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SYDNEY
(IPS) - When Australian Aborigine track star Cathy Freeman lit the
flame at the Summer Olympics here last year, many of her countrymen
took the gesture as Australia's proud acknowledgement of its indigenous
peoples.
But Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders say that their struggle
for their rights continues, and that discrimination -- some call
it a subtle type -- remains a fact of life for them.
Ray Jackson, president of the Indigenous Social Justice Association,
defines discrimination in this way: ''It means higher deaths in
custody rates, higher incarceration rates, higher arrest rates,
higher mortality rates for our children, lower life expectancy.''
''Discrimination for our people means that we have a third or fourth
world lifestyle,'' he points out.
The Aborigines are believed to have inhabited the continent long
before the first European settlers set foot on this land in 1788.
Today, they and the Torres Strait Islanders make up a little more
than two percent of Australia's 19 million people.
Aboriginal life expectancy is also 16-19 years below that of the
general population, a gap that Ian Ring of James Cook University
says is bigger than those between indigenous groups and the general
public in New Zealand, Canada or the United States.
Aboriginal death rates of those from 25 to 54 years of age are as
much as eight times higher than non-indigenous Australians in the
same age group.
''Indigenous Australians are the only group of people in the world
outside of famine and war zones, where life expectancy has not improved
in the last 15 years,'' says the non-government group World Vision.
The New South Wales Department of Aboriginal Affairs says that Aboriginal
infant mortality in this state alone is twice the figure for non-indigenous
Australians. Health experts say that indigenous Australians fall
ill at least three times more than the rest of the population. Says
Jack Beetson, executive director of the Tranby Aboriginal College:
''If the health of all Australia was the same we would be declared
a national disaster.''
Such statistics are not new to Australia's political leaders, many
of whom say the federal government has been doing all it can to
correct the situation that is much the result of a dark past.
Dealing with this past has been a sensitive issue even in recent
years, during which more Australians have been pressuring the federal
government to apologise to the Aboriginal people for past state
policies.
Among these policies was the separation of indigenous children from
their parents between 1890 and 1970, which resulted in the removal
of 60,000 Aboriginal children from their families under a forced-assimilation
policy.
In recent decades, Aborigines have won several legal victories,
starting from the 1967 Land Rights Act (Northern Territory), which
recognised that 42 percent of the Northern Territory is owned by
Aborigines.
Twenty-two years later, the 'Mabo decision' recognised that Australia
was not 'terra nullius' -- a centuries-old concept that Australia
was empty land when white settlers came. Under the Native Title
Act of 1994, Aboriginal folk can lay claim to land.
The government has also set up bodies to address indigenous' groups
concerns, as well as gaps in human development with the general
population.
In 1991, a Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody looked
into the high numbers of indigenous people being gaoled and dying
in custody.
All these have made a positive difference for indigenous folk, but
the effects of the marginalisation of Aboriginal and minority concerns
-- and lack of consideration for their needs in state policies on
education and health -- continue to be felt today.
To many, therefore, discrimination against native Australians may
be more complex than other cases of marginalisation.
''It's not so much of the blind racism that you used to have in
the past based on the general concept of skin colour or racial grouping,''
muses Lester Bostock, a community worker with the Inner West Aboriginal
Community Co. in Sydney.
''I think most of the racism today is more institutionalised --
racism within the structure of bureaucracies and businesses,'' he
says, responding to questions about discrimination ahead of the
World Conference Against Racism later this month. ''There's the
type of racism which is hard to identify.''
Says Leonora Spry, coordinator of the indigenous Australia programme
at Oxfam Community Aid Abroad: ''If I were to say outright this
is a discriminatory country, you wouldn't be able to see it through
the laws that exist. It is not correct in a technical or a legal
sense.''
But Spry says alienation is an issue, as is harassment. ''That's
the subtlety of the crisis,'' she says. ''It is not as straightforward
as apartheid where you can be regulated out of an area. Here they
are actually letting you into the class and then making you feel
that you do not belong. You are not represented in the curriculum.''
Others say this attitude extends to policies and programmes that
run short of addressing the needs of the indigenous peoples because
of the way they are worded or set up.
Ring says that federal health programmes often end up helping only
a few Aborigines -- if at all. He cites the case of medical benefits
schemes, accessed through general practitioners. Since Aborigines
are unlikely to use the latter, they do not benefit from such programmes.
Ring argues, ''When you look at other countries who are the most
like us (Canada, the United States and New Zealand), they have had
treaties and treaties have helped to ensure that the requirements
of minority populations are adequately addressed.''
''It's a possibility,'' he says, ''that the absence of treaties
here has not helped (the Aboriginal population).''
Ring, head of the James Cook University's School of Health and Tropical
Medicine, says the diseases that Aborigines suffer are no different
from those afflicting others -- injury. circulatory and respiratory
diseases, cancer and diabetes.
The differences arise not only in the indigenous peoples' lack of
access to health services, but this resulting from their poorer
human development status.
In 1997, the Australian Medical Association reported that Aboriginal
men are unable to gain higher socio-economic status because of their
lack of qualifications and job opportunities.
Their low status ''increases their risk of developing a significant
health problem, in particular cardiovascular disease,'' the report
said.
The Aborigines' health problems can be traced to the lack of education,
since this makes them less likely to land a job. Official data show
that Aborigines are less likely to finish high school or go onto
post-secondary school education.
The reasons are in part poor attendance and poor literacy and numeracy
skills in primary years, and the inability to afford education.
Spry argues that poor attendance stems from the lack of a culturally
appropriate curriculum. Educator Beetson agrees: ''The education
system is not catering to the cultural and spiritual needs of its
indigenous students.''
Yet Beetson says there is no point having more policies or spending
on education, when health, housing, and economic needs are not met.
''It's very difficult for our children to find the inclination to
attend school, when they live in poverty, when their mothers and
fathers do not have employment,'' he adds. ''For anything to change,
there needs to be equity for Aboriginal people.''
That means including indigenous peoples in Australian policy development.
He stresses, ''We are the ones that know best. We are the ones who
are suffering.'' (Inter Press Service)
(*The
following is part of a series of IPS features in advance of the
World Conference against Racism, Aug. 31 - Sep. 7, in Durban, South
Africa.)
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