A paper Dr Cook presented at the A.N.Z.A.A.S conference held in Brisbane – 1971
What I am about to say will, I am afraid, make no scientific contribution to the symposium we have enjoyed during the past few days, yet I venture to hope my message may prove as important as any other to scientists active in the advancement of the aboriginal.
Let me say that I believe no solution to the apparently insoluble problems obstructing the comfortable adaptation of the aboriginal full blood and mixed blood into white society will be reached unless we recognise that fundamental biological laws of evolution are involved here, and until we permit these laws effective play. Too long, emotional considerations – rarely hostile – have dictated the measures applied or rejected, and evolution has been misdirected. Now we have reached a situation where we confront two entirely different problems – that of the full blood living in his own country or on reserves, but coming increasingly into contact with white industry – and that of the mixed blood fringe dweller, clamouring for a secure foothold in the white social structure. These, as I have emphasized again and again, are two different problems and to confuse them as one will assure our failure to resolve either.
Meantime, our failure to integrate the mixed blood into our society has permitted in centres of denser white population the growth of an ill-adapted minority, increasing rapidly in number and in hostility. This hostility derives ultimately prom the belief that the white man through the years since his intrusion has, by culpable negligence or evil design, denied both full blood and mixed blood the opportunity to live happily either as autochthon or as a member of the new society. This resentment paradoxically appears strongest in the mixed blood, although his genetic inheritance and his environmental experience may be mainly white.
The term “racism” – a word not defined in my dictionary but no doubt a by-product of world reaction to the Nazi regime -is now frequently and thoughtlessly applied to this hypothetical attitude on the white man’s part, giving it an identity and an appearance of reality to which it has no claim. For the purpose of my talk I shall define “racism” as hostility to and rejection of an individual or a group solely on the ground of race or colour.
Let us be clear on this definition in its application to racial relations in Australia.
Throughout the history of mankind communities have set themselves by religions, by codes of ethics, by social sanctions and by laws to achieve integration – to inculcate in the individual a spirit of agreeable conformity, permitting him by self-discipline and without sense of loss to restrain the impulse of self-expression and to subordinate his personal liberty to the general interest.
communities segregated by geographical features, distance or language will develop in response to the special stresses of their particular environments characteristic social systems with codes of behaviour, moral and ethical values, and standards of performance differing from others, perhaps to the point of incompatibility. Fashions of upbringing, social, religious, economic and environmental influences will be apt to mould the individual into a more or less rigid behavioural type, and the non-conformer would be resented.
When the segregating barriers are suddenly removed and different cultures meet, these inconsistencies of religious belief and dissimilarities in social values will be revealed to the individual. This new experience may lead him first to question the basic verities of his own culture, and ultimately perhaps to reject them.
In a firmly knit community, bound by strong social and economic bonds of common interest, in a stable environment where differences in individual outlook are minor and integrating factors strong, such changes in attitude – though occasionally embarrassing – may not significantly threaten unity.
For the aboriginal, whose social structure has been completely lost, and for the mixed blood who has not been reared in an environment or in a family unit permitting his unquestioning acceptance of a completely new set of social aspirations and values, the experience has proved disastrous. It is not difficult to understand the aboriginal’s dilemma, and if he fails in a number of respects to attain an acceptable standard of conformity in white society, this is not surprising.
If he is or appears to be dirty, verminous, diseased, indolent, improvident, socially or morally undisciplined, revulsion and rejection are to be expected in the more refined groups of the population. This is not “racism” and must not be so regarded – the community would react in exactly the same way to similar shortcomings in its own members. It cannot be emphasized too often that to be accepted in a society the individual must be acceptable, and there can be no justification whatever for attributing to “racism” any reluctance in an individual or group to accept the unacceptable who chances to be of another race or colour. Whether this unacceptability is wholly or only partly the fault of the rejected, I believe it to be irresponsible – however strong the temptation may be – to attribute it to “racism”, inculcating in the victim a quite irrational sense of injustice, bitterness and hatred.
There is not lacking evidence that the phobia of “racism” is being actively cultivated without regard to the interests of either race. it is my belief that there is not now, and has seldom in the past been in this country, any such antipathy in the white man for the aboriginal as is so constantly and unquestioningly today presented as a reality to the world. On the other hand, it cannot be denied that the sedulous fostering of this belief must permanently vitiate racial relations in Australia by engendering in the native an enduring resentment and hostility to the white. indeed, it may provoke a self-perpetuating aggravation of interracial tension by evolving in the coloured a fermenting resentment, attributing to the white man full responsibility for every misfortune and frustration he encounters and in the well-intentioned but misinformed white, such a sense of responsibility as to induce a compassionate over-compensation in charity and benevolence as will further interfere with evolution, and protract the period of adjustment.
I have lived in proximity to these people since the turn of the century, and I have enjoyed perhaps unusual opportunities for watching the progress of change in their way of living from the first contact with the white man to complete loss of tribal identity. I have been able to observe the differences in attitude, black toward white and white toward black, in a great variety of environments, in many diverse groups of people, at different stages of contact. I have known the aboriginal as the unchanged bush wanderer living as his ancestors had always lived, without regard for and aloof from the new civilisation developing nearby, and I have known him in all degrees of contact from timid but inquisitive visitor to disenchanted fringe dweller. Throughout the years I have watched changes in the demeanour of both races, and observed the emotions stirred in each by the proximity of the other. I have in both, seen fear, distrust, tolerance, indifference, wonder, admiration, respect and affection. Hatred, I have only known and heard publicly expressed of recent years.
In Australia, I have been able to find in the white no such antagonism towards the aboriginal as will fall within our definition of “racism”. “Racism” in Australia, if we will but admit it, is chiefly manifest in the black and mixed blood and for its origin and for its growth I believe the mass media of communication in this country must be held chiefly responsible.
Jealous as they are of any threat to the right of free speech, their liberty to present the news in their own way or to express their own point of view without dictation, the mass media accessible to the great bulk of ordinary people in this country show a remarkable reluctance to acknowledge that the exercise of this freedom imposes a responsibility to be impartial. In the matter of aboriginal welfare particularly, you must have noticed a marked unanimity and consistency in the presentation of only that side of the picture which depicts the aboriginal as an innocuous, helpless victim, ruthlessly exploited, victimised and despoiled by an avaricious and merciless invading white overlord. There are, in the history of this country, innumerable stories of selfless devotion on the part of both races, each for the other, but these incidents and their background are never recalled. Any justified, even laudable, critical reaction by a white man to misguided or socially unacceptable behaviour by an “aboriginal” – however light in colour – is apt to be presented as evidence of white prejudice. Self-denying sacrifice by a white on behalf of a black will rarely be reported at all.
You must be familiar with the type of report to which I refer, and have probably yourselves noticed a tendency to present the white man as cruel and ruthless in his subjection and persecution of the aboriginal. Typical of the attitude was a story published not long ago by a Sydney daily newspaper. This referred imprecisely to the massacre of a large number of aboriginal men, women and children by white men in the northern territory. The incident was unfamiliar to me and I doubted its authenticity. In the interests of justice to both races I asked the editor to have the author supply details of site, time, circumstances, and official reaction. The request was ignored.
There is another more subtle method of achieving the same result – perhaps by design, perhaps quite unconsciously. True accounts of interracial quarrels are usually equivocal in placing responsibility for the initial provocation, but in our press the white is invariably presented as the offender. To illustrate the possibilities of this equivocacy, let me relate a personal experience.
Some years ago in the Pilbara I visited an area where a number of aborigines were fossicking in a small mining operation of their own. Rewards were adequate for them to buy sufficient food and clothing and such little luxuries as might take their fancy. Amongst the latter, I was particularly struck by the use of inner spring mattresses in lieu of the usual green hide stretcher or spinifex pallet. There were no shelters and no bedsteads at this camp, and the mattresses lay on the ground in the open – exposed to sun and rain, without protection from dirt, vermin or fire. During the absence of the owner, they provided comfortable lying for the camp dogs. The cost of buying inner spring mattresses and of bringing them to the site must have been considerable, but the term of their service under these conditions must have been minimal. Nonetheless, this was at least the choice and decision of the individual native.
In an earlier year and in an earlier mood, Australian well-wishers of the aboriginal would have been critical of the local police officer’s “dereliction of duty” in permitting this ludicrous extravagance. Today, of course, if any official restraint were imposed upon the native’s liberty to spend his money as he pleased, this would have been challenged as an unwarranted interference with his freedom.
Controversial conflicts of interest in such incidents are subject to simple explanations, dissipating any suspicion of “racism”, but seem here to be invariably presented without the qualifying comment necessary to avoid misleading the public. Let me cite two instances.
Recently, a representative of a Sydney morning newspaper in a feature article reported on a visit to Alice Springs. Amongst other things the article reported on the evils of drinking and prostitution, and incidentally remarked that aboriginal visitors to Alice Springs camped in the Todd River and obtained water by digging with their hands in the river bed. This for centuries has been the recognised means of access to water in many parts of this region and, whether or not water is available from tanks or taps a few hundred yards away, it would be spontaneously used by natives visiting the area. The article itself made no great issue of friction between the races, or of white oppression of the black, but this impartiality was completely negated by the prominent display of a picture with a caption suggesting that native visitors to Alice Springs to get water must dig for it in the Todd River.
It is diverting to reflect that had the reporter been able to relate that aborigines had been prohibited by enforcement of a local health regulation from obtaining water in this way, this in its turn could have been presented as another gross interference with native freedom, since sand is a good filter and no health hazard had been disclosed.
It has never been the habit of the full blood Australian aboriginal to live permanently in camps. After early white settlement, during transient periods of employment it became customary to stay in camps in the vicinity of the employer’s home. As these camps became too foul for comfortable occupation, or when they were transferred to a new site, their razing to the ground by fire has been accepted by both races since the days of earliest settlement as a necessary, routine measure. Recently, the local health authority in a west Australian gold fields town, having decided to demolish as a health hazard a camp within its jurisdiction, warned the occupants of this intention and asked them to move. In default, it appears to have served notice upon the occupants – under health regulations which applied without discrimination to all occupants of land within the health area, without respect to race – and in due time the camp was demolished. This precautionary measure was, in the view of the health authority, dictated by the necessity to abate a nuisance and remove a health hazard. Failure to discharge this duty, imposed upon it by law, would have exposed the authority itself to a charge of dereliction of duty, but the incident was presented in the press as further evidence of white disregard for the interest and welfare of the aboriginal. the president of the council for aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, who might have been expected to approve it as a step forward, felt called upon to proclaim it to the world as proving Australia “racist”.
I find it difficult to believe that editors can themselves accept the proposition that personal and official relations with the native population in this country are, and have always been, consistently bad, but this is the picture they persist in presenting.
Much is made today of the alleged failure of Australian governments since Phillip to provide – for the occupancy of land by natives – the so-called aboriginal land rights issue. To the best of my knowledge, in no state or territory of Australia is there any law preventing aboriginals from holding land under the same conditions as whites. The popular pose of horrified indignation at the alleged failure of earlier legislatures to apportion land to aborigines derives no support from historical fact. In Phillip’s time and for many decades later, in the sense that the white man uses land the aboriginal had no use for it. What his economy demanded was his right to move without restriction and hunt over his tribal area, as his mood dictated. This freedom has been assured him by covenant in all leases of pastoral properties in the northern territories. Any legislation to confine him and others of his tribe to prescribed sections of his tribal country would have been unwelcome.
Obsessed with the suspicion of race prejudice some have insisted, on the ground that the practice is discriminatory, that statistical data, hospital sickness records and the like shall not include any racial identification or reference. I am sure you as scientists will recognise at once the folly of such a limitation on medical research, even if – and this must be improbable – you feel it may be warranted and tolerated in other scientific fields. Most of you will recognise without prompting from me that racial and tribal antecedents play a most important part in exposure and susceptibility or resistance to disease. It may at times be of the first importance to the individual himself that this information be accessible to his medical adviser. Health surveys, individual physical examinations, anthropometrical and serological studies may prove essential for safeguarding the health and well being not only of the individual himself, but also of the community in which he lives, be this wholly or partly native. Yet, these are contested as assaults upon the person. The grounds for stigmatising the recording of such data and the conduct of such studies as discriminatory are patently specious, and one is impelled to the conclusion that the objection is unreal, opportunistic and prompted less by any fear of prejudice than by the specific purpose of fomenting disaffection.
Using our definition, I do not believe there is in Australia any significant antipathy in white for black which could be so defined. This is not to say that it could not be deliberately or unintentionally stirred in a great number of people in many parts of the continent by constant or recurrent racial tensions, autogenous or artificial. I am afraid we cannot reassure ourselves that “racism” as we have defined it is not to be found in the coloured population of Australia, particularly mixed blood populations in whom it has of late been consistently developed by well-intentioned but misinformed publicity and sedulously fostered by the ill-disposed.
On the contrary, it has been my experience and it is my firm conviction that the great mass of white Australians has an affectionate regard for the aboriginal and is genuinely distressed by the difficulty he has encountered in accommodating to the changes wrought in his environment by white society, and disturbed that the variety of attempts to assist him in his evolution have uniformly failed.
The consistency with which relatively trivial incidents affecting interracial relationships are reported to the discredit of the white – the persistence of this trend over a period of years to the exclusion of comment or report commendatory to the white – the unanimity with which the practice is featured by organisations otherwise apparently in competition, lead one to wonder whether there may not be an all pervading design to present the news in this way as part of a policy.
Perhaps the purpose is, in the laudable objective of eradicating race prejudice, to take every opportunity to publicise instances of unjust racial discrimination so that it may be discredited, and so that a public abhorrence of it may be created and fostered. But I feel this objective is ill-served by the method adopted in its pursuit. It must inevitably retard civic evolution in the black by shielding him from factors of social evolution and it must engender in him a bitter hatred of the white to whom he will learn to ascribe responsibility for all his many misfortunes.
This is a scientific body, and here at least one may hope that this acute social problem will be recognised and faced as one of biological evolution without interference by emotional impulse or political motive. Its solution must be sought and all remedial action must be planned in terms of biological laws. Schemes for amelioration, laboriously or hastily formed by well meaning but unenlightened zealots, in an environment highly charged with emotion have proved disastrous hitherto and, I am sure, will always fail. It is for you and for others like you, to isolate the factors creating this problem, and to devise practicable and effective measures of countering them. I believe too that there is a pressing obligation on bodies such as this to warn the Australian public of the dangers of continuing the masochistic type of propaganda so fashionable today.
I doubt whether one can look to the mass media of communication to assist in this, but perhaps something can be achieved if those genuinely interested and actively concerned in promoting the welfare of the aboriginal and of assuring his successful accommodation in or alongside our society, will recognise the danger and direct their own efforts toward circumventing it.