Combating Indigenous "Invisibility"
by Samuel Byrnand
As another January 26 rolls around the
nation stumbles over itself desperately trying to include everybody in a
celebration that not everybody wishes to be part of. For approximately 3% of
the nation Australia Day is a day of mourning; to be solemnly marked, but not
celebrated. The significance of the 26th of January is magnified in
2018, as it backs up a hefty blow to the struggle for Indigenous
self-determination in the Turnbull government’s outright rejection of the Uluru
Statement of the Heart in October last year. And to further compound the
issues, last year, of course, was the ten-year anniversary of the Northern
Territory Intervention under the Howard government – an initiative that has
touched every Indigenous person in the country despite the fact that the
Indigenous communities affected were not consulted prior to its implementation.
At a glance, it might appear that this 3% of our population are essentially
formless and voiceless… in their own country.
In a quantitative sense, 3% of just
about anything is little enough to be considered marginal and easily ignored.
But in this particular case, the 3% is comprised of our brothers and sisters,
our doctors, teachers, dentists, lawyers, business owners, military service
personnel, parliamentarians, sporting heroes, authors, journalists,
entertainers, Australians of the Year… The list goes on. Their existence
notwithstanding, these people remain invisible to mainstream Australia.
However, despite initial appearances,
this is not a story about the 26 of January, or the Indigenous recognition and
treaty aspirations, or the Intervention. It is a story about the silent voices
of invisible people – the first people of this nation – and the reclamation of
voice and form through creative practice.
Write Yourself
is a writer’s workshop currently underway at the University of Canberra. Headed
by Barkandji man, Dr Paul Collis, the workshop targets Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander novice writers and those with an interest in writing. The first
session was a quiet affair, filled predominantly by a breathy silence
punctuated by finger-taps on laptop keyboards. A former Navy service person, an
administrator, a carpenter, a landscaper, a nursing student, and a psychology
student all hunch over their devices and engage in the practice of creative
writing, but what is the greater goal of the workshop? Dr Collis is quick to
answer:
“We’re looking to engage Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander people with the university [of Canberra], and we
want to track how success might be gained in terms of completion of degrees.
Because art and voice are a core part of Aboriginality, if we provide a
creative space where Indigeneity and Indigenous stories can be announced –
particularly writing our own stories about ourselves – there may be a greater
chance for those students to succeed in getting into and completing university.”
Dr Collis strongly believes that
formal education, though forced upon Aboriginal people, is now key to remedying
the invisibility problem.
“We engage with it [western
education] in all sorts of ways. Unfortunately, one of those ways is to move
away from Aboriginal understandings of ourselves and into the realm of the
west. So, creating an Indigenous space within the western classroom is what
we’re trying to do.”
 |
| Dr Jen Crawford of the Write Yourself workshop |
Dr Jen Crawford has been one of Dr
Collis’ primary collaborators since he gained his PhD, and assists in the
running of the workshop. Dr Crawford declares, “Much of what Australians ‘know’
about Indigenous Australians has been written by non-Indigenous people, and
much of it is wrong.” Being an avid writer and writing academic, Dr Crawford
places great value on workshops such as Write Yourself.
“We don’t often see Aboriginal people
represented in their own voices… their descriptions authored by themselves.
What we want to do here is look for ways to support Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander people writing their own stories in their own words.”
Wayne Applebee is a senior Kamilaroi
man, currently undertaking his PhD at the university of Canberra. Wayne is
boxer, union man, social activist, and has been a long-time friend and
co-conspirator (his own words) of Dr Collis. When queried over the notion of
Aboriginal invisibility he smacks his massive, knotty fist down on the table
and responds with vigour: “It’s something that’s been foisted on us. We’ve
never had equal representation with others… In my view, Aboriginal people are
probably the most ill-treated group in Australia.”
 |
| Mr Wayne Applebee: senior Kamilaroi man |
Wayne says that the term
invisibility is only half right in this context. “It’s more a selective
visibility than complete invisibility, right? We’re unseen and unheard until Australia needs a scapegoat. Then,
there we are, on the TV screens, larger than life. All these images of kids
sniffing paint and causing violence, drunks in the park… We’re not invisible
then, are we? But who put that paint in the kids’ hands? Who put that grog in
our elders’ hands? That’s never been our culture, and our culture is older than
pretty much anyone else.”
Dr Collis agrees with Wayne that the
invisibility experienced by Indigenous people is switched off and on as
required by the so-called powers that be, and the media. “I think there is a
real fear of any perspective other than the right-wing, white western male that
seems to run the media. You do get variations, of course – the recent win for
LGBT people being an example – but it’s always, as Deleuze would say, in the
minor narrative. The major narrative in this country is the whitefellas. I’m in
the minor narrative.”
 |
| "Jason": finding his voice at Write Yourself |
"Jason" (name changed upon request) is one of the attendees at
the Write Yourself workshop. Of all the people in the room he stands out as
being almost out of place. Rugged and scarred, street weary, and physically
aged well beyond his 22 years, Jason has come in search of his voice. “I met
Paul and Wayne few years back at a meeting for Aboriginal offenders out at
Bimberi [youth detention centre]. They got me gee’d up to get some education
and get away from the shit. I’m in my second year of Psychology now and doing
pretty well, but I never learned how to write properly so this workshop is
hopefully going to get me on track.” Jason tells a story so familiar to so many
young Aboriginal people in this country: one of violence and criminalisation
imposed upon him by forces beyond his control. “I was in foster care mostly,
bounced around a bit. Most of my family get sick early, and mum and dad both
died when I was little. I never had anyone to talk to, no-one to
listen [to me].”
Dr Collis explains that Jason’s
story, while common, should not be seen as the only road for Aboriginal youth.
“We can turn these kids around here. Wayne and myself have done a lot of work
in the Circle Courts and Bimberi and other detention centres around Australia,
and while the success stories aren’t so numerous, when we get a win it’s like
no other feeling on earth. We’ve seen blokes – it’s mostly men and boys we work
with – come away from those places with energy to change and make something of
themselves, and when they do it magnifies all of us. But the first thing that
is required is access to their own voices, the ability to tell their stories to
people who actually care. Kids like Jason are going to be the next generation
of listeners, and we need to do everything we can to empower people like him to
empower the rest of us.”
While the Write Yourself workshop is a relatively small affair, Drs Collis
and Crawford maintain the lofty ideals that underscore the project. And their
superiors stand by them. Dr Jen Webb is one of the leading cultural theorists
in the country, and acted as supervisor, confidant, and friend to Dr Collis for
many years in the lead up to his PhD. The workshop is held under the auspices
of Dr Webb’s Centre for Creative and Cultural Research (CCCR), and her
confidence in Paul and his vision for the cultivation and dissemination of
Aboriginal voices is strong.
 |
| Dr Jen Webb: director of the CCCR |
“I’ve known Paul for over ten years, and worked
very closely with him for most of that time. I arrived in Australia in the
1980s, and as a migrant to this country I was completely ignorant to most of
the issues related to living Aboriginal in Australia. Like many Australians
still do today, if I was looking for an Aboriginal person or culture I would
look out to the desert and seek out the ‘traditional Aboriginals’; people
living on country and performing culture and things like that. In my ignorance,
I had no idea that many of my colleagues, people in the street, people in
cafes, restaurants, shopping centres, the movies, were also Aboriginal. This
workshop is a fantastic program that works directly to combat the idea that
Aboriginal people are invisible and do not have their own voices and do not
have a platform to express themselves through their voice.”
The Write Yourself Indigenous writers' workshop is currently underway at the University of Canberra, from January 29 to February 7.
CASE STUDY:
DR PAUL COLLIS
 |
| Dr Collis: Storyteller heritage |
Dr Paul Collis was brought up in
amongst an extended family of storytellers. “Everywhere I look art has been a
part of my life. It’s performance… it’s story. These storytellers tell me who I
am, show how I am connected to the world and how I’m connected to history, but
also how I play a role in this world.”
Every component memory of Dr Collis’
life becomes part of a grander story as he tells it. No matter where he begins
speaking, he always ends up relating himself back to the world, becoming
universally integral to the story of all existence. “I’m a Barkandji person
from Bourke, northwest NSW. Out on the Darling river; the river my people call
‘Barka’, which roughly translated into English means ‘my darling’ or ‘my
darling one’. So, we are people of the Darling.” He smiles warmly as he speaks
about his people, and the river and the country to which he belongs. “In
Barkandji we are a matriarchy, we come from the woman’s line. They carry all
our stories, all our history, all our laws. The river itself is made by the
Rainbow Serpent. Snake, the woman’s totem.” He talks about the laws of his
people, and how they are tied to life on country. The purpose-designed codes of
conduct and taboo maintain harmonious existence with the land, the creatures,
the plants, and the other people.
For tens of thousands of years,
Aboriginal people have known about the dangers of in-breeding, of the benefits
of a varied and seasonal diet, of the weather patterns and animal migrations
and the movement of the stars. But for Dr Collis, this extended body of
knowledge has been pushed aside for a new knowledge: the knowledge of the
whitefulla. “In whitefulla ways, one individual becomes the spokesperson for
the group. It might be a land council or a co-op…the president or CEO or something
like that. But that’s not right for us. That was never our way. It was always
the group that made the decision, not any one person. No presidents or prime
ministers in Barkandji culture. It’s a very western thing...”
He pauses for a moment, looking down
into his lap, fidgeting, obviously ill at ease. “People say, ‘you can’t live in
the past’, but I’m not trying to live in the past! We’re trying to live
our culture in the present. Why is my culture rendered invisible?”
The toll of colonisation is clearly
evident in his face and his tone as he laments the destruction wreaked upon his
people, and on all Indigenous people in Australia. “They talk about not living
in the past, and ‘moving forward’… What do they even mean by that? I notice we
don’t ‘move forward’ from ANZAC Day. I notice we don’t ‘move forward’ from
Australia Day. We don’t forget those important western things, but I’m just
supposed to forget about all my culture and everything and just ‘move forward’?”
He calms quickly, though, and his
voice becomes soft once more. “When I started my undergrad in 1995, the
internet was just coming in. All the representations of indigeneity in this
country were written by western people. Whitefullas writing about us, telling
the world who we were, what we did, how we did it… I say stuff that. Let an
Aboriginal person… Let me take the microphone, let me take the camera, let me
take the pen, and I’ll show you an Aboriginal person you’ve never seen.” This
statement relates strongly to his Write Yourself workshop, and it’s aims of
facilitating a space for the Aboriginal voice to be heard and the Aboriginal
individual to become visible once more. “These voices are important for our own
self-preservation, but also to connect and share with other people in the world
about who we are. We are a part of this world. We do not live in isolation.”
His passion for his people, and for
all Aboriginal peoples, pours out of him as he speaks. There can be no doubt that
his principal drive in this life is the edification of non-Indigenous Australia
on the topic of the blackfulla: Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islander
people. “We are a modern people. We exist. In this world, at this time, we have
an opportunity to be more visible than we ever have been before. If we don’t announce
ourselves we run the risk of being told who we are through the lens of others.
That’s a real danger, a real fear of what’s happened in the past, and I don’t want
it to happen again.”
END.
