By John Pilger
Truthout | Op-Ed - Thursday, 19 December 2013
Apartheid was defeated largely by a global campaign from which
the South African regime never recovered. Similar disapproval seldom has
found its mark for Australia's treatment of its Aboriginal population.
In the late 1960s, I was given an usual assignment by the London Daily Mirror's
editor in chief, Hugh Cudlipp. I was to return to my homeland,
Australia, and "discover what lies behind the sunny face." The Mirror
had been an indefatigable campaigner against apartheid in South Africa,
where I had reported from behind the "sunny face." As an Australian, I
had been welcomed into this bastion of white supremacy. "We admire you
Aussies," people would say. "You know how to deal with your blacks."
I was offended, of course, but I also knew that only the Indian Ocean
separated the racial attitudes of the two colonial nations. What I was
not aware of was how the similarity caused such suffering among the
original people of my own country. Growing up, my school books had made
clear, to quote one historian: "We are civilised, and they are not." I
remember how a few talented Aboriginal Rugby League players were allowed
their glory as long as they never mentioned their people. Eddie
Gilbert, the great Aboriginal cricketer, the man who bowled Don Bradman
for a duck, was to be prevented from playing again. That was not
untypical.
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