четверг, 1 ноября 2012 г.

Once again, whitefellas get it terribly wrong

As traditional Aboriginal life had adapted so well to station life, the displacements following the equal wages case were almost as destructive in spiritual and cultural terms as the first displacements caused by white settlement.
Perhaps the only difference is that Aboriginals were now less likely to be shot.

Before the equal pay decision, station children were still learning to be traditional Aboriginals with all the freedom, relationships, skills, practices and values of their forebears. They were still valued members of their own community. If moved on as a result of the equal wages decision, the prospect of a future was suddenly snatched away. They were now required to live an alien life, learning about new authority figures, attending white schools, and being restricted in their movements by a whole new set of social assumptions.

For many other Aboriginals unlikely to be ‘hired’ as skilled stockmen - older Aboriginals, women, or mothers - equal wages robbed them of their access to country, and a chance to contribute to their station dwelling community by performing regular tasks such as tending gardens, sweeping, chopping firewood, or passing on laws and traditions which required access to country.

Few skilled Aboriginals were westernised enough to consider being cut off from their own communities, just so they could stay on stations and work for wages.

For all Aboriginals who had lived through the killing times and the worst of the child theft, who had had a [short lived] taste of equality during World War II, the outcome of the equal pay case could only confirm their suspicions there was no place for them in a white world and, if there was, they would be crazy to want it.

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