On rage

Germaine Greer's essay On Rage* hit the bookshops in August 2008. Greer argues that the dysfunction underlying aboriginal male violence is caused by impotent rage that in general has its origins in the genocide of aboriginal peoples, loss of culture, loss of land, etc., but in particular is rooted in aboriginal men's loss of their womenfolk who Greer suggests have been appropriated by the whitefella. Not unexpectedly, Greer's views generated public comment, particularly from indigenous leaders and academics. For a response to her argument and to some of the criticisms levelled at it, I spoke to Dr Sean Gorman from the Australian Indigenous Studies Program at the University of Melbourne, and to the Reverend Paul Arnott, a former ABC radio journalist and now the State Director of the Church Missionary Society in Victoria, an organisation with a history of involvement with Australia's indigenous peoples.

Sean Gorman, your thoughts?

Look having read around Greer's position on this and then seeing some of the rejoinders to her in the press with regards to it, I think first and foremost Germaine Greer is as entitled to anyone to talk about indigenous issues. There is a certain degree of credence in notions of displacement and displacement for many non-indigenous Australians is something that we can't, we don't really understand being the winners if you like, the winners in this history, the colonising force which has come in and on so many levels either reconfigured totally or smashed those traditional ways and the social structures and the kinship structures of indigenous peoples. We need to take to a degree some ownership of that and I think that's what Germaine is trying to do in a kind of a roundabout kind of way.

Your thoughts, Paul?

I think generally she's right. I think her analysis of the situation is pretty accurate from my knowledge of the situation. I don't always agree with her conclusions and I don't agree with some of her very broad sweeping generalisations, but I think her assessment of the situation, her analysis, is pretty accurate from what I've seen.

Local indigenous leaders have claimed that aboriginal male identity has been marginalised. Sean, do you agree with this claim?

The marginalisation of indigenous men is something that has fed into this and there are reasons for that, many reasons for that when you look at just the general economy of the ways that indigenous men are left out of specific public policy making decisions or of local council levels. If we look at more remote kind of areas generally you see the women who are very much a part of the processes of dealing with things whereas the men are generally seen as those that are the dysfunction, part of the significant problem of the dysfunction within those communities.

Paul, do you think aboriginal male identity has been marginalised?

Yes I do. Steve Biddulph says in his book Manhood "most men don't have a life" - that's his first sentence. I think he's thinking particularly of white males. If that is true of white males then that is ten times more true of indigenous males, that their role in their own society has been marginalised. Their role in white society is virtually nonexistent.

Professor Marcia Langton claims Greer’s arguments are racist because they “dismiss, obstruct and trivialise Aboriginal people”. Do you think they're racist, Sean?

What informants Greer had accessed during her research for this particular text needs to be taken into account. How many indigenous men who had transgressed had she spoken to? How many indigenous psychologists had she spoken to in relation to rage and how these things manifest? Or, service professionals in the medical area? Because if we simply go to the tomes, the books that are out there, the research articles that's all well and good, but in order to access indigenous peoples on a level playing field perhaps that's where Greer fell down and it would be then the small opening if you like that Marcia would have required.

Do you think the arguments are racist, Paul?

I partially agree with Marcia. I mean I think it's very hard for whitefellas to comment and critique indigenous matters in Australia because we don't sit where they sit. We're not aboriginal. So yes, I think there's an element of truth to what she's suggested. My feeling is that Germaine Greer is a very bright - actually I have to say I don't like Germaine Greer as a person, but I respect her intellect and her ability to assess and I think she's a pretty accurate social critic and I think overall what she is saying is true about indigenous society and indigenous men. She's probably got to the heart of the issue. So it's not legitimate to, in a sense, stereotype her as racist, that's a way of almost dismissing her ability to comment. If you reverse it, you could say, well, Noel Pearson doesn't have the right to critique Australian white society.

Greer suggests the problem with impotent rage is there’s no outlet for it and so male anger is turned inward to families, friends, communities and self. The answer to the blackfella's impotent rage, she claims, is a treaty between black and white Australia. Sean, what do you think of the idea of a treaty?

I think a treaty would not be just a great symbolic act, it would be a great political act. But it would take a huge political act of courage for a federal prime minister to then start to talk about those things for the broader Australian constituency and I don't know if the broader constituency would understand or be ready for that bearing in mind that we've just had the apology situation. The other difficulty in terms of that is actually getting all the different regions to agree on what the essence of that treaty would actually be because people in the south west of Western Australia have very different views to what those up in Darwin or Queensland or even Tasmania might have as to how those things might best represent them.

What's your view, Paul, on the idea of a treaty?

I think a treaty will happen - it's a bit like a republic - a treaty will happen when the government discerns that a majority of people in Australia want a treaty to happen. That will happen when a majority of people in Australia realise that we have badly stuffed up the lives of the original inhabitants of this nation. I'm not convinced that a majority of Australians realise that yet.

Sean Gorman and Paul Arnott - thanks for sharing your thoughts on this issue. For our listeners, if you're interested in getting a copy of Germaine Greer's essay On Rage, it's published by Melbourne University Press as one of its series of little books on big themes.

* Greer, G 2008, On Rage, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne.