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.

National Indigenous Times: Indigenous poverty as
'morally outrageous' as torture: Amnesty head
19 Nov 09: "The poverty experienced by many Aboriginal
people is as morally reprehensible as torture and must be
eradicated, Amnesty International secretary-general Irene
Khan says."  http://www.nit.com.au/story.aspx?id=19020

Also see SMH

Strong words, but is such ‘advocacy’ helpful.  I argue that moralistic bites such as this are in fact dangerous.  While advocates feel that such statements point out government failures, they can actually be harmful to the people they are meant to protect .

First of all, this statement suggests there is a simple problem, “poverty”.  This is not the case. The conditions she saw were in part conditions that people were choosing to live in, because they wanted to live on their home lands (traditional estates) where there are few amenities.  And there are also many aspects of Indigenous lifestyle, such as sitting in the dirt, which are lifestyle choices but are easily interpreted as something negative and used as emotive devices (eg. The opening paragraph to Khan’s edited press speech).  This is not classic “poverty”.  Is it rather the effect of abuses of rights and the outcome of a massive cultural gap, resulting in marginalisation and poor education. Khan does go on to talk about rights and education and marginalisation, but her emotive language creates confusion rather than clarifying the issues to be tackled.  This point was very clearly and insightfully expressed by a reader on crikey (click link and scroll down to read his article)

Second, such language is usually designed to catch attention in order to say more important things.  In this case Khan used such statements to talk about the discriminatory nature of  policies such as income management.  The problem is, what sticks in the mainstreams psyche is not her sensible comments about changing policies that force people to spend hundreds of dollars to drive into disfunctional communities to use their pensions.  What sticks are those words above which label the Indigenous people as having a problem.  Like there is some sort of disease out there that only effects Australian Aboriginal people. People now even refer to the generic “Indigenous problem”.

Lets do some discourse analysis.  This statement defines the situation of Aboriginal Australian’s as:

• living in ‘poverty’.  Poverty implies a number of things, hopelessness, helplessness and a lack of resources.  This objectifies these Aborignal people as victims, suggesting that they need a humanitarian savior.  For most Indigenous people this is unfair. In remote communities they may be depressed, but they are not without hope. They are not helpless, but may feel like they cannot be heard or cannot win, yet they do keep fighting.  They have many resources, but often have difficulty using them.
• a “moral” issue.  This lays blame on everyone suggesting that  Australians are not good people. That while this Indigenous problem exists its like Australians are committing torture. This is unfair.  Many Australians react to this by blaming Indigenous people in return (eg. See comments on SHM).
• needing “eradication”.  Suggesting, that if the right resources are applied, the ‘problem’ could just be removed.  Furthermore, drawing on the ‘moral’ imperative she has established, ‘eradication’ insists that immediate and extreme action is required.

Khans statements are examples of the extreme emotive hyperbole, which is so common today when talking about the difficulties faced by Indigenous communities.  It does less to empower Indigenous people or their voice than it empowers government and other service providers to implement simplistic, rushed and broad brush solutions.  The very kind of policy most advocacy tries to disable after the fact.  It was also this kind of over the top statement that the Howard Government used to force the ‘Intervention’ through.  And it was so effective that most politicians were not even game to touch the subject and the Australian public went all bleeding heart, righteous paternalist.   Since then in the NT even the more sensible “Close the Gap” campaign, is being used widely by NT and Federal Governments as a catch cry to deny Indigenous rights and force things on communities, such as English only education and land leases, without negotiation or real consultation. Why? Because from the politicians perspective the moral imperative of the “Gap” statistics and advocacy slogans mandates Government to act quickly (and thus for some reason stupidly and abusively).  In fact the Governments in Canberra and Darwin act like if they do not force the statistics to improve before the next election, the ‘Gap’ just might be one more hole their election hopes will fall in.  The result- Indigenous people get crushed in the rush and no real solutions are established.

While we continue to advocate by labeling problems we continue to label Aboriginal people and empower the government powered steamroller to run over peoples lives, and enable racist blaming. What is needed is good debate about the real situation faced by people, the underling causes, and the complex solutions needed, rather than more denouncing of the “Indigenous problem”.  Rather than simply highlighting the problems, advocacy must start highlighting complexity, revealing local needs and enabling dialogue between diverse Indigenous and non-Indigenous voices.

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.

This video was produced independent of Why Warriors Pty Ltd, and are the views of the speaker, further information may be found where this video was originally posted on YouTube. I’m sure those who created this video would appreciate if it was passed on to others especially to those in Government positions, as that is who this message was written for.