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Indigenous Australians are still regarded as their “problem”, completely ignoring the actions
that brought upon particular inequities such as poverty, lack of formal education and health
disadvantages. The chapter concludes with four questions on Indigenous Australians, with the
fourth question reading “What do you regard as the main problems facing the Aborigine
today?” (Blackmore et al., 1969, p. 177). No attempt is made here to look at the issues
holistically, including all Australians in addressing the growing inequities between
Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.
6.8.5 Discourses of tokenistic representations of Indigenous Australians.
General representations of artist Albert Namatjira are included in a number of textbooks and
seem to represent a tokenistic example of Indigenous Australians in contemporary society. It
is as though Namatjira has been selected as the example to use in order to demonstrate some
kind of even-handedness approach to the Social Studies and History curriculum—a safe
selection as Namatjira is an artist of landscape water colours, not known for political
activism. For example in Australia’s heritage, Albert Namatjira’s name is included in a list
within a section titled Nationalism. The extract reads:
As Australians, we are all proud of our land, native or adopted. We love its beauty;
we glory in its growing importance. We want our athletes to win the Olympic
Games, Miss Australian to be Miss International. We like our Australian way of life
with its belief in God, its respect for the individual, its easy comradeship, its material
prosperity—even its rather annoying casualness. The heroes of our history—men and
women such as Captain Cook, John Oxley, Dame Mary Gilmore, Sir Donald
Bradman, Albert Namatjira—are sources of pride for every true Australian. The
“diggers” of the World Wars have become a symbol to the rest of the world of
Australian courage, physical strength, and loyalty. New Australians soon learn
English and follow our customs in order to become “Australians”. (Sparkes et al.,
1964, pp. 194-5)
Albert Namatjira is presented equally to the other names listed, as examples for further study,
as “heroes of our history” and “sources of pride for every Australian” (Sparkes et al., 1964, p.
195). Unless you know specifically that Albert Namatjira is an Arrernte (sometimes spelled
Arnada) Indigenous Australian, then this one name inclusion may have gone unnoticed in this
textbook as an example of Indigenous representations.
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