Reconciliation requires justice
On May 27, in the Sydney Opera House forecourt not far from where the attempted genocide of Australia's indigenous people began, the spokespeople for the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation will hand their 10-years-in-the-making document of reconciliation to Prime Minister John Howard — and he'll spit in their eye.
The PM has already said that he has no intention of signing the document, as it includes recognition of Aboriginal communities' right to self-determination and a formal apology to the Aboriginal people for past and present injustices. Such statements are divisive, the PM claims, and, furthermore, an apology may lead to expensive compensation claims.
With Howard's refusal, "reconciliation" will come to a bitter end, revealed as a shallow attempt by government to assuage Aborigines' righteous anger and demands for justice with empty symbolism.
There were always two "reconciliation" processes going on. The public one — the desire by a great majority of Australians, both black and white, to right wrongs suffered — hid the real one: governments talking the talk so they didn't have to walk the walk.
Reconciliation, if it means anything, is a process in which people in conflict settle their differences. But in this case, under the cloak of their reconciliation rhetoric, successive governments have continued the conflict one-sidedly, by attacking the rights and well-being of Aboriginal people.
It was a Labor government that kicked off the "reconciliation" process, with all its consultations, speeches and fine sentiments, at the same time as Labor was legislating to water down the High Court's Mabo ruling on native title at the behest of the big mining and pastoral companies.
The hypocrisy became thicker under the Coalition. When he was deputy prime minister, former National Party leader Tim Fischer would refuse to walk on Uluru out of respect for the indigenous people (of course!) then the next day get stuck into Aboriginal land councils as greedy and poorly managed and promise "bucketloads of extinguishment" of native title.
His boss would move motions in parliament "to generically express in relation to a number of issues the regret that the people of Australia feel". The next day he would cut Abstudy or refuse to overturn racist mandatory sentencing laws or stand by a report which denied the very existence of stolen generations of Aboriginal children — and proclaim himself a devotee of "practical reconciliation".
When the deadline for giving a "yea" or "nay" to the reconciliation document neared — and remember, this is a document which has been constantly watered down in an effort to get the PM's signature on it, not a latter-day Declaration of Independence — the PM revealed that even symbolism was more than he was prepared to give.
Howard wants, at any cost, to avoid any recognition that Aborigines are still an oppressed group, that they deserve compensation, land rights and large-scale programs of affirmative action in education, jobs and social services; he wants to avoid anything whatsoever that might interfere with Australian big businesses' profits or narrow his chances of winning back the One Nation vote.
The only "reconciliation" Howard and Co. want is for Australia's indigenous people to "reconcile" themselves to their oppression, and let the big end of town get on with running — and bleeding — the country.
The day after Howard "receives" the document, hundreds of thousands of people will walk across the Sydney Harbour Bridge in a display of commitment to justice for Aboriginal people. The contrast will no doubt be stunning.
Let us make sure that this is no one-off. A truly mass movement of people, demanding not only formal but practical measures to confront Aboriginal injustice, is the only way to make John Howard and his ilk pay for their racist double-dealing. Now that would be justice.