ALJ728: Assessment Task 2

  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 26^th 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.