When I was 13, my father sold his half share in the farm where we lived, and moved to the coast. I had to leave that beloved place; the land, the open space and the delight of the rolling hills of farming country, in the Central West of NSW, Australia
We moved to a place on the coast, and my father got a job as a labourer in an engineering/manufacturing business.
I began school at what was to me, a huge school, teeming with strange people; so different to the little School I'd grown up in at Eugowra; a school where I knew all the kids by name - there were, after all, only about 300 of them, both Primary and High School grades. In this new, big High School, I was the little bush kid, with the shy demeanour (I was terrified!) and the unsophisticated ways. (I didn't even shave my legs, for goodness sake!)
So began a couple of years, where I always felt like the outsider; the alien; the one who was a bit different. I tended to gravitate to other outsiders, so for the first few months, I befriended a Chinese girl who was even more different than I.
We huddled together at lunch time; me with my sandwiches and she with her Chinese equivalent. I was teased, of course; from the loud boy who would call out rude things to me across the playground, to the coolest boy on the bus who tried to make me his conquest (I realized later, all these boys actually fancied me - strange way to show it lads!) or to the other bully boy, who simply taunted me the whole journey.
A particularly cruel girl invited me to have lunch with her group one day, and then began to systematically ridicule everything about me, either with blistering sarcasm or outright verbal abuse. I had neither the courage or the words to defend myself. I was like a little rabbit, thrown into an arena of circling wolves. I simply avoided her and her gang. I also just began to silently and wordlessly ignore her. She eventually, bored with me, found some other poor soul to torment.
But there was one group of girls I was truly scared of. They were the girls from the Aboriginal settlement. They lived outside the main town, in a designated Aboriginal village. This was the 60's and such a place would no longer be segregated in this way, today. I understand so much more now, of the plight of indigenous peoples of my beautiful country, but in the 60's the white Australia policy was still in people's minds, mine included. .
If you happened to look over at these girls, at lunch time, to where they sat together, they would shout "whatta YOU lookin' at white bitch?!". This would often be accompanied by curses and threats. You would never make eye contact with these girls and they always hung out in groups. They would threaten, with very real intent, to come and punch your face in.
I had had no contact with Koori people at Eugowra, except for shadowy figures in the Salvation Army girls home at Canowindra (another small town some 50ks away), where I often went to Sunday School. These were the stolen children, so powerfully told of in "The Sapphires". I was ignorant
If only then, I had understood more fully how awful it is to be an alien; an outsider; someone looked down upon. I was, after all, white, "normal looking" and not really that different to most of my peers. I was only dorky; these girls were outcasts. I realize now, they had probably suffered all sorts of bullying and also, I shudder to think, abuse, violence and who knows what else. They were threatening, because they needed to be, to self-protect.
If only I had been courageous and simply talked to them. But I was too scared; to out of my comfort zone. And even in the middle 60's, there was a great divide between black and white. We patronised our indigenous people; we tried to provide for them in our own flawed way. In the end, from the stolen generation, and the racism, the worst we did was try to make them white; tried to envelop them in our culture; tried to obliterate theirs. We segregated them and made them dependent on the welfare system. We took their culture and then wondered why they couldn't instantly become part of ours.
"The Sapphires" movie made me think of those girls this morning because so much of the movie resonated with what these girls must have experienced. I found myself thinking of them and realizing, after all this time, how school must have been for them. If it was scary and uncomfortable for me, a little white girl, how much worse must it have been for them; alienated, disrespected; made invisible; picked on; looked down on. And all in their own country; the country of their birth-right; the country which had nourished the soul of their people for thousands of years. Worse than that even, these girls were what was called "half-castes" (appalling word). They were, perhaps, the result of the coupling of white/black people; often, I believe at the hands of sexual grooming and outright rape, from degenerate male members of the so-called "civilized" culture).
I prayed for these girls this morning. I have no idea what happened to any of them, but I'm guessing many are lost now, either to death, or alcohol abuse or unwholesome lifestyles.
"Lord of all peoples, I intercede for these women, today; at this moment. You know who they are. Bless them with peace today; bless them with healing; give them the help and courage they need to build stable and meaningful lives.
Heal their childhood experiences, as you have healed mine. Bless their parents, their sisters, their brothers, their children. Forgive us, the European interlopers, who so sought to envelop their culture in our own. Thank you for the grace their people often show, in forgiving us.
Begin in these woman, and those like them, a spark of healing; raise them up to be leaders of their people. Begin with them, and bring the redemption and renewal of soul, body, mind and spirit of all the people in our land. Whatever spark of your Spirit might be in them, fan that spark to life; whatever spirit of overcoming and victory might be still alive in them, breathe your love and steadfast presence on that spark and bring it to life, so that they will live with love and victory, overcoming the scars of their experiences in life.
Heal the hurts which have become bitterness; ours as well as theirs. Forgive us when our ignorance turns to prejudice.
I intercede for these girls, now my age, who so long ago and with such frightened vehemence, tried to exist in a world so foreign and disapproving; I pray for others like me, the little white girl from the bush, who took years to realize that their taunts were the shields against their hurt and rejection. In Jesus Name, who understands what it is to be an outcast and rejected, I ask all these things. Amen."
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