I've been ruminating about how Indigenous organisations are 'run', somewhat stretching the meaning of the word to give a false impression of actual activity:

The problem for Indigenous affairs in Australia is that it is totally dependent for funding on the tax-payer. Let's call that the dominant funding system - the DFS. Funds are disbursed through various government departments, and directly to the thousands of Indigenous NGOs, and those Indigenous units use those funds to employ both Indigenous and non-Indigenous to nominally, or officially, provide services.

So there are two major systems, the DFS and the Indigenous Dispersal System (IDS). In between, middle-men, go-betweens, 'cultural brokers', from both systems liaise to keep the relationship running smoothly. Usually, the departmental 'broker' is non-Indigenous, working closely, extremely closely, with the head Indigenous person in the organisation, who in turn is a 'broker' between the DFS and the organisation which he or she dominates. Sometimes a trusted and loyal non-Indigenous broker liaises on behalf of the organisation.

So the 'brokers' link the two systems, forming a cosy and very strong relationship, often lasting for decades. Sometimes, the DFS has a major 'broker', Indigenous or non-Indigenous, liaising with many organisations (which gives him/her enormous clout). Conversely, a large and diverse Indigenous organisation may have a major 'broker', or specialised 'brokers' liaising with many potential funders, brokers with intimate knowledge of processes, and in turn, enormous clout.

Without much oversight - as Sara Hudson has pointed out in her review of Indigenous organisations recently - an Indigenous system is fairly independent of its original funding source. Within an IDS, the Indigenous head (and often the broker as well) wields enormous power, over who gets positions, perks, vehicles and in 'communities', housing, etc. He/she almost invariably appoints people close to him/her who are, first and foremost, loyal. Performance doesn't matter. Often they are relations, brothers, daughters, cousins.

So

{TBC}

[Continued]

So the head/broker, whether it is in a 'community' organisation, university or government department Indigenous unit or other organisation, has great discretion in who gets jobs, etc., provided they can display complete and uncritical loyalty in return. This applies to his/her up-stream 'broker' as well, as long as they demonstrate two features: they are completely loyal and uncritical to the head; and they can deliver ever more funding from the DFS.

'Big men/women' are commonly unqualified, gaining their position through family connections and, I suspect, links to political parties, particularly (at least here in South Australia) the Labor Party. Of course, they gain their strength through their control of the flow of assets to 'clients' who, in turn, are loyal to their 'patron'.

The big men form alliances with each other across Indigenous organisations, usually based on family or marriage connections. But often, perhaps usually - since even families are fractured and 'communities' are riven with parochial family rivalries and feuds - some of these alliances are fragile, and at even local level, require the creation and preservation (and, of course, funding) of a multitude of organisations, which are often at each others' throats.

Qualified Indigenous staff have to walk on egg-shells in such organisations, since they are often not only more qualified than their managers, and thus a constant threat, but because they have enough expertise to understand the unworkability or idiocy of some of their decisions. Their efficiency is thus a double threat, to non-Indigenous brokers as well.

Qualified non-Indigenous staff who raise queries don't last long in Indigenous organisations: my record is eighteen months in academia, and two years, as a labourer on a 'community' in the Riverland.

There are similarities with much larger-scale patron-client systems, say the regimes of Marcos in the Philippines, or Ceausescu in Rumania, or Mugabe or Mobutu in Zimbabwe and Zaire. The Mafia is a network of such patron-client systems, often at war. Even the Communist Parties in the old USSR or present-day China (or, God help us, North Korea) show strong signs of being patron-client systems, or dispersal-loyalty systems.

[TBC]

There are many problems faced by Aboriginals in Australia today. But blaming them on white people and relieving Aboriginal people of any responsibility will do nothing to fix these problems. What is with the self loathing exhibited by this certain class of white people that seems so common these days. It seems that everyone’s history is important and to be admired except for the history of white people. Everyone’s culture is important and valuable unless you are white, in which case you should be ashamed of yourself.
Now it seems that white people should work for free too.

[continued]

In Indigenous organisations, such intermediate patron-client systems (i.e. between the DFS and IDS) tend to cement themselves in power, and in their relations with funders. They control the information about themselves and the client groups who they are supposed to serve. In Australia, since Indigenous organisations often don't actually achieve much from one year to another, the big men/women - well, everybody actually - can fall back on the underlying racist notion that 'Well, what can you expect from Blackfellas ?'

I suspect that that attitude rules even in Indigenous higher education units these days, and in national committees which are supposed to oversee the situation and advise governments: 'nothing has changed in ten years', sort of propaganda. [Participation and graduations doubling in nine years ? Nothing's changing ? The elite don't want to know. Everybody is an elitist.]

Still, the Indigenous people will keep participating in higher education in ever-greater numbers, and graduating in ever-higher numbers. I anticipate that improvements in 2015 over 2014 might be in the order of 8 to 10 %, and something similar every year for the next ten years at least. Total graduate numbers will keep climbing, fifty thousand by 2020, perhaps seventy thousand by 2025, one hundred thousand by 2032 or so.

Back in about 2000, when graduate numbers were around fifteen thousand, my wife Maria and I predicted fifty thousand by 2020, and that now looks pretty likely. Whether those graduates can get a fair deal in a corrupt, or at least flawed, system will become a bigger problem as time passes.

Meanwhile, out in the 'communities', where most of the tax-payers' money is being spent, little is improving, as Sara Hudson's review indicated. Are 'communities' in a death spiral ? I don't know, and can do little or nothing about any of that, even if I had a mind to. Pity the little children, suckling on dogs' teats .....

Joe

The author highlights the concequences of politically lazy decisions.
The final state of ATSIC should be blamed on lazy overseeing and lack of Government accountability.
If anybody has money thrown at their feet, of course they would stoop to pick it up!

Howard's backwards move in abandoning the CDEP was plain stupid, and typically an ignorant wrong Government decision. The CDEP was A "gem" for Aboriginal youth. It taught a work ethic and responsibility, "effectively", its role being deferred to the local prison work gang when abandoned.

I agree wholeheartedly with the author when describing capitalising NGO's. Again, accountability is missing, with lazy Government oversight the usual villain.

Thanks. Great post Joe...:-)