Antinuclear

Australia: Constitutional change will entrench dispossession of Aborigines

Settler colonialism is an ongoing process. The maintenance of the Australian nation as it exists today relies on the ongoing displacement and dispossession of aboriginal people from their lands and their cultures…..

 The proposed constitutional amendments will not solve this. By continuing to reiterate the idea that aboriginal culture is “ancient”, “traditional” and “part of our national heritage”, the proposed amendments help non-aboriginal Australians to forget not only the genocidal violence perpetrated by early settlers but also their own implication, as settlers on unceded land, in producing the conditions under which most aboriginal Australians live today. By constitutionalising aboriginal Australia in the past tense, this prosperous settler colony may simply take another step towards a future in which tribal dance ceremonies and ancient rituals are all anyone can remember….

Aboriginal Australians are part of the country’s present – not just its past, Guardian UK, 26 Jan 12,  It’s Australia Day, but proposed constitutional changes stressing ‘ancient’ aboriginal culture will not unite the country Australia celebrates Australia Day today, marking 224 years since the declaration of British sovereignty and the arrival of the first fleet of convict ships. Australia remains the only Commonwealth country not to have a treaty with its original owners, and although a treaty may have made little difference to the lives of aboriginal Australians, the celebration of Australia Day on unceded land makes many non-aboriginal Australians, myself included, feel highly uncomfortable…..

Along with the buildup to Australia Day, the nation’s headlines are also currently fluttering with a government proposal to recognise aboriginal people as the nation’s first occupants and remove racially discriminatory provisions in the constitution. With tentative bipartisan support, there is likely to be a referendum in the coming months to amend sections 25 and 51(xxxvi) of the constitution, which allow the government to disqualify particular races from voting, and to make special laws for people of any race. These sections were originally written in the late 1800s to ensure that particular areas and occupations remained out of reach for non-white Australians.

The proposal follows a report written by a government-appointed expert panel, which, although it included aboriginal leaders, was far from being a radical group. Within the opening pages of the report, the panel dismisses the question of aboriginal sovereignty on the basis that any such discussion would “jeopardise public support”. The public debate surrounding the report is one that is largely self-congratulatory in tone, affirming Australia’s image of itself as “the lucky country”, a peaceful, prosperous multicultural nation…..

like all settler colonies, Australia’s colonisation process did not end with the last of the British ships, nor even with the 1986 Australia Acts, which cut all remaining formal links between the British and Australian parliaments. Settler colonialism is an ongoing process. The maintenance of the Australian nation as it exists today relies on the ongoing displacement and dispossession of aboriginal people from their lands and their cultures…..

While the last prime minister formally apologised to aboriginal Australians for wrongs of the past in a highly televised ceremony four years ago, this supposed turning point in the nation’s race relations did not stop the government from pursuing its “emergency intervention” into aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory, sending in members of the Australian army to help compulsorily acquire aboriginal land, criminalise alcohol and pornography, and quarantine residents’ welfare payments. The obvious stigma and shame brought on aboriginal people because of the intervention were part of what led James Anaya, the UN’s special rapporteur on the situation of human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous peoples, to condemn the intervention as indicative of Australia’s “entrenched racism” against aboriginal people.

The proposed constitutional amendments will not solve this. By continuing to reiterate the idea that aboriginal culture is “ancient”, “traditional” and “part of our national heritage”, the proposed amendments help non-aboriginal Australians to forget not only the genocidal violence perpetrated by early settlers but also their own implication, as settlers on unceded land, in producing the conditions under which most aboriginal Australians live today. By constitutionalising aboriginal Australia in the past tense, this prosperous settler colony may simply take another step towards a future in which tribal dance ceremonies and ancient rituals are all anyone can remember…. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/26/aboriginal-australians-australia-day?newsfeed=true

January 27, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | aboriginal issues, AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL