opinios

I made my first trip to Alice Springs last week at a particularly bizarre time in Central Australia's history. For one, it was cold and wet on arrival - weather I had hoped to leave behind in Melbourne and was glad to see improve after a couple of days. Secondly, the town was just coming down from recent news about the Alice Springs-Darwin rail link having begun. Thirdly, the Territory's election was imminent. And of course, the police were trying to catch a mad gunman on the loose.

I was not only looking forward to appreciating the natural geographic beauty of the region, but also hoping to get a bit of a social education. I got more than I expected on both accounts.

The region is amazing

Our plans to head north to visit the Devil's Marbles were foiled by police roadblocks and the prospect of running into a tall chap in a station wagon with a Merv Hughes moustache and a .22 in his hand.

But what I did see when sight-seeing was incredible - the uniqueness of the famous rock formations of Uluru (Ayers Rock) and Kata Tjuta (The Olgas) blew my mind; the rich red of the desert and its massive monoliths contrasted against the deep blue of the sky is more incredible, more beautiful up close than any photograph can capture.

And what I witnessed outside of the Japanese-owned Yulara tourist village was equally as overwhelming: I had read stories about social problems in Aboriginal communities such as alcoholism, poverty, malnutrition, petrol sniffing and domestic violence, but there's a big difference between reading something in the paper and seeing it with your own eyes.

How much should the government intervene?

The main issue that I still am struggling to resolve myself about Central Australia is how much of a 'white' lifestyle should be imposed upon Aboriginal people. Should the Australian Government try and change the lifestyle of these people, one that has existed largely unchanged for 40 000 years, so that they can survive on their own in a capitalist democracy? Is it overly righteous to even think of intervening in such things?

I am aware that there are so many issues surrounding this question, more than I could possibly grasp, be exposed to or comprehend in a ten day holiday; more than can be postulated about in a short single article by someone who has not been to the Territory before. But I learnt a lot from this trip and believe the issues that I was able to grasp are worth raising.

Being a bit of a lefty, my intuition for the answer to this question before my trip was 'not a lot'. It was my belief that the preservation of Aboriginal culture is important enough for white folk to not enforce our values or way of life - we have done enough damage via tourism, land ownership issues and the introduction of alcohol, and should do everything possible to prevent Aborigines from being assimilated so that their culture is conserved.

After visiting the Northern Territory, now I'm not so sure.

Aboriginal culture can be violent...

Make no mistake about this: the number of cases that Territory Health deal with involving people being bashed or stabbed with spears are a great many.

For example, the concept of payback is one that is a common thread with most tribes. In white culture, say, if you were driving a truck and a young child jumped out in front of you and was killed, you would probably be tried in court. If you had been drinking then you may be charged with murder or manslaughter. Or if it was shown by your legal team that there was no way you could have stopped in time, that the child was completely at fault, then you may even get off without a deduction in license points. The child's family would probably be pretty upset, regardless.

These details are a world away from Central Australia. If the kid you killed was Aboriginal, chances are there would be twenty angry men with spears at your front door, intent on revenge. You may get beaten to a pulp, perhaps even killed. Traditional law states that payback is how matters like these are resolved - you took something of ours, now we will take something of yours in return.

Incidents like this happen not 100 or 50 years ago. This happened two weeks ago.

Similar laws apply within relationships and between different tribes - traditional law states that should a husband discover that his wife has been unfaithful, he is allowed to spear her in the leg. Not just a graze or a scratch, a serious spear wound that generally requires hospital attention.

Is this something the government should be concerned about?

But Aboriginal culture is communist...

Yes, communism exists and is alive in Central Australia. But not with any corrupt authoritarian tyrant. Traditional law states that one is to share everything that one has with the tribe - Albert Namatjira would have died a rich man if he were not compelled to share the earnings from his paintings with his tribe.

Consequently most Aboriginal folk have no concept of saving or planning. Why would they? This is a people who have had no need for currency until now. If you have something, you share it round so that the tribe survives. This community-oriented approach is integral to indigenous culture; the two are intertwined.

And who are we to say that Western capitalism is best for these people anyway?

We are pretty sure it's the right approach for us; we believe in hard work being rewarded. Even the more Buddhist or socialist amongst us perform very basic planning for holidays or basic commodities. The more capitalistic amongst us may focus even more on stock market fluctuations, tax minimisation, or nest eggs... but how does one reconcile this mindset with a portion of the community who has survived for thousands of years with a lifestyle at the complete opposite end of the political spectrum? Who are we to say that these communities should abandon a community-oriented existence in order to survive in a capitalist democracy (and probably watch their culture die with the corresponding lifestyle change).

The best example I saw of a happy medium between these two philosophies is in the community of Mutitjulu, living inside Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park - $3.75 of the $16.25 entry fee to the park is distributed to traditional owners and to the community (although whether this is continually spent responsibly is a separate issue). Proceeds from the sale of indigenous artefacts purchased at the Cultural Centre near Uluru also feed back to the community (unlike many of the art galleries in Alice Springs run by whitefellas).

However Mutitjulu is in the unique position of having a couple of particularly attractive rock formations to be able attract tourism - most other remote communities don't have this luxury.

Education about luxury items

Some of the more nomadic Aboriginal tribes only encountered whitefellas forty or fifty years ago. That's not a long time for a generation to adjust to all the new goodies available in the Western world, when the primary education about survival stems from the passing down of stories by elders.

Not long enough for a generation to understand how eating only fatty foods such as Coca Cola, hot chips and candy are completely foreign to the high-protein diet of nuts, roots and grubs that their bodies have been conditioned to, and that not maintaining a balance leads to malnutrition.

Not long enough to educate an entire community about how to be responsible when it comes to alcohol, petrol sniffing or other drugs before it is too late, especially when their genetic makeup has nothing near the resistance to addiction that the average European Australian possesses. Knowledge about handling alcohol responsibly and in moderation is something that city dwellers take for granted; well most of us anyway. We make a few mistakes along the way but we learn from them.

In Alice Springs every supermarket has an associated alcohol section. There has been recent debate over limiting the availability of alcohol - many traders argue that limiting the hours in which booze can be purchased (for example, between 3 and 6pm) will harm tourism.

The Todd Tavern opens at midday every day, and the line up of people queuing to purchase booze is disgraceful. And the Todd's customers at noon are not tourists.

Petrol high at $1.14 a litre

Territory Health workers are fighting an endless battle. Sniffers come in for rehab and return to old habits immediately. They shuffle through the streets like ghosts, with blankets on their head and their nose stuck in a jerry can.

Lots of money has been spent trying to "address the problems with Aborigines". Some of it seems to have had a positive effect. Most of it hasn't changed much. The problems in Alice Springs are not going to go away by throwing money at them - they run deeper. Violence will exist for as long as traditional law exists. Alcoholism will continue to run rife and destroy the town as long as booze is so readily available and its citizens are uneducated about responsible drinking. Petrol sniffing will continue to be a problem out bush as long as there is nothing else for young kids out bush to do.

It's too late to pull out

This is not a far-away African civilisation we are talking about. This is our country, an Australia that city dwellers are oblivious to day by day.

Before visiting Central Australia I was just as critical of the Australian Government's relocation policies in the early to mid-1900s that resulted in the 'stolen generation'. While I still disagree that something as horrible and traumatic as forced integration of Aboriginal children into white society, I can at least empathise with the idea that must have spurned this policy. God, at least they tried something! It may have been extreme, insensitive and traumatic for all involved, but some form of extreme action is definitely what is needed to produce solutions. Something needs to be done to guide those people trapped between traditional values and white luxuries. It would be naive to pretend that white man's presence has not had a massive impact on Aboriginal lifestyle.

Unfortunately as with most people I have no idea what the answers are. I'm not even sure that there are any.

What gunman?

And so while the possibility that a gun-wielding madman was on the loose in Alice Springs was a little unsettling, it was short-lived. I found the long-term issues far more disturbing.

I managed to pick up a bit of the local lingo while in the Territory - one of the more commonly used Pitjandjara words being 'palya' which means 'no worries'. I initially found it amusing and reassuring that an English phrase that is internationally associated with Australians was also a common phrase in indigenous language.

But in Central Australia things are definitely not palya.

Submitted by Matthew Magain