MairiVoice

Racism and misogyny are at the heart of our two major parties.

 

But what else would we expect from a white imperialist, capitalist, patriarchal system.

 
Policies of both of the major parties over the past ten years have gone to new depths in their attacks on our First Nations peoples – their culture, their way of life and their very lives.

And it is women and children who inevitably have suffered mostly as a result of these policies.

The latest move is the threatened closure of remote Aboriginal communities.

The threatened closure of Aboriginal communities comes as a result of the Federal Liberal coalition government cutting funding to Aboriginal communities and handing responsibility for these communities to State Governments.

The Western Australian government has stated that it plans to close over 150 Aboriginal communities.
PM Tony Abbott’s racism and disdain for our First Nation’s people is evident in his sneering comment in relation to the forced closure of communities.

“It’s not the job of the taxpayers to subsidize lifestyle choices.”

This is at a time when both Federal and State governments are rolling out the Welfare card.

 

“Women and particularly indigenous women are the most impoverished in the world.”

Eachone has written an excellent article about this: “Cashless Welfare to target Violence Against Women in Australia? Not in my name. Sexist, Racist and Unacceptable”

 

On a recent Late Night Live panel heard Marcia Langton describe the situation for Indigenous women as a ‘national crisis’
“Indigenous women are 34 times more likely to be hospitalised as a result of domestic violence than their non-Indigenous counterparts.”

And some of the problems for Indigenous women include:
– Reluctance to report
– Mistrust between police and indigenous women
– Racism within authorities

 

The instigation of a welfare card practice leads to a greater exploitation and vulnerability for women and children.
“Removing control of money from recipients is a dangerous practice. What the outraged or concerned media and general public call ‘paternalism’ is actually far worse. It is a means to ensure an expanding class of people vulnerable to exploitation. That the majority of the victims are women, indigenous and the young is not just an extreme act of ‘paternalism’, it is an extreme commitment to profit from the abuse of the bodies and lives of those most marginalized, by taking away what limited independence we may have.”Eachone

 

In 2007, the federal government staged a massive intervention in the Northern Territory on the basis of the report, “Little Children are Sacred” as a result of a government inquiry into child sexual abuse in the Northern Territory.

 
“The fall-out was a full-scale, (including army), intervention which resulted in the reinforcement of the unwavering, systemic stealing of children from their arms, to who knows where? The Department of Childrens Services have lost the files on some 8,000 children who are thus just “disappeared”.”

 
The intervention in fact has done little to address child sexual abuse or violence against women.

 
It is horrendous that our white male politicians use (abuse) the concept of protection women and children from violence and abuse for their own ends – mining of traditional lands is a suspect in this – whilst they go about destroying lives and communities.

 

“WA Premier Colin Barnett is using “child protection” as an excuse to forcibly remove entire communities from their lands, recycling the same lies about child abuse used to justify the NT Intervention. These forced closures will be systematic child abuse on a massive scale, putting families into destitution, more kids into foster care, more adults into prison.” Stop Stolen Generations

These policies and actions have in fact had a devastating impact on our First Nations people, particularly women and children.

 
And this is all being done under the well developed and over reported fabrication that our Indigenous peoples and communities are dysfunctional.

 
The Eachone article highlights the racism and misogyny that these policies incur.

The allegations of violence and abuse show no details of who and why such abuse occurs in Indigenous communities – and shows little information about how this compares to white Australia.
Who is abusing young girls in these communities? Is it the same white men who commit violence and abuse in Australian society generally?

“There was, and is, no acknowledgment of who does this to girls and women (men do this to them). There was no acknowledgment of more than 200 years of ongoing genocide in this country. Certainly, not a word about the prostituted as a class nor the acknowledgement of what the underlying structure of capitalism and male entitlement does to girls and women.”

We know that young girls who are impoverished and vulnerable are more likely to be targets of abusive men – “the worst of those committing predatory behavior and violence.”

 
Interestingly, two years after the Northern Territory Intervention, The Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs’ report Closing the Gap in the Northern Territory reveals that

• convictions of child sexual abuse involving Aboriginal perpetrators have “barely changed”,

Source:Creative Spirits

This is a worldwide problem for Indigenous girls and women.
And despite PM Rudd’s National apology to the Stolen Generation in 2008, children continue to be removed from Aboriginal families.

“Since 1997 however, the number of Aboriginal children being forcibly removed has increased more than five times, with more than 15,000 Aboriginal kids in foster care today. In WA more than half of all children in ‘care’ are Aboriginal, despite being less than 5% of the population.” Grandmothers against Removals

 

 

 

 

 

After 5 years of the intervention,Creative Spirits notes these astonishing statistics.

The rate of suicide among Aboriginal girls has “greatly increased” since the intervention was launched. Girls accounted for 40% of all Aboriginal suicides of children under 17 years, a rate which is “the most in the Western world”. Prior to the intervention the suicide rate was “significantly lower” and in 1980 it was zero.

There was a 69% increase of children getting taken into out of home care compared to 2007 figures.

There has been a 40% increase in Aboriginal incarceration.

 

Thousands of Australians marched in Australia last week against the forced closures of remote Aboriginal communities.

                              
It received little media attention – except in the Murdoch press where they were described as “a selfish rabble” – see report from Junkee 

 
Since the British government invaded this land we have declared war on our First Nations People – and we are continuing to destroy their traditions, their cultures and their lives.

 
This is not going to stop soon.

We will need a revolution to stop this.

And all Australians need to show our support for our First Nations people.

Resources:

SOSBlackAustralia/Grandmothers Against Removals: https://www.facebook.com/supportsosblakaustralia

Stop Stolen Generations: https://stopstolengenerations.com.au/