• Limitations or Limit conditions:
  • Underlying conditions or sets of situations that cause or initiate the cycle of “poverty”, marginalisation oppression or dependency.
• Predatory systems:
  • These are systems that are perpetuating the oppression cycle by taking advantage of the limitations people experience. These systems need to be identified and negated to free people from the cycle.

As discussed in the previous article Cultural Spaces (An example of the Limit Conditions the people face), one of the limit conditions that create Indigenous “poverty” is that Aboriginal people must engage in foreign cultural spaces, that are controlled by the Dominant Culture.  These spaces marginalise Indigenous groups and they struggle to access the necessary information they need to make choices, find solutions, or communicate their needs.

However this does not explain the factors that keep people from conquering the strange cultural spaces of the “white man’s” world.  In the article on Indigenous poverty we called these factors predatory systems.  In this article I put forward some suggestions as to what specific predatory systems maintain this situation.  These are:

• The Convenience of Maintaining English Dominance
  • Negotiating in English controlled environments
  • Discouraging the development and use of Local Languages
• Low expectations for engaging with Indigenous knowledge and systems
• Accepting short term personnel turn over
• Lack of dependence on local Indigenous workforce
• Systematic favouring of short term outcomes over effective communication
• Reporting of false positives

Explaining myself

Now before I get to that I must point out that this is an extremely complex topic, and that it is very difficult to simplify things as I have.  The mechanisms that maintain the marginalisation of Indigenous  groups are very very complex and subtle.  While there are individuals who take advantage of people’s marginalisation consciously - the chaos of remote communities encourages corruption - most Dominant culture (DC) systems are not consciously designed to oppress people.  But, because I attempt to identify the advantages the Dominant culture might be getting from maintaining Indigenous marginalisation, what I write will be controversial to some, or many.   So please give me some credit that I am not intending to blame anyone and I know I am over simplifying.  But people have been asking for me to write about this, and I would like to start the discussion. So here are my flawed ideas of what are some of the predatory mechanisms maintaining Indigenous disadvantage (please comment on these, I would like others opinions).

I have grouped the predatory mechanism under headings describing the limit conditions they prey on.

Language barriers

The  Convenience of Maintaining English Dominance

Mechanism: English only speakers working in Indigenous communities unknowingly create an advantage to themselves by maintaining an English only environment, by using English as the dominant language or the only language in the work place and at meetings. In this way they empower themselves at the expense of the people, because they prevent people from easily getting the information they require to escape their dependency on these English first language workers.

Advantage: Why does this happen? This system of marginalisation is maintained largely because it is easier for DC workers to use their own native language “English” than working with the difficulty of learning and  utilising local languages.

Negotiating in English controlled environments

Mechanism: Similarly Government and NGOs, by ignoring Indigenous languages, are better able to control the conditions and outcomes of negotiations, surveys, consultations and even education, because in the English speaking environment they create, they limit peoples ability to compete and challenge government workers policies, views and arguments.

Advantage: Government, NGOs and other entities benefit by being able to more easily control, influence  and dominate negotiations.  They can even subconsciously utilise misinformation to get the result they want.

Discouraging the development and use of Local Languages

Mechanism:Government and NGOs working in Aboriginal remote communities, refuse to require or adequately support the training of staff in local Indigenous languages.  Everyone believes that it is too hard.  If they ensured staff developed local language skills this would make the interaction between Indigenous people and the DC an exchange of information between equal parties, rather then all the effort to overcome the language gap being forced on the Indigenous people. Furthermore, DC departments and NGOs do not encourage the production of resources, training, or even dictionaries in Indigenous languages. Their excuse for this is the that people need to just learn English. Only English cannot be learnt well (to a professional level) without utilising Indigenous languages to teach new complex ideas or without access to cross language dictionaries for professional reference. It takes many many years of effective exchange of information between two cultures to effectively chart complex terminology within each language – so that rich meanings can be exchanged. The DC refuses to start this journey in a serious way.

Advantage: The advantage for the system in doing nothing, is that Government and organisations don’t have to put in the money or the effort to change the way they do things. The short term financial gains on sticking with English only win over long term empowerment of Indigenous people.  A case in point is the NT Government’s recent introduction of an English only policy for remote community schools (2009-2010), which strips resources for local language training and utilisation out of remote schools. They did this because of a poorly researched belief that ignoring local languages will some how teach English more effectively. The international evidence shows that ESL kids who learn how to read and write in their own language first are more easily able to learn English, and learn it better than English only speakers.   But for the NT Education department system the savings in money and organisational complexity is clear, they can discard the hippy language experts and even the local Indigenous Teachers, who now have little purpose for being there. In this way the system favours the status quo, English language deficiency in Indigenous communities.

Lack of understanding about Dominant culture systems and knowledge.

Low expectations for engaging with Indigenous knowledge and systems

Mechanism: The imposition of Western culture and ways keeps Dominant Culture (DC) workers comfortable while dis-empowering local Indigenous people, because Indigenous people in remote communities have very little knowledge of how the Western world works (and vice versa). DC workers are not required to truly participate in or learn Indigenous ways of doing things. So they do not learn the difficulties Indigenous people face nor how to use local knowledge to help the people learn DC knowledge.  And the lack of engagement in understanding Indigneous systems prevents DC systems such as policing and education from fitting in with Indigenous systems that would give people more control.

Advantage: Low expectations in this area makes it easier for Government and other organisation to recruit workers even though they are less effective. By ignoring cultural issues, Indigenous understandings, and local Aboriginal systems, short term targets are sometimes met (ie you can get things done quickly), but long term achievements are undermined.

Instability of Personnel and Relationships with the non-indigenous world.

Accepting short term personnel turn over.

Mechanism: There is constant replacement and change in DC personnel in Remote Aboriginal Communities. Most stay 6 months to 2 years. Short term contracts are the accepted norm and there are few services to support personnel to stay in communities long term.  The constant change of personnel in communities undermines stability, relationships, and the creation of useful corporate knowledge/history.  The result is that organisations never learn from their mistakes and continue to push ideas that are based on old assumptions and continue to have negative impacts.

Advantage: This at first glance would not seem to benefit the Australian system because it is costly and ineffective. But it does allow feel good benefits to the Australian mainstream and the Individuals invoved.  I believe this is significant enough to maintain this kind of inefficiency. Going and working in Arnhem Land or other remote communities for a short stint, alleviates our sense of guilt about the Indigenous “problem” in Australia. This is a hard thing to say, but most if not all people (including ourselves at times) tend to feel a sense of “well I’ve done something to help the Indigenous people.” This helps us in the mainstream individually and collectively to feel good about our efforts for Indigenous people and even justifies a subtle blaming of the people themselves. The Australian Mainstream can still effectively say, “Look we are trying to help Indigenous people but its not working, they are not doing enough themselves.” So this “Instability Shark” works in this way; the DC gets the benefits of feeling like it is doing something, without the very difficult task of creating, and supporting long term stability in the remote work force (See our article on Supporting Dominant Culture Personnel to explore how this might be overcome).

Lack of dependence on local workforce.

Mechanism: Indigenous communities are driven by a false economy. Government grants, funds and welfare are the main sources of income, both personal and for businesses, in remote towns.  And alot of this money actually goes to pay income for DC personnel who have come from outside the community.  This situation never improves because the availability of  Government monies, and the tight DC time frames, make it more convenient to simply import new DC personnel when a job needs to be done, rather than train Indigenous people.  Training of local personnel is a lower priority than getting program outcomes.  This is partly because most Government departments consider it someone elses job to do the training.  But the simple fact is the DC simply does not need the local people. In a sense the locals get in the way of building infrastructure, acculturating (…oops, I mean educating), developing industries and running shire council services. This is the despite the fact that these things are suppose to be of benefit to the locals.  Contrast this with 40 years ago when the Christian missions in North East Arnhem had to run everything without masses of funding and access to fly in personnel. They, by simple need, were dependent on training Yolŋu (as there was no one else to do the work that needed to be done) and as a result by 1978 the local people were doing almost everything in the community, including teams of locals building houses, and local bookkeepers.

Advantage: There is of course a huge financial benefit for most personnel who take positions in remote Aboriginal communities, that may play some role in perpetuating the situation.  Like mine workers it is often convenient to stay a while, save your dough and take your cash back south to buy a house.  Plus it is simply easier, and it has become part of the DC way in the “Indigenous Industry”, to rely on enticing contractors and ready trained personnel, with big pay packets, than to deal with the challenges of training Indigenous people.  But the primarily benefit is that the DC (and the Government is a big part of this) is more focused on outcomes than people.  They get more done, much quicker,  if they are not dependent on local labour.  Importing workers ensures jobs get done quickly, statistics get filled, grants get acquitted, and politicians get re-elected.  The alternative, relying on the local workforce is the more difficult and slower path.  The time spent training, upskilling, and letting the people gain experience, slows progress in measurable outcomes – at first.  The hump of getting the first set of locals trained and then relying on them in their inexperience in the next round of work, with the inevitable media outrage at things undone (eg. houses un-built)  is just too much for the DC to take.

Difficulty communicating to Dominant Culture systems.

Systematic favouring of short term outcomes over effective communication.

Mechanism: The Indigenous “Industry” in the NT is a money spinner for the NT government and economy. Solving the problems through better communication might actually reduce the amount of money spent by the Federal Government on communities. While I doubt most in the NT Government actually plan to negate outcomes (some in the private sector definitely take advantage), the drive to be truly cost effective and therefore locally effective in the long term is just not there. Rather the focus seems to be on short term outcomes, or band aid measures.

Advantage: This benefits bureaucrat portfolios, while giving only lip service to long term goals. We all know of the shonky tradesmen in the private sector that will do a dodgy job to save money, well government funding budgets work the other way around. Do a job inefficiently and spend more of your budget may just get you a bigger budget next time round, resulting in more jobs for inefficient buddies (Again I’m not saying this is intentional – but correct me if I am wrong).

Reporting of false positives.

Mechanism: It is easy to create false positives by using poor communication. Even if you genuinely want to be honest, it is all too easy to use good processes and investigate clearly positive comments and communications, while paying limited attention to negative comments and results. Additionally, emphasising the outcomes one is looking for, results in a failure to communicate problems and allow reflection on how people are not being served.

Advantage: False positives (saying something had fantastic outcomes when it really did not)  when reporting on outcomes in Indigenous communities help governments, NGOS and privates businesses working in the “Indigenous industry” presents a good picture to their funders and their voters (who are usually not Indigenous).

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.

Misunderstandings about literacy education on remote communities.

1. The children in remote and bilingual schools are not being taught English.
   

   Reality:The children on remote communities and in bilingual schools are taught English and grow up with the ability to speak English and write english.  The problems are that many have a limited vocabulary, poor written literacy and numeracy skills.

2. Bilingual schools are teaching in local languages
   

   Reality: Bilingual schools are unable to train, and thus do not have, specialist teachers who know the local Indigenous language. You would be forgiven for thinking it should be otherwise. They are provided with funding for only one linguist and the rest relys on the linguistic skill of locally employed indingeous teacher aids who recieve little additional training.

3. Children in remote communities are not being taught in English.
   

   Reality: English is the language spoken by almost all teachers in remote Indigenous classrooms already.  If there is any education using the local language, it is provided by Teacher Aids from the local community.  Conssequently at least 50% of education has been taught in English for the last 30 years.  Teaching in english has not help indingeous kids learn to speak or read english well.

4. Someone out there wants to stop English being taught.
   

   Reality: No one, including Indigenous groups, have argued against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders being taught English. Aboriginal people have always asked to be taught English.

5. The forcing of teachers to use English in the classrooms is new policy that has not been tried before.
   

   Reality: This is not the first time a policy like this has been introduced.  The education department introduced a policy of English only education (100% of the time)  about 4-5 years ago. It did not apply to bilingual schools, but in a number of bilingual schools new priniciples encouraged the use of english in class rooms. Schools that currently use english only models did not perform better than the bilingual schools in recent tests.

6. The current thinking in the NT and around Australia seems to be that the best way to teach a new language is to force people to listen to it as much as possible.
   

   Reality: Such an approach only works if the student is immersed in the language and removed from peer groups that speak their first language That is, for immersion to be successful at teaching English, the kids must be taken away from their families and friends – Australia has been there done that, No thanks.

   Reality: We do not use this approach when we teach foreign languages to English first language speakers. Have you ever learnt French or Indonesian at school or university.  What do we do?  We teach the new language using the student’s first language, English.  Why? Because language acquisition is fastest if it is charted in the first language -  eg. djugu = contract, guyaŋa = think… you just learnt 2 new words in a new language using your first langauge.  Untill the student has a good grasp on the langauge we must use structured programs that teach English using the language the students already know.  Why don’t we do this in Indigenous schools?

7. Indigenous languages are not powerful or accurate enough to teach difficult English concepts.
   

   Reality: Indigenous languages are highly effective, accurate and contain all the meanings necessary to teach mathematical, scientific and humanitarian subjects. I know this because I teach economic literacy, governance and germ theory using an Indigenous language

8. We have to do something. We have tried almost everything.
   

   Reality: The one policy no government has ever implimented to solve low literacy and numeracy rates in Australian remote Indingenous schools is the training of EFL teachers to use local Indigenous languages to teach english and other subjects. This would enable true bilingual education rather than what actually happens today.

Considering that mainstream support, rather than research and local community knowledge, tend to drive government policy it is possible that these misunderstandings or assumptions are driving the current push to once again force english only environments on children in remote Indigenous schools.  I hope this clarifies the issue for you and helps you to explain some of the issues to others.

Every day you find yourself standing at the bottom of a cliff. And every day you find that a car or bus has fallen over the cliff filled with people causing many people to be killed or injured. How should the city respond to this? First of all the people from the city send medics to treat the injured and get them to hospital and the families, priests and labourers come to bury the dead. But every day there is another lot of deaths. The city is so busy caring for the injured and the dead that it is some time before the city does anything to stop the carnage. Finally the city decides to put up a rail on the cliff to stop cars from falling over. This works for some time but soon the rail breaks from the pounding it receives and in addition to this you notice that the day the rail broke several vehicles tumbled over the edge with it. Someone who works in the mayors office came up with a great idea. If all the cars and buses had wings then they could glide safely over the edge. No body told the Mayor however that bus drivers don’t know how to fly a bus and the wings were a real problem for space on the roads. Soon the city has had enough they say well no one shall travel on the mountain any more. So they put up road blocks all along their side of the mountain and they tried to force those on the mountain to live in the city. This slows the carnage but as more people come to live in the city the problems starts to increase again. Still cars and buses fall over the edge. The city has forgotten that people have built their lives on the mountain and they have not looked carefully to see which road is killing people. Soon the people realise that it isn’t right that the citizens can’t travel to relatives or live on the mountain that has been home to people for centuries, because of one road. What can be done, how can this be resolved?

Standing at the bottom of this cliff you realise that the solution to the problem depends on what is happening on top of the cliff. Is it a dangerous corner up there? Do people get lost and the road leads them over the cliff? Are there bandits in bulldozers up there waiting to push people off? What might it be? You head off to get to the top.

Everything that happens from the edge of the cliff till the cars hit the ground are symptoms that there is something happening on top of that cliff which is the cause. The question that needs to be asked is ‘Why?’, but one’s perspective needs to change so that one can look beyond the carnage and the cliff to the causes happening above and out of sight in order to find the real answers.

The story ends like this.

When you search for and find the road that runs near that cliff, when you watch the cars to see who falls, when you talk to the drivers who use the road, ..then you realise that people only crash at particular times of the day. When you drive that road carefully, at those time you see that drivers are blinded by the sun that reflects from the city below at those times as they reach the crest. They cannot see the road as they come to the bend near the cliff.

On top of the cliff, the cause is not the mountain or the people on the mountain, or the cliff, or drivers, these are all just part of that place, the mostly immovable realities. In this story the cause of the carnage is the blinding of the drivers by reflected sun light, which is a result of the conditions created on that road by a combination of factors, the crest in the road, the corner near the cliff, the white roofs and windows of the city, the position of the sun in the sky.

There are a lot of analogies in this story with the history of programs and policies designed to help solve the problems being faced by Indigenous Australians over the years. Consider them if you will, but consider this now. If the fall from the cliff represents the gap in life expectancy, disease rates and the failures in education in Aboriginal communities, how do we look beyond the carnage and the patch up measures needed to treat the wounded to find the cause – that which is happening out of sight beyond the top of the cliff. For the problems found in Aboriginal Communities we must look carefully at what community members experience in common that leads to these problems. Furthermore, do these common experiences have other more foundational real causes which are not part of immovable realities. If there are deeper questions then we must ask again, ” Why are they experiencing this?” We must keep asking this ‘Why?’ until we get to the ultimate causes. Metaphorically, we climb the cliff and get beyond the carnage, by following a trail of ‘Whys?’. The other way to change our perspective from symptoms, to a view from the the top of the cliff, is to enter the world of those who face and experience these problems, not so much the wounded, but in particular we must communicate with the experts among the people themselves, the bus drivers trying guide the people safely along the mountain road. And we must test our answers, not adopt answers based on assumed realities. As you can see its not simple to look for causes and it is often easier to just treat the symptoms in the short term, but if that is all we do the carnage will continue and the ‘Gap’ will remain.

In the next part to this subject I will analyse some specific solutions offered by Government and consider what perspective they are using and why