rights in Australia

Damien Short

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780754649380
• eBook ISBN: 9781317070535
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

In 1991 Australia instigated a national reconciliation project between indigenous and non-indigenous people. Despite being the longest-running reconciliation process, there has been no authoritative study of Australian reconciliation to date. Reconciliation and Colonial Power is the first book to analyze Australian reconciliation as a process, filling a significant gap in theoretical and empirical understanding. Damien Short offers a sociological interpretation of this process which suggests that, rather than being a genuine attempt at atonement, Australian reconciliation is perhaps better understood as the latest stage in the colonial project. He considers the relevance of acknowledgement and apology, restitution and rights, nation building and state legitimacy to the reconciliation project. This work compliments the burgeoning literature on reconciliation theory and practice and provides fertile material for comparisons with reconciliation processes in other countries such as Chile and South Africa.

Chapter 1

Introduction

For two hundred years we have been subjected to death, abuse and denial of dignity and basic human rights by the white usurpers of our land. Today we are the products of the ravages of white settlement … As Aborigines began to sicken physically and psychologically, they were hit by the full blight of the alien way of thinking. They were hit by the intolerance and uncomprehending barbarism of a people intent on progress in material terms, a people who never credited that there could be cathedrals of the spirit as well as of stone … It is my thesis that Aboriginal Australia underwent a rape of the soul so profound that the blight continues in the minds of most blacks today.

Kevin Gilbert (Living Black, 1977: 3,238,245)

Kevin Gilbert was one of Aboriginal Australia’s most strident voices. He died in early 1993 and like most Aboriginal men he failed to reach sixty years of age.1 He experienced fourteen and a half years in some of the worst prisons in Australia yet still managed to author many visionary works dedicated to the search for justice for Aboriginal people. A dominant focus of Gilbert’s quest for justice was a campaign for a treaty between indigenous peoples and the Australian state that began in earnest in the late 1970s (see Harris, 1979, Gilbert, 1993) and garnered considerable support throughout the 1980s. The idea had significant potential as Australia, unlike New Zealand and North America, was colonised purely by forceful assertion. No negotiated settlements or treaties were entered into by the colonisers with the indigenous inhabitants. The sovereignty of the British Crown was simply asserted through brute force.

Aided by the lobbying efforts of the Aboriginal Treaty Committee and Gilbert’s Treaty 88 group, the treaty campaign gathered momentum in the late 1980s, but was ultimately channelled, by political opponents, toward a more equivocal open ended ‘reconciliation’ initiative. The Hawke government suggested that non-indigenous Australians needed to be ‘educated’ about the Aboriginal problem before they would be ready for a treaty and consequently that would be one of the priorities of the reconciliation process.

Two years before Gilbert’s death the Australian parliament created a Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation (hereafter the CAR) to head a reconciliation process between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and non-indigenous society. The rationale for the process is set out in the enabling legislation preamble which states that

because:

(a) Australia was occupied by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders who had settled for thousands of years, before British settlement at Sydney Cove on 26 January 1788; and

(b) many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders suffered dispossession and dispersal from their traditional lands by the British Crown;

(c) to date, there has been no formal process of reconciliation between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and other Australians; and

(d) by the year 2001, the centenary of Federation, it is most desirable that there be such a reconciliation; and

(e) as part of the reconciliation process, the Commonwealth will seek an ongoing national commitment from governments at all levels to cooperate and to coordinate with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission as appropriate to address progressively Aboriginal disadvantage and aspirations in relation to land, housing, law and justice, cultural heritage, education, employment, health, infrastructure, economic development and any other relevant matters in the decade leading to the centenary of Federation, 2001.

(Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation Act 1991 preamble).

When the process began, indigenous peoples comprised 2.1 per cent of the Australian population but had the worst rank in every social indicator available. By one study the poverty of Aboriginal people was so desperate that 40 per cent lacked the most basic resources in order to survive (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 1991). Indigenous people died at a rate around 8 times higher than other Australians (ibid.). They also experienced rates of arrest and imprisonment grossly disproportionate to their numbers. In 1987 the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody found that Aboriginal children represented 2.7 per cent of Western Australian young people, but over half of the youth in prison were Aboriginal (1991: 101). The Commission (1991: 256) concluded that the root cause of indigenous peoples’ structurally entrenched social inequality was the dispossession of their lands and loss of autonomy. It further recommended that the proposed process of reconciliation address these issues.

During the formal reconciliation process an independent national inquiry into the state sanctioned practice of indigenous child removal revealed the trauma experienced by the ‘Stolen Generations’, while the High Court recognised indigenous peoples’ ‘native title’ rights to land. In May 2000, 400,000 people walked across Sydney Harbour Bridge in a massive show of support for the reconciliation process, which was later heralded as evidence of a growing ‘people’s movement for reconciliation’ (see CAR, 2000). Yet despite these apparently significant events at the end of the official process’ mandate indigenous peoples were still an excluded underclass; they had the highest incidences of disease and respiratory infections and the lowest life expectancy (see Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2002).

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), in 1998–2000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander males and females at all ages have markedly higher age-specific death rates compared with the total population. Between the ages of 30 and 64 years the death rates of indigenous people were approximately seven times the rates for the total population in those age groups and the significantly lower life expectancy of indigenous peoples, compared with the total population, also reflects their higher death rates at all ages (ibid.). According to the ABS, much of the difference between indigenous and total life expectancy can be attributed to the excessive rates of infant death among indigenous peoples. In 1998–2000, for example, the death rate for indigenous infants was around four times the rate in the total population (ibid.).

Furthermore, as Tatz (1997) has shown, suicide is endemic in many Aboriginal communities, as is trachoma (an eye disease that has been largely eradicated in Africa). Where change has occurred it has largely been for the worse. Indeed, in 1997, the Federal Health Minister stated that during the reconciliation period there has been ‘no evidence of any improvement whatsoever in the last decade … the gap (between the health of indigenous and non-indigenous peoples) has actually widened’ (in Pilger, 1999). This is in spite of the fact that, according to the preamble to the legislation, Australian reconciliation was instigated to ‘address progressively’ indigenous disadvantage.

The process was also initiated to address ‘indigenous aspirations to land’, and yet during Australian reconciliation the Keating government responded to a High Court decision, which recognised limited indigenous rights to land, by enacting legislation that rendered such rights largely meaningless, while his successor, John Howard, effectively extinguished the rights all together. Given the centrality of truth-telling, acknowledgement and restitutive justice to reconciliation projects elsewhere, it is also significant that there has been neither official acknowledgement nor apology nor compensation for the Stolen Generations. In light of this it seems that, prima facie, Australian reconciliation represents a paradox.

In researching this book I sought to develop a sociological understanding of this apparent paradox while evaluating the process against its own logic (see CARA 1991 preamble) and the aspirations of indigenous peoples. I ask a number of broad questions: to what extent were key indigenous aspirations2 such as land and redress for the Stolen Generations addressed during the reconciliation period? Were there any structural or political impediments to the realisation of indigenous aspirations during the reconciliation period? Given that the treaty campaign was diluted under the auspices of educating the non-indigenous, did Australian reconciliation have an impact in this regard? What were the overall functions of Australian reconciliation? How is the process as a whole best understood? Can it be understood as a genuine attempt to address colonial dispossession and its legacy and include and recognise Aboriginal people on their own terms?

Central Focus

The reconciliation paradigm, as a vehicle for social stability, suggests that the source or multiple sources of the ‘conflict’ need to be adequately identified and addressed (see Lederach, 1999, Minow 1998, Roteberg and Thomson, 2001). This usually means the original and subsequent ‘wrongs’ need to be acknowledged and accompanied by appropriate redress. The CARA 1991 preamble identifies the act of colonisation as the source of the ‘conflict’ in this context, albeit using the euphemism ‘settlement’. In other words, the original ‘wrong’ was the forcible dispossession of Aboriginal peoples by the British which first began in 1788.

The dispossession of land and political autonomy is now increasingly cited, both by indigenous and non-indigenous people, as the root cause of today’s levels of Aboriginal disadvantage (see for example the Royal Commission, 1991: 256). Socio-historical understanding has been facilitated over the years by indigenous and non-indigenous revisionist historians, academics and activists. The works of historians like Henry Reynolds (1981) and Peter Read (1981), social scientists like Charles Rowley (1970), coupled with the invaluable contributions of indigenous writers and activists, such as Kevin Gilbert (1977) and Mudrooroo (1965, 1988), did much to alter the outlook of both indigenous and non-indigenous Australians.

The writings of Charles Rowley and Kevin Gilbert were particularly distinctive at the time due to their sociological nature. They sought to explain historical and contemporary indigenous/settler relations by placing Australia within a critical account of colonialism and racial discrimination (Yardi and Stokes 1999). Both Rowley and Gilbert, shifted attention away from explanations based on Aboriginal ‘inferiority’ to more sociological explanations that emphasised broader historical and structural causal factors. Since the dispossession of land and destruction of the natural environment also destroyed the basis of indigenous peoples’ spiritual, cultural, and legal systems, both writers also identified the return of land as key to Aboriginal recovery (see Rowley, 1986: 46, Gilbert 1993: 160). A point also echoed by the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (1991: 256).

This position is predicated upon an appreciation of the nature of Aboriginal religion. Despite the significant cultural diversity of Aboriginal groups they share a communality in their spiritual attachment to the land. They consider themselves as belonging to the land. It is an integral part of their mythology as well as being their home, hunting territory, recreation place, cathedral or temple, court of law, their cemetery, and the place where their spirits return to after death (Greer, 1993: 35). As Aboriginal writer Larry Langley (1995: 89) states,

Without our land we are nobody, we will die out, finish. The land gives the true meaning to Aboriginal life.

Furthermore, as Gilbert (1994: 161) pointed out, the granting of land rights would also provide much needed ‘symbolic’ redress. Yet for land rights to have more than just symbolic meaning, indigenous peoples suggest that they need to be accompanied with a substantial degree of political autonomy (see Gilbert, 1994, Langton, 2000, Jackson, 2000, Berhendt, 2002, Dodson, 2000). Moreover, since indigenous peoples were self-governing political entities at the time of colonisation, it follows that a genuine desire to overcome the injustice of colonial dispossession should involve an attempt to de-colonise the indigenous/settler relationship. In other words genuine decolonisation concerns not just land, but also political autonomy. As the Royal Commission stressed:

The great lesson that stands out is that non-Aboriginals, who currently hold all the power in dealing with Aboriginals, have to give up the usually well intentioned efforts to do things for or to Aboriginals, to give up the assumption that they know what is best for Aboriginals … who have to be led, educated, manipulated, and re-shaped into the image of the dominant community. Instead Aboriginals must be recognised for what they are, a peoples in their own right with their own culture, history and values (RCIADIC National Inquiry, 1991).

In sum, the accommodation of indigenous peoples’ aspirations in relation to land and political autonomy within the reconciliation process is therefore a central thread of this book for two main reasons. First, the preamble to the enabling legislation identifies colonial dispossession as the source of the conflict and stipulates a desire to ‘address progressively indigenous aspirations in relation to land and justice’. Second, indigenous peoples special relationship to their land is such that return of their lands and political autonomy is considered crucial not only to their cultural survival as distinct peoples, but also for their physical and mental well-being and consequently is a key aspiration.

The second major focus of this book is the issue of the ‘Stolen Generations’, an interesting omission from the official reconciliation remit. The Stolen Generations is the now common term for possibly the worst injustice perpetrated on Australian soil during the 20th century: the systematic state sanctioned forcible removal from their mothers, families and communities of thousands of Aboriginal babies and children of mixed descent.3 Despite the systematic and widespread nature of the removal policies they were shrouded in a great silence.

W.E.H Stanner observed in 1968 that Australian history was a narrative silent about the relations between Aborigines and settlers, and he called upon historians to break what he termed the ‘cult of forgetfulness’ or ‘the great Australian silence’ (Stanner, 1968: 25). The silence over the forcible removal policies was only truly broken in 1997 with the publication of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission’s report – Bringing Them Home: National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families (HREOC, 1997), generally known as ‘Bringing Them Home’ (hereafter BTH).

BTH contained harrowing evidence, finding that forcible removal of indigenous children was a gross violation of human rights that continued well after Australia had undertaken international human rights commitments. In particular, the report concluded that the removal constituted an act of genocide contrary to the Convention on Genocide (which forbids ‘forcibly transferring children of [a] group to another group’ with the intention of destroying the group). It was racially discriminatory, because it only applied to Aboriginal children on that scale. The Report made 54 recommendations, including opening of records, family tracing and reunion services and the need for reparations.

A prime example of this aspect of Stanner’s great Australian silence was the omission of any reference to the Stolen Generations in the reconciliation legislation. This is despite the fact that, by some estimates, up to 100,000 children were removed under the policies from the early years of settlement up until the late 1970s. With the publication of BTH, however, the issue of the Stolen Generations has become inextricably linked with the notion of reconciliation. Indeed, Aborigines in general consider the Stolen Generations one of the most serious issues in their lives, and as such, it is regarded as an issue that must be addressed in a genuine attempt at reconciliation (Tatz, 1998).

Prior to conducting the fieldwork for this book, I had a strong impression that the issues of land rights and the Stolen Generations were perhaps two of the most important to Australia’s reconciliation project. This impression was solidified at many local reconciliation events across the country and most notably at Official Reconciliation’s show case event: Corroboree 2000.

On the 27 May 2000 the largest, most comprehensive gathering of public leaders in Australian history assembled at Sydney Opera House for the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation sponsored Corroboree (meeting of the minds) 2000. Since it was perhaps the pinnacle of the reconciliation I made sure to attend. The primary purpose of the conference was to ‘hand over to the nation’ an ‘Australian Declaration Towards Reconciliation’. During the ceremony it became quite clear that Aboriginal people felt a deep sense of frustration over many issues that the reconciliation process was supposed to have ‘addressed progressively’, but which ten-years later were being described as ‘unfinished business’. In particular the Corroboree speeches drew attention to Government failings on the issues of land rights and the Stolen Generations.

In the few years before Corroboree the Howard government had effectively extinguished indigenous common law land rights, via the Native Title Amendment Act 1998 (discussed in Chapter 4), and had sought to deny the existence of the Stolen Generations (discussed in Chapter 5). Howard also steadfastly refused the victims of the forcible removal policies a formal apology and compensation. It was not surprising then that these issues dominated Corroboree 2000.

For the second day of Corroboree 2000 the CAR had planned a ‘people’s walk for reconciliation’ across Sydney Harbour Bridge. It was attended by around 400,000 people. I had been invited by a group called the ‘Journey of Healing’, who intended to walk with 54 placards to represent each of the BTH reports’ recommendations that they felt had been ignored by the government. During the walk a plane flew overhead and outlined the word ‘sorry’ in the sky. This gesture was not financed by the government or the CAR, but by ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Acknowledgements
• List of Abbreviations
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Contribution and Engagement
• 3 Reconciliation and Land
• 4 Reconciliation and Land II: The Wik Case
• 5 Reconciliation and the ‘Stolen Generations’
• 6 Reconciliation and Non-Indigenous Australians: The CAR and the ‘People’s Movement’
• 7 Indigenous People and Australian Reconciliation
• 8 The Political Functions of Australian Reconciliation
• 9 Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index