COMMENT: The power of
symbolism and the media
in stifling reconciliation
The war that waged in Tasmania in the 1820s and '30s is virtually forgotten among the general population. There are no memorials, no remembrance, no physical recognition for the destruction of tens of thousands of years of continuous Aboriginal culture.
But one of the key players in the war still, literally, looms large: John Batman.
This is a man who established roving parties in an attempt to round up Aboriginals, including an ambush on a family group at Ben Lomond. As the men, women and children fled, Batman ordered his men to fire upon them, allegedly killing at least a dozen. Four were captured, including two men who suffered severe wounds. When they were unable to walk, Batman recorded in his journal: "I was obliged to shoot them".
In 2018, a campaign successfully resulted in the Melbourne electorate of Batman being renamed Cooper.
On any measure of logic, these place names should be changed. But that process has slowed to a complete stop.
But two years later, the substantial "Batman Bridge" connecting the east and west banks of the Tamar/kanamaluka still honours his legacy. A paver in Launceston's Civic Square uncritically boasts that he "took credit for the settlement of Melbourne" and his achievements included "signing a treaty with the resident Aborigines". These pavers were unveiled two months after the renaming of the Batman electorate.
This is just one example of the continued whitewashing of Tasmania's history.
Take the far North-West Coast for example, where the name "Suicide Bay" is still in place for a location where shepherds shot and killed Aboriginals, as described by Tanaminawayt to George Augustus Robinson. "Victory Hill" is where six Aboriginals were killed. A rock off the coast still has a racist name too obscene to print.
So why is this important? These names form a continuous narrative that places colonialism and imperialism, no matter how violent, above its countless victims. When monuments remain to those who dehumanised Aboriginals, meaningful reconciliation is impossible.
And this has consequences on the national psyche.
We just need to look at some of the disturbing acts of racism in the media and the desecration of Aboriginal sites that occurred near and during National Reconciliation Week this week. The week may have passed without much mention due to the coronavirus pandemic, but that did not stop incidents occurring that proved Australia is going backwards on reconciliation.
Last weekend, Rio Tinto detonated explosives 11 metres away from rock shelters in the Pilbara where artefacts were found in 2013 dating back 46,000 years. The shelters were destroyed, ending a continuous strand of history of staggering proportions.
And last week, on Nine News in Queensland, a racist and inaccurate segment was broadcast that claimed to "investigate" how Palm Island residents had spent $30 million awarded to them following a successful class action against the State of Queensland. The news report suggested that island residents spending the money, awarded after 18 families had their houses kicked in by police who aimed assault weapons at children, on supposed luxury items was a waste of taxpayer money. You wouldn't find Nine News following up how white beneficiaries of class actions against governments were spending their money.
The report followed a similar pattern of "othering" Aboriginal suffering and misrepresenting their cause. It pandered to the all-too-familiar racist pile-on that develops in Facebook comment sections, that in turn pushes the report further into news feeds.
This media misrepresentation has been apparent throughout Australia's history. The Mabo decision resulted in a vicious fear campaign that attempted to stifle land rights, claiming people's houses were not safe.
And more recently, politicians were allowed to dismiss the Uluru Statement from the Heart out of hand using similar tactics of invoking fear in the community. The proposals from this statement were a meaningful attempt at constitutional reform and self-determination to finally address the inter-generational poverty that continues in Aboriginal communities.
Instead, we live in an Australia where racist tropes still win viewers, our history excludes anything deemed uncomfortable, cultural desecration continues and reconciliation struggles to progress any further than the Welcome to and Acknowledgment of Country.
As Darlene Mansell told ABC Tasmania this week about regularly being called "half caste" as a child: "I don't think we've moved far from that."
Patsy Cameron calls for
reconciling Tasmania's past
coercion of Aboriginals
before moving forward
with treaty
When Patsy Cameron AO reflects on the coercion carried out on Aboriginal people in Tasmania in the 1830s, it is impossible for her not to feel unreconciled grief for her ancestors.
The historic reality of George Augustus Robinson convincing Aborigines to put themselves in his protection - who were then exiled to Wybalenna - with a promise they could return to their land after a short period is the greatest con carried out in Tasmanian history.
They were not returned to their land. They were sent to the condemned penal station at Oyster Cove, a place not deemed fit for convicts in the harshest penal colony in the Commonwealth.
But how many are aware of the scale of this con, and its ongoing, unresolved implications?
The very fact that this history remains unreconciled almost 190 years later is what drives Dr Cameron on as a board member of Reconciliation Tasmania.
She will deliver a lecture in both Hobart and Launceston on Friday for the UN's International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples, titled 'Treaty in Tasmania?'.
Her lecture will cover historical truths: the Frontier War in Tasmania, the disaster at Wybalenna where Aborigines unsuccessfully petitioned Queen Victoria to honour the Crown's side of the promise, and the global importance of the experience of the First Tasmanians.
Dr Cameron will then turn her attention to the future, and how treaty discussions can progress.
She said before treaty could be discussed, Tasmania needed to achieve meaningful reconciliation with its past.
MORE ON TASMANIA'S ABORIGINAL COMMUNITY:
- Returning to Cape Barren Island/truwana: Ranger programs offers a brighter future
- Cape Barren Island/truwana was a place of plentiful food, caring families and creativity
- Reviving language: How researchers develop palawa kani
- Tasmania won't follow Victoria on Aboriginal treaty
- Push for Aboriginal representatives in Tasmanian parliament
"My role in this lecture is to present the historic overview of promises made between 1830 and 1835 that have never been honoured," she said.
"Tasmanians need to know about that past so that we can gain support from all Tasmanians for what's going to happen in the future.
"Reconciliation Tasmania's philosophy is this: walking together, but before you can walk together you need to reconcile the injustices of the past.
"The next question will be: what will a treaty in the 21st century look like?
"That discussion is yet to be had amongst a great majority of Tasmanian people."
The warrior Mannalargenna is considered the ancestor of many Tasmanian Aborigines, and he too was among those coerced by Robinson, dying at Wybalenna.
Regardless of where they were from, 47 Aboriginal people were transported to Oyster Cove and few saw their ancestral land again. Just one of them was originally from Bruny Island.
Dr Cameron said this trauma traversed generations and remained a source of injustice that needed to be rectified.
"That promise of returning to their land was made to our ancestral grandfather, and as descendants of Mannalargenna we have a responsibility to correct that injustice," she said.
"We're a product of our past, of our history.
"They were deceived, those promises were not honoured. That's what we want to see now. We want closure to that."
The way that past could be reconciled - through physical memorials, days of mourning, official apologies or, ultimately, a treaty - was yet to be determined, but the conversation was ready to begin.
Even at Wybalenna, there was little recognition of what occurred there. One of the only memorials to an Aboriginal person in Tasmania is at Bicheno, a small reminder of a woman who saved drowning seamen.
Reconciliation Tasmania was launched at the 2017 UN IDWIP and has a board comprising six Tasmanian Aboriginals and six non-Aboriginals. Goals include building relationships, respect and trust between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Tasmanians, celebrating survival and sharing truth.
Treaty has gained strong traction in the public consciousness in recent years, including the Victorian government's ongoing treaty process. The Uluru Statement of the Heart also highlighted the need for Aboriginal people to have an enshrined voice to achieve real self-determination.
Part of the treaty process in Tasmania could involve handing back Crown Land to Aboriginal people, rectifying the broken promises of the 1830s.
Dr Cameron said treaties could take many forms, but it needed to bring all Tasmanians along.
"There's many different groups, organisations, corporations, and Reconciliation Tasmania can assist in bringing the groups together. I'm not how treaty might happen, but it needs to happen, and everyone needs to take part in that," she said.
"What will a treaty in the 21st century look like? It's something that needs to be talked about.
"We do it one step at a time. We inform the general population as well as Aboriginal groups, then make sure everyone has a voice."
_________________
Dr Patsy Cameron AO will present her lecture 'Treaty in Tasmania?' at the University of Tasmania School of Architecture and Design, Lecture Theatre, Room 108, at 6pm this Friday.
UTAS Dean of Law School Professor Tim McCormack will also present a lecture.
Tasmania treaty talks:
Michael Mansell's vision for treaty,
land return, GDP allocation, land
access and seats in Parliament
Treaty does not need to instill any fear in the non-Aboriginal community but would simply be an expression of true democracy and self-determination, Michael Mansell says.
The chairperson of the Aboriginal Land Council of Tasmania will give a talk on the subject of treaty at the Launceston Town Hall on Wednesday, covering how treaty could be achieved without a referendum and how designated Aboriginal seats in Parliament could work.
A treaty was widely recognised as a method of righting the wrongs carried out on Aboriginal people, particularly the state-sanctioned coercion where Aboriginals were promised they could return to their land after they were taken to Wybalenna.
Mr Mansell participated in the early stages of the treaty process in Victoria but believed it had become bogged down in who should represent Aboriginals, rather than discussing treaty itself.
Treaties at both the state and federal levels could have a role to play in the future for Aboriginal communities across Australia, so how does Mr Mansell think it could work?
Returning land
Treaty or no treaty, Crown Land could be returned to Aboriginal people.
The biggest problem with waiting for governments to act was that, without a treaty, just 300 square kilometres of the 67,000 square kilometres of Tasmania had been returned under the Aboriginal Lands Act 1995.
Mr Mansell said Crown Land in the South-West Wilderness World Heritage Area, larapuna/Bay of Fires and takayna/Tarkine were areas that could be returned.
"It's areas where no one lives, where no one has any permanent interest," he said.
"We could immediately see 30 Aborigines employed full-time in managing those areas. Then you'd have at least another dozen people administering the programs to manage access into the areas, so that we could use the areas to promote knowledge of Aboriginal history.
"Parks and Wildlife would have a far smaller role. Their role would be more on scientific protection."
Mr Mansell said Parks and Wildlife was "at the mercy" of political interference, whereas Aboriginal management would focus on environmental outcomes.
Public access to land
One of the general public's greatest concerns - particularly bush user groups - at proposed land hand backs was over access to public land.
Mr Mansell said there would be few changes.
"It's just a matter of managing public access rather than stopping it," he said.
"When you've got 80 kilometres of existing off-road access in the takayna, we would say that's certainly enough.
ON CAPE BARREN ISLAND/TRUWANA:
"We would agree to further access, but not by vehicle. People could walk down to the beaches in a 500-metre walk rather than drive their cars down behind the dunes."
Tasmania has some examples of land hand backs since 1995 which Mr Mansell said proves they did not result in locking up land.
"There are non-Aborigines who had leases on the mutton bird islands and they still have those leases 24 years later," he said.
"At the land handed back on the West Coast, the public still has access into the property and down to the beach."
Aboriginal seats in Parliament
The Uluru Statement of the Heart wanted an enshrined Aboriginal voice in Parliament, which the government has since interpreted to mean an "advisory" voice rather than a vote, and neither looks likely to be pursued in any constitutional recognition referendum.
The Tasmanian Parliament is also investigating increasing the lower house from 25 to 35 seats, which could open up the opportunity for a permanent Aboriginal seat.
Mr Mansell said voting for those seats could follow the model that has operated in New Zealand since 1850.
"Like the old Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission elections, Aborigines either vote for that position or they vote in the general election, but not for both," he said.
Mr Mansell was concerned about the "watering down" of the Aboriginal voice in Parliament idea.
"Even if the referendum got up and Aborigines were given the right to advise, there's no decision-making power but just a right to advise," he said.
"Then every time we went back to the Parliament after that and said 'we want self-determination', they would say 'how can you? You agreed that the people of Australia could give you a right to advise'."
Determining Aboriginality?
If an Aboriginal seat in the Tasmanian parliament was granted, who would be eligible to vote for it?
ATSIC had a tribunal that could consider whether people had Aboriginal ancestry, had identified as an Aboriginal over time and if they were accepted by Aboriginal people as being Aboriginal.
Mr Mansell said the electoral commission could fill this role as an independent body that could use this definition to determine eligibility, with appeals possible in the Federal Court.
"When an independent body like the electoral commission determines eligibility, it means those who don't have legitimate claims to Aboriginality drop off," he said.
Distributing GDP
In the treaty process, and combined with land hand backs, Mr Mansell was also calling for an Aboriginal representative body to be provided with a percentage of Tasmania's annual GDP to administer to Aboriginal causes.
The percentage would be proportionate to the Aboriginal population, he said.
"The representative body would work in conjunction with Aboriginal people to work out priorities and allocate resources," Mr Mansell said.
"If you have a treaty and resources can be distributed, the Aboriginal body should be able to decide and distribute these resources."
Tasmanian or federal treaty?
While the state government has jurisdiction over police, prisons, health and housing, the Commonwealth controls environmental laws and provides funding for specialised legal and health services.
Neither would require a referendum, just legislation from the respective parliaments.
If a treaty comes into place at the federal level however, it could have jurisdiction to return Crown Land in Tasmania to Aboriginals, or make changes over the way Aboriginals were imprisoned based on a nationwide approach, regardless of the state's position.
A Tasmanian treaty with allow the state government to set its own terms, but Mr Mansell wanted any future changes to a treaty to only be allowed with the consent of both the Parliament and the Aboriginal representative body enshrined in the treaty.
No comments:
Post a Comment