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Posted by Tyson Yunkaporta May 26, 2006 |
My brother-in-law showed me a newspaper article yesterday, which claimed that in a nearby small town (about 2000 people) there have been 18 rapes this year. Considering all the propaganda about Aboriginal men being rapists and child molestors in the media lately, I assumed immediately that it was an article about an Indigenous community.
But then three things indicated otherwise to me.
1. It was not on the front page.
2. It was not accompanied by calls for an end to all hopes of Indigenous autonomy.
3. It was a very small article, with no damning photograph.
Reading the article more closely, I found that it was about a charming little middle class European town in the area - no poverty, no crushing despair, but 18 rapes in 6 months.
The government reaction to this was to set up a help-line for rape victims in the area. There were no questions about the council's ability to govern. There were no judgements made about the nature of Australian dominant culture and social forms that perpetuate violence against women. Not like the other articles about poorer Indigenous communities with the same problem, which is blamed on Indigenous culture and supposed autonomy.
Can I just remind everybody that in the build-up to the abolishment of ATSIC (Aborginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission), Indigenous chairman Geoff Clarke was smeared in the media with rape allegations? Can I also remind people that in the build-up to the invasion of Iraq the media was peppered with detailed descriptions of gang rapes by Middle Eastern perpetrators on Australian women? A pattern, perhaps?
Rape in this country seems, like everything else, to be a "white" privelege.
For more about this latest anti-Aboriginal propaganda campaign using rape as a smokescreen, read my articles on the topic: