Alice Springs, the major regional centre in Central Australia, has a population of about 19,000, with about 25 to 30 per cent Aboriginal or of Aboriginal descent.

There are two high schools in Alice Springs, the largest being the Alice Springs High School with about 700 students, the majority of whom (including the Aboriginal students), have English as their first language. The school teaches to matriculation level and has traditionally offered a number of languages – including French, German, Indonesian and Italian.

The school population would have little knowledge of Aboriginal languages and the associated culture. At the time the Eastern Arrernte course was proposed the one time elective, Aboriginal Studies, was no longer offered due to lack of availability of staff, and lack of interest and expertise among existing staff. So, here was a senior high school, in the centre of country where Aboriginal cultures and languages are thriving, which offered little to enlighten its students about the life-style of a people they saw and heard daily in the streets and fringe camps of Alice Springs.

Central Australia is rich in Aboriginal languages and over the years there have been many discussions and two attempts to teach Aboriginal languages. One involved the teaching of a ‘Top End’ language, Gupapuyngu, chosen because some teaching materials had been prepared and because the teacher involved had worked in Arnhem Land. The other was one of the Western Desert languages, Pitjantjatjara, a language traditionally spoken south-west of Alice Springs. In both cases, when the teachers involved left, the programs closed.

The 1980 National Aboriginal Education Conference went on record as saying it saw that as an ‘area of concern’ history textbooks on Aborigines are racist.

Australians’ economic history is racist in that standard economic texts do not discuss Aborigines at all, or mention them only peripherally.

The economic history of Australia is usually written from one or two perspectives, both European. The first involves the flow of external capital, labour and entrepreneurship into what was essentially an empty land awaiting exploitation. This has led to emotive pictures of Australia’s economic development in terms of hardy pioneers driving sheep and cattle into remote parts, and hard-working men clearing land for crops, both groups subject to the usual environmental hazards of droughts, floods and natives.

The second view has led to the picture of the country riding on the sheep’s back. In economic terms this meant that the profits earned by wool exports (and later gold) generated capital within the country for economic expansion. This is the Staple theory of economic growth. Neither viewpoint takes into account the Aboriginal people. Nor could they, because they are theories of Capitalism, and nineteenth century Capitalism did not have a human face. The profit motive was supreme. Aborigines were not seen as being at all useful to the process of economic growth once it had got under way.

Up to a point, however, the Aborigine was useful. He could guide settlers and explorers across inhospitable landscapes and lead them to water. Having done this, he had outlived his usefulness and was hounded to the edges of the new economic landscape – to extinction in many places.

Whenever I revisit an Aboriginal community where I am known (and there are several), despite the awkwardness of language and culture difference, I find a sense of relief. Here, while I readjust to Aboriginal English, Kriol or another language, I don’t have to make conversation to fill up the silences. Silence is allowed.

I look back and realise I have come to this discovery instinctively and did not always feel at ease with silence. When in 1967 I camped by a billabong on a cattle station and a very shy 16 year old (now my ‘younger sister’) was sent to keep me company at night, I found it an imposition and awkward. I didn’t know what to talk about and she didn’t talk to me much. I would have been less lonely by myself! A teacher recently in the same area spoke of a woman who would call on him after school, and sit and have a cup of tea while he needed to get work done. Gradually he began to do his work while she sat, and realised in time that this was quite acceptable in her culture that he do so.

It is very seldom in our society that we are happy with silence in company with others. (Older married couples often don’t talk as much to each other; while in some cases this indicates their being at ease with one another, it is not always so!). Not only do we avoid silences (especially so for women! – some men are more tactiurn), but we expect very prompt responses to questions and comments. I like a little longer to respond than many others; consequently in discussions someone else usually gets in first. But occasionally I find someone slower to respond than I find comfortable. If I get myself to wait just that little bit longer for a response, it is well worth it.