A MESSAGE TO THE LEADERS OF OUR PROFESSION.
Bruce Reyburn. 1990.
The concern for standards which has occupied considerable time and
energy of Australian anthropologists over the last decade has
produced an association which has incorporated elitist values at
its core. Those who benefit from this arrangement would no doubt
be content to allow matters to rest where they are. They do not
live in the hell holes of refugee camps in places like Alice
Springs, Tennant Creek, Katherine, Darwin,
The question must be asked: what has been excluded by this elitism
taking over our profession? My answer is - anthropology...as the
voice of life.
It is striking that while the issue of standards of living for
anthropologists occupied the latter part of the 1980s, the more
fundamental issue to do with the relationship of our discipline to
the dominant social formation and to the First People slipped
quietly into the background...despite the clarification we
received from Anglo-Australia that the provision of our services
on our terms was not required.
I personally feel that this concern for corporate culture style
codes of ethics rather than for maintaining alliances is not
merely a matter of co-incidence. Narrowly defined self- interest
is the common denominator.
We are growing increasingly aware that the standards promoted in
the name of science are inversely proportional to global
well-being. There is a direct relationship between the growth
western style knowledge and the destruction of life.
It is time that those standards were critically examined and
replaced - at the heart of our Constitution - with an
uncompromising respect for life.
Now is not the time for anthropology to be modelling itself on the
corrupt professions of european commerce but to be providing real
leadership in developing a bi-cultural form of organisation.
While I am not a member of the reconstituted Australian
Anthropological Society, I offer my thoughts in a spirit of
fraternal solidarity with the 'ordinary' members.
GENOCIDE AND THE ENLIGHTENMENT.
One of the major themes which concerns me presently is the
relationship between the Enlightenment and genocide. This was
raised recently in an issue of CulturaL Survival Quarterly. There
can be little doubt that these is a relationship between the
growth of scientific rationalism and the decline of the well-being
of First People's.
It is disheartening to discover that, despite our best efforts to
do something constructive in the world, it is possible that have
been having the opposite effect. In this paper I have tried to
work out some ways of overcoming the terrible 'Midas' touch of
secular science, which seems to kill all it comes in contact
with.
Perhaps typical of the process by which life has suffered at the
hands of European understanding is the situation we find in 1901
in Tennant Creek, in the Northern Territory, where the Warumungu
people - already being driven off their living countries - have
been visited by Baldwin Spencer and Frank Gillen. The good country
of the Warumungu people, and others, had been taken over for
cattle production twenty years previously. The Warumungu people
were now largely dependent on government 'rations' being handed
out at the Tennant Creek Telegraph Station.
The senior Warumungu men were no doubt relieved that here were
two representatives from the whitemans world who appeared to take
real interest in what the Warumungu had to say. This was welcome,
in comparison with the guns and whips of the cattlemen. It was
vitally important that the authorities which guided European life
gained some real degree of understanding of the inseparable
relationship between Australia's First People and their country.
The Warumungu senior men immediately set about instructing these
two great lawmen - as Spencer and Gillen were perceived - in the
details of the Warumungu life-design cosmology, The Wirnkarra
('Dreaming'). The process lasted solidly from July 27 to September
18 when Spencer and Gillen had to call it quits to head north.
The senior Warumungu law men would have had every reason to feel
satisfied with what they had achieved. Spencer and Gillen had been
subjected to an unprecedented feast of Warumungu law. Their
guests must go away with some idea of the transcendental as well
as practical importance of living country for people.
The Warumungu feast of knowledge was in itself proof that they
were prepared to share that which was most important to them. All
it required was the establishment of reciprocal relationships
between the two peoples.
What the Warumungu did not and could not appreciate was the hold
that abstract ideas had over the reality of the two whitemens
experience. For Spencer and Gillen, the task at hand was simply
one of recording - for the benefit of future men of science - the
last authentic details of 'living fossils' left over from the
process of evolution. The Warumungu were seen as obsolete remnants
in the march of progress from savagery to civilisation.
The messages which the Warumungu sung and chanted for Spencer and
Gillen's experience were neither understood nor regarded as
something which was worthy of being understood. The higher
messages of the Wirnkarra were, as far as the whitemen were
concerned, the howlings of naked savages.
The Warumungu senior men transmitted knowledge certain that no
intelligent Being would fail to interrogate their own experience -
to squeeze the message out of it. But Spencer and Gillen were not
Beings of this type. They collected 'facts' which more qualified
members of the European intellectual tradition in England - up
with the latest fashion - would interpret for them.This division
of the Being was alien to the First People.
Their messages did not survive the mangling of the european
myth-makers such as Fraser and Durkheim. False images of the lives
of First People were incorporated into european thinking in lieu
of the living reality.
Reading Spencer and Gillen today it is impossible to detect in
their work any hint that the people they were working with were in
the grips of a severe crises brought on by the invasion of their
living countries by the whitemans cattle.
This was not a relevant concern for those who believed in progress
and the workings of secular evolution. This disaster was a
'natural' process - not the result of political decisions and
policy. Howling savages who did not work the land were only to be
expected to die out once the enlightened europeans arrived.
It is clear to see how the workings of secular science, in the
form of evolutionism, aided and abetted the workings of a more
direct arm of genocide. It removed the doubts about the validity
of courses of action that we all have when human life is so
obviously suffering. The power of thoughts projected from afar, in
the european tradition, is such that it can over-ride the truth of
our direct experience.
The tendency today is to dismiss the shortcomings of Spencer and
Gillen with a wave of the hand and a huffed comment about 'social
Darwinism' as though all that was in the past and we have learnt
from experience. This is incorrect. The processes of genocide
which were operating in their day were no less visible to them
than are the processes of genocide which continue to operate
today.
The threshold of the destructive european forces is such that they
lie outside the visible spectrum. To avoid mystification by our
own intellects, we must examine outcomes - not policies
- and work our way back from the direct evidence of our
experience.
In my opinion, it is our primary task as anthropologists to
identify the source of origin of these lethal forces, identify the
means by which they are effective - including the ways in which
they change their shape when subject to attention - and to
identify the means by which they can be eradicated permanently
from life. As the professionals charged with understanding human
life cross-culturally, we incur a special obligation to provide
leadership in this area. We must begin by getting our own house
in order.
RELATIONSHIP OF ANTHROPOLOGISTS TO FIRST PEOPLE.
Anthropologists in Australia are part of a dominant social
formation which is founded on a doctrine of terra nullius. This
doctrine denies the sovereign rights of the country's First
People. The European apocalypse arrived in the lives of
Australia's First People in 1788.
Everyday the Anglo- Australian social formation continues to deny
the reality of the place of Aboriginal people and their culture in
the government of Australia. Everyday is a struggle for survival
for the people who have a unique relationship to the country. A
unique relationship to a living ecosystem and resource base which
was expropriated, without compensation, to provide solutions to
European living problems.
We are entitled to inquire whether or not the forces which deny
the reality of prior occupation operate through our practice
despite our best intentions.
This dominant social formation provides the groundrules for daily
life of us all. We are, as respectable members of society, law
abiding citizens and we observe the constraints of the law as
codified by Parliament. We are not, and cannot be, a law unto
ourselves. We follow the directions of our law- makers and get on
with our job. Does this begin to ring a faintly disturbing alarm
bell. "We follow orders. We are just doing our job."
As members of society we provide a particular type of service.
This is a highly specialised service. In return for social
standing and material rewards we construct models of other
people's lives which serve as substitute representations for those
lives. We are, in short, conceptual craftsmen who paint in words.
The problem is - do we merely construct images which flatter those
who control the purse strings (we have our mortgages to service)
or do we construct images which are as true to experience as we
can make them irrespective of the consequences?
I argue that we best serve the interests of both major parties
when we overcome the inhibitions of the dominant social group and
put our reputations on the line by calling the shots as we see
them. The requirements for good government are that we do not
acquiesce when we face biting the bullet. Are we not presently
witnesses to a process - the forced imposition of European
practices onto the people and land of Australia - which can only
be described as genocide and eco-cide?
Each of us needs to make up our mind on this - and to take a stand
accordingly. The future is not predetermined but something which
will be created as a result of the creative choices we each make.
Despite the view of secular science, life and living is a highly
creative act.
For those of us who cannot avoid coming to the conclusion that
these are the darkest of times, we must draw strength from the
realisation that - despite apparent obstacles - we align ourselves
with life's forces when we accept the challenges of our time. The
re-insertion of balance into the scheme of things may be a long,
hard haul. Our methods need to be constructive; our determination
total.
Our task, as cross-cultural mediators, requires that we provide
the best possible channels of communication between the two major
systems of order. This principally involves us encouraging the
Anglo-Australian system to jettison as obsolete its present false
image of both itself and First People. We can only communicate
this by the way we practice - not merely by lipservice and
preaching.
The reformulation of anthropological practice in relation to our
emerging understanding of the realities of First Australia is our
initial task. This may involve shifting the teaching of
anthropology to grounds which actually acknowledge the prior and
ongoing ownership of the land we stand on when we speak about such
matters. To do otherwise is to accept systematic disempowerment of
our voice. We well know the power of the hand which provides the
pay cheque.
The reformulation of anthropological practice in relation to our
emerging understanding of the realities of First Australia may
also involve us in a radical restructuring of our profession to
remove the imperialist hold of the western tradition upon our
standards. We need standards which acknowledge the fundamental
reality of the core values of both systems of order, and weight
them accordingly. We need to factor in to our practice our
relationship with the First People so that their wisdom is
incorporated at our core, not marginalised as evidence of the
'curious habits of the natives.'
NEED FOR RECOGNITION OF OUR SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP.
In the Warumungu land claim, conducted during the 41980s (as
culturally corrected), the Northern Territory Government sought
access to the field notes of anthropologists and linguists who had
carried out research in the area. The argued that they had a
special obligation, on behalf of the citizens of the Northern
Territory, to critically test the validity of the land by the
claimant Aboriginal people (also citizens of the Northern
Territory exercising rights granted under Commonwealth law).
Aboriginal people, under the standards of the Country-Liberal
Party government, are expected to win their legally recognised
rights twice over -in the name of fair play.
The basis of the Northern Territory government's position was that
its relationship with its own citizens bringing the claim was so
bad, as a direct result of its actions in opposing land claims,
that it was unrealistic to expect it to be able to send in
researchers who could collect factual information to enable it to
discharge its governmental duties to test the claim.
Rather than resigning after making this admission that it was not
in a position to properly govern (since, by the same logic, it
would not be able to gather the information necessary to form
sound policy in respect to the lives of Aboriginal people) -
rather than resigning after making this forceful submission by a
respected Queen's Counsel to the Aboriginal Land Commissioner
(admitting his clients incompetence to govern)- rather than
resigning, the Northern Territory government sought to build on
its own prima facie case of a relationship of bad faith by
seeking to raid the field materials of those researchers who
enjoyed a relationship of trust with the claimant people.
Such was and is the relationship between the Country-Liberal
Party government and the First People placed, under its control by
the Commonwealth government in 1978, that their argument regarding
their inability to talk with a major component of their citizenry,
their argument - although untested - went unchallenged by all
parties present.
Despite the lack of evidence that the claimants would not quite
happily talk to anyone to demonstrate their unique relationship as
the human representatives of their living countries; despite the
lack of a shred of evidence the argument of the Country-Liberal
Party government was accepted without the application of standards
of scrutiny which the same Land Commissioner felt compelled to
apply to the claimants and their representatives. Ah, the letter
of law has no top and no bottom.
The Aboriginal Land Commissioner, one of the Territory's brightest
home grown Q.C.s and owner of one of the largest yachts on a
Darwin harbour were prestige is measured by such material
standards, the Aboriginal Land Commissioner was persuaded by the
impeccable logic of the Northern Territory government. He issued
Notices under the terms of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act. These
Notices required the researchers named to hand over all their
field materials or face contempt charges, with imprisonment for
the duration of the pleasure of the Crown.
The researchers strongly objected to this, arguing that this would
involve a breach of the conditions of confidentiality under which
much of their information was obtained. Their positions varied but
the bottom line was that such material should not be produced
without the genuine and informed consent of the people who
provided the information initially. In other words, the
researchers were not spies for other parties whose own interests
may or may not be in conflict with those of the Aboriginal
people.
Rather than seeking to have the material in question subject to
such a clearance procedure to determine whether or not, at the end
of the day, there was any substantive conflict, the different and
vastly more expensive course of legal argument was taken. This
response sidestepped the question of unextinguished sovereign
rights of the First People. The ensuing cultural monologue held up
the claim to the benefit of some parties and to the detriment of
others.
The researchers argued that, in Aboriginal life, the unauthorised
publication of information could have severe negative consequences
for the lives of Aboriginal people. For this reason it was
important that those people who were best placed to decide the
matter - the Aboriginal people themselves
- should have the right of veto over its further publication.
The forced disclosure of information could seriously impact on the
lives of the Aboriginal People and it could destroy the
relationship between them and the anthropological representatives
they required to translate their realities into terms familiar to
the Court.
During the course of this stage of the proceedings various
spokespeople for both the disciplines of anthropology and
linguistics rallied to the cause and presented sworn or affirmed
affidavits to the Commissioner in support of the stand taken by
the researchers. These affidavits stated in no uncertain terms
that, without a confidential relationship respected by the wider
society, it would be practically impossible for much
anthropological and linguistic research to be carried out. For
example:
...I believe that a decision to require ... researchers to
produce their fieldnotes and other field materials to the
Aboriginal Land Commissioner would have serious implications
for my University's staff and postgraduate students who do
socio-psychological research (which includes anthropological
and linguistic research) with Northern Territory Aboriginal
people and communities. Namely, such a decision would make
it difficult, if not impossible, for our researchers to give
an honest undertaking to protect the confidentiality of the
research records in an effective manner. And if a prospective
researcher could not do that, I do not think the University's
Ethical Review Committee could approve and clear their
research proposals. And, in that case, the research could not
proceed.( Warumungu Exhibit N54:6)
The Queen's Counsel for the Northern Territory, it is worth
recording, contemptuously dismissed this affidavit, holding it up
as though it was a rotting fish, stating he objected to the whole
affidavit as it composed of 'generalities'. It contained nothing
of substance from the Northern Territory government's point of
view despite the issues raised by a respected Professor. The
government's Counsel's attitude found an echo in the Aboriginal
Land Commissioner's characterisation of the situation as involving
an element of 'tyranny of boffins'.
It is also worth recording here that this same Commissioner was
later prevented, by a higher Court, from hearing a further claim
due to the possibility that the man in the street may regard His
Honour as being biased. Unfortunately for the Warumungu (since he
- aided by the invisible workings of the anthropological
establishment ? - imposed patrilineal dogma in place of real
living arrangements upon them) the same higher Court allowed him
to complete the Warumungu claim as it would be oppressive for
other parties not to allow it to finish.
Given the fact that various Ministers for Aboriginal Affairs have
sat on the Commissioner's findings for several years, the three
Judges need not have sacrificed exacting standards for more
pragmatic concerns. He was good enough for the Warumungu claim,
but not good enough for the Kenbi claim in which it the issue was
the mala fides of the N.T. Crown. Good enough to codify the
realities of Warumungu life but not good enough when it came down
to protecting the inner workings of the Cabinet of the Northern
Territory Government. Ah, but the letter of the law has no top and
no bottom.
After hearing considerable legal argument regarding the position
of the researchers (aka "boffins") and other more significant
parties, the Aboriginal Land Commissioner exercised his judgement
and made a ruling on the matter. He published his decision. While
there was the standard recognition of professional legal privilege
for matters which involve a lawyer and his client - subject to
waiver when disclosing information in presenting material to the
Court, and other concerns such as the sole purpose criterion -
there was no basis found for providing recognition of a special
relationship between cross-cultural field researchers and the
Aboriginal people.
In other words, where a researcher was engaged by a lawyer to
conduct research for a specific legal matter (such as a land
claim) and provided he or she did not collect the information for
a secondary purpose and provided its existence was not disclosed
in the presentation of the matter, that material remained immune
from the scope of the Notices.
If, however, a researcher had been carrying out research outside
of the protection of this legal patronage, his or her field
materials were up for grabs under the terms of such Notices.
Indeed, it emerged that anyone making an undertaking to people
that they would not present such materials when demanded by a
Court would be placing themselves in a position which was at odds
with the workings of the law. This was news to the researchers who
carried out their duties in good faith.
The matter was appealed to a higher Court. The Land Commissioner's
judgement was upheld:
On appeal the Full Court of the Federal Court upheld the
decision ...The Court held unanimously that the
anthropologists and linguists ... were not entitled to refuse
to disclose information given to them by Aboriginal
communities if it was relevant to the determination of the
land claim.(Freckleton 'The Trial of the Expert' 1987:257)
Or, it should be added, for the determination of any legal
proceeding before a Court held to involve the public good.
The confidential relationship, which is translated into legal
argot as an instance 'public interest immunity', was not held to
be essential for the proper workings of the government of the
state. Given the position of the government in this matter, the
result is consistent with its inability to recognise the facts of
life in Australia. The interests - the well-being of the
Aboriginal people providing the information - which the
anthropologists sought to protect could not be allowed to outweigh
the imperial power of the Court.
It dismissed disclosure to itself as possibly involving a threat
to the lives and well-being of the First People. 'Protective
measures' could be put in place which would prevent the
distribution of restricted information beyond the hearing.
Unproven protective measures of the same level of pretense which
empower Judges to superhuman feats such as 'putting out of their
minds' information improperly placed before them. They have no
unconscious mind, apparently.
In my experience in this claim, information placed in the hands of
one of the Counsel assisting the Commissioner twice popped up
unexpectantly in the wrong hands. The response to my letters to
the Commissioner did nothing to reassure me that he was running a
tight ship. It seemed to me that it leaked like a sieve.
'Protective measures' in Anglo-Australian Courts do not replace
the exercise of the rights of First People to control the flow of
their own information - the flawed doctrine of terra nullius
nonwithstanding. This may well prove to be an unextinguished
sovereign right.
Bland assurances do not overcome real concerns regarding the
ability of the Court to provide the sort of protection for
sensitive information which is of a type which is unfamiliar to
monocultural legal minds.
The base issue in his regard, however, comes down to this - are
the Anglo-Australian Courts really in a position to exercise their
judgement in situations in which they have a vested interest in
the outcome? In this case the Courts found that the interests for
good government of the state over-rode the possibility of serious
damage to the lives and well-being of the First People arising as
a result of the forced and unvetted disclosure of information to
themselves. Not surprisingly, the cynical mind may say, the
Anglo-Australian Court found in its own favour.
What forces are in operation here? The interests of the Aboriginal
people were placed secondary to those of the modus operandi of the
Courts. The interests of the same First People, it must be noted,
whose sovereign rights are excluded by the Constitution which
establishes the jurisdiction of the Judges and legal profession.
Who stands to benefit by monocultural judgement in such a
situation ? What is the healthy alternative - for the operations
of the law must be seen to be not only free of self-interest but
free of possible self-interest. In this situation, they are not.
Can the operations of the Anglo-Australian legal system be seen to
be contributing to a process of genocide against the First People
of Australia? Are the members of that profession free of this
taint? We turn to the spokespeople of their profession for the
answer.
WHICH WAY AUSTRALIAN ANTHROPLOGY?
Anthropologists and linguists are now faced with having to
reassess their position in the light of the clarification which
has emerged from the Warumungu land claim. It comes down to this -
either the statements made by the researchers and spokespeople for
the profession regarding the sine qua non importance of a socially
sanctioned confidential relationship is so much fine talk and
empty words or the matters are matters of substance and we must
desist from further research until such times as we have the
backing of our own law to provide our unique service for the
benefit of both systems of order - and a unified system of life.
We, in anthropology, have learnt from life's masters - the First
People themselves - that the handling of information in human life
is as deadly, if mishandled, as is the handling of radio-active
material on the physical plane. The issue of our special
relationship to the Aboriginal representatives of this country is
central to our practice. We cannot continue fieldwork in good
faith until we have resolved the conditions under which we operate
to the satisfaction of all major parties.
We, who are excluded from our own association by the introduction
of elitist distinctions into the criteria of membership, turn to
the leaders of our profession for some real and unambiguous moral
direction on this matter. The limited advantages of salaried
positions for some anthropologists - the largesse of the dominant
social formation for services rendered - must not be allowed to
cloud the importance of these issues. All is not well. The
standards at the core of our association belong to another
country.
Specifically, we ask of our senior spokespeople:
1. What directions has the Anthropological establishment, either
through its professional association or through its institutional
connections (Universities, Museums, Institutes), taken as a result
of the 1986 Full Court decision to overcome the problems which
arise for carrying out field work under the 'new' rules.
2. What steps has the anthropological establishment taken to
ensure that students, or others, entering the field to carry out
research are fully informed of their legal position ?
3. Is this matter regarded by them as a matter of substance which
strikes at the heart of anthropological practice, or has that
position been abandoned in favour of the maintenance of the
comfortable status quo?
THE DUTY OF CONSCIENCE.
Finally, there is the question of conscience which over-rides any
other politic concern. If we remain unsatisfied with the vague
assurances of politicians and professional elites, we must each
take a stand.
The people we represent - from the comfort of our chairs - are
still dying at an unacceptable rate. Our criterion of success, our
relevant standards of excellence, are their lives in full and
shining vitality. Let's incorporate these standards - and not
merely concerns for academic excellence - into the rightful place
in our practice.
The Australian Anthropological Society, as recently restructured,
does nothing to assure us that these standards are central to its
operations. We, in anthropology, are very well acquainted with the
means by which the dominant social system takes over people's
associations by instituting an 'upwardly' aspiring elite into
positions of power.
We see this operating quite clearly with the other 'professions' -
such as the Australian Medical Association - where the worship of
money has replaced concern for the well- being of its members and
the people. Their spokespeople do not struggle with the problems
of the lives dying in the garbage dumps of this land.
And we must note that the same processes which separate First
People from their living countries produce the over-crowded jails
necessary for the few to continue their pretense of civilisation.
To move beyond the face of things in Australia, we must take a
long hard look at its backside.
Are we in anthropology to go down the same path as the
'professions'? Must we get our fees right, ladies and gentlemen,
before we address the problems of genocide and jails?
Do we have an anthropology based on solidarity with the people
- in which we acknowledge that all well-being is directly tied to
their well-being - or do we have an anthropology based on the
preservation of privilege (in the name of science) of the
established elite?
Do we, the members of a discipline devoted (in theory at least) to
understanding life, choose at this crucial historical juncture to
side with life or with the peculiar Europen laws of property?
Now, with the moral and ethical issue over the confidential
relationship, the elitist Executive who have set themselves up
over our head have an opportunity to prove themselves:
Do we , or do we not, withdraw our field research services
from mainstream society until our voice is heard and the
proper terms and conditions for our practice are negotiated
and settled to the satisfaction of all parties?
Given the danger of the misuse of information in the computer age,
bland assurances from above that everything is in order are no
longer sufficient. Real protective measures must be put in place -
first. These already exist with the proven life governing ways of
the First People.
We need to incorporate the wisdom of Aboriginal people into the
core of our practice. To do this we need to reject all elitism
from our Society. Today would be soon enough. Tomorrow may well
be too late.
--------oOo-------
I would like to sincerely thank the Lionel Murphy Foundation for
providing me with a scholarship for 1990.