On 14 Oct 2000, at 16:20, Lynn Pollack wrote:
> Thanks, Lynn. I am glad to read Jim's comment, but I don't know how to
> explain past policy without using terms which denote people whose ancestry
> includes non-Aboriginals. Because that was the basis on which the
> Government policy was determined. That is one of the issues at the heart of
> the stolen generations struggle for justice. In the court case, the
> Government's lawyers argued that they were removed not because of their race
> but for their welfare.
>
> I would never use the term 'half-caste'. In our media release, we used it
> as a direct quote from the Northern Territory's Director of Native Welfare
> in 1950. It was needed, to make a powerful point about the attitudes of the
> authorities of the time.
>
> If Jim (or you) have any suggestions on how we can explain past policy
> using different terminology, I would be glad to hear. Feel free to pass
> this on.
>
> Gratefully,
>
> John
>
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
Yes, thank you for the opportunity, and some will forgive me for restaing
my case. I know the problem, and its not just political correctness, white
armband history?
Recently I circulated this:
On 7 Oct 2000, at 17:42, Liz Grant wrote:
> As a recent subscriber to this forum relating to Indigenous issues it is
> of grave concern ot me the use of language within the text of meesages.
> There are two glaring examples which were of relevance. Firstly the
> respondents referred to a so-called Aboriginal culture - are there not
> many Aboriginal cultures and many sub-cultures in between? Being
> simplistic and referring to one culture is patronising. The other
> comment was one more of political correctness in the use of capitals for
> the terms Indigenous and Aboriginal. These are not terms used as
> adjectives in these examples but as a noun and in a show of respect
> should always be upper case. In the terminology Indigenous seemed to be
> slotted in where Torres Strait Islander becomes too wordy. Few
> Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander organisations or communities
> suscribe to the Indigenous term - let it go. Liz Grant Adelaiode
> University
Hmm...
Yes, this becomes a little problematic. Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander (clumsy) becomes ATSI (Uch!) Certainly. there can be no doubt
about capitalisation. Is a person English or english, Greek or greek? No
argument.
However, the term Aboriginal, also (I?)indigenous, is an imposition of the
now dominant society. In numbers of papers I've used the term
Indigenous (capitalised) because of the Judeo-Christian root patronisingly
becomes a part of colonising imperative, theological imperialism? (Aba -
from the Hebrew - father as in Ab-original).
But, lately I've begun to use First Nations, in recognition of the vast
variety that did, and to some extent continues on this continent because
of the number of red-necks I've encountered who also claim indigenaity as
they were born in Australia! Oxford is not a little dissonant.
And now I seem to be using the term Fourth World interspersed within the
First Nations as it has a clear United Nations Definition (Reid, J. and
Trompf, P. (ed.) (1991). The Health of Aboriginal Australia. Marrickville:
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich: p. xiii).
"Dispossession and ill health: the fourth world experience
Fourth world communities are characterised by their experience of being
colonised or of being a minority in relation to the dominant, encompassing
state. Many have been forced to assimilate, losing most of their land and
their economic base, and therefore their autonomy. The United Nations uses
the working definition of fourth world or indigenous populations as:
...composed of the existing descendants of the peoples who inhabited the
territory of a country wholly or partially at the time when persons of a
different culture or ethnic origin arrived there from other parts of the
world, overcame them and, by conquest, settlement or other means, reduced
them to a non-dominant or colonial situation; who today live more in
conformity with their particular social, economic and cultural customs and
traditions than with the institutions of the country of which they now
form a part, under a state structure which incorporates mainly the
national, social and cultural characteristics of other segments of the
population which are dominant. ICIHI 1987, p . 7
Fourth world communities exist within first world countries (for example,
Aborigines, Basques, Bretons, Maoris and Native Americans), second world
countries (such as the indigenous peoples of northern USSR) and third
world countries (such as the indigenous peoples of Central and South
America). (0'Neil 1986, pp. 119-20). " My note: - (i)ndigenous?)
All this notwithstanding, we are probably discussing the polite way of
addressing people(s) anywhere. After being wed to a McDougall for thirty
plus years, I've learned not to call some Scots - Scot(ish), and some not
Scots at all but Highlanders!
I guess it comes down to good manners, If a person wants and prefers to be
called a "Something" - I do just that, and I capitalise it as a proper
noun.
In thought....
Then this....
On 7 Oct 2000, at 22:44, Lisa Chaplin wrote:
> At 17:15 7/10/00 +0800, you wrote:
> >On 7 Oct 2000, at 17:42, Liz Grant wrote:
snip
> It's the same with English culture. We call them all English, but
> someone from Cornwall would say he/she has a completely different
> culture to someone from Yorkshire. Same with Americans, New York against
> New Orleans, yet "Yanks" they all are to many (I've been guilty of that
> myself - thanks for helping me realise that). Scots, Highlanders against
> Lowlanders, French, Germans from different regions - don't we categorise
> them?
This is so true, and a bit of a tale ensues to make the point. It is
perhaps part of the kernel that first prompted my concern and activities
with the First Nations of this continent. Its got nothing to do with
"political correctness" (black-armband or Howardesque Oz?).
I was born in a Nazi camp of parents deported from Jersey in the Channel
Isles. I was raised to speak three languages; Jerraise (Jersey or Norman
Patois), French and English. In Patois, the tongue is very geospecific.
In only forty-eight square miles of island there are perhaps four or five
distinct dialects, as an example, four different words for an acorn - the
seed of the oak tree, and polite and impolite specific language terms for
conversations with both one's elders and juniors. From this I have some
grasp of the subtleties of Australian First Nations languages and
senior/junior/clan/kin relationships, even though I now know only a few
words of Nyungah (also Nyungar, Noongar, Nyoongar) as languages or patois
of the once named Bibbulmen of South-West of WA.
The prehistory and written history of Jersey is discernible back some
30,000 years through various dolmen and tombs, through the invasion of
England by the Normans in 1066 (Jersey people believe therefore that they
own England!), the imprisonment of Sir Walter Raleigh, and the hosting on
the island, during his exile, of the Duke of Normandy who later became King
Charles II, and this does not preclude me from being a Republican!
I migrated to Oz in 1963 and served in the Australian Army for over 20
years. Nonetheless, on every occasion when I begin to introduce myself to
a new acquaintance, people insist on calling me "Pommie." Its no term of
endearment I assure you. I may have been, and maybe still am a Jerseyman,
a Norman, a Breton Islander (and perhaps still am), but I most certainly
consider myself to be an Australian, albeit a settler or migrant of that
ilk.
There can be little worse and more demeaning than attribution of
"political correctness" to a strongly held belief about and of oneself.
One may be "wrong" or "poorly briefed" or "unlearned" or "uneducated"
about a subject, but one cannot be so maligned as to be told of oneself
that you and all you believe and know of yourself is to be only
"politically correct."
That we settlers, after some two centuries of the occupation of this
continent, are now only just engaging the First Nations in their ideas of
self and their description of their ideas of self is an indication that
Australia is only just now beginning to understand that there is even a
post colonial experience. From this, therefore, a colonial yolk and
experience which we yet have to discard.
I find that Ashis Nandy is the major source for my chewing gum of the
brain, see:
http://www.emory.edu/ENGLISH/Bahri/NANDY.HTM
http://www.ipcs.org.au/index.html
A man of some discernment, he wrote The Tao of Cricket, see:
http://www.ausport.gov.au/fulltext/1999/sportsf/s72171.htm
So after all this how do we get around part-Aboriginal? I was, of course
familiar with the term for many years and thought not a lot about it until
a Nyungar friend of mine asked a Lawyer to speak with me about some event.
When he called he said, "Oh Mr Duffield, I've just been speaking to a part-
Aboriginal woman..." And it hit me, how demeaning, in at least two ways:
* Which part of her was Aboriginal, and therefore what of the other part,
and
* I'll bet had she been white he would have used the noun Lady.
Aside from my explosion over the line, I began to consider the implications
and history of the language used, notwithstanding the culture of the LLB.
It, of course sources itself in the 1800s and is tied to Social-Darwinism
and Eugenics. We still see in the WA Aboriginal Affairs Planning Authority
Act (1972), amended 1991, the language:
"descended from the original inhabitants of Australia, of the full blood,
half-caste, quarter caste, octaroon or heptaroon..."
The question begs, what is and empty blood? Then the many "blood"
attributions in describing people, especially the First Nations of this
continent. Yes, the term part-Aboriginal is of this era, mindset and
English language use. Further, it is also of many English translations of
the Christian Bible, where the "blood" looms large in the psyche.
So, I had to think about the use of the term "race" in all its
connotations, and I'm now disciplining myself to not uese the term except
in inverted commas. It has no meaning in science and is only reified on
each use. Hence, we need not a "Race" discrimination Act, but a
Discrimination Act!
I recommend:
Husband, C. (1992). ‘Race’ and Nation - The British Experience. Perth:
Paradigm Books - Curtin University of Technology.
McCorquodale,J. (1986). The Legal Classification of Race in Australia,
Aboriginal history, 1986, Vol. 10.
Malik, K. (1996). The Meaning of Race: Race, History, and Culture in
Western Society. London: MacMillan Press. and an interesting
discussion at: http://homepages.poptel.org.uk/racegallery/malik.html
And all this given that at:
http://www.aaanet.org/gvt/ombdraft.htm
is the conclusion:
"The American Anthropological Association recognizes that elimination of
the term "race" in government parlance will take time to accomplish.
However, the combination of the terms "race/ethnicity" in OMB Directive 15
and the Census 2000 will assist in this effort, serving as a "bridge" to
the elimination of the term "race" by the Census 2010."
Thus some 13,000 American (US?) anthropologists argue for the elimination
of the term "race" in its entirety.
My point is simply that any language associated therewith must also expire.
Of couse given that Australia takes this social construct, this invention
"race", and gives it a legal Guernsey in sections 25 and 51. xxvi, and then
from this High Court Judges determine that it is ok the make laws against
Aborigines! Dissonant bastards are us antipodeans eh?
How do I draw this diatribe to a close? Perhaps to remind ourselves that
in 999 cases out of a thousand the children of Fourth World Australian
women were the product of exploitation, and then we blame both victims, the
child and the mother, and call the baby "part" of something or someone -
black. Yet we do not equally call the baby part-European, or part-
Scottish, or part-Anotherone?
Perhaps we use the term First Nation or Fourth World descendant, if we
must? But how does that person identify in a cultural sense? I suggest
that the person is Fourth World, First Nation, (particular language group -
eg. Nyungar), Aborigine, but to somehow inject something less than, is to
blame the victim of the colonising process. This is just not on or not
appropriate.
A person is not a part-anything. A person is a complete human being.
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