Jacinta Price and Assimilation

I remember the slur “Jewish American Princess”, or just JAP. It was intended for the Jewish girls who assimilated into the North American dream, looking like everyone else when they were supposed to look “different”, aspiring to higher education and grabbing the glittering prizes on offer when they were supposed to behave like victims. That’s what the accusers believed was their proper role, at the very least so they could be identified as “Jews”, that race of people around whom anti-Semitic suspicions still lingered. It was a put-down despite the fairy-tale language, since Jews were supposed to be the downtrodden people, the victims for eternity.

So, when I hear Marcia Langton calling Jacinta Price, the successful leader of the No vote, a “Princess of Assimilation”, I have a familiar feeling of what lies behind it. There is a mixture of envy and a sense of betrayal, for Ms Langton—like her comrade in arms, Noel Pearson, who also accused Jacinta of assimilationism—believes the only way to be a successful and authentic Aborigine is to write it into the Constitution, to be an ineradicable political fact. A “fact” bound by treaties which would expand indigenous land claims and prompt a further increase of specialist programs designed to enhance and entrench “traditional practices”. It’s a political version of fundamentalism.

And yet as anyone with a close enough knowledge of Aboriginal life in the outback knows—as do Jacinta Price and her parents, Bess and Dave Price—“the gap”, which is a short form for the misery and suffering of the 20 per cent of Aborigines who live remotely, is largely a result of traditional practices that are ill fitted to modern Australia, and indeed, were obsolete the moment European settlers arrived.

In 2011, I travelled to Alice Springs specifically to make a program on Bess Nungarrayi Price and her husband Dave for my series, “Couples: In the Light of Love”, for The Spirit of Things on ABC RN. They were a most impressive, articulate and welcoming couple, and I was surprised to hear Bess speak so candidly about the problems that traditional practices had wrought for her people. I had been so used to hearing the uniform refrain of peaceful and sustainable life that could only be achieved in the outback. But as Bess said to me in no uncertain terms then, Aboriginal life is no Disneyland Dreamtime as so many whitefellas want to believe.

Her own story was instructive but by no means the only one she related that day. She was a mother at thirteen, having been paired off with an older man, but she escaped domestic violence by the age of nineteen to gain educational training as a teacher. Bess met Dave in an education program and fell in love. That pathway of education and knowing there was another way to have a family life would be her road to personal dignity and freedom of conscience, the unique prerogative of any citizen living in a free Australia.

She told me how the superstitious beliefs among Aboriginal people cause untold violence, because misfortune, accident and illness are regularly blamed on someone or some intentional act of sorcery. Retribution follows. She had lost seven people in her family in a year. The emotional toll is great, but it is compounded by other practices, like “humbugging”, where members of your extended family feel entitled to your property, intruding on your home life and even absconding with your vehicle or money or clothes. It makes leading a stable home life and trying to get ahead in a job or in school very challenging if not impossible.

Bess did not talk about the role of “secret men’s business”, but studies of the impact of the initiation ceremonies for young men, quite apart from the painful aspects, showed that boys were taken out of school for extended periods, and often did not return as they fell inexorably behind in their education. Girls, on the other hand, were often severely punished if they happened to walk close to land that was used for “secret men’s business” or otherwise offended “elders”, such as denying an elder’s request for anything. Bess was well aware of the severe inequity between men and women in Aboriginal society, and her marriage to Dave was not only one of love but also a clear demonstration of how women and men can live alongside one another as equals.

It was at that meeting in Alice Springs, where Bess and Dave took me out to “her country”, that I also briefly met Jacinta, who was introduced as a very busy young woman, who toured with her musical band and also was becoming involved in local politics. As time went on she became a councillor in Alice Springs, and I started to notice that she was also calling for the need for Aboriginal tradition to adapt to modern society and to scrutinise the behaviour of its leaders, who have literally got away with murder when they sanction beliefs in sorcery.

No religion is sacrosanct when it comes to the passage of time. Judaism, Christianity and to some extent Islam have all undergone significant reforms in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries in the democratic West, due to women refusing to be treated as chattels, claiming more authoritative roles, and promoting equality in education. Further changes, such as the removal of blasphemy laws, have allowed individuals freedom of conscience in matters of religious belief and practice. Working alongside others in various professions completed the process.

A modern Celtic-Aboriginal woman, Jacinta Price is not alone in wanting the kind of life for her people that other Australians enjoy, holding their traditions in conformity with the laws and norms of modern Australian society. Most Aborigines actually do that already. But for the population in the remote areas, bound by traditional laws and customs, that requires a change of the kind which other traditions have been subjected to, and which for too long has been prevented by a false narrative that “everything’s fine in Dreamtime”.

After twenty-one years of The Spirit of Things, in December 2018 I devoted my last program to Jacinta Price, who made it clear that the way forward for Aboriginal Australians was to have a reform of the kind that feminists have wrought in other traditions, and the elders would have to wear it. And if that means Noel and Marcia, then so be it.

From 1992 to 2018 Rachael Kohn produced and presented programs on religion and spirituality for ABC Radio National including The Religion Report, Religion Today, The Ark and, principally, The Spirit of Things from 1997 to December 2018.