Behrendt, Paul --- "Book Review - Governing Savages" [1992] AboriginalLawB 10; (1992) 1(54) Aboriginal Law Bulletin 18

• Book Review-Governing Savages

---

Book Review -

Governing Savages

Andrew Markus

Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1990.214 pp.

Reviewed by Paul Behrendt

Aboriginal Australians have been, from the outset of European colonisation and until quite recently, a subjugated and managed people. The members of our communities have had to face a more complex regulation of their lives than did the mainstream population of Australia. For one thing, as well as having to abide by common law, Aboriginal people had to contend with legislation that was specifically directed towards them by governments of all states and territories who were committed to the destruction of Aboriginal society.

Historically, there has been an assumption in the minds of the majority of Australians that when authorities enforced government policies concerning Aborigines that this was done with the interests of the Aboriginal people at heart. It was also generally accepted that if harsh measures were to be adopted in implementing these policies, then this was really for the Aborigines' 'own good'. These assumptions, together with the silence of the population at large about the matter, gave moral legitimacy and tacit approval to their actions. This is highlighted early in Governing Savages where the author states:

"In the inter-war period the forcible removal of children was regarded as a matter of course and did not provoke controversy in the world of white Australians." (p22)

In Governing Savages, Andrew Markus examines the attitudes of some of those who were in the forefront of influencing, designing and executing policies and he lays bare the facts concerning the dehumanising of, and oppressive treatment that was inflicted upon, the indigenous people under the guise of 'protection'. Such treatment was suffered by no other section of the community.

But government bodies were not alone in these processes. The denial of basic civil rights and the lack of access to the socio-political system meant that Aborigines were extremely vulnerable to non-government organisations, such as missionary societies, pressure groups and employers and this book looks briefly at some of the areas where Aboriginal people were subjugated and exploited. Chapters are devoted to Pastoralists, Missionaries, Judges, Anthropologists, Bureaucrats and Humanitarians and the author details their influence over the lives of Aboriginal Australians.

In a section sub-headed 'Muscular Christianity' the ruthless authoritarianism of missionaries in 1938 whom, at that time, were still labelling Aborigines as 'savages' is poignantly revealed. One such man of God told a newspaper reporter:

"... when these savages do wrong, the best way of dealing with them is to give them a good beating. They almost grow to love one after and respect a man who goes among them like a Mussolini." (p.75)

The 'wrong' of course was in the eye of the beholder and some missionaries just could not come to terms with the fact that there were many people who had no desire to convert to Christianity and that the imposition of unacceptable moral codes would meet with natural human resistance.

A section is devoted to the anthropologist, A.P. Elkin. He is given quite generous treatment by Markus who highlights some of his positive contributions towards the understanding of our people. But he fails to mention that Elkin was a member of the Aborigines Protection Board of New South Wales during the period of the implementation of some of its most oppressive policies. Indeed, it was Elkin who opposed the attempt by William Ferguson to have an Aboriginal representative on the Board. For all of his perceived sympathetic views one suspects he always maintained the attitude that Markus quotes from an early Elkin article:

'... it is surely of significance that the average size of his [Aboriginal Australian] brain is only about eighty percent of that of the average European, for it is accompanied by the fact that, generally speaking, the power of abstract thinking is not his." (p.145)

With friends like these who needs enemies?

However, Governing Savages is a good book for what it sets out to do and I am sure that many readers will appreciate the irony of the title. I strongly recommend it as a resource for most levels of Aboriginal Studies.

To this reviewer one of the saddest things documented in the book is found in the chapter on 'Aboriginal Voices' which contains a quote from the Aboriginal political advocate William Ferguson. Desperate for. justice, he saw assimilation as our only salvation when he stated:

"...we consider the gradual absorption of the [A]borigines into the white race to be the most practical and natural course for our people." (p.179)

Elkin had done his job well.

Anyway, that's this Aborigines opinion for what it's worth. Eighty percent apparently!