Quick fixes: alcohol and porn responsible for abuse of indigenous children

It seems ironic that my last post was directed at avoiding simplistic histories and the importance of understanding complexity, given that the Australian Federal Government has now determined that alcohol and porn are the causes of child sexual abuse in indigenous communities.

The Australian Federal Government has declared sexual abuse of Aboriginal children a 'national emergency' and is moving to take control of 60 Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory, ban alcohol and porn in them, increase police numbers, and make health checks for children compulsory.

Australia to ban alcohol for Aborigines - Rod McGuirk, The Associated Press

Australia bans alcohol on Aboriginal land - Bernard Lagan, Times Online

Howard announces major Indigenous overhaul for NT - National Indigenous Times

These measures are a response to the Northern Territory Government's Board of Inquiry into the Protection of Aboriginal Children from Sexual Abuse, which released their report on June 15.

I'm not sure whether I'm more upset about:

• the discrimination quite clearly based on race - these measures will affect indigenous people, and no other group...isn't this called racism? Note that the inquiry found that children are being abused by both indigenous AND non-indigenous adults!


• the idea that removing grog and porn from indigenous communities will somehow fix damaged "traditions" (all of which are uncritically represented as positive). Never mind the fact that we're talking about communities that are suffering the aftermath of what could be called conflict and genocide;


• the scrapping of the entry-permit system under which indigenous people have controlled access to THEIR land;


• the sheer paternalism of these measures - this heavy-handed, top-down response to problems in indigenous communities is completely disempowering. The Howard government doesn't even PRETEND to have any commitment to "self-determination" anymore!

Federal elections are not far off. In the lead-up to the last federal election, Howard guaranteed himself conservative support by alleging that women aboard a "suspected illegal entry vessel" had been throwing their children overboard (Wikipedia entry, The ALP's "truthoverboard", Project Safecom's "The Unthrown Kids"). During the last federal election, the Howard government engendered and took advantage of public fear about asylum seekers and the need to protect our borders against them. This time, the government appears set to engender fear and garner support by appearing to clamp down on indigenous people who are, via the machinery of political speeches, media etc, inextricably linked with drunkenness and paedophilia.

This isn't to say, of course, that indigenous communities would necessarily fare much better under an ALP government. Larissa Behrendt has warned that we should not raise Howard's opposition up as some kind of saviour.

Edit: Howard appears to have acknowledged the inherant racism of the announcements of Thursday 21 June, and today, Friday 22 June, has announced that these welfare restrictions could be extended to all Australians.