Indigenous and ‘Settler’ Relationships, Episodic and Structural Violence

Abstract

In this chapter, the various phases of the occupation and colonisation of Australia will be discussed, with a focus on the direct and structural violence perpetrated against Aboriginal people over more than two centuries. It will be suggested that this history has resulted in a set of formal and institutionalised structures, and individual and collective attitudes and behavioural patterns that have led to a state of inertia when it comes to effectively redressing the salient issues in the relationship between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australia, and an ignorance or lack of interest in doing so. Herein lies the challenge for peace psychology.

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1 Introduction

Apart from the rise in the mid-1990s of the One Nation political party that opposed multiculturalism and affirmative action for Indigenous peoples, Australia has over recent decades enjoyed the reputation of being a liberal, multicultural nation in which tolerance for diversity is a hallmark. Indeed, prominent Australians nominate the tolerant, easygoing nature of the people, the essentially democratic political system, the apparent egalitarianism and the notion of the ‘fair go’ amongst the positive aspects of Australian society (Stephens, 2002). Similarly, newspaper editorials and social commentators (e.g. Manne, 2002) have often referred to the nation’s ‘good name’ and international standing in regard to matters concerning relations between the various components of the Australian social landscape. Behind this mask of modern day, peaceful Australia however, is a history of conflict between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians that has left a lingering legacy of brittle social relationships and attitudes that provide a fertile field for peace psychology to play a significant role.

According to Christie (2006) the focal concerns of peace psychologists are nuanced by geohistorical contexts. Thus, for peace psychologists to play a significant role in Australia, there needs to be a clear understanding of her particular geohistorical context. In this chapter, the various phases of the occupation and colonisation of Australia are discussed, with a focus on the direct and structural violence perpetrated against Indigenous peoples over more than two centuries. It is suggested that this history has resulted in a set of formal and institutionalised structures, and individual and collective attitudes and behavioural patterns that have led to a state of inertia when it comes to effectively redressing the salient issues in the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australia, and an ignorance or lack of interest in doing so. Herein lies the challenge for peace psychology. At the conclusion of the chapter, a number of issues for peace psychologists to consider are discussed, including how to identify the parameters of conflict and address it, how to dismantle the structures that continue to oppress Indigenous peoples, and how to establish a methodology which does not reproduce White power.

2 Background

Since the first white ‘settlers’¹ occupied the continent more than 230 years ago, race and racism have been prominent features of Australia’s social relations. Indeed, according to the historian McQueen (1986), racism has been the most important single component of Australian nationhood; the nation’s cultural heritage is based on racism. From the beginning, Australians of predominantly British descent sought to establish a society modeled on British traditions and practices that saw white people as being superior to all others. Elsewhere (Mellor, Bretherton, & Firth, 2007), we have attempted to conceptualise the history of the Indigenous and non-Indigenous relationship in terms of a three-phase process that is more fully elaborated below. In the first stage, colonisation, Indigenous peoples were dispossessed of their land, and were by many accounts the victims of genocide.² In the second stage, they were subjected to control and protection by the government. Part of this ‘protection’ entailed removing children from their families, and an attempt to breed out the Aboriginality. The third stage is one in which the white population conceded that Indigenous peoples are neither native flora nor fauna, but human beings. This has opened the opportunity for Indigenous peoples to assert their right for self-determination, but given the precarious state in which Indigenous peoples were left after the first two stages, and the institutionalisation of the social and legal structures that led to and supported their oppression, the struggle has a long way to go, as detailed below. Without working together to negotiate a pathway to reconciliation, it is unlikely that the structures and institutions that continue to oppress Indigenous peoples will be dismantled. The question is, what role can peace psychologists play in this process?

3 Stage 1: Invasion, Dispossession and Genocide

Recent archaeological evidence indicates that prior to white people arriving in Australia, the continent was occupied by as many as 750,000 Indigenous people (approximately 200,000 more than there are now, Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2008), who lived in approximately 700 different groups. While each group had its own territory, political system, laws and languages, as well as dialects of those languages, there were many commonalties between the groups in terms of their culture and belief systems.

British colonisation brought significant threat and harm to this population and these cultures. The continent was claimed in 1770 with a view to permanent occupation, rather than simply to exploit its resources. According to Wolfe (1999), since the central object of settlers’ desire in settler colonies is the land, the Indigenous people become superfluous or irrelevant so long as they don’t interfere with the settlers’ endeavours. The notion of ‘terra nullius’, or declaring the land to be empty, without laws, culture and ownership, provides a simple legal means to take permanent occupation of such colonies, as well as providing justification for colonisation and genocide.

In Australia, the prevailing contemporary philosophies of Locke and Hume, and later Darwin combined with various aspects of the Christian doctrine, also gave moral support to the notion of European or British superiority and provided justification for forcing Indigenous people from their land. Hume had argued that all other ‘species of men’ were naturally inferior to Whites, while Locke developed the Biblical idea that God had commanded man to till the earth and make it fruitful, which Indigenous people did not appear to do. Therefore, dispossessing Indigenous people of their land and colonising the continent to bring the wilderness into proper economic use was justifiable, by whatever means. Indeed, Yarwood and Knowling (1982) suggested that both Hume and Locke’s views about racial hierarchies and the right to colonise were often quoted by nineteenth century Australian pastoralists and their spokesmen to justify their oppressive imperialism. Christian missionaries also contributed to the structuring of racial hierarchies. According to Yarwood and Knowling, they were disgusted by the ‘personal filth’ of the Indigenous people, and had a commitment to undermine their spiritual beliefs and culture based on the biblical associations between Blackness and evil.

These doctrines provided a power to the settlers that led easily to violence against Indigenous peoples. One of the earliest accounts of this comes from Watkin Tench, a marine captain who sailed to Australia with the First Fleet in 1788. In two volumes giving an account of settlement of the continent A Narrative of the Expedition to Botany Bay (1789) and An Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson (1793) that have been edited and republished by Flannery (2009), Tench reported that in December, 1790, in response to the spearing and subsequent death of his gamekeeper, Governor Arthur Phillip issued an order for ‘a party…of two captains, two subalterns and forty privates, with a proper number of non-commissioned officers from the garrison…to bring in six of those natives who reside near the head of Botany Bay; or, if that number shall be found impracticable, to put that number to death’ (p. 167).

While it is unclear as to what followed Phillip’s order, other contemporary accounts and more recent historical analyses suggest that mass killings of Indigenous peoples did occur at the hands of settlers and police. For example, according to Gray (2008), a local magistrate reported in 1838 that along the Gwydir River in northern New South Wales ‘Aborigines in the district were repeatedly pursued by parties of mounted and armed stockmen, assembled for the purpose, and that great numbers of them had been killed at various spots’ (pp. 36–37). In the same year, according to Elder (1998), men from the Bowman, Ebden and Yaldwyn stations in Queensland shot and killed 14 Aboriginal people at a campsite.

In other states, when settlers interacted with Indigenous people, violence frequently ensued. As to be expected in a settler colony, according to Wolfe (1999), much of this violence had its roots in conflict over the use of land and the introduction of domesticated animals such as cattle and sheep. Stannage (1979) reported that in 1830 in Fremantle, Western Australia, an army captain gathered armed settlers to track down and kill a group of Indigenous people who had allegedly broken into a house and killed some poultry. After killing a man who appeared to be the leader of a group of Indigenous men encountered nearby, the Captain is said to have commented,

This daring and hostile conduct of the natives induced me to seize the opportunity to make them sensible to our superiority, by showing how severely we could retaliate their aggression. (Stannage, 1979, p. 27, italics added)

Numerous other encounters, documented by Elder (1998) resulted in the deaths of both settlers and Indigenous peoples, with the latter being by far the worse effected. The case of the so-called black war in Tasmania stands out amongst these, as the actions of the settlers, colonists, whalers and sealers led to the elimination of the so-called ‘fullblood Aborigines’ from the state by the early nineteenth century, an outcome referred to as genocide by Curthoys (2008) and many others. Other standout cases include the Waterloo Creek massacre in which anywhere up to 300 Indigenous people may have been killed, depending on which settlers’ accounts are believed, and the Myall Creek massacre in which 28 people were killed, and for which seven settlers subsequently found guilty of the murder of one Indigenous child were hanged (Elder). It should be noted that, according to many historians, including Elder, following this prosecution a code of silence emerged amongst settlers in relation to massacres of Indigenous people. As a result many subsequent massacres went unreported, and the perpetrators remained unpunished.

Yarwood and Knowling (1982) give another detailed account of the history of frontier wars between white settlers and Indigenous peoples that documents many large-scale massacres which continued into the twentieth century, with for example, at least 11 people being killed by police at the Forrest River Mission in Western Australia in 1926 during a police search for an Indigenous man who had allegedly murdered a pastoralist. Although the figure of ‘at least 11’ was established by a Royal Commission (Wood, 1927), as is detailed below, in the post-modern world details of history such as these are hotly contested by many historians, politicians, researchers and Indigenous people. However, contemporaneous records reflect the attitudes of the colonisers towards Indigenous people. Reynolds (1999, pp. 106–108) quotes an article written in the Townsville Herald in Queensland in 1907, by a ‘pioneer’ who described his part in a massacre:

In that wild, yelling, rushing mob it was hard to avoid shooting the women and babies, and there were men in that mob of whites who would ruthlessly destroy anything possessing a black hide. […] It may appear cold blooded murder to some to wipe out a whole camp for killing, perhaps a couple of bullocks, but then each member of the tribe must be held equally guilty, and therefore, it would be impossible to discriminate. […] The writer never held a man guilty of murder who wiped out a nigger. They should be classed with the black snake and death adder, and treated accordingly

It should also be noted that direct violence was not the only means of dealing with ‘the Aboriginal problem’. From early on in the settlement process, waterholes were poisoned, and diseases against which the Indigenous population had no immunity were apparently deliberately introduced into Indigenous communities, raising what Reynolds (2001) found to be the unanswerable question of whether genocide was an official or condoned policy of the colonial administration, there being a myriad of compelling circumstantial evidence that it was. The end result of this colonising phase was that after 150 years of white occupation, the Indigenous population had fallen from approximately 750,000 (ABS, 2008) to only 72,000 (Smith, 1980).

4 Stage 2: Protection and Assimilation

Kuper (1969) contended that because of the permanent nature of settlement in settler societies, violence is not due primarily to racially, culturally and economically motivated antagonisms, but to the ‘greater interdependence’ between groups than in other kinds of colonies (e.g. purely resource-exploiting colonisation). In Australia, the Indigenous population negotiated its way through the first stage of the colonisation process. The surviving, smaller population therefore remained in an interdependent relationship with the settler/colonisers, and continued to be a hindrance and a problem for them. They may have wished to rid the country of Indigenous peoples as shown in the cartoon reproduced from the May 1887 edition of the Bulletin magazine (Fig. 3.1), but could not. Notably this weekly magazine, which was published in Sydney from 1880 until January 2008, was well known for its racist cartoons that mocked Indigenous people. Until 1961 its masthead slogan read ‘Australia for the White Man’.

Fig. 3.1

‘His Native Land’ (Bulletin, May 1887)

Following the Federation of the nation at the turn of the twentieth century, the states proceeded to introduce various independent state-level policies that subjected Indigenous peoples to another threat of elimination: ‘merging’, ‘absorption, and later, assimilation (Gray, 1998). Under the guise of protection, in the various states Native Welfare departments were established to supervise the lives of the Indigenous peoples. Such supervision encompassed control and exclusion, as Indigenous peoples were denied access to many facilities within the community, and suffered numerous restrictions in their activities. Four state authorities exercised control over the property of Indigenous people, in two states Indigenous people required consent from the state to marry, four states exercised restrictions on the freedom of Indigenous people to move around, two maintained special conditions of employment (in two others Indigenous people were excluded from the pastoral industry award that prescribed working conditions and wages for non-Indigenous workers), all but one state had laws against the use of alcohol by Indigenous people, and four states had laws to control cohabitation of Indigenous people (Rowley, 1972). In Queensland the law even allowed mission managers to open and censor mission-dwellers’ letters. Across Australia, Indigenous people were not recognised as citizens, nor were they included in the census. However, they were issued with identity cards that recorded their ‘breed’ as either ‘full blood’, ‘half caste’ or ‘quadroon’ (see Fig. 3.2).

Fig. 3.2

An identity card showing the ‘breed’ options for the individual

One of the most significant aspects of this period was the collusion between state and church to remove Indigenous children from their parents in order that they might be ‘better’ cared for in missions or other facilities. ‘Half-caste’ children were particularly targeted, and could be taken from their parents at any age, ranging from within days of their birth, through early infancy, to mid–late childhood. Haebich (2000) reported on how legal structures made it easy for this to happen. For example, in Western Australia, police could enter communities at will and take children, filing reports to the child welfare authorities later.

Removed children were often placed thousands of kilometres from their country (homeland) in establishments managed by non-Indigenous staff, or fostered or adopted by non-Indigenous families. Not only did this physically separate them from both their family and their Indigenous roots, but it also psychologically separated them from their culture by prohibiting the speaking their own languages, and limiting or strictly controlling visits from family.

The film Rabbit Proof Fence (Noyce, 2002) portrays the traumatic experience of both children and their parents subjected to this horror in 1931, and provides a good insight into the institutional structures that supported this violation of Indigenous children and parents’ human rights, and into the mind of bureaucrats such as the West Australian Chief Protector of Aborigines, A.O. Neville, these days notorious and much maligned for his determination to fulfill his role. It is important to note however, that Neville had counterparts in other states and territories, who enjoyed the support of government and the public alike. Indeed, the policy of the federal government was that all Indigenous and ‘part-Indigenous’ people were expected

eventually to attain the same manner of living as other Australians and to live as members of a single Australian community, enjoying the same rights and privileges, accepting the same responsibilities, observing the same customs and influenced by the same beliefs, as other Australians. (Rowley, 1972, p. 399)

Moving children into white-run institutions and missions, and white families was one way to accelerate this process.

A frank interpretation of these practices is provided by Evans (1999) and Ardill (2009) who suggested that eugenics or sociobiology were the drivers of this attempted assimilation. As Ardill argues, children were removed from their families, either on the basis that they would be assimilated into white society or that they would breed with Whites so that ultimately ‘pure’ Indigenous people would die out. As Moran (2005) argues, assimilation (‘absorption’ or ‘mergeance’) could mean many things including ‘the genetic dissolution of Aboriginals into white “blood”, or, the “breeding out of colour”; the cultural absorption of Aborigines, or “part-Aborigines”, into white society; or a combination of both biological and cultural visions’ (p. 169). In any case, the intent was the elimination of Aborigines/Aboriginality; that is to say, genocide, and intersection of the alleged welfare component of these practices with violence, demonstrates what Van Krieken (1999) terms the barbarism of the ‘civilization’ process.

The question might be asked, what did these policies and practices achieve? By the 1950s, many Indigenous people had been removed from their land, or had their land taken from them by settlers including pastoralists and missionaries. A new, imposed legal system made it difficult or impossible for them to maintain their traditional ways of living, their ceremonial and cultural links to their land, and thereby significant aspects of their spirituality. However, they were not assimilated, ‘absorbed’ or ‘merged’, because oddly, the broader society did not allow this to happen. Many Indigenous people lived in make shift shelters in reserves on the edge of regional towns. They were not eligible for the benefits from the government that disadvantaged non-Indigenous people were able to receive. They were often not the legal guardians of their own children, who had been removed from their care. By 1957, even the newspapers recognised that the situation of Indigenous people was deplorable (see Fig. 3.3), but recognised there was an impasse as the states were responsible for Indigenous welfare, but not funded by the Federal government to provide it.

Fig. 3.3

‘Deplorable’ – Herald 1957 (Reproduced by kind permission of Dr. Jonathan King, author of The Other Side of the Coin, published by Cassell in 1976)

It took another 40 years for Australians to begin to seriously look back on this era. In 1997 the legacy of the practice of removing children from their families was investigated and made apparent for all, with the release of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission’s report of its inquiry into the removal of children from their families – the so-called Stolen Generations Report (Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, 1997). Under the leadership of Sir Ronald Wilson, the Commission traveled across Australia, engaging in an extensive program of hearings and taking evidence from 777 people and organisations including government and church representatives, former mission staff, foster and adoptive parents, doctors and health professionals, academics and police. Of those giving evidence, 535 were Indigenous people who had been removed as children, were parents whose children had been removed from them, or were siblings or children of removed children. Around 1,000 written submissions and testimony were also received.

The full report of the Commission is available online, and salient aspects of it are reported by many writers, including Bretherton and Mellor (2006), who reflect on the role of psychologists over the period during which Indigenous children were being removed from their families. The report estimated that 14% of Indigenous children in the state of New South Wales were taken from their parents between 1909 and 1969. The outcome of this policy has been that many Indigenous people born before 1960 lost contact with their families of origin, as they were raised on missions, or in the homes of ‘kind-hearted’ city-dwelling Whites. The long-term negative impacts of this policy on the children, their parents, their families, and the Indigenous community overall was well documented by the Commission in its report.

Surprisingly in response to the release of the Commission’s report, many non-Indigenous people expressed their concern for the affected Indigenous families, and asked why they didn’t know about the practice of removing Indigenous children from their families. It may have been that this information was never widely disseminated, and just as Reynolds (1999) describes, is one of many aspects of our history about which Australians remain ignorant. That is to say, many generations of Australians have grown up with a distorted and idealised version of the past, and are unaware that our so-called peaceful history is a myth. As is shown below, it is convenient to continue to cling to such myths and to ignore, perhaps even unintentionally, the plight of our Indigenous co-citizens and the direct and structural violence that decimated their families, their communities and their culture.

5 Stage 3: The Struggle for Self-determination

The struggle for self-determination and human rights began long ago. In the 1930s there were some protests by activists seeking better conditions for Indigenous people, in particular the cessation of the practice of removing children from their families (The Age, May 28, 1998). For example, in 1938 a National Aboriginal civil-rights gathering, the Day of Mourning, took place at Australian Hall in Sydney on 26th January, the day in the year on which Australia commemorates the arrival of the First Fleet at Sydney Cove in 1788 and the proclamation of British sovereignty over the country.

Although a national conscience began to emerge post World War II, and from the late 1950s on Indigenous and non-Indigenous activists came together to campaign for equal rights for Indigenous Australians and for the repeal of laws which deprived Indigenous Australians of civil liberties (e.g. the 1965 ‘freedom ride’ bus tour through western New South Wales to protest against discrimination against Indigenous people), it was not until 1967 that the citizenship rights of Indigenous were recognised, when a national referendum on this issue was supported by a huge majority of the voting population (90.77%; see Western Australia Museum for details). In practice, this did not lead to equal status for Indigenous peoples, although in theory, it allowed them to enter hotels and cinemas, and to vote if they wished (for other Australians voting is compulsory, and it is now so for Indigenous people). Rather, it was merely a constitutional milestone in the continuing struggle for Indigenous peoples to have their identity and rights affirmed. One significant component of this struggle has been to gain rights to lands traditionally occupied by Indigenous communities.

In 1971 the Federal Court considered a case brought by the Yolngu peoples seeking to prevent mining on their lands.³ The Judge, Justice Blackburn determined that case could not be supported because Australia was legally terra nullius at the time of settlement and therefore, that the Yolngu people had no title to the land. Despite legislative attempts beginning in the 1970s to redress the issue of land rights, and Prime Minister Gough Whitlam symbolically pouring a handful of sand through Gurindji Elder Vincent Lingiari’s hands at the handback of the Gurindj’s traditional lands⁴ in 1975, Indigenous people have had to continue to fight to attain secure title to traditionally occupied land.

The outcomes of two landmark High Court cases, the ‘Mabo’ and ‘Wik’ decisions, changed the situation. The 1992 Mabo decision rejected the notion that Australia was terra nullius at the time of white settlement in the 1770s. However, the decision was limited because it found that native title can only be recognised if Indigenous groups can demonstrate an unbroken connection with land that is not otherwise titled. This task is obviously somewhat difficult for those groups that have been removed from their traditional lands and prevented from returning to it. However, the decision was a significant step forward for Indigenous peoples, and offered some hope that some of the violence of the past could in some way be redressed. Unfortunately, though it was not universally acclaimed, and theories of symbolic racism rightly predicted that rather than creating ‘a nation at peace with its soul’, it seemed to unleash much previously controlled racist sentiment and to fuel entrenched prejudices. One national political leader⁵ argued that the dispossession of Indigenous people had been inevitable, and that although Indigenous people had a rich culture, Australians should be honest and acknowledge that the Indigenous sense of nationhood and infrastructure development was not high before European development. Other reactions reported by the media included one investment adviser suggesting that Australia risks reverting to a ‘stone age culture of 200,000 people living on witchetty grubs’ (e.g. The Age, June 19, 1993). Another suggested that Indigenous people should hand back the blankets and trinkets given to them at the time of European settlement in exchange for their land.

The Wik decision, handed down 4 years later followed a claim by the Wik people from the Cape York Peninsula for native title to Crown lands leased to pastoralists. Although not handing title back to the Wik people, four of the High Court’s seven judges found that native title and pastoral leases could co-exist. However, they added that where there might be a conflict between the two interests, the pastoral lease would prevail. Even with this rider, the decision was too threatening to many, and various lobby groups, including State governments, pastoralists and mining companies applied pressure for legislation to extinguish native title rights as the only way of clarifying the question of certainty of title. Even the Prime Minister at the time, John Howard (1997), claimed that ‘the Wik decision pushed the pendulum too far in the Aboriginal direction’. This triggered a new round of bitter debate and after 18 months the government negotiated its ‘10-point Wik plan’ through parliament, in order, according to the Prime Minister, ‘to return the pendulum to the centre’. Among the 10 points were the empowerment of State governments to extinguish Native Title over crown lands for matters of ‘national interest’, the exemption of lands providing public amenities from Native Title claims, the ability of mining and pastoral leases to co-exist with Native Title, the ability of an administrating tribunal to create access to traditional lands rather than granting full Native Title, the imposition of a registration test on all claimants, the removal of the right to claim Native Title in or around urban areas, the delegation to government to manage land, water and air issues in any site and the placement of very strict time limits on all claims. While this legislation was described by one Indigenous leader as ‘the last drink at the poisoned waterhole for Indigenous people’ (Yunupingi, Chairman of the Northern Land Council, 1997) because it will kill off customary law and culture, other members of the community were unhappy with it because it would lead to a ‘land grab’ by Indigenous people.

6 Where Have We Come To?

Again, the question arises, where we have reached in regard to being a ‘nation at peace with its soul’ as a result of Stage 3? On the surface, it appears that we have progressed. The past policy of removing children from their families has been recognised as being an abuse of the rights of Indigenous peoples. Indeed an apology by the Prime Minister to the Stolen Generations was delivered on the 13th of February 2008 at the opening of the 42nd Parliament of Australia. It is notable however that his government continued to support a restrictive and invasive program introduced into the Northern Territory during the previous year by the previous government that required the suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act in order to intervene at a community level to protect Indigenous children from child sexual abuse.

At another level, legislation has improved access of Indigenous communities to their land with numerous claims across Australia being successful, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are gaining a greater role in decision-making affecting them. In theory they have all the rights and benefits available to other members of the Australian community, and in one sense it might be argued that the population is thriving. Indeed, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (2010a) estimates that the Indigenous population has now risen from 116,000 in 1971 to 517,000 people, or 2.5% of the population (see Table 3.1). This increase is partly due to increased birthrates, partly due to people being increasingly willing to identify themselves as of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent, and partly due to the questions asked in the Census and the census collection procedures having been changed (ABS, 2008). Notably, though the age distribution of Indigenous Australians is skewed, with the bulk of people identifying as Indigenous being younger rather than older (see Fig. 3.4).

Table 3.1 Indigenous population over recent years

Fig. 3.4

Age distribution of Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians (Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2010a)

Despite this healthy population increase, a case can be made that colonial and postcolonial oppression continues to have an impact, and structural violence continues to occur. Indigenous people remain the most disadvantaged group in Australian society (Hunter, 2000), as reflected in the statistics relating to matters of health, education, employment, judiciary and housing (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2010b). The most recent figures indicate that Indigenous infant mortality rates are more than twice those of the general population, and life expectancy of Indigenous people is 9.7 and 11.05 years lower than it is for other Australian women and men, respectively. Indigenous adults are twice as likely as non-Indigenous adults to report their health as being fair or poor. Hospitalisation rates are higher for Indigenous Australians, particularly for conditions that are potentially preventable such as diabetes and kidney disease. Indigenous people are half as likely to complete high school as non-Indigenous people. The Indigenous unemployment rate (16%) is three times the national average (5%), and family incomes are only two thirds those of non-Indigenous families. After adjusting for age differences between the Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations, Indigenous people aged 18 years and over (17 years and over in Queensland) are 13 times as likely as non-Indigenous people of the same age to be in prison. In 2007, Indigenous juveniles aged 10–17 years were 28 times as likely as non-Indigenous juveniles to have been detained (Taylor, 2009). The proportion of Indigenous people living in overcrowded housing (27%) is five times the proportion of non-Indigenous people living in overcrowded housing.

7 Where to from Here?

In considering the current status of the position of Indigenous peoples in the broader Australian context, it is noteworthy that both controversy and apathy are common. For example, the One Nation political party, which rose to fame in 1996 with the election of Pauline Hanson to the federal parliament, opposed any affirmative action directed towards Indigenous peoples, because, they argued, all Australians should be treated equally. The party forced people to focus on issues related to what kind of a society they wanted, and caused deep division in Australia.

Other controversies have centred on which account of history should be given credence, and taught in schools. As Dalsheim (2004) points out, postmodern thinking suggests that every set of events can be viewed from among numerous perspectives. Each perspective offers an alternative interpretation of events, but not all interpretations are equal as power functions to construct knowledge of the past, or allow one view to dominate. The interpretations that become dominant narratives powerfully influence the ways in which people(s) understand themselves and the decisions they make in the present (Trouillot, 1995). They provide the basis for national celebrations and remembrance ceremonies. Australia is no exception, and with the non-Indigenous population holding the power, the European version of history is the one that has been taken as ‘true’. Recently, the alternative history, that from the viewpoint of Indigenous peoples, has been put forward resulting in the ‘history wars’ or the struggle to control which account of events in Australia’s past is accurate – that is to say, what is the correct interpretation of the history of European colonisation, and what has its impact on Indigenous Australians and Torres Strait Islanders been?

Perhaps one of the most prominent players in this debate has been the historian Kenneth Windschuttle. Windschuttle (2002) took issue with accounts of frontier encounters between white settlers and Indigenous peoples that had over the preceding three decades highlighted massacres of Indigenous peoples in various parts of Australia, with a focus on the so-called Black War against Indigenous people in Tasmania that eventually saw the state cleared of its ‘full-blood’ Indigenous population. Windschuttle’s challenge to the accounts of orthodox historians, such as Henry Reynolds (1999, 2001) who had argued that a campaign of genocide had been implemented by the colonisers, was embraced by former Prime Minister John Howard to the extent that he declared an end to the era of ‘political correctness’ and what he called a ‘black armband view’ of Australian history adopted by the country’s “cultural dieticians’” Howard had begun to implement an agenda retreating from the social justice and equity initiatives of the previous decade (Perera & Pugliese, 1997).

It should be noted that Windschuttle is not the only one to contest the challenge to the Anglicised view of the colonisation process. As mentioned above for example, the findings of the Royal Commission into the facts surrounding the Forrest River massacre, including how many Indigenous people were killed, have been contested by Moran (1999), who contended that the massacre was a myth. Like Windschuttle, Moran argued that the massacre stories massively exaggerated and distorted what really happened in the past. At Forrest River, he claimed an Indigenous man suffered a minor wound during a police raid on his group’s camp, and the camp occupants’ dogs were shot. Moran argues that the main provider of evidence to the Royal Commission investigating the alleged massacre, the Minister who ran the mission, created the story of the massacre to hide his own involvement with Indigenous women. In contrast, Green’s (1995, 2003) analysis supports the findings of the Royal Commission. Even if it is accepted that Indigenous people were the subject of massacre at Forrest River, contemporary accounts of the number killed vary remarkably. The question that might be asked is what is the purpose in denying the alternative account of history?

Despite the controversy, there is some research that suggests that black armband history has not penetrated the minds of many Australians. Mellor and Bretherton (2003) conducted a study with non-Indigenous students from one of the more prestigious universities in Australia in which they were asked to describe the three most significant events in Australia’s history. Since the participants were drawn from the upper end of the achievement spectrum, it was expected that they would be knowledgeable about current affairs, and somewhat progressive when compared to the general population. The participants were asked to state why each event is significant, the source of the information and where and how they learnt about these events. Five categories of responses were evident in the responses. The first category of ‘economic and political events’ contained 42 responses, the majority of which related to the Federation of Australia in 1901. The second category related to the European discovery, settlement and colonisation of the country. While a few respondents thought the initial discovery was the most significant event, the majority of responses focused on issues of colonisation. The significance of colonisation was seen to be the establishment of the socio-political and cultural basis of the nation (e.g. English roots rather than another European nation, the lack of a class structure and the genesis of the Australian character). The third category encompassed significant events and issues. Seventeen responses were in this category. While the two world wars were seen to be significant because of the large losses of life, they were also considered to be important in, again, defining the national character. The fourth category related to the bicentennial celebrations in 1988. One reason for the prominence of this category may be that it occurred when many of the participants were in primary school, and a considerable part of the curriculum was devoted to it. The final rather mixed category included natural disasters such as Cyclone Tracy, which destroyed Darwin in 1972, sporting achievements such as the 1983 America’s Cup victory and the 1996 Port Arthur massacre in which 35 people were killed.

In sum, the data indicated that despite the former Prime Minister’s fear that ‘black arm band’ history is being promoted by activists and sections of the media, the university students had a Eurocentric understanding of Australian history and failed to note the double-edged nature of historical events. While the students themselves were from diverse non-Indigenous backgrounds, their view of history was ‘white’, with the core concerns of Indigenous peoples being rarely mentioned.

The findings of this study suggest that despite the lively and sometimes bitter history war, which may well be of more an academic interest than mainstream interest, the population may have chosen, consciously or unconsciously to tune out from the continuing ‘Aboriginal problem’ which was reframed in his famed 1991 Redfern speech⁶ by Prime Minister Paul Keating to be the ‘non-Aborigines problem’:

And, as I say, the starting point might be to recognize that the problem starts with us non-Aboriginal Australians. It begins, I think, with the act of recognition. Recognition that it was we who did the dispossessing. We took the traditional lands and smashed the traditional way of life. We brought the disasters. The alcohol. We committed the murders. We took the children from their mothers. We practised discrimination and exclusion. It was our ignorance and our prejudice. And our failure to imagine these things being done to us. With some noble exceptions, we failed to make the most basic human response and enter into their hearts and minds. We failed to ask - how would I feel if this were done to me? As a consequence, we failed to see that what we were doing degraded all of us.

In discussing France’s colonial history, Stoler (2011) uses the term ‘colonial aphasia’ to capture the repeated frequency with which the violence of French colonialism has been ‘discovered’ and ‘exposed’. At issue, she argues, is what has been said but not heard, what is known but not said and what achieved labour has rendered that history misplaced but not misunderstood. She sees it as a ‘political disorder’ and troubled psychic space. As Keating pointed out, in Australia, colonial aphasia applies to the memories of what took place in the past in our own country. Moran (2002) discusses the need for ‘indigenising settler nationalism’, which he argues foregrounds the importance of the Indigenous contribution to national culture and is characterised by an attitude of mourning and sorrow in relation to past and contemporary forms of oppression. It involves honouring the Indigenous peoples and a desire to make reparations while viewing the past with a critical eye.

The apathy or lack of interest in even acknowledging Indigenous Australia is evident in the following two examples. First, in a study exploring Indigenous peoples’ experiences of racism, one of Mellor’s (2003) participants noted the irony of the media reports of the case of Martin Bryant, a disturbed, sociopathic individual who murdered 35 (non-Indigenous) people at Port Arthur tourist centre in Tasmania in April 1996. The participant noted:

They [the media] make reference to the fact it is the greatest massacre in the world, but they don’t count the Aboriginal massacre. They just look at themselves. I don’t want to take anything from them, from the tragedy that happened, but I just think now that if people looked at the white people, what do you think happened to the black people when their people were massacred?… They hardly even acknowledge that our people were massacred, like in Tasmania.

In a similar vein, Stratton (2006) discusses the massive national media coverage of the rescue of two of three (non-Indigenous) miners who had been trapped underground at Beaconsfield in Tasmania for 2 weeks in April 2006. The miners subsequently became celebrities to the extent that they engaged a management agent. Stratton contrasts this to the lack of media coverage of the rescue on the same day of three Torres Strait Islander people who had been lost, and survived 22 days at sea in an open dinghy. As Stratton points out, the contrasting media coverage was so naturalised that hardly anybody commented on the disparity of treatment.

The examples are consistent with the findings of limited studies on attitudes to Indigenous people. Two early studies (Larsen, 1978; Walker, 1994) reported high levels of negativity. More recently studies have found that university students (Augoustinos, Tuffin, & Sale, 1999) and members of the general public (Pedersen, Beven, Walker, & Griffiths, 2004; Pedersen, Griffiths, Cantos, Bishop, & Walker, 2000; Pedersen & Walker, 1997) exhibit ‘modern’ (subtle) racism towards Indigenous Australians. In a study by Pedersen, Griffiths, and Watt (2008), less than a third of 653 respondents had a positive attitude towards Indigenous Australians. The remainder were found to be either indifferent or rejecting, with those from a regional location being more rejecting than those from a metropolitan area. Pedersen et al. note that ‘there is still a long way to go before Aboriginal people are accepted by the majority of other Australians’, while Davison (1998), a social commentator noted:

The non-Aboriginal majority is not about to remake white society so that it is less toxic to Aborigines, so that majority has a moral responsibility to support policies of positive discrimination to redress some of the balance. The majority is so befuddled with ideas of level playing fields and non-discrimination that it denies Australia’s positive discrimination in favour of Aborigines. (p. 13)

Indeed Nicholson cynically notes in his 1993 cartoon (Fig. 3.5), that non-Indigenous Australians would prefer that all Indigenous people just be like Cathy Freeman – a role model Indigenous athlete who went on to win a gold medal at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

Fig. 3.5

‘Why can’t you all be like Cathy Freeman?’ Cartoon by Nicholson from The Australia www.nicholsoncartoons.com.au (Reproduced with permission of the creator)

8 International Context

While the above summary aims to provide at least part of the geohistorcial context for peace psychology in Australia, it is of interest to consider how events and outcomes in Australia relate to global patterns of colonisation. As Leask and Philpot argue in Chap. 13 of this book (citing Kersey, 2002 and Marker, 2003), there are extensive parallels with settler colonialism and its outcomes across continents, with initial contact eventually leading to conflict and gain/loss of land and sovereignty, the loss of Indigenous languages and aspects of Indigenous culture and the disruption of indigenous identities. As stated earlier in this chapter, Wolfe (1999) suggested that in settler colonies, the Indigenous peoples were superfluous because it was the land that settlers desired, and the notion of terra nullius provided a justification for colonisation and genocide.

Merino, Mellor, Saiz, and Quilaqueo (2009) draw parallels between the colonising process and subsequent treatment of and outcomes for the Indigenous peoples of Chile and Australia, even though the colonising powers were different (Spanish and English, respectively). Leask and Philpot (Chap. 13 in this volume) draw out the similarities, but also the differences between the outcomes when the same power colonised Australia and New Zealand. Another parallel might be drawn between the experiences of the hunter-gatherer San Bushmen in Southern Africa. Gall (2001) provides a compelling and detailed account of this group’s past and current circumstances, including a summary of their suffering during the colonial period, when they were oppressed and dispossessed by both Bantu and European immigrant groups, and regarded as not just animals, but as vermin, justifying the hunting of them for sport. Their plight today is marked by the low status and difficulty in changing from their existing way of life into a more Westernised lifestyle. The parallels between the attitudes of colonisers in Africa and Australia are obvious.

Despite these similarities, in contrast to some other colonised nations such as South Africa and the former Rhodesia, surprisingly little international attention has been paid to the treatment of Indigenous Australians. This may be due to the extent of damage done to Australia’s Indigenous peoples, for example, the destruction of many family units and the derogation of identity and culture over a long period, that lead to internalisation of negative group and self identities (see Balvin and Kashima, Chap. 12 in this volume) and effectively silenced the voice of Indigenous peoples. It may also be due to the relative minority status of Indigenous peoples in Australia in comparison to countries such as South Africa, where the colonising powers remained the minority and were eventually overthrown. Factors such as the isolation of Australia from Europe may have also allowed the violence and discrimination perpetrated against Indigenous peoples to be ignored. Finally, in comparison to the counterparts in New Zealand, as explained by Leask and Philpot in Chap. 13, the rights of Indigenous peoples were never formalised by means of a treaty in Australia, so certain violations remain intangible. As a result of this lack of attention, as pointed out at the beginning of this chapter, Australia’s image of itself, and that projected to the international community, is rather positive.

However, recently there has been greater national and international focus on the alternative history of the colonisation process, and the current status of Indigenous people in Australia. This may be attributed in part to the strengthening of pride amongst Indigenous peoples in their identity, changes in government policies that have led to the empowerment of Indigenous communities, and attempts to promote self-determination. In addition, recent decades have witnessed the rise of more articulate and educated Indigenous leaders who have been able to venture onto the world stage. The United Nations (2009) has also shown an interest in the Indigenous peoples of Australia. A 2009 report, the State of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, found that Indigenous Australians have the worst relative life expectancy of any indigenous peoples in the world. At that time, the Australian life expectancy gap was 20 years, compared to 13 in Guatemala and 11 in New Zealand.⁷ Another UN report (2010) from the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination condemned the ‘unacceptably high level of disadvantage and social dislocation of Indigenous Australians living in remote communities throughout the Northern Territory’ and the lack of action by the Australian Government to address this situation. Numerous other concerns about human rights were raised in the report. It may be that this increased international scrutiny will impel Australian governments to focus more seriously on the circumstances that determine the life quality of Indigenous peoples. This is not to deny the complexity of the issues involved, or the efforts that have been made to date to redress the situation.

9 Some Reflections on How This Geohistorical Context Relates to Peace Psychology Practice and Research

Peace psychology aims to facilitate nonviolence and to promote ‘fairness, respect and dignity for all, for the purpose of making violence a less likely occurrence and helping to heal its psychological effects’ (MacNair, 2003, p. x). It aims to promote the nonviolent management of conflict and the pursuit of social justice (Christie, Wagner, & Winter, 2001).

As can be seen from the above, the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in Australia has been fraught with difficulties that to this day have not been resolved. Conflict is core to the relationship, and while in the main it is no longer expressed through direct violence, it is embedded in the social structures and histories of the two societies. With one group in a dominant position and holding the legal authority and resources to dominate the other, this manifests in structural violence. Winter and Leighton (2001) note: ‘Structural violence. … is almost always invisible, embedded in ubiquitous social structures, normalised by stable institutions and regular experience. Structural violence occurs whenever people are disadvantaged by political, legal, economic or cultural traditions. Because they are longstanding, structural inequalities seem ordinary – the way things are and have always been’ (p. 99). This structural violence needs to be dismantled.

Clearly, there are challenges for peace psychologists in Australia in regard to the persisting Indigenous/non-Indigenous problem, and there is much work to be done to find ways and means to improve the health and welfare of Indigenous peoples, to ensure that their human rights are not violated and to achieve reconciliation and equality between the parties. This needs to be a negotiated process, which means that peace psychologists who are involved in it will need to work with both groups, and to do this they will need to be cognisant of how the history described briefly above might impact on their own practice – that is, where they are located in the social tapestry of Australia. Generally, they will be of non-Indigenous descent, given the small number of Indigenous psychologists and the demands on them. They will have been trained to think, practise and research within a Western paradigm that does not meld easily with Indigenous worldviews (e.g. mental health). They therefore risk imposing their own form of imperialism on Indigenous peoples, and to perpetuate further structural violence, if they use this paradigm without reflection.

Peace psychologists also need to be cognisant of the history described above from the point of view of the resultant power imbalance. Indigenous peoples have long been the victims of exploitation at the hands of researchers, who have reaped the rewards of their work. In turn, this work drives the research agenda in that it informs future research and research grant applications, which are assessed within the framework of the dominant paradigm, promoting a cycle of inward focused research. Such research, and much practical work is often targeted at perceived problems within Indigenous communities, rather than on a strength-based approach which could be more beneficial for Indigenous communities and for improving the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. A more ‘positive’ psychology may be required.

Peace psychologists then need to consider carefully how they go about their mission to address social inequities in Australia, whether it be in a hands-on role, a research role or an advisory role. In particular, efforts to understand and respond to the health and welfare needs of Indigenous peoples needs to be conducted within the framework of a partnership between those who control the resources and those who need them. Fortunately, the National Health and Medical Research Council has provided a clear set of guidelines relating to how research into issues relevant to Indigenous people should be initiated and conducted. Indigenous organisations have also provided such guidelines, and in applying the outcomes of research, resources are slowly being produced to guide psychologists who may practise with Indigenous Australians. For example, the Australian Psychological Society has developed a set of guidelines for psychologists working with Indigenous people, and Indigenous academics Dudgeon, Garvey and Pickett (2000) have produced a handbook for psychologists working with this population. More recently Purdie, Dudgeon, and Walker (2010) have edited Working Together: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Mental Health and Wellbeing Principles and Practice, a comprehensive examination of issues and strategies influencing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander mental health and social and emotional wellbeing. Such resources are designed to assist and guide psychologists and other mental health practitioners in their work.

On the other side of the coin is the need for peace psychologists to work with the non-Indigenous population as well, to avoid running the risk of identifying an intergroup issue as a single group issue. Indeed former Prime Minister Paul Keating (cited above) challenged non-Indigenous Australians to see that the difficulties Indigenous peoples face today derive from the harm that was inflicted on them rather than from within. It is non-Indigenous Australians who need to reflect so that they can work positively with Indigenous Australians to resolve these difficulties. It is notable that the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation that was set up in Australia in 1991, with the goal to achieve reconciliation by 2001, targeted non-Indigenous people in that it aimed to educate them about the alternative history as well as about Indigenous peoples and cultures. The Council dissolved in 2000 and its incomplete work was taken over by the non-profit organisation Reconciliation Australia, which remains the peak reconciliation body today. Unfortunately, however, the enthusiasm and energy surrounding the idea of a reconciliation process in Australia has all but dissipated.

In picking up the work with non-Indigenous people, the knowledge base of peace practitioners may be less contentious. They can individually and collectively, through their professional associations, apply their knowledge of intergroup processes in advisory and advocacy roles, they can contribute to the development of educational programs and community awareness programs. They can continue the work of researchers such as Pedersen, Walker, and Wise (2005) and Pedersen, Walker, Paradies, and Guerin (2011) to investigate which anti-racism strategies work well. These researchers suggest that using empathy, challenging false beliefs, giving people the opportunity to discuss racial issues and interacting with people of a different background from one’s own under certain condition are promising strategies. However, they note that there are few studies that investigate the lasting impacts when such strategies are implemented, and that multiple strategies are needed. More research to investigate the mechanisms by which interventions may decrease prejudice and racism is needed, and peace psychologists could take up this challenge.

10 Conclusion

In summary, it may be concluded that Australia is at the crossroads with regard to the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous citizens. With the more overt and naively racist behaviour and violence of previous generations behind her contemporary citizens, the success of the nation’s measures to create social justice for Indigenous people and a more a harmonious society is threatened by the persistence of one view of history, and a level of intolerance, apathy or indifference. Clearly peace psychology has an opportunity to play a positive role in dismantling this persistent structural violence.