NT ABORIGINES AND MODERN COLONIALISM
For 230 years, the Australian Government has forced Aborigines to negotiate their survival in a foreign language... English.
This has been central to a deliberate assimilation policy, which has forced indigenous people to adopt English for mainstream communication, including education and employment; to the detriment of their own many languages.
As their languages declined, so too did their culture, which included such imperatives as family structure and integrity, personal and clan identification with their land and Songlines, and motivation and morale.
Yet in Northern Territory Aboriginal communities, which are invariably hundreds of kilometers from urban towns, there is no compelling reason to speak English. All tasks and interactions can be engaged through local languages. Many progressive Europeans now recognise this and learn local languages but, unfortunately, not in sufficient numbers to reduce the impact of government policy.
In the NT, this forced cultural assimilation policy has been resisted, with 90% of Territory Aborigines still retaining their own languages. But the daily pressure to be assimilated and to conform is unrelenting, as this document reveals.
Government refusal to recognise local Aboriginal languages has other impacts: It guarantees their social, economic and political marginalisation; and with ensuing cross-cultural confusion creates feelings of profound powerlessness. The resultant despair forces some people to self-anesthetise with alcohol and other forms of substance abuse.
With the forced introduction of local government shires, alienation has been compounded and intensified, massively transferring jobs to outsiders.
More pervasively, because English language vocabulary is extremely limited, and what word-range is known is widely misunderstood. As a result, public health, education, and economic development initiatives rarely penetrate Aboriginal consciousness.
The tragic result is widespread illness from diabetes, scabies/Rheumatic Heart Disease, obesity, malnutrition, food toxicity, and cancers... a terminal sickness epidemic which should rightly be described as Genocide by Government's refusal to communicate in a common language.
A position paper
by Tony Ryan
Indigenous Australians living in the Northern Territory, 90% of whom speak Aboriginal languages and very little English, have little or no idea what has been said to them by representatives of government. This is the primary reason very few government remedial or developmental programmes have ever been successful.
The only significant beneficiaries of the billions of dollars expended on these programmes and services are: public servants, consultants, school teachers, nurses, doctors, builders, social workers, lawyers, anthropologists, missionaries, advisers, and other dubious service providers.
Both the Federal and NT Governments are equally culpable in this cynical exercise in exploitation, fraud, and colonial repression.
Moreover, regardless of the nature of whatever government programme is launched... health-education or health services, education or employment... all incorporate cultural impositions, which damage their unique social structure and even the cohesion of families. This is because absence of common language blinds government liaison workers to the sheer inappropriateness of their interventions. Few Australians appreciate how this occurs.
For example: although education is regarded by westerners as an entirely positive and necessary development, school teachers have rendered traditional indigenous mentor/educators (uncles and grandmothers) dispensable. And because the uncle/mentor/educator role was intergenerationally reciprocal (ie the eventually adult protege then owed his uncle/mentor sustenance in his old age), white schoolteachers have entirely eliminated this ancient and economical indigenous social security system in one fell swoop.
Meanwhile, white community health clinic nurses replaced old people as the rightful dispensers of healing and remedies. Moreover, because these white nurses tend to be very young, the unfortunate impression created was that knowledge and wisdom are not valued by western people and, to add insult to injury, "silly young white girls" were foisted on Aborigines when they became sick or injured.
This and myriad other social injuries could have been avoided had Aboriginal languages been learned by government liaison personnel.
Ergo, this is cultural colonialism, seamlessly advanced in the transition from British Empire, unhindered by 1901 Federalism or the more recent pseudo-rights movements. Traditional Aborigines have been locked into a communication prison, denied access to any national conversation.
As the council members of Goulburn Island put it to me some years ago, “We have received 60 delegations from government departments so far this year. We politely said yes to whatever it was they said but we still have no idea what they were talking about”.
This was and is a total communication barrier... entirely due to absence of a common language.
'Aboriginal rights' means nothing if you have no means of talking to government or to other Australians. Because People Power is the only pressure which will force government to address reality, every Australian needs to understand how this isolation was created and perpetuated.
This complete story is delivered here for the first time in.
Nevertheless, the role of a handful of Australians in promoting active recognition of surviving Aboriginal languages is gratefully acknowledged, but the entire contextual argument as this applies to the cultural delta of Centre/Kimberly/Arnhem is critical in forcing change because politicians and public servants believe Aboriginal languages are superfluous and destined to die out naturally, therefore "investment in languages cannot be justified fiscally"... they say.
Obviously, wider understanding of Aboriginal language use is pivotal in this campaign for political enfranchisement and establishment of economic equal opportunity. What follows are some insights into:
These latter conditions are the immediate causal factors which precipitate substance abuse, gambling, nihilism, domestic violence, and suicide. Currently, governments treat these as a succession of unrelated vertical outcomes rather than recognise and remedy the fundamental root causes.
What we have now is band-aid treatment at its worst: highlighted by innumerable English language TV advertisements urging Aborigines not to be angry, not to fight, not to eat bad foods, not to drink and drive, not to litter... which are understood only by the acculturated urban Aboriginal people who so profitably create these futile PR campaigns.
As we shall see, all remedial or educative messages must be delivered in person, in local languages, through culture, and repeatedly.
Traditional Aboriginal language development within the community
To understand the vast gulf which exists between traditional (tribal) Indigenous people and the rest of Australia, we need to appreciate their view of the world and how much it differs from our own...
The world through Aboriginal eyes
A central tenet of traditional Aboriginal culture is the division of all things in the universe into two distinct structures, described by anthropologists as Moieties (pronounced moy-et-ees), known in NE Arnhem Land as Yirritja and Dhuwa. Every language group belongs to one of these moieties and a person can only marry into the opposite moiety (which, buy the way, means everybody marries a person of a different language).
In this region, historically, there are seven distinct major languages, with most people speaking at least two or three. Older people speak several. But, just to confuse observers, due to bilingual education programmes, there has been considerable blending and overlapping of languages in recent decades, encouraging non-Aboriginal residents to refer to this as a single language, Yolngu matha, a homogenisation which is a denial of all-important language group identity. (The word yolngu means 'people', and matha is the word for 'tongue'. Over time, the word Yolngu (Pronunced Yol-ngu) has come to mean Aboriginal). (This homogenisation is the unintended consequence of simplistic meddling by immature school teachers).
The moieties are divided into eight other named sub groups, known to westerners as sub-sections, but to Yolngu people as Malk. These are also co-regulated by Relationship Laws, known as Gurrutu. Thus every person is referred to as of family... uncle, sister, mother, grandmother, father of father, brother of mother-in-law, and so on. Each of these relationships is regulated by very strict rules of respect, reciprocity, support, obligation, avoidance, and even humour. Superimposed on these is totem, spirit birthplace (usually denoted by personal name), and Songlines. All of these are also expressed through mores, rules and conventions, as in all cultures.
The comparative sophistication of Australian Aboriginal culture is rarely appreciated. For example: although Aborigines had for many millennia recognised that universal structure constitutes two eternally opposing yet counter-balancing forces (Yirritja and Dhuwa), coded by us today as + and -, it took the Chinese until 3500 years ago to achieve the same understanding, which they named Yin and Yang, but only Aborigines were successful in merging their entire society to seamlessly accommodate this intuited natural reality.
For its part, the Western world clicked to the positive/negative balance only two hundred years ago but has been unable to adapt socially. So, we might well ask, just whose was the advanced culture and whose was primitive?
This inevitable realisation of philosophical status reversal provokes some soul searching. The evidential truth is that the western overview of itself is entirely delusional, a product of five hundred years of colonialism and our indoctrination from birth that we are innately and racially superior. When confronting another culture we need to acknowledge this blindness if we are to hope for cross-cultural enlightenment.
The real-world western culture
We routinely assure people of "primitive cultures" that:
We say we value friendship, yet when we meet a stranger we stare provocatively into his eyes and aggressively shake his hand. Only Germanic and post-colonial Keltic/Gaelic cultures behave in such a confrontational manner. The vast majority of ethnic groups on this planet are aghast at our behavior; and I am referring here not only to other humans, but to all mammals. Incredibly, it took an American horse-whisperer to realise this.
Aboriginal first-meeting protocols, similar to those of south Asia, Africa and elsewhere, are complex and designed to avoid any conflict whatsoever, and to promote harmony thereafter. In all older cultures, even greetings are designed to avoid conflict.
With traditional Aboriginal life regulated by complex and sophisticated protocols and rules, it may readily be appreciated why western rules and protocols are regarded as peripheral at best, and at worst, irrelevant. Now, overlay this with a language, English, which possesses few words which can convey equivalent Aboriginal values, and one begins to glimpse the enormity of the gulf that separates us.
To resolve this impasse, language democratisation is the most urgent and central remedial measure available to us.
The role of English language in remote areas NT
For tribal Aboriginal people, English is a fifth or even seventh language but the meanings of English words as spoken by Aborigines are heavily shaded and nuanced by Aboriginal culture, which means the meanings are significantly different to that understood by native English speakers. Few white people appreciate the complexity and pervasiveness of this obstacle, and conversations between the two cultures are like conversations across parallel universes, with both parties coming away with entirely different impressions of what has been said.
This absurd parody of cross-cultural communication is played out many times daily throughout the NT with few participants realising the true extent of confusion.
Government relies on Aboriginal interpreters but this requires, not only precise knowledge of both languages, but of both cultures. Currently, and ignoring untested claims, nobody in the NT has this qualification, which means (for example) that such important legal principles as informed consent are impossible. This has vast implications for medical treatments, legal contracts, consumer advocacy, and comprehension of rights, including human rights.
There is a common perception that anybody who speaks a language automatically understands the culture associated with that language. How incorrect this is can be demonstrated by asking any mainstream Australians to describe their own culture. Almost nothing of what they say will not be contradicted by hard evidence. Many Australians believe they have no culture, a belief which has confused four million immigrants, who immediately perceive just how untrue this is. Yet any Aborigine who speaks English is expected to comprehend western culture AND Aboriginal culture which, in the urban setting, is rarely the case.
The reader may by now be developing some insight into the complexity of the interface between different languages and cultures (which casts a critical light on the infantile Policy of Multiculturalism; which, by the way, did not emerge spontaneously from the Australian electorate, but by direct demand of the United Nations in 1978). No such ethic existed prior to this.
But back to Aboriginal languages; there are some seventy or so in the NT.
Clearly, language takes on a very different significance in traditional Aboriginal life. We need to better understand the role of these languages...
Language development in Aboriginal society
In the north of Australia, until around 1975, young Aboriginal children routinely learned the language of their mother. By age 9 or 10, or after circumcision ceremony (Dhapi), they began to learn the language of their father. In the ensuing years they became proficient in other local languages. As testament to endemic intelligence, by adulthood English was a third or fourth language.
Up until the mid 1970s, it was not unusual to encounter older indigenous Australians who were also fluent in Japanese and Indonesian. Manifestly, Aboriginal linguistic ability is not an issue yet, in stark contrast, few non-migrant Australians are able to speak a second language, let alone an Aboriginal language.
The logic is clearly undeniable yet is routinely denied, that in these rural and remote parts of northern Australia, where Aborigines outnumber other Australians by forty to one, it is the obvious responsibility of government to defer to the democratic majority means of communication.
This right is formally acknowledged by the United Nations Charter on Human Rights; Rights of Indigenous Peoples; to which the Australian Government is a signatory but for which application is cynically ignored.
Even when government is forced to acknowledge this pivotal human right, as always, bureaucrats seek effort-minimising compromise, even when this is clearly counter-productive, and more especially so with the officially recognised compromise language pidgin.
From adults, and even in some schools, but mostly from out and about, children pick up pidgin, which is essentially Aboriginalised English combined with an average of one Aboriginal language derivative per 17 English-derived words (ref Dept Com Dev Bamyili/Burunga files, 1979).
Over the past three decades, hopelessly monolingual linguists have developed unlikely
careers by institutionalising pidgin into what they have dubbed “Kreole”... a shallow
Americanisation which is also a serious developmental error considering that pidgin is not linked to indigenous culture in any way and is hopeless as a means of cross-cultural communication.
It gets worse...
With her signature incisive analytical ability, top NT Aboriginal interpreter, Nadyezhda Dilipuma Pozzana (AKA Wulanayngu Dhamarrandji) put it so succinctly, "Kreole is not an Aboriginal language but an English dialect".
“Kreole” actively erodes indigenous culture. As language and culture erodes, so too does the fabric
of social cohesion, spiritual activity, family identity, clarity of thought process and personal
self-esteem.
Pidgin/kreole also cuts the user off from Songlines, which are essential for cultural integrity and survival. Thus, for each clan which slides into use of pidgin, the means of conducting funerals and other ceremonies, evaporates. This has been the sad fate of people in Ngukurr, Kakadu, Kenbi, and even Burunga. This happened in eastern, southern and south western Australia more than a century ago and these people are without language and culture, regardless of how they now posture otherwise to exploit upper-middle class gullibility.
Bilingual education
As if this onslaught on Aboriginal languages were not enough, the NT's Department of
Education bilingual programmes have further devastated natural intra-family language
development. While bilingual programmes make sense in Homelands (where one language dominates), and in bilingual communities (ie Bathurst and Melville Islands; Groote Eylandt; and Yuendumu, it does not work in multilingual communities; which describes all other NT communities.
Most NT Aboriginal communities support four to seven local languages... plus Aboriginal-recreated English. If one indigenous language is chosen for use in school this is to the detriment of all other local Aboriginal languages, and English. Worse, children become confused about the role of language across moieties and of traditional language choice protocols (which have almost died out). According to reports, in Yirrkala Primary School, white teachers have adopted baby language as the school lingua franca (Dhuwaya). The rationale for this has yet to be explained. (We hope this report is incorrect and we will update this situation as soon as possible).
It needs to be firmly understood by governments and by white school teachers that local Aboriginal language and culture can best be learned at home and on family Homelands where context is regulated and appropriate; but formal education for future mainstream employment and wider Australian interaction must be in English.
Currently, fluent English language proficiency is almost non-existent although it was widespread in missionary times. School teachers please note. (This was, by the way, the identical observation of the late MLA Wesley Lanhupuy, himself one of the best-educated and globally-traveled NT Aborigines).
These principles are relevant to all government communication with Aboriginal communities, which must at the very least engage the local lingua franca but, preferably, the listener's own first language.
It is at this point that anthropologists, ethnologists, public servants and politicians try to pontificate with world-weary knowledgeability that with 83 languages and dialects in the NT relevant language use is
impossible and impractical.
However, the quoted figure of 83 is four decades old and pedantically included languages spoken by a single person and now long since extinct. Arbitrarily, there are some thirty to forty major languages commonly spoken in the NT and some 26 regional lingua franca.
There are hundreds of competent Territorians who speak at least one of these, plus reasonably sophisticated English. Personally, I consider that if I, with no special abilities or skills, can learn Aboriginal languages so too can every school teacher, nurse, and government community liaison worker.
There is no valid logistical reason why NT government consultation cannot be in local languages, especially if relay volunteers are used to translate from one local Aboriginal language to another. It happens informally, on a daily basis. Government communication with indigenous Territorians does not occur in their first languages simply because of white colonial attitudes and an entrenched belief in European cultural superiority, and from opposition from urban Aborigines who speak only English and who are devoid of Aboriginal cultural knowledge. The latter group have fraudulently secured employment in government liaison roles for which they are entirely unqualified and incompetent. The harm they inflict is monumental.
Australia needs to confront the ugly truth: Public servants, politicians, and anthropologists do not want to learn Aboriginal languages because they do not care enough about the future of Aboriginal people to make the effort, and because they do not want to diminish their power base by delegating to others.
In the wider community, which includes many of these public servants, there is also lingering resentment over restrictions to enter NT Aboriginal land, which has alienated generations of keen anglers and campers now locked out of former favourite fishing holes. This latter is not the fault of Aborigines but of the power-abusing Northern Land Council; itself colonial and imperial in outlook and the product of a global investment banker intervention into the Law Reform Commission in the mid-1970s, specifically to ensure control of Aboriginal land remained in the hands of a western-based hierarchy instead of the traditional Aboriginal consensus system as promised.
Not only must government adopt less flagrantly racist practices, NT Aboriginal languages must be reinvigorated to enhance the social cohesion and personal identity-based motivation that is critical for ongoing social and economic development.
It may hasten reform in this regard if it is realised that certain European universities are contemplating a globally-based stripping of Australian anthropology degrees, because failure to demonstrate linguistic proficiency prior to investigative intervention in the said culture is a serious breach of ethics, they say.
So too is the fabrication of culture to expedite certain land claims (ie Kenbi). Both of these breaches invite litigation and, possibly, prison sentences for anthropologists, ethnologists, lawyers and commissioners who have so abused the power entrusted to them.
Conclusion: What must surely be obvious to any even-minded person, is that government must move to break the language-barrier deadlock.
We can anticipate howls of derision from small-minded and perennially-lazy bureaucrats, and extremest solutions from the ever-opportunistic ideologists, yet a simple solution to the cross-cultural language barrier has been applied successfully for at least ten thousand years between western nations... the establishment of Embassies, Consuls and Legations.
And why not adopt a proven international methodology? In the Northern Territory, we may be part of one country, but we coexist in two very different worlds.
One country; two worlds
Ironically, 2019 is apparently the Year of Indigenous Languages yet the only government initiative is to have southern remnant languages taught in southern state schools, a pointless and futile gesture considering that no languages or culture survive in those states (except for north SA, north WA, and possibly the northern tip of Queensland).
Historic mechanisms to bridge languages and cultures
... Acknowledging the gulf between opposite cultures and how the world has dealt with this issue in the past.
The role of the Diplomatic Corp has always been to overcome language and cultural differences through employment of bilingual skills and cross-cultural knowledge. This is how international trade and transfer of knowledge was developed between many great societies: Mesopotamian, Byzantine, Egyptian, Roman, Greek, Indian, Chinese, Khazari, and Persian, so there are no deep dark secrets to explore, and no insurmountable obstacles to overcome. We just need the will to do it.
What is proposed in the NT is the establishment of an Aboriginal Legation College.
The college component will have cascading functions:
Within four years, we envisage that the Aboriginal Legation College will have created a genuine cross-cultural interface between the Northern Territory's Traditional Aborigines and mainstream Australia.
The yolk of colonialism will have finally been lifted.
Tony Ryan
Muthamul Wangurri Homeland Project
North-East Arnhem Land
Northern Territory
Australia
[email protected]
© copyright Tony Ryan 2019
PO Box 129
Nhulunbuy NT 0881
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Meanwhile, yet another racist imposition must also be urgently addressed: We have dealt thus far with the issue of language. A second concern is of similar magnitude: The government imposition of unilateral decision-making on a culture built around pure consensus development...
Mode of government imposed on NT Aboriginal communities
The NT history of imposed alien decision-making ideology
In the mid 1970s, erroneously believing this to be more democratic, newly formed NT Young Labor passed the recommendation to ALP branches that local government councils be introduced on Aboriginal communities... which duly became urban-based ALP policy. Entirely blindly, the Country Liberal Party followed suit and all MLAs supported the NT Administration establishment of local councils.
There is no record that Aborigines were ever consulted, other than those who had already adopted alien western leadership roles. And it should be noted that iconic NT 'Aboriginal leaders' were groomed in advance for this culturally-alien role while still young, being sent to a Charters Towers boarding school where they were inculcated in the incongruous role of leadership, then to be parachuted into a consensus-style community.
Local council eventually became upgraded to Community Government Council in the 1980s and this has more recently morphed into the hated regional shire version of local government.
The overall impact has been progressively to shift decision-making from the traditional consensus-utilising clan/language groups, to the wider and problematic multi-clan community, and then to entire regions. Evidently the power concentration progression was quite deliberate and most certainly rendered communities more easily controlled by government policy makers. A less kindly description is absolute disenfranchisement of most community members through alien and imposed hierarchism, reinforced by the formalisation of corruption that is the global benchmark of local government.
Not one of the undoubtedly well-meaning persons who supported the introduction and evolution of councils was aware that Indigenous Territorians already possessed an infinitely more democratic decision-making process which consisted of implementation of very formal consensus protocols which ensured that every man, woman and child had ample opportunity to become informed about relevant issues and to express their considered determinations thereof.
It is typical of the arrogance of academics, politicians, and bureaucrats that it was simply presumed that the white way was the right way... that whatever Aborigines did must be intrinsically inferior.
The racist implications were not lost on Indigenous Territorians but their endemic and overriding desire to avoid conflict and retain harmony prevented confrontation over this blatant overturning of the Self Determination Policy. Ironically, the unanticipated consequence of eroding culture is that the prime Aboriginal determinant of avoiding conflict is also eroded.
Today, a new breed of Indigenous is emerging. These are men and women who are educated and articulate, strong in culture but comprehending of the innate corruption of hierarchical power. And they now realise that nothing they say to wider Australia is being listened to.
It does not take much imagination to guess the nature of the only political direction available to them... secession from Australia. Optimistically, some of us instead hope for a negotiated end to colonialism and assimilation policies.
This will entail recognition by government that in the Northern Territory, we live in...
REITERATING... One country; two worlds
There is only one way to achieve an acceptable level of communication between NT Indigenous Territorians and Government and corporate entities, and that is to actively acknowledge that, although we all live in one country, culturally we straddle two distinct worlds.
But Australians have yet to understand the meaning of this division, represented by the word CULTURE.
When the NT Aboriginal Interpreter Service (AIS) operates it is not just translating vocabulary, he or she is also (hopefully) translating culture. This requires a thorough comprehension of BOTH Aboriginal culture and European culture. Currently, not one Aboriginal interpreter qualifies in terms of European culture.
To overcome this inadequacy the NT Aboriginal Legation College trainers also must be fluent in BOTH cultures AND in both languages.
Initially at least, 26 Aborigines who are fully fluent in their own indigenous languages, must be trained in western culture and English language, and also in government procedures and practices. After a two year course, these graduates will become the first regional Aboriginal Consuls, who can translate western and Aboriginal community sentiment, aspirations, determinations, law, and information.
By the beginning of year three of the Legation's existence, candidates from other Aboriginal language groups will need to have been selected and the course expanded accordingly.
Meanwhile, we are conscious that most Australians have little idea what the word CULTURE actually means. A significant proportion of Australia's population will probably have to develop some comprehension of cross-culturalism to enable political support for this reform. (Which, by the way, is why this website exists. Any reader who has better ideas, or who can help enhance visitation to this site, will be most welcome when he/she clicks on [email protected])
The reality is, only people who have lived in two cultures simultaneously can comprehend spontaneously what CULTURE means. Which is probably why our Swiss contacts understood us immediately. The Swiss are daily aware of their multi-linguistic society (German, French, Italian, Romance languages) and also their system of citizen-initiated referenda to regulate government activity; so they easily appreciate the problems experienced by the NT's traditional Aborigines.
But for most Australians, this is a difficult concept to absorb.
In the anthropological sense (the word has several meanings: ie culture of bacteria; to elitists, it refers to "higher"esoteric arts; to journalists it replaces the term sub-culture, and so on) the word culture is entirely relative. That is, it has no meaning in respect of one culture, but only relative to two or more cultures. It's meaning is purely comparative.
More specifically, we are talking about how people from different regions of the world respond differently to the same circumstances. In the 1960s, there were several global campaigns to explain this ("Culture Shock") and the word VALUES was selected as the keyword; later expanded to VALUE SYSTEMS.
The evolution of cultures
Globally, and under the influence of differing natural environments, we evolved contrasting values. For example, people from the northern hemisphere, which was rich in carbohydrate foods, were relatively profligate in expending energy, because they could, which over millennia gave birth to what is known as the Work Ethic.
In stark contrast, southern hemisphere peoples tended to have minimal access to carbohydrate but easy access to protein. Thus, the southerners were careful to restrict injudicious expenditure of energy and regarded waste of energy as denoting compulsive stupidity.
In terms of manifested cultural clash associated with colonialism, the southerners regarded northerners and their profligate use of energy as crazy, and the northerners regarded southerners as lazy.
This somewhat explains differences in cultures, but often it is infinitely more subtle and difficult to explain. The list of significant differences is immeasurable but it includes family structure, distribution of food (wealth), networks of loyalties and identity (ie ranging from tribal to nationalism), attitudes to land use, attitudes to nature, roles of genders, and attitudes to violence.
However, the most historically-damaging of cultural difference in Australia is in decision-making:
Because of a prehistorical western transition from hunter-gatherer to farmer, to large acquisitive and militarily hegemonic communities, western cultures evolved hierarchical structures in which social and economic power was concentrated at the apex of the thus-formed power pyramid, and with those at the bottom with little or no power at all. Members of these communities were encouraged to view this as the natural order. Medievalism and slavery are typical outcomes. Much of this military hegemony was expressed as colonialism, supported morally by Christianity.
After, variously, 500 to two thousand years of this vertical decision-making process, it was assumed by the power elite that this system was universal. In fact it was not, and is not. The ancient Greeks applied a 19% expansion of decision-making power to born-to-rule Athenians and called this democracy, which it was not. Neither was it the first democracy, as claimed by official historians.
Hunter-gatherer and herd-follower cultures retained consensus methods of decision-making, and many free-thinking individuals arose throughout history pointing out various alternative methodologies. The most notable was Thomas Paine, who wrote The Rights of Man and who noted that "All authority resides in The People", which was the inspiration for the American Constitution, although the then elites ensured Paine's every word was excised from the final product (ie James Madison, later rewarded with the Presidency).
Abraham Lincoln had clear insights into the ambitions and behavior of the plutocratic elites and refused them access to total power in America (he denied them a federal reserve). Savvy to their penchant for propaganda to dilute the meaning of genuine democracy, he coined the lyrical phrase: "Government of The People, by The People and for The People" (the Gettysburg Address). The point here being that many great minds realised that hierarchical decision-making was far from universal and was most undesirable to anyone wishing to live in egalitarian peace and prosperity.
Lord Acton, ever one to call a spade a spade, and penetrating in his comprehension of the true nature of Power, countered the elite's broadcast demands for centralised power with: "Electing a representative to make decisons for us, is to hand over our power to determine our own future to another; a power that is cumulative. And power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely".
The Irish Monks, who documented many forms of government, including Finnish democracies, also understood the value of consensus decision-making; which alienated them from the hierarchistic Vatican in Rome, which in the 7th century retaliated by introducing celibacy, which forced women out of the priesthood (ie one third of the Irish Monks were women, and the most famous monk of all was a woman).
Clearly, many wise voices opposed hierarchical decision-making in favour of consensus methodologies. Yet, to counter this, the elites simply changed vocabulary and continued to promote dictatorship, now rebranded as Representative Democracy and Executive Decision-making.
Australia's Aborigines have practiced consensus decision-making for tens of thousands of years, most successfully, yet governments have forced them to adopt the executive and despotic model. No government has this right, and the Indigenous model is a protected right under the UN Charter of Human Rights; 'Indigenous Peoples'.
The NT and Federal Governments, if they are genuine in wishing for Aboriginal prosperous development, must finally acknowledge this right and dissolve the iniquitous shire councils and all other 'representative' organisations in favour of indigenous consensus protocols.
Sadly, we acknowledge that no major political party politicians have any interest in permitting such rights. We know this because they have denied this demanded right for eighty years.
Profile: Tony Ryan was a North Australia Workers Union advocate for Aboriginal rights in the early 1970s, doubling Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander incomes on the North Australia Railway. His transfer of white bureaucratic power to family and community in Bamyili, in 1979, set the stage for this community's self-government revolution, which culminated in their renaming of their home, from Bamyili to Burunga and the now-famous annual festival. Until 1983, he also worked in Town Camps development, family rights, and trained the first seven Aboriginal Community Workers (an NT Government programme) out of which decades later emerged the current successful Aboriginal initiative: extended-family control of out-of-home care; the Mikan programme. From 1987 to 1996 he trained thirteen Aboriginal tour guides in Kakadu National Park. He later undertook research and analysis of government impact on Aboriginal development issues, wherein he sought ways in which self-determination could be restored. He currently assists traditional owners to break the government sanction against Homeland development and economic self-sufficiency, with immediate focus on Muthamul homeland.
Tony Ryan
PO Box 129
Nhulunbuy NT 0881
Copyright © Tony Ryan 2015, 2018, 2019.
For 230 years, the Australian Government has forced Aborigines to negotiate their survival in a foreign language... English.
This has been central to a deliberate assimilation policy, which has forced indigenous people to adopt English for mainstream communication, including education and employment; to the detriment of their own many languages.
As their languages declined, so too did their culture, which included such imperatives as family structure and integrity, personal and clan identification with their land and Songlines, and motivation and morale.
Yet in Northern Territory Aboriginal communities, which are invariably hundreds of kilometers from urban towns, there is no compelling reason to speak English. All tasks and interactions can be engaged through local languages. Many progressive Europeans now recognise this and learn local languages but, unfortunately, not in sufficient numbers to reduce the impact of government policy.
In the NT, this forced cultural assimilation policy has been resisted, with 90% of Territory Aborigines still retaining their own languages. But the daily pressure to be assimilated and to conform is unrelenting, as this document reveals.
Government refusal to recognise local Aboriginal languages has other impacts: It guarantees their social, economic and political marginalisation; and with ensuing cross-cultural confusion creates feelings of profound powerlessness. The resultant despair forces some people to self-anesthetise with alcohol and other forms of substance abuse.
With the forced introduction of local government shires, alienation has been compounded and intensified, massively transferring jobs to outsiders.
More pervasively, because English language vocabulary is extremely limited, and what word-range is known is widely misunderstood. As a result, public health, education, and economic development initiatives rarely penetrate Aboriginal consciousness.
The tragic result is widespread illness from diabetes, scabies/Rheumatic Heart Disease, obesity, malnutrition, food toxicity, and cancers... a terminal sickness epidemic which should rightly be described as Genocide by Government's refusal to communicate in a common language.
A position paper
by Tony Ryan
Indigenous Australians living in the Northern Territory, 90% of whom speak Aboriginal languages and very little English, have little or no idea what has been said to them by representatives of government. This is the primary reason very few government remedial or developmental programmes have ever been successful.
The only significant beneficiaries of the billions of dollars expended on these programmes and services are: public servants, consultants, school teachers, nurses, doctors, builders, social workers, lawyers, anthropologists, missionaries, advisers, and other dubious service providers.
Both the Federal and NT Governments are equally culpable in this cynical exercise in exploitation, fraud, and colonial repression.
Moreover, regardless of the nature of whatever government programme is launched... health-education or health services, education or employment... all incorporate cultural impositions, which damage their unique social structure and even the cohesion of families. This is because absence of common language blinds government liaison workers to the sheer inappropriateness of their interventions. Few Australians appreciate how this occurs.
For example: although education is regarded by westerners as an entirely positive and necessary development, school teachers have rendered traditional indigenous mentor/educators (uncles and grandmothers) dispensable. And because the uncle/mentor/educator role was intergenerationally reciprocal (ie the eventually adult protege then owed his uncle/mentor sustenance in his old age), white schoolteachers have entirely eliminated this ancient and economical indigenous social security system in one fell swoop.
Meanwhile, white community health clinic nurses replaced old people as the rightful dispensers of healing and remedies. Moreover, because these white nurses tend to be very young, the unfortunate impression created was that knowledge and wisdom are not valued by western people and, to add insult to injury, "silly young white girls" were foisted on Aborigines when they became sick or injured.
This and myriad other social injuries could have been avoided had Aboriginal languages been learned by government liaison personnel.
Ergo, this is cultural colonialism, seamlessly advanced in the transition from British Empire, unhindered by 1901 Federalism or the more recent pseudo-rights movements. Traditional Aborigines have been locked into a communication prison, denied access to any national conversation.
As the council members of Goulburn Island put it to me some years ago, “We have received 60 delegations from government departments so far this year. We politely said yes to whatever it was they said but we still have no idea what they were talking about”.
This was and is a total communication barrier... entirely due to absence of a common language.
'Aboriginal rights' means nothing if you have no means of talking to government or to other Australians. Because People Power is the only pressure which will force government to address reality, every Australian needs to understand how this isolation was created and perpetuated.
This complete story is delivered here for the first time in.
Nevertheless, the role of a handful of Australians in promoting active recognition of surviving Aboriginal languages is gratefully acknowledged, but the entire contextual argument as this applies to the cultural delta of Centre/Kimberly/Arnhem is critical in forcing change because politicians and public servants believe Aboriginal languages are superfluous and destined to die out naturally, therefore "investment in languages cannot be justified fiscally"... they say.
Obviously, wider understanding of Aboriginal language use is pivotal in this campaign for political enfranchisement and establishment of economic equal opportunity. What follows are some insights into:
- Aboriginal language as it is used daily for prosaic communication but also for advancement of knowledge,
- Cultural value systems and structure, revealed by languages, which all programmes and services must accommodate to be successful; and
- The two simple measures which will reverse the current slide into endemic and all-pervading illness, cultural disintegration, erosion of family structure and cohesion, and the depression and despair which inevitably follows helplessness and hopelessness.
These latter conditions are the immediate causal factors which precipitate substance abuse, gambling, nihilism, domestic violence, and suicide. Currently, governments treat these as a succession of unrelated vertical outcomes rather than recognise and remedy the fundamental root causes.
What we have now is band-aid treatment at its worst: highlighted by innumerable English language TV advertisements urging Aborigines not to be angry, not to fight, not to eat bad foods, not to drink and drive, not to litter... which are understood only by the acculturated urban Aboriginal people who so profitably create these futile PR campaigns.
As we shall see, all remedial or educative messages must be delivered in person, in local languages, through culture, and repeatedly.
Traditional Aboriginal language development within the community
To understand the vast gulf which exists between traditional (tribal) Indigenous people and the rest of Australia, we need to appreciate their view of the world and how much it differs from our own...
The world through Aboriginal eyes
A central tenet of traditional Aboriginal culture is the division of all things in the universe into two distinct structures, described by anthropologists as Moieties (pronounced moy-et-ees), known in NE Arnhem Land as Yirritja and Dhuwa. Every language group belongs to one of these moieties and a person can only marry into the opposite moiety (which, buy the way, means everybody marries a person of a different language).
In this region, historically, there are seven distinct major languages, with most people speaking at least two or three. Older people speak several. But, just to confuse observers, due to bilingual education programmes, there has been considerable blending and overlapping of languages in recent decades, encouraging non-Aboriginal residents to refer to this as a single language, Yolngu matha, a homogenisation which is a denial of all-important language group identity. (The word yolngu means 'people', and matha is the word for 'tongue'. Over time, the word Yolngu (Pronunced Yol-ngu) has come to mean Aboriginal). (This homogenisation is the unintended consequence of simplistic meddling by immature school teachers).
The moieties are divided into eight other named sub groups, known to westerners as sub-sections, but to Yolngu people as Malk. These are also co-regulated by Relationship Laws, known as Gurrutu. Thus every person is referred to as of family... uncle, sister, mother, grandmother, father of father, brother of mother-in-law, and so on. Each of these relationships is regulated by very strict rules of respect, reciprocity, support, obligation, avoidance, and even humour. Superimposed on these is totem, spirit birthplace (usually denoted by personal name), and Songlines. All of these are also expressed through mores, rules and conventions, as in all cultures.
The comparative sophistication of Australian Aboriginal culture is rarely appreciated. For example: although Aborigines had for many millennia recognised that universal structure constitutes two eternally opposing yet counter-balancing forces (Yirritja and Dhuwa), coded by us today as + and -, it took the Chinese until 3500 years ago to achieve the same understanding, which they named Yin and Yang, but only Aborigines were successful in merging their entire society to seamlessly accommodate this intuited natural reality.
For its part, the Western world clicked to the positive/negative balance only two hundred years ago but has been unable to adapt socially. So, we might well ask, just whose was the advanced culture and whose was primitive?
This inevitable realisation of philosophical status reversal provokes some soul searching. The evidential truth is that the western overview of itself is entirely delusional, a product of five hundred years of colonialism and our indoctrination from birth that we are innately and racially superior. When confronting another culture we need to acknowledge this blindness if we are to hope for cross-cultural enlightenment.
The real-world western culture
We routinely assure people of "primitive cultures" that:
- We are EDUCATED... yet in Australia, 40% of us are functionally illiterate and innumerate;
- We are peace-loving and behave logically in response to evidence and fundamental laws of morality... yet we are engaged in more wars now than in any time in history; and since 1945, all of these wars have been aggressive invasions and not in response to feasible threats to our own security;
- We value fairness and justice... yet half our entire workforce is either unemployed or underemployed and at least three million Australians are homeless; (we understate unemployment by defining EMPLOYMENT as studying, working, or training for one hour per week; and anybody unemployed who is registered as learning English or creating resumes is, ipso facto, deemed employed).
- We value laws of honesty... yet every year since 1966 has seen a steady increase in criminal behavior;
- We loudly value empathy and compassion, yet our suicide rate has increased annually since 1984;
- We outlawed the death penalty, but our military regularly kills foreigners living in their own countries, who have never been in a position to threaten Australia's security, for the crime of resisting our invasions;
- We claim to drink alcohol merely to lubricate socialisation... yet the vast majority of Australians clearly drink to get drunk;
- We say we live in a democracy... in point of fact, we live in a hybrid oligarchy/plutocracy in which our only input is to elect a representative already selected and approved by the ruling elite).
We say we value friendship, yet when we meet a stranger we stare provocatively into his eyes and aggressively shake his hand. Only Germanic and post-colonial Keltic/Gaelic cultures behave in such a confrontational manner. The vast majority of ethnic groups on this planet are aghast at our behavior; and I am referring here not only to other humans, but to all mammals. Incredibly, it took an American horse-whisperer to realise this.
Aboriginal first-meeting protocols, similar to those of south Asia, Africa and elsewhere, are complex and designed to avoid any conflict whatsoever, and to promote harmony thereafter. In all older cultures, even greetings are designed to avoid conflict.
With traditional Aboriginal life regulated by complex and sophisticated protocols and rules, it may readily be appreciated why western rules and protocols are regarded as peripheral at best, and at worst, irrelevant. Now, overlay this with a language, English, which possesses few words which can convey equivalent Aboriginal values, and one begins to glimpse the enormity of the gulf that separates us.
To resolve this impasse, language democratisation is the most urgent and central remedial measure available to us.
The role of English language in remote areas NT
For tribal Aboriginal people, English is a fifth or even seventh language but the meanings of English words as spoken by Aborigines are heavily shaded and nuanced by Aboriginal culture, which means the meanings are significantly different to that understood by native English speakers. Few white people appreciate the complexity and pervasiveness of this obstacle, and conversations between the two cultures are like conversations across parallel universes, with both parties coming away with entirely different impressions of what has been said.
This absurd parody of cross-cultural communication is played out many times daily throughout the NT with few participants realising the true extent of confusion.
Government relies on Aboriginal interpreters but this requires, not only precise knowledge of both languages, but of both cultures. Currently, and ignoring untested claims, nobody in the NT has this qualification, which means (for example) that such important legal principles as informed consent are impossible. This has vast implications for medical treatments, legal contracts, consumer advocacy, and comprehension of rights, including human rights.
There is a common perception that anybody who speaks a language automatically understands the culture associated with that language. How incorrect this is can be demonstrated by asking any mainstream Australians to describe their own culture. Almost nothing of what they say will not be contradicted by hard evidence. Many Australians believe they have no culture, a belief which has confused four million immigrants, who immediately perceive just how untrue this is. Yet any Aborigine who speaks English is expected to comprehend western culture AND Aboriginal culture which, in the urban setting, is rarely the case.
The reader may by now be developing some insight into the complexity of the interface between different languages and cultures (which casts a critical light on the infantile Policy of Multiculturalism; which, by the way, did not emerge spontaneously from the Australian electorate, but by direct demand of the United Nations in 1978). No such ethic existed prior to this.
But back to Aboriginal languages; there are some seventy or so in the NT.
Clearly, language takes on a very different significance in traditional Aboriginal life. We need to better understand the role of these languages...
Language development in Aboriginal society
In the north of Australia, until around 1975, young Aboriginal children routinely learned the language of their mother. By age 9 or 10, or after circumcision ceremony (Dhapi), they began to learn the language of their father. In the ensuing years they became proficient in other local languages. As testament to endemic intelligence, by adulthood English was a third or fourth language.
Up until the mid 1970s, it was not unusual to encounter older indigenous Australians who were also fluent in Japanese and Indonesian. Manifestly, Aboriginal linguistic ability is not an issue yet, in stark contrast, few non-migrant Australians are able to speak a second language, let alone an Aboriginal language.
The logic is clearly undeniable yet is routinely denied, that in these rural and remote parts of northern Australia, where Aborigines outnumber other Australians by forty to one, it is the obvious responsibility of government to defer to the democratic majority means of communication.
This right is formally acknowledged by the United Nations Charter on Human Rights; Rights of Indigenous Peoples; to which the Australian Government is a signatory but for which application is cynically ignored.
Even when government is forced to acknowledge this pivotal human right, as always, bureaucrats seek effort-minimising compromise, even when this is clearly counter-productive, and more especially so with the officially recognised compromise language pidgin.
From adults, and even in some schools, but mostly from out and about, children pick up pidgin, which is essentially Aboriginalised English combined with an average of one Aboriginal language derivative per 17 English-derived words (ref Dept Com Dev Bamyili/Burunga files, 1979).
Over the past three decades, hopelessly monolingual linguists have developed unlikely
careers by institutionalising pidgin into what they have dubbed “Kreole”... a shallow
Americanisation which is also a serious developmental error considering that pidgin is not linked to indigenous culture in any way and is hopeless as a means of cross-cultural communication.
It gets worse...
- Kreole is useless for anything but casual or domestic communication;
- It is tightly regional in Aboriginal content;
- It inspires non-Aboriginal listeners to regard the speaker as functionally illiterate, if not actually stupid; and
- Entirely ignores the role of genuine Aboriginal language as the cradle and primary expression of culture.
With her signature incisive analytical ability, top NT Aboriginal interpreter, Nadyezhda Dilipuma Pozzana (AKA Wulanayngu Dhamarrandji) put it so succinctly, "Kreole is not an Aboriginal language but an English dialect".
“Kreole” actively erodes indigenous culture. As language and culture erodes, so too does the fabric
of social cohesion, spiritual activity, family identity, clarity of thought process and personal
self-esteem.
Pidgin/kreole also cuts the user off from Songlines, which are essential for cultural integrity and survival. Thus, for each clan which slides into use of pidgin, the means of conducting funerals and other ceremonies, evaporates. This has been the sad fate of people in Ngukurr, Kakadu, Kenbi, and even Burunga. This happened in eastern, southern and south western Australia more than a century ago and these people are without language and culture, regardless of how they now posture otherwise to exploit upper-middle class gullibility.
Bilingual education
As if this onslaught on Aboriginal languages were not enough, the NT's Department of
Education bilingual programmes have further devastated natural intra-family language
development. While bilingual programmes make sense in Homelands (where one language dominates), and in bilingual communities (ie Bathurst and Melville Islands; Groote Eylandt; and Yuendumu, it does not work in multilingual communities; which describes all other NT communities.
Most NT Aboriginal communities support four to seven local languages... plus Aboriginal-recreated English. If one indigenous language is chosen for use in school this is to the detriment of all other local Aboriginal languages, and English. Worse, children become confused about the role of language across moieties and of traditional language choice protocols (which have almost died out). According to reports, in Yirrkala Primary School, white teachers have adopted baby language as the school lingua franca (Dhuwaya). The rationale for this has yet to be explained. (We hope this report is incorrect and we will update this situation as soon as possible).
It needs to be firmly understood by governments and by white school teachers that local Aboriginal language and culture can best be learned at home and on family Homelands where context is regulated and appropriate; but formal education for future mainstream employment and wider Australian interaction must be in English.
Currently, fluent English language proficiency is almost non-existent although it was widespread in missionary times. School teachers please note. (This was, by the way, the identical observation of the late MLA Wesley Lanhupuy, himself one of the best-educated and globally-traveled NT Aborigines).
These principles are relevant to all government communication with Aboriginal communities, which must at the very least engage the local lingua franca but, preferably, the listener's own first language.
It is at this point that anthropologists, ethnologists, public servants and politicians try to pontificate with world-weary knowledgeability that with 83 languages and dialects in the NT relevant language use is
impossible and impractical.
However, the quoted figure of 83 is four decades old and pedantically included languages spoken by a single person and now long since extinct. Arbitrarily, there are some thirty to forty major languages commonly spoken in the NT and some 26 regional lingua franca.
There are hundreds of competent Territorians who speak at least one of these, plus reasonably sophisticated English. Personally, I consider that if I, with no special abilities or skills, can learn Aboriginal languages so too can every school teacher, nurse, and government community liaison worker.
There is no valid logistical reason why NT government consultation cannot be in local languages, especially if relay volunteers are used to translate from one local Aboriginal language to another. It happens informally, on a daily basis. Government communication with indigenous Territorians does not occur in their first languages simply because of white colonial attitudes and an entrenched belief in European cultural superiority, and from opposition from urban Aborigines who speak only English and who are devoid of Aboriginal cultural knowledge. The latter group have fraudulently secured employment in government liaison roles for which they are entirely unqualified and incompetent. The harm they inflict is monumental.
Australia needs to confront the ugly truth: Public servants, politicians, and anthropologists do not want to learn Aboriginal languages because they do not care enough about the future of Aboriginal people to make the effort, and because they do not want to diminish their power base by delegating to others.
In the wider community, which includes many of these public servants, there is also lingering resentment over restrictions to enter NT Aboriginal land, which has alienated generations of keen anglers and campers now locked out of former favourite fishing holes. This latter is not the fault of Aborigines but of the power-abusing Northern Land Council; itself colonial and imperial in outlook and the product of a global investment banker intervention into the Law Reform Commission in the mid-1970s, specifically to ensure control of Aboriginal land remained in the hands of a western-based hierarchy instead of the traditional Aboriginal consensus system as promised.
Not only must government adopt less flagrantly racist practices, NT Aboriginal languages must be reinvigorated to enhance the social cohesion and personal identity-based motivation that is critical for ongoing social and economic development.
It may hasten reform in this regard if it is realised that certain European universities are contemplating a globally-based stripping of Australian anthropology degrees, because failure to demonstrate linguistic proficiency prior to investigative intervention in the said culture is a serious breach of ethics, they say.
So too is the fabrication of culture to expedite certain land claims (ie Kenbi). Both of these breaches invite litigation and, possibly, prison sentences for anthropologists, ethnologists, lawyers and commissioners who have so abused the power entrusted to them.
Conclusion: What must surely be obvious to any even-minded person, is that government must move to break the language-barrier deadlock.
We can anticipate howls of derision from small-minded and perennially-lazy bureaucrats, and extremest solutions from the ever-opportunistic ideologists, yet a simple solution to the cross-cultural language barrier has been applied successfully for at least ten thousand years between western nations... the establishment of Embassies, Consuls and Legations.
And why not adopt a proven international methodology? In the Northern Territory, we may be part of one country, but we coexist in two very different worlds.
One country; two worlds
Ironically, 2019 is apparently the Year of Indigenous Languages yet the only government initiative is to have southern remnant languages taught in southern state schools, a pointless and futile gesture considering that no languages or culture survive in those states (except for north SA, north WA, and possibly the northern tip of Queensland).
Historic mechanisms to bridge languages and cultures
... Acknowledging the gulf between opposite cultures and how the world has dealt with this issue in the past.
The role of the Diplomatic Corp has always been to overcome language and cultural differences through employment of bilingual skills and cross-cultural knowledge. This is how international trade and transfer of knowledge was developed between many great societies: Mesopotamian, Byzantine, Egyptian, Roman, Greek, Indian, Chinese, Khazari, and Persian, so there are no deep dark secrets to explore, and no insurmountable obstacles to overcome. We just need the will to do it.
What is proposed in the NT is the establishment of an Aboriginal Legation College.
The college component will have cascading functions:
- First, existing Aboriginal interpreters need to upgrade their knowledge base to include comprehension of western culture and English language. It is simply not possible to competently translate cultures from a single-culture knowledge base. Once this enhancement is achieved, students must identify Aboriginal culture on a comparative basis. This means establishment of a new NT dictionary. Currently, the NT Aboriginal Interpreter Service (AIS) translates vocabulary, but not culture. Because few if any Aboriginal words have an exact corresponding meaning in English, hence, the resultant translations are inadequate and can have tragic consequences.
- Once the student interpreters are conversant in both language and culture categories, their next role will be to train Government employees in Aboriginal language development.This programme will target all government employees who are in liaison roles, particularly in education, health, and participation in Australian life, especially in terms of electoral rights and responsibilities. This must be a clearly defined and demonstrable skill and a NT-recognised qualification.
- This will be especially critical in education. Currently, the average period of Aboriginal community service by NT school teachers is ten months... just enough time to do lasting damage to children. We aim to establish a two-year language and culture course for all school teachers PRIOR TO COMMENCING WORK IN ABORIGINAL COMMUNITIES, and even then, the third year will be probationary. Annual and five year bonuses will provide financial incentives.
- The long term outcome will be infinitely more economical than the present broken system, which produces Territory-wide illiteracy and non-numeracy and despair, at a high financial cost.
- Aboriginal community Nurses will be required to undergo the same cross-cultural training and linguistic proficiency. Eventually, all GP doctors working in Aboriginal communities will require these cross-cultural qualifications.
- Legation: Some of the retrained Aboriginal interpreters will no doubt discover new diplomatic abilities and these will be the people who undertake direct liaison between government departments and agencies, and Aboriginal communities and homelands. This will be the 'Legation' component. Because this will mean that the government message will be delivered verbally, in person, in local languages, and repeatedly, NT traditional Aborigines will finally have access to participation in government and in mainstream Australian life, and to radical improvements in health, education, employment, and economic self-sufficiency. Even so, I calculate that the genocide will not noticeably dissipate for another decade.
Within four years, we envisage that the Aboriginal Legation College will have created a genuine cross-cultural interface between the Northern Territory's Traditional Aborigines and mainstream Australia.
The yolk of colonialism will have finally been lifted.
Tony Ryan
Muthamul Wangurri Homeland Project
North-East Arnhem Land
Northern Territory
Australia
[email protected]
© copyright Tony Ryan 2019
PO Box 129
Nhulunbuy NT 0881
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Meanwhile, yet another racist imposition must also be urgently addressed: We have dealt thus far with the issue of language. A second concern is of similar magnitude: The government imposition of unilateral decision-making on a culture built around pure consensus development...
Mode of government imposed on NT Aboriginal communities
The NT history of imposed alien decision-making ideology
In the mid 1970s, erroneously believing this to be more democratic, newly formed NT Young Labor passed the recommendation to ALP branches that local government councils be introduced on Aboriginal communities... which duly became urban-based ALP policy. Entirely blindly, the Country Liberal Party followed suit and all MLAs supported the NT Administration establishment of local councils.
There is no record that Aborigines were ever consulted, other than those who had already adopted alien western leadership roles. And it should be noted that iconic NT 'Aboriginal leaders' were groomed in advance for this culturally-alien role while still young, being sent to a Charters Towers boarding school where they were inculcated in the incongruous role of leadership, then to be parachuted into a consensus-style community.
Local council eventually became upgraded to Community Government Council in the 1980s and this has more recently morphed into the hated regional shire version of local government.
The overall impact has been progressively to shift decision-making from the traditional consensus-utilising clan/language groups, to the wider and problematic multi-clan community, and then to entire regions. Evidently the power concentration progression was quite deliberate and most certainly rendered communities more easily controlled by government policy makers. A less kindly description is absolute disenfranchisement of most community members through alien and imposed hierarchism, reinforced by the formalisation of corruption that is the global benchmark of local government.
Not one of the undoubtedly well-meaning persons who supported the introduction and evolution of councils was aware that Indigenous Territorians already possessed an infinitely more democratic decision-making process which consisted of implementation of very formal consensus protocols which ensured that every man, woman and child had ample opportunity to become informed about relevant issues and to express their considered determinations thereof.
It is typical of the arrogance of academics, politicians, and bureaucrats that it was simply presumed that the white way was the right way... that whatever Aborigines did must be intrinsically inferior.
The racist implications were not lost on Indigenous Territorians but their endemic and overriding desire to avoid conflict and retain harmony prevented confrontation over this blatant overturning of the Self Determination Policy. Ironically, the unanticipated consequence of eroding culture is that the prime Aboriginal determinant of avoiding conflict is also eroded.
Today, a new breed of Indigenous is emerging. These are men and women who are educated and articulate, strong in culture but comprehending of the innate corruption of hierarchical power. And they now realise that nothing they say to wider Australia is being listened to.
It does not take much imagination to guess the nature of the only political direction available to them... secession from Australia. Optimistically, some of us instead hope for a negotiated end to colonialism and assimilation policies.
This will entail recognition by government that in the Northern Territory, we live in...
REITERATING... One country; two worlds
There is only one way to achieve an acceptable level of communication between NT Indigenous Territorians and Government and corporate entities, and that is to actively acknowledge that, although we all live in one country, culturally we straddle two distinct worlds.
But Australians have yet to understand the meaning of this division, represented by the word CULTURE.
When the NT Aboriginal Interpreter Service (AIS) operates it is not just translating vocabulary, he or she is also (hopefully) translating culture. This requires a thorough comprehension of BOTH Aboriginal culture and European culture. Currently, not one Aboriginal interpreter qualifies in terms of European culture.
To overcome this inadequacy the NT Aboriginal Legation College trainers also must be fluent in BOTH cultures AND in both languages.
Initially at least, 26 Aborigines who are fully fluent in their own indigenous languages, must be trained in western culture and English language, and also in government procedures and practices. After a two year course, these graduates will become the first regional Aboriginal Consuls, who can translate western and Aboriginal community sentiment, aspirations, determinations, law, and information.
By the beginning of year three of the Legation's existence, candidates from other Aboriginal language groups will need to have been selected and the course expanded accordingly.
Meanwhile, we are conscious that most Australians have little idea what the word CULTURE actually means. A significant proportion of Australia's population will probably have to develop some comprehension of cross-culturalism to enable political support for this reform. (Which, by the way, is why this website exists. Any reader who has better ideas, or who can help enhance visitation to this site, will be most welcome when he/she clicks on [email protected])
The reality is, only people who have lived in two cultures simultaneously can comprehend spontaneously what CULTURE means. Which is probably why our Swiss contacts understood us immediately. The Swiss are daily aware of their multi-linguistic society (German, French, Italian, Romance languages) and also their system of citizen-initiated referenda to regulate government activity; so they easily appreciate the problems experienced by the NT's traditional Aborigines.
But for most Australians, this is a difficult concept to absorb.
In the anthropological sense (the word has several meanings: ie culture of bacteria; to elitists, it refers to "higher"esoteric arts; to journalists it replaces the term sub-culture, and so on) the word culture is entirely relative. That is, it has no meaning in respect of one culture, but only relative to two or more cultures. It's meaning is purely comparative.
More specifically, we are talking about how people from different regions of the world respond differently to the same circumstances. In the 1960s, there were several global campaigns to explain this ("Culture Shock") and the word VALUES was selected as the keyword; later expanded to VALUE SYSTEMS.
The evolution of cultures
Globally, and under the influence of differing natural environments, we evolved contrasting values. For example, people from the northern hemisphere, which was rich in carbohydrate foods, were relatively profligate in expending energy, because they could, which over millennia gave birth to what is known as the Work Ethic.
In stark contrast, southern hemisphere peoples tended to have minimal access to carbohydrate but easy access to protein. Thus, the southerners were careful to restrict injudicious expenditure of energy and regarded waste of energy as denoting compulsive stupidity.
In terms of manifested cultural clash associated with colonialism, the southerners regarded northerners and their profligate use of energy as crazy, and the northerners regarded southerners as lazy.
This somewhat explains differences in cultures, but often it is infinitely more subtle and difficult to explain. The list of significant differences is immeasurable but it includes family structure, distribution of food (wealth), networks of loyalties and identity (ie ranging from tribal to nationalism), attitudes to land use, attitudes to nature, roles of genders, and attitudes to violence.
However, the most historically-damaging of cultural difference in Australia is in decision-making:
Because of a prehistorical western transition from hunter-gatherer to farmer, to large acquisitive and militarily hegemonic communities, western cultures evolved hierarchical structures in which social and economic power was concentrated at the apex of the thus-formed power pyramid, and with those at the bottom with little or no power at all. Members of these communities were encouraged to view this as the natural order. Medievalism and slavery are typical outcomes. Much of this military hegemony was expressed as colonialism, supported morally by Christianity.
After, variously, 500 to two thousand years of this vertical decision-making process, it was assumed by the power elite that this system was universal. In fact it was not, and is not. The ancient Greeks applied a 19% expansion of decision-making power to born-to-rule Athenians and called this democracy, which it was not. Neither was it the first democracy, as claimed by official historians.
Hunter-gatherer and herd-follower cultures retained consensus methods of decision-making, and many free-thinking individuals arose throughout history pointing out various alternative methodologies. The most notable was Thomas Paine, who wrote The Rights of Man and who noted that "All authority resides in The People", which was the inspiration for the American Constitution, although the then elites ensured Paine's every word was excised from the final product (ie James Madison, later rewarded with the Presidency).
Abraham Lincoln had clear insights into the ambitions and behavior of the plutocratic elites and refused them access to total power in America (he denied them a federal reserve). Savvy to their penchant for propaganda to dilute the meaning of genuine democracy, he coined the lyrical phrase: "Government of The People, by The People and for The People" (the Gettysburg Address). The point here being that many great minds realised that hierarchical decision-making was far from universal and was most undesirable to anyone wishing to live in egalitarian peace and prosperity.
Lord Acton, ever one to call a spade a spade, and penetrating in his comprehension of the true nature of Power, countered the elite's broadcast demands for centralised power with: "Electing a representative to make decisons for us, is to hand over our power to determine our own future to another; a power that is cumulative. And power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely".
The Irish Monks, who documented many forms of government, including Finnish democracies, also understood the value of consensus decision-making; which alienated them from the hierarchistic Vatican in Rome, which in the 7th century retaliated by introducing celibacy, which forced women out of the priesthood (ie one third of the Irish Monks were women, and the most famous monk of all was a woman).
Clearly, many wise voices opposed hierarchical decision-making in favour of consensus methodologies. Yet, to counter this, the elites simply changed vocabulary and continued to promote dictatorship, now rebranded as Representative Democracy and Executive Decision-making.
Australia's Aborigines have practiced consensus decision-making for tens of thousands of years, most successfully, yet governments have forced them to adopt the executive and despotic model. No government has this right, and the Indigenous model is a protected right under the UN Charter of Human Rights; 'Indigenous Peoples'.
The NT and Federal Governments, if they are genuine in wishing for Aboriginal prosperous development, must finally acknowledge this right and dissolve the iniquitous shire councils and all other 'representative' organisations in favour of indigenous consensus protocols.
Sadly, we acknowledge that no major political party politicians have any interest in permitting such rights. We know this because they have denied this demanded right for eighty years.
Profile: Tony Ryan was a North Australia Workers Union advocate for Aboriginal rights in the early 1970s, doubling Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander incomes on the North Australia Railway. His transfer of white bureaucratic power to family and community in Bamyili, in 1979, set the stage for this community's self-government revolution, which culminated in their renaming of their home, from Bamyili to Burunga and the now-famous annual festival. Until 1983, he also worked in Town Camps development, family rights, and trained the first seven Aboriginal Community Workers (an NT Government programme) out of which decades later emerged the current successful Aboriginal initiative: extended-family control of out-of-home care; the Mikan programme. From 1987 to 1996 he trained thirteen Aboriginal tour guides in Kakadu National Park. He later undertook research and analysis of government impact on Aboriginal development issues, wherein he sought ways in which self-determination could be restored. He currently assists traditional owners to break the government sanction against Homeland development and economic self-sufficiency, with immediate focus on Muthamul homeland.
Tony Ryan
PO Box 129
Nhulunbuy NT 0881
Copyright © Tony Ryan 2015, 2018, 2019.
