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Petrol for face-washing? Thanks but no thanks

By Ross Peake (LETTER FROM AUSTRALIA)

12 December 2004 - Almost out of sight, out of mind, in the far-flung corners of Australia, people are living in utter squalor. It’s a familiar story in First World countries the indigenous people are pushed aside and do not benefit as their country experiences economic progress. The good news from Australia over the past three years has been its ability to withstand buffeting from the Asian economic meltdown. The continuing economic prosperity in Australia, particularly booming house prices in capital cities, helped conservative Prime Minister John Howard to a stunning victory in the October national election against the Labor Party’s relatively new leader, Mark Latham.

However the economic gains have not flowed down to all levels of Australian society. Now there is a new deal for Australian Aborigines, which at long last has brought the spotlight back to their problems. They have inhabited the ‘Down Under’ continent for 50,000 years and have adapted to living in the harsh, dry interior. But the lack of running water in most of their outback communities — a disgrace in a relatively wealthy country — and the continual dust means many Aborigines go blind. This is because trachoma is endemic in outback Aboriginal communities. Chlamydia trachomatis bacterium is the most common cause of preventable blindness in the world. The condition is normally associated with Third World countries where people have limited access to water and healthcare. This terrible health record has led one Aboriginal community, Mulan, in Western Australia, to ask for a deal that has in turned sparked a national row.

The Aboriginal elders offered to guarantee their children would wash their faces twice a day to reduce the risk of trachoma. In return for that guarantee, the Howard government is prepared to install a petrol bowser in the community. This ‘petrol for face-washing’ trade-off has sparked outrage from some urban groups who argue it is patronising. They say the deal is racist because white communities do not have to enter any such deal to have the basic amenities. While that is undoubtedly true, the health situation of Aborigines is so chronic and so desperate that it requires alternative solutions. Put bluntly, this deal was initiated by the Mulan elders to save their children from blindness. For decades, successive federal governments in Canberra have poured millions and millions of dollars into lifting Aboriginal living standards.

Despite this, the state of indigenous health remains distressing. On average Aborigines die 20 years earlier than other Australians. In general Aborigines have poor health and education. Literacy rates are low and many teenage Aborigines are destroying their health by sniffing petrol. Death rates among 25 to 54-year-old Aborigines are up to five times higher than the total population. Indigenous people are hospitalised at twice the rate of other Australians. One-third of indigenous admissions are for dialysis treatment for diabetes. While most Australians will live to 77 or more, male Aborigines will live, on average, to only 56 and female Aborigines to 63. This is a common story around the world, with indigenous people marginalised, literally pushed to the fringes of the new community and gaining only the worst facets of the new community, such as alcohol.

In Australia, people who are part of the ‘baby boomer’ generation born after World War II grew up knowing nothing about Aboriginal culture. It was if there was a conspiracy to deny their existence. That changed a decade ago, as black leaders affirmed their culture and led urban Aborigines to demand a better deal. Their emerging culture was encouraged by the Labor Party government but the conservative Howard government will not countenance making an apology to the ‘stolen generations’, the Aboriginal children taken from their parents, as recently as two decades ago, by whites who did not believe the Aboriginal parents knew how to raise their children properly. Now the elders of Mulan 4,500 kilometres north west of Canberra are demonstrating they know how to care for their children. Coincidentally, the trade-off they have proposed fits perfectly with the ‘mutual obligation’ principles espoused by the Howard government. Is it too much to hope that outback Aboriginal children will be no longer be ‘out of sight, out of mind’ of urban, white Australians?

Ross Peake is a Canberra-based political analyst

Source: Khaleej Times Online

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