Traditionally, there have been hundreds of major Aboriginal cultural groups across Australia, different from each other by language, culture and of course country. In fact, within those major groups, there were - and still are - thousands of clans, extended families, genealogies, each in its own micro-region across the country, each with a long history of feuding with neighbouring groups. And so it’s been for tens of thousands of years.

Aboriginal regional mobility massively increased after the introduction of horse, cart, ship, railway and plane, especially in the ‘South’. With high levels of inter-marriage in the ‘South’, Aboriginal people also have a multitude of ancestries other than Aboriginal or Anglo-Celtic.

Perhaps three quarters of the Aboriginal population live in the dozens of Australian cities and hundreds of major towns. Perhaps half of the rest live in thousands of small towns. A large minority live in a thousand remote ‘communities’.

So the reality for Aboriginal people is extreme fragmentation: it has been so for fifty thousand years, and is no less today. Yet, being a relatively small population within the encompassing Australian population, in order to have any political influence at all, there is a chronic and desperate need for some sort of united voice.

Aboriginal ‘leaders’ seem oblivious of this fragmentation, sometimes even suggesting initiatives which would aggravate fragmentation, such as recognition or treaties with ‘nations’ across Australia, or ‘sovereignty’, presumably for each group.

For a small population, unity and co-ordination are vital. When my wife and I were making Aboriginal Flags in the early seventies, at a time when many local groups were devising their own, we saw the Flag as a means to bring people together under a single symbol, as a step towards greater unity and collaboration. When campaigning began for a National Aboriginal Consultative Congress in 1973, we hoped this would be a chance to reach communities and to form regional and local congresses first, but that never happened.

Current social forces inevitably foster individual futures, mobility and ever-greater fragmentation. So an urgent question arises: Is it getting too late to foster strong Indigenous unity ?

G'day, Joe,

I think it has been too late for a long time. I'm not sure that it matters, because we hear only the demands and suggestions of a few formally educated or naturally articulate people with indigenous heritage, and some who are as white as they are black. We do not hear from working aborigines, aborigines in purpose built townships. As far as I am aware, none of these 'leaders' were elected/selected to speak for these people.

Is it possible that, like the other 96% of Australians with various backgrounds and cultures, they might just be content with the way things are? They want to simply be Australian, and lives their lives the way they want to and can?

Hi Ttbn,

Yes, you're probably right: most Indigenous working people, particularly if they have mainstream jobs, just want to get on with their lives, and to please themselves when and where and whether they want to get involved in Indigenous issues.

[By the way, your comment about " .... working aborigines, aborigines in purpose built townships .... " may be an oxymoron. I'd suggest that the vast majority of working Aboriginal people are in the cities, and have been for generations.]

There seems to be an illusion, among many of the Indigenous elites and their 'Left'-supporters, that Indigenous unity is a given, that Indigenous people are a sort of amorphous and monolithic mass, but I've never sensed that at all, not even in small settlements. Fission seems to be the rule. Almost every initiative seems to trend in this direction. But I've always hoped for stronger co-ordination and, if not unity which would be a bit much to ask, then some sense of general solidarity. But apart from a bit of sloganeering (and the waving of the Flag at demos), any unity seems to be a vain hope, a hope slipping away rapidly.

For example, the Recognise! movement has been around now, in a formal, committee-based sense, for nearly a decade, and yet can't decide what it is that Australians should Recognise!. A change to the Constitution ? Not enough. A treaty ? Some of the elites like the idea, as long as it isn't spelt out what, how, with whom, etc. A fringe group is demanding 'sovereignty' and other thought bubbles float by us occasionally - nothing defined or specific.

Warren Mundine has proposed

[TBC]

[continued]

Warren Mundine has proposed the recognition of 'nations' and treaties between each 'nation' and governments: does he mean the hundreds of 'tribes' or the thousands of clans, extended family groups, i.e. the original land-holding groups ? And again, what would be in such treaties ? After all, Australians need to know, sin e they are going to be asked to vote on them.

Or is it all pie in the sky ? Is it too late now to forge some sort of unity or solidarity amongst Indigenous people ? Slogans alone won't cut it.

As time passes, the proportion of Indigenous people in the cities grows rapidly; life in remote 'communities' gets, if possible, worse for young people especially women. There are real issues plaguing such 'communities' which the elites either paper over or solemnly intone about at conferences - and leave the last 'chapter' unwritten, i.e. what to do about them. But doesn't self-determination mean taking responsibility for your problems ? What do people 'out there' think it means otherwise ?

Unity and solidarity don't drop out of the sky, nor are they givens. They can only be built on a realistic and comprehensive foundation. And of course, in a rapidly changing environment. As you suggest, is it too late ?

Joe

Yes, Joe. These "nations" could have more dogs than people in them. What people refer to as tribes (nations?) were often just family groups. I have a lot of time for Warren Mundine; he appears to be a very nice man with a level head. But, I think he has left the stage with his 'treaties between the government and different "nations".

Hi Ttbn,

Traditionally, the land-holding group was the extended family, the clan, the descent group, usually numbering anything from 20 to 50. There are instances where a group grew rapidly, and then split, with one group 'colonising' vacant or vacated land, occasionally by force. If those figures are remotely accurate, there must have been more than ten thousand land-holding groups - 'nations', if you like - across Australia.

Most people now wouldn't know which group they were supposed to count themselves as part of, if only for the simple reason that one is a sort of associate member of one's mother's group, her mother's group, and so on. We're all descended from many, many groups, after all. But with most Indigenous people living in cities for generations now, about the only identifiable link with a traditional extended family, and thereby with traditional country, would often be through one's mother, grandmother or great-grandmother.

But if we go back to great-grandparents, we each of us have eight: who do we choose to be descended from ? That choice might even vary between siblings, and could also change according to perceived benefits: it may be politic to ally oneself with a strong group rather than a smaller, weaker group.

Of course, today, family groups would form alliances in the name of an entire dialect group, or 'tribe'. But then, the problem is always 'Who speaks for us ?' Riots have occurred over that dilemma, a lot of chair-throwing, rather indecorous language and physically impossible recommendations.

And once twenty years have been splurged to ensure that a workable group has been painfully forged, the question is always going to arise: after all these efforts, over many years, what the hell should be IN this treaty ? That should take up another twenty years or so.

Maybe, to short-circuit unnecessary processes which get nowhere, people should look at their current situation and say 'Right, let's recognise this, where we've all got to, and go from there.'

But frankly, I don't think most Indigenous people give much of a toss about any of it.

Cheers,

Joe