Anger and sadness

Since I am doing more than just the readings for this class, I will also write some reflections on other things I'm reading, and hearing about in my discussions with Michael in planning the indigenous mental health workshop. In fact, today’s reflective writing is probably going to be more of a personal venting of feelings and reactions to the trauma and injustice suffered by Aboriginal people. I've read a good bit of a report on Aboriginal suicide by Colin Tatz, read a little of Us Mob by Mudrooroo, watched the films in class, and listened to what Michael has to say about his own experience. To understand what Aboriginal people face in their everyday lives and have experienced over history means that anyone with any compassion just has to weep. What can I really say to Michael when he tells me how many deaths he has had to grieve in the past two weeks? How does one respond to the Injibandi or Urwunjin people or any Aboriginal people being forced to stay out of their country? How does one respond to all the many injustices over the time since Europeans arrived? The word "stress" just doesn't seem strong enough to capture it. "Trauma" seems more appropriate." Michael is right when he says that the trauma just doesn't stop. And how do people manage such a level of trauma without a chance for recovery? We don't have models in psychology to understand that process. Post-traumatic stress disorder without a chance ever to really be "post-." I feel terrible that anyone should have to manage that level of trauma. Of course some people will turn to substances. Others get lost in despair. It makes me deeply sad. And those who don't get lost in despair or numbness? What are their sources of resilience? Hope must always be a part of that, I would guess, hope that things can get better.

Of course, that might mean taking the long view. I remember hearing Winona Laduke, a Native American activist, interviewed on the radio. She was talking about how land rights cases between Native Americans and the U.S. government should be settled in international court because they were treaties between nations, rather than being settled in the courts of the conquerors. And she said with absolute certainty, "We'll get our land back. We had it for tens of thousands of years. You've had it for a couple of hundred. We'll get our land back." And I believed her. I still do, because modern industrial culture in America is not humanly sustainable. But I'm taking the long view - all empires wither in time.

Listening to that interview turned my worldview upside down and put me on a path that has lead me to where I am today. I have been reading about indigenous issues for years, and the stories are very similar the world over. I have heard Native American activists talk about their past and current issues, read about the struggles of South American indigenous tribes and donated money to help them demarcate and thus hold onto their tribal lands, listened to what elders from the Amazon say in films when they express their dismay that their young people do not want to learn the old ways because it's not "cool," read about the Kung's struggles in the Kalahari to hold onto their traditional land, knowledge (including their intellectual property rights), and culture, and read about the Inuit and Dunne-Za and Nisga'a and Okanagan people's struggles in Canada and Alaska to maintain their culture in the face of great physical and psychological violence. And always the response of the dominant culture is the same: "Forget the past (except for those parts we want to have on view for tourists), just focus on the present." Assimilate. It makes me so angry! Not to mention that being part of this culture hasn't worked and isn't working for white folks either. (See most of my other blog entries for 2005.)

I remember seeing a rich American tourist on some TV show saying how lovely Indian art was and how quaint it was when the Indians did their traditional dances, with no clue what the historical and political context was in which those "lovely" and "quaint" cultural expressions were taking place! How about "courageous and beautiful and heroic," instead of "lovely and quaint." How about "necessary for psychological survival in the face of all they have endured"? More anger.

Before I came to Australia, I was chatting to some noodleheaded New Age woman in Colorado and mentioned I was moving to Australia. "Oh," she said, "will you get to meet some Aborigines? You know, they're leaving this Earth. They've just decided that it's over for them here, and they've chosen to leave this Earth and move on." I heatedly told her that I thought the many Aboriginal people still living in Australia would have a very different view. I was angry and she backed down. It made me especially angry for a rich New Ager in America to speak about the threats facing Aboriginal people as if they were faits accomplis, the inevitable destiny of indigenous people, and almost sanctifying that imagined fate by saying, "Oh, they chose that." The hell they did! European colonists forced horrors on them, and they're still not giving in to her imagined oh-they'll-just-die-out fate. (This is what drives me absolutely bonkers about New Agers – they can't deal with anything negative without saying the person chose that. Why is it so hard to accept that bad things happen, and that some people victimize others?) I wonder if I really succeeded in educating that woman, though. Suppose instead of anger, I'd given her a puzzled look, and said, "Where on earth did you get that idea? What are you basing that on?" Then maybe we could have talked about it, and I could have drawn her out and figured out where these ideas come from and told her she could read some of the things I had read.

Anger and sorrow. That's the continued response to injustice. Anger, sorrow, and a desire to contribute to making the world a little better. When I was in my second year at university, I took a class on comparative religion. It was a small discussion class, centered on comparing religions through their understanding of suffering. We read Judeo-Christian books, also parts of the Bible, and books on Buddhism. And we read Black Elk Speaks. I kept struggling in the class, because it was pretty obvious what all the religions except that of the Oglala Sioux thought about suffering. Much of the Jewish and Christian philosophy seemed to center on making sense of suffering. Buddhism sidesteps the question of making sense of it, says it just is, and then talks about how to alleviate suffering through the practice of meditation – a very practical approach. Over and over again, I kept asking for clarification on what we were supposed to get out of the story of the Sioux in the context of the class. I never got an answer. I don't think the two professors had one. I would say, "OK, it seems that there are types of suffering in life that are unavoidable, like sickness and death. But then there are types of suffering that should be avoidable, those that result from one group of people subjugating another, perpetrating injustice. People could choose not to do that. It's not an inevitable type of suffering. All the Judeo-Christian and Buddhist writings are about the inevitable type of suffering that comes from being alive in a body. Black Elk was not talking about that kind of suffering. The Sioux didn't experience only inevitable suffering. How do we think about injustice?" I never got an answer from them, I never worked one out for myself in that class, and none of the other students had an answer either.

I still don't. All one can do, it seems, is try to find some little way to make a difference. And at least make a commitment to be someone who does things differently.

Some years ago, I committed my life to building bridges between indigenous knowledge and science as one way that I, as a scientist, can make a difference. That’s what brings me to this course. But I had forgotten that part of building that bridge would be to deeply understand the suffering that indigenous people now experience. So here I am, with compassion and sorrow in my heart, saying, I think I'm starting to understand a little. Let's build that bridge, and I won't look away from anything that is a part of its foundation.


Some related writings:
Black Elk & Neihardt, J. (1979). Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press.

Mudrooroo (1995). Us Mob. History, Culture, Struggle: An Introduction to Indigenous Australia. Sydney: Angus & Robertson/Harper Collins.

Stone, V.E. (2005). Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? http://valinoz.blogspot.com

Tatz, C. (1999). Aboriginal Suicide Is Different: Aboriginal Youth Suicide in New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory and New Zealand: Towards a Model of Explanation and Alleviation. A Report to the Criminology Research Council on CRC Project 25/96–7

Films:
Pearson, N., Calley, K., Griffiths, L. (1996). Dhuway. Great grandfather my son: An Australian diaspora and homecoming. Story editor & presenter, Noel Pearson ; Director, Lew Griffiths ; Script, Karin Calley ; Producers, Noel Pearson & Lew Griffiths. Publisher: Manuka, ACT : Oziris Australia,

Solomon, R. & Rijavec, F. (1992). Exile and the Kingdom. Written by Frank Rijavec & Roger Solomon. Publisher: Lindfield, N.S.W. : Ngurin Aboriginal Corporation & Film Australia, 1992.