Back to the good ‘ol days…
Another day, another “mainstreaming” policy plan by Mal Brough. There seems to be no end in sight to the return to assimilation policies. The Minister doesn’t really even seem to be working that hard to disguise the fact that this is a return to the pre-self-determination era. Today Brough suggested that Aboriginal children should be forced to learn English and if they don’t go to school the government will withhold their government welfare money. Never mind that the schools in most remote areas are extremely uninviting (that’s putting it mildly) for Aboriginal children. These children are often ridiculed and ignored because of their lack of “proper” English skills all the while the school system fails to recognize the language systems the children work from and the language environments in which they live. With cutbacks for bilingual education and now the “forced” English language requirements it looks like Mal Brough and company are proposing a full return to the days of outlawing Aboriginal languages, punishing children for speaking languages other than English, and the requiring Aboriginal parents to make a choice between their own languages and cultures and prosecution. Sorry did someone say reconciliation is dead?
Update: See this post at Transient Languages and Cultures for a linguistic perspective on the realities of bilingual education for Aboriginal children. In the comments Jane Simpson shows just how Brough makes his policy decisions–not facts and figures just speculation and ignorance.
About The Author
Kim Christen
I am an Assistant Professor at Washington State University. I use this blog to keep myself writing. I blog about Australian Aboriginal politics, Indigenous issues, Indigenous new media, cultural politics, and other issues that come up. I made the icon above at Portrait Icon Maker
Other posts byKim Christen
Author his web sitehttp://www.kimberlychristen.com
And for further discussion, see Jangari’s post on the Brough remarks, and the comments at Matjjin-nehen.
Hi there!
I reckon there’s quite a lot going on here. Firstly, as you point out, ‘integration into the mainstream economy’ just stinks of the odour of assimilation.
Secondly, I think Brough more or less knows what he’s doing when he threatens to withhold funds, because with the Alice Springs town camp housing issue, it’s being made to look like Tangentyere community’s fault, rather than the government’s, but the condition – effectively relinquishing hard-fought-for land – is completely unreasonable.
(Here’s a bit of a conspiracy theory) Perhaps Brough would like to run the portfolio like a battle, by pillorying his constituents, it probably makes things easier if the public is behind whatever the government wants to do. But that’s complete speculation.
And thirdly, he’s using rather flimsy anecdotes from grandparents to form these policies, as Jane pointed out, rather than the facts. The anecdotes also tacitly state that the issue is this: English is good and indigenous language hinder that, therefore they are bad. Although, he does cover himself by saying he’s not asking them to abandon their traditional languages (but presumably if they do so it wouldn’t hurt).
As much as it’s pretty difficult to view any Howard government member without healthy cynicism, when Brough came in and started going out bush, visiting communities and basically doing what possible no other Aboriginal Affair Minister (in a long time at least) has done, I thought it would start a shift toward some helpful policy from the government. Instead, we seem to be going back in time to White Australia.
Disillusioning.
Disillusioning for sure!
At first I thought anyone would be better than Ruddock, but Brough really seems to be on a fast track here. He seems to be spinning all the issues together too, so that it all comes back to the fault of Aboriginal communities who just haven’t taken up the “opportunities” given to them. The paternalism is barely concealed, but it doesn’t seem to matter.
I’m not generally one for conspiracy theories either, but this latest round of efforts to get control of the town camps in Alice, just seems like the tip of the iceberg. I know the town council in Tennant Creek is trying to do the same thing. So it could be a domino effect and soon the hard won land rights efforts, the efforts of Aboriginal organizations, and what is left of self-determination practices will be leveled.