Cirrus@Austlit

'Modern Australia began in 1802 with the defeat and death of the Eora warrior Pemulwuy.

'Europeans had placed the original Australian population at 300,000 yet more recent analysis indicates that the population was much greater and may have been in the order of a million people. Whatever the original population, its collapse was spectacular.

'The causes of the collapse seem to have been a mix of diseases, massacres, and a variety of other depredations, such as the poisoning of foods. To understand some of the reasons for this bulk loss of people, and, indeed, the destruction of the traditional social order, it is necessary to understand principles that operated within traditional Australian society.

'By the 1930s a new part of Aboriginal society had begun to take action about their plight. These were the diaspora, the mixed-race people and many of these were assisted by sympathetic European groups.'

(Source :  1986 Frank Archibald Memorial Lecture)

'Culturally we are now beginning to recognise what we have within us and state this to education authorities. Although we have a very, very long way to go I believe that it is important that we do this for three main reasons:

1. The fact of the matter is that despite what we believe Australia has done to us we are in it and in its education systems and this will be the case for most of our students forever. Therefore, we must have an input.
2. It is essential that the people in the education systems recognise that Aboriginal students are in the classrooms. For the administrators it is essential to recognise that their system is dealing with different children and that their teachers need to have information on different teaching methodologies that will allow their Aboriginal students to learn.
3. If we as Aboriginal people and educators do not provide this information then no one else will. We have a duty to our own society and its students.'

(Source : University of New England)

'Aboriginal Studies in white academic circles is in its infancy. Given its history, and the restraints arising from the colonial context, it would be surprising if the quality were much better.

The indigenous people of this country are still waiting for colonial scholars to explore and appreciate the significance of the following facts:

• the borders of more than 300 autonomous areas remained unchanged for thousands of years;
• there were no prisons or armies maintained in our society;
• the natural environment was not destroyed or polluted;
• our ancestors did not have any need to colonize neighbouring lands and people.'

(Source : University of New England)

'In the interest of our children and all future generations, in the interest of the survival of the human race we must all become a part of the solution and stop being part of the problem. It is now time for us to think for ourselves and make our own decisions, because we cannot afford to follow the blind and the ignorant any longer. We must think for ourselves and act accordingly.

You see it is now time for us, the people of this country, to take a long, critical look at ourselves and this society in which we live in. I think it is now necessary for me to point out a few cold hard facts that may assist you in identifying some needs for change, thus supporting my statement that we must make changes to improve this society in which we live.'

(Source : University of New England)

'Whenever the Australian public—particularly politicians and bureaucrats—think of Aboriginal affairs and matters relating to Aboriginal people they automatically think of welfare.

'That is a situation of dependency where Aboriginal people are essentially dependent on the majority of society for their needs and wants.

'Sad to say, this is in my opinion, the context in which we Aboriginal people basically view ourselves.

'We are, it seems, and always have been, encompassed in the welfare system since the arrival of Captain Cook.

'This must change, and I will suggest some principles for a total re-organization and redirection of Aboriginal affairs that can project Aboriginal people out of this degrading and self-perpetuating dependency welfare syndrome.'

(Source : University of New England)

'From the commencement of the formal administration of Aboriginal Affairs, education has played a central role in the life of the Aboriginal community.

'The decision-makers of the past used education as a tool for assimilation. After the initial contact period, assimilation became the overriding policy. It was to be implemented through special schooling. Schooling was the means by which they separated the children from their heritage.

'In the first schools established for Aboriginal children, the teachers were non-Aboriginal, thus severing the tie between the children and the traditional teachers. This displacement of the traditional teachers separated the children from their heritage. The children lost contact not only with the content of the knowledge of the old ways but all the practices associated with the inculcation and acquisition of that knowledge.

'They lost contact with the long established philosophy that provided a framework for the traditional education. Traditional education was purposeful; traditional education was goal oriented; traditional education was achievement oriented. Education in the Aboriginal life-way, for all children was designed to enable them to become participating and contributing members of the family and the clan.'

(Source : University of New England)

'The title of this lecture is "Universities and Aborigines: are they compatible?". I will be approaching this topic by providing you with an historical background to Aboriginal higher education; with some pertinent thoughts on this history from an Aboriginal perspective which is both critical and celebratory.

'The Development of Aboriginal Higher Education

'In 1972 the Australian Labor Party won federal office under the leadership of the Honourable Gough Whitlam. By this time it was obvious that Aborigines had successfully rejected assimilation into the wider Australian community. The new Prime Minister introduced the Self Determination Policy for Aborigines, and established the Department of Aboriginal Affairs (DAA) which led to the implementation of programs in education, health, legal aid, medical care and housing following consultation with Aboriginal people. This period also marked the evolution of Aboriginal higher education in Australia with the implementation of the Aboriginal Task Force program (ATF) in 1973 within the School of Social Studies, at the South Australian Institute for Technology, with the purpose of training a task force of Aborigines to work in the area of social welfare. Initially the intent was that the program should only operate for a two year period and then be abandoned. Because of the success of the first group of students, and the recommendation of an evaluation at the end of the first year, it was allowed to continue and develop providing the higher education sector with a blue print for what are now known as Aboriginal support programs.'

(Source : University of New England) 

'It is a fundamental human right that Indigenous peoples be guaranteed an education, which respects and strengthens our cultural heritage. A right and not a privilege.

'Gross and systematic violation of the rights of peoples belonging to particular groups has been, and continues to be a perennial component of social relations throughout the world.

'Even given the efforts of the United Nations in the last 50 years to promote universal respect for human rights, it remained clear to members of oppressed groups, and anyone else who cared to see, that control over wealth, political power and knowledge has remained in the hands of the same dominant groups, albeit under the proviso that they ought to try not to discriminate too much.'

(Source : University of New England)

'It was my father's persecution as an outspoken Birragubba man, that has given me the incentive to continue speaking out for justice and human rights. Dad was removed as a half-caste child from the community of Ayr, North Queensland, and sent to Palm Island under the Protection Act. One week before he died he was visited by Birragubba elders, where they conversed in fluent language. When asked why he did not teach his children the language he replied, "I have too many wounds from the beatings we received when speaking our language".

'In 1957, my grandfather was one of the six men who went on a hunger strike on Palm Island for better conditions. All six men were handcuffed, chained and separated again from their families and sent to others reserves in Queensland. My grandmother is still alive today, with these memories.

'1995 is the year of celebrating Victory in the Pacific; a time when all Australians remember, and pay homage to the many thousands who fought for freedom. We remember those who paid with the greatest gift of all, their lives.

'Many indigenous people enlisted in, fought and died in wars when governments refused to recognise them as citizens of this country, their country, Australia.'

(Source : University of New England)

"I want to provide you with my view as an Aboriginal person, a perspective based on social justice, about the process of reconciliation. I want to go to the heart of what I believe the issues are that Australia and Australians must address if Australia is ever going to deal with the legacy of its past. If this legacy is not addressed, if the gulf that has created a society of inequity, of them and us, is not faced fully and honestly, then we will forever remain a diminished nation. A nation that puts its head in the sand and says it's someone else's responsibility.

'Identity is where we need to start. Australians need to begin to understand Aboriginality, to at last appreciate what being Aboriginal means. This is an understanding I wish I could magically endow into the hearts and minds of all people in Australia.

'I would like to share with you a very personal experience, as personal as it is probably universal for Indigenous people right across the planet."

(Source : University of New England)

'Since early 1996 we have witnessed the bold assertion once again of racism through what has been termed `Hansonism' (after Pauline Hanson, founder of .the Pauline Hanson One Nation Party), who was most prominent in raising in the contemporary context the 'bogeyman' of Black privilege in this country; with all of its ramifications, most especially access to excessive amounts of unwarranted Government funding, the covering up of the extent of such funding, without need of accountability.

'The other side of the picture she has consistently painted of Aboriginal people is that they will not work, that they are criminal, that they cannot and will not control their children, and so on. In fact promoting the old stereotypes of Aborigines as being lesser beings than non-Aboriginal (except those of Asian origin).'

(Source : University of New England)

'The question for us today, and I mean black and white, is can we actually achieve Indigenous self-determination while confined within a non-Indigenous ideological structure?

'Can we realistically expect those in power, influenced by common social conditioning, to make the philosophical leap across the chasm of bias? A chasm which as Eve Fesl points out in her book Conned, "regards Aboriginal people as dependants in need of control rather than as independent individuals who should decide their own destiny". Like Eve I have my doubts, because remarkably, considering that 210 years have passed since we first met, Australia has not willingly embarked as a nation, on the hard but necessary road to de-colonisation. Today we have a government hell bent on control of a situation of which they are truly fearful; the full emancipation of the Aboriginal people.'

(Source : University of New England)

'In the late 1970s, and again in the late 1980s, attempts were made both by independent committees and at Government level to initiate moves towards a treaty, agreement or compact which could represent a formal settlement of the unresolved issues of our past—to put to rest the past not yet dealt with so that we could all move forward together into a better future.

'Unfortunately, Australia was not ready for such a formal settlement at those times, and broad agreement could not be reached on various proposals, either in Parliament, the wider community or among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

'However, in 1991 the Commonwealth Parliament showed vision, leadership and unity when it voted unanimously to establish the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation (CAR) and a formal process of reconciliation to take place over the decade leading up to the centenary of Federation in 2001. The Parliament noted that there had been no formal process of reconciliation to date, and that it was "most desirable that there be such a reconciliation" by the centenary of Federation.'

(Source : University of New England)

'ATSIC has been effectively demolished and Indigenous affairs barely rate a mention in the election campaign. Not a single other party has put an Indigenous candidate in a winnable Senate seat.

'The fact that Indigenous affairs have been pushed off the national political agenda - that Indigenous culture and identity has been dismissed, at best, another part of our multicultural society. and at worst, worthless - is the very reason why I consider race and identity to be such a significant issue.'

(Source : University of New England)