The problems that confront Aboriginal communities today are complex, writes ROY AH-SEE*. But the solutions have always sat within our communities. There’s a long-established theory on what humans need to progress through their lives in a happy and healthy way. It’s called Maslow’s ‘hierarchy of needs’. The theory goes that once you obtain ‘level one’, you can move to the next. The bottom level is your physiological needs – the bare basics of life, such as breathing, food, water and sleep. When you have all those things, you can move on to level two, which is security: employment, resources, security of family, health and property. Level three is love and belonging: friendship and family. Fourth is esteem: self-esteem, confidence, achievement, respect of others, respect by others. And fifth is self-actualization (just a better form of level four): morality, creativity, spontaneity, problem solving, lack of prejudice, acceptance of facts. No prizes for guessing where many of our people – and by extension our communities – sit. We’re stuck on level two. While the basics of life for most Aboriginal people are obviously met – government hasn’t found a way to regulate oxygen just yet, although they’ve done alright with water – you can’t really argue that in Australia we have anything like something approaching security of employment, health and property, or even security of family. You can’t have security of property when Aboriginal land is under threat from government and big business. Security of body can’t be achieved when violence racks our communities. And you can’t have security of family when your kids are being taken away at levels that exceed the Stolen Generations era, and when your fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters and extended family are being locked up at world record rates. So Maslow’s hierarchy of needs explains a lot about the lives of Aboriginal people, and why so many of our communities fail to thrive. But at a personal level, it also explains a lot about my frustration with the never-ending debate about rights over economic development. I was at a forum for the Local Aboriginal Land Councils in the Sydney-Newcastle region recently, when debate turned to economic development. The view was expressed – as it often is in Aboriginal affairs – that the struggle for land rights needed to move on from a rights-based agenda to one focused on carving out an economic future. Our previous government and our current government favour this approach, and so do a few prominent Aboriginal people, who receive a lot of attention in the mainstream press. I can understand the drive by some towards economic development, because that will provide things like security of employment and resources which Maslow says we need to progress to level three. But while economic development might provide us jobs, it won’t provide us those others crucial parts of level two – security of family, property and health. These issues are a key part of the rights-based agenda – the things we struggle against every day. So the rights-based agenda is not dead. If anything, it’s more relevant today than it was decades ago, when great Aboriginal men and women took the fight up to white Australia. And that’s another key reason why we can’t abandon the rights agenda. It dishonours the work and memory of the people who’ve come before us. If we forget where we’ve been, how are we going to know where we’re going without repeating the mistakes of our past? I’m talking about men like Uncle Sol Bellear, an icon of Aboriginal land rights in NSW. People like Rick Griffiths, Kev Cavanagh, Ronnie Gordon, Stevie Gordon, Jimmy Wright, Michael Green, Bob Sampson, Jacko Smith, Freddie Malone, Trevor Patten, Tom and Eddie Briggs, Uncle Jack Hampton, Manuel Ritchie, Tombo Winters, Tiga Bayles. There’s too many to mention in one article. And I’m talking about women like Anne Weldon, a strong advocate for country and community (and a strong advocate for economic development). Aunty Gwen Russell has been a rock for her people. Bev Manton, the former chair of our organisation, is one of the most inspirational fighters we’ve ever seen. There’s Maisie Cavanagh, Isobel Coe, Jenny Munro, Aunty Agnes Coe, Barbara Flick – women who’ve fought hard for the rights and interests of their people. The rights we enjoy today are a direct result of the battles these people have fought. The argument to ditch the rights agenda is also flawed because it pretends that we can’t actually do both – that we can’t argue for our basic rights, while still striving for economic development. In addition to that, abandoning the rights agenda suggests that all Aboriginal people’s rights are already respected. As everyone knows, that’s simply not true. If you’re poor and black – and that accounts for a large percentage of our communities – then your rights are trampled every single day. They’re trampled by police, they’re trampled by government, they’re trampled by media, they’re trampled by mainstream society. Economic development is important for Aboriginal people more broadly, no question. And there’s plenty of activity within the NSW land rights system in that direction. If you look at organisations like Darkinjung, they’ve done great things towards economic development. The LALC is responsibly managed, and building an economic future for generations of our children. Look at Deerubbin LALC, battling to establish a sand mine on the outskirts of Sydney that will also secure an economic future. All of the LALCs in the Sydney-Newcastle region are focused on economic development. But while economic development can build wealth, it will not necessarily build health or happiness. It’s why my colleagues and I at the NSW Aboriginal Land Council, while spending large amounts of our time on ways to improve the financial circumstances of our members, are also focused on social programs and basic infrastructure for communities. We’re trying to push economic development and the rights agenda together, because they’re linked, and for the foreseeable future at least, always will be. One of our dreams is to build healing centres around the state. The reason? Because making our people wealthy is the easiest thing we’ll ever do. Restoring our pride and our connections, the strength of our communities, is a lot harder. Money will never achieve that alone. Put simply, we cannot abandon the rights agenda, because it is the key to genuine holistic progression for our communities. We can’t take our eye off economic development either, but the two are not mutually exclusive. They have to be built together. You can’t have one without the other. On that front, there has never been a treaty in this country. We have never ceded our sovereign rights as Aboriginal people. And today, we do not have self determination. I’m a democratically elected councillor with the NSW Aboriginal Land Council, but our organisation remains one of the few major political institutions in this country where Aboriginal people can choose their own representatives. As we sit, the Abbott Government is about to unveil a new board of hand-picked Aboriginal and non Aboriginal advisers to tell the government the best way forward for Aboriginal people. Who are these people? What right do they have to speak on our behalf? Are they elders? Are they people who’ve sacrificed their rights and interests for the benefit of their community? It’s great to be a young and upcoming Aboriginal thinker, but if you don’t think about the people who came before you then you’re likely to leave a lot of people behind. Already, the signs are not promising. Warren Mundine, the man Prime Minister Tony Abbott picked to head this new body, recently told media that he wanted his board to focus on private ownership of Aboriginal land. There’s nothing wrong with individuals buying their own block of land and building an economic future. That’s a key part of the second level of Maslow’s hierarchy of need. But there’s a reason why home ownership is called the ‘Great Australian Dream’ and not the ‘Great Aboriginal Australian Dream’. And that’s because it’s not for everyone. When our communities talk about land, we don’t talk about ownership. We talk about custodianship, stewardship, guardianship. We’re trustees of country and our Elders are a classic example of what being a trustee is all about because they protected our lands and ensured country was there for generations to come. They’re still doing that today. Many Aboriginal people live on communally owned land because they choose to. The concept of ‘home’ to many of us is about the people in it, not the bricks and mortar that surrounds it. But if individual Aboriginal communities choose to change that – to embrace private ownership – that’s a matter for them, not for politicians and bureaucrats in Canberra. I raise all this because the real key to prosperity for Aboriginal communities lies not in government, but within ourselves. We need leadership and good governance, and we have that in abundance – our communities are full of strong Aboriginal men and women who know what their families need. Above all, they know that if you want to talk for the people, then first you must walk with the people. If the federal government really wants to understand why Aboriginal communities remain among the poorest people in the world, then Maslow’s hierarchy of need provides some of the answers. The remaining answers lie within our communities, and within the Elders and the people chosen to represent them. These are the people who won’t tell the government the half of the story that best suits a mainstream agenda. * Roy Ah-See is the Councillor for the Sydney-Newcastle region and the Deputy Chairperson of the NSW Aboriginal Land Council. In his spare time, he’s completing a Masters Degree at Newcastle University on the impacts of intergenerational trauma and healing.
Posted on: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 09:13:39 +0000
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