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The Northern Territory Intervention: The Symbolic Value of 'Authentic' Indigeneity and Impoverishment, and the Interests of the (Progressive) Liberal Left
Citation
Rolls, M, The Northern Territory Intervention: The Symbolic Value of 'Authentic' Indigeneity and Impoverishment, and the Interests of the (Progressive) Liberal Left, Coolabah, 13 pp. 136-155. ISSN 1988-5946 (2014) [Refereed Article]
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Copyright Statement
Copyright 2014 Universitat de Barcelona * Centre d'Estudis Australians
Official URL: http://www.ub.edu/dpfilsa/Coolabahindexvol13.html
Abstract
In August 2007 the federal Howard government announced The Northern
Territory National Emergency Response, known more prosaically as 'The Intervention'.
This initiative was hurriedly implemented to address a broad range of issues highlighted
in 'The Report of the Northern Territory Board of Inquiry into the Protection of
Aboriginal Children from Sexual Abuse'. The report bore a title expressing a traditional
Y olngu belief (north east Amhem Land) that for some unexplained reason had been
translated into a language from the central desert. This was paraphrased in the emotive
and cloying English subtitle 'Little Children are Sacred,' and it is the latter by which the
report is widely known.
This paper does not canvass the 'Intervention' itself, but a specific albeit long standing
issue it brought to the fore. Implicitly if not explicitly, many critics find in the ostensibly
classical Aboriginal cultures of remote and impoverished communities an authentic
indigeneity. For a range of interests arising most often external to the communities
concerned, there is a reluctance to countenance any prospective change that could stem
the replenishing of these supposed wellsprings of originary authenticity. In this respect
both settler and Aboriginal critics have found common ground in arguing that they
represent the interests of the communities on whose behalf they supposedly speak. In
elaborating these issues the following paper discusses the divisions between opponents
and supporters of the 'emergency response', the tension between those with investments
in the issues of rights, racism, and identity, and the interests of those experiencing the
impoverished conditions of so many remote and regional communities. Central to these
debates is the fraught issue of who can speak for whom, with an Aboriginal elite finding
their authority as spokespeople challenged by those whose interests they presume to
represent. These issues help explain why so many of the Aboriginal elite and the liberal
left in general emphasise racism and discrimination over class, and why a politics of
difference is privileged over culture.
Item Details
Item Type: | Refereed Article |
---|---|
Keywords: | Aborigines, Culture, Identity, Tradition, Race,Symbolism, Class |
Research Division: | Indigenous Studies |
Research Group: | Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture, language and history |
Research Field: | Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture |
Objective Division: | Culture and Society |
Objective Group: | Communication |
Objective Field: | Communication across languages and culture |
UTAS Author: | Rolls, M (Dr Mitchell Rolls) |
ID Code: | 90537 |
Year Published: | 2014 |
Deposited By: | School of Humanities |
Deposited On: | 2014-04-09 |
Last Modified: | 2018-02-17 |
Downloads: | 335 View Download Statistics |
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