Homogenous? I don't think so

Muhammad Ali (born Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr. on January 17, 1942), the greatest heavy weight boxer ever, once said: “The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life.”

I agree with his powerful words as I also believe too many leaders are still living in the past and can’t see the “forest for the trees”.

I would consider those remarks analogous to an Indigenous leader falling asleep on his or her watch and posing a belated question to their community: “What are the police and those fellas in the camouflage outfits in big green trucks doing in my community?”

Or the non-Indigenous political leaders who strip rural and urban communities of essential programs (employment - CDEP, and housing - CHIP) and redirect all federal funds to remote communities: because they have this notion of the “noble savage” -one foot resting on the other, spear at the ready, gazing out over the horizon - as representative of the “real blackfella”.

While many Indigenous people nationally praise the action of the federal government, in intervening in the Northern Territory on child abuse and alcohol related violence, they are however in concert in saying “what about us?”

The New South Wales Coalition recently called on Premier Morris Iemma to finally act on the shocking report into child sexual abuse in NSW Aboriginal communities following state government officials dismissing the crisis as not their problem.

The Breaking the Silence report was commissioned in 2003 and Morris Iemma still isn't taking the issue seriously.

"At every stage the Iemma Government has sought to delay or downplay this matter, from the report's publication to the release of its response during the Christmas-New Year period," NSW Liberal Leader Barry O'Farrell said.

"The failure to respond quickly to the report's findings and the refusal to fund a program to end the abuse, leaves the Iemma Government effectively complicit in this sorry state of affairs," he said.

It’s little wonder child abusers and women bashers in Indigenous communities outside the Northern Territory are grinning from ear to ear as the rest of the country, through the media, have taken their eyes off them and are instead focusing their collective angst at those NT perpetrators who will eventually be tracked down and dealt with by the full force of the law.

So while some Indigenous leaders are quick to condemn the actions of the Howard administration in intervening on the horrendous child abuse issues as identified by the Rex Wild QC and Patricia Anderson Little Children are Sacred report, there are many like myself who continue to sing their praise and hope they widen their plan to incorporate a total national strategy in a similar heavy handed approach to identify and rid the violent abusers and sexual predators, black and white, from all Indigenous communities.

However, I preface my comments by saying that like the majority of Indigenous people who are celebrating this historic endeavour of the Federal Government to combat child abuse - they, like myself, do not support the associated plan that involves abolishing the permit system on Indigenous land or to do health checks on children without adhering to cultural protocols as identified by appropriate Indigenous health professionals.

The black and white leaders who make decisions that impact on the lives of Indigenous people ought to get with the times or move on. They also need to know that Indigenous people do live south of the line that runs from Townsville across to Broome.

In the past couple of months I’ve had the good fortune of being invited to speak at a diversity of conferences in various locations including Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra and Darwin and many centres in between.

The one constant of all topics shared with old and new friends is the issue of identity.

From informal chats at these conferences, with leaders presenting papers on the same dais to those observant and engaging attendees, I gathered a strong sense that there is, on the one hand, a feeling of oneness (as being from a single Indigenous ancestry) but, on the other hand, a definite disquiet for their rights to be respected by others by not being pigeon holed as homogenous (all one people).

It seems they are happy to cheer on Anthony Mundine as one of the mob when he enters the boxing ring and raises his hand in victorious salute, but hate it when they are made to feel guilty, because of a perceived association by others, when a description of a wanted serious offender is read on the radio or television news as being of Aboriginal descent.

Many speakers at the “Who you calling urban?” conference, hosted by the Australian National Museum in Canberra, asked why 70 per cent of the Indigenous population that live in urban areas receive the smallest piece of the financial pie while the minority who live in remote areas receive the lion’s share of federal funds.

Many participants posed the question: “What does an Indigenous person look like - given that we are so diverse in appearance?"; "What single facial and physical characteristic best represents an Indigenous Australian in 2007?”

At the same conference many participants were challenged, some affronted, by the controversial arguments offered by two of our most talent artists: Richard Bell, from “white women can’t hump?” fame, and Vernon Ah Kee. Vernon, a north Queensland artist on the rise who paints “… Aborigine[s] as a worthy subject to be sure, but my intention is to strip away from the image any of the romantic and ‘exoticised’ notions of primitivism, virtue and most importantly, the decorative stone-age”.

Richard shocked the more mature paying attendees by telling them emphatically that he is a reformed homophobe and racist and later told them that they were in fact all Christian racists. Before the audience could regather their collective breath an old Jewish lady identified herself to the assembly as having escaped the concentration camp of Auschwitz and most definitely wasn’t a Christian or a racist.

Vernon, without blinking an eyelid, said “… you might think you’re not a racist but your act of choosing to move to the whitest of all white countries; Australia, was in fact a racist act”.

A deafening hush fell over the entire Vision Theatre crowd as they sank into their comfortable seating.

You could’ve heard a pin drop.

I haven’t heard that level of racial discourse since the good old days of attending, as an impressionable teenager on weekend leave from boarding school, the black power sessions in the back of the old FAIRA office in George Street, Brisbane when Dennis Walker, Cheryl Buchanan and Sam Watson Jn. were at their rhetorical best.

Do Richard Bell and Vernon Akee speak for the majority of marginalised Aboriginal people today or does the old saying of Muhammad Ali ring true that: “The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life”?