- Part I -

The Aboriginal condition : a gloomy overview

Australia's 1988 Bicentenary was a year-long celebration of the 200th anniversary of permanent European settlement of the continent. But for many Aboriginal people, the occasion symbolized invasion, dispossession, and occupation. Here, thousands of people gather in Sydney to protest the celebration and to call attention to injustices against Aboriginal people, including a disproportionately high death rate among Aboriginal people in police custody.

A. General information

1. “Aborigines fight for their culture and rights. Australia’s Forgotten Dreamtime”, Michèle Decoust, Le Monde Diplomatique (English edition), 10/2002

Link

http://mondediplo.com/2000/10/14abos

Source

This document is an article written by Michèle Decoust, author of Australie, les pistes du rêve in March 2000, for the newspaper Le Monde Diplomatique, in october 2000. Le Monde Diplomatique is a monthly french publication which offers well-documented analysis and opinion on politics, culture, and current affairs. Its articles are long, well-researched, scholarly, and opinionated. In particular, the newspaper takes a critical view on the effects of economic neoliberalism on the world and its population. Its editorial line is decidedly altermondialist and left-wing. 

Summary

This article was published at the time when the Olympic Games of Sydney finished. Entitled “Autralia’s forgotten dreamtime”, the article deals primarily with the question of the “Stolen Generation”: this expression describes about 80 years, from the 1880s to the beginning of the 1970s, of official and legal abducting of "half-caste" children, with white blood in their veins, off their families. The authorities wanted to "save" them from their blackness and "educate" them in special centers or camps. Michèle Decoust depicts in this article the mobilisation of Aboriginal communities members who claim, in vain, a form of official recognition of this sordid and yet “classical” episode of the Australian History. Moreover, the article demonstrates the unwillingness of some members of governemental commissions who are supposed to resolve the problem of the Stolen Generation with for instance some distressing statements of John Howard,  the current Prime Minister, dramatically diminishing the known numbers of stolen children. To Marcia Langton, professor of anthropology at Darwin university and the Aborigines’ long-time spokesperson at the UN, "we’re dealing with the most visceral, the most primitive racism on the whole planet", and very few Australians care about Aboriginal issues, about one in twenty. The journalist comes back on the recent history of struffle for Aboriginal rights, especially with the Mabo act in 1992 which confirmed the Native Title Act for the first time (tribal right of ownership of the land) and cancelled the historical lie according to which Australia was "terra nullius", an uninhabited land, when the white settlers came. The article ends with a very pessimistic opinion on the bridging of the gap between Aborigines and the rest of the population.

Résumé

Cet article du Monde diplomatique est paru au moment où les Jeux Olympiques de Sydney se terminaient. Intitulé « Le temps du rêve oublié par l' Australie », l’article traite en premier lieu de la question de la « Génération Volée » : cette expression représente environ 80 ans, des années 1880 au début des années 1970, d'enlèvement légal et officiel d'enfants métisses, ayant du sang blanc, de leur famille. Michèle Decoust présente ici la mobilisation des membres de la communauté Aborigène qui réclament, en vain, une forme de reconnaissance officielle de cet épisode sombre et pourtant « classique » de l’histoire australienne. L’article démontre de surcroît la mauvaise foi de certains membres des commissions gouvernementales chargés de résoudre le problème de la Génération volée avec notamment des déclarations affolantes de John Howard, l’actuel premier ministre, diminuant radicalement les chiffres connus d'enfants volés. Pour Marcia Langton, professeur d'anthropologie à l'université de Darwin et porte-parole de longue date des Aborigènes à l'ONU, "nous sommes confrontés au racisme le plus viscéral, le plus primitif de toute la planète", et très peu d'Australiens se soucient des problèmes aborigènes, environ un sur vingt. La journaliste revient sur l'histoire récente de la lutte pour les droits aborigènes, surtout avec l'arrêt Mabo en 1992 qui confirma pour la première fois le Native Title Act (droit de propriété tribal de la terre) et annula le mensonge historique selon lequel l'Australie était "terra nullius", une terre inhabitée, quand les colons blancs sont arrivés. L'article se termine avec un avis très pessimiste sur la possibilité de combler le fossé entre les Aborigènes et le reste de la population.  

Based on a true story, this film, Follow the Rabbit-Proof fence, is the reference when talking about the Stolen generation. It depicts the unending voyage of three young "half-caste" Aboriginal girls through the desert to flee back home after the government took them away.

2. “Part C – The underlying issues which explain the disproportionate number of Aboriginal people in custody”, The Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, Final Report of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody – A summary, 1991

Link

http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/special/rsjproject/rsjlibrary/rciadic/rciadic_summary/rcsumk05.html

Source

This document was found on the website of The Reconciliation and Social Justice Internet Project, which is a collaborative project of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation and AustLII (Australasian Legal Information Institute). It has been granted funding by the Australian Research Council and it aims to further Aboriginal reconciliation and social justice via the internet. The text is an extract from a report written by the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. This commission, free of political censorship, was appointed following the recognition of an unusally high number of Aborigines who died in prison in 1987.

Summary 

The document looks like a thematic inventory of the crucial problems which the members of the Aboriginal community are confronted with. In both historical and sociological approaches, the official statistics are compared with the field realities. The worrying detention rate of the Aboriginal population, especially among young people, must be understood in a global process, which stems from colonial policies. The forced assimilation, broken families and broken up social structures, are among the first causes of the confrontation between current cultures. The Australian society's latent racism towards the Aborigines is today one of the most visible consequences, especially through the representation of Aboriginal identity in the national media. The police constitutes nowadays the symbol of the repression and sometimes the only visible manifestation of the government for the members of Aboriginal communities. Concerning the young people, alcoholism and drug consumption are linked with structural causes which are to be included in a global process of public space disaffection. All of these factors contribute to a massive detention rate of the Aborigines, as the statistics show in Western Australia, where young Aborigines represent 2.4% of the global population but also more than 50% of the incarcerated population.

Résumé

Le document s’apparente à un inventaire thématique des problèmes cruciaux auxquels sont confrontés les membres de la communauté aborigène. Dans une optique tant historique que sociologique, les statistiques officielles sont confrontées aux réalités de terrain. Le taux inquiétant de mise en détention de la population aborigène, surtout celui de la jeunesse, doit être entendu dans un processus global, issu des politiques coloniales. L’assimilation forcée, les familles disloquées, les structures sociales démantelées sont parmi les causes premières d’une confrontation des cultures actuelles. Le racisme latent de la société australienne à l’encontre des Aborigènes en est une des conséquences les plus visibles actuellement, notamment à travers la représentation de l’identité aborigène dans les médias nationaux.  La police constitue aujourd’hui le symbole de la répression et parfois la seule et unique manifestation visible du gouvernement par les membres des communautés aborigènes.  Concernant la jeunesse, l’alcoolisme et la consommation de drogues sont liés à des causes structurelles qui sont à inclure dans un processus global de désaffection de l’espace public. Tous ces facteurs contribuent à un taux d’incarcération massif des Aborigènes, comme les statistiques le montrent en Australie Occidentale où la jeunesse aborigène représentent 2,4 % de la population globale mais également plus de 50 % de la population carcérale.  

Petrol sniffing is a dramatic issue for many Aboriginal communities, harming and sometimes killing the youth. Alcoholism is also a major problem, as is the domestic violence that can result. Many communities have even banned alcohol altogether. Kava has replaced it in some places as a safer alternative, since it produces sleepiness rather than violence.

3. “TJ Hickey and the plight of young Aboriginal Australians”, Rick Kelly, WSWS, 06/05/04

Link

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/may2004/tj-m06.shtml

Source

The World Socialist Web Site is the website of the Trotskyist international, the International Committee of the Fourth International. It is therefore obviously strongly positioned ideologically and the information it delivers needs to be handled carefully. However, in the following article, the assumptions of the journalist are true, at least to a large extent, since what he implies is usually largely acknowledged by analysts of the Aboriginal question.

Summary

The article deals with the death of a young Aborigine in the Sydney suburb of Redfern, in 2004, which sparked a strong and lasting reaction in Australia, where many showed their outrage at the dramatic living conditions which Aborigines have had to deal with for decades, or even centuries, up until now. Indeed, the fact that TJ Hickey’s death (accidentally impaled on a fence) might have followed an unjustified police pursuit, which the official report makes no mention of, makes it symbolic of the injustices Aboriginal people suffer in many areas. TJ Hickey was raised in a remote regional city where youngsters, especially Aborigines, have a hopeless future. Unemployment is the rule for too many Aborigines there, probably over 40 %. Infrastructure and recreational facilities are lacking, ageing or simply deficient. The journalist also mentions the under-education of Aboriginal youth as commonplace in the whole of Australia. Aborigines are also more arrested and jailed than non-Indigenous people. Youngsters try to escape this dead-end life, but the overall situation in urban centers is no better for Aborigines. TJ Hickey moved to Redfern, the meeting point of the Sydney and New South Wales Aboriginal community, where the old job mine created by the railway workshops dried up due to an economic restructuring that nowadays favors the development of businesses and the replacement of Aboriginal inhabitants by wealthier people. The journalist concludes by pointing to a total lack of consideration by political instances, left or right-wing, for the imminent issues that the mutation of Redfern engages for the Aborigines living there.

Résumé

L’article traite de la mort d’un jeune Aborigène à Redfern, dans la banlieue de Sydney, en 2004, qui a déclenché une réaction vive et durable en Australie, où beaucoup montrèrent leur indignation face aux conditions de vie dramatiques que les Aborigènes ont eues à supporter pendant des décennies, ou même des siècles, jusqu’à aujourd’hui. En effet, le fait que la mort de TJ Hickey (accidentellement empalé sur une barrière en métal) ait pu être précédée d’une poursuite policière injustifiée, dont le rapport officiel ne fait pas mention, la rend symbolique des injustices subies par les Aborigènes dans de nombreux domaines. TJ Hickey a été élevé dans une ville régionale isolée où les jeunes, en particulier les Aborigènes, ont un avenir dénué d’espoir. Le chômage y est la règle pour trop d’Aborigènes, probablement plus de 40 %. Les infrastructures et équipements de loisir manquent, sont trop vieux ou simplement déficients. Le journaliste mentionne également la sous éducation de la jeunesse aborigène, courante dans toute l’Australie. Les Aborigènes sont aussi plus arrêtés et mis en prison que les non indigènes. Les jeunes tentent d’échapper à cette vie dans l’impasse, mais la situation générale dans les centres urbains n’est pas meilleure pour les Aborigènes. TJ Hickey est allé vivre à Redfern, point de rencontre de la communauté aborigène de Sydney et de Nouvelle Galles du Sud, où la vieille mine de travail créée par les ateliers de chemin de fer s’est tarie à cause d’une restructuration économique qui favorise aujourd’hui le développement de bureaux et le remplacement des habitants aborigènes par des gens plus aisés. Le journaliste conclut en mettant en évidence un manque de considération par les instances politiques, de gauche comme de droite, pour les problèmes imminents que la mutation du quartier de Redfern entraîne pour les Aborigènes qui y vivent.

The translation of this article is available here.

TJ Hickey and a demonstration for Aboriginal rights after his death.

B. A crucial ground for action : education

Until very recently, Aborigines have not given priority to education. In the first years of colonisation, many Aborigines were almost forced to go to schools ran by missionaries. Until 1940, students of Aboriginal descent could be officially and legally prohibited from attending Australia’s state-run schools. With the rise of self-determination, Aboriginal people generally put more emphasis on maintaining and reintroducing Aboriginal practices and local decision-making than on education. However, in the 1990s, federal funding for education programs increased in response to protests from indigenous communities.

4. “Strangers in their own country : Teachers in the Northern Territory of Australia”, Jay Moskowitz and Wes Whitmore, From Students of Teaching to Teachers of Students : Teacher Induction Around the Pacific Rim, 01/1997

Link

http://www.ed.gov/pubs/APEC/ch3.html

Source

This text was taken off the website of the U.S. Department of Education. It is the third chapter of a cross-national study of teacher induction practices, ordered and led by the U.S. Department of Education, who worked with the Education Forum of APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) and with the Pelavin Research Institute. The study also addresses teacher induction programs in Japan and New Zealand.

Summary

The text deals with the difficulties for teachers, mainly non-Aboriginal but some Aboriginal, to provide a Western-style education to Aboriginal children in remote communities of the Northern Territory. Apart from Darwin and Alice Springs, white teachers from other states are placed in almost exclusively Aboriginal communities, with close to 100 % of Aboriginal students in classes. Here, the authors talk mainly about primary schools, since most Aboriginal children do not continue through secondary education, which would often force them to leave their remote communities. Teachers usually stay one year, and rarely more than three years. Far from the support of their family and friends, they have extreme difficulties teaching children for whom they have no training : the language barrier is a challenge, as are culture, health or discipline. Aboriginal assistant teachers help them, but are often untrained and wary about committing to the new teacher. However, Aborigines are trained, through the “Batchelor College”, as primary school teachers, but they also face problems such as community constraints : most Aboriginal teachers are women, and find it hard to reach their teaching goals in a male-dominant culture.

Résumé

Ce texte aborde les difficultés pour les professeurs, principalement non aborigènes mais certains aborigènes, à apporter une éducation de type occidentale aux enfants Aborigènes dans les communautés isolées du Territoire du Nord. A part à Darwin et Alice Springs, les professeurs blancs venant d’autres Etats sont placés dans des communautés presque exclusivement aborigènes, avec près de 100 % d’élèves aborigènes dans les classes. Ici, les auteurs parlent surtout d’écoles primaires, puisque la plupart des enfants aborigènes ne poursuivent pas dans le secondaire, ce qui les forcerait souvent à quitter leurs communautés reculées. Les professeurs restent la plupart du temps un an, et rarement plus de trois ans. Loin du réconfort de leurs famille et amis, ils ont de grandes difficultés à enseigner à des enfants pour lesquels ils n’ont aucun entraînement : la barrière de la langue est un challenge, comme la culture, la santé ou la discipline. Des professeurs assistants aborigènes aident ces enseignants, mais sont souvent mal entraînés et méfiants de s’en remettre au nouveau professeur. Cependant, des Aborigènes sont formés, par le biais du “Batchelor College”, à être des instituteurs, mais ils affrontent aussi des problèmes, comme les contraintes communautaires. La plupart des professeurs aborigènes sont des femmes, et ont du mal à atteindre leurs objectifs d’enseignement dans une culture patriarchale.

Children from Australia’s outback listen to their schoolteacher during class.

5. “Aboriginal children in urban schools”, Helen Lawrence, Issues in Educational Research, 1994

Link

http://education.curtin.edu.au/iier/iier4/lawrence.html

Source

This document is an essay published in Issues in Educational Research, a professional review in 1994. The author is Helen Lawrence, an Aboriginal part-time lecturer in Aboriginal and Intercultural Studies at Edith Cowan University, Perth. Helen Lawrence is also an Aboriginal mother and grandmother and her interest in Aboriginal education goes back to the days when she had her children in school. She works part time for the Disabilities Services Commission as an Aboriginal Employment Development Officer. Issues in Educational Research is a refereed academic research journal founded by the Western Australian Institute for Educational Research in 1991. From 1995, IIER is jointly published in New South Wales, the Northern Territory, South Australia and Western Australia.

Summary

In an anthropological approach, this essay tries to show the difficulties encountered by Aboriginal children in an urban school context. The author is an Aborigine and knows in consequences the difficulties of integration for Aboriginal children. Racists practices have to be understood through the effects of cultural differences between Aboriginal children and non-Aboriginal children and adults (teachers and others). The problem of the training of teachers in Aboriginal culture is also pointed out. This issue has to be linked with the issue of the process of forced acculturation which Aboriginal children have often underwent. The relations to the concept of authority have to be rethought, as well as other usual Western practices. For example, a young Aborigine is not educated to speak in front of an audience. The policy directions are also criticised by the author because there are simply official statements and there are not applied on the field.

Résumé

Dans une démarche anthropologique, cette étude cherche à montrer les difficultés rencontrées par les enfants Aborigènes inscrits dans des écoles de zone urbaine. L’auteur est Aborigène et par conséquent connaît les difficultés d’intégration des enfants Aborigènes. Les pratiques racistes sont à comprendre sous les effets des différences culturelles établies entre les enfants Aborigènes et les enfants et adultes non Aborigènes (professeurs et autres). Le problème de la formation des professeurs en matière de culture Aborigène est également abordé. L’obstacle est à relier au problème du processus d’acculturation forcée que les enfants Aborigènes ont souvent connu. Les relations au concept d’autorité doivent être repensées, ainsi que d'autres pratiques occidentales courantes. Par exemple, un jeune aborigène n’est pas éduqué pour s’adresser à un auditoire. Les directions politiques sont également critiquées par l’auteur car ce ne sont là que déclarations officielles et elles ne sont pas appliquées sur le terrain.

The translation of this article is available here.