The name is absent

148

1978, a ministerial committee was appointed

to make recommendations on the distribution of funds for multi-

V

cultural education.

11.31' (ii) 1978 Ministerial Committee on Multi-cultural Education

The 1978 Committee, in presenting its report, stated:

Australia has always been a multicultural society.
Even before the European settlement the continent
was inhabited by the Aboriginal groups each with
their own distinct and different languages and
cultures (Committee on Multicultural Education,
1979:5).

With these few words, which can only be seen as a sop to
Aboriginal people, (the use of the word multicultural in the
instance quoted bears no resemblance to the use of the word throughout
the rest of the text), Aborigines are dismissed.

In point of fact, the multi-culturalism of Aboriginal society,
4

prior to the seventies, was recognised only by anthropologists.

It was never recognised by government.

Manifestly, the situation of the Aboriginal people, their

loss of culture and their loss of identity places them in a category
quite different from that of migrants.

Aborigines recognise this. They see their case on all counts

as different from that of migrants.

In a paradoxical way the Report recognises it too, but recognises
*

it by excluding Aborigines from further mention. Nevertheless,
if Aborigines are to be seen as part of a multi-cultural society,

if policies of integration for Aborigines advanced by the government
in power are not to be mere rhetoric,

to conceptualise Australian society in a way that does not exclude
Aborigines. Conceptualisation acts in the same way as naming -
it locates individuals in a particular world of meaning. Current

<<   185   186   187   188   189   190   191   >>

More intriguing information