Last week, Professor James Anaya, the UN Special Rapporteur on Indigenous Rights, came to Australia to review the circumstances of indigenous Australians, particularly in relation to the Northern Territory intervention. His full review is yet to be released, but he put out a preliminary statement that you can read in full here

The statement was nearly 2000 words long, but the phrase seemed to capture the most media attention was: “the tremendous suffering (experienced by indigenous people) at the hands of historical forces and entrenched racism”. Blogs and comments on news sites went OFF, with everything from desperate pleas for help and understanding, to vicious flaming and racially based abuse (from both sides of the debate).

The simplest search through the internet shows that indigenous populations all over the world are severely disadvantaged; it’s appallingly, tragically, heartbreakingly sad. No-one should sit back and be ignorant or apathetic about this issue.

Poverty, disease, abuse, suicide, alcoholism, mental illness, disintegration of family groups, destruction of cultural values and disproportionally high mortality rates are universal themes for every group of people whose native lands were colonised during European expansion.

Almost every country involved has tried some forms of reconciliation, aid, treaty, intervention, some-other-name-for-the-same-thing to change the circumstances of their indigenous populations. Some have had minor successes, but no-one has really made any significant inroads to these problems. And every time another scheme fails, someone is there to point a finger and talk bitterly about racism.

Racism is blamed as both the cause indigenous people’s suffering, and the reason it cannot be alleviated.

This seems to me to be a gross simplification of an extremely complex problem, and a stumbling block to any solution.

Culture shock, ignorance, misunderstanding, conflicting imperatives, technology, geographical logistics, rapidly expanding populations, changing cultural beliefs and yes, racism, have all combined to produce the current parlous state of indigenous peoples around the world. The interactions of all these factors, and the changing patterns over time are impossibly complicated and vary greatly depending on your perspective

When every action or opinion is greeted with acrimonious and emotive accusations of racism, it makes genuine discussion of the problems and possible solutions utterly impossible. It also polarises all the people involved, to the point where they can no longer listen or talk to each other in any meaningful way.

Genuine racism, where people are abused or mistreated because someone believes their race makes them inferior or undeserving of basic human rights, is utterly abhorrent and should be unequivocally refuted.

This does not mean that every person who recognises differences in circumstances, or acts to alleviate those differences should be demonised as a racist.

It’s not racist to acknowledge differences, it’s not racist to admit that particular sections of the community need specialised assistance and try to find a way to provide it. It is not racist to see a group of people in desperate straits and attempt intervene in what you believe is their best interest.

It’s not even racist if you try to do this and fail.

It may well be ignorant, misguided or ill informed; it’s probably even incompetent and it may well have tragic outcomes, it’s terribly sad, but it’s not racist.

People who rightly speak out against racially based abuse do so because words have power, they typify social attitudes and, if used too commonly, can sink into the general social consciousness without people even being aware of it. Genuine racism is too important to be trivialised by constant misuse of the term.

Am I alone in thinking that it would be far easier to involve the wider community in the discussion if it were actually a discussion, rather than an attempt to apportion blame? Aren’t we more likely to provide a solution if the whole population has a better understanding of all the issues – on both sides? Wouldn’t non-aboriginal people benefit from better understanding the situation aboriginal people are in, and wouldn’t the aboriginal people benefit by being better understood?

I freely admit that while I have strong opinions, I don’t have much experience or knowledge in this area. If anyone has something to add to this post or something to tell me about what I’ve said that I clearly don’t know, I love to hear it. I put this post up because I truly belive this is something everyone should think about and discuss.

Please be aware, however, that while comments can be made anonymously, I will edit or delete any comments that are abusive or make personal attacks on other commenters. If it gets out of hand I will have to remove the anonymous thing and block persistent offenders. Disagree to your hearts content, but play the ball, not the person.

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