Bridge walk 'must be built upon'

Bridge walk 'must be built upon'

BY MARGARET ALLUM

On May 28, a human sea of goodwill made its way across an Australian
icon, the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The largest mobilised expression of solidarity
with the Aboriginal people for more than a decade, the “Walk for Reconciliation”,
involved an estimated half a million people, indigenous and non-indigenous.
The vast majority saw the walk as a tangible way of expressing their support
for Aboriginal rights and their opposition to racism.

 

The widespread disgust for Prime Minister John Howard's refusal to apologise
on behalf of the government for removing Aboriginal children from their
families was represented in the large “Sorry” written in the sky, and the
countless homemade placards and banners.

Yet nothing has been solved, racist discrimination against indigenous
people remains as strong as ever. Many indigenous activists are critical
of the whole official reconciliation process and say that, while May 29's
expression of solidarity was extremely important, much more needs to be
done.

Green Left Weekly spoke to five indigenous activists about the
reconciliation process and what is needed for justice for Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander people.

JOEL BRAY from the Indigenous Student Network, which organised a protest
outside the Sydney Opera House during the reconciliation document's handover
on May 27, said that he felt that the march on Sunday was a gathering of
a lot of people with their hearts in the right place, but who were being
misled.

“For a huge
number of Australians, reconciliation is the genuine heartfelt attempt
to express their solidarity with Aboriginal people”, he said. “But the
reconciliation process was quite a deliberate tactic from the Howard government
to channel that solidarity away from anything that would require a concrete
commitment from the government.”

ISOBEL COE, one of the founders of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra
in the early 1970s, said that she thought the reconciliation events were
another lie. “The documents were written by mainly non-Aboriginal people”,
she said angrily, “and anyway, we can't have reconciliation while there
is still no justice”.

Coe felt that genuinely anti-racist people had been diverted by the
reconciliation process. “The government led people up the tree, then cut
it down”, she said. “The reconciliation march was only a 'feel good' exercise.
[Former prime ministers] Fraser and Hawke walked across the bridge on Sunday;
what hypocrisy! They had the chance to make a difference when they were
in power and they did nothing.”

Government appointees

LYALL MUNRO of the Sydney-based Metropolitan Land Council agrees, saying,
“The whole concept of reconciliation was an imposition on Aboriginal people”,
a “bastardisation” of calls for a treaty or an Aboriginal bill of rights.
He criticised indigenous leaders who had cooperated with the drafting of
the document, accusing them of being “willing to lay down with the government”.

“The government followed the advice of appointees and disregarded the
voice of black Australia”, Munro said, noting that meetings of Aboriginal
communities in NSW, including one in La Perouse in Sydney's southern suburbs
attended by 700 delegates, had rejected the process.

“Reconciliation was a complete waste of time — 12 years, millions of
dollars of taxpayers' money, of Aboriginal money”, he said. Most of those
who marched on May 28 did so to protest against governmental racism, not
to celebrate a process which had ended it, he said.

COLIN GALE, an elder from the Dharug people of western Sydney, was pleased
to see many people from different ethnic backgrounds on the march, and
was boosted by its size. However, he also doubted whether it is possible
to change the minds of those who are opposed to a real reconciliation process
between non-Aboriginal and Aboriginal people, including those in both major
political parties.

KIM BULLIMORE, a member of the Democratic Socialist Party and an Indigenous
Student Network activist, said she was heartened by the tremendous size
of the march and the strong sentiment in favour of justice for Aborigines,
even if reconciliation still meant many different things to many different
people.

'I think
there is a sentiment we can build on”, she said. “The reconciliation process
has brought a recognition to many people that there have been these past
wrongs which have to be dealt with.”

But she is also critical of how white people's desires for reconciliation
with blacks were misused by successive governments. Over time, reconciliation
“has become a way of watering down the real demands of Aboriginal people
for land rights, for recognition of sovereignty over land which was never
ceded”, Bullimore argued.

Bray agrees that although the reconciliation process was a detour, one
positive byproduct, especially of the reconciliation march, was that it
has raised the question in many people's minds: What next? He said that
it is ironic that the reconciliation process has produced intensified demands
for a formal treaty, the very thing the process was supposed to avoid.

Treaty

Bray dismisses Howard's claims that a treaty is impossible because there
is only one Australian nation. “The reality is, there are two nations in
Australia”, he said, “one with little education and making up the poorest
sector, dying younger from diseases, and the other with money, relatively
good health and good opportunities for education”.

He would like to see the formation of community collectives comprising
of indigenous and non-indigenous people to discuss a treaty.

Bray believes that two things need to be done: a program of “mass consciousness-raising”
and “a really clear and open discussion of the implications of a treaty”.
Concrete gains from such a treaty could and should include a “decent schedule”
of land rights, recognition of traditional owners and elders, specified
seats for indigenous representatives in parliament, even a separate Aboriginal
parliament, he said.

Coe pointed out that the activists at the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in
Canberra have been demanding a treaty for many years and have submitted
a petition, with hundreds of thousands of signatures on it, to the United
Nations calling for just that. She feels that a treaty could be the next
project that the community would support: “If people can take one step
and march for reconciliation, then maybe they can take another two or three
steps”.

Bullimore
agrees that a treaty would be an important step because, in contrast to
the official reconciliation process, “it would have teeth”. “A treaty is
a compact, an agreement”, she said. “Aboriginal people have been asking
for recognition that we were the first people in the country and that the
land was never ceded and sovereignty was never given. The first Europeans
here totally ignored the advice of the crown — they were actually told
to make a treaty with the indigenous people and they didn't do that.”

“Whether or not a treaty would actually make a difference for indigenous
people would depend on its content”, Bullimore said. “The last thing we
need is more words, more rhetoric, more hypocrisy. The treaty should enshrine
the rights of indigenous people to equality, justice, progress. It needs
to be an anti-racist bills of rights.

“Of course, for real justice, there would need to be an enormous improvement
in the lives of indigenous people, economically and socially — in the
areas of health, education and employment, in every area of our lives.”

Munro sees things similarly. “There'll be no progress until justice
is afforded to Aboriginal people”, he said, “until we stop Aboriginal deaths
in custody, until we stop our kids dying at an alarming rate, until we
stop the incarceration of our people at an alarming rate, until we are
in a position to do something constructive about the lives and conditions
of black Australia.”

Olympic protests

Indigenous leaders are now planning to make protests at Sydney's Olympic
Games in September the next major focus for anti-racist action.

“The events of last weekend are good signs for the Olympics events”,
said Bullimore. “People are pissed off — they are pissed off at Howard
and pissed off at how indigenous people are being treated. There is a lot
of goodwill out there among the people and the Olympics protests will be
a lot more politicised.”

Bullimore doesn't believe that police and security forces will be “as
nice as they were to us on Sunday” and points to a raft of state laws restricting
freedom of movement and certain forms of protest. She is determined, however,
to make sure “we don't just stop where we stopped on May 28. We have to
keep mobilising as many people as possible, use the Olympics to tell the
country and world what has happened to Australia's indigenous people.”

Bray said that the Indigenous Students Network is planning forums and
activities to educate people about issues affecting indigenous people,
such as mandatory sentencing and cuts to Abstudy. But he too is determined
to “keep up the pressure on the Howard government” and sees Olympics protests
as one way of doing that.

He said that many different protest events would be organised at the
time, including three different tent embassies, but that his group would
like to see a major, combined protest on the opening day.

Munro said the Metropolitan Land Council plans to establish one tent
embassy which would not only help focus the protest actions but also “be
a catalyst for the emerging of the national Aboriginal mandate”. “We are
not here to disrupt the games, we have never called for the disruption
of the games, or the boycott of any of the athletes to the games”, he insisted.

“The embassy will be far enough away to not be disruptive, but close
enough to be effective”, he promised. “We have no wish to disrupt this
international convention — we haven't got a truck with the world, we have
a truck with this country. We have to show the world, in the most peaceful
manner, the true story of black Australia and the true history of this
country since the European invasion in 1788.”

Coe is planning, with other indigenous leaders, a “sacred walk” to Sydney,
through Moree, Dubbo and country NSW, starting on June 10. The walk will
carry the ashes of the Canberra Tent Embassy's ceremonial fire, forcibly
extinguished by the Australian Federal Police in February.

Non-indigenous support

Bray stated that, while Aboriginal people need to develop the movement
for their rights, non-indigenous people should get in touch with radical
black leaders, actively seek out information and raise their own consciousness.
Munro agreed, saying, “Non-Aboriginal people have a very constructive and
important role to play in the lives of Aboriginal people in this country”.

He invited all people to join in the protests at the Olympics. “There
are two choices: this whole country can either be judged by the international
arena as being racist, or it can allow the government of the day to be
judged by the same as being racist.”

Munro compared the choice to that facing non-indigenous people in the
referendum on granting Aborigines citizenship in 1967. “This is an obvious
opportunity, especially under the racist regime of Johnny Howard, another
occasion where we can show that the human rights of fellow Australians
should be respected.

“It's going to take a massive effort to convince the rest of this country
that Aboriginal people have a right to justice because of what's happened”,
he admitted. “However, they can't deny history. No matter how much of a
racist backlash there is, history is there for the world to see.”

Bullimore said that she noticed Howard's reaction change between the
May 27 handover and Monday, May 29, after the walk across the bridge. “On
Monday, he was quieter than he normally is”, she said. “He couldn't come
out really hard against indigenous people in the couple of days around
the event. This created the impression he was giving ground.”

Bullimore doesn't expect any change in the PM's attitude, however. “The
government is still pandering to the people it really represents”, she
says. “Look at the front bench of the Coalition: at least half of them
own major land holdings. They are not going to turn around and say, just
because hundreds of thousands of people got out and walked, 'We've changed
our minds'. They may tread a little more carefully, but they will continue
with their racist policies.”

Bullimore, Coe and Munro also dismiss Labor Party claims to be better.
Instead, their hope lies with the staying power and political courage their
own communities, and the belief that the march across the bridge shows
that the mass of non-indigenous Australians are starting to take Aboriginal
issues seriously.

“The Howard government is not going to make change unless a powerful
movement of ordinary people forces that change”, said Bullimore. “There
are now those in the non-indigenous population who know that real reconciliation
is not possible without justice. We've got the best chance in a long time
to build on that and make it happen.”