Scene in a street in Oxford: visiting Aboriginal musician, Goomblar Wilo, is playing his didgeridoo. Local bystander instructs him: "You should go to Stonehenge and see where our indigenous people used to live". Goomblar nods genially and says he's just been to Lithuania where he saw stone tools which his people still use.
"That's right," says Bystander, "we used to use them too. Until we became civilised".
Goomblar, his generous beard and long grey hair cascading over his white-painted body which is covered only by a loin cloth, looks thoughtfully round England's oldest university city - its pavements stained with chewing gum, its streets choked by traffic - and replies : "Don't think I'd call this civilised".
Going to polls
It was this same civilisation which did for the Aboriginals in the first place when, just over 200 years ago, the Crown arrived and took possession of their land. Now, when Australians go to the polls on November 6th to decide whether or not they want to keep the Crown - or become a republic - they will have two boxes to tick. The second question asks whether they also want to adopt a new preamble to the constitution which honours "Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, the nation's first people, for their deep kinship with their lands and their ancient and continuing cultures which enrich the life of our country."
Granted the right to vote only in 1960, some Aboriginal people take the preamble to the constitution with a pinch of salt. Having a kinship with the land is one thing. Having your right to ownership of that land recognised and acted on is another. Unfortunately for the Aboriginal people who make up two per cent of the population of Oz, the republic referendum - in which voting is mandatory - is largely a white-dominated happening. The No (anti-republic ) side want to keep the Queen, God bless her, as their state figurehead while the Yes lobby want a true-blue Australian president. And while many feel that reconciliation between white and Aboriginal is a prerequisite for any constitutional change, few regard the preamble as even the first step towards this.
Leading the No campaign is monarchist Kerry Jones, a music graduate with an Irish ancestry, whose office is lined with No banners and stickers and who was happy to pose for the camera with the Australian flag in the background. Familyoriented, she is undeterred by the string of broken marriages within the British Royal Family: "Although we are historically linked to the Crown, we divorce the (royal) family from the debate," she told me. She feels the proposals relating to the election of a president are unclear: "If the republicans want a real president, then that person should be directly elected." The present proposals are for the president to be chosen by parliament rather than by the electorate.
A Yes man
Writer Tom Keneally is an active member of the pro-republic lobby, a Yes man: "As a writer, I try to interpret Australia to readers but an Oz head of state can interpret us to the world at the highest level." He is horrified by the possibility that the NO vote might carry the day: "Can we really vote to remain a colony? What will the world think of us?" Even if the Yes lobby wins - and it's anyone's race at this stage - there's still the question of the presidential candidates. One name being bandied about by the republic lobby is Janet Holmes a Court, Australian businesswoman and theatre owner in London's West End. Another is the leader of the Yes campaign, merchant banker Malcolm Turnbull, the lawyer who represented former MI5 agent Peter Wright in the Spycatcher case.
"Malcolm would like to think he's loved enough", says Keneally, "but I don't think he could afford to take the time off". Turnbull is enigmatic on this: "I'd say they'd be mad to nominate me," he says. "Anyway, if I'd wanted to be involved in politics, I'd have become an MP."
Aboriginal leader
Lowitja O'Donoghue, CBE, a senior Aboriginal leader and member of the Yes committee, is another name being discussed. Fathered by a roving Irish cattleman, she was one of the "stolen children", taken from her mother at the age of two, removed from her culture and given a white, Christian upbringing. Part of a delegation last month to meet Queen Elizabeth II and subsequently visiting Ireland to meet the Travelling community, she will vote yes to the republic and no to the preamble: "As long as we have a monarch, there is no hope of having an Aboriginal as Head of State." Also in the delegation was Professor Marcia Langton, member of the Yiman people who were driven from their lands in the 1800s by incoming graziers. Langton is an outspoken critic of the referendum: "This was Australia's one chance to get it right. What value is the preamble? John Howard says that we have a deep kinship with our land but he doesn't say anything about giving it back to us. Why? Because he thinks we're rockapes. And whether the president is elected directly or not doesn't interest me. If the people vote yes to the preamble, then their business with us is still unfinished and their inglorious relationship with our people continues."
Mary Russell can be contacted at Russel4@ibm.net