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Quanchi, Max (1998) Australia’s South Sea Islanders: A Call for Recognition. Journal of The Pacific Society, pp. 3-19.
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BY
Queensland Unirrersjty of Technology
A ban on the importation into Australia of inden- spoke out. tured labourers from the nearby Solomon Islands, Their call for recognition drew attention to tlie dis- Vanuatu and other Pacific Islands was one of the earliest crimination and disadvantage suffered as a black Acts of the parlialncnt af the newly federated Common- labouring class minority and highlighted the racism wealth of Australia. underpinning the social, economic and cultural position- The Act of 1902 declared that those Islanders al- ing of both immigrant and indigenous Australians as ready in Australia would be sent home. Between 1906 Australia shifted from an anglo-celtic majority to tlie and 1908, 7068 “Kanaltas”, also known mistakenly as multicultural or plural society of the present era. “Polynesians”, were deported and another 194 left The life histories of 19th and 20th century immi- voluntarily, leaving behind about around 2500 who were grants presented in the two recent histories of this small able to claim long residence, property ownership in lslander community, Patricia Mercer’s White Australia Australia, personal danger should they return lo their defied and Carol Gistitin’s Quite a colony, resonate with home island; or who went “bush” and hid until the the experiences of other immigrant communities in Aus- deportation campaign quietened down. tralia. Those deported and those remaining werc the rem- South Sea Islanders, as Mercer notes, suffered mis- nants of an indenture era between 1863 and 1903 when carriages, died in accidents, lobbied Prime Ministers, just over 50,000 Pacific Islander labourers came on three submitted petitions, played in racially segregated “All- year work contracts to the colonies and later states of Black” teams, served in the World War I1 Civil Con- Queensland and New South Wales. struction corps and were involved in other equally Australian South Sea Islanders, as they prefer to be rewarding, tragic or discriminatory experiences. (Mer- known today, trace their life histories back to perhaps cer 1995) a hundred families and a larger number of single me11 Experiences like these suggest that their lives may who later married and had families.“) not have been different from inany other isolated, mrd, In the 1970s and again in the 1990s, conscious of immigrant or indigenous Australians who remained attempts being made by state and federal governments alienated from and unacknowledged by the dominant to incorporate indigenous and immigrant ethnicity in a culturally constituted nation and the politically con- nationing process, this small immigrant community structed state. (4) -1181-
Henry Reynold’s analysis of the status of Australia’s already been directed at Chinese and Japanese labourers two indigenous communities, Australian Aborigines and who were imported or came voluntarily to Australia and Torres Strait Islanders, may be tentatively applied to the new work-place and immigration regulations of the ,Australian South Sea Islanders (Reynolds 1996 155-186) so-called “White Australia Policy” were iiianifestations Following his argument, Australian South Sea Island- of the popular belief that Australia was a nat.ioi1 for ers, in relation to the state, were also beyond the pale, “whites”. ignored and voiceless in the apparatus of state and polity. Although South Sea Islanders failed in their attempl Although not a nation within the nation, as Aborigi- to rescind the deportation regulations they were able nal Australians proclaimed, the South Sea Islander im- to achieve more huniane treatment and to influence some migrant community sought incorporation on the basis government policy in their favour. of a similar record of marginality. Clive Moore suggests that these achievements were far more reniarlcable than those of the 1970s and 1990s Their call in the 1970s for recognition as a disad- pressure groups and suggests that “to organise and speak vantaged ethnic immigrant minority was overlooked as out for an ethnic minority while policics and opinion European and Asian immigrant communities demanded were dominated by ‘White Australia’ fervour were acknowledgment and South Sea Islanders remained in achievements indeed. At the t.ime the wider public would the background as Aboriginal Australians and Torres never have imagined that ‘coloured’ or ‘black’ people Strait Islanders campaigned for reconciliation, land could get organised and speak at the highest level of rights, regional autonomy and federal and state a government”.(2’ tance. It was truly a remarkable turn around, after a gen- After the deportation era, the remaining small South eration of rebuttal in the late 1970s, that the Australian Sea Islander community disappeared from the anglo- government in 1994 formally recognised Australian Celtic historical record for sixty years living as fringe- South Sea Islanders as a discrete immigrant minority dwellers, marginalised from mainstream society, mar- and introduced a series of financial packages to alle- rying into Aboriginal Australian and Torres Strait Is- viate many of the educat.iona1, employment, cultural and lander extended families and dispersing along the eastern social disadvantages which Australian South Sea Island- Australian coast looking for a home and work. ers faced. They remained a fragmenled community. Small clus- ters were spread as they had been during the nineteenth The following discussion falls into three parts; an century indentured labour period, across a variety of introductory survey of the period from the deportalion rural industries and d0niest.k service stretching from era, which left a small residue Islander community Cairns in Queensland’s far north, to the agricultural ambiguously placed in rural Queensland, a brief account district of the northern New South Wales coast, two of the lobbying canipaigns of the 1970s and the suc- thousand kilometres to the south. cessful call for recognition in the 199Os, and finally these During this period, a trickle of government assis- e.vents are examined in the context of constructions of tance was directed towards Australia’s two indigenous ethnicity and the nation being contested in Australia. communities, and many South Sea Islanders were forced
3: ili ,I: * :i: to rely on support available through these Aboriginal .4ustralian and Torres Strait Islander social security, In the 1901-1908 period, “Kanakas” lobbied Parlia- education, community and other assistance programs. ments and Prime Ministers, addressed Royal Commis- sions, travelled south to distant Melbourne and formed Faith Bandler, a well known act.ivist for Ahorigine and later Islander rights, lamented that her fellow associations in cities along the Queensland and New Islanders accepted being identified Aborigines in order South wales coast to coordinate a campaign against de- as portation. to obtain government benefits. This was an era in which anglo-Celtic hegemony was “1 was saddened by that and I feared they would unquestioned. Discriminatory colonial legislation had lose thek identity,” (Moore, Quanchi, Bennett, 1997, 57) Journal of The Pacific Society / October 1998 / NO. 80 - 81. (Vol. 21, No. 3 - 4 ) ( 5 ) - 180 -
Choosing to be identified as an Aboriginal Australian coming out of the campaign for Aboriginal Australian in order to receive scholarships and housing loans was citizenship, had a chance meeting with newly elected a denigrating rejection of their own Pacific Islander Labour Party Prime Minister Gough Whillam at an elec- identity. torate meeting in northern New South Wales. She pointed out that the fuzzy haired supporters at the back South Sea Islanders like Faith Bandler were active of the Labour Party meeting “were all my mob” and contributors to a rising black consciousness in Austra- that they had several grievances particular to their lia, but eventually Islanders was realised they had to I>8~uth Sea Islander community. distance themselves from Aboriginal Australian and Faith tells the story that Whitlam replied by throw- Torres Strait Islander programs if they were to gain ing a question back to her-”Why don’t you form an recognition as a discrete ethnic minority. organization Faith?” (Bandler 1994) These uncertainties were compounded by conflict- Following informal and formal meetings along the ing identities within the Islander community. Maniage coast, ASSIUC was formed in 1975 and branches were across the three black communities and with the anglo- set up in areas of concentrated South Sea Islander popu- Celtic or other immigrant communities, with the duality lation. The first national conference was held in Mackay imposed by alternating affirmation and denial of their in May 1975. Although there was considerable cover- ethnic identity, detracted from calls for unity in the age in the Maclcay Daily Mercury, in the southern, community against the distant Brisbane based state capital-city based newspapers and media the event government and Canberra based federal governmcnt. passed by virtually without notice. In the 1 970s, aftera hiatus lasting sixty years, Aus- The of ASSIUC were succinct, easily translated tralian South Sea Islanders organised against the state aims into dollars and included along with other more spe- and federal governments, seeking a share of the fund- cific demands, action “to get legislation passed which ing for cultural, social, educational and economic ad- will provide the additional assistance necessary to enable vancement being directed to Aboriginal Australians, South Sea Islanders to attain quality of life with other Torres Strait Kslanders and recent immigrant ethnic Australians”. (Daily Mercury, Mackay, 10 May 1975). minorities, but from which they, as a long-term black These were aims which resonated in the 1970s with immigrant group were excluded. national debates on participation, equity and access, and The forming of ASSIUC (Australian South Sea Is- particularly a rising consciousness that Australia had a lander United Council) signaled the start of an active complex immigrant ethnic population and that inclusive- but brief period of lobbying. In a widely dispersed, open- ness was preferable policy to assimilation or plurality. ended community, the awareness that lobbying could Well organised, with educated, articulate .leaders, ac- be influential grew out of the 1960s Aboriginal Aus- knowledged in high placed and benefiting fi:oin a tralian citizenship campaigns in which many South Sea national debat.e on ethnicity and multiculturalism, it Islanders played an active part. seemed South Sea Islanders were poised to make sig- This was a period in Australian political history when nificant gains. the power of lobbying became apparent and single- interest groups rushed to create formal, representative The lobbyists of the 1970s were unified in purpose and bureaucratic organizations in the cites where de- and clearly cognizant of the mechanisms and intrigues cisions were being made. necessary to become a successful lobby group. The Federal Council for the Advancement of There were significant differences from their prede- Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders (FCAATST) cessors in the post-1901 deportation era; they were still campaigned nationally and successfully over the 1967 widely spread from northem New South Wales to Caims referendum, and in the early 1970s with Aboriginal in the far north, there were more woinen at the fore- Australians having gained a vict0t.y (partially), South front compared to the mostly single niale membership Sea Islanders adopted a similar lobbying pathway. which had characterised the Islander community during In 1973, ni-Vanuatuan descendent Faith Bandler, the anti-deportation campaign, leadership was now (6) -179- voiced through families and extended cousin-brother Neither report had any impact on thc new federal relationships and spokespersons were adept at manipu- conservative government’s policy or funding. Further lating the conventions of print and non-print media and obstacles arose when South Sea Islanders, seeking to propaganda. distance themselves in order to gain separate recogni- Cultural
October 1993, was attended by thirty community social security and poverty in Australia)’ and the res- representatives. Discussion ranged over fifteen agreed toration of two Bundberg buildings with heritage ties upon issues and a needs-analysis-scrategies document to the recruitment era. was drafted. The community was also declared to be a “distinct Little that was noted in this ‘wish-list’ was even- ethnic group” and a high-need “access and equity” tually implemenled, but the angst, the deep probing by group. South Sea Islander leaders and community representa- In October 1994 the federal government formally and tives into existing bureaucracies and agencies and the publicly launched the “Call for Recognition” package demand for advancement that permeated its strategies of benefits and other policies and shortly after a trav- was compelling evidence. eling exhibition on Australian South Sea Islander cul- The federal government, worldng to draft a response ture and history was launched at the Australian Mari- to the HREOC report, could sense that at the summit time Museum, Sydney and later at the Queensland there was a “genuine show of strength and determina- Museum iu Brisbane. tion in pursuing coinmon goals.” (Mackay Summit 1993, The exhibition subsequently traveled along the east- 1) In August 1994 the HREOC report and the federal ern coast and will possibly be shown in Vanuatu and government’s package of funding and policy directives the Solonion Islands. Several Islanders voiced disap- were tabled in parliament by the Attorney General. proval of the guest lists at the Sydney and Brisbane functions, claiming that the selection of a “chosen few” The HREOC report had begun by stating that South from the Islander community was an insult to the Sea Islanders were “the only race of people in this unrepresented majority. country’s history to be subjected to mass deportation” A Mackay group called “Concerned members of the and that “they have not been recognised as a discrete South Sea Island Community” wrote an open letter ethnic and cultural group by Australian legislators and calling for unity within the 1sland.er community and policy makers”. (HREOC 1992 2). between Aborigine, Torres Strait Islanders and South Sea In his speech to parliament when tabling \he docu- Islanders. ment in August 1994, the Atlormy General chose his The writers demanded that care be taken to repre- . words carefully, noting that some. were “brought against sent Islander families accurately by always iiialcing it their will. In other words they were treated no better clear “on whose behalf the statements were being than slaves. That is the ugly truth or the matter”. made”.@) (Hansard 1994, 397) These sentiments, in a climate of largesse and in- The decision to cornmission the Evatt Foundation creasing competition between ethnic groups for govern- and HEOC research was clearly victim-driven. Yet ment funding and support, reflect the divisions which having attracted aclcnowledgement and influenced pow- returned to characterise the South Sea Islander commu- erful policy makers, the Islanders were now manipu- nity in Australia. Older loyalties surfaced and the al- lating their oppressors and forging an accommodation legiance to island-of-origin, extended family and geo- of their own shaping. graphic locality, tended to challenge attempts for a single The government package promised a “boost for South voice from a discrete united Islander community, Sea Islander culture” including funded trips by Austra- By the time the government response to the HREOC lian South Sea Islanders back to their homelands, a report was tabled in parliament, the revitalised ASSIUC national schools curriculum package, a traveling histori- ceiiwd executive was again failing to attract member- cal exhibition, the funding of two community liaison ship from what is a relatively a small community and offers, a scholarship and educational support scheme, it was being challenged by small groups and comnit- a departmental research project to gather data on the tees formed in opposition and reflecting localised in- corninunity (embarrassingly not available despite the terests. army of bureaucrats and quasi-government agencies The history of Australian South Sea Islanders related which monitor housing, health, education, employment, Journal of The Pacific Society / Oct,ober 1998 / No. 80 - 81 (Vol. 21, No. 3 - 4 1 ( 9 j - 176 - above is little known by other Australians. School books encing facility. repeat the now contested slave trade-sugar plantation It was from the start a brilliant concept, marrying version of South Sea Islander’s early involvement and Islander voices with educators, curriculum developers the print media continues to ignore both the historio- and university scholars and the results deliionstrate the graphical debate about kidnapping and the Islanders value of this collaborative strategy. wider contribution in the pastoral, agricultural and The writing process was not without dispute as Is- industrial economy of Queensland. landers questioned the process of writing, noticeably For example, a recent atlas commissioned by the centred in Brisbane, laclcing Islandel teacher represen- Queensland government acknowledges that most came tation and indeed flawed by over-centralised control of to Australia voluntarily but still highlights ‘blaclcbirding’ the development stages and a lack of consensus within (Wadley 1996 31) and a new text book and atlas by the Islander community as to who should serve on the a Queensland educational publisher only had references management commit,tee. to a “slave trade” in Queensland removed after this The main point of debate, however, was over the writers protest as one of the co-authors. (Cousens 1996 ‘history’ that should be conveyed in the materials. The 186) Townsville Community Reference Group reviewed the The kidnapped-voluntary indenture dichotomy sur- materials and insisted that the text book contain a faced in the cooperative curriculum writing venture rebuttal of the authors interpretation on the question of funded as a rcsuh of the federal government’s 1994 slavery. Their insertion in the text reads, “This does not policy package. The question of whether Islanders acknowledge the truth of history. It favours the testi- should be portrayed as voluntary indentured workers, mony of white historians and not the oral history of or as kidnapped slaves of the Australian capitalist the elders”. (Moore, Quanchi, Bennett, 1997,37) economy, caused strains between the mostly non-islander The writers took the view that history, as everywliere, text book writers and the wider South Sea Islander was a contested, texted domain. On the crucial point community. (More 1997) of nineteenth century kidnapping, the writing team The idea to develop curriculum materials for schools agreed that the majority of Islanders had not been Icid- which would allow students to study Islaiider history napped. This denial of victim status annoyed South Sea and culture had been initiated by a coinmi ttee formed Islander committee members and regional respondents in Mackay in 1992. A group of local teachers had been who were invited to critique the early drafts of-the worried that a package of materials on Aboriginal history material. and culture, “Harmony in between”, which was being This came to a fine point when debate centred on introduced in Maclcay schools, would further marginalise the use of the phrasing “came to Australia” or “brought Islander history. to Australia’’, the former was judged to be denying Is- They wanted to introduce- a parallel set of materials landers the harsh treatment and discrimination they on ‘South Sea Islander history and culture. Over the next suffered - the latter being preferred because it stressed two years the group lobbied politicians, state and fed- the slavery story line. Other respondents queried the eral education authorities, gathered the support of mention of “bachelor families” claiming it suggested the Senator Margaret Reynolds and findly with support from mostly single male Islander population had lived in ho- the Queensland Education Department, won funding in mosexual relationships. Others wanted to remove ex- August 1994 for a $150000 national curriculum writing tracts in which Islanders were recorded by scribes project.(j] speaking in “pidgin English” before the 1906 Royal The management committee of the project, represent- cornniission into labour in the sugar industry. ing the Education Department, regional Islander groups, It womed Islander respondents when reviewing the teacher associations and universities, held its first material, that this depicted Islanders as uneducated and meeting in Brisbane in September 1994. It subsequently having difficulty conversing with Europeans. That Is- meet several times either in Brisbane or by teleconfer- landers needed to be seen as victims in the past in order to gain political advantage in the present was not a and growing public interest in the fate of indigenous discourse readily entered into by Island community South Africans emerging out of apartheid and of Maori members of the committee or by regional respondents. in Aeteoroflew Zealand seeking to re-define the inean- ing of the Waitangi Treaty and to put into place ben- The final draft of the school text books reflected the efits arising from the “Sea Lord” judgement over fish- presumed consensus of Islander community opinion, ing rights and Maori entitlements. which was appropriate as the project had originated in All this occurred in a national ferment which saw that community, had been pursued by that community other immigrant communities in Australia emerging to through to funding and publication, and as nationally run their own radio and television programs, participate distributed set of curriculum materials should rightly be in a plethora of so-called multicultural fiestas and fes- reflective of Islander community attitudes. tivals and proudly and vocally proclaim their dual The difficulty with this resolution was that it was Australian-Laotian, Australian-Maltese or other dual never cleu to the management committee whether the national identities. assumed community opinion represented the voices of 4s other immigrant minorities benefited from in- a few with access to the management committee, or creased government and cominunity support, the time was derived from a wider community consensus. was also opportune for South Sea Islanders to claim The underlying principle for Islanders throughout was and be rewaded with a place in constructions of the that they wanted to tell their version of the past and nation. The South Sea Islanders effort in the 199Os, after that if certain Islander or non-Islander teachers, edu- several decades of failure, was ultiniately one of the cators or scholars had contrary ideas they could be heard most successful lobbying campaigns in Australian but not allowed to prejudice the telling of the “Island- political history. ers as victims” story. The issue was in the end unresolved and the ma- However, media response to the gains by Islanders terials distributed with a warming that all versions of demonstrated that long-held niytlis about slavery and the past are open to challenge, and that teachers and kidnapping would not fade away. students need to be aware of the contested domains they The major Brisbane daily newspaper responded to enter. the HREOC report with a headline - “Forgotten people” - but the bulk of the supporting story was about battle- The announcement of the federal government’s pack- ships on recruiting trips, whippings in the fields and age of benefits was a remarkable turn around in the individuals who had been “bought and sold’’. long campaign for recognition, which it could be ar- A suburban Brisbane newspaper used the headline gued, began with the anti-deportation campaigns of the - Blackbird descendents - built followed it with a byline 1902-08 period. Success, finally in the 199Os, was due calling on Australians to remember there was “a black to South Sea Islanders efforts but they had the advan- slave trade here”. tage of a receptive federal Labour Party government, In Mackay The Daily Mercury offered a more and benefited by an overflow effect from campaigns balanced response, highlighting the discrimination that to convince Australians that reconciliation was needed existed because of Islanders skin colour and calling for with Aboriginal Australians to atone for past sins. further action to be talcen so the report did not just “sit The Evatt and HREOC reports also attracted pub- there”. licity in a legislative climate that had just seen Mer As the government paclcage was being put together (Murray) Islanders in the Torres Strait granted ‘native in response to the HREOC report, the Minister for tenure’ and recognition as the original landowners of their islands, over-turning the terra nullis principle that Pacific Island Affairs, Gordon Bilney, visited the had allowed Europeans to alienate land in Australia for Solomon Islands where he announced that the govern- over 200 years. ment would take part in “an act of reconciliation with These internal changes were in a climate affected Australian South Sea Islanders and the countries of their by the International Year of Indigenous peoples (1993) ancestors’’.(6) Journal of The Pacific Society / October 1998 / No. 80 - 81 (Vol. 21, No. 3 - 4 ) (11) - 174 -
This grand international reconciliation gesture, per- Australia’s most famous national and international petuating a victim status, never eventuated because the rugby league player, Mal Meninga, a hero to South Sea Minister was quietly made aware that the gesture was Islanders, was regularly described as an Aboriginal inappropriate given the historical circumstances of Australian. Islander agency in their involvement in the labour trade. Even in districts where South Sea Islanders were a Meanwhile in Australia, the success to happily cel- significant population, they were excluded from the ebrated by South Sea Islanders along the Queensland conquest and celebratory histories written about local coast, passed virtually un-noticed by the state and sugar mills and pastoral districts, appearing only in token national media, and therefore by the vast majority of photographs as sugar cane field workers or standing the Australian population located in southern states and before their bladey-grass residences and cook-house~.(~) capital cities. In national identity debates since the 1970~‘~)anglo - The narratives of South Sea Islander life histones Celtic identities have been in retreat, suiyendering to the in Australia are contextualised for much of thc twen- pervasive claims of Aboriginality and to a lesser de- tieth century by social and political changes from which gree, western and soutliern European and Asian immi- South Sea Islanders could not benefit. grant identities. In the nineteenth and again in the twentieth centu- Discussions on Australian national identity in this ries, Australian South Sea Islanders were not aclcnowl- period had become dominated by acquiescence to the edged as a distinct ethnic community and in the centrality of indigenous Australian culture, but the de- eurocentric and racist manner of the day were consid- scendents of Pacific Islanders, who were claiming to ered “blacks” and categorised along with Aboriginal be Australia’s third indigenous community, were rarely Australians and Torres Strait Islanders, denying them if ever considered in this debate. both their Pacific Island identity and full Australian This exclusion and rebuttal occurred despite a series citizenship. of texts, films and biographies which highlighted as- This situation was further confused after the depor- pects of their 130 years of marginality. These books tation era by inter-marriage, the lack of any obvious and television documentaries were greeted warmly by unity, smallness of population and geogmphic isolation the few academics familiar with this history, and by in niral and coastal Queensland, with the majority living Islanders, but the impact on the attitudes and opinions far CO the north of Brisbane the state capital, and nearly of the wider reading and viewing public was probably completely cut off froin the Sydney-Canberra-Melbourne minimal. nexus which dominated Australian social, political and With Clive Moore’s Kanalta; a lzisrory of Melanesian, economic life. Mackay (1984.), Carol Gistitin’s Quite a colony; South Patricia Mercer notes succinctly in White Australia Sea Islanders in Central Queensland (1995) and Patricia defied, that they were a small group of Australians who Mercer’s White Australia dejied (1 993, the histones of “lived an isolated, semi-rural existence, clustering mostly this community had been well In addition in virtually self-contained communities within the sugar to Faith Bandler’s autobiographies and fiction Wacvie, growing districts”. (1996 304.) Marani, Turning the tide and Welou my brother, Mabel Edmunds published No regrets and Hello Jolzniiy and Any chance of recognition or inclusion in a prob- Noel Fatnowna published Fragments of a lost hetitage. lematic Australian national identity was obscured by the Australian South Sea Islanders also featured in a Australian media practice of associating leading South series of radio and television documentaries starting in Sea Islanders with the indigenous Aboriginal commu- the active lobbying days of the early 1970s - “The Is- nity. In the 1960s the most prominent writer to emerge landers” on Bill Peach’s Australia on ABCTV (1975), €ram the South Sea Islander community, Faith Bandler, “Forgotten People” in the Big Country series on ABCTV was usually identified as a Aborigine spokesperson for (1978), “The Forgotten people” on ABC radio (1978, the black Australian community in their struggle for released as book, Moore 1979), “ICidnapped” on SBSTV citizenship, (1989), “Return to Vanuatu” on Dateline on SBSTV This was overdue acknowledgment of the heritage (1993) “Australian biographies; Faith Bandler” on value of many Queensland buildings and sites. In the SBSTY (1994) and ‘‘Sugar Slaves” on The Big Picture Illustrated Register of the Nalional Estate, a seminal on ABCTY (1955). However, achowledgement arising and world recognised inventory oT “things worth keep- from this exposure was minimal. ing” in Australia, (Australian Heritage Commission The impact may be judged by reference to the flood 1981) not one of the 6600 items included aspects of of histories and descriptive accounts published during South Sea Islander’s Australian heritage. the 1988 bicentenary of European invasion/settlement. In the face of this indifference, the restoration of Islanders were overlooked with the exception of an entry the Homebush Hall was a typical Islander and local com- in the officially commissioned The Australian people; munity effort, restored with a mixture of local fund- an encyclopedia of the nation, irs people and their ori- raising and State government grants, overseen by the gins.“”’ (JUPP 1988 722-27) South Sea Islander Trustees of the initially derelict building. Although most Australians had heard of “Kanakas,” In an editorial on the re-opening of the hall, The individual Islanders rarely achieved prominence. Daily Mercury in Mackay regretted that racist attitudes When Noel Fatnowna was appointed inaugural Com- had surfaced during recent elections in the district but missioner for Pacific Islanders by the Queensland claimed that South Sea Islander heritage was increas- government in 1977-1983, Faith Bandler was awarded ingly valued in a multicultural Australia. On the posi- an Honorary Doctorate from Macquarie University in tive side, recently Islanders have been acknowledged 1994, Me1 Meninga captained Australia and retired from in national indigenous reconciliation campaigns, shar- a glorious rugby football career and Baden Choppy ing space with Abariginal Australian and Torres Strait became a hockey medallist for Australia at the 1996 Islanders in locally published material such as the Atlanta Olympics, their achievements were widely Mackay City Council’s “Coming together” pamphlet publicised in the Islander community, but their South released in 1994.(13) Sea Islander origins were either unknown to commen- tators or ignored in the state and national media. These signposts in the local, state and national arena, impressive in terms of what some Australian South Sea In the regions where South Sea Islanders live, nu- Islanders have achieved in recent years, were not vis- merous church and mission groups have publicly coni- ible outside their own community and were not dra- memorated the anniversary of their founding or the matic enough to change policy, practice or levels of building of early chapelsIi1)and in the 1988 Bicentenary public awareness.(’4) These minor gains in terms of celebrations in Mackay, home to a large South Sea recognition were swamped in radio, television and print Islander community, a visiting Solomon Island group media by constructions of multicultural Australia, re-enacted the landing of a cargo of indentured labourers Aboriginal Australia and particularly debates about along the Pioneer River. This was a rare acknowledg- Mabo, Wik, native title and local autonomy for the ment of the significant role South Sea Islanders played Torres Strait Islands. in Mackay ’s founding and subsequent development as In 1989, the Torres Strait was described in the media a key city in rural and coastal Australia.“z’ as “our rebel islands” (The Age, Melbourne, Feb 1 1989). At Rockhampton in the annual Capricornia street pa- This campaign attracted exceptional media attention rade a local South Sea Island Cultural Committee float when it culminated in 1992, after a ten year court battle, won fxst prize, prominently displaying the slogan “South in the granting of native title to Australia’s original and Sea Islanders: Australia’s forgotten people” and there have been campaigns more recently to conserve heri- indigenous landowners, usually referred to as the tage sites linlccd to South Sea Islander history such as “Mabo” decision, (Loos and Maba 1996) the Homebush Hall, Yeppoon’s wagon trail, the old sea The sovereignty question continued with the federal wall at Rockhampton and “Kanaka” sections of cem- government calling for submissions in August 1996 for eteries at Joskeleigh and Bundaberg. a Parliamentary inquiry into “greater autonomy for the Journal of The Pa.cific Society / October 1998 / No.80 - 81 (Vol. 21., No. 3 - 4) (13) - 172 -
Torres Strait Islanders”. In 1996, the High Court of a record of survival as an ethnic immigrant minority Australia passed judgement on the potential for extin- sought an audience and inclusion in a dominant anglo- guishment of native title throughout Australia in in- Celtic nation state. stances where it conflicted with pastoral leases, lcnown The link between identity, ethnicity and constructing now as the “Wik” decision. a nation has been the subject of a number of mono- The small Islander community lacked newsworthiness graphs and symposia in Australia and against these more radical, indigenous Torres Strait Although the structures, models and processes offered Islander and Aboriginal Austrahan campaigns and events. in these debates inform my analysis and the brief The success of the 1990s lobbying can judged against account offered here, application is discontinuous be- a broader canvas, and while indeed successful, any gains cause Australian South Sea Islanders do not form an were greatly overshadowed by what were seen to be homogenous ethnic minority and are not being defined more significant “national” assertions of identity. The by colonial boundaries, occupational categories, shared South Sea Islander’s marginality was evident in media beliefs, or a common culturc or kastonz. They are not concentration on the so-called Australian nation, said an original indigenous community. to be explicit or implied in the songs of Aboriginal rock Their identity, relying on a Lamarckian “acquisi.tion band Yothu Yindi and Torres Strait Islander singer of essential characteristics” (Linnekin and Poyer 1990 Christine Anu, or the Aboriginal flag-carrying of ath- 9) is modified by transportation and divorce from islands lete Cathy Freeman(I5). of origin, and in the post-deportation era as a black Calls for a stronger Asian-Australian alignment labouring class, by marginality and partial immersion pushed the status of Australia’s South Sea Islanders in a dominant anglo-Celtic polity and society. South Sea further to the fringe of debates and in the nationing of Islanders were not state-less, being under the protection Australia and the association of images and symbols of the British empire before 1901, and later the Com- with national character and future prospects, South Sea monwealth of Australia, but they were nation-less. Islanders remained an invisible, or at best, an ignored Potential incorporation as a community into the ill- minority. defined Australian national identity or Australian way Graeme Turner suggests the form of “nationalism” of life (White 1979; White 1981; Hocking 1990; Nile which prevailed in Australia was “incapable of incor- 1994) was confused and mediated by South Sea Island- porating and is therefore implicitly hostile to the ers being categorised as Aboriginal Australians and multiplicity of identities and histories currently compet- Tolres Strait Islanders. ing for representation within the discourses of nation- Two further elements of incorporation are relevant. ality”. (1992 10) Islanders remained in a government and management To borrow David Lloyd’s phrasing, this was a re- structure similar to Aboriginal Australians and Jeremy jection or contestation in which an ethnic community Beckett’s description of Aboriginal Australians in Aus- asserted a minority discourse (involving its traditions, tralian society as a “unitary minority managed through histories and separateness) against the wreight of a specialized institutional structures that can properly be dominant state formation which threatened to destroy ternied colonial” (Beckett 1989 119), also applies to it. (1994 221-238 and 20) Islanders. In a critique of Benedict Anderson’s argument about In recent times both Aboriginal Australians and South nationalisms, Renato Rosaldo asked for acknowledgment Sea Islanders have been incorporated into the state that marginalised minorities suffer actual discrimination, through government action. Beckett takes the colonial because for “historically subordinated groups, questions relationship one step further, referring to a liberal, of social justice and full citizenship in national com- solicitioiis “welfare colonialism”. Aboriginal Australians, munities are not academic but matters of sheer survival”. and extending the model to Islanders, have not been (1994 252) exploited or repressed by this welfare colonialism, but The South Sea Islander story in Australia is indeed have gained a new, less discrete identity. This incorporation, or welfare colonialism, is a state encroaching assimilationist trends, while still seelung 1.0 strategy for “managing the political problem posed by benefit from what the state and nation can provide. the presence of a depressed and disenfranchised indig- Islanders managed to achieve, albeit briefly and tenu- enous population in an affluent and liberal democratic ously, inclusion in an imagined nationality and achieved society”. (Beckett 1989 122) This incorporation, both equity and social justice while maintaining difference the seeking to manipulate it and the seeking to deny and ethnic identity. Their experience exemplifies the it, is central to understanding the complex dynamics ideal state argued for by Rosaldo as excluded or through which Islanders emerged to claim a small space marginalised groups negotiate inclusion in national in what is called Australia. imaginings and “reforge the national community in ways Identity as a South Sea Islander in Australia, deter- that allow for mutual recognition of socially significant mined by island-of-origin differences, multiple ances- differences of gender, sexual orientation and race”. try, anglo-Celtic hegemony and competition from black (Rosaldo 1994 240 and 251) cousin-brothers in the wider indigenous comniunity, does Amid the clamouring of other ethnic, minority and not fit notions or models of nationing primarily because immigrant groups in the contested space that is Aus- Australian South Sea Islanders remained citizens of the tralia, Soutli Sea Islanders briefly repositioned thern- state, and did not seek separatism or threaten to frag- selves as a district culturally constituted group with the ment the dominant policy or society. imagined nation and gained recognition and aclcnowl- They were not an “entrapped nation” (Falk cited in edgement for their contributions to the nation. For the Reynolds 1996 xiiij nor did their grievance lead them descendents of a small dispersed community of black to challenge (he dominant culture, state or nation. immigrant workers, that was quiet an achievement. Australian South Sea Islanders might want to change Maintaining that unified, community position now that the advertising slogan on the cover of Henry Reynold’s their brief appearance on the national political stage is recent book from “Three nations, one Australia” to read over is the next challenge. “four nations”, but they were not a large enough nor recognised entity nor were they indigenous Australians. Notes Their campaign has similarities to that of Solomon Island contemporaries, the Santa Isabel Islanders, who 1 I am grateful to Dr Clive Moore for several sought to define their position internally (,on-island) as suggestions regarding substance and evidence cited in a discrete cultural entity and externally (off-ishndj to this paper and for allowing access to archival and other position themselves advantageously against the colonial- material in his possession. driven construct or state known as the Solomon Islands. 2 See, Moore (1989 274-911, Mercer (1996 76- As Geoff White notes in his study of Santa Isabel, 110) and Bennett, Moore and Quanchi (1996, 71) “narratives of the past do pragmatic work as cultural 3 A study of 160 years of Aboriginal Australian tools building both self-understanding and socio-poBti- newspapers (Rose 1996) revealed chat Aboriginal com- cal realities”.(I7)(1991 240) Rosaldo (1994 242-3) notes mentators, and opinion leaders, suprisingly echoed that similar internal-external motivations affect the mainstream, anglo-Celtic opinion about appropriate Ilongot of northern Luzon in the Philippines, who do government policy and advancement, rather than a not regard themselves part of the nation state, but who radical, alternative indigenous voice. There were no also have been drawn into and seek to benefit from the equivalent South Sea Islander newspapers, however, this non-llongot Filipino nation as consumerism, develop- trend is evident in the few occasional and short-lived ment and capitalism encroach on their lands. South Sea Islander newsletters which were neither Santa Isabel Islanders, Ilongot and Australian South overtly political nor asserted a radical or uiiified plat- Sea Islanders have negotiated this contested domain - form. Newsletters in the 1990s such as Nuise Bloizg Bimi asserting their identity and maintaining a degree of sepa- (Rockhampton), Yunii Tok (Sydney) and Wnntok rateness against an imagined national comlnunity and (Mackay) carry both community and political news, but Journal of The Pacific Society / October 1998 / No.80 - 81 (Vol. 21, No. 3 - 4 ) (15) - 170 - refrain from provocative editorial comment. to celebrate the centenary of the establislzmertr of the 4 Letters to the Editor, Australian, June 12 1991. Kanaka Mission at Childers, Qld, 1st January lS93, A letter appeared with the similar text and pseudonyms Brisbane, Kenmore Christian College (8 pages); Andrew in the Maclwy Meimry, June 7 1991, signed by Beryce C and Kennedy R, A conzmunity history of the Boah and Gaye Miller, presumably the authors of the Hoinebiish Mission hall 1S92-1996, Mackay, ASSIUC Australian letter. (76 pages). 5 The Queensland Education Department’s contri- 12 The proposal for a re-enactment attracted both bution of $AUD75000 was on a 1.1 basis with the favourable and negative responses with Aboriginal federal government see, National Aboriginal and Toms groups wanting to use the occasion to demonstrate over Strait Islander Education Policy (NAEP) Islander sub- federal and state political issues, and South Sea Island- committee, Correspondence Mar 10 1992-Dec 16 1993. ers wanting to malce their point against “white Austra- (Mrs Cynthia McCarthy kindly provided this material); lians” who had ignored the Islander’s role in local Papers and Correspondence, Austruliaii South Sen Is- history; this minor controversy may be followed in the lander Curricubrn Project Manageinent Committee, The Dnily Mercuiy (Maclay) Sept 21 and 22 1987, Oct 1994-1996, (held by the author, a participant in the man- 7 1987, May 7, 9 and 10 1988; the Courier-Mail agement committee and the writing team). The follow- (Brisbane) May 6 1988. ing paragraphs are based on the recollections of the 13 The text mamed oral testimony of elders with author as a participant in the events oullined. narralive background material from scholarly worlcs. 6 See, Courier-Muil, Brisbane, June 12 1993; The This pamphlet illustrates two recent trends in Australia Daily Mercury, Maclcay, 23 July 1993; Tlie Age, - the increasing popularity of history/public history, and Melbourne, Sept 21 1993; Sydney Moriiirzg Herald, the merging of traditional and modern dynamics in Sydney, Sept 21 1993. community and social politics. 7 South Sea Islanders fare no better in pictorial 14 Prior to 1995 there was no university subject histories. Two photographs appear in Cannon’s best devoted to the study of Australia’s South Sea Islanders. selling Australian collection (1983 92) and seven in This was partly corrected when I began teaching an Waterson and French’s Queensland collection (1987 26- undergraduate course “HUB627 Australia and the Pa- 9 and 189). cific Islands” in which a third of the subject matter was 8 This debate shows no sign of abating. The on South Sea Islanders in Australia. holding of an “Identities, ethnicities, nationalities” 15 A South Sea Islander popular rock band, sports conference at Latrobe University in July 1994, a star, public figure or actor has yet to claim national “Nationalism and national identity” Summer School attention, claiming space in the nationing process in the conference at the Humanities Research Centre, ANU, way that singer Christine Anu, for Torres Strait Island- Canberra in February 1996, and an “Indigenous rights ers, land rights lawyer Noel Pearson, athlete Cathy and political theory” conference in July 1997 at the Freeman and rock band Yothu Yindi, for Aboriginal Research School of Social Sciences, ANU,are typical Australians, represent their past possession of Ausualia of the scholarly interest. and present struggles for recognition. Ironically, Island- 9 To this date there is no historian from within ers in the open labour market or escaping deportation, the South Sea Islander community, though the auto- who moved to the Torres Strait, inter-marrying with biographical works of Noel FaLnowna and Faith Bandler Torres Strait Islanders or the large Pacific Islander may be considered in this category. community that had migrated there in the 19th century, 10 The entries on South Sea Islanders in Jupp thereby gained the Australian citizenship denied their (1988) were written by Kay Saunders and Clive Moore. compatriots who stayed as “kanakas” in Queensland. 11 Typical examples of small celebratory pamphlets 16 There is little evidence that Australian South Sea include, South Sea Evangelical Church in tlze Solomon Islaiiders feel a common purpose with Maori, Native Islands Celebrates 100 yrs, Brisbane, South Sea Evan- American, Inuit or other indigenous disadvantaged gelical Mission (SSEM) (8 pages); Messengers of Grace, minorities, or have tried to establish a link with their (16) -169- campaigns. This is unusual given an irregular but 1987, Makin.g history; Pukapukun and aizthr-o]~o- noticeable coverage of international indigenous move- logical constructions of knowledge, Cam- ments in national, Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra bridge, Cambridge University Press newspapers and the ethnic television broadcaster, Cannon, Michael SBSTV. 1983, Australia; CI history in photograplzs Sydney, 17 White follows this by noting that “narrative Currey O’Neil. reconstructions of the past are a central, probably Chappell D universal, mode of self-representation”.(p, 240) Choiseul 1995a Active agent vs passive victimisation; de- and New Georgia communities in the Solomon lslands colonised historiography or problematic con- have also demonstrated similar internal-external moti- struct. In Messy entanglements, edited by vations and assertions of identity. Alaima Talu and Max Quanchi, 93-102, Brisbane, Pacific History Association. .1995b Active agents versus passive victims; de- References colonised historiography or problematic. para- Anderson, Beriedict digm. The contemporary Pacific 7 (2): 303- 1983 Iniagined communities; reflections on the ori- 26. gins and spread of nationalism, London, Commonwealth of Australia Verso. 1994, House of Representatives; Daily Hansard, 25 Anon August 1994, 397-398, Canberra. 1993, Australian South Sea Islander Summit Corris, Peter Mackay 1993, Brisbane, Department of 1973 Passage port and plantation; a histoqr of Family Services and Aboriginal and Islander Solornon Island labour biarnigration 1870- Affairs 1914, Melbourne, Melbourne University Australian Heritage Commission Press. 1981, The herifage of Australia; the illustrated Cousens, Jan, and others register of the national estate, South Mel- 1996 Jacaranda society and erivironment atlas, bourne, MacMillan. Brisbane, Jacaranda Wiley. Bandler. Faith Crocombe, Ron, et. al., editors 1977, Wacvie, Adelaide, Rigby. 1992, Culture and democracy in the South Pacijic, 1980, (with L Fox) Marani in Australia, Adelaide, Suva, Institute of Pacific Studies. Rigby Daily Mercury, Maclcay 1984, Wlou my brother, Sydney, Wild and Woolley. 1996, April 22, “Islander sadness” editorial (page 1989, Turning the tide, Canberra, Aboriginal Stud- 4), photographs (page 6); ‘Wanders reopen ies Press. old hall” (page 17) 1994 Australian Biographies, Special Broadcasting Dobrez, Livio, editor Service SBSTV (20 October) 1995, Identifying Australia in postnzodcri~ times, Beckett, Jeremy Canberra, Australian National University. 1989, Aboriginality in the nation-state; The Austra- Eddy, John lian case. In Ethniciiy and nation-building in 1991, What are the origins of Australia’s national the Pack&, edited by Michael Howard, 118- identity? 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Slavery and Aboli- edited by Verity Burginann and Jenny Lee, tion, 14 (2): 87-108 153-69, Ringwood, Penguin. 1995, The labour trade in Melanesians to Queens- 1990, Pacific Islanders in Nineteenth century land; an historiographic essay. Journal of Queensland. In Luboui ill he South PuciJic, Social history, 28 (3): 609-27. edited by C Moore, J Leckie and D Munro, Munro, Doug, et. al. 144-47, Townsville, James Cook University. 199415, Debate on the Queensland labour trade. The 1992, Revising the revisionists; the historiography Journal of Pacific Studies, 18; 105-36. of imniigrant Melanesians in Australia. Pa- Nile, Richard, editor cific Studies, 15 (2): 61-86. 1994, Australian civilization, Melbourne, Oxford 1993 The counter-culture of survival; Melanesians University Press. in the Mackay district of Queensland 1865- Nolan, J 1906 in Planfation workers; resistance and 1978, BundaOerg; history and people, st Lucia, accommodation, edited by BV Lal, Doug University of Queensland Press. 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St Lucia, University of Queensland Press. White, Geoff Stone, Mirriain and Stephen Baggow 1991, Identity through history; living stories in a 1994, Coming logether, Macltay, Mackny City Solomon Island society, Cambridge, Cam- Council. bridge University Press. Tonkin, Elizabeth, Marylou McDonald and Malcolm White, Richard Chapman, editors 1979, The Australian way of life. Historical Strtd- 1989, Histor)r and etlinicify, Routledge, London. ies, 18 (73): 528-45 Turner, Graeme 1981, Inventing Australia; intages and identity 1992, Malting it national; natioizalisni and Austra- 1688-1980, Sydney, Allen and Unwin. lian popular- culture, Sydney, Allen and Unwin, Sydney. END Wadley, David, editor 1993, Reet; range urd red dust, Brisbane, Depart- Max Quanchi is a Senior Lecturer in the School of ment of Lands. Humanities, Queensland University of Technology, Waterson, Duncan and Maurice French Brisbane, Australia. 1987, Front the frontier; a pictoiial history of Queensland to 1920, St Lucia, University of Queensland Press.
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