I was on a bus here in Sydney a few days ago when three Indigenous Australians – also known as Aboriginals – got on. The two men and one woman looked middle aged, were shabbily dressed and clearly drunk. They mumbled loudly between themselves and glared aggressively at fellow passengers. After a couple of stops they eventually staggered off, and I could see them stumble into a park as the bus pulled away.
“Smell very bad!” said our east Asian driver, who stopped the bus shortly afterwards, produced a can of air freshener and marched theatrically up and down the aisle spraying liberally. It was an awkward, uncomfortable affair, but sadly pretty much typical of my experience with both Indigenous Australians and the reaction they seem to get.
There’s no doubt that things are difficult for Australia’s native communities right now. Alcoholism and drug abuse are disproportionately significant problems for them in comparison to the broader Australian people, while reports of more isolated Aboriginal communities have highlighted shocking levels of child abuse and family violence – way beyond what is seen in other parts of the country.
In the face of this, the liberal, somewhat cosy option of saying Indigenous Australians and their communities are just like everyone else suddenly becomes a difficult one to defend. Centuries of chronic abuse and disadvantage means they are not the same – and pretending they are only prevents specific measures designed to tackle the problems they face from being introduced.
It’s difficult to grasp the magnitude of changes endured by these communities, many of which can trace their ancestry back an incredible 70,000 years, since the arrival of Europeans. Unlike most other peoples around the world, they were largely semi-nomadic hunter gathers with no tradition of agriculture or animal husbandry. I’ve heard people describe this way of life as primitive, but I’m not sure that gives an accurate picture; it seems to me their avoidance of agriculture was quite clearly a lifestyle choice.
A life of work on farms or in tool-making or other related industries was set aside in favour of a nomadic existence in which they could feed themselves from the wild just as easily. Instead, their time was used to create elaborate languages, music, art, stories and religious rituals. They were, for all the world, travelling artisans. Indigenous Australians were one of the only peoples on earth to not have a tradition of alcohol consumption, and war and inter-national conflict were practically unknown.
Disaster struck when the Europeans came. Literally half their numbers were wiped out by smallpox and other diseases brought by European settlers, and once the arrivals gained a foothold, the new colonial masters proved exceptionally brutal. Later. Government sterilisation programmes and enforced Christianity were initiated, and thousands of indigenous families had their children taken from them.
Seventy thousand years of culture were almost wiped out in a single century – it’s hardly surprising that so many Indigenous Australians turned to drink and struggle with its consequences today.
The Australian government’s response to these modern-day problems was to take control of 73 of the most troubled indigenous communities. Its plans involved a range of race-specific measures, so the government declared a state of national emergency and suspended the Racial Discrimination Act in order to implement measures that could be considered discriminatory throwbacks to the policies of old.
Among these measures is compulsory income management, through which unemployment and other benefits given to families are tied to certain necessities, and blanket bans on alcohol and pornography in problem towns. There is little doubt that these measures are racist – they only apply to certain Indigenous communities. However, it is also evident that these steps have improved the lives of many Indigenous Australians, particularly women and children.
So where does that leave Australia’s race laws? They are designed to improve the lives of minorities, but what if – as in this case – they threatened to prevent a government from taking direct steps to improve the standard of living for a minority group?
It’s a perilously thorny issue and the stakes are high – to intervene to protect children and women from appalling levels of abuse, or stand back, respect the autonomy of the Indigenous people and abide by the race laws that were introduced for very good reasons?
I don’t envy the Australian government or people for having to provide the answers to these questions.
