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Bridge walk 'must be built upon'

BY MARGARET ALLUM

On May 28, a human sea of goodwill made its way across an Australian icon, the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The largest mobilised expression of solidarity with the Aboriginal people for more than a decade, the “Walk for Reconciliation”, involved an estimated half a million people, indigenous and non-indigenous. The vast majority saw the walk as a tangible way of expressing their support for Aboriginal rights and their opposition to racism.

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The widespread disgust for Prime Minister John Howard's refusal to apologise on behalf of the government for removing Aboriginal children from their families was represented in the large “Sorry” written in the sky, and the countless homemade placards and banners.

Yet nothing has been solved, racist discrimination against indigenous people remains as strong as ever. Many indigenous activists are critical of the whole official reconciliation process and say that, while May 29's expression of solidarity was extremely important, much more needs to be done.

Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly spoke to five indigenous activists about the reconciliation process and what is needed for justice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

JOEL BRAY from the Indigenous Student Network, which organised a protest outside the Sydney Opera House during the reconciliation document's handover on May 27, said that he felt that the march on Sunday was a gathering of a lot of people with their hearts in the right place, but who were being misled.

“For a huge number of Australians, reconciliation is the genuine heartfelt attempt to express their solidarity with Aboriginal people”, he said. “But the reconciliation process was quite a deliberate tactic from the Howard government to channel that solidarity away from anything that would require a concrete commitment from the government.”

ISOBEL COE, one of the founders of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra in the early 1970s, said that she thought the reconciliation events were another lie. “The documents were written by mainly non-Aboriginal people”, she said angrily, “and anyway, we can't have reconciliation while there is still no justice”.

Coe felt that genuinely anti-racist people had been diverted by the reconciliation process. “The government led people up the tree, then cut it down”, she said. “The reconciliation march was only a 'feel good' exercise. [Former prime ministers] Fraser and Hawke walked across the bridge on Sunday; what hypocrisy! They had the chance to make a difference when they were in power and they did nothing.”

Government appointees

LYALL MUNRO of the Sydney-based Metropolitan Land Council agrees, saying, “The whole concept of reconciliation was an imposition on Aboriginal people”, a “bastardisation” of calls for a treaty or an Aboriginal bill of rights. He criticised indigenous leaders who had cooperated with the drafting of the document, accusing them of being “willing to lay down with the government”.

“The government followed the advice of appointees and disregarded the voice of black Australia”, Munro said, noting that meetings of Aboriginal communities in NSW, including one in La Perouse in Sydney's southern suburbs attended by 700 delegates, had rejected the process.

“Reconciliation was a complete waste of time — 12 years, millions of dollars of taxpayers' money, of Aboriginal money”, he said. Most of those who marched on May 28 did so to protest against governmental racism, not to celebrate a process which had ended it, he said.

COLIN GALE, an elder from the Dharug people of western Sydney, was pleased to see many people from different ethnic backgrounds on the march, and was boosted by its size. However, he also doubted whether it is possible to change the minds of those who are opposed to a real reconciliation process between non-Aboriginal and Aboriginal people, including those in both major political parties.

KIM BULLIMORE, a member of the Democratic Socialist Party and an Indigenous Student Network activist, said she was heartened by the tremendous size of the march and the strong sentiment in favour of justice for Aborigines, even if reconciliation still meant many different things to many different people.

'I think there is a sentiment we can build on”, she said. “The reconciliation process has brought a recognition to many people that there have been these past wrongs which have to be dealt with.”

But she is also critical of how white people's desires for reconciliation with blacks were misused by successive governments. Over time, reconciliation “has become a way of watering down the real demands of Aboriginal people for land rights, for recognition of sovereignty over land which was never ceded”, Bullimore argued.

Bray agrees that although the reconciliation process was a detour, one positive byproduct, especially of the reconciliation march, was that it has raised the question in many people's minds: What next? He said that it is ironic that the reconciliation process has produced intensified demands for a formal treaty, the very thing the process was supposed to avoid.

Treaty

Bray dismisses Howard's claims that a treaty is impossible because there is only one Australian nation. “The reality is, there are two nations in Australia”, he said, “one with little education and making up the poorest sector, dying younger from diseases, and the other with money, relatively good health and good opportunities for education”.

He would like to see the formation of community collectives comprising of indigenous and non-indigenous people to discuss a treaty.

Bray believes that two things need to be done: a program of “mass consciousness-raising” and “a really clear and open discussion of the implications of a treaty”. Concrete gains from such a treaty could and should include a “decent schedule” of land rights, recognition of traditional owners and elders, specified seats for indigenous representatives in parliament, even a separate Aboriginal parliament, he said.

Coe pointed out that the activists at the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra have been demanding a treaty for many years and have submitted a petition, with hundreds of thousands of signatures on it, to the United Nations calling for just that. She feels that a treaty could be the next project that the community would support: “If people can take one step and march for reconciliation, then maybe they can take another two or three steps”.

Bullimore agrees that a treaty would be an important step because, in contrast to the official reconciliation process, “it would have teeth”. “A treaty is a compact, an agreement”, she said. “Aboriginal people have been asking for recognition that we were the first people in the country and that the land was never ceded and sovereignty was never given. The first Europeans here totally ignored the advice of the crown — they were actually told to make a treaty with the indigenous people and they didn't do that.”

“Whether or not a treaty would actually make a difference for indigenous people would depend on its content”, Bullimore said. “The last thing we need is more words, more rhetoric, more hypocrisy. The treaty should enshrine the rights of indigenous people to equality, justice, progress. It needs to be an anti-racist bills of rights.

“Of course, for real justice, there would need to be an enormous improvement in the lives of indigenous people, economically and socially — in the areas of health, education and employment, in every area of our lives.”

Munro sees things similarly. “There'll be no progress until justice is afforded to Aboriginal people”, he said, “until we stop Aboriginal deaths in custody, until we stop our kids dying at an alarming rate, until we stop the incarceration of our people at an alarming rate, until we are in a position to do something constructive about the lives and conditions of black Australia.”

Olympic protests

Indigenous leaders are now planning to make protests at Sydney's Olympic Games in September the next major focus for anti-racist action.

“The events of last weekend are good signs for the Olympics events”, said Bullimore. “People are pissed off — they are pissed off at Howard and pissed off at how indigenous people are being treated. There is a lot of goodwill out there among the people and the Olympics protests will be a lot more politicised.”

Bullimore doesn't believe that police and security forces will be “as nice as they were to us on Sunday” and points to a raft of state laws restricting freedom of movement and certain forms of protest. She is determined, however, to make sure “we don't just stop where we stopped on May 28. We have to keep mobilising as many people as possible, use the Olympics to tell the country and world what has happened to Australia's indigenous people.”

Bray said that the Indigenous Students Network is planning forums and activities to educate people about issues affecting indigenous people, such as mandatory sentencing and cuts to Abstudy. But he too is determined to “keep up the pressure on the Howard government” and sees Olympics protests as one way of doing that.

He said that many different protest events would be organised at the time, including three different tent embassies, but that his group would like to see a major, combined protest on the opening day.

Munro said the Metropolitan Land Council plans to establish one tent embassy which would not only help focus the protest actions but also “be a catalyst for the emerging of the national Aboriginal mandate”. “We are not here to disrupt the games, we have never called for the disruption of the games, or the boycott of any of the athletes to the games”, he insisted.

“The embassy will be far enough away to not be disruptive, but close enough to be effective”, he promised. “We have no wish to disrupt this international convention — we haven't got a truck with the world, we have a truck with this country. We have to show the world, in the most peaceful manner, the true story of black Australia and the true history of this country since the European invasion in 1788.”

Coe is planning, with other indigenous leaders, a “sacred walk” to Sydney, through Moree, Dubbo and country NSW, starting on June 10. The walk will carry the ashes of the Canberra Tent Embassy's ceremonial fire, forcibly extinguished by the Australian Federal Police in February.

Non-indigenous support

Bray stated that, while Aboriginal people need to develop the movement for their rights, non-indigenous people should get in touch with radical black leaders, actively seek out information and raise their own consciousness. Munro agreed, saying, “Non-Aboriginal people have a very constructive and important role to play in the lives of Aboriginal people in this country”.

He invited all people to join in the protests at the Olympics. “There are two choices: this whole country can either be judged by the international arena as being racist, or it can allow the government of the day to be judged by the same as being racist.”

Munro compared the choice to that facing non-indigenous people in the referendum on granting Aborigines citizenship in 1967. “This is an obvious opportunity, especially under the racist regime of Johnny Howard, another occasion where we can show that the human rights of fellow Australians should be respected.

“It's going to take a massive effort to convince the rest of this country that Aboriginal people have a right to justice because of what's happened”, he admitted. “However, they can't deny history. No matter how much of a racist backlash there is, history is there for the world to see.”

Bullimore said that she noticed Howard's reaction change between the May 27 handover and Monday, May 29, after the walk across the bridge. “On Monday, he was quieter than he normally is”, she said. “He couldn't come out really hard against indigenous people in the couple of days around the event. This created the impression he was giving ground.”

Bullimore doesn't expect any change in the PM's attitude, however. “The government is still pandering to the people it really represents”, she says. “Look at the front bench of the Coalition: at least half of them own major land holdings. They are not going to turn around and say, just because hundreds of thousands of people got out and walked, 'We've changed our minds'. They may tread a little more carefully, but they will continue with their racist policies.”

Bullimore, Coe and Munro also dismiss Labor Party claims to be better. Instead, their hope lies with the staying power and political courage their own communities, and the belief that the march across the bridge shows that the mass of non-indigenous Australians are starting to take Aboriginal issues seriously.

“The Howard government is not going to make change unless a powerful movement of ordinary people forces that change”, said Bullimore. “There are now those in the non-indigenous population who know that real reconciliation is not possible without justice. We've got the best chance in a long time to build on that and make it happen.”