Professor Japanangka Errol West
Head of Academic Programs, Southern Cross University, School
of Aboriginal Studies
The Australian Certification-Caste System -How much longer?
Abstract
A discussion on the perpetuation of Australia,s political, social
and economic caste system for Australian Aborigines.
To begin this discussion I believe that one has to recognise
the somewhat casually espoused caste system that has been endemically
applied to Aborigines since the first steps of the invasion.
The concept of race is an illusion that has gained considerable
currency in the political culture of Australian societies. The
catalyst for the racialisation of Aboriginal Australians is,
to put it simply "that it was a bad war" and the construction
of the Australian Self is as illusionary as any other, in fact
more so and prevails
I want to expand on some of my views regarding the following
three aspects of the caste system, these three are:
- The need for such a system
- The indemnification of the system, including the pathological
reinforcement of the belief in the need for such a system, and
- The semi-hysterical nature of the political denial and some
reasons as to why denial is also pathological.
To consider the need for a caste system requires a lengthy
historical and psychological analysis of British history in particular
concerning their cross-ethnic relationships. The libraries of
the world, as the custodians of historic records, bulge with
examples of the brutalisation of lesser ethnic groups, by the
British Empire. These records are immutable evidence of two human
phenomenon the first is human arrogance, and the other is no
shame,.
The arrogance is closely aligned with the concept of denial
I am also focusing on because the need to boast about one,s conquests,
however bloody or imbalance they may have been is a manifestation
of the short man syndrome, so often displayed by bullies and
thugs, many of whom wrote history through their deeds and greed,s.
And this is where the ,arrogance, emerges it seems to me that
the capacity to invoke the universal rule that the end justifies
the means, re-creates itself each time the constituents of various
histories of conquests various, simply reference these events
with no moral comment at all included to at least invoke some
sense of outrage regarding the inhumanity of the events the are
so proudly espoused, by mini-despots such as John Howard and
various historians who obfuscate the true histories by sanitising
each recorded event through the repetition of the histories as
scholarly works. Thereby effectively shifting the reality of
the events from the victim,s perspectives to a newer reality
that effectively defuses the horror of these events for the perpetrators
and their descendants.
To sum up the application of the three points above consider
the following:
The continent that is best known internationally as Australia
(though to Aborigines home, has always done as a name, home by
language and by iconic and totemic systems of demarcation) was
subjugated to the military jackboot of the British Empire in
a few short years. The denial of what my friend John McBeath
describes as "a dishonourable military engagement and an
even more dishonourable military victory" is in my view
at the heart of the three phenomenon I identify above.
Bionote
Currently Head of Academic programs, Indigenous Studies School
Southern Cross University, previously Professoiral Chair og Indigenous
Education, James Cook University and for six yeras was Chairman
of the Federal Government's Advisory Committee on Aboriginal
Education; The National Aboriginal Education Committee (NAEC)
Presentation Type
30 min paper