Concerning Racism and
Racialism
Notes on Marcia Langton’s The Quiet Revolution. Indigenous people and
the resources boom. Boyer Lectures 2012. ABC Books. Harper/Collins
Australia, 2013.
Silke Beinssen-Hesse
Monash University
On her own evidence, and by her own intention,
Marcia Langton’s The Quiet Revolution lectures have aroused a good deal of
consternation. Though they are informative and interesting on the history of land
rights, on Aboriginal relations with mining companies and on the period of
struggle leading up to these successes, she at times expresses confronting
views and also, to identify this potential hurdle right at the start, makes
some surprising generalizations. There is, for example, her implied assertion
that Aboriginal people do not make mistakes, that there could have been no
trial and error in managing a new land and its resources on the part of the
first human settlers tens of thousands of years ago. I would consider this to
be a “racist” approach, if racism is defined as attaching absolute values, be
they negative or positive, to human biological characteristics and thus
dehumanizing people. Biological characteristics are unchangeable while the
essence of being human is that you have an almost limitless potential to make
choices and change yourself and the world. Aboriginal people are human and they
are therefore of necessity not infallible.
Tim Flannery’s theory that humans who lived
in Australia forty-five thousand years ago probably caused the extinction of
Australia’s mega-fauna is more than once mentioned by Langton as an inexcusable
insult to present-day Aborigines. Theories of this kind about prehistoric times
are always hypothetical and subject to revision in the light of new or newly
interpreted evidence. On the other hand nobody, least of all Flannery, would dispute
that the choices modern man has made, and Australian settlers are prominent
here, have also been responsible for extinctions. Humans make choices, and some
of them will have results we now understand to be unfortunate. As curators of
the land, the Aboriginal people made a great many good choices and that has
been widely acknowledged. Whether such curatorial expertise could always be
handed down intact to later generations is another question but the land
management agreements which government bodies have entered into with Aboriginal
people (Langton has the better part of a lecture on this) suggest that indigenous
knowledge is still or again highly valued. What particularly riles Langton is
what she interprets as Flannery’s view that white scientists and national park
regimes are better and more reliable at conservation than the traditional
owners for whom the land might, presumably, have many uses. Langton reminds us
that “wilderness” areas had actually been managed by Aboriginal people for tens
of thousands of years and are pristine only because they, rather than white
people, have cared for them. She also points out that “Aboriginal people have
dedicated more than 30 million hectares of their own land to environmental and
biodiversity conservation” (113) and have agreed to manage it in close
cooperation with white conservation authorities.
Theories like Flannery’s concerning the extinction
of Australia’s mega-fauna soon after the first arrival of humans, whether right
or wrong, can be used as political ammunition. Flannery himself, as he
plausibly protests, does not do this although Langton insists on suspecting him
of it. One obviously cannot censor scientific discussion because its findings
or hypotheses could be used politically and offend someone as “racist”. Marcia Langton’s lectures are peppered
with accusations of “racism”. There are of course, among other things, personal
reasons for this; she mentions having experienced racial discrimination herself.
But she goes further. Among other things she makes the extraordinary accusation
that beside the “racists in the ‘green’ movement” and the “grazier activists”
there are at present still “advocates for Indigenous genocide” (23).
Of course it cannot be denied that Aboriginal
people have a great deal to complain about. They have been treated abominably
by white colonizers in more ways than is possible to enumerate. But whether
this behavior can be usefully defined as racist is a different matter. Racism
is probably the crudest of all ways of conceiving difference. There were, and still
are, genuine ethnic differences between white and Aboriginal people; they had a
different culture which implies different ways of perceiving the world. Their traditional
land management, cosmogony, laws governing social interaction, as well as the structure
of their economy and their language are among phenomena that can be studied;
ethnology does not regard such differences as essential but as evolved in the
context of particular living conditions. For a while it was fashionable in
Australia, following Lewis Henry Morgan, to impose upon prehistory a timeline, stretching
from savagery through barbarism to civilization, that gave support to racialism.
But this is no longer accepted, just as eugenics, an attempt at a scientific
justification of racialist and biological evaluations of human difference, has
been shown to be without substance. – There were, of course, also religious
differences between white Christians and traditional Aboriginal people. Here
the Christians often set out with rigidly supremacist views. But ultimately, these
too were shown to be subject to argument and review; religions can be compared
and chosen. – Finally, there were what one might call class differences between
white people and Aboriginal people who traditionally had fewer material
possessions than the settlers, also less destructive weapons, quite generally less
power. We can have opinions about the way of life of traditional Aborigines and
there have always been admirers and detractors.
But once racist standards are imposed, all
comparison and argument is halted. People are placed in a category that is
meaningless with regard to anything but the crudest of judgments: I am superior,
and you are inferior because you are biologically different from me. That leads
to the inevitable reciprocation: you are morally inferior for calling me
inferior. Racism leads on to invective and people who use it cannot be unaware
that their remarks or actions along with the angry responses these provoke, are
merely weapons in a fight. Almost anything can serve as ammunition here. Australian
governments now ban racist talk and behavior just as they ban knives and guns.
Throughout history, racism has usually gained
dominance when there were economic and power interests at stake. I would tend
to agree with Langton’s comment: money does make the world go round (60). To
peacemakers the nature of the weapon will always be of less interest than what
the fight is about and in my view there has always been too much attention on
racism and too little on what provokes it. Langton joins in the racist melee and
ecologists like Flannery, whose concerns she perceives to be a threat to Aboriginal
hopes of prosperity, are in the front line of fire. At stake is a potential
increase in Indigenous power and independence as brought about by the Mabo
ruling in combination with the mining boom: a unique opportunity white
machinations might thwart. One unfortunate effect of racist exchanges is that
they tend to disguise the real issues and thus make it harder to find rational solutions
for genuine problems.
The traditional Aboriginal way of life of
the ancestors has all but disappeared today and Langton does not mourn it. For
her it is out of date and will hold Aboriginal people back if it is not
discarded. There are of course both black and white people who do mourn its
passing and believe that the value systems underlying this ancient way of life
are still of considerable interest. Sustainability, for one, is attracting
growing attention. A culture in which the traded values are knowledge and
artistic expression rather than material goods may also seem a desirable
alternative to people who are concerned about the wastefulness of our modern civilization
of limitless economic growth and its effect on the climate of our world. Aboriginal
organization of a peaceful, law-abiding and at the same time, to use W. E. H. Stanner’s
expression, “militant” society is of interest. The wide distribution of
responsibilities within a tribal group so as to utilize all talents and avoid
any usurpation of power will seem desirable to some, particularly those
appalled by the dictatorial potential of western civilization. Educators have
drawn attention to the teaching methods that Aboriginal elders employed. Some
form of initiation for young men can seem a useful practice in an age in which
men often feel they have lost their pride and their distinctive purpose in
life. The respect for the wisdom of elders that comes with a knowledge culture
and that runs counter to fast-moving modernity with its emphasis on youth is an
attitude that can arouse nostalgia and seem to correct social imbalances. All
these values would have to be adapted to modern life in order to become
effective today; they are ideas that can lead to regeneration, in the way that
new ideas have always been generated when cultures meet and come to terms with
each other.
It is absurd for Langton to claim that those
who value such ideas are in the habit of insisting that Aboriginal people must
for ever remain “noble savages” and be denied the right to participate in the modern
economy, or that admirers of a bygone way of life determine government policy
or Aboriginal self-perception. (They might, of course, influence tourism
programs, often a source of income for Aboriginal people.) Why should there not
be an exchange of values, a cross-fertilization, with both groups moving ahead
and renewing themselves? Certainly, white respect for Aboriginal ideas is overall
more likely to work to the advantage of
Aboriginal people than to hinder them and hold them back, as Langton claims. It
is quite unreasonable to accuse people like Flannery, crusaders for the health
of the earth and thus the survival of our human civilization, to be plotting to
short-change Indigenous people. Langton’s fury at “Greenies and wilderness
campaigners” derives, as said, from her aggressive desire to protect what she
perceives as Aboriginal economic and property interests with their liberating
potential; she seems convinced that only a strong right-wing political
engagement can defend them. No one with any sense would want to deny Langton the
right to prefer personal affluence and an economy of growth to traditional indigenous
values; and it is likely that many long deprived Aboriginal people will share
her orientation. All the same, there are
also still people interested in Indigenous cultural values, among them white
people who would welcome opportunities for discussion with committed and knowledgeable
traditional elders. It is now, of course, also possible to get much valuable
information from books, often written or co-authored by elders. (Karl-Erik
Sveiby’s and Tex Skuthorpe’s collaboration Treading
Lightly. The Hidden Wisdom of the
World’s Oldest People can serve as an example among many.)
As the sub-title suggests, most of
Langton’s lectures focus on the recent mining boom across Aboriginal lands. She
describes the exploitative approach of early mining ventures and indicates that
she herself had a role in negotiating fairer agreements. This is an interesting
story and her contribution as an activist and professional demands respect. The
change of direction initiated by powerful fair-minded mining executives like
Brendan Hammond, which she acknowledges gratefully, also deserves to be honored
while the opportunities made available by the Mabo decision, which ultimately gave
Aboriginal people the right to negotiate with mining companies, were of course
of the utmost importance here. But contrary to Langton’s assumptions, my
experience is that most Australian “tax-payers” today, particularly in the
south where day to day conflict with Aboriginal people has long ceased, are unlikely
to begrudge remote communities any
opportunities they may have to support themselves; that does not mean that
there aren’t also some responsible citizens who are worried about aspects of
the mining boom. It is hard to understand whom in particular Langton’s bitter accusations
could refer to unless she is simply hitting out generically at the descendents
of colonizers, still presumed to be intent on depriving all Aborigines of any means
of advancement. Langton’s suspicions are of course not without a basis;
historically, that has been the way things were all too often done.
It needs, however, to be said that for most
of post-colonial history, white Australians have been genuinely confused about
how to judge their takeover of the continent. Should the criterion be, for
example, British law and the intentions of the British parliament, or colonial
practice in the 18th and 19th centuries, or ancient indigenous
rights to the land, or the best man for the job and a sensible use of the
resources of the world, or the prize won by brave explorers and enterprising
pioneers, or the brutal rights of conquest, or the now customary rights of a
settler nation? Today most of us seem to agree that the only approach we can
all live with successfully as citizens of one nation is one based on fairness,
decency, equality and humanistic values; but vestiges of older attitudes and
bitterness obviously remain.
The mining boom with its creation of jobs
and business opportunities and its royalty payments, which Langton welcomes so
enthusiastically, has been good to some, but is less likely to be a quick fix
for the welfare dependence and substance abuse problems entrenched in so many
remote communities, problems that the Federal Intervention and Aboriginal
leaders like Noel Pearson and Alison Anderson are attempting to deal with. Langton
has very little to say on this topic here. It is, in a sense, a legitimate
omission because there are now two distinct groups of Aboriginal people: the
emerging well-earning, assimilated, but in its most creative proponents still culturally
committed middle class, with whom she proudly identifies and to whose
considerable achievements she devotes her last lecture, and the remote area
welfare recipients whose problems often almost defy solution.
Sadly, Langton is right when she speaks of
“the tendency of the settler state to destroy or control or warp any Aboriginal
initiative” (131). It can still be hard to work out what is well-meaning clumsiness,
what stupidity, what blind tradition, what bad faith and what intentional
destructiveness when it comes to the management of Aboriginal affairs. While we
should attempt to avoid conspiracy theories, the frequency with which
supposedly benign initiatives have ended up being injurious to Indigenous
people is uncanny. (Peter Shergold only recently admitted multiple
administrative failures in The Australian, 8-9 June, 2013.) Even the 2007 Northern Territory National
Emergency Response, with its often hamstrung white administrators, its
expensive and minimally productive white tradesmen, and its refusal to give the
targeted people any agency, is seen by some to be so poorly designed that it
goes a way towards boycotting its own purported efforts. Today’s official intentions are not quite as
obvious as when the Bjelke-Petersen government, as Langton reminds us, made a
point of buying up and gazetting as National Parks all lands which Aboriginal
groups had an interest in acquiring, citing a 1972 Cabinet decision: “The
Queensland Government does not view favorably proposals to acquire large areas
of additional freehold or leasehold land for development by Aborigines or
Aboriginal groups in isolation”(110).
Langton speaks of the “racialist tendencies
in this society” but I would argue that it becomes obvious here that race has
always been only incidental, a convenient excuse. What Australian governments
were really worried about was any suggestion of a return of conquered lands,
any reversal of the almost total loss of control over their lives that
Aboriginal people had suffered under the colonizing regime, any slightest
increase in power. It is the stance of an intransigent and fearful conqueror
who still sees the subjugated indigenous inhabitants as unwelcome outsiders and
potentially dangerous rivals, and this even after they have been officially
declared citizens with full voting rights; it is a stance frozen in time. Before
the courts stepped in with their Mabo decision, there had clearly never been
any genuine intention to share the land on the part of white settlers. Any
proof of competence by Indigenous people was always swiftly undermined. Australian
governments knew from very early on that racial inferiority was not the true reason
for Aboriginal exclusion but the last thing they wanted was for this to become
public. When Langton emphasizes racialism, she is in effect giving support to a
fallacy with which some Australian people still like to justify their takeover.
The reality was always more sinister, for it involved not just the quarantining
of a supposedly “primitive” people, incapable of fitting in with modern
society, but until fairly recently the ongoing and at least partly intentional,
unprovoked damaging of a rival people, a low-key version of genocide on behalf
of the settler nation. It is not surprising that Langton welcomes the
opportunities the mining boom has given her and others to catch up economically
and join the middle classes, a goal which they have shown themselves, as she herself
proves, to be eminently capable of achieving.
So where does Langton stand as an
intellectual, as a spokesperson for her people, and as a political leader? She
has been accused of being too close to the mining lobby. Revelations of undisclosed
funding from that quarter could appear to support this. Langton’s commitment to
mining may have sounded less strident but hardly less fervent if she had not
had that motivation. To me, it seems a shame that she used Australia’s most
prestigious lecture series, listened to largely by reasonable and sympathetic
intellectuals, to launch a bitter attack against the likes of them and above
all against anyone she believes could be an environmentalist. Still, it doesn’t
hurt to know how alienated an Indigenous intellectual can be. Langton’s
lectures at times sound triumphal, as though she were convinced that the mining
bonanza is enough to tip the balance of power in favor of the “first
Australians” (also the title of a TV series directed by Rachel Perkins to which
Langton contributed), to give them independence from governments and
paternalistic helpers and eventually solve all Indigenous problems.
But one can’t help feeling that she has a disregard
for the less fortunate and the severely damaged among her people; perhaps she
sees them as a problem to be tackled at a later time, maybe once the new middle
class has established itself. Even if one agreed that, to achieve reform, the
initial emphasis needed to be placed on building up the economic viability of
Aboriginal communities, it may be simplistic to give so much redemptive weight
to one sector of society, though mining is of course currently an important
employer and financier in the outback. But listening to and reading these
lectures, I could not discern a long-term and inclusive strategy in them;
rather, the envisaged goal seems to be individual liberation and success within
modern white society for those strong, fortunate and gifted enough to succeed.
It almost appears as though Langton still needed to prove to herself and others
that Aborigines are, if properly educated, as intelligent and competent as their
white conquerors and their white relatives, a fact that was, by all accounts, obvious
even in Governor Phillip’s day.
All the same, I would agree wholeheartedly
with Langton that it is essential Aboriginal people be far less often dictated
to by governments. Whether solicitous or hostile, governments work with clumsy
tools; they also have to keep an eye on their voters, most of whom are not Indigenous.
In this country, voters are moreover always convinced that, much like “god”,
“the government” has the primary duty to work for their individual personal advantage;
the public good is not often evoked. Governments have, however, as Langton
acknowledges, been useful at legislating for Indigenous rights. In contrast to
the machinery of government and its bureaucracy, with which Langton, like
others, is extremely frustrated, Australians in their private capacity tend to
be warm and helpful, a resource to be drawn on by anyone in need. I think it is
important to make these distinctions.
There can be no doubt that Indigenous
people have to find ways to participate in the real economy. For that, education
will always be crucial. Where mining companies reach their limits, employment opportunities
and training can presumably also be provided or mediated with the assistance of
other enterprises or even helpful citizens. The benefits of friendly contacts
with the broader population, which would include a better and wider
understanding of Indigenous needs and thus less racism or indifference, should
not be underestimated. It is often hard for non-Indigenous Australians to know
how they can contribute. (The organization Indigenous
Community Volunteers comes to mind as having found a workable formula.) The
descendents of colonizing settlers may not deserve forgiveness but it would be
better for our country if they were offered it anyway. If we are to be a
reconciled nation, we must become acquainted with each other and work together,
rather than avoiding and disparaging each other. One side of Langton seems to want
to blame and reject, while the other would like to merge and be accepted. Most
Aborigines today, and particularly urban people, have, of course, been born
into both black and white worlds, though the white has never welcomed the black.
Langton makes it clear that she is not a separatist. It seems to me, therefore,
that her only other choices are either assimilation and ultimately the disappearance
of Aboriginal identity; apartheid, which does not have a good reputation; or bi-culturalism
in conjunction with First Nation status, consolidated by the ownership of “82% of northern Australia in a variety of
titles” (46). Bi-culturalism, for its part, is a complex way of existing that
needs to be explored and experimented with; in today’s Australia, people from
many parts of the world have gathered experiences in this area. Langton’s
lectures do not investigate bi-culturalism but she does provide us with a useful
quote from Noel Pearson (who had, in a memorable 2006 speech “Layered
Identities and Peace”, thought deeply about its complexities):
I believe that the only choice available to indigenous
and non-indigenous Australians is to find a way of living together in a unified
community which respects our particular and different identities and the
particular rights of indigenous peoples. Because, as I often say to the discomfort
of both black and white people, Mabo has put to rest two gross fantasies.
Firstly, it has put to rest the fantasy that the blacks were not and are still
not here. The fantasy of terra and homo nullius. Secondly, Mabo also puts to
rest the fantasy that the whites are somehow going to pack up and leave.
Coexistence remains our lot. (140)
What we all need to work on is how
Aboriginal and settler societies can enter into a new, fairer and friendlier relationship,
a difficult project when such disparities have been allowed to accumulate. While
Langton accuses her non-Indigenous listeners of neglecting to notice “the much
changed situation in the twenty-first century that offers more than a few rungs
on the ladder of opportunity to those who choose to take this path” (15) one
could also accuse her of not acknowledging that white attitudes too have
changed and are still changing. In this climate Langton’s lectures may at times
seem unduly confrontational; but they also give us a good deal to think about, and
that was obviously what she intended.
