Background: Colonial Racism and Postcolonial Resistance
The 19th Century has been referred
to as the Age of Colonization or Empire, with the British Empire looming as the
largest land-grabber and power-holder. The 20th Century witnessed the
dissolution of the empires crafted through colonization. The on-going results of
colonization and the postcolonial age include the enduring legacy of racism and
attempts to dismantle it, ethnic and religious warfare, and economic
underdevelopment leading to a new kind of empire building by global economic
powers. In an effort to understand and cope with the legacy of colonization,
postcolonial peoples must look back to history with open eyes and interrogate
the recorded narratives, in the process telling the stories of people too long
silenced. Rabbit Proof Fence, based on the book by Doris Pilkington, is such a
story, told from the viewpoint of the mixed-race (Aborigine and white colonizer)
child who made a miraculous journey of resistance to claim her own identity and
hold fast to her family, despite the power of empire.
Theories of
Racism Promoted by Colonizers
In “Maidens, Maps, and Mines: The
Reinvention of Patriarchy in Colonial South Africa,” Anne McClintock has written
cogently about how during the nineteenth century the "imperial race" used the
concept of race to define "groups as 'natural' and 'biological' rather than
social." Those in power were interested in establishing what McClintock refers
to as "'contagious' classes" to indicate the superiority of those in power over
inferior groups of people supposedly delineated by biology and given genetically
to de-generation (Maidens 158). McClintock explains that because of Darwin's
Origin of Species an "image of degeneration" evolved that colonizers used to
claim that their power was an indication that they were most fit to conquer and
civilize, that racially they indeed were superior and other races would
eventually give way to white supremacy (159). McClintock analyzes two theories
of racial degeneration that operated during the 19th and early 20th centuries.
The first theory, polygenesis, claimed that "different races had sprung up in
different areas of the earth, in geographically different `centers of creation'"
(160). Thus, both the Aborigines and the Irish would be different races from the
English because they inhabited separate islands until the colonization effort.
The second theory, evolution, "gave birth to scientific racism, the first and
most astonishingly authoritative attempt to place social ranking and social
disability on a biological and scientific footing" (161). No matter which theory
the English imperialists embraced, they found justification within these two
theories of degeneration to consider others inferior and to subdue them and
reshape them into the superior English image.
We witness the promotion of
such racial theories in this film, particularly in the person of Mr. Neville,
the Englishman who has been given authority to remove mixed-race children from
their Aboriginal families, bring them up in state run schools, and adopt
(infrequently and based solely on lightness of skin) or hire them out to white
upper class families. Usually the fate of these children included abuse, both
physical and sexual, and laboring in poverty far from real family for the rest
of their lives. Yet, Mr. Neville and his colonizing class insisted on closing
their eyes to these realities, claiming instead that they were preserving the
best in the children and creating a superior race through separation and racial
manipulation. The scene in which Neville shows slides that support his notion of
racial survival is truly chilling. Clearly, the colonizers did not view the
Aboriginal people as people, but as inferior members of the species who must be
managed and eventually eliminated.
Postcolonial Theory
(The
articulation of the following theory is more fully available in Duncan, Dawn, “A
Flexible Foundation: Constructing a Postcolonial Dialogue”, Relocating
Postcolonialism. David Theo Goldberg and Ato Quayson, editors. Oxford, UK:
Blackwell, 2002. 320-333)
With regard to telling the story of those who
have endured colonization, the theory that has emerged is flexible enough to
accommodate different experiences of peoples far flung yet who share much in
common, represented by what we might term three points of intersection. The
first point of intersection, the ontological point, takes the form of a series
of open-ended questions. These questions reveal how the postcolonial condition
cuts across boundaries. The three central questions all deal with identity: who
am I?, how did I come to be who I am?, and to whom am I connected?
Molly
Craig, the 14 year-old central character, seems to have already answered these
questions for herself, even if the colonizers do not agree. She is a resilient
and intelligent child full of self-worth who will not be bullied by the
colonizers; she is the daughter of an Aboriginal woman and a white surveyor
(likely English or of Irish descent); she is connected to her mother and the
other Aborigines with whom she has grown up in a particular rural area of
Australia.
The second point of intersection in the postcolonial dialogue
is the context, the socio-political domination of a native people by an
encroaching alien power. The postcolonial person who asks the initial identity
questions is emerging from a struggle that has established conflicting
identities. On the one hand, the historical identity of this individual is
linked to the native land and a familial identity; on the other, like it or not,
to a state imposed identity. Eventually those who descend from the colonizers
and those who descend from the natives both may consider themselves “native” to
the contested space. Within many a postcolonial story, we may find the complicit
native or the settler who has become so immersed in the native culture that he
or she becomes oppositional to the imperial power. The struggle for the
individual is to achieve an identity that is his or her story rather than merely
history.
This is the point that informs the entire narrative of the film.
Who Molly believes she is and the life she wishes to live place her directly in
conflict with the encroaching power, represented by Mr. Neville. Moodoo, the
Aboriginal tracker, seems complicit with the colonial power, yet his portrayal
reveals his own inner struggle to both survive and resist the colonizer.
According to Michel de Certeau in The Practice of Everyday Life (1984), those in
power establish strategies for maintaining power (i.e., the colonial control of
economic, educational, religious and language domains) while those outside the
power structure but subject to it practice tactics for resistance, tactics that
are always changing to suit the time and needs. If the colonizing authority, the
power of empire, is considered as de Certeau’s agent of the propre (having
assumed place), exercising “a victory of space over time” (p. xix), then we can
understand the colonial rule not only geographically but culturally. Because the
colonized, in this case the Aborigines, do not have control over place, they
must deal in the realm of real time for survival, “always on the watch for
opportunities that must be seized `on the wing’.” As de Certeau further explains
with regard to groups that employ tactics for resistance, “Whatever it wins, it
does not keep. It must constantly manipulate events in order to turn them into
`opportunities.’ The weak must continually turn to their own ends forces alien
to them” (p. xix). By the end of the film, we both appreciate Molly’s ability to
seize opportunities on the wing and recognize how hard it is to hold on to
victory.
The third point of intersection is, of course, the
storytelling. This is the portion that rises out of the postcolonial context and
depends on the identity questions that are deeply rooted in the contextual land
and history. Because of the struggle that always has at least three sides -- the
native history, the state construct, and the individual -- we will hear a story
that is layered, made of fragments attempting a whole. To see more clearly, the
author will place history under a lens, studying the mutations in earlier
tellings. And the new telling will be less about the questionable facts and more
about the image experienced.
When we walk away from this film, what
remains is the image of Molly walking her way to freedom and to family. It is an
image of indomitable will. In the slight figure of this child, we find the image
that proves the lies behind the racial notions of the colonizer. Molly is a
superior individual because of whom she is and how she has come to be, what she
contemplates carefully and the actions she takes. These are things that give us
value, not the composition of our skin or our native origin.
Background: Australian
History
An ancient people who arrived in
Australia at least 40,000 years ago, the Aborigines long lived on their island
continent before the arrival of white men to the shores in 1616 (the Dutch).
Bound by language and territory, there once were as many as 500 Aboriginal
tribes with a population of some 1,000,000 when colonization began in the late
18th century. Today there are fewer than 260,000 Aborigines as a result of
disease and English government policies that included “pacification by force,”
apartheid, and forced removal to reserves. After Captain Cook made the first
expeditionary exploration of Australia by westerners in 1770, the English saw
the land as another extension of their empire. Once the English laid claim to
this portion of the world that they saw, until their arrival, as “uninhabited”
by civilized people, they used this far end of their empire as a dumping ground
for prisoners, mostly Irishmen who did not hold with English rule or who had
been driven to thievery by English economic policies. For a century, the English
rulers, Irish prisoners, and Aborigines struggled to make what is now the
Australian nation. Long after slavery had been abolished, abhorrent racial
policies were still practiced in Australia. In fact, the removal of mixed race
children from their Aboriginal families continued until 1971. Since 1968
Australia has been self-governing though it maintains some formal ties with
England.
For a map of Australia, follow this link:
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/destinations/australasia/australia/obt.htm#alice
Story Synopsis
Characters
Molly Craig—Everlyn Sampi
Daisy—Tianna Sansbury
Mr. Neville—Kenneth Branagh
Gracie—Laura Monaghan
Moodoo—David Gulpilil
Molly’s Mother—Ningali Lawford
Molly’s Grandmother—Myarn Lawford
Mavis—Deborah Mailman
Constable Riggs—Jason Clarke
Dormitory Boss—Natasha Wanganeen
Mr. Neal—Garry McDonald
Police Inspector—Roy Billing
Miss Thomas—Lorna Leslie
Directed by Philip Noyce, Screenplay by Christine Olsen
Storyline
The film takes place in 1931 and
tells the true story of 14 year-old Molly Craig, who was taken, along with her
half-sister, Daisy (8 years old) and her cousin, Gracie (10 years old) from her
family in Jigalong and placed in the Moore River Settlement. This settlement
will educate the mixed-race children in English ways and prepare them for lives
laboring as servants to the English. From the moment that Molly is grabbed by
the English authorities, we witness her resistance to their claim on her life.
In short order, she works out how and when to flee the compound (a rainy day
that will make tracking difficult), taking her sister and cousin with her. Using
her wits and will, she makes her way 1500 miles across Australia to rejoin her
mother. The rabbit proof fence acts symbolically and in reality to guide Molly.
Her white father had worked on the fence that was put up to keep rabbits (not
native, but brought by the colonizers and now run rampant) from crops in farmed
areas. Now the fence, and the problem of its branches, would lead her home
eventually. Along the way, Molly discovers both kind and abusive people who help
or hinder her journey. Her wariness gives her wisdom beyond that of those who
chase her. She will complete her journey, carrying her sister with her, but her
cousin is caught again. The final film images show us Molly and Daisy as old
women, and tell us the incredible final chapters to their lives.
The
Film
The film garnered high praise from
critics and audiences worldwide. In the process, it also won numerous awards,
including Best Film, Best Direction, Best Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor
(David Gulpilil for Moodoo), and Best Original Music Score (Peter Gabriel) from
the Australian Film Institute at a time in history when many of the best film
work is coming from Australia. Peter Gabriel’s score was also nominated for a
Golden Globe. Significantly, the children playing the lead roles were not actors
prior to this film but were discovered in a casting search among
Aborigines.
Links to
Principia
There are clear connections to the forced schooling of Native Americans, which is movingly portrayed in Winona LaDuke’s Last Standing Woman. Certainly the film addresses the problem of racial prejudice, both personal and institutional, as well as the struggle for social justice.
Discussion Questions
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This page written by Dawn Duncan and maintained by Meryl Irwin Carlson. Last updated 1/4/2004.