Take Action to Stop the Forcible Close of Aboriginal Communities

by Shaker Rachel

[Content Note: Racism; displacement; violence; cultural genocide.]

I am not Indigenous, but I have been challenged to practice ally work in support of Aboriginal people in the fight to acknowledge and stop the racism that continues in Australia. During a recent local protest, one of the speakers asked us to reach out globally and try to raise awareness about the proposed forced closure of remote Aboriginal communities.

The cultural genocide of Aboriginal Australians continues today. There are not the violent skirmishes of war, nor the obvious oppression of official apartheid, but to be born as an Aboriginal person in my country is to face the slow and steady erosion of an ancient culture.

Archaeological estimates acknowledge that Aboriginal people have lived on this continent for well over 50,000 years, making them the oldest known living cultural history in the world. One might assume that being a wealthy, developed democracy would encourage the government to work with Aboriginal people to overcome the structural inequalities that have arisen since British colonisation; sadly, such an assumption would be false.

In Australia, we have a history of more than two hundred years of removing Aboriginal people from their country. Initially the British colonisers blatantly murdered or dispossessed Aboriginal Australians from their land. Declared "terra nullius" (literally no one's land), there was no acknowledgment that Australia was occupied by people prior to the English invasion in 1788.

This tradition of forcefully removing Aboriginal people continues today. The current Federal Government have slashed funding to Aboriginal services and passed former federal responsibilities to the states. One of these changes has included the end of federal funding to remote Aboriginal communities in Western Australia. The State Government has decided that of the 274 communities it will not continue to fund as many as 150 of them. In response to criticism of the planned closure the Prime Minister Tony Abbott declared that "…It's not the job of the taxpayer to subsidise lifestyle choices."

This is one of many examples of our elected leader's privilege and disrespect towards Aboriginal people. He has since been asked if he will apologise for the hurt that he has caused people with his comment, or at the very least concede that it was a poor choice of words, but he has stated that he will do neither.

To give some insight into my country's treatment of Aboriginal people, our Constitution continues to ignore and discriminate against them. Australia is a country where if my grandmother had been Aboriginal she would have faced the threat of having her children removed as a part of the Stolen Generation. If my parents had been Aboriginal, in their lifetime they would have not been counted on the census but have been included under "flora and fauna." If I were Aboriginal and lived in a remote community in Western Australia my access to water, electricity, health services, and education would currently be under threat.

The Western Australian Premier, Collin Barnett, has stopped talking about the issue in terms of economic rationalism and is now trying to change the parameters of the conversation to focus upon the communities being closed to protect children. He seems to think that if he tells us the closure is due to concerns about child sexual assault, the opposition to his plan will lessen.

This is not a new argument in Australia as Aboriginal peoples human rights have been violated since 2007, in what was called the Northern Territory Intervention. Aboriginal women and children are at a higher disproportionate risk of suffering domestic violence and sexual assault within Australia. As a nation there has been a recent recognition that we are suffering an epidemic of abuse against women. There is growing enthusiasm for talk about eliminating gendered violence, but a disconnect when it comes to funding specialist services and implementing long term programs.

If the Premier genuinely has a desire to tackle the problem of domestic violence and sexual assault, there should be a state wide roll out of programs, with specialist services for Aboriginal people. The Premier's use of a serious social issue as a smokescreen to close down remote Aboriginal communities is an insult to all Australians. It also serves to distract the country from the real possibility that an underlying reason to remove Aboriginal people from their land is to open it up for easier access by mining companies.

In 2015, there have been a growing number of protests across Australia urging non-Aboriginal Australians to stand in solidarity with the residents of remote Aboriginal communities and demand that they are not closed down. People have taken to the streets to loudly show their disapproval of the proposition. There have also been online petitions, social media sites, and media coverage of the issue.

Murray George, a senior Anangu law man from South Australia, has spoken about his concerns raised by the plans to forcibly close remote Aboriginal communities.

We are worried for our culture. Some people have already lost their culture. But today we are still alive and strong, and I am talking for Aboriginal people.

Federal and state governments have got to understand and listen to our people, because our culture is still alive, for all Aboriginal people in Australia.

If they close the communities, they close our culture. We will lose our way and it's gone forever. There is no way to bring that back. Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara is still alive today with the language, story and Tjukurpa (dreaming). We are here for everybody. We are important to Australia.

We want the SA Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Minister Maher to talk to us 'proper way' and not decide our future from Adelaide. He needs to support us to decide our future. We are in the bush, we want Minister Maher to come and sit down with us, to work together, for him to understand our way, our Law. We want Prime Minister Tony Abbott to support Aboriginal people and our Law and Culture.

Closing communities without talking to Aboriginal people, and without any plan, is really a bad thing to do. It's not good. Our life, our ancestor's lives, and our children's lives is not a 'lifestyle choice', it is our country, our family, our law and it is our culture. How can communities of poor Aboriginal people be closed, while the government supports tax rorts for the super-rich?

How can poor Aboriginal people be moved off our land, so that mining companies who are given large government tax breaks, can dig up our country? I'm from APY, where we still are alive with language and Law and culture. We are worried for our communities and Aboriginal people around Australia today. The Governments should help people from Aboriginal communities and work with us.

I am Murray George, from APY. This is my hope.

(This post first appeared on the facebook page for Anangu Pitjatjantjara Yankunytjatjara Lands.)

I cannot silently sit by whilst a wave of attacks befall Aboriginal Australians. The remote communities face a myriad of problems, but closing them down is not any kind of solution.

Sitting in a capital city and refusing to engage with remote community members is not a respectful way to instigate change. Whilst promises are made that in time there will be community consultations, clearly there are plans in motion that have ignored the perspective of those whose lives are about to be dramatically changed.

It says a lot about the colonial headspace of our government, that over two hundred years after invasion, Aboriginal people are still being treated as second-rate citizens whose basic human rights can be removed and ignored.

Wherever you are in the world, your support could help to shame the Australian Government out of its decision to forcibly close remote Aboriginal communities.

Sign the online petition.

On Facebook you can post a photo of yourself with a sign showing your support here.

You can tweet Premier Colin Barnett to tell him your views at @premierofwa.

You can email Premier Colin Barnett at: wa-government@dpc.wa.gov.au.

(I would like to acknowledge the Awabakal and Worimi people as the Traditional Owners of the land that this opinion piece was written on. I would also like to pay my respects to their Elders, past, present, and future.)