Sculthorpe, Heather --- "Review of Domestic Violence Resource Materials -- Beyond Violence: Finding the Dream" [1990] AboriginalLawB 43; (1990) 1(46) Aboriginal Law Bulletin 15

• Review Of Domestic Violence Resource Materials – Beyond Violence: Finding The Dream

---

Review of Domestic Violence Resource Materials –

Beyond Violence: Finding the Dream

Judy Atkinson (editor)

Office of Status of Women, Canberra, 1990

Reviewed by Heather Sculthorpe

Judy Atkinson has the unenviable title of consultant to the National Domestic Violence Education Program, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander subprogram in the Office of the Status of Women, Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. She is better known as an Aboriginal researcher actively involved in Aboriginal and Islander Affairs in Queensland.

Although Judy Atkinson is described as the editor of the booklet, `Beyond Violence: Finding the Dream' and both the booklet and the video of the same name contain extensive quotations from the Aboriginal people with whom she spoke in the course of the project, there is no doubt that Judy has put much of herself into the works she has produced. The materials arc a moving and impassioned yet reasoned and optimistic account of the problem of domestic violence and what Aboriginal communities may decide to do about it.

Judy Atkinson has created a useful resource. The materials are intended for use in workshops to encourage Aboriginal people to think about what can be done in local communities. The video can be obtained from the Media and Communications Unit of ATSIC in Queensland. Contact ATSIC Regional Offices for the booklets.

I asked a 17 year old Aboriginal woman what she thought of the booklet. She thought it was a great credit to the person who came up with the idea to produce it as it reaches out to women to let them know they arc not alone and makes it easy to understand that women don't have to live with violence.

The layout and the package work by attracting attention with wonderful colours and simple graphics whilst avoiding the worst stereotypes of cowBring battered women or boomerangs and nulla nullas. The format is well organised and the material easy to read. It is written in English at a level appropriate for use as a workshop resource, as intended, and avoids the patronising tone of some materials produced by ATSIC and others who try to produce in oversimplified English what should have been produced in Aboriginal languages.

The video of the same name is intended for use either with the booklet or alone. It is produced by the Queensland ATSIC video unit under Judy Atkinson's direction. From the very beginning the video is obviously a Black production with the Aboriginal nation flag on the opening scene, `Treat Her Right' performed by Casso and the Axons and Marcia Langton saying it all with, "There is no excuse on the planet that justifies this kind of treatment of women and children".

The segments of the video arc divided by stills of beautiful young Aboriginal women who arc not identified by name but whose presence reinforces the idea of the criminality involved in violence against women. The same faces appeared so often that I became annoyed on a first viewing by the fact that they were nameless faces but the second time around the theme song `Treat Her Right' combined with the stills of the faces got its message across.

Both the booklet and the video combine vivid impressions of the enormity of the crime of violence perpetrated on Aboriginal women and children with the optimism inherent in the accounts of what is already occurring in Aboriginal communities throughout Australia to combat the problem and of the further steps which communities might decide to take. They are truly national productions with accounts from most States and Territories (even Tasmania gets a run for a change!) and viewers of the video should see someone they know which makes for added interest.

The materials have the added bonus of providing useful information about contact names, telephone numbers and addresses which can be followed up for more detailed information. Someone must already be using the materials as I am told by the staff of the Hobart Aboriginal Children's Centre which appeared on the video that they have received a number of calls seeking details of their programs.

This brings me to one of the few criticisms I have of the materials. The producers emphasise the need for hope, vision, dreams and optimism. I have the feeling that their belief in these admirable qualities may have sometimes led to an exaggerated account of what is realistically possible in this most enduring aspect of human behaviour. Whilst I recognise that I may be exceptionally cynical and sceptical, I continue to believe that people's expectations should not be raised unrealistically by over optimistic accounts of the current reality or future prospects.

I can believe that proper Aboriginal sovereignty and Aboriginal Government is possible but I have greater difficulty in accepting that the programs described in the `Beyond Violence' materials hold the promise they offer of overcoming violence in Aboriginal communities. They are all admirable programs but let's be aware that much more will be needed to make a noticeable impact on the level and degree of men's violence against Aboriginal women and children. Some of the programs described in the video arc not primarily aimed at overcoming or avoiding violence although hopefully they will have that added spinoff. I got the impression at times that the long list of current activities may fool us about the extent of what is already being achieved; I can't accept, for example, that a conference or a pamphlet in themselves will stop anyone's violence.

The materials recognise the structural violence of the white State against all Aboriginal people and the inadequacies of white law to prevent violence. To the credit of Judy Atkinson and the others who participated in the project these factors are not `blamed' for the violence and there is some attempt to promote the understanding that men must accept responsibility for their actions. But it is a significant weakness of the project that it does not go far enough in promoting recognition of the fact that men must also be the architects of their own salvation; it cannot be left to women to rescue men from themselves we've got a big enough job looking after ourselves and our children.

It is still unfashionable in the Aboriginal community to demand that the interests of women and children must be put before those of men where there is a conflict, as there undoubtedly is in the case of what is politely called `family violence'. We get the message more than once on the video that the men who do the abusing suffer just as much as the women and children who are abused. I do not believe it. It just is not true. If we arc not careful that fallacy will become another myth which we start to believe against all the evidence in the same way that we were previously led to believe that it was only white men who mistreated Aboriginal women or that sexual abuse of children did not exist in Aboriginal communities. I know of no men to whom the following description from the booklet and video would apply:

"Women are so battered I don't know how their bodies can get up in the morning and tend to children ... or not attend to them".

Most of the programs described in the video are designed to assist violent men rather than the women and children who have been subjected to the violence. This is justified on the basis that the violence will continue unless men change their violent behaviour and therefore much effort must be directed at helping men change their behaviour through selfhelp groups, counselling, prison visitor schemes, community justice panel referrals and so on. There is no examination of whether or not men's programs such as these actually work and are worth the resources devoted to them probably at the expense of women's programs.

There is even a hint in the materials of the old notion that women must support men rather than challenge or reject them. I adopt the minority position and disagree. What we are really talking about is not domestic violence or family violence but men's violence. If we hang around and wait for that to change, or even if we make it a major part of our work to try to get men to change, then we are diverting our efforts from where it is most needed, encouraging women to see that a better, non-violent future is possible for themselves and their children. The quickest way for men to recognise that violence towards women is no longer acceptable is for women to turn their backs and save themselves. If we could rely on all women to do this and to reject the excuses, violent men would soon discover they had no option but to cease the violence.

`Beyond Violence' does us all a service by showing Aboriginal women and men who are courageous enough to speak out about the physical, emotional, sexual and psychological violence done to Aboriginal women and children in Aboriginal communities. It was only a few years ago that Aboriginal leaders, all men were adamant that the place of Aboriginal women was behind their men; to support and assist rather than to 'undermine' by daring to mention that women did not really like to be belted by men even if the violence stemmed from oppression and rage. If the `Beyond Violence' booklet and video get the distribution and use they deserve it will be a significant step in assisting Aboriginal communities to seize command of a very real problem and start the process of achieving real change in some very entrenched attitudes.

The project is also important because it recognises that solutions must be tailored to meet the different needs of local communities and that the impetus for change must come from within those communities. To my mind its greatest failing is that it does not say that it is OK for Aboriginal women to put their own survival and that of their children above that of the men who beat and rape them. Let's hope the debate continues and that we get further towards achieving real change before the Aboriginal Provisional Government becomes the Aboriginal Government.