An Aboriginal Christian's Perspective On Treaty, Sovereignty and Constitutional Recognition.

I find this a difficult discussion to take part in. I cringe when I hear the words “Christian perspectives” as if there is such a thing as a Christian view of kindness, justice and compassion that is necessarily preeminent to others. There is only one ethic in the New Testament and that is the all-consuming unconditional love for the other.

I struggle also when I find myself speaking on first nations issues as an individual who has had a privileged white education, who has been dispossessed of his culture and language, and who runs the risk of acting as colonially as those who now rule this land. Yes, I am a Wiradjuri man, but I have no inherent right to speak on behalf of that nation or any of the other sovereign nations now under colonial occupation.

Yet I do have the right to speak on behalf of my own people – ABMT – Aboriginal but not tribal (traditional). As a dispossessed person without connections to traditional language, culture and community I stand in a different place but not alone. My people are many and we are searching for a way to have a voice, to speak into this place but find ourselves impeded by both white and black culture. I receive letters questioning my aboriginality from white culture and I hear indigenous voices questioning it also. “A shame he’s not black.”

As a follower of the way of Christ – kindness, respect and compassion – love; I find myself unable to support constitutional recognition on the grounds that it continues the colonial project of assimilation and erasure. Indigenous people suffered genocide in my hometown with the last reported as being killed in 1876 according to one of the key exterminators, William Cox.

In Amos Oz’ book Judas, the two protagonists are discussing the relationship between Jews and Arabs and come to the conclusion, “The Arabs live with the disaster of their defeat, and the Jews with the dread of their vengeance.” It is a comment, that if we exchange the words appropriate to our situation holds true for the Australia in which we live, ““First Nations people live with the disaster of their defeat, and White Australia with the dread of their vengeance.”

As I child I learnt that white was good, black was not good. My father referred to anybody he deemed a good person as a white person regardless of whether they were white or not. Recently I officiated at a funeral in my hometown. A person who has known me all my life came up and said, “You’re blackfella’s young bloke, you’re young blackfella!.” 61 years later I still had no name, no place other than that of a nameless black fella.

Constitutional recognition enshrines such in the DNA of this country and gives credence to the stereotypes we read and hear each day. It erases any sense of being a real person with real rights. It erases from the national psyche the history of independent nations who have populated, governed and managed this land for 10’s of thousands of years. It continues to recognise these people only as the ‘previous custodians of this country”, if it recognises them at all, as I recently read on a plaque in a church school ground close to here.

As a follower of the way of Christ – kindness, respect and compassion – I support the process required to institute a treaty or a series of treaties acceptable to the sovereign first nations people. Note I have not said we need a treaty now. I have not and cannot advocate for such a thing until we fully understand and undertake the process required to do so. A treaty requires incarnational dialogue in order to overcome the ideologies, prejudices and deep trauma that stands in the way of constructing a workable relationship.

The model for this is breaking into the world of Jesus through which God became present in this world in order to empathise and dialogue with humanity in its own country. This took time, many centuries before God took such a step. It then took Jesus a lifetime to connect, challenge and dialogue with those around him. It has taken the Spirit of Christ many centuries to bring us to where we are to day. The Triune God has patience and we need to bring such patience to the task we face today.

If non-indigenous people are serious about working towards reconciliation then they must not be in a hurry. Simply saying sorry and popping us in the constitution may make you feel better but it doesn’t change much for us. We are still under occupation by a foreign government. To change that, even by a treaty, will require incarnational patience – sitting in the dirt and listening, not to answer or solve, but to hear, co-operate and get out of the way of the process. It begins with the first nations being given the opportunity to come together and agree on what such a treaty should look like. Not an easy task. It won’t happen quickly but it must precede any dialogue with the non-indigenous society. Then dialogue can begin in kindness, respect and compassion, allowing communication and action to reflect a mutual desire for reconciliation.

What about my people? What is their place in this world of exile, disconnect and generational trauma? What are we to do while we undergo this long process toward treaty and reconciliation?

Jeremiah, writing to those in exile in Babylon, provides a blueprint for action:

29:⁴ Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: ⁵ Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. ⁶ Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. ⁷ But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.”

We are in exile but in exile we are not powerless. We are to remain in charge of our own heritage, traditions and dreaming; we are to build up our mob while living off-country in another’s land. We are to seek wellbeing for those we live amongst, in doing so we ensure the well being of our own mob.

This is not giving in to a foreign culture but becoming proud of who we are and who we can become. We are to excel in another culture so we can lead our own people into excellence for their own sake. Instead of responding to stereotypes of politicians, media shock jocks and naysayers, let us celebrate the extraordinary achievement of communities and individuals as they address our issues and find ways to be world leaders in health, education, arts, sports or whatever they turn their hand to. Let us ignore the temptation to blame, hate or attribute guilt to others. Let us avoid the temptation to play the victim.

Jeremiah reminds the exiles that right will win in the end, even though the end may take a long time (the meaning of the word 70), it will come.

^{“ 10} For thus says the Lord: Only when Babylon’s seventy years are completed will I visit you, and I will fulfil to you my promise and bring you back to this place. ¹¹ For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.”

 Our people have a long and proud history, one that is still being made. It has not finished. A treaty will be accomplished but let us not allow the desire for such or the push by others for it and/or constitutional recognition prevent us from flourishing now and remaining sovereign in our own being. Let us get on with the business of building pride, respect and community within our mob so there can be no option but a treaty.

Fenced In, Fenced Out – An Australian Exile

 

 

 Thomas Merton, the American Catholic writer suggests that the only journey a human being takes is the inner journey, a journey paradoxically away from and into the world. It is a journey that can be found in exile, a journey into fullness of personhood and being and way from the superficiality of definitions, cultures and propaganda. It is only those who fully engage in this exile who discover themselves, discover others and discover the Other.

 

Our path as people is signposted by the steps we take, often timidly and stuttering, more often accidental and coincidental, towards the fullness of being. For Merton, striving towards being a full alive person involves the struggle of being disconnected and isolated from the custom and conventions of mass existence.

 

For a few moments today we are going to explore exile as the means to transcendence, as the necessary school from which we have the possibility, if we are brave enough, to transcend what we have been told about ourselves and to reimagine a new and ever changing identity, personally and culturally. In particular I will suggest this is vital for those of us who identify as Aboriginal and strive to find our place in a world where our existence has been defined for us by others.

 

Driving through south-western Victoria recently, I became aware, in a way I had not been before, of Australia as a fenced country. Ownership of the land is defined and marked out by fences, fences of all types, stone and rock, wood and wire, roads and rivers. It occurred to me that fences are not only physical but are the stories we tell ourselves about who we are, where we came from, who shares our stories and who we will allow to do so now and in the future. Fences about where we place people in the geography of our country, the value we place upon them in our economy and the lingering presence of past definitions and practices.

 

Fences, in reality define who is a person, a subject in our national psyche, and who is an object, to be discarded and devalued, less than human.

 

Aboriginal people find themselves fenced in and fenced out by the definitions of others and, surprisingly, by using the same definitions as a means to protect and fence in their own sense of being, employing the very definitions of colour, behaviour and heritage the dominant powers have used over the last 200+ years.

 

I grew up in a town known for its violence against local tribes. Visiting the library, reading newspaper cuttings and letters from the mid 1880’s to the early 1920’s, I realised the steps taken by my family to hide my grandmothers’ heritage was a strategy deemed necessary for survival.

 

My grandfather made my Uncle promise to keep my grandmothers indigenous heritage hidden. No one in my family speaks of it; her background is shrouded in mystery. There is only a mother who registered the birth some time later in a different town. No father is mentioned. She had the name of the family she was left with when the small aboriginal community from which Jimmy and Joey Governor, part-aboriginal men who killed 9 people during a fourteen week rampage in 1900, the year prior to federation, and who inspired the book and movie “The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith” came, were forcibly moved out west at the request of the white community. 

 

While it was our family secret, it wasn’t a secret to the locals. I grew up known as ‘Young Darkie’ or ‘Young Blackfella’; my friend, when angry, called me the son of a drunken bush black; another friends’ father told a group of classmates they could be friends with me but to remember where I came from. Bullying at school was never-ending.

 

My father lived in exile, caught between a world he knew and a world he never knew, growing more bitter and angry as the years went on. He acted out his violence through alcohol, directing it at anyone nearby, particularly his family and I as his eldest son. He was never able to reconcile within himself these two worlds even when he stopped drinking. It was bigger than him and his family. It was the internalised oppression of a people and country from which he was exiled.

 

These incidents are metaphors for the destruction of the primal spiritual essence of our people and symbolise the battle for the soul of our nation. Our people are suffering from the cumulative effect of internalised oppression giving rise to the situation we see in front of us. It will take imagination, humility and a drastic rethinking of our own lives and the way we find value and meaning in and for ourselves, and others before we will be able to reach out to those we continue to oppress. They, we, are living in exile.

 

Perhaps exile holds the key for the future. ‘Only when you are out of rhythm with the familiar do you begin to investigate and explore the possibilities. Exile is the place in which such an investigation not only can begin, but becomes necessary for both survival and renewal. It is the place where one is forced, as an individual and a community, to reflect on who or what is at the centre of one’s being.’ Both cultures are disconnected from their centre due to the violent history of our country, and in a very real sense, both black and white, are exiled from belonging. Homeless and exiled, the violence continues and can only find peace when we own such disconnection together.

 

My sense of exile has continued. A couple of months ago I went back to Mudgee and took the funeral of my mother’s best friend.

 

After the service, outside, a man came up to me and asked, ‘Your Blackfella’s young bloke, aren’t you? Your Young Blackfella!” Now this man had known me since I was born and nowhere in the conversation that followed was I referred to by name. Here I am, at 61 years of age, dressed in Anglican priests robes undertaking an English ritual, and I was still Young Blackfella with no name.

 

Exile is a place of fences, definitions and cultural stereotypes yet is, I suggest, the most powerful place to be. We have been, continue to be and, indeed have appropriated these fences for our own purposes in such a way that only a radical rethinking can move us beyond the stagnation within the politics of aboriginal identity we now experience.

 

Carson in her book on the Politics of Identity outlines the processes which have lead to the three proofs of identity for anyone wishing to be understood as aboriginal: the proof of self identifying, community acceptance and a provable history. In the devolution of power to communities from Governments this bureaucratic definition now is enforced by aboriginal communities for a range of reasons. It is not simply sufficient to know whom you are, you must prove it and you must prove it according to an imposed definition, a definition I would not be able to fulfil, nor would I bother to try.

 

This is exile. This is the place of no belonging. This is the place many of us find ourselves. Our choices of responses range from despair to anger to hope to transcendence. And it is our choice. We may be defined out of the existence by others, but we alone can define our existence for ourselves. Exile challenges us to rise above the fences that dot our lives and our history and to begin to live lives of transcendence.

 

As I have noted elsewhere: Exile can be both the end and the beginning. The end as it symbolises the loss of what we had; the beginning because it asks of us questions we would otherwise never have confronted. What is important? Who am I? What is my identity? Where do I belong? Where am at home? Is where I am now where I am to be forever or is this beginning of something different and new?

Exile has the power to unbalance, challenge, empower and transform… 

 

What is it for me? When I began to identify as an aboriginal person I sought to know about my country,  heritage and  culture as most people in my situation seem to do. I soon discovered society, white and black, reacted with a scepticism requiring proof, a proof I could not give beyond the statement, I am aboriginal. The first time I told my story was to a group of aboriginal and islander people at an Anglican conference. Half through my talk I became very ill and spent 10 minutes throwing up in the toilet. When I came back, one of the group commented, ‘You are free now, you will make our people proud.’ It was defining moment for me. I no longer needed to grasp at the proofs of identity or traditional aboriginal culture. I am sufficient as I am.

 

Like Thomas Merton, when he came face to face with the sleeping Buddhas at Polunaruwa I was able to explain, “I have found what I was (unknowingly) looking for.’ The sense of being without need to prove my existence, of belong to the two different societies I found myself in exile from.

 

Exile is the place we discover we are sufficient as we are. It is here we are offered capacity and resources to speak from our centre and to imagine a new place for our people and ourselves. It is important to remember exile is not just about indigenous people being exiled from country and the dominant culture but about indigenous and non-indigenous people who are exiled from their own culture and country by their own people. It is bigger than us and needs to be understood from that point of view.

• In exile we are able to ask the questions we have no need of if we are inside.
• In exile we are able to discard the simple answers to complex problems and remain alone with the questions.
• In exile we find ourselves letting go of definitions, culture and practices that are no longer useful in a world outside or beyond the fences.
• In exile we find ourselves in relationship with others whom we would have not met or discovered on the inside, our fences would have kept us a part.
• In exile we discover how little of what we thought was important actually is and we begin to connect to what remains – the essential unity with all creation and created beings.
• In exile we do not struggle and fight for existence, we recognise our existence as a gift and celebrate it in simply being who we are; we do not need to be recognised to be real. 

Exile is the separation of people from what makes them human, from what allows them to act as self-directing persons responsible for finding meaning and purpose in their way of life. Exile places people in an uneven relationship with others and with their land. They are no longer equals but are subservient, powerless and becalmed in a world that is foreign to them. This is a world in which they are told what is acceptable or unacceptable for them by others and these others include their own people as well as those of the dominant culture.

 

For indigenous people this happens on two levels. Indigenous culture restrains people to live and act out of a sense of tradition while western culture coerces people to leave behind traditional culture and become white. Both approaches produce exile. One use tradition as a means of control, dictating what is acceptable for a person who identifies as indigenous, the other uses consumerism and integration as the means to make good corporate citizens of people who otherwise maybe happy sitting down on their land.

 

Peoples' understanding of indigenous matters are coloured (no pun intended) by the duality of who is in and who is out in society, by what is acceptable for one group of people and not for another. Our society is defined by the idea of exile, the idea that one group of people has to be disinherited of country so another can inhabit it, and in so doing the former is regarded as less than human, not a person(s) but someone who is an object to be moved, helped, guided, restrained and told where they should live, what they should do and how they should behave.

 

There is a third way. Allow people to be persons able to make decisions for themselves about how they live, where they live and what they do, whether they buy into the western consumer myth, retain a more traditional way of being or live somewhere in between. Being a person is not about a being an individual but about not succumbing to the stereotype of the masses. Meaning, we are not to fall into line with the mass of individuals who are all doing the same thing.

 

The challenge here, as for aboriginal communities and those who define aboriginality at all levels, is that today many of us are different. We live outside of community, have not been initiated in culture and have no immediate kin. We no longer fit the definitions and don’t want to. We are proud of who we are, we remember our ancestors, we touch their stories, feel their presence but we no longer fit the places people want us to live in.

 

We have, or are in the process of, transcendence, rewriting our story in a new language, with a different culture and a new mob, who like us simply don’t fit the boxes others have made for us.

 

Let me finish:

Received a letter addressed to me. Signed but no return address. The writer asked why I, as a Wiradjuri man (adding if I am a Wiradjuri man) was living and working in Glen Iris and not amongst my own people in Redfern. Now I am not sure how many Wiradjuri live in Redfern, or if there are in fact any at all, and I am not sure why it is the expectation of the writer that I be there for them, but apparently living and working in a perceived wealthy white community brings my identity and my commitment to indigenous people into question.

 

This is not an attempt at validating my place in the world. I will work in the communities I decide to work in and I will bring my indigenous sensibilities to that place. That is the freedom all people should have. To live and work where they want to, even indigenous people.

 

Apparently by living and working in this place I am not being a strong leader or an example to indigenous people. I would have thought it is exactly what I am doing. Showing that it is possible to succeed in modern Australia and educating the communities in which we work and live about indigenous culture and history.

 

Thomas Merton reminds us that if we love (treat others as equal) only those who agree to live in the way we wish then we do not love them for being who they are but only for the reflection of ourselves we see in them. This third way requires we love others, allow them to be, authentically themselves and not how we wish them to be. This applies equally to those in their own communities as well as those in the dominant cultures who wish to set the boundaries of what is acceptable or not, of who is in and who is out.

 

To answer my anonymous correspondent, indigenous people are capable of deciding where they live, how they live and how to model their deep and powerful indigenous sense of self and the innate sensibilities that go with it. They can do this in remote communities, in urban housing estates, in wealthy suburbs or in parliament house. There are no limitations if we allow each other to be true to the real self. THANK YOU.

A Conflict of Perspectives - Mark 3

 

Mark 3:20-35

 

 

Growing up I was surrounded by comic books. The superheroes of Marvell and DC comics invited me into a world of intrigue, battling the evil forces and finding incredible ways to ensure that the right would win. Back then I failed to understand the underlying message about what the right was and where it came from.

 

It was essentially white, western and empire. Life, truth and heroes were white, male, western and predominantly physical. There was little room for women in these stories!  People of other nationalities and race, were the baddies or, at best, companions of the good guys.

 

The comic book genre tells stories quickly, without extraneous detail and stays true to the agenda of the writer. There is little chance of the message being lost on the reader who is scanning the fast-paced frames of dialogue and action.

 

Mark is the comic book style writer of the Gospel writers. John spells out the detail of his Gospel, referencing the Jewish mystics and developing a thesis of who Jesus is and how we encounter him. Matthew and Luke have particular audiences and needs to address. Matthew deals with why the ‘church’ slowly moved away from the synagogue, having lost the battle for the Jewish religious mind.

 

Mark focuses on telling us who Jesus is and what his relationship is with the Divine, why he fits the bill as the Messiah, God’s Anointed.  He links together specially selected stories or pericopes to make his biography of Jesus plain and understandable. His pen pictures are bare of detail. He adds little other than what is necessary. He writes in bullet points more suited for a TED talk or a short presentation, not in academic prose.

 

Todays story fits at the end of a section we could entitle -  “A Conflict of Perspective”. In this section Jesus runs into conflict with the scribes and religious leaders over his healing of the sick, casting out of demons, and food and Sabbath ethics. His views and practice places him at odds with tradition with a power and authority hitherto not seen. He is the Messiah because he is so different, authoritative and free to be human, he could not be anyone else.

 

Mark’s thesis is either not obvious or so obvious it has to be refuted because the implications mean dismantling long held traditions, ideas and ways of practicing faith. It will dismantle the economy and political power revolving around the synagogue cult and leave them marooned, without the solid tradition they relied upon. Protecting what they already have they pronounce Jesus is of the devil, “he has an unclean spirit.” Jesus punches holes in that argument with logic their rational minds cannot defend against. “If I am of the devil how come I am casting out fellow demons? That doesn’t make sense.” And it doesn’t and they know it.

 

To try and prove their point they involve Jesus’ family, who I am sure, were confused and concerned for their son and brother. The crowds, the unending workload, the incessant interruptions and the obvious antagonistic authorities were enough to make them concerned. They came to take him away and give him some space but became involved in the rhetoric of the deniers.

 

Jesus responds with another pronouncement sure to set him apart as a rabble-rouser and troublemaker. He steps all over the traditional family ethic extending family to include all who lives and does as he does. It is no longer about family, tribes and a special people. All who take up his call for freedom, love and life are included in the kingdom of God.

 

Today we are faced with an avalanche of conflict challenging tradition and ideology. Climate change, same sex relationship recognition, refugees and boat people, child abuse, reconciliation and recognition of first peoples in the constitution, aged care and more. The need to address these is being espoused by voices and people who we would not necessarily include as speaking on behalf of God. Yet the Spirit of God is at work, using those who are willing to continue Jesus’ mission of freedom, love and life.

 

The recognition of love and fidelity instead of the restrictions presently placed on untraditional relationships is one example of the Spirit at work. Recently  read of a same-sex couple who were father and son but are now husband and husband. Sounds odd, but to get recognition for their multi-decade relationship in terms of estate planning one had to adopt the other as the state didn’t recognise same sex couples. Now it’s possible. So it should be.

 

In the last week or so we had the controversy caused by former Australian of the Year Adam Goodes’ war dance celebration after scoring a goal. It was deemed too confronting and challenging to both the footy fans present and to our nation. At the same time aboriginal communities are being closed down and peoples income quarantined with little protest. The Guardian newspaper reports on 3 remote communities in WA which are close together and only the 2 aboriginal communities are being considered to be closed down[1]. On Q&A one participant said the treatment of indigenous people is no different to the teasing someone with red hair gets! Really?

 

I have a question. Why are we so ready to accept same-sex marriages, and we are unable to embrace cultures different to us in faith and skin colour? Is it because same-sex marriage is an affluent, predominately white question in sync with our consumer culture of entitlement? Wednesday’s Age has an article that suggests legalization of same sex marriage is worth $1.2billion stimulus to the economy. Should that be a consideration?

 

Now, before people throw things at me, I support the move for recognition and equality, and it must occur sooner than later. But it must be driven by our desire for mission of freedom, love and life. In other words to overturn injustice not, for example, for economic benefits.

There are other issues to deal with, issues we have denied and ignored, such as indigenous reconciliation and recognition in this country for over 200 years; the treatment of refugees; the treatment of the elderly; and the abandonment of the victims of child abuse.

 

A few years ago I stood next to a young aboriginal boy in a Brisbane police station accused of a crime he did not commit. A couple of years earlier he was found filling up a tub with bleach and sitting in it. He no longer wanted to be black; he wanted to be like everyone else, white. At the same time, in Mt Isa, aboriginal young people were committing suicide by simply tying something around their necks to a fence and sitting down, waiting to die.

 

Our society’s response to quarantine income, take children from their families at a greater rate than ever[1], incarcerate Aboriginals at 11 times that of non-indigenous people[2] and close down remote communities, suggests colour and race still hinders the mission of Jesus for freedom, love and life in this country.

 

Thomas Merton suggests the way of Christ (nonviolent action which took him to the Cross) ‘is the most exacting of all forms of struggle,….because it excludes mere transient self-interest from it’s considerations….the one who practices (the way of Christ – nonviolent action) must commit themselves not to the defense of his/her own interest or even those of a particular group: he/she must commit themselves to the defence of objective truth and right and above all, of humanity’[3]

 

Mark’s comic ends this episode with Jesus widening the net on inclusion with - “Who are my mother and my brothers?” ³⁴And looking at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! ³⁵Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”

 

Are we, and is our church, local and universal, listening to the movement of the Spirit and responding in such a way that we can claim to be walking in the way of Christ? Or do we still have some work to do?

 

John Dear, in his excellent book ‘Thomas Merton, Peacemaker’ suggests our work should look like this:

 

Shout very loud about God’s will, God’s truth, God’s justice. State facts quietly and tell the truth quietly and patiently. Don’t be discouraged. Don’t get too frustrated. …. Lay the groundwork for a deep change of heart. Give an example of sanity, independence, integrity, good sense, as well as Christian love and wisdom.

 

Amen

 

 

 

[1] http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-26/stolen-generation-with-aboriginal-children-in-care-nt/5478898 

[2] Between 2003 and 2013, the Aboriginal rate of incarceration has soared 11 times faster than the non-Aboriginal rate. Prison rates for Aboriginal women have increased by a third between 2002 and 2007, and the number of Aboriginal men by one-fifth [4], while police custodial rates remain as high as before.

Source: http://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/law/royal-commission-into-aboriginal-deaths-in-custody#ixzz3brcHudUy

[3] Thomas Merton, Blessed are the meek’

 

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[1] http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/mar/11/of-three-remote-communities-here-why-are-only-the-two-aboriginal-ones-under-threat