Miliwanga Sandy Interview Part 2: “This is our country…and we shouldn’t be treated like slaves!”

Further to yesterday’s post from Miliwanga Sandy about how she and her family feel about the NT Government’s effective abolition of the remnants of the NT’s bilingual education system, today I want to provide a few more of Miliwanga’s strong words from when we spoke at her home at Wugularr community a week or so ago.

Here Miliwanga talks about the NT Intervention and how the Intervention – for good or ill – has affected them. Miliwanga also told how she feels about the continuing suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act in relation to Aboriginal people in the NT, and has a look back at how conditions where for her family when she was growing up, what life is like now, and the hopes and fears she has for the future.

We also talked a lot about law – the laws that are made in Parliaments around the country and the original laws that still run in much of Aboriginal Australia.

Miliwanga Sandy: And you know, many, many people – particularly Munanga [white] people – they don’t understand that our law, Aboriginal law, still operates in this country.

Our law is very strong and it doesn’t change – it is flexible when it is applied – but it has always been the same law that we know from when it first started right up to this modern generation today.

That western law – it changes all the time – it is very confusing for us to try to fit into that law – but our law, Aboriginal law, it holds strict control of whatever things we must not do, including like in the western law if someone goes to court and has committed a very severe crime then they have to be sentenced.

MS: And Aboriginal law – what many people don’t understand is that we still abide by it – without it we wouldn’t be living close to our country and with our people and families up close. We have our laws for violence, for domestic violence, for child abuse, laws for respect between man and women and between people.

And we have laws for marriage and for food as well. Everyone here at Wugularr  knows about our laws – but many outside people they don’t know how strong it is – until somebody breaks that law.

They might be able to see a little bit about what happens…but we don’t have laws for alcohol, or for drugs, like that western side does – those things don’t exist in our culture – but we have rules for how people have to behave properly.

TNM: And your daughter Laureena – she is an ACPO (Aboriginal Community Police Officer) in the Northern Territory Police Force – so she works in the law – but on the western side?

MS: Yes, and I am so proud of her – my older daughter Andrea was also the first ACPO for this area – Barunga, Beswick, Eva Valley, Bulman and Mountain Valley and she did all this before the other Police came. They had Aboriginal Police Aides here before but now my daughter Laureena and Valerie Lane – they are two strong, young Aboriginal women – and they get respect from people – from drunken men and all that.

MS: They have to stand up in the position they have – they have to stand up in the positions they have and they have the power and authority and people give them respect for that.

But they they must also remember their customary laws and have that respect for their kinship relationships towards others – especially men. So when they come to lock up their cousins and poison cousins – especially men, and brothers and cousin-brothers [classificatory kinship relationships requiring avoidance or restricted verbal and physical contact]. I’m really proud of those young women – their job is an important link between the community and the normal police – they have both-way duties to do.

TNM: What about the future of Wugularr – what do you think the future holds? Are the recent changes for the good or bad?

MS: Well, we have this Shire thing [recent local government reforms] and we are not familiar with that yet – we are still trying to see how it works for our community and – we also have that Intervention – which I don’t agree with at all.

TNM: That was my next question…

MS: There was a lot of people upset about those early days of the Intervention – that, whatyoucallit – compulsory health check business – that was just really silly!

All of us women here, when that news was going around that they were going to come around and check all the children – including the babies – by strangers, who we’ve never seen – us women, we met and said “Oh, yeah – on that day when they come to check the children we will go over to the [Beswick] waterfall, 20 kilometres out of town, and we’ll stop there until they all go home. Then we’ll come back.” So we had planned, we planned everything beforehand, before they came.

TNM: And what happened when they came?

MS: When they came it was totally different. If it hadn’t been for Phil, who was our senior health nurse – Phil got up and told those people from the Intervention – “These kids, we screen these kids all the time – we know these kids and we would know for sure if they were being abused. We do the school screening, and for babies – you know, when they have their immunisation and weight checks.”

So Phil stood up to them so they didn’t have to go ahead with that. And the Sunrise Health Service that run our clinic they are very strong – and I work with them too. Yes, I’ve helped them promote that Closing the Gap thing.

MS: And nowadays – two years almost after that Intervention – well, there are a lot more Munanga [white people] here now and they took over the store here.

We wanted ALPA (Arnhem Land Progress Association) to help us to run that store. But the Intervention mob they wanted Outback Stores – and I see they finally joined that Outback Stores – that Intervention mob – that FaHCSIA mob. And the government owns that Outback Stores.

Now we have to waste all our money on that stuff here – normal things in that Outback Store cost a big mob of money – it is much more expensive than ever before here or than in town – there is powdered milk there for… that Black and Gold one for $12.50 and that Sunshine milk powder for $13 something – and I could get that for $5 at Woolies in Katherine.

MS: And yes I have a BASICSCARD – and it is bad – so I’m saving up my own money in my own bank account – because they don’t leave me any money in there to save.

The money that is left in my Keycard account I have to buy food, Powercard, fuel for vehicles, clothing – and what do I have left? Nothing.

MS: And that new way – where they are going to make every Aboriginal person do a test to get off that Income Management – that just makes me wild. When I first heard about the Intervention, I became very furious – because it reminded me of when I used to line up with my parents for ration days – the government took control of my parent’s money and they used to have like…there wasn’t enough money for food from the store so we would go hunting for bush tucker a lot in those days – to have enough food to survive on.

So when this Intervention came along, I thought “I don’t want my grandchildren and my children, to live like how my parents and I used to live in the ration days – we shouldn’t be going back to those old days – life should be getting better for us – not like those hard days before.”

We want to have that freedom of choice, freedom to do this – freedom to spend our money on whatever we want.

MS: In those early days of the Intervention, the way they were talking about Aboriginal men, you know, saying that they were all doing child abuse and sexual molesters and all that.

A lot of our men became shamed when the Government said that about them and a lot of them were angry and upset – and it hurt us – not just the men but the women too – to have our husbands and sons and nephews talked about like that.

In the olden days we never had things like that – if anyone did anything like the old people would deal with them through that Makarrata – which was a matter of life and death – with the spear throwing – and if ever we had people doing that kind of thing in our community we would ban them from our community – they would be exiled away from their family to another place.

In our law, that person has to go to the Makarrata and that person has to face a lot of these men with spears flying at him – and if he is good at protecting himself from these spears then in the end they will all agree to jab his thigh – but it won’t be with an ordinary spear – it will be with a barbed-wire spear – it is different from the other spears – it has a lot of hooks in it and when it goes into the thigh it is very hard to get it out.

TNM: There is another law that came in with the Intervention that where before the Judge could take Aboriginal customary law into account for sentencing but now they cannot…

MS: Well, that discriminates against us and I disagree with that – for example – with children, we have to discipline them. And this is like the rest of that Intervention – the Government can’t make the Intervention any better until they come and sit down and talk to us in person and they have to come out and see things and listen. Thats how we hold our meetings – we don’t hold our meetings in secret or somewhere else – you have to come and each person has to face each other to see what we need or see what our problem is.

And we are still being treated unfairly – and that is why I’m fighting, still fighting for my people and their freedom and for getting jobs and freedom to have to spend our money in our own ways and where we want to have the freedom to be able to control our own situations.

Another thing is that I think that taking away the Racial Discrimination Act was a very cruel thing – we are all human and shouldn’t be treated as slaves.

We’ve lived here longer than anyone – this is our country and we should have the freedom and the right to be treated properly – by any person – but we are fighting against them for taking that law away from us – we sent a letter to the United Nations – and they agree with us that we should have those rights and freedoms back – particularly that Racial Discrimination Act.

Miliwanga Sandy will speak at the AIATSIS Symposium “Bilingual Education in the Northern Territory: Principles, policy and practice” at the Visions Theatre, National Museum of Australia, Canberra today, 26 June 2009.