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Filling the idle hours of a day ...

By Rollo Manning - posted Wednesday, 24 January 2007


Family violence is an indicator of an underlying problem of disharmony in remote Aboriginal communities. It is a big adjustment for people who led a nomadic existence (in some cases only 50 years ago) and are now expected to live in harmony in a community urban-like setting.

Older people in the community are unable to counsel the young on how to deal with this new world because they themselves have not lived through it. The world the 50 to 60-year-old person was brought up in was totally different to the one today that the 15 to 30-year-olds are facing. Alcohol was not available then and ganja (marijuana) was a far cry away.

When these two dangerous chemicals are added to a community smoldering with unrest from confused relationships an explosion occurs. This is what has been highlighted recently at places like Alice Springs town camps and Port Keats.

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On top of the drunk and stoned people warring with each other come the tribal differences between groups (clans or tribes). These groups were not living together in their traditional way but are now being expected to live happily in a community that was never part of their world view. Back in the “old days” they would walk away from each other and avoid contact.

Community or urban living carries with it new values, laws and customs that have to be developed. The western world is molded by experiences of thousands of years with the learning of the growing child framed by its parents. Customs and practices are passed on from one generation to the next. This is taken for granted and it is assumed that Indigenous cultures will do likewise.

The Aboriginal person cannot pass on their culture and customs because they are not appropriate to a developed world. Simple things like personal hygiene, eating behaviour, dress sense and the value of property are all things which white children learnt from their parents. The Aboriginal child has no such help from parents or grandparents who may not have had a house, or knives and forks, or a toilet and certainly not the range of choice in what to wear for clothes. Personal property was kept to a minimum as it all had to be carried by hand.

In 1976 the government decided to give Aboriginal people money to sit down and not work. This notional wage, supplemented with other benefits such as shelter, food and clothing, provided the resources to buy utility and luxury goods never before possible.

Colour television opened a whole new world, artificial as it might have been, and new money gave the opportunity to move ahead and meet the challenges of a world not before explored by this race of people. The Aboriginal culture was more attuned to wandering the deserts and beaches of unspoiled Australia rather that the fast moving, disease ridden and temptation begging lifestyle of urban living.

Up until the “sit down” money came in Aboriginal people were remunerated in cash or kind from the people who employed them. Missions, schools, local councils and other services provided a remuneration package that seemed to suit the needs of the people. There was full employment and 95 per cent of the jobs in communities were done by local people. Today the reverse applies and the white workforce in communities has expanded to take over the jobs previously done by locals.

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To the 30 to 40-year-old the introduction of welfare payments meant a steady decline in health and life expectancy and an increase in confusion and boredom. The parents of growing children have struggled with their own life in a strange developed world and have been unable to assist their offspring.

The future does not augur well for babies born tomorrow.

Governments have to realise they have disempowered these people by taking away their traditional culture and replaced it with a way of life for which there is no awareness of how to manage it. It will take generations to achieve full harmony through a staged approach of treating each generation as another step forward, and not as now - a step backwards.

The past has not worked and must be replaced with new policies and actions framed by a view of the world as seen through the eyes of the Aboriginal people and not the world that the dominant culture wants them to have.

In 1979 the noted entrepreneur and advertising guru John Singleton, after a tour of Northern Australia wrote:

…every time I look at one of those bearded university-trained southern do-gooders, I wonder if they will ever realise that they can never solve the Aboriginal problem because they are the problem (The Bulletin, October 9, 1979).

It now appears these words are as applicable in 2006 as they were then.

When will the government of the day acknowledge where past policies have gone wrong and decide to start afresh by taking the Aboriginal people with them in their planning for the future? There are too many talkfests, conferences, workshops and the like, with the agenda being to discuss the “Aboriginal problem” and yet with few Aboriginal people present. We must work with them - not without them.

Before any real advances can be made to alleviating the extent of family violence including sexual abuse the following issues need to be addressed:

Education has to be restored with full attendance sought from children who are helped to understand the future and start living it. A child needs to have a purpose for going to school otherwise the adverse role model of older people will be hard to resist.

Health has to be firmly linked to combating the social determinants with all parties to health policy planning making a commitment to this as a part of their own culture of change.

Housing must reflect the way people want to live and put an end to the “over crowding” syndrome which simply means the house was not big enough from the outset.

Transport from remote communities must be subsidised to make it more affordable for Aboriginal people to visit the “new world”.

Urbanisation has to be explained so people whose ancestors lived a nomadic existence will understand the new rules, laws and customs that have to be adopted when living in a closed community setting.

Governance must be properly structured so each participant can utilise their own ability and interest and not forced into a management structure they have no understand of or a desire to learn.

Crime and imprisonment must be seen for what it should be and not a place for a relaxed and well fed holiday. Prisoners need rehabilitation and concentrated learning while in “Her Majesty’s custody” so that when released they come out as role models rather than looking for a way back inside.

It (the dominant culture) has taken away the old world and now has a responsibility to the people themselves to help them frame a new world which they help to design and not what the government wants for them. It is only when this new approach to improving life choices that family violence will be overcome.

Personal conflict stems from an overdose of MDD - Motivational Deficit Disorder - and can only be remedied by smart thinking and strategic planning towards a future where the rebuilding of social capital is seen as the way ahead and in itself create employment opportunities and a move to self esteem and pride in ones own community and lifestyle.

Much of the trouble is caused by people having too much time to think about nothing but themselves as they wile away the idle hours of the day. Jealousy, money arguments, gambling, use of drugs and alcohol all consume the scarce resources and leave little energy for improving the way people live.

The lack of an ability to read and use numbers immediately shuts a person out of a host of activities and turns them in the direction of personally appealing magazines and X-rated videos that put sex on the top of the list of exciting things to do. For the younger testosterone laden youths it is fighting and mimicking a violent culture portrayed in so many modern day videos and DVDs.

In the words of Gabriel Mistral, Chilean poet and 1945 Nobel Peace Prize for Literature winner: “Many things we need can wait, the child cannot. Now is the time his bones are being formed, his blood is being made, his mind is being developed. To him we cannot say tomorrow, his name is today.”

To the Aboriginal people of Australia and especially those living in remote communities in the north we must treat the situation with the urgency of a natural disaster, tsunami or disease pandemic. To them the future starts tomorrow - not at some distant time that suits the power players of today.

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About the Author

Rollo Manning is a consultant in Darwin to Aboriginal communities and organisations in health and social development.

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