Welcome back (to the real world) Mal

Who can learn from whom?
What does it take for people to see that others do not share their values and priorities? Mal Brough is staggered that the Alice Springs town camp people have rejected $60 million to redevelop their housing because they do not want to lose control over their land. He sees squalor and no possibility of the kind of future he thinks would benefit them. They see the loss of the most fundamental underpinning of indigenous identity, and the kind of future that zealous outsiders promise but never deliver. And zealous outsider certainly describes Mal Brough.

He seems to have learned his policy development and implementation at the Neocon Academy. Remember the lead up to the invasion of Iraq? We’ll go in, throw our weight around, get rid of the dictator, and the people will rush to thank us and take up the democratic ways that we have on offer. Brough leaped into the Aboriginal affairs arena with all the grace of an ignorant ideologue swinging his big stick at Aboriginal communities and the NT government, as though the tortuous relationship between indigenous and white interests in the Territory was some sort of game that both sides were playing and could – would and must – stop at his insistence.

God knows the problems he is addressing are serious and require radical measures. But resuming the nineteenth century White Man’s Burdon approach – which didn’t work then – is never going to work. In fact, what is required is so radical, that no one in the government is capable of grasping it, and no one in the alternative government will have the guts to undertake it.

What’s required here is the same as what’s needed on a global scale to deal with global warming: justice. Not law, but justice – sustainable relationships. Taking what we are not entitled to is the problem. Taking a standard of living (as distinct from having a quality of life) that threatens the viability of the planet is the root cause of global warming. Yet this government is adamant: no measures will be taken to reduce greenhouse emissions that threaten the economy. See what I mean by no one in this government being capable of seeing what needs to be done? What needs to be done involves taking significant risks, including the possibility of a smaller economy, in order to lessen the likelihood of much greater catastrophe. Giving something up is also what is required of White Fella culture in order to bring justice to our relationship with Aboriginal Australians.

Other government ministers as well as than Brough have pontificated on the unsustainability of isolated Aboriginal communities. It’s always the they who have to give something up. Give up your land, we’re here to make it productive. Give up your way of life, we’re here to make you like us. Give up your title, we’re here to dig holes in your land. Give up your dreaming, we’re here to be your nightmare. Give up your hope of ever having justice, we’re here to take what you can’t stop us taking. Oh, and by the way, here’s $60 million. But to have it you’ve got to do things our way. Don’t ever expect us to think that we might have something to learn from you. This is our land now and we’ll do our damndest with it.

Mal Brough had quite a trip - flight of fantasy - for a while, throwing his weight around, like a minister from a government with a Sense Of Destiny, to the point where he came to believe his own propaganda. He'd make an offer no one, in his estimation, would refuse, and be hailed as the great transformer. Well, they did refuse - to his chagrin and utter bewilderment. Clearly these people are beyond his estimation - not like anything he can imagine. They knocked back a inducement to betray their existence as indigenous inhabitants of this land. Icarus crashed. Back in the real world he now has a choice. Treat the people who have surprised the hell out of him as idiots; or sit down with them, admit that he hasn’t got a clue, say he's sorry, and ask them to tell him what they want. It’s that simple.