Fr Michael Lapsley, SSM

Institute for Healing of Memories,  Cape Town

 Report on visit to Australia in May/June 2003.

 The Anglican Diocese of the Northern Territory under the leadership of Bishop Philip Freier has sought to make a creative response to the pain and anguish which has been documented in the accounts of the “Stolen Generation”. In Alice Springs a number of children, who were removed from their families were under the care of the Anglican Church at St Mary’s. The Rector of Alice Springs is Canon Colin Griffiths, SSM. The Diocese created a partnership to work with the Institute for Healing of Memories over a period of three years principally in Alice Springs . The Anglican Board of Missions has undertaken to support the project for a three-year period.

 In 2003 the team, which came to Australia , was the Director of the Institute, Fr Michael Lapsley, SSM, and the co-ordinator of the Institute’s Youth Development project Themba Lonzi. As well as being a facilitator, Themba is also the leader of a community theatre group, Mina Nawe that is also in partnership with the institute.

 On the way to Alice Springs , we stopped in Perth where we spent a day with would be facilitators and then held a healing of memories workshop. In 2002, on the way to Alice , I had spoken at a number of public meetings organized by our small team of previously trained facilitators. Our dream in Perth as in Alice was to bring together indigenous and non-indigenous Australians. One of the people who came to one of the meetings was Marlene Jackamarra, an indigenous woman who co-ordinates an indigenous ministry at the Christian Brothers Edmund Rice Centre.

 The idea of a healing of memories workshop captured Marlene’s imagination and   she determined to arrange a workshop, which would bring together indigenous and non- indigenous Australians. Already in Perth we had a small team of facilitators consisting of    Prue Littleton, The Revd Kelleen Maynier and Sr. Maureen of the Sisters of Mercy who had helped to run previous workshops. 

 Before the workshop began in Freemantle, the port outside Perth we spent the day with a smaller group who had expressed a desire to take the process further after the workshop. Altogether we were more than 20 participants including some who are part of Aboriginal catholic networks in Melbourne and Brisbane. There is a desire that healing of memories may become a programme of the Aboriginal catholic network.

 As part of his preparation for the workshops in Australia , Themba had been to see the film Rabbit Proof Fence (and other relevant video material) that dramatically portrays the experience of the “Stolen Generation.”   During the Cape Town workshops, Mina Nawe perform a drama on the first night.  Combining material from his response to “Rabbit Proof Fence” with elements of the normal dramatic piece, Themba developed s short dramatic presentation which we used in the workshops in Perth and Alice Springs which is documented at the end of this report.  This was the mechanism that we used to assist participants to get in touch with their own feelings, memories, and experiences in relation to the journey, which indigenous and non-indigenous Australians have travelled.

 Appendix one has the text of Themba’s dramatic presentation

 Appendix two outlines some of the responses to the Perth workshop

 On Sunday May 25 there was an Ecumenical service for Healing and Reconciliation at St George’s cathedral. This was organized by Marlene Jackamarra and included many of the participants of the workshop. It also was part of annual week for Reconciliation between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians. During the service those who had participated in the healing of memories workshop presented their clay peace symbols, which they had created during the workshop.

 After the first few days in Perth our next stop was Alice Springs (although I made a brief detour via Sydney ). The Saturday after our arrival we had seven recruits to be trained as facilitators who had been participants in last year’s workshop. Joy Freier, who had participated in a workshop in Cape Town came down from Darwin to train as a facilitator and returned the following weekend for the workshop

 One of our new facilitators came later in the week with her husband to express reservations about our methodology essentially because it is not couched in an evangelistic approach and is respectful of different faith traditions. Regretfully, both of them decided not to come to the workshop although the one who had been trained had hitherto, very positively appreciated and contributed to the process.

 We asked the new trainee facilitators what they felt they had gained from the workshop one year previously.

       v       How our past can affect us without realising it and vulnerability/openness

       v       Overwhelming experience / by generosity and valuing of own story

v       Interracial and intercultural interactions

v       False assumptions

v       Discovery of commonalities

v       Available time to be listened to and to be heard with respect and honour

v       Power of simple creative processes

v       Deceptively simple

v       No hierarchy of stories

v       Compassion connection to other's pain

v       Inter-connectedness of the world

v       Ability to work through unexpected passions

v       Discovering the humanity of "the other"

v       Importance of a good facilitator

v       Speaking the truth

v       From knowledge to acknowledgement

v       Able to deal with past issues - for me for the first time

v       Empowerment to grow

v       Courage from others

v       Joining stories of each other

v       Opportunity to connect with own pain as a bridge to other peoples pain

v       Acknowledgement of the past for healing to deal with emotions of:

anger / fear / shame / judgemental / bitterness / hatred / revenge

v       Processing what is happening within

v       Heart lower than head

v       Moving from victim to victor

v       Moving from prisoner to freedom

v       Taking responsibility for our journey and actions

v       Support others on their journey

v       Laying to rest that in the past which will destroy us and taking from the past that which is life giving

v       Ability to deal with my own issues and help others to deal with theirs

v       Getting out of the poison

v       Healing the spirit of humanity

During the days preceding the workshop we had the opportunity to be interviewed by CAAMA, which is the national aboriginal media network. We had 18 participants. Bishop Philip and Joy Freier came from Darwin . One person came from New South Wales . Mira Robertson and Kim Beamish who are involved in a documentary film project with me also came from Victoria as participants.  

 During our previous visit we held a truncated workshop beginning on Friday night and ending on Saturday night. This time we felt emboldened to have the full workshop beginning on Friday evening until Sunday afternoon. Again Bachelor College , which provides tertiary education for indigenous people, was chosen as the venue. Even more than last year we were a healthy mix of indigenous and non-indigenous Australians.

 Perhaps with similar theological problems to one of our erstwhile facilitators, sadly two of our participants pulled out after the first night unhappy with a respect for Aboriginal spirituality co-existing respectfully with Christian commitment. All the other participants quickly gelled and bonded throughout the course of the workshop. For a number of participants it was the first time in their lives to have the opportunity to tell their own story in a trusting and safe context, to be listened to respectfully, and to listen to the story of someone from another racial background 

Appendix three summarises some of the responses of participants to the Alice Springs workshop.

 During the workshop most of our newly trained facilitators took the opportunity to practice their new skills by acting as co-facilitators.

At the end of the workshop the participants resolved to have a reunion in a couple of month's time.

 The day after the workshop ended Themba returned to South Africa

 I met with the new facilitating team a couple of days later and we were able to review the workshop and make future plans. We resolved that next year we should have a fully residential workshop and that a few key Christian Aboriginal leaders would be invited from other places although the emphasis would remain on Alice Springs with some further outreach to aboriginal communities and to other churches in Alice Springs .

One of our new facilitators, Angela Bates who is part of the CAAMA, is completing a radio documentary about our process which I am sure, will also be an invaluable marketing tool for future workshops.

 The weekend after the workshop I had been due to spend the weekend at an aboriginal community called Utopia with Rosie Kunuth-Monks and her family.  Tragically a family murder took place the day before I was due to go that was said to be alcohol/drug related. The community immediately became involved in a grief process and my visit was cancelled.

 A few days previously the mainstream non-indigenous media headlined an assertion by a national Aboriginal leader that domestic/family/sexual violence had reached epidemic and crisis proportions within the aboriginal community that required extremely urgent national intervention.

 This situation dramatically illustrates the major challenge of how to break the cycle that turns victims into victimisers.

 The serious gap between the life expectancy and other health indicators of aboriginal and non-indigenous Australians continues.  One wonders also about the destructive effect across generations that come from activity such as petrol sniffing.

 Before we arrived in South Africa our media gave considerable coverage to a raging debate taking place as to whether the colonial experience was in fact more benign than had been previously suggested and as to whether many massacres that have been asserted really did take place. Such a debate, whether or not of a serious scholarly kind, does not, I believe, help Australians come to terms with the truth about their past and its consequences that continue to be played out today.

 Whilst we were in Perth , I heard an interview and later saw a documentary about a rural town in New South Wales with a reputation both for racism and very high rates of Aboriginal unemployment. Through dynamic and creative leadership headed by a feisty Aboriginal female social worker and a conservative, male white cotton farmer, the town has gradually been transformed with a dramatic increase in permanent employment for Aboriginal people.     

 The national media has also asserted that there is turmoil in the official government structures of Aboriginal representivity. Last year and this year there were those who suggested, fairly or unfairly, that notwithstanding benevolent motives, by some, that there are a great number of people in outback Australia who own livelihood depends on the long term dependency of Aboriginal people rather than their liberation.

These few comments and reflections are there just to point towards the reality and complexity of the situation in which the healing of memories process seeks to make a small and modest contribution. It is easy to either have a highly romanticised view of the situation of Aboriginal people or to be overcome by hopelessness and despair in the face of the enormity and seriousness of the challenges facing communities. 

 After completing my work in Alice Springs , I spent a few days in Darwin . Whilst there I spoke to a class at a school jointly the responsibility of the Anglican and Uniting Churches which also has a significant Aboriginal enrolment. There was also the opportunity to do a presentation and to interact as well as preside at the Eucharist of a clergy conference of the Diocese of the Northern Territory . I had the impression that for many of the clergy present much of what I presented resonated in varying ways in their own lives and ministries.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 Appendix one: The text of Themba’s dramatic presentation:

The story you are about to experience Is what some people would call a play.

This is a painful story I ‘ve heard about

Australia

Of course I’ve heard it as someone with African eyes and ears:

Australia

Your heroic determination

Your commitment to justice will break the chains of injustice, of oppression

Song: All you people the truth is coming

All you people the truth is coming / Bantu bonke inyani iyeza

 All you people the truth is coming

Release and soften your heart

Bantu bonke inyani iyeza

Khululani intliziyo zenu

Australia

,

Australia

Your story

This is your story

If you still belong to the past

Our doors are open

Mr. Newspaperman, Reporters

In which spirit have you come?

Which one?

If you have come to distort our reality

If you have come to destroy our dignity

Please

Pack your things and leave us in peace

The stolen generation

I’ve heard that some people called them half-castes

Children were taken away from their families

How does it fell to be taken away from your family, from everything you

feel, belongs to you and love?

Children were denied their language and culture

Does a child choose to be born to which family?

How does apparent feel when your child is taken away from you?

If you were in those parent’s shoes, what would you do?

How would you feel?

One woman said;

I cannot cuddle my own children because I was never cuddled by my mother

The only time I remember being cuddled was when I was raped

You can never call that being cuddled, would you?

 These gross violations of human rights will resemble hate in our children

I mean the hate will be like that of boiling oil

 On the other side of town

I see man and women

We know that some o them were kind

We know that some of them were cruel

Those who were involved in taking away children from their families

They said it was for their own good

Did they tell their families what they do at work?

Did they tell their children that they were taking away children of the

Aboriginal people?

What choices did people in the white communities make?

Did they support the system?

Did they speak against it?

Did they keep quite?

What did they do?

What did our parents, grand parents and great grand parents do?

Maybe some of them were blind

Maybe some of us are still blind

What kind of a nation is a nation that controls every aspect of another

nation?

I wonder how many of us have poison in us not because of what was done to us

but because of what was experienced by previous generations

None of us chose the colour of our skin

None of us chose the country we were born in

You know deep down inside of me

I feel unless these stories are told and acknowledged

We will play them out on those we think we love and can control

And that will crush the spirit of our children

 They say for evil to flourish

It only takes good people to do nothing

 What is our responsibility?

How do we blacks and whites deal with a past we did not create?

Ho do we build a common future?

You did not choose to be white

I did not choose to be black

But I can choose to try

and heal my own wounds and help heal the wounds of others

To create a better reality for Australian people

Here we are black and white children

How do we make peace with our past?

How do we deal with our pain?

How do we deal with our anger?

How do we deal with our responsibility?

Closing song:

When God made

Australia

When God made

Australia

He had a plan

To make it beautiful

A priceless land

He filled it's rolling hills with wealth untold

And gave it fertile lands and fields of gold

 When God made

Australia

How could he know

That what he had made could hurt him so

Instead of harmony

We warred and killed

The voice of reason

We smothered still

But when God made

Australia

Did he foresee

People with empty hands

Such misery

Rivers of blood so quickly flow

Seeds of hatred so easily grow

Oh God of

Australia

You have made our land

So give us wisdom

To understand

Open our eyes to see

Behind the face

To the human being inside in spite of the race

 Words composed by Sam Shepherd

  Appendix two: An outline of some of the responses to the

Perth

workshop
 
 

v       Yes, the way this was a heart to heart experience and a sharing thing, not just learning from was truly wonderful. It was truly a 'two way street'.

v       Highlights: The sharing. A song of hope/acknowledgement & encouragement that aided/allowed a feeling of displacement to shine through allowing me to become aware & acknowledge it & share with others & be validated by others.

v       The celebration - a sense of moving on, even that my issues are not over. Meeting someone with the same issues.

v       The depth of sharing - gutsy honesty as people shared their pain - the intensity of listening, holding and reverencing within the small group.

v       Gratitude & great expectations for Australia because of the giftedness & dreaming of a healed & healing Australian people.

v       Everything was gentle and conducted with great love from the people present.

v       To learn the new of how I continue my self-victimisation in not so subtle ways externally and internally.

v       The wonderful sharing of intimate life stories with strangers, who were inspirational. It is not easy to know if I have done the work necessary to fully deal with these issues. It was a great experience hearing others and celebrating together.

v       The sharing was more personal than I had expected - but I had learned elsewhere some confidence in owning my own journey of ups    and downs.

Appendix three:  A summary of some of the responses of participants to the Alice Springs workshop.  

v       Being part of the whole process again was especially great because I think it showed how far I have come and healed.

v       Just to thank the Anglican Church for having the insight to support the programme.

v       I don't like being confronted by my own pain and the painful emotions that come with it. I know it is healing to do so and that is why I came. It is very hard to be confronted with negative truths that I carry. Hard and difficult, but very healing.

v       The pain of hearing/seeing/feeling others; pain and of sharing my own. Bit recognise this as an inevitable part of the healing process, and what a blessing it is to have this opportunity.

v       Sharing stories - finding the common links between us.

v       A wonderful experience which provided a wonderful boost to my mental health and sanity.

v       Saturday night too cold to be outside, not conducive to ongoing sharing.

v       Perhaps a little too much religious language, hymns & prayers. Incorporate other spiritual models, other cultural references.

v       The best was hearing people's stories and hopes for future; the worst was confronting my own story.

v       Small group discussions - sharing others very painful stories.

v       Initially I felt that some of the stolen generation / Aboriginal issues may swamp what I had come for.

v       When we were asked to draw our item, I thought no way could I do that. As I started I prayed and it all fell into place.

v       The liturgy, it was a very moving and powerful experience.

v       Exhaustion of the 2nd day. Personally found the celebration service too full of specific religious content, though not offended.

  Cape Town

01 August 2003