wfn.org | FEATURE: THE STORY OF A STOLEN CHILD

[Audrey Whitefield <a.whitefield@quest.org.uk>]

Sept. 23, 1997
ANGLICAN COMMUNION NEWS SERVICE
Canon Jim Rosenthal, Director of Communications
Anglican Communion Office
London, England

[97.9.3.9]

FEATURE:THE STORY OF A STOLEN CHILD
		 by Wadjularbinna

from the Melbourne Anglican

(MA) MINE is a painful story, but I'm sharing it with non-indigenous
people because I want them to understand where indigenous people are
coming from and how much pain they've gone through.

 I don't want anyone to feel hurt or guilty, because you are not
responsible for what your ancestors did. But you should understand how
we are different. We all need to move on now and try to work together in
making positive change in this country.

 My name is Wadjularbinna, and that means child of warmth and sunshine.
I was born in a tribal camp in the Gulf of Carpentaria, very close to
the Northern Territory/Queensland border. I'm part white, because my
mother was raped by settlers when they came to chase people off their
lands.

 My grandmother told us stories about how, when she was a little girl,
adults were shot and the children were picked up as they fell out of the
coolibah trees (where they were hiding) and bashed against rocks and
trees.

 The missionaries came and took children off their parents. They took
away both black and part-black and put them into dormitories that were
run by the mission. Our parents couldn't come to us, and we couldn't go
to them.

 My sister and I couldn't speak a word of English, so we had our mouths
washed out with soap every day. After a while we were even scared to
talk to each other because we didn't like this treatment. It was really,
really bad. They sat us in the corner, and we weren't allowed to go out
and play with the other kids. That was how they made us stop talking our
language.

 The missionaries said our parents, were heathen, and they'd be
preaching the love of Jesus Christ to us. I'd go to bed at night and cry
for my parents and wonder why I was taken away from them. It was
terribly sad and it confused us no end.

 Missionaries have treated us so badly. They've tied people to trees and
flogged them, simply for trying to run away and find their parents. But
I've forgiven the missionaries for what they have done, because if we
don't forgive, we destroy ourselves.

 I don't understand why it all happened, but because I am a Christian, I
know that there was a purpose in it all. I just say to myself: I was
given a second chance, and I have to go out and do what I can.

 They taught us a lot of things. I'm thankful that I learned to read and
write, cook, sew and do all the things that young girls like to do. But
then they married me off. They chose my partner and married me off into
a white family. I went from humble beginnings straight into a world of
snobbery and class distinctions.

 I soon found out that in white society you measure worth by position,
money, ownership of land and all of this stuff. I thought, what a screwy
bunch. It was a completely different world to what I came from.

 I was a station manager's wife for 18 years. I did the job to the best
of my ability, but had to pretend I was someone else. I couldn't behave
like a black person. I was very, very unhappy.

 Then the government changed the policy and made Aboriginal people
citizens in their own land. We'd been here for thousands of years and
suddenly somebody had given us the right to be citizens!

 After that policy was changed, my parents came to the station looking
for me, and I took them fishing and hunting and swimming in the front
paddock with the water lilies.

 I broke every rule that day. I just said: "I've been a station
manager's wife for far too long. I've been living a lie, playing a game
of 'let's pretend I'm white.'"

 When my husband came back and saw the cattle on the fence, he galloped
down to us and asked "What the ... do you think you are doing?" I said,
"We're swimming for lilies" He answered, "I can see that. You look like
a black gin." And I said, "I am one, have you only just noticed?"

 I think they thought that by this time they'd have changed me. But, you
can take the Aboriginal out of the community, but you can't take the
Aboriginality out of the person.

 That night I thought and thought and thought. I said to myself: "I've
got to go home, I've got to get back to where I come from. These are my
parents and they're not accepted here. They don't belong here, and I
don't belong here."

 When I told my mother that I planned to leave she was so upset. She
didn't like my husband, but when you take someone for a partner in
Aboriginal culture, it's for life, especially when there are children in
the situation. We are taught as young black women that we have been
entrusted with young lives and we create the future.

 Mumma said, "Don't, don't don't do it, you'll break Aboriginal law
now." I said, "Mumma, I can't help it." She said, "In our law, you stay
with that man. I could hear what my mother was saying and I was torn
like I was never torn before

 I decided I would go back home and leave my children. It was a very,
very painful decision on account of the children. We still have problems
because of that. But I went home, because I was damned if I did and I
was damned if I didn't.

 My mother soon forgave me, but it was very difficult for her to accept.
Aboriginal laws, rules and regulations are full of discipline.

Despair

Although it's lovely to be at home, it is a very sad place. Only last
night I had a phone call. A 3l-year-old man climbed up on to the water
tower and jumped down, killing himself. I was very close to his mother -
a lovely lady.

 We have huge problems and we can't fix them. These people just cannot
cope living in two worlds. They know they belong to this country, yet
they can't practise their law, their culture and their religion freely.

 I say to some of these people "What's the matter? Don't drink, don't
lie down. We've got so much to live for. We've got a history that goes
back thousands of years. Get up and start doing something; help our
children, give them a future."

 And this old gentleman looked up at me and said, "My girl, I'm
surprised you ask me that question. You grew up here, you're born in the
same situation as us. You know why we are lying down drinking." He said,
"I can't cope. You might be able to cope, but I can't. Like all of us
here, we can't cope. We're better off to die."

 My mother was a very strong person. She taught me to be strong, to
stand up and speak out - as long as I do it respectfully, I should be
able to put our point across. But just before she died she just said to
me, "Bubba, it's better white man comes and shoots us all. Put us out of
our misery. Nothing's more humiliating than to be in your own land and
have your culture, your laws, your religion taken from you. We are
nothing and a nobody in this country. We are oppressed people."

 I said, "Mumma, don't talk like that. We've just got to move on and
keep going and while I've got breath in my body I'll try to educate
white Australia." Mumma was giving up.

 That's the situation. Our people just can't cope. There's a lot of
people just giving up, but we mustn't allow that to happen.

Racism

People like Pauline Hanson have created a whole lot of trouble for our
people. They are despairing as it is ! There were very few indigenous
people who got up and said anything about the situation. I've spoken to
so many of them and they just looked at me and said: "What can we do?
What's going on?"

 A young boy in Redfern said to me, "Don't worry Aunty, we'll do
something . They'll get the shock of their lives one day. We'll burn.
We'll start a riot and they won't know how to stop it."

 I just looked at him and said "You can't, that's not the answer to this
problem." He said, "We're starting to despair. We're starting to
despair."

We really had no idea how deep racism ran in this country. We thought
attitudes had changed, but we've found out that nothing has changed,
it's just been under the carpet.

 It was good that it was brought out into the open. Now we have
something we must deal with, we can discuss it with each other and try
to put things straight. I hope something good comes out of this evil
stuff that's been going on.

Compensation and forgiveness

I heard the other day that they weren't going to give compensation to
the stolen children. Yet they are going to compensate all the people who
handed in their guns. Millions of dollars of compensation is going out
to them, while here are others, dispossessed in their own land and
feeling worthless. I think it's discriminating against indigenous
people. You can see where their priorities lie.

 And another thing: they were going to give the stolen children
counsellors - white counsellors. You know, the very descendants of the
people who did this to us. Indigenous people are wondering: "What are
they going to do? How are they going to help us? They'll probably come
along and screw our thinking completely and then we'll all finish up in
the madhouse." Everyone must realise that this is a very, very serious
situation. I can't see that we'll ever reconcile in this country while
people have that attitude.

 I tell you what: if we all got back to the way we were brought up, in
the traditional ways, it won't cost the tax payers, black or white
(black people pay taxes too), half as much as the government has been
pouring into our communities with nothing happening. We're still going
backwards.

 The government can't repay everything. We can't put right everything.
But we can at least make some effort to right some of the wrongs. This
could mean compensation for people who want compensation. But for
myself, no amount of money can compensate for loss of spirituality, for
spiritual connection, for losing one's own identity and one's own land.
No amount of money that can put that right.

The land

This land was occupied by our people for many thousands of years. We had
a way of life: customs, laws, religions. It is a system we still know
and abide by as best we can, but a lot of the rules conflict with white
laws and systems. It is so complex that I believe it's beyond
non-indigenous people's comprehension. After 208 years they still don't
know about us! I think this is partly because they don't want to know,
and partly because it is very complex. If who they are in their own
land, to live by their own laws, all these people who have been fiddling
the funds and everything else, would be stopped quick smart.

 These people need to get back to base and get back their spirituality.
They need to get back to the land. They need to abide by their laws and
rules, which is a very disciplined way-and a spiritual way.

 When the land was taken, they didn't realise that we had a spiritual
and religious connection to it. The missionaries preached from the Bible
that man was made from the dust of the earth and he was going back to
it. When my mother heard a missionary preaching that she said, "Bubba,
that white man got our culture."

 We believe that we are of the land, we've come from it and we're going
to go back to it. That's our culture. The land means that much to us.
Yet non-indigenous Australians see land as a commodity to be bought and
sold. There's got to be education about our differences. We have to find
a middle road.

 Many Aboriginal people have stories to tell, but they're not the same
as mine. Give us the opportunity to tell our story about our connection
to land, creation, what our spirituality is, and everything else. We can
share that with white Australia, and white Australia can share what it
has with us. We can move together in this country and live in harmony.

 Wadjularbinna is a member of the Gungalidda tribe of the Gulf of
Carpentaria. This edited version of a talk she gave in Melbourne last
year first appeared in On Being magazine.