Treaty Or Reconciliation

When Australia’s Bicentenary celebrations were drawing near in 1988, the government began to panic about the Aboriginal “problem” it had ignored for so long. The Aboriginal rights movement threatened to swamp the celebrations with the nation’s dirty laundry, the shameful secrets of a hidden country.

In desperation, the government placated us by promising to negotiate a treaty by 1990 (we are the only indigenous nation in the world to be overthrown by military force without a treaty being signed). Well, that promise was a lie. Instead we were given the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC), which has since been disbanded.

Treaty is a scary word for illegal colonists trying to justify occupation through denial and misinformation. The public would like to believe the war for British occupation never happened. But some process had to be put in place, before they became pariahs like South Africa under Apartheid. Too much shame.

So they invented a new title and a new process to deal with “the Aboriginal problem”. They called it “Reconciliation”. This implies two groups with equal responsibility for conflict, becoming reconciled with each other. That “shared responsibility” has become another favourite buzz word too. This way, the victims themselves get to share the blame in their own genocide and dispossession. That's a bit like a rape victim serving half of the rapist's prison term for him.

So when we talk about reconciliation, what are we really talking about? Really, it represents nothing more than the absence of a treaty, and the refusal of an illegal regime to adhere to international law.

An Aussie catch-cry at the moment is “if you don’t want to take on Aussie values, you have the right to leave.” (The government has gone one step further, and included English language proficiency as another criterion.) Well, one of these supposed Aussie values is the “fair go”. Is the refusal to make a treaty with the traditional owners of this land a fair go? What are these people communicating to their children about these “Aussie values” – that they are something to be imposed on minorities and ignored by the dominant culture?