The Fence

Touchy Subject..take2 June 24, 2006

I wrote this last month after Eddo asked me
in my question me
post “Do you have any aborigine neighbors?” and it’s very difficult to explain
the Aboriginal situation here in anything less than a whole blog

The aboriginal situation

This is serious stuff if you want to leave now its ok
with me

This is a touchy subject here; Australia has a reputation
for being a racist country, I don’t care what colour you are you can be green
with pink spots for all I care, it don’t matter what colour you are on the
outside we are all red blood cells and pink on the inside and it’s what we are
like on the inside that counts

I am a white person living in a land that once belonged
to a people who have no sense of ownership of the land, why??? because
they are one with it, the land was a part of them and in many places in
Australia it still is but not so many places now .Aborigines were nomadic they
moved around, they traded, drew maps, have religion (Dreamtime) but didn’t wear
much specially in the hotter places, the ones that lived in the cooler climates
did don’t you?
Then the white man arrived in his big ships with guns and disease
and some strange language, when they came across the people who lived on this
big brown land and asked “what do you call this animal” the reply was “good
eating” or “tastes great” or stood and pointed to a tree and asked “what’s that”
the reply was “tree you idiot” eucalyptus doesn’t literally mean “tree you
idiot” but that happened a lot

Many Aborigines dislike the
terms 'Aborigine' and 'Aboriginal' since these terms have been foisted on them,
and they carry a lot of negative cultural baggage. Not surprisingly, they have
looked for alternative words, and instead of `Aborigine' they prefer to use the
word for a 'person' from a local language. When the Europeans arrived here there
were about 250 languages spoken in Australia this of course was frowned upon by
the government and they where made to speak English, a lot of the languages have
been lost forever only a few words remain
Kylie in the “local” language
means boomerang that’s why every time we throw Kylie away she keeps coming
back

Most aboriginals are poor
because they don’t own anything it’s a cultural thing; they are given
cars, housing and money by the government mainly because the government feels
guilty and so they should too. This was their country and the white fella took
it away either by disease (there was no typhoid or TB or even diabetes amongst
the aboriginal population before the white man arrived) or gun fire and up till
the 1970’s the policy was to take children of “mixed” heritage away from their
culture and their mothers so they could grow up in the white mans way. I actually went to primary
school with someone who was what we call “half caste” If you haven’t seen the
movie “Rabbit Proof Fence” sometimes billed as "Long Walk Home" you
should, it explains the lost generation in much more detail than I
can

The Rabbit Proof
fence

The city dwelling “black fella” may have a few broken down cars on
the front lawn, there maybe 7 or 8 children running around even a few dogs .I
say may have as in all countries there are the people who live in the
run down parts of town and those who don’t

Of course when you get given something you don’t really appreciate it and then
there is the cultural thing too, we live like we have lived for hundreds of
years in houses, in Africa there are people living in shanties and in huts .In
America you have Chinatown’s, there’s a Chinatown here it’s in Sydney.
Cabramatta and Redfern are suburbs where everyone there is from the same
background .The “government housing” is in the poorer areas that’s where the
single mothers live, that’s where the unemployed live that’s where most of the
aboriginals live . Some don’t they own property (on paper they own) they have
vast tracts of land, big houses even fame and gold medals same as anyone else,
not all that long ago it was considered to be bad to say you where of aboriginal
descent, same as it was to say your ancestors were transported, no one wanted to
admit to their heritage but now when we have people like Cathy Freeman and Ernie
Dingo proud Australians who are proud of their heritage .People can stand up for
their rights and teach their children the language or the culture and not be
punished for it, many years ago the government the “authorities” tried to wash
away the people who were here first, believe it or not the “lost generations”
where taken in an effort to breed out the aboriginality in people it didn’t work !

Everlyn Sampi and Tianna Sansbury in The Rabbit Proof Fence

To explain
this further say someone comes up to you one day and says I really like your
hand oh and the arm that goes with it, here’s some bits of paper, I’ll live on
your hand but you can’t touch your hand with any other part of your body ever
again .Would you go yeah sure live on my hand I don’t need it or why are you
trying to buy my hand you cant buy a piece of me as I don’t own it in the first
place I can’t own myself . Then they say well ok then you don’t want that deal
but I still want your hand how about some blankets and some sugar, you like
those oh and sorry but those little tiny parts of you, you cant have those
either I’ll have those and I’m going to have your hand weather you like it or
not. Ok, ok you say you can live on my hand but it’s still a part of me and
connected to me and as I have no permanent housing can you give me that but as I
don’t own anything I wont really care if the house falls down or burns as I will
do as I have done for millions of years, just move, and you will give me another as you have done so many things to me

Sorry about the change in font colours and sizes in this its a re-post from 360 and the html isn't coping to well with the change in blog hosts