The Past is Not Another Country

Two in one day. Either you'll think yourselves lucky or you'll be rolling your eyes and navigating away.

Vincent Lingiari and Gough Whitlam, 1975, photo Mervyn Bishop

Noel Pearson's speech at the Whitlam Memorial today (yes, I'm on about that again) has been running through my mind, along with some other things. I took my son to afternoon tea after school. When we go we talk about our respective days. He told me about school and some interesting things they did (his class always does interesting things - I wish school had been like that when I was there), and I told him about Gough and the service and Noel Pearson. And like me he was horrified.

You can here the whole of Pearson's speech here. It is about 18 minutes long, but you won't feel it. It is well worth listening to.

So what horrified us? Noel Pearson was born here, in Australia, but was not a citizen because of his Aboriginality. If that isn't horrifying, tell me what is.

I know, intellectually, that Aboriginal people lost their citizen rights with Federation and did not regain them until after I was born. All colonies had given Aboriginal people full citizenship rights (although many were made wards of the state, thus negating this), but Western Australia and Queensland had effectively locked out most aboriginal people through land requirements on the voter registers (kept out the poor riffraff too, bonus). Those two states said they would not become part of a federated nation in 1901 if Aboriginal people were recognised as citizens, as equals. Turned out the desire to have a new nation for a new century was stronger than the desire to be fair. Politics rarely changes, does it? Those who had state voting rights already could continue to vote, and could vote in federal elections, but their children could not be added to the rolls as they grew up, gauranteeing that any "aboriginal vote" died out. (If you want a detailed run down of the aboriginal fight for citizenship go here, but be prepared to be angry, ashamed, horrified, outraged.) I know all this. I wasn't taught it at school, but I found it out at university and through aboriginal friends. That's history. That's the past, right?

But here is a man only three years older than me who was born with that terrible legacy, with that history that was by no means in the past. Compare Noel to me. I was born in Bangladesh. My parents were able to go to the Consulate in Rawalpindi in Pakistan and register me as an Australian Citizen. Noel was born in Australia and was not a citizen. There was nowhere that his parents were allowed to register him as an Australian Citizen. That is more wrong than I can express.

When the general public had it finally driven home the horror of the Stolen Generations and the missions, John Howard, then Prime Minister, refused to apologise on behalf of the nation because, he kept saying, it was all in the past. He made the past sound like it was long gone, all the participants dead and buried. You can still apologise for things way back when, but he was perpetuating a popular lie of racists everywhere. And letting himself off the hook. He had grown up in an Australia where its indigenous people were not recognised as part of their own country, where they could (and did) serve in wars but couldn't be served in bars, were told where they could work and when, were paid in rations rather than with salaries, were treated as idiot children.

And if you think it stopped when voting rights were finally achieved and citizenship recognised, think again. This is what Howard refused to acknowledge, that State sponsored abuse and discrimination have very long lasting effects and everyone must accept responsibility for the past. And that what is in the past doesn't stay in the past because we ALL carry it with us.

Rhoda Roberts, a respected Aboriginal actress, is about my age. She went to high school in Lismore, where my spouse was born. I saw a documentary a few years ago about her sister who was murdered. The police refused to really do anything about it because she was aboriginal. She just wasn't worth the effort. In the documentary, Rhoda talked about growing up in Lismore (a large town on the New South Wales north coast - we used to holiday there. I hate the place). She talked about being in high school in the 1980s and having all the aboriginal kids called out of assembly. Made to walk to one side in front of the rest of the school. Being told they were to be checked for head lice and if any were found they would be suspended.

The 1980s. When I was in high school. And remember, this was only the aboriginal kids. This isn't John Howard's safe, distant past. This is people my age, who were growing up with this crap while Howard was in the parliament in Canberra. Don't tell me he was in opposition. I know that. But he was in parliament. This sort of institutional discrimination was going on while he was in parliament. And don't say "Oh, the States". Yes, the states, but are we or are we not all Australians? The teachers doing this were counting on the kids being too ashamed to say or their parents too disenfranchised to turn to the Anti Discrimination Act (that's the one Brandis and Abbott want to do away with).

And for every Noel and Rhoda, there are how many others? With similar stories or worse? We are not talking about a past long gone. We are talking about a past that is very immediate. It puts the truth to Howard's lie. And even if it were long gone, why shouldn't wrongs be apologised for?

The Apology. I was in an arts project with an amazing aboriginal artist at the time. There was a lot of whoo-ha in the media, whether it was a good idea or not, meaningful or patronising, if you were around you'll remember. So I took the opportunity to ask my colleague for his thoughts. He told me about the life his mother had led. She was one of the Stolen Generations and her story was terrible and heart-breaking and all too common. He said that the Apology made her feel validated, worthwhile, that it would never make up for the past she had lost, but gave her peace for the present and future, that she was part of her own country, that her suffering was recognised and acknowledged, no longer hidden. It took from her the shame that had been placed on her by the actions of government. Think about that. They did a shameful thing and made the victims feel ashamed instead. How is that any different from what we have heard from the Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sex Abuse? How is that any different to anything we hear about abuse of the vulnerable by the powerful? The Apology took that sense of shame away. I have my issues with Kevin Rudd, but he made the Apology on behalf of us all. We should all be proud of that.

The current state of affairs? Don't get me started on "The Intervention". The fight for aboriginal equality is not over. Although it has come far it still has far to go. And it is a fight that concerns all of us. I am not aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, but I am diminished by this ongoing inequality, by the statements of the Andrew Bolts of Australia and the actions of governments, supposedly on my behalf. I am further diminished if I do nothing about it. We stand together or we are all lesser for it.

Finally, I'll leave you with something atypical for me (although folk music is something of a guilty secret). This was also played at Gough's Memorial today, requested by him. It was just Kev and Paul on stage. We've all heard it, but how many have really listened to it? We all know the chorus, it's so easy and sweet and catchy "From little things big things grow". It has been used so often as to become cliche. But listen to the full song, to the verses. It is the story behind the image at the top of this post. Hope for the present. Hope for the future. Hopefully.