The Sydney Morning Herald
Letters: By ignoring attacks on women, we are guilty ourselves
Date: 26/06/2001
Dr Evelyn Scott and her daughters should be commended for their courage for
speaking out publicly about their family's experience of
sexual abuse at the hands of a trusted family friend ("The abuse my daughters
hid: a mother tells", Herald, June 20).
It is ironic that the reckless and hollow words of Pat O'Shane have provided the
impetus for Aboriginal women to speak up about this
sorry business. Sexual abuse of minors or the rape of women is not race or
culturally specific, but as an Aboriginal woman I have seen
colleagues and friends turn a blind eye to the sexual predatory behaviour of a
very small minority of so-called Aboriginal leaders,
sometimes out of fear, sometimes out of shame.
I would argue that by ignoring such behaviour we become complicit in
perpetuating sexual violence and degradation against our women
and children.
It is easy to become disillusioned with some of our leaders who use the old
clap-trap "it's our cultural business". There is a revolution
about to happen because us sistas have had enough.
R. Dixon, Coorparoo (Qld), June 22.
Let us members of the non-indigenous community be careful about being
self-righteous in relation to the level of hidden violence against
women in some indigenous communities. It is only a few short decades since
non-indigenous women dared to break the silence about our
own levels of violence. That violence and abuse is still scandalously high among
us and costly to reveal in some cultural contexts.
We could also widely acknowledge that, if Aboriginal women have remained silent,
it has often been in response to racist attitudes from
the non-indigenous community. They had little option but to remain loyal to
their abusers because, if they were not, our racism would
punish all their people, even more than we have already done - and as we are
doing in suggestions that they are not worthy of our efforts
towards reconciliation.
Dorothy McRae-McMahon, Rozelle, June 25.
Anne Summers refers to violence against women and children within Aboriginal
communities under the self-flagellant rubric, "The impact
of 200 years of white settlement has been devastating, resulting in problems
that barely existed in tribal times" (Herald, June 25).
This is fantasy, as examination of almost any primary source on the earliest
observations of Aboriginal culture shows. For example,
Watkin Tench referred to "the brutal violence with which the women are treated",
and detailed the terrible injuries he saw among
Aboriginal women in 1788.
The culture of violence within Aboriginal communities must be understood as
behaviour for which those communities themselves are
responsible. That culture is merely a set of ideas and values which can be
modified.
It should go without saying, but in the present profoundly deluded climate of
Aboriginal politics it must be said: culture is not genetically
programmed or racially predetermined, and societies do not cease to exist when
they embark on progressive cultural change.
G. A. Thompson, Canberra, June 25.
We should have the greatest admiration for Pat O'Shane. She must be the most
honest, forthright person in public life. She doesn't
pussyfoot around, she tells it as it is. With people like her speaking out there
is some chance of solving some of the deep-seated problems
in society.
John Cregan, Mona Vale, June 22.
--
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A threat to justice anywhere is
a threat to justice everywhere.
-- Martin Luther King
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