Remembarance Day . We forget a cruel act of dispossession

Lest we forget  a cruel act of dispossession

Richard Frankland and Peter Lewis

It is an odd coincidence of history that the 11th day of the 11th month is a day of several anniversaries of great significance for Australian identity. The first anniversary that comes to mind is Armistice Day, marking the end of the First World War - a war where too many young Australian men met their deaths and the legend of the digger was born.

The next most remembered anniversary is the dismissal of the Whitlam government, which brought to an end a dramatic period of progressive government in Australia (if we ignore East Timor and the economy).

It is also the anniversary of the execution - in 1880 - of the legendary bushranger Ned Kelly. Kelly was either a villain or an imperfect embodiment of the Irish-Australian radical tradition, possibly both.

But an anniversary that has been forgotten is one that has even more relevance for understanding the ironies of Australian identity.

Eleven years before the hanging of Ned Kelly and 140 years ago this year, the Victorian colonial government passed an act ''To Provide for the Protection and Management of the Aboriginal Natives of Victoria'', more commonly known as the Aborigines Protection Act 1869.

This gave government control of where Aboriginal people could live, of how they would relate to Europeans, of their labour and earnings and of the ''care, custody and education'' of all Aboriginal children.

It was this act that created the conditions for Aboriginal containment and assimilation, and its legal platform enabled policies that led to the stolen generations and stolen wages.

For us it raises an interesting question - why have we so rarely included this anniversary in our remembering?

After all, the Aboriginal soldiers who fought bravely at the very same battlefront that we rightly remember each and every November 11 were cruelly affected by the echoes of the 1869 act. This allowed them to be denied some of their earnings as soldiers and prevented access to Soldier Settlement land.

Despite the sacrifice of Aboriginal soldiers in the First World War, they still had their wages ''garnished'' and, unless they had official certificates saying they weren't Aboriginal, they could not access the Soldier Settlement scheme.

In some cases, they returned to see their traditional homelands provided to non-indigenous soldiers as part of the scheme.

Even today the imprint of this act remains as a stain on our national character. Our ready forgetting of this anniversary is symptomatic of our failure as a nation to come to terms with our shared history.

This failure to remember is why the business of reconciliation remains unresolved, the ''close the gap promise'' remains dormant and the national apology is just another unfulfilled promise, as Government intentions to close the gap between the first and second peoples of Australia in child mortality, longevity, health and other wellbeing measures are swallowed up in bureaucracy.

Have we forgotten that ''sorry'' is the first step towards reconciliation, not the last?

Remembering the Aborigines Protection Act 1869 is important because it recalls a time when Aboriginal people were cut off from the rest of the community and from their land and culture.

Could such an act be passed again in modern Australia? Could governments today restrict and control the earnings of indigenous peoples, remove them from their homelands and take their children away?

Of course they could. They have. Without legislative safeguards against similar human rights abuses they will continue to do so.

The Northern Territory emergency intervention is based on the power of our legislators to disregard Aboriginal people's human rights. Without a repeal of the ''race powers'' of the constitution in section 25, the federal and state governments can enact laws such as these, which discriminate against the first peoples.

A federal charter for human rights would be a welcome start. A treaty acknowledging and paying respect to Australia's first peoples would help to ensure such an affront to the humanity and dignity of indigenous Australians would not happen again.

Remembering the Aborigines Protection Act 1869 means that there will always be resistance when Aboriginal people's land or rights are threatened.

Fortunately, Aboriginal communities do remember and the retelling of resistance stories reminds us that Australia's first peoples are not victims but warriors. That is why so many are resisting the Northern Territory intervention and its sad echoing of the 1869 Aborigines Protection Act.

How can we be honourable and responsible caretakers of the past if we live with only one element or aspect of its truth? As historian Inga Clendinnen suggests, ''we live with a nursery version of history'' and subsequently we cannot grapple with contemporary happenings.

We all have an obligation to recognise the past, to plant the seeds of truth in the present so that we have a stronger future together.

Our hope is that the nation will be one day cured of its amnesia and through remembering our shared history we can jointly create an Australia that restores the rights of its first peoples and respects all its cultures.

Richard Frankland is an Aboriginal activist, singer/songwriter, author and film director. Peter Lewis is the chairman of Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation in Victoria.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/society-and-culture/lest-we-forget-a-cruel-act-of-dispossession-20091110-i7jh.html#ixzz2kJ3cAF3E