The corridors of the Australian parliament are so white you squint. The sound is hushed; the smell is floor polish. The wooden floors shine so virtuously they reflect the cartoon portraits of prime ministers and rows of Aboriginal paintings, suspended on white walls, their blood and tears invisible.
The parliament stands in Barton, a suburb of Canberra named after the first prime minister of Australia, Edmund Barton, who drew up the White Australia Policy in 1901. “The doctrine of the equality of man,” said Barton, “was never intended to apply” to those not British and white-skinned.
Barton’s concern was the Chinese, known as the yellow peril; he made no mention of the oldest, most enduring human presence on Earth: the first Australians. They did not exist. Their sophisticated care of a harsh land was of no interest. Their epic resistance did not happen. Of those who fought the British invaders of Australia, the Sydney Monitor reported in 1838: “It was resolved to exterminate the whole race of blacks in that quarter.” Today, the survivors are a shaming national secret.
The town of Wilcannia, in New South Wales, is twice distinguished. It is a winner of a national Tidy Town award, and its Indigenous people have one of the lowest recorded life expectancies. They are usually dead by the age of 35. The Cuban government runs a literacy programme for them, as it does among the poorest of Africa. According to the Credit Suisse Global Wealth report, Australia is the richest place on Earth.
Politicians in Canberra are among the wealthiest citizens. Their self-endowment is legendary. Last year the then minister for Indigenous affairs, Jenny Macklin, refurbished her office at a cost to the taxpayer of $331,144. Macklin recently claimed that in government she had made a “huge difference”. This is true. During her tenure, the number of Aboriginal people living in slums increased by almost a third, and more than half the money spent on Indigenous housing was pocketed by white contractors and a bureaucracy for which she was largely responsible. A typical, dilapidated house in an outback Indigenous community must accommodate as many as 25 people. Families, the elderly and disabled people wait years for sanitation that works.
In 2009 Professor James Anaya, the respected UN rapporteur on the rights of indigenous people, described as racist a “state of emergency” that stripped Indigenous communities of their tenuous rights and services on the pretext that paedophile gangs were present in “unthinkable” numbers – a claim dismissed as false by police and the Australian Crime Commission. The then opposition spokesman on Indigenous affairs, Tony Abbott, told Anaya to “get a life” and not “just listen to the old victim brigade”. Abbott is now the prime minister of Australia.
Aboriginal youth burn Australian flag, 2012.
I drove into the red heart of central Australia and asked Dr Janelle Trees about the “old victim brigade”. A GP whose Indigenous patients live within a few miles of $1,000-a-night resorts serving Uluru (Ayers Rock), she said: “There is asbestos in Aboriginal homes, and when somebody gets a fibre of asbestos in their lungs and develops mesothelioma, [the government] doesn’t care. When the kids have chronic infections and end up adding to these incredible statistics of Indigenous people dying of renal disease, and vulnerable to world record rates of rheumatic heart disease, nothing is done. I ask myself: why not?
“Malnutrition is common. I wanted to give a patient an anti-inflammatory for an infection that would have been preventable if living conditions were better, but I couldn’t treat her because she didn’t have enough food to eat and couldn’t ingest the tablets. I feel sometimes … as if I’m dealing with similar conditions as the English working class at the beginning of the industrial revolution.”
In Canberra, in ministerial offices displaying yet more first-nation art, I was told repeatedly how “proud” politicians were of what “we have done for Indigenous Australians”. When I asked Warren Snowdon – the minister for Indigenous health in the Labor government recently replaced by Abbott’s conservative Coalition – why after almost a quarter of a century representing the poorest, sickest Australians, he had not come up with a solution, he said: “What a stupid question. What a puerile question.”
At the end of Anzac Parade in Canberra rises the Australian National War Memorial, which the historian Henry Reynolds calls “the sacred centre of white nationalism”. I was refused permission to film in this great public place. I had made the mistake of expressing an interest in the frontier wars in which black Australians fought the British invasion without guns but with ingenuity and courage – the epitome of the “Anzac tradition”.
Yet, in a country littered with cenotaphs, not one officially commemorates those who fell resisting “one of the greatest appropriations of land in world history”, wrote Reynolds in his landmark book Forgotten War. More first Australians were killed than Native Americans on the American frontier and Maoris in New Zealand. The state of Queensland was a slaughterhouse. An entire people became prisoners of war in their own country, with settlers calling for their extinction. The cattle industry prospered using Indigenous men virtually as slave labour. The mining industry today makes profits of a billion dollars a week on Indigenous land.
Warrior challenging police during rally, January 2012.
Suppressing these truths, while venerating Australia’s servile role in the colonial wars of Britain and the US, has almost cult status in Canberra today. Reynolds and the few who question it have been smeared and abused. Australia’s unique first people are its Untermenschen. As you enter the National War Memorial, Indigenous faces are depicted as stone gargoyles alongside kangaroos, reptiles, birds and other “native wildlife”.
When I began filming this secret Australia 30 years ago, a global campaign was under way to end apartheid in South Africa. Having reported from South Africa, I was struck by the similarity of white supremacy and the compliance and defensiveness of liberals. Yet no international opprobrium, no boycotts, disturbed the surface of “lucky” Australia. Watch security guards expel Aboriginal people from shopping malls in Alice Springs; drive the short distance from the suburban barbies of Cromwell Terrace to Whitegate camp, where the tin shacks have no reliable power and water. This is apartheid, or what Reynolds calls “the whispering in our hearts”.
• John Pilger’s film Utopia, about Australia, is to be released in British cinemas on 15 November and in Australia in January
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/05/australia-apartheid-alive-aboriginal-history
Warrior Publications 
Disgusting. Aboriginals are treated like shit on their own land. F**king outrageous!!!
Nobody is treating them like shit,and as for that other word,apartheid,no body is shooting at them ,which brings me to south africa ,how much welfare did they receive,i say none ,,even though aUSTRALIA might not be perfect, I dont see these do gooders inviting them in to their homes and taking care of them,like the media we arnt being hippo crypts are we
You don’t seem have any idea what you’re talking about. Apartheid doesn’t just mean people shoot at you. Canada is an apartheid state with separate laws and regulations for Native peoples that do not apply to non-Natives. That is what apartheid is. What about welfare? Non-Aboriginal Australians also receive welfare, what does that prove?
How would you know what “these do gooders” actually do? I know of many people, (including myself), who’ve housed indigenous people as well as working with them (both voluntarily and professionally) to better their circumstances.
I could list many incidents of people “treating them like shit”, but I won’t. I’ll leave it to you to do some quick research online and possibly enlighten yourself.
Not a helpfull post guys
Not helpful for whom? Racist white Australia?
Not helpful to anyone.
As someone who has a personal interest in this issue, what does it achieve?
Terrible shit happened. Yep, it did.
What are we going to do about it? Express outrage online? What does that do, besides fulfil your moral sense of outrage?
The first step in correcting a problem is to admit there’s a problem. It’s common in an apartheid state for non-Natives to be woefully ignorant of the reality facing Native peoples. If people are “outraged” by what is happening in Australia then that’s a good first step.
People are good at looking the other way..at pretending it isn’t happening. There’s no truth like hidden truth….
Its a redneck wonderland, an oasis of racist complacency and a benign white supremist consciousness.. No wonder racist White South Africans and other post colonial countries moved here in droves post apartheid, they feel right at home. But there is no whispering in their hearts…just a calm and content understanding that their supremacy – whilst regularly challenged – will never be otherthrown.
Does ”let’s look ahead’ sound patronizing if I mention it could, and perhaps should, entail a farming system for honeypot ants first Australians could spearhead?
How about abandoning colonial control over the land and resources, for a start, then somewhere down the line “honeypot ants” as a solution…
Australia cannot heal and move forward until our Prime Minister apologises for the genocide that was committed on aboriginal land, forms a Treaty and works together with the First Peoples listening to hat they want not what white people tell them they want.
Time for a full scale rebellion
We need the truth, warts and all. We need more than some token Aboriginal politicians who are tied and silenced by party politics, we need those who for years fought for our rights and truth to start making noise in the corridors of parilament, we need WHITE AUSTRALIA to WAKE UP!
Native Australians have the right to vote and have access to all the government services available to the general population. As well there are specific services available only to Aboriginies. This includes free legal aid via the Aboriginal Legal Service, free education right up to and including diploma/degree level (unless they are rich in which case they pay like anyone else). So much is being done and is available to them that it is a shame that it is not made more publicly obvious. Australia has a way to go but a lot of people on both sides of the racial divide are doing their best to make things better.
Right so all these specific services and free legal aid must explain why Aboriginals in Australia suffer the highest rates of poverty, imprisonment, etc? Sounds a lot like Canada, with all the “special benefits” Natives get, like free homes, no taxation, and other myths.
This is absolutely discussing how those people are treated no rooves over there heads without asbesto when are going to realize you took land off these people and still letting them live in there own shit for every peace of bread you eat I hope you think of what is out in Otpia just wake up and think about all of this you all have no pride in yourselves you take and take we saw on television how police battered a aboriginal he died couple days no one charged have some heart
Dido that comment
Shows you this site know s nothin, the africans dont have welfare ,oh sorry we should torture ours is that enough apartheid for you, ,give us your adress i will send some around,that way you will see with your eyes open not closed
You seem to have a problem with Australia being exposed as an apartheid regime. Denial will not help you, nor will comparing Australia to South Africa. Both Canada and Australia have majority white populations, while S. Africa had a majority Black population that the white minority attempted to control largely through police and military violence. But if you look at both Canada and Australia you will see a pattern of colonial violence that continues to this day, reflected in rates of imprisonment, violent death, poverty, disease, etc. So please don’t pretend that Australia is some kind of paradise for Indigenous peoples.
Reblogged this on Listening to the Voices in My Head and commented:
Shame, shame! Shame, especially on you Tony Abbott.
No man or woman in this life or life to come will ever be truly happy or content if his or her possession is annexed or ceased and then be given to him or her as if it was never theirs. The displacement and continued subjugation of the real Australians have outlived then20th century.
This article is rubbish.. Pilger just can’t help himself as usual.
Yes history happened.. But now it’s in the past and we are throwing a shit load of money at the consequences. What else can we do?
Abandoning your claims to Australian land and resources would be a good start. You cannot escape the consequences of your colonial and genocidal history, now matter how much you wish to relegate it to the ‘past’.
I like John Pilger’s thoughtful well researched pieces and the exposure that follows. Yes, he is right that Aboriginal have had a great injustice perpetrated against them, their land stolen, their society dismissed as of no worth, their children (particularly those of mixed race) stolen away for “improvement” of education and then dumped on orphanages where pederasts reigned supreme. Brutality and child abuse was at the core of their education (as it also was in the UK in the 1940s and 1950s) like in the rest of Australia. Yes there is an incipient racism in Australia (another import from the arrogant British culture of the time), and this affects the legal situation in outback and regional Australia. Imprisonment rates are far too high, particularly for Indiginous people. Australia today has inherited this contamination from the past. It is inexcusable that the attitudes continue, and legally they do not. However, reactionary ignorance is promoted particularly but not only in the Murdoch press, and this gets in the way of a quick solution. What has happened since 1967 is truly revolutionary, and improvement is continuing. I believe that. Indiginous people will eventually get justice as have the Jews from modern Germany, when Australians come to terms with the atrocities and genocide carried out in the 19th century, and make reparation. This is a much more positive story than the discrimination still handed out to the descendents of those who were dispossessed by the Norman Conquest in 1066. They did not benefit from British colonialism, and nor did those colonized.
This is such a complex issue. There are no short term answers, however I am angry for anyone to call this country apartheid. I have been amongst our indigenous people since I was a young child and I have always admired the people who have wanted to assist in education and health of this ancient culture. What most people in cities and towns across Australia is having very little contact with indigenous people if any. In urban cities there are areas where they are grouped together in housing commission housing. Unfortunately there are many who have fallen into the trap of alcohol, drugs, gambling and crime. People observe this behaviour and believe all indigenous people are this way. There are also many who live in the cities who are strong and try and assist their families and communities.
The indigenous people who live in the northern areas of Australia where they once lived on the stations, or lived off their land with hunting and fishing . In these areas housing, infrastructure, schooling have been put into place. Health and schooling have been addressed and hundreds of teachers, nurses and so many of their own people work towards to assisting the people to move into this century. It is difficult to assist people to change their lifestyle and there is an ongoing problems with chronic disease.
In the country we don’t stop our indigenous brothers and sisters into our restaurants, bars, swimming pools, catching public transport or attending churches. In some communities the people themselves limit or stop alcohol coming in, but that is thier own decisions. We are a free nation. We don’t always get it right, however please don’t think Australians care.
Ya, Australia is so free that must be why the Northern Intervention was carried out with the assistance of military forces: to impose more Australian ‘freedom’ on the Aboriginals. One of the reasons non-Native Australians have so little contact with Aboriginals is because of the apartheid regime that has been established. It’s the same here in Canada.
zig zag, apartheid is a word that wasnt bantered around except for south africa in the early days,so people have grabbed it to use as their propaganda here,australia is no paradise ,they were your words,makes you wonder about ignorance,when i comes to appoligies ,i think they have been already done,when it come to mining they get royaltys,so find where they go. and know doubt they will be out on Monday to say thankyou to the ones as WELL AS THEIR OWN that STOPPED and GAVE THEIR LIVES STOPPING THE Japaneese from INVADING, because more than likely they would not exsist as they do now and to me thats far more precious that a treaty-by the way look up the AMERICAN BRIGG -MARIA ,with that piece of history it shows you there is good and bad in all.And never presume anything because ive been around the best in both races in my life.
FYI James, South African officials came to Canada in the early part of the 20th century to learn from Canada’s system of reservations, band councils, and the Indian Act. The bantustans in S.A. were designed after reservations in this country, as were many other aspects of the SA’s colonial regime. As a word it is most often associated with S. Africa, but as a system of separate laws and regulations it is commonly found in colonial systems. The Spanish had a vast system of separate laws for Natives in South America some 500 years ago. To apply the term apartheid to either Canada or Australia seems correct.
Natives in Canada also receive royalties in areas where oil and gas or mining operations exist, this doesn’t mean all Natives in the country get such royalties, and at the end of the day a few thousand extra dollars per year doesn’t change much when the land that once provided sustenance is now a toxic wasteland.
In regards to stopping the Japanese from invading: there would have been no Japanese imperial military capable of invading and occupying other lands if it were not for the same imperial powers they waged war against during WW2, who helped arm and train Japanese military forces beginning in the late 1800s.
HOW ABOUT
Australians of aboriginal descent are heavily subsidised into ANY secondary high school they wish. I attended one that cost upwards of 20k/ per annum and ma pal was in there at around 1.5k…
They attend University for free…
Multi Nationals such as BHP have a minumum % of aborignal workforce target. Go to Port Hedland, they can stroll into a job paying 150k/year. Maybe that’s not what they want for themselves, but no one, from any country, from any background, would have an opportunity like that.
I can go on all day. Can’t argue there aren’t current initiaves in place. Certainly a chequered past, but what nation doesn’t?
I’m a little skeptical about your claims of “free university” for Aboriginals in Australia as similar ones are made here in Canada in regard to Native peoples and government subsidies. There are grants and loans available to university students, Native or non-Native, but you must first qualify to attend university. The level of education for Native peoples is far below that of non-Natives, and this is compounded by lives characterized by oppression and trauma which is common among colonized peoples. Here’s some info for you about the educational system in Australia:
“The failure of neoliberalism in wealthy Australia has also been exposed by Australia ‘s Educational Apartheid system that means that the children of the wealthy go to well-resourced, taxpayer-subsidized private schools but most Australian children attend poorly resourced State schools run by the various State Governments. Australia ‘s Educational Apartheid system means that 46% of Australians are functionally illiterate and 53% are functionally innumerate (see section 3.1 in Josh Fear, “Choice overload. Australians coping with financial decisions”. The Australia Institute, Discussion paper 99: http://www.tai.org.au/documents/dp_fulltext/DP99.pdf and “Educational Apartheid”: https://sites.google.com/site/educationalapartheid/ ); that 80% of Indigenous children in the Northern Territory fail to meet basic literacy and numeracy standards; and that the majority of Australian children who attend State-run schools (as opposed to taxpayer-subsidized private schools) are disproportionately excluded from a good education, university, good universities and top professional courses such as medicine and law.”
Dr Gideon Polya,”37 Ways Of Tackling Australian Educational Apartheid And Social Inequity,” 22 May, 2013, Countercurrents.org
Bromiliadus, i know of plenty of times were both races of treated each other bad ,and even had first hand expierience, i just dont have tunnel vision and hold it against either,we all so live in a country where they play with the stats to boost funding,as for research on the internet,thats as reliable as who i voted for in the last election, winning the next election,far more truths in books and they are not
always right.
It’s not a matter of good and bad in every race of people, it’s about systemic racism and oppression against an entire people.
Zig Zag, you appear to have some serious issues with moving an agenda in the right direction.
To put my comment in perspective, I am of Indigenous Australian, Irish and Welsh ancestry. Do I class myself as an oppressed Aboriginal? No, I don’t, no more then I class myself as a persecuted Irishman. What I am, is an Australian.
For all intents and purposes, I look white and no one would know of my heritage. I don’t trumpet it, I have no reason, I didn’t even know myself until several years ago.
Does the colour (or lack of it) of my skin make a difference for you in regard to my comments? I can already guess the answer.
One of my daughters is engaged to an aboriginal.
I have also, both personally and professionally engaged with many indigenous Australians, without them having any knowledge of my background.
I could go on, but want to keep this brief.
What I will say is that, having lived and worked overseas in various countries, including Europe and the US, Australia is one of the least racist countries on Earth.
The average Aussie accepts anyone, black, yellow, white or brindle; it means little to us. If you are a good bloke, you;re a good bloke, irrespective and that is how you are treated.
On the other hand, if you are a stirring bigot, well you will treated as such.
We are all Aussies here mate, many do it tough, not just Aboriginals, but to label an entire nation as racist and part of an apartheid regime does far more damage then good and only exposes your own racism.
What’s being addressed in the article is systemic racism, which is the result of an apartheid system, which exists because of colonization. If Australia is the “least racist” country on earth then why are Aboriginals the most impoverished? Why do they suffer the highest imprisonment rates? The highest rates of violent death, etc? Denying these facts, by claiming Australia is not racist or that there is no oppression of Aboriginals, does not help in overcoming these problems.
Take 2 seconds and say something kind – Be proactive and let your acts of compassion and mercy lead you so that others may follow and inspire more to do the same. No point spouting off here on line if you don’t walk the talk Ladies and gentlemen. I work with extreme at risk youth in both Australia and New Zealand and I can tell you that all they really want is a caring strong loving person to support and guide them through the tough times. You only need to start with one person and let that snow ball, you never know where it may lead. Be kind to each other and work together. Today we can do something to bring change and healing to the Indigenous Australian peoples – but it has to start with you. Stop talking and start doing. Strength to us all as we work together to make things better,we are all one race after all – Human beings
Love and Peace
Hi Mark,
that is a good attitude and these are interesting times.
You agree that the mitigation of affection and guidance deficit further on towards independance might take the form of a project for the creation a suspension ropebridges atop trees in a forest.
A national Sounts of New Zealand camp training facility? Let me know if you think this is worth a few afternoons per month of discussion for you.
Would you please take a moment and feed back what is a common opinion on photovoltaic solar panels in your neck of the woods?
health and joy,
Luca
Great article. Expose the real history of Australia. It will hurt at first (for the whites) but hopefully it will bring about change. These issues that Aborginals are facing are repeated again and again in every single colonised nation. USA, Canada, New Zealand, Taiwan, Japan, even the gaelic culture of Ireland was shat on by the brits. lets start the UNITED NATIVES and help eachother out people!!!
Reblogged this on Autonomous Action Radio.
it’s amazing, but unsurprising, to me how often people, of a white majority but not always white, who believe in some sort of first world, modern concept of multiculturalism want to defend systems created and upheld by racism, sexism, homophobia, colonialism, industrial destruction and economics just to say they personally are not into those very things. the point is not that as a single person they are racist, or even as a country of individuals. the point is that the state they live in was created by and currently works by way of racist, apartheid methods and colonialism. to deny that fact is what ACTUALLY makes you racist. accept it. take off your goddamned rose-colored glasses that are trying to make humanity into one mess of “human beings” and see the truth. people of color, particularly indigenous people (some that are even white, Sami anyone?) are historically and currently the most fucked over and fucked with people in the world over. we have not been and ARE NOT treated like “human beings.” give the land back to the people it belongs to. if you were forced to live in the closet of your own home because people forced their way in and set up their lives there, would you want your house back regardless of whether they gave you food and a job? it would be YOUR house. IT’S THEIR LAND! are you post-racist idiots really not getting it? yes, we are all human beings. no, we are not all the same! we are not acting like victims. we still being defiant. we have not been defeated, and that is what scares your comfortable, colonizing settler asses the most. as for other indigenous people who agree with post-racist logic, open your eyes. you are believing the lies of your captors. we are not racist for fighting back or for seeing oppression where it exists. we have to fight back by all means necessary. for our peoples liberated! for a liberated earth!
Taking care and being mindful
Australia’s War Crime Trials are ahead.