Normally we all take for granted the cultural spaces that we move around in, where we understand what is going on and why. It is therefore hard to imagine that someone from another culture stepping into our cultural environment could not see what is happening and why.  It is thus also hard to recognise that their lack of knowledge and experience in our cultural space severely limits their ability to operate to their full human capacity, to make their own choices, or express themselves.  In a foreign  cultural space we cannot feel in control until we come to understand that space.

Often the people helping me to navigate the new cultural environment of Yolngu ceremony, underestimate just how ignorant I am. I sometimes feel like they need to be reminded that I am a Dhunga Balanda (one who does not know, aka stupid ‘white fella’). Often what they do convey seems like surface information, yet they seem to expect that it is sufficient – they might tell me how to move or where to go, but often this does not convey what the underlying story is about, or what is really going on. Such information might enable me to participate like a child in the ceremony, but it would never get me to a place where I would be capable of running one myself, or playing a significant role.

We in the Dominant Culture can forget that schools, hospitals, clinics, councils and boards, are foreign environments to most Yolngu.  We too often only give people surface stories – what they need to do or where they need to go – but leave people feeling confused about the underlying story of what is going on in these places, knowledge that is taken for granted knowledge within ones own culture.  If we do not acknowledge this we cannot create a safe space where people can ask their questions about how Dominant Culture systems operate. If we do recognise this, we might begin to take the time to listen and discover how to answer their questions deeply. If we do not understand this we might not see that we can’t expect them to get up and run the place, while they still need to know why.. why?…Why are we doing that?.

By reflecting on my experience in Yolngu spaces I have come to realise that this provides a picture of one of the limit conditions facing Indigenous Australian, one of the limitations that underlie their disadvantage.  (We discussed limit conditions as a way of understanding Indigenous ‘poverty’ in the previous article.) Many Indigenous people (particularly those from remote areas) are limited in functioning in their full human capacity in ‘westernised’ Cultural spaces.  Unlike my temporary experiences in Yolngu spaces, their  involvement in the Dominant Cultures space is permanent.  They are daily experiencing similar (or worse) limitations in their capacity to what I experienced in participating in Yolngu ceremony.  The strangeness of the Dominant Culture is a daily limitation in their ability to make informed choices, and participate on an equal footing with Dominant culture English speaking personnel, who have been learning how to succeed in Dominant Culture schools, councils, clinics, boards since they were babes. The very normal fact that Indigenous people are new to ‘western’ culture, and that the Dominant Culture often fails to understand that they need more than surface information, becomes possibly the most significant cause of their disadvantage and a major limitation to their success in life.

What is poverty?

In a recent interview with Andrew Denton on the ABC TV show Elders, Muhammad Yunis, founder of the worlds first micro-credit bank, the Grameen Bank, shared his thoughts about what poverty is:

“Poverty, is almost, you can describe is a living in a box, all with the thick wall, no window, no door, no light, so you don’t know what’s coming next, you have no idea of new day starting in different way, you repeat the same thing over and over again. No hope, basically. So you try to survive the day in very uncertain conditions. So that’s poverty, you have no control over your life, that’s total, that’s it.”(Muhammad Yunis, Elders Episode 7 December 2009, transcript of interview with Andrew Denton http://www.abc.net.au/tv/elders/transcripts/s2757468.htm)

This description makes no reference to poverty being a lack of money, but refers to an experience of oppression and the deeper issue of a lack of control over your life.

This next description comes from a senior Yolŋu Elder from north east Arnhem Land. It highlights the similar experience faced by Yolŋu – a lack of control.

“What has happened to us is like riding a horse. I am on this horse and the horse is galloping. It is galloping through the forest, it has these blinkers on, it cannot see exactly where it is going, but the horse is swerving. The problem is that I do not have control of the reins; someone else is controlling it. That is what my life is like. Sometimes I am terrified that the horse is going to run into a tree and I will be knocked off by a bough but I have no control of where I am going or what I am doing.” (quoted by John Greatorex during the ‘Senate Select Committee on Indigenous and remote Communities’, 22/05/09, transcript http://culturalsurvival.org.au/mapuru.html) 

Muhammad Yunis began his work in Bangladesh, where the concept of micro credit was radical and powerful in alleviating poverty, because it gave people back control in their lives. It has now been applied more broadly in many third world countries overseas. Is it possible that a tool like micro-credit could be applied in Arnhem Land to alleviate “poverty”? I know many people who believe that approaches that work in 3rd world countries overseas can be applied in Australian Indigenous situations also, and forms of micro-credit have been attempted on several occasions. I think we need to take a bit of a closer look at why micro-credit works in the 3rd world.

When Muhammad Yunis first set out in Bangladesh to help alleviate poverty, he looked for someone in need;

“So I see a woman very poor wearing torn clothes and things and sitting in front of a terrible house, doesn’t look like a house, it’s just a shed with the broken pieces of things and she’s making bamboo stool. She has beautiful bamboo stool in front of her, so suddenly it comes to my mind, what kind of contrast between her house and her clothes and her face and this beautiful newly made bamboo stools. And she explains to me that she makes very little, she makes only two penny a day. I couldn’t believe why anybody would make two penny a day making this, and the reason she gave me because she didn’t have the money to buy the bamboo that goes into the bamboo stool. She had to borrow from the trader to buy the bamboo. So I said, “How much is the bamboo? It must be very expensive if you can’t afford to buy the bamboo”, she said, “It cost about 25 cents and I didn’t have the 25 cents so I have to borrow from the trader”. And under the terms of the loan she has to sell the products to him exclusively and accept the price that he offers, she can not compare with anybody else. So I said, my god, she has become a slave labour for him, for such a small amount of money she had to sacrifice everything.” (Muhammad Yunis, Elders Episode 7 December 2009)

So Muhammad went and talked with some of those in “poverty” and was able to identify what was the limitation to them breaking free from their “poverty”. The underlying problem was a lack of access to credit, which made people prey to “loan sharks” who were able to impose incredibly unjust terms on their loans, keeping their income so low that people were trapped, and never able to break out of this cycle. And thus the concept of micro-credit was born. By providing very small sums of money to people, with just terms, people were given the opportunity to break free from the debt cycle and have control over their income.

Does such a solution fit in Arnhem Land? I believe not. The same issue of lack of control exists in Arnhem Land, but there are no signs of predatory money lenders here that people become dependent on. While some Indigenous people can be taken advantage of in financial areas, a lack of access to credit is not a major limitation. Grants, loans and standard credit options are available. We have to look a bit deeper into the peoples real situations to determine the limitations that cause injustice in these communities.  Who/what are the “loan sharks” here that prevents people from being able to break out of cycles of “poverty”. I believe the situations for Indigenous communities are very different, but the  principals are the same … the solutions must be custom made.

The principals that I believe apply here in Arnhem Land also;

• “Poor” people have worth and ability- when Muhammad Yunis looked at that woman with her bamboo stool, he saw the conditions that she lived in, but he also saw her skills in craftsmanship. She was thus not a poor person to be pitied and rescued with handouts, she was someone with ability, who was facing specific barriers that needed to be overcome for her to succeed and achieve independence and control.
• You should not blame a poor person for their plight; “Poverty is not created by the poor people. It is not their fault that they are poor. Poverty is created by the system, imposed on good blooded human beings and we can peel it off.” (Muhammad Yunis, Elders Episode 7 December 2009)
• Limitations or Limit conditions. There are underlying conditions or sets of situations that cause or initiate the cycle of “poverty”, oppression or dependency. In the above example, a lack of income combined with a lack of availability of loans, made people prey to dodgy dealers. For Indigenous communities the limit situations they face are different. By addressing these limits we can enable people to overcome them.
• The existence of “Sharks”. The fact that people are stuck in a cycle of “poverty” means that there are “sharks” or systems that are perpetuating the oppression cycle. These systems need to be identified and negated to free people from the cycle.

If access to small loans with just terms is not the problem for remote Indigenous Australians, then micro credit is not going to overcome the causes of “poverty” in Arnhem Land. Australia is a very different country to Bangladesh. We have a welfare system providing basic income to those without work as well as grants and small business loans.

When we use the word “poverty” in relation to Indigenous people, often what people hear, is ‘lack of money’, and therefore assume the solution is to give money. Also people look at how well micro-credit works in developing nations and they consider that the money is what solved the problem. I believe what actually solved the problem, is that the specific cause of injustice in the system was targeted, and overcome in a way that gave people control back. Particularly in Indigenous communities a lack of money is not the cause of poverty, and therefore money is not the solution. We need to look more deeply to identify the limit conditions and predatory systems operating in specific regions to identify what is preventing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people from gaining control over their particular circumstances, rather than trying to import solutions from elsewhere.

Culture shock is a very real psychological phenomenon that people experience when they enter a culture they are unfamiliar with for a significant amount of time. In a new culture, or  in a space where an unfamiliar culture controls the social environment, there is a lot that  we will not understand, we will not naturally know how we should act, we encounter awkward situations and experience a loss of control over our own circumstance. Our mind and body copes well with these stresses for a time, but after an extended period of dealing with a different language, manners, lifestyle and expectations, these stresses accumulate and the mental and emotional cultural machinery eventually packs it in and goes through an adjustment phase.   This adjustment is experienced as CS and often resembles an emotional break down, but with some rather unique characteristics.  Most Dominant culture people, Indigneous or Non-Indigenous, who come into an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander community for more than a few weeks are likely to encounter Culture Shock (CS) and need to understand it to overcome its effects.

What Causes Culture Shock.

The process of adjusting to a new cultural environment often begins with a ‘honey moon’ phase (often about 3 months), where everything new can seem exciting, and differences in culture are a source of fascination and interest. But in this  time we are actually dealing with high levels of physiological stress.  We are coping with a lack of control, because we are not sure what will happen next, and we are forced to maintain constant conscious effort in most social interactions.  Our attempts to understand what is going on and to respond appropriately can be overstimulating and exhausting. Thus the mind and body is on sustained high alert as we try to fit in and find our way through new environments, new experiences and strange social responses.  CS occurs because of the cumulative effect of  this sustained high alert and the many stressful event that we encounter along the way.

Our mind and body can only cope with these strange stressors for a time.  The onset of CS can vary enormously (anything from a few weeks to 6 months), mainly depending on the degree of immersion in the community and new culture. My wife had a stint in South Africa many years ago where she was living with families in a poor rural township. She had been given little preparation, had little support, and experienced severe cultural shock within 2 weeks (the tipping point being when she asked if she could go to the toilet and was handed a bucket) . In my own experience of full immersion, living with a Yolŋu family (who always spoke in the local Indigneous language, as I was suppose to be learning), I experienced severe CS from the 4th week.  In our most recent experience together, moving to an Aboriginal Community permanently, we started in our own house and already had significant cultural experience and language skills.   Having this space that we controlled culturally and lots of preparation meant that we did not experience CS until after 4 months.

The Symptoms of Culture Shock

I can only describe CS as a feeling of deep sadness, lethargy and sometimes hopelessness. It is very much like depression, quashing any desire for positive action and engagement with the community.  It is characterised by a powerful desire to give up and leave the community.  So strong is this desire that some people literally up and leave. The feeling is understandable because the body and mind wants desperately to escape the foreign cultural space.  But this should be an indicator to us to recognise that our feelings are the symptoms of CS and this will help us to work through the emotions we will be feeling.  As well as the strong desire to leave, there are several other characteristics (from my experience) that will help you recognise culture shock:

• No real reasons for underlying sadness.  While there may be many things that you could be sad about on reflection you might find that these things are not what is underlying your feelings.  The sadness may seem to come from nowhere, even though it may have initially started because of a stressful event.
• An increase tendency to think badly of the local people/culture, and blame the local people/culture for problems you encounter (even though this might be out of character for you).
• An aversion to social interaction, particularly with those of the foriegn culture.
• The sense of stress and depression improves in a familar cultural space.

You should also be aware and prepared for these possible symptons of culture shock:

• The  desire to leave and give up can be overwhelming, and in some  may even encourage suicidal thoughts and feelings.
• A strong desire to indulge, which can encourage very unhealthly behaviour.
• The tendency to be short tempered and feel tired.
• Unreasonably strong feelings of anger, sadness, depression and hopelessness may arise in response to the smallest and silliest of things.

The symptoms of CS only last for about 2 -3 weeks at a time. They may reappear several times at different intervals over your first year in the new culture.

How to manage its effects

To manage culture shock we need to be on the look out for the symptoms I have mentioned.  When you begin to feel such things you should stop and consciously recognise “I am probably experiencing Culture Shock.” Once you have identified CS take the following steps

1. Recognise that what you are experiencing will pass.  You can leave if you still wish in a few weeks when you are feeling less emotional.
2. Take time out, your body is telling you it needs an escape, so take some space where ever you can get it and rest.  I feel that employers should recognise the need for short stress leave at these times.  However, taking short respite outside the community at this time may not be benificial as you may find the symptons reoccur very soon after your return.
3. Indulge a little in harmless familar cultural activities and if you can spend a little time with people of your home culture. This will give you some relief and remind you that you are still sane.  Find little things like music, some food items or some movies that connect you to your first culture.  This is an opportunity for your cultural machinery to relax in an environment it knows.
4. Get plenty of sleep and try to maintain healthy behaviours such as exercise.
5. Remember you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, you have chosen to be where you are.
6. Between breaks,  push your self just a little to get back out in the unfamiliar. Don’t go more that a couple of days without engaging in the local culture a little… you might visit some locals, go to a cultural event, just go for a walk in the community.  Increase the difficulty of these activities as you start to feel better.  The better you balance taking a break and engaging with the new culture the more complete your recovery will be.

Remember CS symptoms may reoccur over the beginning months or year of your stay, so don’t be disillusioned if the feelings come back from time to time.  Remember each time you experience CS this is your body acclimatising to the new culture and with each adjustment you will be more comfortable and effective working with the local Indigenous people.

If you are aware and prepared for Culture Shock when moving to an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander community, this will help you to survive the difficult adjustment period, where many personnel lose their way. Be kind to yourself- experiencing CS is not a sign that you are not suited to cross-cultural work, nor that you disrespect the other culture or don’t care for the people. It is just a normal part of the process that needs to be worked through, in order to be able to truly engage with the other culture. This experience can also be enriching, as it shows us what cultural beings we are, and opens our eyes to many of the complexities of cross cultural interactions.

The blame game has two parts the first arises because the dominant culture recongises that they alone cannot know how to solve the problems experienced by Indigenous peoples. But instead of working along side the people, the dominant culture tends to distance itself by pushing Indigenous individuals or organisation to be the saviours of their own people.  This sets up unreasonable expectations for Indigenous organisations and particular individuals, such as well spoken leaders, liaison officers, health workers or council members.  Although these people are often very intelligent and remarkable individuals, people in such roles tend to have an expectation forced on them by others, that they can and must fix the Indigenous problems.  This becomes internalized and can result in an impression that they must have some special ability to fix things, and a fear of failure.  As the son of the ‘guru’ Richard Trudgen it is possible that I fall into this category myself; I expect myself to do miracles sometimes, and get sensitive when I am challenged. This is the danger, that when things go wrong, or if someone disagrees with these special people, blame is the unconscious reaction.  A sense of self inspection can be lost if one is put under these kind of expectations. This is a danger for all of us, but if is particularly so when a culture is created around an individual or even whole organisations, which  says, “You are the solution, so your position must be respected.”  Consequently, by holding on to the false idea that we are the solution, when something goes wrong or is disagreeable, immediate response is that it must be someone else’s fault.  Any criticism or challenge is taken as an accusation or attack against the special role of appointed saviours.  And in response some other person or organisation becomes the subject of rumour or even public accusation, producing a counter response leading to bickering and bad politics between and within Indigenous organisations.  This part of the blame game encourages defensiveness who have been “puffed up” with unreasonable expectations, and produces a reluctance to criticise for fear of reprisal in others.  This process is damaging to the whole system as fair and positive criticism is needed for accountability.  This defensiveness and blaming fractures trust and limits good dialouge.

The situation is compounded between Indigenous and non-Indigenous groups.  Some Indigenous people are very defensive because they have experienced so much unfair treatment personally and generationally that they are easily offended and become defensive to protect themselves.  On the other hand those in the dominant culture, having become aware of the harm their heritage has caused Indigneous people over the years, seem to carry a sense of guilt.  I’m sure many Balanda (’white fellas’, dominant culture people) have sensed this.  If you have been confronted by an Indigenous person, it is like a sense that, “Oh, I must be careful talking to this person and not say anything that might offend.”  The result is that when we unknowingly enter ‘the game’, Balanda walk around thinking, ‘I must not blame the Indigenous person’, while the Indigenous person walks around feeling, ‘I must not be blamed’.  This creates a rift of dishonesty as Balanda personnel fail to challenge the Indigneous person and the Indigenous person becomes quickly defensive in times of conflict and cannot accept being challenged.  The game becomes most imporant when we realise that this can be come a mechanism of control over ourselves or others.  There are those who work the blame game to their advanatage, in fact we all do this some times.  Indigenous people can control  Balanda, and thus whole organisations at times, to do what ever they want by pulling the right guilt strings.  Balanda can control some Indigenous people, and thus whole organisations at times, by using false praise and rumors.

We need to escape this ‘blame game’.  Organisations should not be so offended when someone or another organisation points out a problem.  We need to work together to identify real problems and help fix them. The first key to escaping this negative cultural dynamic is humility, recognising that you are a unique person, but no one special.  Humility also means assuming the best of every other person, which helps us to recognise when hurt is unintended.  The second key is to realise that we are part of the ‘Blame Game’. We need to recognise our guilt over issues or our fear of being criticised and dela with it.  he best way to do this is to reflect on why you feel that when you encounter situations that bring up this emontions.  Then think about what should be the appropriate response  that you would use next time (eg. how would you treat a person in this situation there where no power or racial issue involved).  If we do not work to release fear and guilt associated with the other cultural group we will be controlled by it in our selves or be controlled by others pulling our strings.

Yingiya is a excellent teacher and I think there is plenty to be learnt from his words about the experience and perspectives of the Yolŋu people.

Statement

My name is Yingiya Guyula from Liya-dhalinymirr clan of the Djambarrpuyŋu People.

I am a Yolngu Studies lecturer at University in Darwin

The intervention has only created problems in East Arnhemland communities as well remote homeland centres. The Intervention has made our people more frustrated and confused, the white man’s way of thinking is forced on us, and forcing us to abandon our culture.

Government Ministers have flown into Arnhemland communities just for few hours on the ground to gather a little bit of information, then they fly back into cities thinking they know how to fix the problems in the communities, thinking they know what’s best for us.

Governments only looked at the fringe camps and towns and wet areas where people drink alcohol in places such as Nhulunbuy, Katharine, Tenant creek, Jabiru Alice Spring and Darwin.

White people see Aboriginal people in these places and think that these people that don’t care about life, who don’t care about living. But who are they to judge them. They class all Aborigines the same, but they are wrong.

These white people and those bureaucrats do not go out to the East Arnhemland communities, where my people live, where there has never been alcohol, and these is no child abuse. There are Aboriginal people living on remote communities of Arnhemland, in homeland centres, away from towns, away from the binge drinking areas, poker machine and gambling venues.

These are people that are able to manage their funds and work, or want work, educate, discipline, and practice ceremonies.

Quarantining of centrelink payments should be optional and not compulsory. Quarantining might be ok for people living in town camps and cities, where alcohol and gambling is a problem, but it doesn’t work for my people living on remote Arnhemland homelands where there is no gambling, no alcohol and no child abuse.

We are asking simply for understanding that in life, their needs to be an understanding between two cultures. There needs to be respect between cultures.

Mapuru homeland has a Coop store which won a National award for selling healthy food. Centrelink won’t approve it to accept quarantined money.

This means an aircraft charter fight from the mainland homeland at Mapuru to the closest shop on Elcho Island costs 560 dollars return. This means it’s costing $560 return flight just to buy 150 dollars worth of food, where’s the sense in that?

Arnhemland is like the European Union, made up of many different nations, each clan-nation with their own language, each with it own national estate. Bringing everybody in from the homeland centres into the major settlements is not the right thing to do because people do not feel secure or happy living in another mans land. Children are forced to go to school, but really they do not feel safe and unsecure on other peoples’ land.

There are about 40 children who willingly run to school every day at Mapuru homeland because it’s their home and they feel secure. Yet the N.T. Government wants to close down the homeland schools and bring everyone in to the major communities.

They think it’s not worth spending money on homeland schools who have 40 or more children freely, and with their own will attending school, but is providing internet services, facilities and technology to white schools with attendances as low as 5. The Education department provides computers and internet and distance learning for hundreds of cattle station and small schools, across the Northern Territory, but homeland schools are neglected.

Further more I would like say that these homelands are our homes. There is no violence in the remote homeland communities, no child abuse happens, no alcohol, no pornography, because out there in the bush is where the cultural ceremonial grounds are, and from it is where strong discipline comes through spirits of our fathers talking through the land.
Both the Commonwealth and the Northern Territory Governments hasn’t given equal opportunity to us the First Australians to be able to exercise our rights.

Through the intervention white man police stations have been put in the major communities for dealing mostly with cultural conflict issues (problems that can only be solved through traditional cultural justice), but instead the white policeman force white man law onto us, disrespecting our black fella law. They think they’ve done the right think. But often they’re only making it much worst by locking up senior leaders, the very ones who are wise and keeping our Indigenous Law strong.

This time we are taking the case further where it can be heard loud and clear by people whose ears, brains, feelings have a heart for Indigenous Australians. It is now being taken further where there is an ear that will listen.
We are taking it further, to the United Nations and will talk about the intervention, about how income management in the Northern Territory has had a devastating and debilitating impact on remote communities in Arnhemland.

Finally, we need you to support us. We need you to tell governments that we want the same opportunities as white people, to live and enjoy our own cultural life, but they must stop trying to make us like whiteman, we have our own cultural identity. Let us be who we are, and together we will have hope for the future.

Thank you

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All emphasis and wording is that of the original statement.  My source encourages this statement to be passed on to anyone and everyone.