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BOOK REVIEW
| Sue Taffe, Black and White Together: FCAATSI: The Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders 1958–1973, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, Queensland, 2005. pp. xiv + 402. $24.95 paper.
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| Sue Taffe's study of the rise and fall of FCAATSI is a major contribution to the historiography of race relations – and of political activism, of human rights, of left-wing campaigning and of national politics during the 1960's. It appears at an opportune time. We are now far enough removed from the events so well described to be able to see, with some objectivity, the hopes and fears and ideals of a crowded stage of strong minded characters. But Taffe was able to meet and interview many of the leading figures in her often dramatic story. And for all the importance of FCAATSI in its heyday it is now largely forgotten. Like many other teachers I find looks of blank unknowing greeting any mention of the organisation in lectures and discussions. |
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Taffe has written a good book. She has carried out a vast amount of research in many locations and talked to anyone who had anything to contribute. Her judgements are careful and judicious and the reader feels confident in her assessment of people and events. The text is underpinned with a good understanding of the broader field of Australian politics and public life. The one fault I noticed was a tendency in telling an often complex story to be repetitive. A somewhat shorter, tighter text would have added to the overall cogency. |
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Looking back now more than a generation later we can see FCAATSI as very much a creature of its time which explains its significant but strictly ephemeral success. Urged into life by Jessie Street it reflected international as much as local politics. Two developments were at work in the late 1950's. The first was the rapid, unstoppable speed of decolonisation which produced a non-European majority in the General Assembly by 1961. Australia was forced to realise that White Australia was doomed as was racial discrimination within the country. At the same time attention returned to the minorities question after suffering almost total eclipse during the 1950's. It was the ILO which kept the question alive, moving from a consideration of Indian communities in Latin America to the general problem of tribal and indigenous people resulting in ILO Convention 107 of 1957. While it was generally assimilationist it called for the recognition of land rights. It was adopted by the second meeting of the Federal Council in 1959. |
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Taffe spends considerable time on the centre-piece of FCAATSI campaigning: the crusade to amend the constitution resulting in the referendum of 1967. With all the reservations we might have in retrospect about the intrinsic value of the changes effected, the skill, the passion and the hard work involved is still cause for celebration. The campaign itself provided a unifying cause which held together the conflicting forces which began to destroy the organisation at its most successful moment. She illustrates the conflicting forces with considerable skill. Communists and anti-communists watched each other with little trust or good will. Secular human rights activists were condescending about the mission-minded Christians. But of even greater moment was the underlying conflict between white and black and the fundamental issue of the actual place of indigenous people as a minority seeking civil and political equality or as a colonised people pursuing land and self-determination. This was the rock on which FSAATSI was wrecked amid anger, tears and chaos at the Easter meeting in Canberra in 1970. |
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There was an inevitability in the collapse of FCAATSI. But looking back now, it would seem that such broad coalitions of disparate activists can still play an essential part in bringing about change in a conservative and cautious community. In that sense the story of FCAATSI still has lessons for us today. |
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| University of Tasmania |
HENRY REYNOLDS | |
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