Some thoughts for Reconciliation Week, 2012.

MAY-JUNE 2012

While so many eyes will be trapped by the imperial sparkle of the Diamond Jubilee of the English Queen, and will be oblivious to the passing of 20 years since the High Court's Mabo decision on 3 June, 1992, the claims of a non-indigenous sovereign to control the resources and  lives of Australia's First Peoples is increasingly being questioned in Australia and overseas. 

Around Australia Aboriginal Tent Embassies are presently being established  - and the people in these embassies are safeguarding the sacred fire of indigenous sovereignty  which has never been extinguished in fact or in 'law'.

Life is on the move.

HOW TO IMAGINE COEXISTING SOVEREIGNTY

A challenge for conceptual craftspeople is how can we imaging forms of co-existing sovereignty which avoid such mistakes as ‘separate development’ and which allow for a spirit of cultural partnership to permeate life.

In place of enclave or ‘reservation’ models such as those which have bounded areas (e.g. the remnants of former ‘tribal  territories - dependent domestic nations) we need to consider deconstructing the features of the dominating Anglo-Australian formation to reduce the extent to which its norms apply.

That is, instead of allowing these norms to operate over an unlimited domain, to insist that they are limited to only part of life – and that the other parts of life are ‘governed’ by other means.

While this is unthinkable during the ascent and height of Western forms of power, as that form of power begins to weaken, new possibilities present themselves – from life itself.

That is, in order to accommodate the life needs of Australia's First Peoples we need to reconceptualise modern Anglo-Australian norms (and normas). 

  

MODERN NORMALITY

The problem with most discussions about the recognition of indigenous sovereignty is they tend to be heavily dominated by Western notions of sovereignty a la the modern nation-state.

That is, an exclusive notion of sovereignty of the “winner takes all” kind. The conceptual underpinnings for this, I suspect, is the formerly powerful notion (in some places) of a monotheistic god – an extremely jealous god who puts to the sword the rest of his kin in a polytheistic pantheon.

The uncritical acceptance of the European exclusive notion of sovereignty, by those who argue for the recognition of an unextinguished indigenous sovereignty in Australia, makes an extremely difficult challenge impossible.

They then have to seek to displace the whole of Anglo-Australian sovereignty in order to replace it with a similarly singular form of indigenous sovereignty. Fat chance of that.

And even the staunchest supporter of indigenous sovereignty needs to be wary of replacing one set of power-mad cultural masters with another.

The ‘modern’ form of sovereignty operates with a central cluster of norms which is used as a means to assess many other forms of practice. The Ways of other peoples are to be ‘normalised’ by an ethnocidal process and brought into apparent conformity with modern norms. Read the media releases of the relevant Federal government Ministers for a rich data base on this process.

There is no epistemological space in this modern system for Ways which challenge and seriously question modern normality. (But modern normality is, like so much else, a passing arrangement which enjoys no inherent privilege.)

Some leftwing activists, for example, appear to think that there is nothing wrong with the present form of domination. For them it is just a matter of replacing the existing elite with those who (like themselves) reproduce a leftwing worldview and ideology.

Let there be no mistake about the spirit which motivates these writings here – it is the form of existing power relations which is the problem, not merely those who are empowered to fill the key decision-making positions.

INDIGENOUS FORMS OF SOVEREIGNTY

A far better approach, in my opinion, in order to secure conditions under which First Peoples in Australia may be able to live – to a certain degree – in accordance with their Ways, is to look at the indigenous Australian Ways for a model of indigenous sovereignty.

First Peoples Ways, in Australia, are characterized by complementary opposition, by a unity made up of two halves, two ‘moieties’ as modern anthropologists call them. An easy way to think of this as ‘yin-yang’.

An Eastern logic is required.

Both sides of life are required to make life whole.

Neither side is complete without the other, and neither side can replace the other.

The emphasis in this system is for two sides to maintain their respective positions vis-à-vis the other, without putting one side in a dominating position ‘on top’.

This complementary-opposition form provides a model of co-existing sovereignty as opposed to the winner takes all approach.

There is a process of sharing and division of life’s responsibilities in these arrangements.

LIFE’S NORMAL MODE IS NOT MODERN

The modern nation state model is taken as self-evident, but life’s normal form is that as found with First Peoples

The modern model, which has an elite dominating the other parts of life, is not normal, but pathological.

It allows for gross distortions of the kind which systematically privileges the benefits to a special few and allows that privilege to greatly outweigh the need to ensure that the well-being of all life is placed first.

The modern notion of normal, with its one-sided forms of representation, is rejected here. It is malformed.

What is normal to life is that which is found in the Ways of Australia’s First Peoples – in which power and authority are never allowed to coalesce into the hands of one group of people.

We need to find a condition of Being which is becoming for the great planet we live on, and which – contra the crass ego-centric form of individualism which accompanies mindless consumerism – puts a thoroughgoing concern for the rest of life into all we do.

And that insight is to be found in the Ways of First Peoples – in the arrangements which they found, by hard-won lived experience, prevented the abuses which give rise to so many the present power-trip problems we face.

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Some Indigenous Voices and a seminar at the University of Wollongong preceding Reconciliation Week 2012:


Foundation Meeting of the Sovereign Union – National Unity Government

http://nationalunitygovernment.org/node/148 24 May 12


 University of Wollongong: Litigating the boundaries of sovereignty 

http://media.uow.edu.au/news/UOW124684.html 

Moving from dominating to relating - 21st century regional context

Treating other people as objects is part of the system of attitudes which makes up imperialism.

No doubt imperialism is only one instance of social formations in which one group – as a means of attaining and maintaining positions of power – treat other people as objects.

Pierre Clastres reminds us that genocide and ethnocide are extensions of practices first of all applied ‘at home’. The emergence of European kingdoms and modern nation-states are the results of bloody struggles. With the move to over-running life overseas, the system of attitudes transcends the ‘boundaries’ which otherwise demark ‘home’.

The treatment of other people as objects can be seen very clearly in the Anglo-Australian treatment of Australian First Peoples, from the earliest times of colonization and through to the present day with the continuation of the Northern Territory ‘intervention’.

A culturally one-sided imperial will is forcefully imposed on the lives of First Peoples by non-indigenous politicians who have no personal understanding of the Ways of First Peoples and no professional qualifications which would make good this deficit.

Governor Macquarie is a classic example from earlier times -  and  P.M. Howard, Minister Brough, P.M. Gillard and Minister Macklin serve as more recent examples from both sides of Anglo-Australian politics.

In the absence of any form of indigenous representation, non-indigenous politicians simply impose their own world-view and values upon the whole of Australian life  - as ‘one nation’- as though the introduced system of order is, somehow, preordained to apply in all cases and in all instances.

They are culturally blind when it comes to recognizing the realities of the original cultures of this country.

The ability of the Westminster system (as presently constituted) to call on experts to advise governments about such matters is a proven failure in Australia.

The old fashioned approach, belonging to European imperialism and colonialism, seeks to manipulate and dominate life.

It is the antithesis of relating.

My hope for the survival of First Peoples as First Peoples is that a future scholar, with an understanding of Foucault’s notion of an episteme, will be able to look back at Australian life and identify the period in which an epistemic shift occurred – when the old methods of non-indigenous Australians shifted from the attempts to dominate First Peoples and finally accepted the need to learn how to relate.

There is a profound difference between these two modes of Being. A shift from heavy to light – from life as something a drill sergeant would appreciate to life as a flowing dance.

What I wonder about, though, is how this change will come about since Anglo-Australians (at least, those who aspire to attain the apparent strategic heights) show little inclination in this direction. The present systems for ‘advancement’ and promotion in Australia reward those who subscribe to a particular world-view, and that world-view is not one which owes anything to the wisdom inscribed in the Ways of  First Peoples.

EASTERN ENGAGEMENTS?

There is a possibility that, as Anglo-Australia Inc seeks to engage more with Asian countries, the cultural arrogance which underwrites the prior and deep seated view of “Australia for the White Man” will run into serious problems.

In a changing regional context and a changing global economic context, the ability for a small number of Anglo-Australians to maintain their outdated worldview may be seriously challenged.

If Europe is facing major problems and there is a change of policy in the United States about how to best protect its interests, the need for Anglo-Australians to adapt to their real surroundings could see a rapid acceleration in changes in the selection process for key positions.

Those who have abilities for cross-cultural relating, especially with cultures which place great value on respect and the need for mutually acceptable processes, may find themselves in demand, while the managers of yore are retired to the backroom to sort out inanimate objects of one kind or another, provided these low level tasks have not been replaced by less-expensive-to-maintain automaton.

One possibly fly in the ointment for such a vision is just what kind of personality is going to be associated with the rise of significant Asian neighbours.  They too may be dominated by those who treat people as objects, rather than fully alive Being - by the view that the bottom line is not well-being for the whole of life by acts of balanced exchange but the means by which other people's surplus energies can be 'legally' stolen by unfair trade.

The struggles of the 21^st century to heal Australian life may well include forming alliances with those who, having initially embraced Western Ways without realizing the true costs of doing so, then seek to regain some degree of balance as a result of the workings of a living praxis.

A surprising cultural landscape in Australia's high country - Easter 2012

Discovering a surprising cultural landscape in Australia's high country - a personal account.
From one of my other blogs

Part 1. http://japaljari.wordpress.com/2012/05/05/messages-from-our-surroundings-mount-kosciuszko-easter-2012/

Part 2. http://japaljari.wordpress.com/2012/05/07/messages-from-our-surroundings-part-two/

Part 3. http://japaljari.wordpress.com/2012/05/09/messages-from-our-surroundings-mt-kosciuszko-trip-easter-2012-final/

cheers
Bruce Reyburn May 2012