Max O.
John
Piliger's new film, "Utopia" presents the case that racist policies
against the Aboriginal people still continue in Australia 28 years after he
made his first film, "Secret Country". The film exposes the shocking
and brutal discrimination meted out to Australia's First Peoples by detailing the
hypocrisy and outright contempt that still exists from political leaders to the
police force.
The
initial images that are presented to the audience (CCTV footage of a Aboriginal
man being smashed against a wall, dragged along a floor and then thrown into a
cell and left to die; a film clip which shows police officers who cruelly taser
an Aboriginal boy) set the tone of what this film is all about - a tale of
conquest, genocide, brutality, theft, discrimination and destitution.
The
movie's name is taken from the Aboriginal community of Utopia, 250 kilometres
north-east of Alice Springs. The appalling living conditions that this
community has to endure are contrasted with the hugely expensive holiday
apartments on the Sydney beaches that overlook the Pacific Ocean.
The
litany of shameful treatment continues when the Mutujulu community's
dilapidated asbestos buildings are compared with the nearby Uluru luxurious eco
tourist hotel.
The
enforcers of the law are again put under the spotlight when the film examines
the death of Eddie Murray in 1991, who died of a smashed sternum whilst in a
police lock-up in Wee Waa, NSW. Then there is the killing of Ian Ward who died
in 2009 while being transported in a virtually sealed police van where the
temperature reach 56° Celsius and he was cooked to death. None of the police or
correctional officers were prosecuted.
Pilger outlines
the successful Aboriginal struggles of the Wee Waa Aboriginal cotton weeders
and pickers, who were grossly under paid and subjected to aerial spraying, who
struck for better wages and conditions and the successful Wave Hill/Gurindji
walk off (1966/77) that eventually led to their land rights.
The
history of Rottnest island, just off the coast of Perth, is also investigated.
The island's old gaol is now a spruced up holiday resort but was used in the
19th century as a concentration camp for troublesome Aborigines. This fact is
not pointed out to the holiday visitors.
The
expunged history of Indigenous Australians continues with Pilger's visit to the
Australian War Memorial. Here he was refused permission to film, after
asking why there was no display of the frontier wars where
black Australians fought the British invasion of their country.
The
mentality of this denial is dramatically summed up by Australia's first prime
minister, Edmund Barton who in 1901 crafted the White Australia Policy. The
film reiterates his words of the time, "The doctrine of equality of man
was never intended to apply to those not British and white-skinned."
Parliamentarians
were given the chance to justify their policies for Aboriginal people in the
film and they proved wanting. Whilst they are proud to have Aboriginal art in
their offices they take offence when questioned why they have not solved the
issue of the First Australians being the poorest, sickest, most oppressed
section of the population. For example Warren Snowden, former Labor Minister
for Indigenous Health, took shelter with the angry reply to Pilger, "What
a stupid question. What a puerile question."
The
appalling record of parliament continues in the film with the Howard government's
2007 Northern Territory intervention. Police-military rule was deployed and the
hand over of local community land leases were demanded otherwise basic services
would be withdrawn. The intervention was justified on the spurious assertion
that Aboriginal children needed to be rescued from widespread sexual abuse
that was going on in Aboriginal communities.
ABC's
TV Lateline programme supplied the so-called evidence. An anonymous "youth
worker" appeared disguised in a camera interview making outrageous claims
about Aboriginal paedophile rings. Later the supposed "youth worker"
turned out to be a senior government official and the Lateline programme
refused to comment publicly that there was no evidence to back up their claims.
As was
commonly understood the purpose of the intervention was to demonise these
Aboriginal communities and take over the land for the benefit of the mining
companies.
The
film is uncomfortable viewing for Non-indigenous Australians. Anmatyerr elder,
Rosalie Kunoth Monks, from Utopia, sums up the matter of their oppression when
she points out that their sovereignty was never ceded and the land was stolen
from them.
As
Pilger states, the Aboriginal peoples' struggle for freedom will only start to
be achieved when their sovereignty is officially recognised and a treaty is
entered into between Indigenous and Non-indigenous Australia.
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