Daring to lead

Towards the end of last year I observed letters to the editor and opinion pieces in national media that posed more questions than answers on the ongoing debate over Indigenous leadership. One thing that has become patently obvious to me is the palpable frustration in the tone of these recurring letters.

I too am equally bemused by the apparent dearth in leadership at the national level - that’s not to recoil from the tremendous work being done by committed Indigenous leaders at the local, regional and state level.

To many I guess the failure of our national elected body, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC), and the lack of credibility of its government appointed Indigenous successor, the National Indigenous Council (NIC), have only served to exacerbate the apparent national crisis.

But is it really a crisis of our own creation and are we becoming just a tad alarmist with our concerns?

From my standpoint I’m more inclined to think that Indigenous people, especially baby boomers who’ve had a close eye on the changing political fortunes in Indigenous affairs over many decades, have unintentionally developed an unhealthy fixation on matching any new face, that comes onto the national scene, against our charismatic leader of the past, Charlie Perkins.

Alas - we are not alone!

In chorus across the globe politically astute representatives of marginalised groups are also crying out for a Mahatma Ghandi, Martin Luther King Jr or a Nelson Mandela to step forward and lead them through their current crisis of leadership.

During my time recently in San Francisco and other parts of California I decided to probe into the leadership debate of the United States; especially within the Native American and African American groups.

When I enquired about Martin Luther King Jr I was constantly reminded I that I must first get acquainted with the story of the founding symbol of the civil rights movement, Rosa Parks; a black seamstress who refused to relinquish her seat to a white man on a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955.

On Montgomery buses back then, the first four rows were reserved for whites. The rear was for blacks, who made up more than 75 per cent of the bus system’s riders. Blacks could sit in the middle rows until those seats were needed by whites. Then the blacks had to move to seats in the rear, stand or, if there was no room, leave the bus. Even getting on the bus presented hurdles: if whites were already sitting in the front, blacks could board to pay the fare but then they had to disembark and re-enter through the rear door.

At a church rally soon after Ms Parks’ eviction from the bus and subsequent arrest, blacks unanimously agreed to boycott the buses until their demands were met: that they be treated with courtesy, that black drivers be hired, and that seating in the middle of the bus go on a first-come basis.

The boycott lasted 381 days, and in that period many blacks were harassed and arrested on flimsy excuses. Finally, on November 13, 1956, in Browder v Gayle, the Supreme Court outlawed segregation on buses.

The events that began on that Montgomery bus in the winter of 1955 captivated the nation and transformed a 26-year-old preacher named Martin Luther King Jr into a major civil rights leader.

The New York Times, October 25, 2005, paying tribute to Rosa Parks who died on the previous day (she was 92), quoted the Rev. Jessie Jackson with the following momentous words: “She sat down in order that we might stand up.”

Ten years after Rosa Parks wrote her name into the history books, a young Charlie Perkins rose to national prominence when he led the famous Freedom Ride, in February 1965, throughout western New South Wales to draw attention to the appalling level of racism experienced by Indigenous people.

Charlie’s impressive personal achievements in Indigenous politics, in addition to his outstanding success on and off the soccer field; being elected vice-president of FCAATSI (1961), becoming one of the first Indigenous persons to receive a university degree (Bachelor of Arts from the University of Sydney in 1964), helping establish the National Aboriginal Consultative Committee (NACC as adviser to Aboriginal Affairs Minister Gordon Bryant in 1972), appointed chairperson of the Aboriginal Development Commission (ADC in 1981) and first Indigenous Secretary of the Department of Aboriginal Affairs (DAA in 1984), have been a hard act to emulate by aspiring leaders.

And yes it is little wonder that comparisons are being made today between potential leaders and Charlie - I do it all the time.

During meetings with Native Americans, including high profile veteran actor Floyd “Red Crow” Westerman (of Dancing with Wolves fame) and Antonio Gonzales, International Indians Treaty Council, and Winona LaDuke, Vice-Presidential candidate for the Green Party in 1996 and 2000 and named by Times Magazine as one of America’s 50 most promising leaders under 40 years of age, I was presented with their aspirations for a better way of life for their people.

Like Indigenous Australians the struggle from unity and equity of Native Americans is made even more complicated through the sheer number of tribes and the tyranny of distance that hinders the bringing together of leaders to mount cohesive fronts against the government.

These fine leaders have been in the game for a long time and tell of their frustration of not being taken seriously by political figures and the media - but nevertheless their fight continues with varying degrees of success.

On the other hand a black leader that does not suffer the same problems, but rather to the contrary is celebrated by members of all political persuasions and who revels in the Hollywood-style media circus that follows him everywhere he goes and who can’t get enough of him, is Barack Obama.

Barack Obama, the son of a black African father from Kenya and a white American mother, is a lawyer and author of New York Times No 1 Bestseller books: Dreams from My Father - The story of race and inheritance and The Audacity of Hope - Thoughts of reclaiming the American Dream, and is widely tipped to be the first African American president after the next US presidential elections in 2008.

In a story in Newsweek, January 29, 2007, Joseph Lowery, a former chairman of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the organisation that Martin Luther King Jr led, argues that Obama’s history, or lack thereof in the civil rights movement, should not count against him. “As we move further and further into the new century, we are not going to always be able to have people running for high office who are directly connected to the civil-rights movement,” Lowery says.

Speaking in the same article Rev. Jesse Jackson, who also ran for president in 1984, commenting on Obama’s lack of involvement in black politics said that is all for the good as long as “civil-rights beneficiaries see their connection to the benefactors”.

In many important ways, however, Barack Obama is no Jesse Jackson - and that is a key to Obama’s political appeal. Whereas Jackson was a fully formed public figure - with all the baggage that entails - Obama is a work in progress who has the ability to embrace nearly whatever qualities he chooses.

As I flew back to Australia after a successful fortnight in the US, including addressing the prestigious Stanford University on my ongoing controversial campaign The N Word, I reflected on the leadership debate that consumed me before travelling abroad and have arrived, reluctantly I might add, at the following temperate conclusion: that the future national leader for Indigenous Australians will rise to the fore, like Barack Obama in the US, from outside the ranks of Indigenous households who have lived and breathed black politics all their lives.

I also suspect that this person, or persons, will have an impressive resume; outstanding academic and work history (Obama and his African American wife Michelle are both lawyers), and will have universal appeal to black and white audiences alike.

After I finished viewing Ten Canoes, the third movie on the 14-hour Qantas flight back to Australia, I closed my eyes and reflected on the appeal generated by Obama mania: front page stories in newspapers and lead news item on most political channels and implored that the rising black leader can in some way stay true to his people when he reaches the ultimate public office in the US.

I also anticipate that one day I will get to read a visionary statement from Obama and Australia’s future Indigenous leader, like the one my wife Rhonda and I read as we walked under the impressive Martin Luther King Jr Memorial waterfall feature at Union Square in San Francisco, made by the illustrious civil rights leader as follows:

I have the audacity to believe that people everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits. I believe that what self-centered men have torn down men other-centered can build up.