Social Justice, Indigenous Australians and Catholicism

Faculty of Theology and Philosophy

School of Theology

Social Justice and Indigenous Australians.pdf (PDF, 60KB)

Kathleen Butler-McIlwraith

Abstract

This paper begins with an Indigenous reflection on the Christian faith of the author's family. Further discussion centres on the development of principles of cultural inclusion, establishing a shared New Dreaming and the discussion of the repatriation of Aboriginal remains. The paper concludes with a consideration of the potential for dialogue and partnership.

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An Indigenous Reflection

It is often questioned why Indigenous people would want to maintain Christianity, given the many negative aspects of its application in Australia. This is a valid question that speaks to a multi-generational suffering that cannot be separated from the striking conditions of inequity that Indigenous Australians experience today. Further, it is complex to answer and is hampered if discussed only in a generalised way; from an Indigenous perspective it must be rooted in the specific before it can be extrapolated. Considering the self-identification of two-thirds of the Indigenous population in the 1996 Census as Christian (ABS, 1998), this is an area of significance to the majority of Indigenous people. From my own perspective, I act as a spokesperson for my family who desire an inclusive Christianity. In speaking of and for my family in this section I adopt a personal narrative as a part of my position in our collective experience. To attempt to 'objectify' their experience would ultimately dishonour my connectivity to them.

I remember clearly being excited to read the 1918 notice of my Great-Grandparents' marriage published in their Aboriginal Mission magazine. "It was beautiful day when Archie married Mary. Every thing that Aborigines and people could do..." At first I was non-comprehending, 'Aborigines and people', what does that mean? It is difficult to articulate the sickening plummet in the stomach as one realises the import of what is contained statements like that and how seductive it is to convert that depth of emotion into hate. For many Aboriginal people, the hate is where it remains, because it is so hard to move past the ultimate insult—the denial of humanity itself and the hypocrisy as related in Kevin Gilbert's The Flowering (1998, 22) as he says:

When your psalmist sang
Of a suffering Christ
While you practiced genocide
Did you expect his hate would fade
Out of sight with the ebbing tide?

Yet my great-grandparents chose not to hate. Indeed, the family had its own pew in the local church with a brass plaque proclaiming it for their family.

As a child I spent a great deal of time with my maternal grandmother. Nanny Beryl was a strong Worimi woman, too proud to accept the position that was structurally thrust upon her. I remember lying in bed and as I was cuddled up to her back she would tell me stories of our family and country. Nanny's parents had been placed on Karuah mission and although Nan never lived on the mission the spectre of it loomed large in her psyche. What she feared most was being returned to Karuah and buried there in the black box that served as coffins for mission Blacks. I remember our family's conscious decision to bury her in a gleaming rosewood casket, with sweet peas, her favourite flower cascading fragrantly over it, a final touch of love to show that she had indeed transcended that feared reality for good.

On the north coast in my Grandfather's Bundjalung country, Churches occupied the panoptic position of rural communities, central both in terms of their moral hegemony and physical ability for surveillance. Some Indigenous people lived on missions positioned in areas with apt names like 'Swamp Street' that even some clergy noted with horror were 'living cemeteries', while other Aboriginal people moved to avoid the interlinked gaze of church and state. Church residences, highly visible were mansions in comparison. Yet my great-grandparents placed Catholic Holy Pictures in the bedrooms of their home. White skinned, blond, blue eyed Mary and Jesus, heart adorned with the Crown of Thorns, to watch over the occupants. These were so highly regarded as essential for spiritual protection that they were not even removed when the room was repainted and they now have a thick multi-coloured rim of textured paint attesting their decade's long position.

In part I link my family's acceptance of the contradictions inherent in their Christian experience to the hymns that form an integral part of the experience of South-east Coastal Indigenous Christianity and that are similar to the African American Sorrow Songs born of slavery. As DuBois commented on the Sorrow Songs:

Through all of the Sorrow Songs there breathes a hope—a faith in the ultimate justice of things. The minor cadences of despair change often to triumph and calm confidence. Sometimes it is a faith in life, sometimes a faith in death, sometimes assurance of boundless justice in some fair world beyond. But whichever it is, the meaning is always clear: that sometime, somewhere, men will judge men by their souls and not by their skins (DuBois, 1970, 215).

So it was, for my grandparents in their belief of Christianity. Life on earth was hard, a struggle reflected in the trials of the Israelites and the sufferings of Christ himself who through biblical narrative was shown to experience the hallmarks of oppression familiar to Indigenous people. The violence, vilification and derision evidenced in this narrative spoke to the key experiences of Indigenous marginality and dispossession. They nurtured an eternal hope that those who espoused Christian virtues yet perpetuated oppression would see the error of their ways and recognise the rights of the Aboriginal person. As Ruby Langford (1992, 12), the daughter of my great-Aunt Evelyn Webb, has written

GIN! BOONG! ABO! COON!
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me!
GIN! BOONG! ABO! COON!
Christ said, 'Forgive them for they know not what they do.'
But they do know!

When I was young, we would attend the Aboriginal Inland Mission (AIM) services in Redfern. I remember these as happy times, bonding of family and community where the Christian belief was linked explicitly to the Indigenous reality. There was a quiet call to an anti-racist world in the teaching to children of "Jesus loves the little children... Red and Yellow, Black and White... ". I remember Sunday school with a young Indigenous man, where my Christmas present was a little orange plastic purse with White Children and the words 'Jesus Loves the Little Children. And I remember the many funerals; the shining lacquered wood of the tiny Church our family built at Karuah, the cloying incense that slowly dissipated in the big Catholic Churches; the bleakness on the faces of older men carrying young men to early graves; Aboriginal ministers pausing at the graveside to offer a benediction in the lingo, where even those who did not understand the language were moved by its power; wailing that called down the spirits of the Old People who swelled our ranks for a moment and then were gone. And I remember the hymns, our Sorrow Songs... Abide With Me, What a Friend we have in Jesus, Sweet By and By, Shall We Gather at the River, the extra resonance to the lyrics "and our spirits shall sorrow no more, not a sigh for the blessing of rest". As people of the Karuah, Clarence and Richmond Rivers, there was a deeper meaning that was ascribed to the belief they would "gather with the saints at the river that flows by the throne of God" linked to the significance of the rivers in our Indigenous cosmology. My Old People, those who I saw growing up, and those who come to me though story, saw death as ultimately redemptive, where all would be welcomed as equals in the House of God. I think that it is in the belief of salvation that Christianity, for all of its institutional history of domination and subjugation, remained attractive for them and perhaps for others who seek emancipation (Myers, 2005, 19). As an academic, I bring the lived experience of my family and our people as a foundation to a broader textual engagement with what a culturally inclusive Christianity might entail.

A Culturally Inclusive Catholicism

While the concept of culturally inclusive Catholicism is sometimes debated as part of a post-colonial agenda, it was a fundamental position of the Church mission in the initial colonial expansionary period. As Charlesworth notes:

In 1659 the Catholic Church's Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith instructed missionaries... Do not regard it as your task, and do not bring any pressure to bear upon people, to change their manners, customs and uses, unless they are evidently contrary to religion and sound morals (Charlesworth, 1998, xv-xvi).

In this statement the Sacred Congregation further recognised the inappropriateness of attempting to replicate European cultures in colonised contexts, encouraging instead the preservation of Indigenous cultures (Ibid). This example is not unique, but it was not until the various speeches of Pope John Paul II, who personified the globalised Faith that this message has been widely acknowledged. John Paul II made a series of speeches in the 1980's to various Indigenous peoples during his travels, promoting the Catholic acceptance of the inherent right of Indigenous people to retain cultural specificity within their adherence to their Catholic faith (Hefferan, 2005). In the Australian context, his Alice Springs Address in 1986 remains a significant statement in this regard. Speaking directly to Aboriginal people, John Paul II recognised Indigenous dispossession; celebrated the Dreaming and its associated ceremonies; sought the commonalities of Aboriginal and Catholic traditions; and encouraged forgiveness and reconciliation. Towards the closing of this remarkable speech he expressed the following:

The old ways can draw new life and strength from the Gospel. The message of Jesus Christ can lift up your lives to new heights, reinforce all your positive values and add many others, which only the Gospel in its originality proposes. Take this Gospel into your own language and way of speaking; let its spirit penetrate your communities and determine your behaviour towards each other, let it bring new strength to your stories and your ceremonies (John Paul II, 1986).

This speech contributed to an existing movement within Australian Catholicism to include Indigenous culture.

Within all Indigenous Australian cultures, there is some form of conscious creative action, by an entity which may be in the form of spirit, animal or human like figure or interplay of a number of these. For some Indigenous people, these narratives are still incorporated into their practice as Christians, consistent with John Paul II's position. For example:

The Great Creator Spirit of the Bible has always been very active in this country... through the Creator Spirit's wisdom our ancestors were given stories about our relationships to Great Spirit, to our world, our environment, our families, our people and our personal connection to the Great Spirit Being (Yavu-Kama-Harathunian, 2006).

For others, the Bible and Dreaming stories are synthesised through art and dance (Crumlin, 1998; Myers, 2005). Disturbingly however, The Dreaming is too often portrayed in the past tense, a quaint relic of the Stone-Age or an intellectual curiosity. Even where acknowledged as a present day experience, models of culture privileging the 'traditional' and dismissing syncretism or innovative expressions effect the development of a New Dreaming (Oodgeroo, 1988).

Welcoming a New Dreaming

One impediment to constructing a New Dreaming that includes Indigenous and non-Indigenous people is the fallacy that Indigenous cultures must remain static to be authentic. This demands challenge. As Indigenous peoples have moved away from country through coercion, economic deprivation and choice, they share with many Diasporas the ability to conceive of a "homeland" that exists in both temporal and sacred domains. This should be recognised as a trait of cultural continuity not lessened authenticity. Just as it would not be correct to suggest to those of Christian, Semitic or Islamic faiths that their global dispersal negates their spirituality, the argument cannot be sustained against Indigenous peoples either. Acclaimed as one of the most significant of the cohort of Aboriginal women's auto-biographers, Ruby Langford Ginibi's work reflects this.

In My Bundjalung People (1994) Ruby provides a story that combines belonging to country, creation Dreaming, a Diasporas transmission via orality and reconnection through kinship. The ability to retain a Bundjalung Dreaming while living in a distanced urban context is striking, with Ruby's descriptions of her son Nobby and her affirmation "[Bundjalung land] was his country but he'd never been here before" (Langford, 1994, 106). Nobby's sense of belonging and that of Ruby's other children comes from their exposure to oral history whilst growing up predominantly in Sydney. In making journeys back to Bundjalung country Ruby realigns herself with kin, not only at an individualistic level, but also as daughter, granddaughter and niece of others.

For Nobby, his initial acceptance at Box Ridge relies almost exclusively on his position as Ruby's son. Ruby introduces him to her elders and her contemporaries as Nunyars jarjum, or my child. She uses the same form of address in the out of country urban context, amongst a predominantly non-Bundjalung audience when opening his first art exhibition- "Then I called out in my lingo, 'Baluganⁱ nunyars jarjum! [Handsome young man my child] Welcome back to your Dreaming' (1994, 160).

A feature in the example just offered, is that individuals are formally enfranchised in country, spirit and heritage. It doesn't matter if, as with Nobby, this occurs as an adult, he is entitled to welcome, to the public acknowledgement of his belonging; the introduction to a structured network in body and spirit and the inclusion in its history. In a broader sense, what is now termed 'Welcome to Country' has formed an integral part of many Indigenous ceremonies for thousands of years. All areas of the continent have had large gatherings of different Indigenous groups. These gatherings served a number of purposes: foremost, they allowed for participation in ceremony for the purposes of required ritual, spiritual renewal, storytelling, and teaching of law. The spirits were also recognised, with the dual purpose of respect, but also to ask for protection for the participants from any malevolent spiritual forces. All of these aspects to me resonate with the concept of the Church as a "community of believers" (Dodson, Elston, & McCoy, 2006, 253). A syncretic Indigenous Catholicism has the potential to make a New Dreaming based on these shared principles of acceptance and a commitment to live in way that is respectful of the laws given to us through Spirit. This Dreaming must also be founded on dialogue and willingness to engage with the political realities of the Indigenous experience.

Mourning and the Repair of a Ruptured Dreaming Cycle

It is often difficult for non-Indigenous people to conceive of the ways in which the Dreaming cycle has any relevance outside of a clearly demarcated religious space and time, but it is "our identity as people. The cultural teaching and everything, that's part of our lives here... it's the understanding of what we have around us" (Wallaga Lake Elder Merv Penrith cited in Bouma, 2006, 10). Indigenous cultures, as with Christianity, recognise "death" as part of a transition to a spiritual state- to new life. All cultures have responsibilities to treat the remains in appropriate ways. Whether from an exclusively Indigenous or syncretic tradition this is considered necessary to allow for the deceased to continue on their Dreaming cycle. One of the damaging legacies of colonisation has been the removal of Aboriginal remains for the purpose of display and scientific study, which ruptures the Dreaming cycle. The responsibility of Mourning cannot be discharged until this completion occurs. The repatriation of Aboriginal remains is one example of the Dreaming as a politically motivating force today. It is an area in which Aboriginal rights would greatly benefit from the support of institutions such as the Catholic Church.

Museums, archaeologists and anthropologists often discourage the return of remains, with one of the key justifications being a concern on the "loss to science" of such valuable sources of data. This seems a flawed argument in a number of ways. Part of the difficulty in challenging this mindset is that despite "a crisis of faith ...in the inevitability and ultimate success of Western progress, imperialism, science and technology" (Creed, 1994,158) there remains a pervasive inculcation that 'science' and its attendant forms of rationality constitute the most useful form of knowledge. There is a conflation of scientific rationality with 'truth' that becomes a mechanism through which many ethical concerns are moved to the periphery.
The desire for so-called 'objectivity' is a Western scientific conceit that is rarely valued by Indigenous communities. In stark contrast, the subjectivity that is desired by both Indigenous peoples and many Christians seeks instead to mediate the intellectual through the lens of a moral gaze, with both groups having a vested interest in the outcomes of dehumanising debates. From this, while the continued survey of Aboriginal remains may provide additions to scientific knowledge, it should be questioned whether the demand by archaeologists to their right of access to benefit their beliefs (Pardoe, 1992) exceeds the rights of Indigenous peoples to deny what in our beliefs is the desecration of our ancestors. Therefore, the collection of data and its usage must be balanced against the value that would accrue from Indigenous communities being able to seek some semblance of "closure" via their ability to discharge their responsibilities in Mourning.

Western science has evidenced a particular fascination for cataloguing the "last of..." In Australia, Aboriginal people who could be labelled the "last of his/her tribe" proliferated in colonial imagination, especially those from Tasmania. The image of Truganini widely acknowledged the "last of the Tasmanian Aborigines" was included in many histories. Having seen the remains of her people removed for study, Truganini died in fear that this was to be her fate as well. It was. Which then is more important, the measurements of Truganini's skull or the knowledge that she begged in vain for her remains to be kept intact after her death? What of William Lanne, the "last" Tasmanian man, whose corpse was divided by squabbling "scientific" societies and where the distasteful nature of the practice was even noted by the Hobart Mercury:

Don't go to seek me in my grave
Or think that there I be;
They have not left one atom there
Of my ANATOMY (cited in Murray, 1998, 225).

While the Western concept of linear progression often presents the passing of time as a mechanism in itself for closure, for many cultures unfinished legacies increase rather than decrease distress. Where Mourning is configured not as a time period, but as a structurally constrained series of objectives, these objectives must either be fulfilled or the struggle must continue. As Stanner concluded, death and burial

"were consciously concerned with two tasks: to enable the ghost of a dying or dead clansman to be quit of earthly ties, and to shepard his immortal soul towards and into the place within his clan-country where his bones could lie at peace (Stanner, 1998, 13).

It is important to acknowledge that some European institutions have agreed to return remains to Indigenous communities. For instance, in 1991, the University of Edinburgh returns 300 'specimens'. I would note here that one of the skeletal remains specifically requested was that of William Lanne, but such was the 'rigour' of the scientific documentation that it could not be determined which was his (Murray, 1998, 225). However, after thanking the University for its "great spiritual gift" to Aboriginal people, elder David Mowaljarlai "spoke of the Ngarinjin/Worora continuum of ancestral creation, life in the land, death and return to the realm of the spirit" (Turnbull, 1997). While this was apparently a moving display that gave observers an insight into why the remains continued to be of importance (Ibid), it unfortunately set no precedent across the British institutional landscape as the 2007 struggle for the remains of 17 Aboriginal Tasmanians demonstrates. Ultimately examples such as these provide a challenge to those peoples or institutions who claim to support the expression of Indigenous spiritualities by questioning to what extent our struggle will become the Church's struggle too.

On the nature of dialogue, partnership and populism

One of the concepts that feature in improving cross-cultural relationships is 'dialogue'- the interchange of views between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians to enable a fuller understanding of a divisive past for the purpose of facilitating an equitable shared future. As with many buzz words however, 'dialogue' itself often seems to be frustratingly vague in terms of how it is constructed. Unfortunately, what is lauded as dialogue sometimes is simply a place for the articulation of competing rhetoric, where each discourse is only strengthened in its opposition to the other. Dialogue is not constituted on merely allowing a place to speak, but a willingness to listen; it cannot be successful unless all parties are prepared to have their positions destabilised and to consider outcomes that are innovative rather than pre-ordained (Rose, 2003, 54). Dialogue between the Catholic Church and Indigenous people is hampered initially by a difficult past.

Although there were many occasions during colonisation when the Catholic Church attempted to advocate for Aboriginal rights, there was also an engagement in an active collusion with the State in the management of what was considered the "Aboriginal problem". As the functionaries of the Protection and Assimilation policies the Catholic Church has directly contributed to the current disadvantage experienced by Indigenous Australians. Further, through the extension of their role beyond spreading the Gospel to a far darker imposition of cultural hegemony to 'civilise', Catholicism has also participated in the repression of Indigenous cultural expression (see Rintoul, 1993). It is not the task of this paper to consider this history in detail as it has been acknowledged in various forums and specific statements of regret (see HREOC, 1999, 49-50). It is relevant to note however that any attempts at dialogue must be based on an understanding of the tensions that are and will be inherent in current and future relations. For many Indigenous people the perception of Churches as an ally remains difficult.

The federal Liberal coalition under the leadership of John Howard has been widely criticised for its policies regarding Indigenous people and in its consistent small minded rejection of Aboriginal claims to material or emotional reparations for past injustice. Moreover, the current Federal government often issues ultimatums demanding conformity, a process that is antithetical to dialogue. The support of the Catholic Church in criticising the government has been viewed with surprise by some, but provides examples that it is possible for alliances to be altered, whether at the level of the individual or the institution.

Any Indigenous /Catholic partnership needs to also be founded on honest criticism. Even as the Church must be prepared to receive such criticism, it must also be enabled to provide it. It is uncontested that Indigenous people figure as the most disadvantaged cohort of the Australian population on every socio-economic indicator. There is no disagreement that many Indigenous communities are in crisis. As a group disproportionately dependent on welfare, Indigenous peoples may find a valuable ally in Catholicism individually and institutionally. Given the inability of current efforts to substantially close the gaps in Indigenous disparity, indeed some have worsened, a new spirit of engagement between Indigenous people and institutions such as the Church is needed. As emerging reports show the parlous condition of Indigenous communities with regard to previously silenced critical issues such as sexual abuse and domestic violence, established Catholic service providers may make a valuable contribution to future initiatives with and for Indigenous communities. Service provision alone will not provide a solution to Indigenous disadvantage. Ideally, holistic systems need to be constructed to empower Indigenous self-determination, supporting individual agency and the reassertion of communal responsibility (Pearson, 2003). It will be important however those initiatives are not a form of "new paternalism" (Just Comment, 2006). Encouraging 'partnership' rather than prescribing 'correctness' is a practical expression of reconciliation that moves beyond the symbolic to re-establish a "moral universe" (Berndt, 1998, 29). While this needs to be Indigenous led and focussed, it also needs to enfranchise the state and mainstream Australia generally as active participants in the journey towards a socially just society that strives to achieve peace (Blackman, 2005).

There has already been some criticism both internally and externally directed at the Catholic Church for participating in current political debates. While some people feel that the Church has not taken a strong enough stand, others feel that the Church should be less concerned with an overt political agenda (Dodson, Elston and McCoy, 2006, 260-1). From an Indigenous perspective where the spiritual was integral to all aspects of society (Berndt, 1998, 28) a political praxis is a necessary stance for reinvigorating Catholic faith and Indigenous autonomy. It is consistent with the Indigenous understanding of Christ's role to befriend and liberate the marginalised. The Statement of Beliefs by the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress expresses this:

He is the One who builds his new community at the fringes to which the people held by the society to be of no account in this world were pushed - the homeless, the dispossessed, the unemployed, those with poor health and little schooling, the despised mixed raced Samaritans, and the original inhabitants of the land (UAICC, 2001).

A church that is unwilling to be politically proactive is not establishing a role for itself in ethical leadership and is ultimately of little utility. It then runs the risk of being perceived, particularly by young people, as increasingly irrelevant, deepening the 'secularisation' (Maddox, 1999) of Australian society. It is not in the spirit of dialogue however for the Catholic Church to uncritically support marginalised agendas. By this, I refer to the trend in which it is expected that the Church will be inclusionary of all alternative perspectives even those that explicitly contravene its doctrines. In contrast, I would argue that religion constituted on populism runs the risk of ultimately weakening its integrity. The balance is therefore, to discourage a blind adherence to dogma, and to encourage a measured innovation that does not compromise the core values of the Faith- a challenging path indeed.

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Bio: Kathleen Butler-McIlwraith has been a lecturer at the University of Newcastle since 1997, predominantly in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology.

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