Legalising the stone age
Hal Colebatch
Afew months ago an aborigine in Northern Australia, Mr Eric Jackson, was convicted of indecent assault, and a white court handed him back to tribal aborigines for punishment. He had already been beaten on the testicles with sticks by tribal women and further severely beaten by the men. The magistrate, W. P. Towers, told him: 'You will be punished further by your own people. . . you will be released for punishment by the tribal elders.' Jack- son was to be, as a start, forcibly put through mutilating initiation ceremonies, which he had always avoided. However, he was killed before this could be done.
An aborigine called Old Barney Jungala was convicted of manslaughter after spear- ing to death another aborigine who he believed harboured designs on his wife. He also speared his victim's brother in the arm. A white court gave him a suspended sentence of one year, recognising that he had been carrying out tribal law. The judge said: 'White man's law must take full account of aboriginal beliefs and tradi- tions,' which was good news for Old Barney if not for potential spear targets.
The Australian Law Reform Commis- sion recommends that white courts 'take Aboriginal punishments into account when sentencing' because they will thus be 'ac- knowledging aboriginal law exists.'
These bizarre developments in Australia are one dramatic manifestation of a sort of race-relations industry paternalism which, in an effort to preserve a vision of aborigin- al tribal life, effectively set aside the normal rights under law of Australian citizens (which aborigines are) not to be beaten on the testicles or speared. These two cases are not the only ones in which law authorities have tended towards giving an imprimatur to barbaric punishments, but since they often occur in remote areas, other instances of such punishments may not come to public attention. Jackson does not seem to have been fully tribalised, and appears to have been forced into this barbaric situation entirely against his will.
Despite new anti-sex discrimination leg- islation, and a very strident feminist lobby in Australia, women, black and white, may shortly be banned from viewing aboriginal rock carvings at Mootwingee National Park in New South Wales. The state Labour government has already closed the area (which previously attracted more than 20,000 visitors a year) while a policy is decided.
The four medical personnel at the Cen- tral Australian aboriginal centre of Papun- ga — two doctors, a sister and a health service administrator — were all summari- ly sacked and the centre closed because a white woman allegedly swore at an abor- iginal man. A spokesperson for the com- munity said men could swear at women but women could not swear at men. As a result an attempt to set up an independent aboriginal-controlled health service was closed down.
The Australian Tourist Commission's scheme to promote Ayers' Rock as a major tourist attraction has run up against a ban on a BBC crew filming the rock, though they did not plan to film aboriginal sites at the rock, but only a general view such as has been filmed thousands of times before.
In another grotesque manifestation of white attempts to push aborigines back to primitivism, the Northern Territory Health Service has been promoting what it claims is bush medicine, evolved by aborigines over centuries of trial and error. For babies with colds, it recommends not so much wrapping them in warm clothing, but more rubbing their chests with grass smeared with rabbits' brains. Other traditional medicines promoted by the white author- ities include raw cat and fox liver and rabbit urine.
Rabbits, cats and foxes were all intro- duced into Australia after European settle- ment, and these 'traditional' practices can- not possibly have been developed over centuries. Other ancient remedies involve boiling things (I will spare the reader the 'Well of course I'm glad you're going back to work, but I shall miss our little clashes.' details), despite the fact that before white settlement aborigines could not have. boiled water because they had no utensils. In the burgeoning race-relations industry, any desire to help aborigines meet the modern world successfully on its own terms seems to be at odds with a desire to create human zoos to perpetuate primitivism in sub-bantustan conditions. Best-selling white author, Xavier Herbert, has offered to bankrupt himself to pay for the legal costs of any aborigine who will only spear a white man.
In 1981 oil exploration at Pea Hill in Western Australia was stopped because at a site nearby, it was alleged, some aborig- ines believed the spirit of a sacred lizard was in attendance. Protests against any disturbance of this being were led by trendy white clergymen of Christian de- nominations. In 1982 a proposed £100 million uranium mining project was block- ed in the Northern Territory because four of the 29 aborigines in the local group voted against it — one man and his three sisters. A court held that under the Land Rights Act consent had to be unanimous 'and not merely the wish of a large major- ity, meaning that one individual could hold up any mining project regardless of its size or the wishes of the rest of the community.
Similar power for aborigines to veto mining operations is being considered by. the Labour government of Western Aus- tralia, despite that state's very heavy de- pendence on mining. Since aborigines wan- dered over the whole of Australia, sacred sites can be claimed virtually anywhere. In South Australia another Labour govern- ment has introduced legislation which threatens to bring mineral exploration to a stop, as has already happened in much of the Northern Territory. One major ex- ploration company, Hematite Petroleum, has withdrawn from a £20 million explora- tion programme in South Australia be- cause of legislation compelling it to make payment to aborigines not on the basis of royalties but before exploration has even commenced. There is a . cloud over the whole prospect of new mining develop- ments in Australia. particularly because Federal intervention, through External Affairs treaty powers, may reinforce state laws.
Meanwhile, at the Church of the Friend- ly People, in Sydney, Australia's first National Liberation Conference, organised by Geraldine Willesee, a member of Sinn Fein and daughter of a former Labour foreign affairs minister, has brought abor- iginal and aboriginoid activists together with those friendly people, the PLO and IRA. The conference issued a set of standard PLO and IRA demands along with a demand that the Federal govern- ment assist aboriginal land rights claims. White activists, legal advisers, social ofne workers, progressive clergymen and part and fractional aborigines have been much more prominent than full-blood aborigines in promoting destructively extremist claims and tribal primitivism. Activists of more aboriginal blood, including strongly mill-- tant ones, seem more interested in joining the modern world while keeping some traditional affinities than entering the zoos. Criticism of the zoo policy can, however, be dealt with severely. Journalists who have written unfavourable stories about reservations, include exposés of child-rape and petrol sniffing, have been instantly expelled and in some cases have been victimised in their subsequent careers.
One white observer of the situation, Geoff McDonald, an industrial officer with the nurses' union, who has visited medical posts all over the outback aboriginal areas and reserves, has written a book, Red Over Black, in which he argues the ultimate purpose of some aboriginoid activists is to create a breakaway state in the mineral- rich north of Australia where Soviet or Cuban advisers might later turn up. The book has caused a storm in the race- relations industry, two United Church clergymen writing a 50-page attack on it. Its argument, though an extreme one, is not entirely implausible, and the reaction to it suggests it has touched some raw nerves.
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