The 2010 Dreaming Festival

There were some claims made in the movie which I was not convinced by but if true are a devastating indictment of European Australia.

After the film there was a panel, with Gary Foley, Shellie, Rhoda Roberts and a very distinguished man (sorry, I missed his name!) who spoke of speaking often at the UN advocating Indigenous rights.

Gary opened up by saying he liked the film but that there was nothing new in it, that we have all known this stuff for 40 years, or we should have. He made me realise there is no excuse for what is happening in this country, that has been happening for 200 years.

That ignorance is not an acceptable excuse for being on the wrong side.

The man from the UN spoke of his frustration – ‘What more do we have to do?’ he cried.

It made me see again how loving and peaceful the Indigenous people in Australia are. If they were Irish or Muslim or Basques we’d have bombs going off, we would have riots and violence.

Instead we have peaceful protests, we have sit-ins, we have delegation after delegation meeting with Whitey, we have off-the-chart mortality rates, we have an indelible shame of the gap between white and black on any indicator of health and prosperity you care to mention. And we, ‘white Australia’, get on a high horse when we encounter Aboriginal anger!

So what can ‘we’ do? I racked my brain, still rack it, and mostly all I come up with seems paternalistic. How can I help the people in communities? How can I help address the various inequalities? Is my help wanted? Does it have value?

Do I actually have anything to teach, to share, to give? When posing this question, Shellie was also in a gap. Maybe it simply is about becoming aware, of calling our politicians to account, of challenging assumptions, comments at a dinner table or in a hotel bar.

Like most European Australians I grew up without having anything to do with Indigenous people. As an adult I still did not have anything to do with Indigenous culture until I was in my 40s, until I started ‘paying attention’.

Where have I been? Oddly enough, for most white Australians, Indigenous culture must be searched out, must be hunted, and requires a thirst.

Indigenous wisdom is never given out, it has to be earned, which is why most of ‘us’ have no comprehension of the Indigenous cultural wealth that is on our doorstep.

Over the past 5 years I have been attending the Dreaming and ‘listening’ to other voices, noticing who in my community is Indigenous and what makes them tick.

I have also thought I was seeing underneath various stories in the media, and at some times even been sympathetic to the aims of the ‘Intervention’, John Howard’s virtual state of emergency in, and only in, Indigenous communities.

It is hard to believe that the institutions one believes in are in fact mired in racism.

It is hard to acknowledge that the famous Aussie ‘fair go’ amounts to zip when it comes to our Indigenous people.

That pretty much all of those great Aussie qualities paraded each year at Australia Day and Anzac Day are just white fantasies, illusions.

Where do we go from here, and how do we get there? Pretty much all we can concern ourselves with is the ‘how’, which ultimately comes down to love.

If white Australia learns to listen, to empathise, to drop paternalism, to reach out, then maybe the place we arrive at will be worth the journey.

If not, then the cycle of anger, of disempowerment, of poverty, of continuing diminished health indicators will roll on, and this most ancient of races may just disappear as collateral damage.

Published in July 2010

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