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Exporting Howard's Racism

15 September - Will Australian Prime Minister John Howard show his true colours when he visits Africa to protect the privileges of white farmers? asks Bruce Reyburn.

"LOOK AT ME! I'M A GRAZIER" SAYS JOHN W. HOWARD.

The very first action of John W Howard's National-Liberal Party government, when elected in 1996 , was to attack the hard won rights of Australia's First Peoples. After their first Cabinet meeting in, the National-Liberal Party coalition came our with all guns firing on the most disadvantaged group of people in Australia. It was a shameful act then, and it remains shameful today.

During the ensuing debate about amending the 1993 Native Title Act, the Howard-lead charge against the rights of indigenous Australian citizens saw the Prime Minister cutting a ridiculous figure when he appeared at the Longreach Stockman's Hall of Fame dressed as a grazier (white farmer).

While he looked remarkably silly to those of us who know Howard has been institutionalised inside Parliament House for most of his adult life, he was making use of the unconscious dress code by which we all send messages to others about where we really stand.

This signal ("I am really a farmer like you") allowed Prime Minister Howard to moderate his verbal language and leave the more explicit message to his deputy Prime Minister. Tim Fischer left the farmers in no doubt. Deputy Fischer told the farmers there would be "bucketloads of extinguishment" of indigenous peoples rights.

This is racism in a 'sophisticated' form which, in an age when rights are connected with access to the resources necessary for life, plays on surmise rather than present itself in its self-evident form. In former times the same message would have been "Mount your horses, men. We'll wipe those Blacks out once and for all.."

Indeed, in the Longreach area there had once been large numbers of Aboriginal people who held corroborees at the Longreach River. Little sign of them by the time Howard and Fischer visited the area a hundred years later . That those who had survived might have rights to land held by non-indigenous farmers went right against the world view institutionalised by British colonial imperialism.

This ideology was long long habituated in the air-conditioned graziers only bar at the Commercial Hotel in Longreach - and elsewhere - in the West. A cut above ordinary folk. Superior, even.

INSTITUTIONALISED RACISM RULES IN AUSTRALIA

An important component of the Native Title debate is about control, domination and supremacy. There is a world view and ideology which is part of the larger field of forces which flow from board rooms rather than farmers these days - but the farmers occupy an important place in the ideology.

Farmers 'cleared' the land of Blacks, and shaped the country as a White Mans paradise - 'opening' the way for Australia as a playground for foreign capital exploiting First Peoples precious resources. These graziers are part of the imaginary figure of what a 'real' Australian looks like. We must ask "Under the flat brimmed hat, adopted by Prime Minister Howard, what mentality is part of that figure? What spirit lurks?"

The Howard government is fully committed to protecting the privileges which flow from Anglo-Australian genocide against the original Australian peoples. It has demonstrated the same spirit in its shameful grab of the oil and gas resources of East Timor.

We have recently seen the Federal Treasurer (pretender to the position of Prime Minister) also appear in Longreach dressed as a grazier - cutting an equally ridiculous figure - but making a clear statement about where he stands as he waits for the top job.

The present Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson is now conducting a campaign for rights of farmers so they can be compensated for having to change their destructive and inappropriate introduced farming methods. Like the other members of the Howard Government, he was extremely silent about the rights of compensation for First Peoples when the High Court ruled recently that certain forms of title in NSW extinguished native title rights completely.

Farmers rights only here. When it comes to the rights of First Peoples, we have yet to see a Prime Minister adopting, for even an hour, the modestly modified form of national dress of Australia's indigenous peoples.

The Howard government not only ignored a mountain of submissions about the National-Liberal Party plan to amend the Native Title Act, they criticised and belittled the United Nations when the UN Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination took a similarly critical view of the legislation.

The constant in the behaviour of the Howard government is the protection of the rights of white farmers in comparison to those of the First Peoples.

WHITE FARMERS WOULD BE AT HOME IN MODERN AUSTRALIA

This bias is also shared by the major governing institutions which have been imposed on life in Australia by a savagely racist colonial history which resulted in the "White Australia" Constitution of 1901. White farmers in Africa, who failed to establish enduring social relationships with African peoples, would feel most at home in modern Australia.

The Parliaments, courts and other parts of the state operate to ensure, in the first instance, the protection of non-indigenous privileges built up during the long reign of the genocidal doctrine of terra nullius. There has been an almost complete lack of indigenous representation in Australia Federal and State parliaments for the last hundred years.

A monoculturally unbalanced High Court also plays its role by upholding the fantasy of Australia as part of the estate of the deranged British monarch King George III. Under this fantasy of European nation-state sovereignty there was never any need for a treaty with Australia's First Peoples. Anglo-Australian business is the main beneficiary of the operation of Australia's courts.

The High Court of Australia was subject to an unprecedented attacked after it got the answer "wrong" when it recognised native title in 1993. Having been heavied and reformulated it recently ruled that the original people have no rights in minerals and petroleum. These belonged to the British Crown and now to its Anglo-Australian heirs . Just how and when the Crown - on the far side of the planet - acquired these rights from First Peoples remains a total mystery.

The protection of indigenous rights assumes a secondary position which is revealed whenever the two come into serious conflict. Indigenous rights, to the extent that they are recognised, provide a convenient and low-cost means of buying international respectability by promoting a false image of Australian realities.

This is necessary so that it is 'business as normal' in Australia - where uncertainty is directed into the lives of First Peoples and away from boardroom responsibilities. The business of Anglo-Australia Inc is a highly protected species.

This same attempt at buying respectability sees John Howard - with his appalling record on the rights of indigenous Australian citizens - presuming to interfere in the complex political situation in an Africa virtually crippled by colonial imperialism of the same ilk. Finding healing solutions to problems in Africa must be seen in the same global context required for finding healing solutions to problems in Australia.

EXPORTING HOWARD'S FORM OF RACISM?

The consistent pattern of violation of the rights of Australia's First Peoples over two hundred years makes what is happening in Zimbabwe look very tame in comparison. Commonwealth attention is required to heal Australian life long before is should be directly solely to the fate of the white farmers in one part of Africa.

Blair and the British government have been remarkably silent about the abuses of indigenous rights in Australia - the country they established and continue to invest heavily in. A lot of products "made in Australia" are made by companies owned in Britain. No calls of boycotts on this front, eh Prime Minister Blair?

While there has been a major movement at the people level towards reconciliation and social justice in Australia during the 1990s, it has reached its limits without coming within cooee of any real hope of success. Black-bashing men like Howard continue to be elected to rule and to parade on the international scene as respectable and authentic representatives of Australian life.

International sanctions may well be required to encourage the Australian electorate to move towards genuine reconciliation, indigenous social justice and a treaty between cultural partners guaranteeing a balanced share of wealth, health and well-being.

If we are to entertain for a moment the idea that the former British Empire - now the Commonwealth - is free from the institutionalised racism which accompanied its birth, we need to see a clear demonstration of the Commonwealth's ability to turn the same degree of critical attention to John Howard's government as he advocates should be directed to a African lead member country.

Otherwise a call for Commonwealth sanctions against Zimbabwe by John Howard must be seen for what it is - part of his consistent pattern of protecting the privileges of White Farmers at home but now being exported abroad. Any Howard call for such sanctions must be very carefully examined to make sure that it is not an inherently racist measure in itself.

Racism is a form of mental and spiritual illness. It can be cured. It should not be exported to Africa. That country has enough post-colonial illness to deal with. Australia has the wealth necessary to be the place where racism can be cured, if necessary, by way of severe measures like sanctions without the cure killing the patient.

Prime Minister Howard, what you are carrying will be as welcome as AIDS in Africa. As a representative of Australian life, and before you come into contact with other people overseas, heal thyself.

Source: Songlines

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