When Pastor Sir Doug Nicholls first moved to Melbourne, he settled in the Fitzroy area, his hospitality and counsel proving a magnet for Aboriginals wanting to move to the city.
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One morning in the early 70s, a friend and I went to the Social Security Office in Gertrude Street. We went early, hoping to avoid the rush, but were horrified to see a queue a mile long waiting for the doors to open. About 5 minutes after the Social Security Office opened for business, the VD clinic next door opened, and we were relieved to see 90% of the queue move to the right.
Inside the social security office, my friend wandered off to check out all the fancy brochures, while I waited in line with her little girl, SJ.
An Aboriginal man, possibly about 50 years old, came up to me and tried to whisper quietly but forcefully that I should hold SJ’s hand – hold it tight. He was insistent and it took me a few moments to understand and then process his advice. I took SJ’s hand mainly because he was becoming quite distressed.
It took me many years to make a connection between that incident and the Stolen Children enquiry.
Andrew Bolt and Windschuttle insist that the “black armband” view of Australia’s Aboriginal history is a fabrication.
They criticise the scholarship of other historians, and nit pick about intentions and interpretations of various documents.
One of their strong arguments is that the whole stolen children’s business is a political fabrication because, if it were true, why did none of the stories emerge until AFTER the tent embassy was established.
The truth is that – with the exception of some rather radical and politicised Aboriginals who were involved with the tent embassy after this incident– for many years I never met an Aboriginal person who would dream of volunteering their history, or discussing their spiritual beliefs.
Whenever she cut SJ’s hair, F was careful to sweep up and burn all the clippings but, beyond that, was downright evasive if asked anything about her people or her upbringing on the Cherbourg Mission in Queensland.
The “bringing them home” report into the stolen generations marked the first time anyone promised to listen to what Aboriginals had to say about the whole sorry saga.
I believe the stories in the report, because I was once a shameless dole bludger.
Governments hate situations they wish to control being humanised. The man's fear for the child in the SS office is very humanising.
ReplyDeleteWe were in Gertrude Street last weekend. It has become unrecognisable to what it was and not an Aborigine to be seen.
I guess Fitzroy has been/is going the way of other inner suburbs - so close to the city, gentrification is inevitable, though I can't say I have been there for yonks.
DeleteYou are absolutely right about governments avoiding anything humanising. But at worst I think they have been indifferent to the plight of Aboriginals. Bolt, on the other hand, has sometimes gone to the opposite extreme. At one stage he was repeatedly asking for just one Aboriginal person to come forward and say they weren't taken 'for their own good' [i.e. in the way social workers intervene in families of any background]. One woman came forward and said she was taken, but couldn't remember why as she was very young. Now he uses that example whenever it is convenient.
I'm not too sure Victoria is representative of other states, or that huge numbers of Aboriginals read Bolt or would bother to respond if they did. His attitude was so aggressive as to be almost dehumanising.
There is always those who can't /wont believe the injustices humans have inflicted on one another. We had a Hungarian neighbour who was adamant the Holocaust never happened.
ReplyDeleteWhat can you say to people who are in denial? Nothing really, but we only have to watch the news to see what humans can stoop to.
DeleteSurprising that Windschuttle ever got work in Humanities at an Australian university where lefty views are de riguer. My deadhead social worker niece was taught by him at UNSW but turned out safe. In other words, she's a stamped-out conformist to the latte catechism. I could list all its strictures, everything from gay rights to diet, republicanism to dog shit. I KNOW them.
ReplyDeleteAboriginais in Fitzroy copped yet another invasion when people like my niece destroyed their community there by smartening it up to suit themselves. This scourge has since spread up through Northcote and is now sinking its fangs into Thornbury. Everything suddenly costs more, the unsuave just can't afford to live there. And all you hear from these rotten hypocrites is sympathy for the poor.
As a poor white boy myself I only wish I'd been stolen and raised by people who weren't drunkards, criminals and bashers. Because I went on to do some of it myself. You don't avoid it.
I'm pleased to hear you did not break the cycle. Preservation of culture regardless of merit is so important there will soon be a culture tax levied on anyone damaging the social environment. [Naturally, there will also be a market for cultural destruction rights.]
DeleteHow gracious of you, I felt the same when I drove past houses I'd burgled and saw them up for sale.
ReplyDeleteHow Freudian... returning to the scene of the crime. I admire people who take pride in their work.
DeleteWell darling I never took pride but robbed so many I was bound to pass one here and there.
ReplyDeleteI was born to be a gentle creature just like my mother but was "stolen" at the age of seven to live with drunken people who enjoyed the sight of blood. Subsequent brutal treatment by the police as servants of lawful society put me into a war with it.
I know a side you don't know. It would be impossible for you to believe.
I believe the stories because a mass conspiracy between the indigenous people who speak of their stories and the non-indigenous people who back them up would require far more organisation and collaboration than anyone is capable of!!
ReplyDeleteYour comments are so often insightful, Red. A conspiracy theory - so obvious that I didn't think to name it that. Yeah. As for organisation and collaboration of large numbers, even when I work alone I can't seem to achieve much.
DeleteI've been in the midst of large 'high-achieving' organisations and I've been staggered by the remoteness of the possibility of actually achieving anything that anyone cares about ...
DeleteSome call me cynical, but I'm actually a realist!
Red, I'm sure the only reason anything is achieved in large organisations is because they are so large the management is unable to formulate/ enforce policies to prevent employees achieving things.
DeleteIt also helps that, from time to time, people such as your good self happen along, achieve a little and then leave for the sake of their sanity.
But I take your point. Politically inspired conspiracies would be especially difficult to get off the ground, because of the politics of politics. As we know, a camel is a horse designed by a committee. The huge number of feral camels in this country is an indictment. Fortunately, we are actually able to generate some export income by selling camels to people in other countries who actually value them. Go figure.