October 15.

Artwork by Glenn Loughrey

Resistance to nationalist anthems - Noting absence of Treaties

Resistant responses to the national anthem.

...sometimes indigenous anger finds public expression in resistance to the compulsory celebration of Australian nationalism. Former rugby league player turned boxer, Wiradjuri man Joe Williams, made headlines in 2016 calling for Indigenous sports stars not to stand during the national anthem. Williams argued that this stance was ‘for our future’:

I believe that national anthem does not represent our people. That every time we see the flag raised, it shows the Union Jack. And to us that represents bloodshed and torture and rape of mass people, by the thousands. How disrespectful do you think it is to our people that have to stand through that? [1]

1. Quote in Laura Murphy-Oates, “’The national anthem does not represent our people”: Indigenous sports star Joe Williams speaks out’, The Feed, 2016, p.2. 130

Acknowledgment: Sarah Maddison, The Colonial Fantasy – Why white Australia can’t solve black problems, pp.xxxviii-xxxix.

--------------------------------------

On Treaties, Reparation and Recognition

Australia stands alone among other British settler colonial states for its lack of treaty relationships with Indigenous peoples. Internationally treaties have long been used as a means of reaching a settlement between Indigenous peoples and colonisers. They are formal, negotiated agreements, that acknowledge Indigenous peoples as the original owners and occupiers of the land. [1] The content of treaties varies considerably from historical treaties to some of the modern day treaties still being negotiated in parts of Canada, but in general terms they tend to focus on land, resources, reparations and the recognition of indigenous self-determination, representation and decision-making. Treaty-making has not necessarily resulted in material benefit for indigenous peoples, and indeed treaties were often tools that legalised Indigenous dispossession. Yet despite significant shortcomings in the negotiation, content and subsequent honouring of treaties, the fact remains that in many cases it is the existence of treaties rather than the making of subsequent law and policy that continue to define the nature of the relationship between Indigenous peoples and the settler states that occupy their territories. In the United States, for example, it has been the fact of treaty-making that ‘confirmed a nation-to-nation relationship between the negotiating tribal and non-tribal parties’ [2] and which has allowed Native Nations to exercise increasing autonomy from the state in the present day.

….certainly a treaty would not solve all the ills of settler colonialism. It would not eradicate racism, heal generational trauma, or deal with systemic problems in education, media representation or the criminal justice system. But a treaty framework might, as Luke Pearson suggests, help to create opportunities for ‘ true social, cultural and economic developments that are not reliant on being given permission, on having to argue for basic human rights, or on new names for old approaches with every change of government’. [3]

1. Harry Hobbs, ‘Will treaties with Indigenous Australians overtake constitutional recognition?’ The Conversation, 20 December, 2016, p.1. https://theconversation.com/will-treaties-with-indigenous-australians-overtake-constitutional-recognition-70524>

2. David E. Wilkins, American Indian politics and the American political system, Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham 2002, p.42

3. Luke Pearson, ‘Can a treaty shift the racist ideology that plagues Indigenous affairs? I hope so.’ IndigenousX, 20 March, 2016

http:/indigenousx.com.au/can-a-treaty-shift-the-racist-ideology-that-plagues-indigenous-affairs-I-hope-so/>

Acknowledgment: Sarah Maddison, The Colonial Fantasy – Why white Australia can’t solve black problems, pp.23, 27-28.

——————————————-

An opposite attitude to treaty-making.

[In 1831 in Tasmania]...one settler wrote to the Independent in early October, asserting that colonists now faced a simple question: 'Are we to kill them or are they to kill us?' [1] The record suggests that most colonists agreed conciliatory measures had reached an impasse, and that the only course left was extermination.

1. Independent, 15 October, 1831.

Acknowledgment: Nicholas Clements, The Black War, pp. 166, 247 n.35.