Random thoughts on a gathering with Aboriginal women

[alias_sqbr]

Today I went to "Western Australia Community Gathering - How non-Aboriginal women can stand in solidarity with Aboriginal women and communities".

I might unpack it a bit later, and callistra was taking notes so probably has more detailed stuff she can say. But before I forget, here's some general impressions.

The overall ideas I took from it was even more cynicism towards international "human rights" etc groups like Amnesty International, and not thinking of aboriginal australians and Torres Strait islanders(*) as victims who need to be saved. Its funny, I remember years ago finding out about the English in the 19th century hand wringing about the "Irish problem", as if the irish were just this pathetic group of lazy drunks in need of aid rather than determined and capable but stymied by a clearly unjust and continuing pattern of conquest and injustice, with the english as kind hearted benefactors rather than genocidal oppressors, and thinking "You idiots! Just stop actively oppressing them and give them self determination!". Yet it wasn't until today that it really occurred to me to think the same way about the "aboriginal problem". Also while I have for a while been in favour in theory of aboriginal australians etc having the space to do things their own way rather than us only being willing to "help" them if they're willing to become just like us, until today I hadn't really encountered any examples of self confident, successful aboriginal australians and Torres Strait islanders living (as much as they can) "their way" in our society, and articulating what "their way" is. (More in tune with the land, connected to family, less materialistic are the things I picked up, but I'm pretty sure it's more complex than that)

(*)From what I can tell they don't like being referred to as "indigenous" since it's an external term coined by the government. As seaya (an american! How embarrassing!) reminded me, "aborigine" is still bad, and that's not the term they used.

It was also interesting to note how similar the language and ideas were to the ones I've seen in online (american dominated) race discussions, ie "people of colour" "white privilige" etc. There was also some mention of disability and GLBT issues and their intersection with gender and race (including from a disabled woman) but I'm not sure enough was said to make much difference since I'm pretty sure we were all the sort to be in favour of that sort of inclusivity in principle.

I find myself feeling like I really should know more about aboriginal history, and the Noongar people in particular. Hmm.


So, I really wasn't sure what to expect from the information I'd been given.

I walked into the town hall and it looked like a quiz night: LOTS of big round tables, a podium, and a powerpoint presentation (images of NAIDOC week, I think) on the stage. A whole lotta women (over 200!), mostly but not all white.

I ended up sitting with maharetr, and then later also callistra (who runs femmeconne), plus a woman from the Women's electoral council, a woman who teaches/taught (I'm not sure if she still does) aboriginal bridging courses, and a woman who helps run R♀AR. So I felt a bit outclassed and random, but everyone was very nice so it was ok :) (Aslo, I suppose I should make explicit, all white)

I was a bit worried it was going to be a bunch of white women controlling everything, but afaict it wasn't, even for things like announcing morning tea or calling for quiet.

This is the second time I've seen a "Welcome to Country", and they really do give a good context and beginning for these sorts of discussions. Several aboriginal women then talked about why they were there, their experiences, and their opinions on what can be done.

This quite possibly isn't coming from a very good place, but I found the aboriginal women often had the same pragmatic wry implacable-strength-despite-adversity vibe I remember from the women I knew growing up in a working class area.

A new zealander (plausibly Māori but I don't want to make assumptions) woman (Tracy Pollett) talked about how angry she is about the crazy treatment she gets here for looking aboriginal (to white people), and learning not to spend too long "loitering" anywhere if she didn't want to dragged out of her car by police.

There was a nice performance by the Madjitil Moorna choir.

A number of white women spoke about their experiences confronting their own predjudice, and how much racism there is even in feminist and human rights organisations. It turns out the event was organised by WomenSpeak after they had a very difficult process of dealing with their endemically white perspective (which is a big deal given how much control they have over government policy wrt women)

There was a pretty good spread of food for a free event, including tasty stew and bread rolls. Mmm. Also I got to look after callistra's youngest for quite a while, which was great. I got him to stop crying a couple of times, and then go to sleep, yay me! I love babies :)

We then had to talk in our groups about questions like "What are the essential qualities for someone to work with aboriginal women" and " What are you personally doing to work with aboriginal women".

For this latter one the aboriginal women in the audience (who had largely been sitting in groups with their friends) were prompted to move around the other groups, and the teacher grabbed one for us. This was all a bit weird, I think everyone but her felt very awkward about forcing this woman to be our "token aboriginal woman", especially since she was obviously a bit self conscious and shy. Still, she was a nice woman and we did have an interesting conversation about the issues her family has had both with not being paid for their work (I was disturbingly old before I discovered that aboriginal workers were legally barred from being paid with money up until so recently), and then having issues with loans from ATSIC.

Then some of the white women from Madjitil Moorna ran a sing song, and then did a "healing ritual" for the aboriginal women (and also some white women when there turned out to be extra chairs) where we hummed with our eyes closed. This was both kind of cool and kind of...wierd.

Then one of the aboriginal organisers (Dot Henry, I think) got us to hold hands and pass a squeezing of hands as fast as we could around the circle, which was just cool. We got it down to 23 seconds :)

And then I went home, happy.

Comments

[seaya.livejournal.com]

I think I remember fire_fly saying that the term people like is Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders. Like that the term "aborigines" is still not liked. But what do I know! I'm not from there!

This sounds like an...interesting event.

Be sure to share widely your news that people are using the same terminology as in the states ;).

[emma-in-oz.livejournal.com]

That was so interesting - thank you for posting.

I like Indigenous because it's faster than ATSI and more accurate than POC.

[ardhra]

Incoming from debunkingwhite.

The use of "Aboriginal" rather than "Indigenous" is because of meaning. Aboriginal means "inhabiting or existing in a land from the earliest times or from before the arrival of colonists", while Indigenous means "originating or occurring naturally in a particular place" (according to the OED), which suggests that anyone born in a place is Indigenous to it. Aboriginal connotates the social and historical connection that Aboriginal people have, through community and cultural ties, to the land. Hence, a preference for the latter, because it's actually more accurate for what we're talking about.

Also from debunkingwhite

[mal3ficent.livejournal.com]

Kia ora. I read your links from the dw community with interest. I live in New Zealand, am a Māori woman and used to participate on the Fight Dem Back! forum.

I thought I would answer your spelling question - Maori is spelt M-a-o-r-i.
The a usually has a little macron (potae or hat as we call it) like this ā.
So Māori is the correct spelling if you can do macrons on your keyboard (I just figured out how so I'm sharing).

Keep up the good work.

Cheers

Mel