John Tracey's articles, essays and other writing

Treaty Now

2008-10-22T18:30:00.000-07:00

Check out "Treaty Now" the Website of the "Oodgeroo of the tribe Noonuccal, Custodian of the land Minjerriba, Peace Prosperity and Healing, Sacred Treaty Circles"

TREATY NOW

"Unlikely Travellers" - movie review

2007-08-13T06:31:00.000-07:00

The controversial movie “Unlikely Travellers” by Brisbane film maker Michael Noonan had its world premier on Sunday (Aug 12) as part of the Brisbane International Film Festival. The documentary features the lives of a group of people with intellectual disabilities who travel to Egypt as well as their families and support workers.

Up until Sunday’s screening “Unlikely Travellers” has benefited from perhaps the most sensational pre-publicity campaign of any independent documentary ever made in Australia.

Noonan’s academic work at the Queensland University of Technology , including the production of “Unlikely Travellers”, has come under severe public criticism by two academics, Gary MacLennan and John Hookham, who claim his work demeans and exploits people with disabilities. As a result of this criticism MacLennan and Hookham were charged, convicted and suspended without pay for six months for crimes against Q.U.T., This in turn ignited an international media sensation around free speech and censorship which has still not died down.

Noonan’s work has been condemned across the globe, yet until Sunday’s BIFF screening nobody has seen it except a small group of quarreling academics. The anticipation of the release of this film has been electric, further energised by recent news that the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission is investigating QUT’s action against the two suspended academics. - A publicist’s dream!

Those looking for controversy will not be disappointed by “Unlikely Travellers”. It is indeed confronting, morally ambiguous and in many places sexist. Such is the nature of the real lives of real people presented in the documentary.

“Unlikely Travellers” is about adventure. The first half of the movie documents the physical and emotional preparation for the trip to Egypt, the second half focuses on the trip itself and its consequences. This journey is a collective step into the unknown that changed the lives of each of the participants.

Noonan, his crew and camera have been allowed privileged access into the lives of the cast. Inside he finds some of the key issues relating to the rights of people with intellectual disabilities, especially as weighed up against the will of their families and support workers. But Noonan’s film does not make any grand gesture in support of these rights, instead exploring the complexities, contradictions, differing perspectives and needs of all those involved including family and support workers. His interviews with over-protective parents about over-protectiveness is as profound and enlightening as it is contradictory. The families interviewed have been brave and honest in discussing their real family situation, not just detached principles and protocols governing the lives of people with disability.

One of the themes of the movie is sexuality. It is an honest, beautiful and disturbing insight into the unresolved issues of sex, marriage and children from the perspective of the travelers, their families and their support workers. The anxieties of temporarily separated spouses (Nicole left her husband at home while she went to Egypt), holiday romances, fidelity and fickleness are all confronted head on with no neat resolutions. The authority in charge of this project, John Hart from the Spectrum organisation also shares his own challenges as a support worker as to when and if he should intervene in relationships heading in the direction of sexual intimacy. He respects the adulthood and independence of the travelers at the same time as being morally and legally responsible for their well being. Lucky for him the trip only lasted two weeks and the dilemma is handed back to the families.

And then there is the terrible sexism! There are two characters that stand out in this film – James and Darren. These are the two who Noonan is presently working with on a comedy project. Their aptitude for such a project shines brightly in “Unlikely Travellers” as it did with their impromptu speeches after the screening. Darren, 40 and James, 20 develop a friendship which provides much of the comic relief in this documentary. Darren is the ideas man, he knows what he wants (which includes women!) and he has a fair idea how to go about getting it. The more reserved and intellectual James has reached the point in his life where he wants to be independent and is obviously inspired by Darren’s zest for life and mischief. James is willingly drawn into Darren’s grand schemes including moving into a house together to create a barbeque wonderland that will attract women.

One of the scenes singled out by the QUT critics was of James’ figuring that if Darren got a girlfriend then the two could share her. This was well received by the audience who laughed at the statement as well as Darren’s interjection that this might not be possible to arrange. This scene is near the end of the film and the audience has already got two know the two men well. In this context the scene is neither sexist nor offensive but just another insight into complicated perspectives of sexuality, humour and independence.

Darren emerges as the expedition leader as he pursues his quest to find out if there is a trap door underneath the foot of the Sphinx and how Tutankhamen died, if indeed he did die.. Darren’s excitement at proving his brother wrong about how many Sphinxes there are in Egypt was audibly shared by the audience, as was his disappointment at discovering that some people in Egypt may try and rip him off - a truly sad point in the movie.

There are other sad moments such as Stanley’s story of welfare authorities taking away his three children, and then losing his wife because of the pressure of losing the children. His brave attempt at a holiday romance and coming back to earth after the trip is also a brave and honest insight into the life of this particular person with an intellectual disability. For me the saddest part of the movie was Stanley explaining that the authorities had decided it was not appropriate for his children to see him off at the airport or to welcome him home as all the other travelers’ families had.

All the travelers – Nicole, James, Darren, Stanley, Natasha and Carla - have their own unique stories which are portrayed with depth and integrity. It is the intertwining of all the different stories that holds this film together.

Viewing the film has dismissed in my mind the much publicised criticism that Noonan has an exploitative or inappropriate attitude towards disability. Four of the six unlikely travelers spoke after the film, expressing a deep gratitude to Noonan and Spectrum for the experience, as did members of their families speaking from the floor.

Darren took the microphone to the cheers of the audience, a situation that he immediately took advantage of to show his talent as a comic orator, Stanley spoke and gave an update on his continuing struggle to be reunited with his children. James opened the floor to questions and skillfully handled heckling from his mother. Nicole made some insightful comments about the comparative difference of cultures in Egypt and Australia.

MacLennan and Hookham have criticised one scene in “Unlikely Travellers”, but to be fair to them the bulk of their attack is on Noonan’s current work in progress – the “Down Under Mystery Tour”with Darren and James. Again nobody in the world has seen this except the same small group of quarreling academics. Supporters of the suspended academics handed out leaflets at Sunday’s screening claiming they were not talking about “Unlikely Travellers” as an example of “misanthropic and amoral trash”, only the “Down Under Mystery Tour”. This ongoing criticism is sure to inflame the pre-publicity of “Down Under Mystery Tour” as with “Unlikely Travellers”. Noonan sure is lucky with publicity!

I look forward to seeing how Noonan tackles comedy in his next project. I also look forward to laughing at the antics of Darren and James, I predict we will see a lot more of these two movie stars in the future.

John Tracey

Laughing at “THE DISABLED” - power, perception and prejudice.

2007-07-31T22:18:00.000-07:00

Background

A recent controversy at the Queensland University of Technology has has resulted in severe punitive action being taken against two academics, Gary MacLennan and John Hookham who, in the name of speaking up for “the disabled”, publically criticised a Phd. Student, Michael Noonan and his Phd thesis “Laughing at the disabled (later renamed “laughing with the disabled”) for demeaning “the disabled”. The student is exploring the notions of “laughing at” and “laughing with” the disabled and is making a comedic film featuring two men with intellectual disabilities.

As a result of their public criticism of QUT and Noonan’s work the two academics were suspended for six months without pay. The legal wranglings of this matter continue but what began as a significant contribution to the discussion of disability issues has now become an issue of academic integrity and free speech, in particular the role of the university and academics in the wider community and perhaps most significantly it has become an issue of employee rights and the excessive punitive measures meted out to MacLennan and Hookham for their public criticism of the university.

My own position is that I strongly disagree with the sentiments and attitudes about “disability” expressed by MacLennan, Hookham and their supporters. From what I have heard of Noonan’s work it seems to be fascinating and a significant step in challenging dominant prejudices and stereotypes of “the disabled”. However I am deeply disturbed about the punitive action taken by QUT against the academics for speaking out, not just because of industrial justice or the importance of free speech but because they are repressing the discussion, the dynamic friction, of disability issues in the public domain as well as in the institutions that train those who will work with people with disabilities. By repressing the discussion of contrary opinion, QUT has played a major role in concretising status quo attitudes and policies which will make them invulnerable to innovation of any sort including that envisioned by Noonan’s work. By repressing those who would criticise and challenge, of any perspective, is an arrogant dismissal of a major and necessary public debate that is all too often swept under the carpet because of embarrassment, political correctness or the entrenched institutional norms of the disability industry.

Despite my disagreement with MacLennan and Hookham on which I am about to pontificate, these two men have initiated a public debate which seriously needs to occur and it is most unfortunate for the development of an apparently progressive disability project that QUT has turned this into a highly politicised free speech issue.

I can’t comment too much on Noonan’s work as it is being kept secret because of the controversy and will apparently not be made public until the film is released.

Gary MacLennan and John Hookham have seen some of Noonans preliminary work and were deeply disturbed by what they saw of the project and wrote a widely publicised article entitled “Philistines of relativism no longer at the gates”
where they criticised what they saw as offensive material and its acceptance by the academic trends of post-structuralism or post modernism. The following is a reflection on Gary Maclennan and John Hookham’s article (henceforth known as “the article”) and the movement that has arisen in support of these men.

The myth of the disabled

The article speaks of “the tradition of mocking the disabled”. I will get to the mocking business later but for now deal with “the disabled” as a notion embraced by the academics and their supporters including a supporter’s statement that “the disabled community protesting the suspension of Hookham and MacLennan”, an assertion also made in the youtube video “The Disability Community speaks out against QUT”.

It is inaccurate to speak of “the disabled” as a class or a community, as if disability provided a cultural and historical unity with some evolved mass sensibility. A person with a disability is going to be defined or socialised by their family, peers, work, institutions and television – just like anyone else. The public perception of a disabled community is generated by workers in the disability industry and is an illusion that describes their work issues and environment more than the real lives of people with disabilities.
The exception is the deaf community who resist the notion that they have a disability, just a different language, culture and community.

This disability worker generated illusion of a “disabled community”is that which informs government and community group policy and programs for this class of people “the disabled”.

By objectifying the heterogeneous lives and perspectives of real people who have disabilities into a single box labeled “disabled” we create the mechanism by which society imposes its own notions of what a disability is and what a person with a disability is in accordance with this preconception of “the disabled”.

This box containing “the disabled” is governed by a range of social norms which do not apply to “ordinary people” thus creating a distinct and separate class of people who, for their own protection, are proscribed from particular kinds of social activity taken for granted by “the normals”, the example in the case of the article, the comedic tradition of self mocking is considered inappropriate. Other taboos imposed on “the disabled” are sexuality and alcohol consumption, also displayed in the article with the disapproving reference to a pub scene in Noonan’s film “This produced a scene wherein a drunk Aboriginal woman amorously mauled William”. “The disabled” is a notion of disempowerment and dehumanisation.

“The disabled” in the entertainment and media industries.

If entertainers with disabilities like, Steady Eddy or Dave Allen with his amputated finger or Ian Dury’s self reflection “Spasticus Autisticus” want to make fun of themselves, any aspect of themselves including their disability they are engaging in a mainstream comic tradition that is not considered to be offensive in any other context than “the disabled”. Danny Devito’s height has not been used by Hollywood as a cruel attack on short people and Devito is not exploited.

The first two of ““twelve secrets of comedy””.
from Sandi C. Shore’s “Stand Up Comedy Workshop Workbook” are

“Secret 1 ………Comedy is based on truth. Are you stupid? Go with it! Are you a liar? So what! Are you fat? Good. Are you perfect? Oh, please.”

“Secret 2……We are perfect as we are. The idea is not to change a thing about yourself, faults and all. The reason you should accept yourself is that you can’t fool your audience. They can see right through you.”

Yet the article seems to think that this mainstream principle of comedy which appears to be part of Noonan’s Film is not appropriate for “the disabled”. Disability, it seems, is something that should be hidden. The article suggests that these two young men were being used by the film maker, including being presented with scripts and set up situations, but is this not the normal film industrial relationship for all on-screen talent? Yet this industrial norm is described by the article as exploitation when applied to “the disabled”.

There are indeed the power relationships inherent in film making and the manipulation and presentation of on screen subjects. However, I believe, a film maker should not change their style if they are working with people with intellectual disabilities if (and only if) the person has a functioning and sensitive support and advocacy structure to negotiate with the film maker in conjunction with (not on behalf of) the particular actor. The existence of such a structure is one of the few publically available facts of the nature of Noonan’s work.

Vulnerability and Adulthood

One of the issues raised by the article was that of the vulnerability of people with intellectual disabilities, which is indeed a different issue than the situation of the artists such as Steady Eddy, Dave Allen and Ian Dury. The article speaks of the actors in Noonan’s film in the following terms….

“It’s worth noting that William’s condition may make it difficult for him to understand the subtexts of social interaction.”

and

“But we don’t think it’s funny to mock and ridicule two intellectually disabled boys. We think we, and the university, have a duty of care to those who are less fortunate than us.”

Speakers at the rallies supporting the persecuted academics have also spoken of the actor as “boys”which is a bit of a faux-par within disability protocols when discussing adults, including young adults. The two men in Noonan’s film are 20 and 40 years old. It is the perception of adults with intellectual disabilities as child-like that is, in my opinion, the single largest cause of oppression of people with such disabilities. The major obstacle to personal maturity is not any intellectual capacity but a rather a world who will not allow these people to grow up and participate as equal citizens.

It is especially important to reinforce adulthood in young people with intellectual disabilities, just is it is for any young person. Perhaps the most important skill of adulthood is to be able to make responsible and mature decisions about our own lives, irrespective of peer group pressure or the expectations of anyone else – including the principles and protocols of the disability industry. A young adult, with disabilities or not, does not need the imposition of an act of parliament, an industrial standard or the counsel of a social worker to find out who they are and what value system they will apply to the decisions in their own life.

Recent enlightened disability legislation has as a principle of the “presumption of capacity”. That is similar to the “presumption of innocence” in that a person is considered to be legally fully capable of making their own decisions until a proper assessment of their capacity indicates a limited capacity. However, beyond the similarity with the presumption of innocence, if a person is deemed to have a limited capacity, whatever capacity they do have is to be fostered and facilitated and incorporated into the making of decisions about that person by a guardian, advocate or support person.

Another principle of disability legislation is that the role of guardians, advocates and support people is to assist people with disabilities to participate fully in the community as if they did not have a disability - the world is modified so that the disability is no longer relevant, not modified so that it is reduced to the level of the disability. The role of the assistant is to complement their client’s capacity, to fill in the gaps caused by the physical or intellectual disability so that the client can be a full and independent citizen. The guardians, advocates and support workers are correctly bound by the principles of the current legislation in exercising their responsibilities, but nowhere in any disability legislation anywhere are there any instructions or even principles about what decisions, whether supported or individually that a person with disabilities may or may not make about their life.

In the eyes of the an enlightened law, if not the general community, a person with an intellectual disability is not bound in any way by the expectations of the disability box as their support staff are. Support structures and people are designed to empower a person to full capacity, not protect them from real and equal involvement in the world because of any incapacity.

Notions of “the disabled” are illusions that objectify and dehumanise human beings, that define a person by the obstacles in their life or those things that make them “less fortunate than ourselves” rather than their capacities, interests and aspirations.

In conclusion

I would like to suggest a close parralell between community attitudes and policy regarding disability and Aboriginality. Too often Aboriginality has been perceived by policy makers as a disability that needs to be overcome rather than a cultural framework on which to build. But this article is not about that.

There are four historical policies/attitudes of 1/extermination, 2/protection, 3/assimilation and 4/self determination that have been applied, though differently, to Aboriginal people and people with disabilities. Just as poisonings and the native police exterminated aboriginal people, disabled people were often killed in hospitatal at birth “for their own good”. Then they were protected in institutions as Aboriginal people were herded into missions and reserves. Then the disability field focused on getting people out into the community and Aboriginal people were released from the missions into mainstream society. Self determination has stalled in both cases. While being well articulated by indigenous people and actually manifested in government policy with the development of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, indigenous policy has turned around and is now marching back through the assimilation era and returning to the protection era with John Howard’s Aboriginal emergency or Peter Beattie’s Aboriginal grog laws.

Similarly, self determination has stalled as a policy in the disability field because its implications necessarily mean professional disability workers must let go of the power over the lives of people with disability, meaning residents of nursing homes should run the management committee of their home which conflicts directly with the status quo interests of, for example, a private nursing home and its investors. Institutional power is not determined by the needs of individual clients, they just plug in to the system however it is. But until there is a reform of power in the institutions that deliver services so that the user groups themselves design and manage them, even if only in an executive fashion, then self determination is just a shallow platitude for people with disabilities.

The four policies represent an evolution that has largely been driven by the activism of indigenous people and people living with disabilities demanding recognition of their basic human rights. In both cases policy has stalled at assimilation but the next step of self determination has been clearly mapped out already, all that remains is the political will to move forward. But the political will will not manifest if the social attitudes that underpin paternalistic policies such as protection and assimilation are widespread in the community, as is our contemporary status quo.

I was once at a lecture in Mayne Hall at the University of Queensland by famous disability theorist and theologian Jean Vanier, the founder of the “Communities of the Ark” in France. After his lecture he was asked a question from the floor along the lines “in your work with the disabled have you ever witnessed a miracle healing?” Vanier replied quite brilliantly. “Yes! I have witnessed many people change their attitudes towards people with disabilities.”

Background on the QUT controversy - youtube of ABC's "Stateline" June 15 2007

See also paradigm oz - "Still laughing at the disabled"

Neo-colonialism in Australia

2006-12-25T19:39:00.000-08:00

A non-Aboriginal perspective on neo-colonial illusion
and reconciliation with Aboriginal Australia

By John Tracey

Some Basic Information

Wherever we live in Australia we are on the ancestral homeland of a particular Aboriginal family, we are either on or in the vicinity of their ancient birthing centres, cemeteries, ceremonial areas and agricultural areas.

**1770 Aboriginal people have occupied this continent for many thousands of years, evolving a highly sophisticated system of law, language and economy. Trade routes ran throughout the country and north into Asia.

**1788 The fist fleet estimated that there were three million Aborigines in Australia based on the population in the vicinity of the new colony. This estimate was based on the assumption that Aborigines only inhabited coastal areas and were incapable of surviving inland.

** The first one hundred years of Australia was marked by a vicious war between Aborigines and settlers. In some areas guerilla resistance continued into the twentieth century. The gun, water and food poisoning and smallpox were the weapons that subdued the guerilla armies that rose all around the country,

**In the late eighteen hundreds bands of Native Police under the command of white officers tracked and murdered Aboriginal people still posing a threat to the expansion

of white farms

** The beginning of last century saw the birth of Australian federation. Also the Aboriginal protection laws and reserves were instituted around the country. Most of the surviving aboriginal population were rounded up onto reserves and their lives were regulated, including travel, marriages and employment by white protectors, often police.

Under the protection laws Aboriginal people were paid under award wages, most of which was held by various state governments and never paid to workers or their families. Many Aboriginal Children, especially fair skinned children and those still living a traditional lifestyle, were forcibly removed from their families and raised in orphanages or adopted to white families.

** Today an Aboriginal person is more than 27 times as likely to be imprisoned than a white person, On Average, Aboriginal people die twenty years younger than white people.

Australians all let us rejoice for we are young and free.......Aboriginal culture is the oldest living culture on the planet and Aboriginal people are the most imprisoned people on the planet.

What is exploitation and liberation? Who defines it, the exploited or exploiter, Aboriginal culture or English/Australian culture? Australia's racial discrimination laws gives people of all races and cultures the right to be white. All have legal equality within the frameworks of white industrial democracy and culture. Indigenous rights, or rights generated from migrant cultures other than English are ignored. For example, an aboriginal worker has a legal right to award conditions the same as anyone else. However if they miss work for attending to essential cultural business they may be sacked, they have no indigenous legal rights.

Similarly native title law gives to Aboriginal people certain rights to land within a white framework of land law. White courts and judges adjudicate land disputes and define the territories and legal rights of native titleholders. Aboriginal people have no right within native title to exercise rights and obligations within Aboriginal law except those that conform to white land use notions. For example native title holders will go to gaol if they hunt a protected species of animal on their own country.

Recent movements for justice and social change have included indigenous issues amongst their political demands. I remember the chants echoing around the city skyscrapers "One struggle One fight, women workers blacks unite" as Joh Bjelke Petersens storm troopers were confronted in the streets of Brisbane. This notion of a united front of progressive social movements was itself an alternative dismissal of black perspective. Aboriginal oppression was defined from a Marxist, feminist, anarchist, ecological or social democratic framework. Likewise the strategy for Aboriginal liberation was perceived along white ideological lines.

Today most social activists admit to an ignorance of indigenous issues . This ignorance allows for no constructive collaboration with Aboriginal people. White social movements have objectified Aboriginal people, creating their own concept of what Aboriginal oppression is and how that can be used to further their own white ideologies. In this sense the mode of operation of the alternative movement apes the grotesque failures of mainstream bureaucracy.

I am suggesting that many of the philosophies and ideologies that we espouse as an alternative to the oppression of the mainstream are just as ethnocentric, culturally specific, illusory and oppressive as the status quo. Our movements are charachterised by the three strands of environmentalism, socialism and feminism . It is easy to point the finger at Christianity and see how it was and is used as a tool of invasion and genocide. We should be just as critical of our own sacred cows. Alternative philosophies are just a part of the rich fabric of the invader society imposed on this Aboriginal country.

The Green movement has built a concept of wilderness, without consultation with Aboriginal people, we have generalised that concept, politicised it and it is now a significant issue on the Australian political landscape. Yet the way we have described the natural environment bears no resemblance to its ancient reality.

Modern Australia began with the legal principle of Terra Nullius, meaning a land with no law or government, no sovereign population. The British declared this continent to be Terra Nullius after Captain Cook "discovered" it, which allowed the British Crown to claim possession of the land in accordance with international law. Terra Nullius of course is a lie and was found to be such by the Australian High Court when Eddie Mabo proved that his family had owned their block of land since before Captain Cook.. Anthropologists and Aboriginal people assert that there was, prior to Cook and up until today, a complex and sophisticated system of law, government, economy and language, all the defining points of a sovereign nation.

Despite the high courts findings, Terra Nullius remains as the legal foundation for the sovereignty of the crown in Australia which in turn is the foundation authority for the parliament, courts, police, military and every other migrant legal institution.

Modern Australian conservationism dovetails with the legal fiction of Terra Nullius. Both deny the reality that this country was and still is occupied by a large complex Aboriginal society.

The conservation values of the Australian Bush are usually articulated in terms of species of plants and animals, geological considerations and often last and least, cultural heritage; usually a description of the history of the European colony and, occasionally, a reference to native title holders or Aboriginal place names (with little understanding of the meaning of either).

The principles of ecology and biodiversity have made us aware of the devastating consequences to an eco system if a particular species of plant or animal is removed. For example if a particular bird becomes extinct, the seeds it used to carry do not propagate and the insects it used to eat swell in numbers. Insect plague and reduced propagation in turn affects an infinite number of other organisms, radically degrading the systems of the ecosystem. The balance of bio-diversity has become an accepted principle in green ideology, yet how much have we considered the devastating consequences of removing the human species from wilderness eco-systems? For thousands of years humans interacted with the bush which provided them with all of the resources of daily life.. Human society and the natural eco systems evolved as one. Today we protect places in national parks and nature reserves and pretend that we are preserving their ancient integrity. Yet the form of bush that is protected in the national parks of today, places without the human species, are a phenomenon of the last hundred years, younger than many Australian urban centres. The removal of human beings from the bush in the last two hundred years has turned our wilderness areas into overgrown untended gardens.

Bushfire management is one example that highlights our misunderstandings of the bush. Conservationists have often argued that preventative burning strategies threaten eco systems; and they are right. Many farmers and fire authorities say the only way to avoid super-fires is to burn forest litter, and they are right also. In the old days the landscape was scattered with sacred campfires burning twenty-four hours a day providing a wide range of functional and spiritual purposes. These fires, along with hunting and cleansing fires, were fuelled solely by forest litter, gently and gradually cleaning the bush in a way that does not disrupt the sacred ecosystems that sustained the fire makers.

It has been a long time between sacred fires in many of our protected areas and as such they have degenerated into dormant infernos awaiting ignition.

Environmentalism tends to subscribe to the notion that the natural habitat of the human species is towns and cities, this is our territory and we should stay out of the territories of the other species. Centuries old notions of the evolution of humanity identify a progression from living in the bush in a savage and unsophisticated consciousness, through the epoch of barbarism into civilised society. This Darwinian notion conforms to the idea that the habitat of the modern human is urbanity. The inherent contradiction of this is it is the city structure that is doing most damage to the habitats of all species, including human. As a product of feudalism, industrialisation and capitalism, cities have grown as ever extending cancers, totally destroying the ecosystems of Europe and almost completing that process in Australia. By the simple evolutionary imperative of survival of the species, industrial civilisation represents a failure, it is our greatest threat as a species. the development of urban civilisation has been a process of ignorantly shitting in our own nests for millennia. Compared to the hundreds of thousands of years or more of sustainable human society in the bush, urban society is a dysfunctional devolution and disintegration.

If we are serious about preserving the Australian environment and indeed the human species we must take direction from Aboriginal people, their traditions of are the only record of the true history and nature of the bush, including how humans manage it. Aboriginal culture itself is a working example of a social ecology, including law and the individual and collective consciousness' that have been created by the interrelationship between human society and the wilderness.

Socialism is an ideology born of the emerging working class of the industrial revolution in Europe. The process of environmental degradation, hierarchical social structures, militarisation and the development of the nation state was the social context of socialism. Marx and Lenin both advocated industrialisation as historically inevitable and in the interests if the emancipation of the working class. The push towards centralised industry fuelled by the great wealth and greater greed of the ruling class was a wave on which socialism surfed, failing in any environmental foresight or radical analysis of the means and process of production beyond economic parameters.

Marx's fellow ideologue,Engels speaks of his understanding of Australian Aboriginal society as savagery, the bottom of social evolution yet to transcend into barbarism and then civilisation. (The origin of Family, Private property and the state) Marx and Lenin's prescriptions for European industrialisation were both racist and ignorant of the land rights of peasants sacrificing their land and land based cultures, for the benefit of the developing urban working class.

In Australia the working class has developed as a necessary component of the imposed industrial capitalist economy. There was no working class here until there was capitalism and the both grew together in a symbiotic, yet unfair, history.

Around the beginning of the twentieth century, the highpoint of European socialism, two significant historical events occurred in Australia. One was the development of trade unions and the other was the rounding up of the remnant Aboriginal population from rural areas and incarcerating them on Aboriginal reserves and missions. Up until then there had been over a hundred years of armed resistance to the expansion of white agriculture. The last decades of the nineteenth century saw the native police and their paramilitary commanders systematically massacre aborigines providing any resistance to the new farmlands.

The reserve system and Aboriginal protection laws mopped up the survivors of the war. Only now was it safe for pastoralists to propagate their sheep, cows, pigs, wheat, sugar etc. These developments lead to the necessity of a growing working class.

Today the struggle for control of the means of production is fought over between capital and labour over an economy that was stolen in the first place from Aboriginal people who are poor and unhealthy today as a direct consequence of the original theft. Imperialism and colonisation has always involved the transmigration of a working class as the primary occupation force in securing land from indigenous people. British and Scottish workers in Ireland, Indian workers in Fiji and south Africa, Australia's white Australia policy etc.

The working class did not develop in Australia as in Europe. It was imposed here. The indigenous Australian economy provided a prosperous lifestyle for millions of Aborigines. Trade routes through Indonesia to Asia and the rest of the world meant Australia was a modern dynamic trader in this part of the world also. Yet socialist intellectualism, while welcoming aborigines as fellow workers, has never acknowledged the integrity of the indigenous modes of production in particular the core principle that the earth, not labor, is the basis of the economy. John Howard took full advantage of this situation with his masterful manipulation of unionist forestry workers in Tasmania during the 2004 election campaign. Left wing unions appeared to abandon the labour party and its environmental policies and publicly endorse Howard and his policy that jobs (meaning bosses profit) was more important than the environment. The task of reorganising industry so that it is sustainable into the future has not yet been tackled by the agencies of the working class.

Feminism shares many cultural underpinnings with patriarchy and the nuclear family. Historically feminism is a reaction to patriarchal structures, European notions of freedom, the self and society have not been dismissed by feminism, indeed it is because these notions were not fulfilled for women that feminism been embraced. While feminism has caused superstructural change, more women are achieving more power in white society, the social infrastructure, consciousness itself, remains unchanged.

White consciousness, including feminism sees relationships as isolated units, and men and women as isolated units within that isolated relationship. White consciousness is ego based, the supremacy of the concept of an individual self. Here the nuclear patriarchy and feminism mirror each other, that identity is based on individual ego relationships, . Feminism however goes further in identifying relationship with men as being inherently oppressive. Men therefore need to be disconnected and transcended as a prerequisite to ego satisfaction or "liberation".

The materialistic and individualistic consciousness of capitalism and its consequent mobile workforces dovetail perfectly with feminism and nuclear families alike. The individual is more attracted to upward mobility and individual satisfaction than connection with family and country.

Historically, Aboriginal society has not suffered from notions of patriarchy and the nuclear family until the invasion.. The frameworks of extended family, men's and women's law and men's and women's country has created notions of freedom , self and society based on relationship and connectedness. Exploitation has not been the dynamic between men and women but between white society and and black society. Domestic violence is not a product of a testosterone induced patriarchy inherent in all men but' as with all social dysfunction is a direct consequence of invasion, genocide and colonisation. Similarly notions of healing are based on reconnection with family and country, resolving issues one way or the other.This stands in contrast to feminism's imperative to break free of connection, especially with men.

I assert that feminism, like socialism, Christianity and environmentalism are social constructs of European consciousness that along with capitalism, the nuclear family and everything else make up the colonial matrix that occupies this country. .

The extended family is not just more relatives, it is social processes and law to deal with everything including crisis. These are the very processes that have been smashed in the war of invasion. The fragile system of customary law today, including consciousness based on men's and women's business, family and country need to be respected, resourced and reinforced. It is a different way of life and doing things to the European nuclear family, the state and feminism.

I do not believe that reconciliation can occur by Aboriginal and non Aboriginal Australia meeting in the middle. English/Australian consciousness and culture is at essence hierarchical, literary, individualistic and material/property based. Indigenous culture is at essence lateral and egalitarian, oral (as different from literary), communal and spiritual. Where is the middle ground? So much of traditional Aboriginal society has been smashed during the past two hundred years, including language, the halfway mark of today is well within the cultural "turf" of European society. How far does Aboriginal society have to suffer and move away from its essence before white culture will start to move to the middle? Why would a comfortably numb white society change?

I don't think there is a middle ground, it is an either/or situation : I believe that after thousands of years of war and dislocation there is little left in mainstream culture that is worth preserving. We have created a social monster that is in the process of devouring itself unto extinction. This stands as an antithesis to Aboriginal culture, not as an equal standard by which to design the future.

Reconciliation can only occur when non-indigenous people cross the line. We do not become Aboriginal, we remain the descendants of Irish, English, Japanese etc. We are that same person in the context of Aboriginal reality, rather than colonial reality. As such our own aboriginality of Ireland, England, Japan or wherever comes into focus as does the necessity to contribute to the aboriginal law of where we live now. This is a spiritual transcendence (or paradigm shift if you prefer) that , I claim, is an essential prerequisite to demolish imposed colonial illusions such as Terra Nullius, the "untouched" wilderness and white supremacy in Australia.

Social change in post Nazi Germany involved coming to terms with the reality of history in order to prevent its repeat. Similarly in post apartheid South Africa, the truth and reconciliation process has been central to creating a new nation. In this country I believe the starting point is to come to terms with the history of Invasion, genocide and colonisation of this country. Doing this not only provides political support for Aboriginal Australia, it also demolishes the dominant Australian world view and consciousness that justifies not only genocide but also ecocide.. This allows us, psychologically, to overcome, or at least be aware of the power of hegemonic force to control perspective and opens the door for us to embrace new concepts and perspectives. Like the realisation that Santa is not true, the demolition of the Australian myth is a key part of our maturing as a people. Such an enlightenment calls to question every aspect of modern society and our own place in it, not just Aboriginal issues.

Personally, I do not identify as an Australian. I am an Aborigine of Ireland and England, born in the country of the Yarra people and living on Jaggerra/Turrable country at the time of writing. Aboriginal perspective is a universal consciousness equally as relevant to migrants and indigenous people. Our sacred places including ancestral burial and birthing places are not in this country but they do exist. Our law and traditions have been smashed and in many cases we have been forced off our own land centuries ago. What happened to our families in other parts of the world is happening to Australian Aborigines today. Much of the old culture is left in Australia today and these are signposts, or metaphors even, suggesting to us different parameters of our own reality. What belongs to the people of this country can never belong to us, we have our own places. By learning from people who still have connection to ecological consciousness opens doors to our own humanity that have been closed by mainstream western society. We have a working model of a different way to relate to each other and the environment. This is the twenty-first century and an ecological consciousness will manifest differently today, for both aboriginal and non aboriginal people, than it does in anthropological museums. I must emphasise that I believe that any attempt to reconstruct models of centuries ago, whether traditional Aboriginal culture or Marxism, they will remain as hollow anachronisms. The essence of the ancient cultures around the world is consciousness itself, how consciousness manifests in the material world has always adapted and developed to the conditions of the time, culture is alive and always relevant.

I have noticed that many non-Aboriginal people are seeking insight into Aboriginal spirituality. It appears to me that each person has their own ideological or philosophical matrix that is like a jigsaw puzzle. Over time we build up understandings of ourselves, society and our environment, filling in pieces of the jigsaw. The older we get the more pieces of the jigsaw are put together, beginning to develop a coherent form that can be understood. Yet their is a gap, missing pieces in the area of Aboriginality and the ancient spirituality of the land we are on. We search for missing pieces, usually asking premeditated questions of aboriginal people, based on the logic and form of the rest of the jigsaw. We never get the answers we are looking for, we are given responses to our questions but they do not seem to fit the shape of the missing pieces in our jigsaw, so we continue hunting for more pieces. Whatever the size of our jigsaw, the aboriginal jigsaw will be at least the same size and cannot be crammed into the area of missing pieces in our own jigsaw. To remove a single piece of the Aboriginal jigsaw, which would of itself betray the Aboriginal principle of holism, and then see if it can fit the gaps in the western jigsaw will create a discordant absurdity.

Many of the spiritual questions that non-Aboriginal people ask Aboriginal people can only be answered by people of higher understandings. These understandings were acquired through pain and suffering, both in day to day life and through sacred ceremony and cannot br explained in a one dimensional communication such as writing or speaking. It is unfair to expect these answers, that aboriginal people must labour and suffer for over time, to be handed out cheaply to curious non-Aboriginal people.

So, because the core of the spiritual essence of country resides in a very specific group of people, the issue of Aboriginal authority arises. While we may learn from and participate in dreaming processes, we are visitors, passengers. This is not a black and white issue for the same understandings exist for aboriginal people from other dreamings and areas who must similarly abide by the aboriginal authority of that particular place. Non Aboriginal peoples education of and participation in Aboriginal dreaming and culture will be through relationship and connection with Aboriginal people. Again this is not a black and white thing as all Aboriginal people learn and practice culture by way of relationship and connection.

The genocidal war smashed many of the systems of education into the dreaming and the political structures of governance within Aboriginal sociology. Aboriginal people are denied the proper education of country and dreaming, and that is their birth right, so our capacity as non aboriginal people to learn of the dreaming is severely restricted.

Obviously for non-Aboriginal peopleto learn, Aboriginal culture needs to be healed and reestablished in Aboriginal society. Cultural revival. Cultural revival is an enterprise in itself requiring budgets and resources, while there is a desperate need for it and an eagerness for it to occur it will not simply occur on its own. This is a key role for non indigenous supporters, to provide resources and budgets to develop cultural processes amongst traditional owners and other local aboriginal people. Apart from beginning to rectify the injustices of history, this creates a working entity from whom to learn ( a by-product of involvement in the process).

Reconciliation must be action and outcome based otherwise nothing changes .....If we are not part of the solution we are part of the problem. If we are not directly supporting Aboriginal people and their assertion of sovereignty, no matter what our ideology or personality. we are simply adding to the bulk of the imposed invader society.

Apparently two percent of the Australian population are indigenous. It is too much to ask every Aborigine to educate and organise fifty non aboriginal people. We have to do this ourselves. We must, in some way have a meaningful relationship with Aboriginal people to be able to learn but this must not be a drain on Aboriginal Australia or our search for truth will become a genocidal force in itself. Our connections to Aboriginal Australia have to be those that resource and facilitate aboriginal agendas. To look at the demographics again, enormous progress could be made if each Aboriginal person had financial and other assistance from fifty non Aboriginal people. If everyone gave only ten dollars a week then that Aborigine could be employed to do cultural and community business, pay off a loan to secure land and accommodation or develop some business enterprise Things will only change when things change. Having stolen all material wealth from Aboriginal people, white society must return, even some, wealth before Aboriginal society will have any capacity for social rebuilding and economic self determination.

I do not believe that the governments and bureaucracy will, in the future, do any more than regurgitate dysfunctional programs and continue to erode Aboriginal power and lifestyle. If we wait for the governments the genocide continues

Creating Aborigines in our own image

2006-10-17T20:53:00.000-07:00

By John Tracey

A reflection on….
“Black and white lies”
An article in the Australian (national newspaper) written by William J. Lines

A recent article published in the Australian entitled “Black and white lies” written by William J. Lines represents an emerging new attitude by some non-Aboriginal environmentalists about this continents history, in particularly the traditional role of Aboriginal people as managers and custodians of land.

Lines claims that notions of Aboriginal ecological sustainability are myths generated by non-Aboriginal environmentalists.

He says

“Conservationists trapped in wishful thinking about the wisdom of the elders and disdainful of dissent cannot see the truth: there are no models, no templates for living sustainably on this continent or on this planet. We're on our own and must make our own way.”

and

“The myth of the ecological Aborigine elevated Aborigines to positions of moral and spiritual superiority and disparaged people of non-Aboriginal background. They would never belong in Australia. Their ancestry rendered them incapable of acquiring a sense of connection.”

Lines' article is a simple opinion piece, masquerading as an academic critique. It refers to the European use of Chief Seattle’s famous quotes about the environment as the basis of his dismissal of Aboriginal anthropologist professor Marcia Langton and Australian environmentalists such as Professor Ian Lowe, who claim that non-Aboriginal environmentalists need to learn from Aboriginal people about how to look after this country.

Like others, Lines makes a tokenistic allusion to Flannery’s future eaters hypothesis to discredit Aboriginal ecology, that is Aboriginal people hunted a species of mega fauna (big animal!) into extinction. Aspects of Flannery’s work were not included, including his own claim that it is just a hypothesis and there could have been many other reasons for the extinction of the mega-fauna. Lines neglects to mention another of Flannery’s hypotheses. that Australian society learnt from the extinction and implemented conservation law to ensure it never happened again.

Lines has done to ecological and Anthropological fact the same as historians such as Keith Windshuttle have done to modern history or what Mal Brough has done to indigenous affairs – interpreted and imposed a colonial construction onto indigenous reality, in so doing dismissing and nullifying contemporary indigenous knowledge.

Beyond the specific details of land management and ecology, there is a cultural and anthropological reality that Lines, on the one hand appears ignorant of and on the other hand has accurately represented in his article. That is the one-dimensional literary culture of European colonialism. One based on scientific theories and processes including the developmental hierarchy of hypothesis, theory, law. As a society we institutionalize knowledge on the basis of where the scientists are up to on this continuum. If we have very little knowledge of reality, e.g. the creation of the universe, then the best hypothesis is institutionalized, such as the big bang theory and before that creationism. A similar phenomenon is the flat earth hypothesis and the sun revolves around the Earth hypothesis, for which many heretics were burnt for daring to challenge.

Once patterns and confluences appear in experiments testing the hypothesis, if such experiments are allowed, then the hypothesis graduates to theory, such as Einstein’s theory of relativity, which has been found by string theory to be limited by Einstein’s cultural preconceptions about the nature of the universe being imposed onto his enquiries and conclusions. I have no doubt string theory will be similarly challenged in due course.

Once a theory has been rigorously tested and approved by the highest scientific authorities in the world, it becomes a law, eg. Matter and energy can be changed but never created or destroyed. Yet the mathematics of nuclear fusion and subatomic physics identifies energy that appears to come from nowhere. So a new law is that there are always exceptions to the law. A scientific paradigm not unlike its social science counterpart, post modernism.

Juxtaposed to this is Aboriginal knowledge. Let it be clear, I am an Irish Australian not an Australian Aborigine. But I can speak with some limited authority on this matter because I have – participated in – Aboriginal knowledge. There are things that I know through direct experience of reality, holistic understandings including subconscious, that have then, later, been given the vocabulary, in English in my case, to explain that experience of reality, whether it be a particular place, social relationship, health strategy, political organization etc. The pedagogy of Aboriginal education is of direct experience of reality. The colonial pedagogy is of monotonous experience of representations of reality. Primarily through text and lecturing inside education institutions from preschool to professor.

Institutionalised colonial hypothesis is juxtaposed with dreamtime stories, that even a child (or a white fella) can understand. A basic understanding at first, such as the bunyip in the waterhole to a more mature understanding in later life of the dangers of drowning in that particular water hole. The story unfolds with the person’s development. The closest thing to this in colonial culture is the Santa Clause myth, supposedly to instill an ethos of good will in children. But the myth dies with the revelation that Santa Claus is not true in any way shape or form. The bunyip is still, in adult life, the best way to explain unexplained drownings.

Dreamtime spirits represented in painting and dance give accurate cosmological knowledge including identifying and naming stars, planets, constellations and galaxies and their movements. Such astronomical expertise is just common knowledge for those who participate in the corroboree. Then there are the doctors of high degree who know even more.

Within these mythical frameworks is a key to weather patterns with not only greater accuracy than meteorological science, but with an indigenous meteorology bureau with weather records dating back several ice ages.

Colonial science is fascinated by the finding of a fossil. The process is to dig it up and take it to an academic institution to study to see what can be learnt from it. yet that fossil in the place where it had been for millions of years is a sacred object in a sacred story place that tells a more accurate history of many dimensions and understandings of what that fossil is and what happened and is happening in that place.

Lines' article tries to exploit a contradiction between high human impact on the environment and sustainable land management, obviously missing the point of Langton and others that such a contradiction only exists within colonial notions of wilderness, not indigenous perceptions of social ecology.

It will only be through transcending colonial notions of ecological "preservation" to indigenouse notions of active "engagement" with the environment that Australia as a whole can begin to deal with our current ecological disasters.

Lines' ignorant assertion “there are no models, no templates for living sustainably on this continent or on this planet. We're on our own and must make our own way.” is a clear example of the colonial attitude that there is no other real knowledge than our own. All else is myth, either ancient or contemporary. This cultural restriction is the very reason that Line and those who have similar opinions to him will not be able to achieve the sense of connection to this country that they seem to yearn for so desperately.

see also
"Terra Nullius and Ecology" by John Tracey.

and Senator Andrew Bartlets
response to "Black and White Lies"

Aboriginal Housing

2006-09-30T08:32:00.000-07:00

image "HUMPY GUNYA" by Baganan Baganan's bio
These two reports on Aboriginal Housing are from kalkadoon.org
I was a research assistant and the scribe for both reports.
Report on housing in Palm Island March 2006 and
"Out of the Box; Housing as a lifestyle, not a building." July 2006

An open letter to the Queensland and Australian Greens September 2006

2006-09-18T00:07:00.000-07:00

The September 2006 Queensland state election was remarkable for the Greens in two ways. The first of course was the increased Green vote, in particular several seats getting around 20%, firmly locating the Greens as a significant political phenomenon in Queensland, despite the lack of an upper house as in other states. The second remarkable thing about the election was the Greens’ silence on indigenous issues at a time when the unresolved death in the Palm Island watch house, the resurgence of the stolen wages campaign including a senate enquiry and the recent media hysteria about violence in Aboriginal communities were firmly planted in the public consciousness.

The Greens have only one elected representative in Queensland, Erykah Kyle – the mayor of Palm Island. Palm Island is the biggest Aboriginal community in Queensland and arguably the most disadvantaged. The state has muddled from crisis to crisis including offering $800.000 to the Palm Island council to appear in a photo opportunity with Premier Beattie.

I believe the development of the Palm Island Greens and the active involvement of Mayor Kyle in the Green Party is of great historical and political significance, not just for the Greens but also for the evolution of the Aboriginal struggle into the twenty first century. However these profound developments have been totally betrayed and disempowered by the current leadership of the Qld. Greens and their refusal to engage with indigenous issues.

The very first thing the New Labor government did after the state election was to abolish indigenous affairs from cabinet with a commitment to mainstreaming indigenous public service delivery.

Beattie has managed to slip this major change in Aboriginal affairs through without even a whimper of opposition, unlike John Howard who has had to fight, and continues to fight for exactly the same policies.

I believe this would not have been possible if the Greens had campaigned on indigenous issues. With the exception of the Socialist Alliance (who only got an insignificant 2%) there was no party that campaigned on indigenous issues. Beattie has correctly assumed that there is no political support from anywhere so he can sweep all the indigenous problems under the carpet. The silence of the Greens has facilitated this move.

The abolition of the indigenous affairs portfolio and the transition to mainstreaming is a watershed moment in Aboriginal affairs in Qld. It marks the final elimination of all of the Aboriginal political gains of the twentieth century, in particular the principle of self determination. The Greens were the only political party capable of pressuring the Beattie government on indigenous issues and they didn’t. Blood is indeed on the hands of the Greens.

As the author of the draft Greens state indigenous policy I believe the policy is a good one. I have read the national Party’s indigenous policy and I believe it is also very good. But both policies just sat as meaningless text in cyberspace and had no manifestation in the election campaign or any other attempt to pressure the government to abandon its present indigenous policy (non)paradigms.

The Greens, like the National Party have upheld mainstream white racism and allowed Beattie to continue to enact genocidal programs that not even John Howard has been able to achieve (yet). As long as white power does not consider black disadvantage, then the disadvantage just compounds upon itself resulting in more deaths, violence and illness. It is no hyperbole to call this genocide.

Queensland and national issues come together with the upcoming federal election. Will the Greens remain silent on Howard’s indigenous agenda as well as Beatties? Or will they leave it to federal Labor to challenge them on issues such as housing or health in Qld?

For Aboriginal people and their supporters there is an alternative to the Greens in Queensland. Andrew Bartlett has consistently and over many years supported the struggles of Aboriginal Australia in the senate and in the community. He has recently initiated the senate inquiry into stolen Aboriginal wages and has as one of his core public campaigns “Put Our First Peoples First - Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage” which he will presumably push into the senate election with the momentum of the stolen wages inquiry.

Why would a supporter of justice for Aboriginal people vote Green when Bartlett is an option?

I am not a member of the Democrats or the Greens (though I am a former member of both). At present I am promoting Bartlett simply because he is campaigning on Aboriginal issues. On Aboriginal issues, as with all other issues, the Democrats are more interested with tinkering around the edges trying to make an unworkable system work, they have no capacity for social leadership or the propagation of new paradigms. However the Democrats are the only political party in Queensland who has publicly identified itself as a supporter of Aboriginal Australia, they speak up for Aboriginal issues. Despite the Democrats political limitations this public association with Aboriginal Australia is crucial to stop Aboriginal crisis from being swept under the carpet as a non-priority in white political discourse.

Andrew Bartlett is the Democrats national indigenous affairs spokesperson and he has the benefit of the senate and his office to campaign from. The Greens will have to come up with a major campaign to convince Aboriginal supporters to vote for them rather than Bartlett. I hope they do.

Unlike the Democrats, the Greens have an ongoing relationship with Palm Island, a number of Aboriginal members grouped on the Sunshine Coast with a specific indigenous agenda within the party. The Greens have the structural links with Aboriginal Australia and are not in the “centrist” straight jacket that Bartlett is, they are capable of articulating a vision that will catch fire in the community.

It would seem however that the present leadership of the Qld. Greens is choosing to ignore this great social capital, a base capable of increasing the Green vote but more importantly, capable of pressuring all levels of government to lift their games on Aboriginal issues by simply campaigning on the issues. The Qld. Greens are capable and professional campaigners, it is not as if they are not able to campaign on Aboriginal issues. They just choose not to. I hope this changes.

John Tracey
kalkadoon.org
johntracey.blogspot.com

A response from Drew Hutton of the Qld. Greens

I was the Indigenous Issues spokesperson for the Greens for about 12 months up until the recent state election. In that time, and in the couple of years before that, I had visited the community of Palm Island several times to give support to the council and the residents who have come under attack from the state government and sections of the bureaucracy. I have also visited other communities around the state and attempted to learn more about Indigenous culture and the concerns of Indigenous people. I have also worked with John Tracey and others to get a better deal on housing and other services for communities. As spokesperson for the Greens I issued press releases on everything from Stolen Wages and Murri Court to housing and alcohol management plans.

I was not the spokesperson for the state election as I was not a candidate but, even if I had been, it would have been incredibly difficult to get Indigenous issues on the agenda for it. I had originally wanted some protest action in Brisbane outside Parliament House on the deplorable state of Aboriginal housing and that might have highlighted the issue for the election campaign but it proved impossible to organise. The media was not at all interested in covering any non-major party during the election campaign and we were lucky to get coverage even on the issue of dams. It would have been nice to get some coverage on stolen wages or housing during the election but it just wasn't going to happen and I don't accept John's assertion that the lack of a significant number of media releases from the Greens made Beattie think he could get away with downgrading the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander portfolio. He seems to have no trouble doing outrageous things that fly in the face of any number of issues that we make public statements on.

I notice that the Australian Greens have also come in for a bit of criticism from John on this issue. I don't deny the excellent work Andrew Bartlett has been doing on Indigenous issues but the Australian Greens spokesperson Rachel Siewart has issued a large number of relevant media releases as can be seen from her web site and has been active on committee work in the area and I think the implied criticism of her is unfair.

Cheers.
Drew Hutton

a note from J.T.
Rachel Siewert is the greens senator for Western Australia and their national indigenous issues spokesperson. As far as I am aware she did not get involved in the Qld campaign.

Here is her indigenous issues page
Aboriginal issues

Here is Bartlett's
tPut Our First Peoples First - Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage

and
issues - stolen wages

issues - Palm Island

and
an index to indigeous threads on his blog

I have also received messages from a couple of Green branches outside the Brisbane area informing me of local indigenous issues that they campaigned on in the election. I acknowledge and applaud the grass roots commitment to indigenous issues that I believe is wide spread amongst the Greens and their supporters. I am also aware of and acknowledge the great commitment of Drew to these issues over decades. These things make the silence and inaction of the present, Brisbane based, central campaign leadership even more frustrating and saddening.

Preventing Terrorism in Australia (or not)

2006-06-30T13:13:00.000-07:00

The war in Iraq has not reduced the incidence of terrorism, it has thrown petrol on the fires of national resistance movements in the Middle East and inspired terrorist cells around the world, the recent escalation of attacks on western interests in Indonesia including Bali is a case in point. Similarly the war in Afghanistan has failed to capture Osama bin laden or eliminate terrorist cells in the region. By dismantling Taliban restrictions on the opium trade, a prime funding source for terrorists, Bin Laden and his mates have been able to re-capitalise since the imposition of “democracy” in Afghanistan. The war on terrorism is backfiring.
There are other approaches. The ending of the military phase of the Northern Ireland war of independence was not brought about by bunker busting bombs being dropped on the suburbs of Belfast. Central to the Northern Ireland peace process is the acknowledgement of the legitimate concerns and demands of the terrorists, to negotiate with them and strive for a win-win outcome. Hard-line anti-terrorist positions by previous English governments only succeeded in escalating the level of violence in Northern Ireland and the British mainland.
There is a common perception that Australia has not suffered terrorism. This could not be more wrong. A guerrilla war of independence raged in this country for 150 years before it was finally subdued by the native police and then Aboriginal protection (incarceration) laws. Terrorism is an apt word, for much of what the early guerrillas did was based on infrastructure sabotage and trying to scare the invading colonists back to England, similar to Iraqi resistance strategies today. As the war progressed so did the military tactics of the colonizers and the guerrillas, culminating in the famous Kalkadoon military manoeuvres, which annihilated many police and vigilante squads and successfully defended their country for over a decade until large-scale police reinforcements broke their defences.
I believe the reason an indigenous terrorist movement has not re-developed here in the last fifty years, as it has in nearly every colonized country in the world is because the Aboriginal leadership has focused on non-violent political demands such as the creation of an independent representative body and land rights. . Both the leadership and grass roots Aboriginal Australia had specific demands, at first a hope of success and then eventually seeing hopes manifest. Aboriginal Australia made huge leaps forward in the last half of last century, forcing on A.T.S.I.C. and native title legislation as well as the Royal commission into Aboriginal Deaths in custody.
The problem today is A.T.S.I.C. has been abolished and not replaced, native title law has been watered down to the point where its purpose is to extinguish land rights and the incarceration and death in custody rates have escalated since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody. The non-violent political strategies appear to have failed.
Aboriginal Australia is still desperate. Entrenched poverty, dramatically inferior health and lifestyles to mainstream Australia, personal and institutional racism, major community dysfunction and lack of infrastructure creates enormous stress on Aboriginal people yet, unlike last century, their is no apparent way forward or strategy for change.
This combination of hopelessness and political vacuum is the very cause of terrorism in the Middle East and around the world. The failure of national and international political strategies and a consequent propensity to suicide, especially amongst the young, is the recipe for suicide bombers. The roll back of Aboriginal gains and the continuance of Aboriginal suicide rates, inside and outside of prison, is successfully reproducing the recipe in Australia.
In the recent past we have seen Redfern riot and Palm Island raze a police complex to the ground. Murrundoo Yanner, Geoff Clarke and Gracelyn Smallwood, three national Aboriginal leaders have all public ally warned white Australia of the possibility of hopelessness inspired suicide bombers in retaliation to Aboriginal deaths in custody.
Aboriginal Australia is not the only possible source of terrorism. I don’t think the poor old Muslims are much of a threat. There are many desperate and disturbed individuals, hiding invisibly amongst mainstream society. Timothy McVeigh, the American terrorist responsible for the Oklahoma bombing was a Christian, a patriot, and former servicemen. The most recent wave of American terrorism was “pro-lifers” blowing up abortion clinics and shooting abortionists. Around the world schoolchildren have massacred their schoolmates. Tourists at Port Arthur were gunned down by a white Australian. Mainstream Australia has one of the the highest youth suicide rates in the world and a growing cynicism towards and disconnection from politics. The failure of the A.L.P. to provide any alternative to the philosophy of John Howard over the last decade is a key factor here.
Radical change is needed to bring hope for the most marginalized Australians – Aboriginal Australia, as well as for young Australians of any heritage or class. This is how you stop terrorism re-emerging in Australia.

John Tracey

painting by J.T. "guilt"

Courier Mail article - art and dance

2006-01-10T06:16:00.000-08:00

The following was published in the Courier Mail ( Queensland's major Newspaper) on 7/1/06

*Anna Bligh was not the arts minister at the time of writing, I knew that and did not say she was. The innacurate reference was inserted by the C.M. editor. - J.T.

Courier Mail, Edition 1 - First with the news
SAT 07 JAN 2006, Page M07

Dull state for bright sparks
By: John Tracey

To shine on stage talented Queensland Aborigines must travel elsewhere, writes John Tracey
WHY hasn't Queensland produced an international dance company like Sydney's Bangarra? Why are there no famous Queensland Aboriginal art movements such as in the Northern Territory and Western Australia? Why does Queensland, the state with the largest Aboriginal population, lag behind in Aboriginal art and culture?
The answer is simple: Queensland's Aboriginal performance and art industry is dominated by non-Aboriginal people and their agendas.
Queensland does have the world's best Aboriginal artists and performers. Mornington Island dancers, Nunukul dancers and art movements such as Lockhart River. These places, where Aboriginal culture is the driving force of art and performance, are the under-developed powerhouses of the Aboriginal art movements of the 21st century.
There are no Aboriginal-controlled performing arts training institutions in Queensland. The Aboriginal Centre for Performing Arts is owned by the State Government and managed by a board of directors handpicked by Arts Minister Anna Bligh. TAFE and university programs are controlled by and designed for government education frameworks.
It is Aboriginal culture that delights and fascinates international audiences (though it doesn't raise much interest in Australia which is the crux of the problem). Aboriginal culture is not a textbook technique. It is alive, it is spiritual, it taps into the essence of human creativity. This is its strength.
Aboriginal culture and spirit cannot be taught in white institutions administered by people who don't even know what it is. Though many Aborigines are employed in these white institutions, their job is to execute the vision of white funding authorities. Their own Aboriginal visions atrophy through neglect until they become simply administrators themselves. The arts bureaucracy is littered with talented artists with few skills of structural and political leadership. These people should be creating works of excellence within their own art forms.
Aborigines who do have the vision, skills, networks and experience to lead a dynamic Aboriginal arts movement are systematically disempowered. Their visions are dismissed in favour of white-trained Aboriginal bureaucrats and their funding authorities.
The 1970s and 80s saw the rise of the concept of Aboriginal self-determination as the primary policy of indigenous affairs at state and federal levels. This notion, like the explosion of Aboriginal art and music movements of the time, slowly dissipated into the present state of old-fashioned colonial administration of native affairs in the arts industry.
All is not lost, but it nearly is.
Kooemba Jdarra, Australia's only Aboriginal theatre production company, based in Brisbane, has a board democratically elected with membership open to any Aboriginal arts worker. It has the capacity to represent Aboriginal vision.
However, in recent years many of Kooemba Jdarra's productions have been written or co-written by white people. Its stable of performers has been small with the same faces appearing over and over again. It has not lived up to its grand proclamation of ``Australia's premier indigenous theatre company''.
Interestingly though, there has been a recent changing of the guard at Kooemba Jdarra. The new administrators are trained at the NAISDA Dance College in Sydney, which is part of the same creative movement as Bangarra and trains most of its dancers.
Since NAISDA's inception in the 1970s, a disproportionate number of its students have been Queenslanders. The same with the list of Bangarra's stars. Queensland has been providing the raw talent for the Sydney dance movement for more than 20 years.
Our brightest sparks have had to leave Queensland to pursue their career.
Some of those sparks, such as Bangarra's artistic director, Stephen Page, and his brothers David and the late Russell, have started international bushfires with their art. These men carved a path from the streets of Brisbane to the international stage, but they had to go to Sydney to do it.
The ``Smart State'' has invested a lot of money in arts infrastructure recently. The Millennium Arts centre is quickly taking form and Arts Queensland has been through a structural spring clean and now Queensland needs something with which to fill its infrastructure.
Without a truly Aboriginal arts industry, however, Queensland's auditoriums will have only token, mediocre presentations of local Aboriginal performance. The crowds will have to be delighted by world-class Aboriginal performances from other states.
It's time to go back to the drawing board regarding Aboriginal arts training and adopt principles of Aboriginal self-determination. There is no shortage of Aboriginal diamonds here. Take them out of the closed Aboriginal box, polish them up and watch them shine.
That's what a ``Smart State'' would do.
John Tracey is an artist, writer and music manager, and executive officer for Aboriginal Women Reclaiming Culture And Land (AWRCAL)

Smallpox, Joseph Banks and James Cook

2005-12-22T23:04:00.000-08:00

This is an article about covert biological warfare, Captain Cook and Joseph Banks, about the deliberate infection of disease which spread like wildfire accross the nation.

Joseph Banks

James Cook

The historical context for the discovery of Australia was the defeat and withdrawall of the British forces from America after a protracted war with theFrench, the indigenous and the new white americans in America and Canada as well as the French and spanish and others in the global conflict. . Britain had sustained a tremendously expensive war and the dillemma for its government and royalty was whether to defend their colonies militarily at further expense or allow political independance and attempt to develop trade advantage with the new nation. Cooks voyages of discovery occured during the transition from one to the other.

During the “French Indian war” in America, shortly before the endeavour voyage. British troops, aided by some indigenous tribes fought the french with support from other indigenous tribes, the culmination of this was the taking of Quebec by the British in 1759 . Some histories say that at this period Cook was the chief surveyor of Newfoundland, exploring and chartmaking in groundbreaking scientific pursuit. Some explicitly state that he had no part in the war effort. Other histories tell a different story, for example, of Cooks nine year military posting in Newfoundland this is said

“In 1756 he was made master and transferred to the "Pembroke", a 64 gun ship sent toAmerica to aid in the war there against France. William Pitt's idea was to claim all of Canada for Britain. This involved capturing Quebec. In order to do this, the St Lawrence river needed to be navigated. This hadn't been attempted since 1711 resulting then in a total disaster. Under cover of darkness, though constantly harried by the French and native indians, James Cook and others took soundings and measurements along the St Lawrence. From these figures they produced charts which enabled 200 ships to successfully navigate the river and land troops under General Wolfe to take Quebec.”
http://www.jaredsmith.ndirect.co.uk/cook/early.htm

Another person who, most histories assert, was conducting groundbreaking scientific pursuit in Newfoundland at the same time as Cook was Joseph Banks. He kept no journal of his work in this time, but on the basis of it he was admitted membership of the Royal Society on his return. Later he was made president of the society on his return from the Endeavour voyage, the journals of which he and the Earl of Sandwich, sea lord and commander of the British fleet, edited and published, taking great efforts to repress unauthorised publications about the voyage.

Another person in the same place at the same time was Lord Jeffery Amherst. Amherst was commander of the British forces in America. Amherst went on to become governor of Virginia. His other claim to history is he is credited as being the father of modern biological warfare. In 1763 (a few years before Banks arrived but Cook was there) Amhurst instructed his officers to infect blankets with the smallpox virus and give them to the indians.

A letter from Colonel Henry Bouquet to General Amherst,commander of British forces in America dated 13 July 1763, suggests in a postscript the distribution of blankets to "inocculate the Indians"; Amherst, replying to Bouquet, dated 16 July 1763, approves this plan in a postscript and suggests as well as "to try Every other method that can serve to Extirpate this Execrable Race." (This postcript spans two pages.) . Readable photos of the letter, can be found on the internet, http://www.nativeweb.org/pages/legal/amherst/lord_jeff.html

A fourth figure who was at the same time and the same place was Robert Rogers, leader of Rogers rangers who armed and organised Mohawk warriors to fight against the french. Rogers has been credited with building a new model of covert guerrilla warfare that todays S.A.S. are based upon and if I have read between the lines correctly, the Australian native police were based on. Around about the same time, (Cook and Banks in the same year) Cook, Banks and Rogers returned to England. After a short period to prepare Cook and Banks set sail on the Endeavour.

The Sea lord Earl of Sandwich and Banks were well aquainted and worked together in planning the endavor voyage and the publication of the voyages journals. They were both members of the Masons and the Royal Society, as was Cook., Cook was admitted to the Royal Society after his return from the endeavour voyage and his famous paper on scurvey and sailor health was presented by John Pringle, a military surgeon famous for his expertese with infectious diseases was also in the french indian war.

One of Banks’ fields of study and one, as president of the royal society, he had an active role in funding and repressing work into infectious diseases, especially smallpox. The Royal society (which funded the endeavour voyage) funded the early research of Edward Jenner who eventually invented successful vaccination. However when he began experiments with cowpox, , Banks withdrew funding and threatened him that his reputation would be demolished if he published his research. He published his work privately which lead to the vaccine. Edward Jenner' s work was contraversial because it challenged the earlier work of Lady Mary Wortley Montague who developed an innoculation (via cloth and blankets) which was 50% successful Lady Mary Wortley Montague “discovered” innoculation, which was being practiced in Turkey and China, while Travelling with her Husband, Edward Wortly Montague, the uncle of John Montagu Sea lord Earl of Sandwich. All three were members of the Hellfire club, an extremest wing of the masonic movement. Lady Mary's daughter married Lord Bute, who became George III's right hand man. In the light of all this consider the following extract from Cooks journal of first contact with Australian Aborigines, interestingly enough Banks Journal conforms allmost word for word. . “A third musket with small shot was then fired at them, upon which one of them threw another lance, and both immediately ran away; if we had pursued we might probably have overtaken one of them, but Mr Banks suggesting that the lances might be poisoned, I thought it not prudent to venture into the woods. We repaired immediately to the huts, in one of which we found the children, who had hidden themselves behind a shield and some bark; we peeped at them, but left them in their retreat, without their knowing that they had been discovered, and we threw into the house, when we went away, some beads, ribbons, pieces of cloth, and other presents, which we hoped would procure us the good-will of the inhabitants when they should return,..........

.........We saw many houses (gunyahs) and places where they had slept upon the grass, of which there is great abundance without any shelter but we saw only one of the people, who, the moment he saw us, ran away. At all these places we left presents, hoping that at last they might procure confidence and good will.” The medical knowledge of the time, of which Banks was an expert, was that the virus can be stored in an infectious state for a couple of years when it is dried out.

The use of blankets and hankerchiefs from smallpox sufferers, or cloth smeared with pus from a sufferer was the method of experimental innoculation, much of this testing being done on prisoners. Obviously if these ribbon, pieces of cloth and other presents were deliberately infected with smallpox this aspect would not be included in the official journal. This somewhat puzzling gift giving in the midst of armed conflict could be explained as a naive diplomatic gesture or it could explain the biological warfare methodology of infecting a target populations. Banks and Cook, in their journals, express dissapointment upon returning to the battle scene that the Aborigines avoided touching the presents.

Joseph Banks , despite only minimal contact with healthy Aborigines, returned to England celebrating the prospects for development in Australia, insisting that the Aborigines are dying out and almost extinct. This was the argued basis for Terra Nullius. On this first voyage Cook visited many places in the Pacific including Australia,New Zealand, and Tahiti. On his second voyage he sailed past Australia but stopped at New Zealand, Tahiti and Fiji. Again on his third and fatal voyage he sailed past Australia to New zealand and Tahiti and on to discover Hawaii where the locals ate him for his efforts. Despite tremendous publicity and excitement in England about Australia, primarily whipped up by Joseph Banks, Cook, on his second and third voyage seemed to avoid Australia like the plague, so to speak.

Nearly twenty years after George III and The Earl of Sandwich sent Cook and Banks to discover the southern land The first fleet set sail for Botany Bay, the very place where Cook gave his first gifts. Despite two voyages to the region in those years which bypassed Australia, Britain was confident enough to establish the colony Banks was one of the key archetects and administrators of the New colony. I find it curious that Banks visited Newfoundland briefly as the British were packing the last of its bags in America after carving up of the known world by European powers in the treaty of Paris. He then returned with Cook and Rogers then became the most influential man in establishing the colony in Australia. The most historians seem to know of this period is it is where Banks got his botanical training.

The epidemics that hit this country after invasion indicate biological warfare may have been a factor. The maladministration of health services was the biggest factor. As we have seen the colonial administrators were well aware of infection research, health regimes, and vaccination, they would clearly have understood the consequences on the indigenous population. Whether deliberate or coincidental the South African Apartheid system and the Australian reserve systems have created hot houses of infection quarantined against vaccinated white society. These were also centres for blanket distribution. All aboriginal health services were administered by the police. Forced removal of Aborigines infected with a whole range of diseases to distant reserves ensured the maximum infection of the indigenous population. Is this a wild conspiricy theory? If there is a grain of truth in it, like all covert military operations, the hard evidence will have been destroyed and sanitised histories presented.

John Tracey