Colonial perceptions are persistent

September 16, 1998
Issue 

By Richard Buchhorn

Last November, Channel Nine screened the documentary Cape of Dreams in a number of cities. In it, the Aboriginal people of Cape York, the Merkins, were described as cannibals: "There were hundreds of cases of miners being killed and eaten along with their animals ... they had no second thoughts of wallaby or fish. Reports from the time said the Chinese were considered the black camp, half a dozen Chinese miners were found alive, hung on a tree from their pigtails, waiting for their turn to be clubbed, roasted and eaten."

When this film was screened in both 1990 and 1991, the producers were provided with research which showed that the evidence for such statements was on a par with that for alien abductions. It showed that, while there were detailed reports and inquests from that area and time, there was not a single credible account of a Chinese or European miner having been eaten by the Merkins.

In the era of colonialism, the statement "those people are cannibals" could be translated as "we want their land". That preconception, together with fear and fertile imagination, coloured partial observations of burial rituals which led to exaggeration and fabrication of evidence, and turned suspicions into assertions.

A lot happened between the initial and repeat screenings of this film.

In 1993, the National Conference on the Media and Indigenous Australians led to the formulation of advisory notes and statements of principle to guide the media.

Then, in 1996, Pauline Hanson spoke of Murris on the Palmer River in Cape York eating Chinese miners, and a year later, her book The Truth enlarged on the myth.

In the ensuing debate, talk-back radio and letters pages in newspapers revealed a widespread attachment to, and dependence on, this myth to justify persisting colonial perceptions and attitudes towards Aboriginal people.

On the other hand, however, a number of feature articles, reflecting recent research, debunked the myth and explained its role. This did not deter Channel Nine from its cavalier decision to screen Cape of Dreams again.

Later in November, three former Labor prime ministers said that "Hanson's allegations of Aboriginal cannibalism carried an awful resonance of the depiction in Nazi Germany of Jews as a sub-human species".

Der Stuermer, edited by Hitler confidant Julius Streicher, was one vehicle for Nazi propaganda. It was displayed throughout Germany on bulletin boards erected for that purpose.

The May 1, 1934 issue helped keep alive the centuries-old "blood libel": that Jews killed gentile children to obtain blood for use in their rituals. The cover illustration showed eight children hanging upside down, the blood from their cut throats being collected in a dish by two Jews.

That image finds an awful resonance in the equally fictitious scene described in Cape of Dreams of the Chinese miners hanging by their pigtails.

The Australian Broadcasting Authority received a complaint that the program was likely to offend the cultural sensitivities of Aboriginal people, and stir up serious contempt and severe ridicule against them. Its response demonstrates how deeply entrenched such racist myths have become.

The ABA drew on material, which had been included with the complaint to demonstrate the role of the myth, to declare it was obvious that there was evidence (a new name for anecdote and assertion?) to support both sides of the cannibalism argument.

It said the program (like Pauline Hanson's statement) did not refer to Aborigines in general, that there was no suggestion that it was a continuing practice (thank heavens!), and that there was no intention on the part of the producers to create any ill-will towards Aboriginal people (so what?).

Had Channel Nine been operating in 1930s Germany, would it have used the cover illustration from Der Stuermer? Would it have used it years later, after its role had been exposed?

Had the ABA been around to handle a complaint about it, would its finding have differed from that on Cape of Dreams?

Racist colonial myths persist, and are used to express hostility towards and ridicule Aboriginal people. Of even greater concern is that so many are predisposed to believe, propagate and protect such myths.

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