This evening, I went to the Diversity Seminar at Trades Hall I mentioned a little while back with Carmen Lawrence and Julian Burnside and Bishop Hilton Deakin and Voula Messimeri (FECCA) as speakers, organised by SAVE Australia and Anna Burke, MP. It was an excellent night with some amazing speeches and I think I kicked off the whole Unity in Diversity Peace Picnic idea again is a random flurry of enthusiasm.
Anyway, salient points from my notes I’d like to share:
- Burnside absolutely inspiring and brilliant speaker. Spoke to him about Australian Political Encyclopaedia Project again. He suggested we meet up some time and talk properly. He told three extraordinary tales.
- Story 1: Young Iranian couple in early 20s, needed place to live. Friend offered room, wife 8 months pregnant. One day, four large gents from immigration turn up on doorstep with search warrant, she showed them TPV, they searched, made notes, then left. Apparently another four large gents at back door in case she tried to bolt. To their misfortune, friend was barrister. Contacted person who had executed search warrant. Found that members of immigration dept don’t need to contact magistrate to issue search warrant, they simply go to higher up in department and simply say ”I have evidence of immigration offence”. Worse still: reason warrant was issued was someone had rung Peter Costello’s office and said ”there are two middle-eastern looking people living in this expensive street in Armadale”.
- Story 2: Aboriginal child went to hospital for gastro on xmas day 1957 aged about one and a half. Gastro resolved in four days, but two weeks later he is given away to a white family who wanted to adopt a child. No formal process, they just looked through the beds and chose one. Such a poor system, they thought he was a girl until they got him home and undid his nappy. Meanwhile, mother contacts hospital asking when son will be well enough to come home. Records from hospital show govt told his mother he was too sick to come home *after* he’d been given away. As expected, he became uncontrollable and distressed. By three was back in hospital for tearing his own hair out. Foster mother had told him he was dark skinned because her family was from Cornwall and was darker. Met his real mother for first time aged 10. Foster mother decides she doesn’t want him any more. He goes on one week holiday to family he didn’t know, which turned into a return for good because foster mother didn’t want him back. He didn’t get to say goodbye to only family he did know. As expected, says Burnside, he has about every conceivable mental issue and has tried to kill himself numerous times.
SA govt attempted to resist this case strenuously including arguing child not removed from parents but removed from hospital. Then that removing children from parents did not cause harm. Burnside tried to introduce docs with list of removed children and harm done. SA govt tried to get this ruled inadmissable. When Burnside pointed out this was report commissioned by SA govt, it was admitted; embarrassment all around. 50% of men who died in custody were men removed from parents. Burnside: I want to win this for three reasons – one, I like winning; two, to show Andrew Bolt who says there is no such thing as a stolen generation because no cases have yet been won; three because it is making Bruce, the guy in question, feel respected by the system for the first time ever. - Burnside: We usually start speeches now by acknowledging we’re on Aboriginal land. Next step is to acknowledge we stole it from them. That we’re not planning to give it back. Then stole their children. And we’re not planning to say sorry for that. Howard says it’s because it was another generation. Funny, every year on that beach in Turkey, how does he manage to celebrate the achievements of an earlier generation while he cannot acknowledge the crimes? Ironic.
- Story 3. Soon it will be 100th anniversary of exoneration of Cpt Alfred Dreyfuss. Charged with treason. Leaked secret doc to German attaché in Paris. In handwriting. Suggested person must have spent time in four depts. Person tasked with going through lists (Sandherr) was an anti-semite. Saw Dreyfuss, saw he was a Jew, didn’t look further. Handwriting expert said it wasn’t Dreyfuss’s handwriting. So they got in different expert who said it was and that crafty Jew had taught himself to imitate different handwriting. Counsel asked that it be held in public, didn’t succeed. Even with most extraordinary evidence, not going well. Major Henri was pressed into service by Minister for War to develop secret dossier. Did that, told them they had new evidence that had to be kept secret from Dreyfuss and his counsel. Docs were damning of Dreyfuss and he was convicted, sent to Devil’s Island in solitary. Remained for a number of years until famous Zola/Clemenceau j’accuse!’ article in 1898 revealed that the secret dossier was forged. If Dreyfuss had seen them, he could have exposed them. Only publicly acknowledged he was innocent in 1995! Burnside: this situation could only exist with two conditions: deep seated hatred and suspicion of a class of people and a situation where judges can receive information and keep it secret from the accused. These are exactly the conditions which prevail in Australia today thanks to new ASIO legislation slipped through at the same time as sedition legislation that allows trials to take place on evidence which is incomplete or kept secret.
Has recently had cases where evidence has been submitted stamped “adverse security finding” with most of detail blanked out and certificate from Ruddock: I do not consent to this material being seen without bowdlerisation by the accused/I do not consent to any representative of the accused hearing the government’s submission to the court. Burnside: ”This is pure Kafka”. Only tolerated because these people are perceived as different. Oh yes, and coincidentally, accused is a Muslim…
Just like it says in Raymond Gaita’s essay about Mabo: The problem of the racist is that [he] utterly incapable of seeing that the inner life of the other is as rich and complex as [his] own.
- Carmen talked about psychology and whether genocide was a result of extraordinary people in ordinary circumstances or whether just anyone could be pushed in extraordinary circumstances to do horrible things; holocaust; how do we avoid this and celebrate diversity; where to from here?
- She also talked about very similar approach to my thesis: racism only exists if we reduce self to identity and only see out differences: I am X, You are Other.
- Messimeri pointed out that a cultural literacy and English test disadvantaged women who may not have time to learn English in the three years they have a permanent residents’ visa due to family commitments and then if they fail the test, they are permanently at risk of deportation for perceived infractions.
- She also pointed out that 40% of eligible recipients for elderly and disability services are from CALD backgrounds and unable to access these services adequately due to failure to gear services to CALD people.
- Deakin was quietly spoken and great. Qualified anthropologist and bishop, told stories of his own life. Has stories about growing up in the countryside and travelling through Cairns.
- He said archaeological evidence has been found for humans in Australia 60,000 years ago and that modern Aboriginal people are the same bloodtype as Aboriginal people from Vietnam and the Philippines and so that’s possibly where they came from. Not quite sure what he meant by this but I’m intrigued.
- Talked about the triad: myth, people and land. Take away any one and you destroy them.
- Told of flour barrels in Mt Macedon laced with strychnine left out for Aborigines. Heinous assault. Fed into collective psyche. Legal instrumentalities like shire laws that determined where Aborigines could live. Could not leave reserve without permission of a policeman. If the cop wasn’t there, they couldn’t leave. When they became a citizen, it was all done under a protector who guarded pensions and so on on behalf of Koories. Referendum to allow indigenous vote in 1962 but it took until 1971 to actually count their votes in an election. ”Thank God we were asked.” Why did it take so long to ask? Institutionalised racism. Definitive, quite formative, quite deliberate. Haven’t got rid of it yet. More than vestigial remains of it. Current racism is the same type of tools and definitions of racism.
- He was in Rwanda two weeks after the massacre. Remembers stench. Met 9 year old who had killed 8 people by hammering nails into their heads. ”Why did you do it?” ”Because he was Tutsi”. Because he was starting to use the archetype of race to justify this. Seen people chopping up people with machetes. All that is racism at its most rotten and worst. We have to get rid of it and get on top of it.
Man, what a night! Lots to think about!