HIGHER EDUCATION
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Very soon
all our sacred sites
and things
will be gone

Because this is what the government of the days
is trying to do to us
now the Aboriginal people

Is destroy all the things
that our Ancestral Grandfathers and Grandmothers
told us
to us

What’s been done today
is that
the government of the day
believes that higher education
is the key
to happiness
where Aboriginal people is concerned

But if you
the Aboriginal person out there
believes that this is going to be a success
then it’s entirely your own believing

I mean 10 out of every hundred might think that
but each 90 out of that hundred
might think otherwise

They might think that
‘No, we want to
believe and we want to respect
what the old fellas told us’
and we want to be able to look back
and see that recognition
when our children become adult of tomorrow
and have children of they own
so they can tell they children
there’s our roots back there

There’s the history

But those 10 out of a hundred
who want to go and have a higher education
and tell their children
and read they history to they children
through story books

That’s not the proper thing

I mean when you look at the white man
and his society
he’s passing on from one generation to another
the history of his beliefs

Which is the christian belief

He’s passes on from one generation to another
they tenth commandments
and all other nationalities of people
who’s staying in Australia today
they have got their own beliefs

You got gypsies, you got Italians
you got other races of people here
that believes in other things other than the tenth commandments

So why is it that the Australian government of the past
and australian governments of the present moment
and the governments of the future
are trying to dominate Aboriginal people?

And deny them the right to
have they own lifestyle
what they was born into

So these are the things that you
the 10 out of every hundred
must look at these things

You must look at this in a factual way
because if you gonna go in there
and let you self be higher educated
live in the white man’s society
look after yourselves and be selfish

And this is not what your roots used to do
your roots of the ancestors
the old people
used to share

So if you every 10 out of a hundred
who wants to believe it
then you gonna be just a white egg
with nothing inside

What we gotta be
very careful of is that
what the state governments
did to us now
this is the Carmen Lawrence government
all our sacred sites
will be be destroyed

And therefore people like you out of the 10
who want to call yourselves Aboriginals
which you really are not
because you’ve taken over
believing in what
the white man’s lifestyle is gonna give you

So what we’re trying to explain
is that it’s very dangerous

It’s very dangerous

When our children grow up to be men and woman
and have families
what are they gonna tell their children?

Will they look back through the white man’s window
out into the distance
and see nothing?
they won’t hear nothing
they won’t be hearing the didgeridoos playing again
and the songs
they sung around the mia mia campfires

The wind will bring them nothing
the rain will fall
and just wet them
with no feelings in it

As it is now
the wind
is the spirits
of our Ancestral Grandfathers and Grandmothers
the rain is the tears
the day and the night
means things to us
the eagle that flies high
there is a message in that
and the kangaroos and emus
that run and bound across the plains
and the turtle that crawls at a slow pace
and the ningarn the porcupine
the blades of grass
won’t blow no more
they’ll be broken and fall

So this is what you gotta look at
you born again Christians
and you the Aboriginal man and woman
who wants to go through universities
and get a higher education

For what purpose?
what are you going to use your higher education for?

Are you going to believe what the white man tells you?
are you gonna go through your higher education
and turn around and look at your black brothers and sisters
and say ‘Well, look,
I’m highly educated
I know what I’m talking about’.

You don’t

You only know what you’re talking about
from a white fellas point of view

You left your roots behind
and therefore you mustn’t expect
a special priviledge
with Aboriginal grants to go through these educations

Because you no more an aboriginal
you is a traitor

You’ve gone out there
and you’ve accepted that white society
so you live like a white man
but don’t call yourself an Aboriginal

This is what you gotta ask yourselves

You gotta look at yourselves long and hard
in that mirror

At the rate you going
you’ll be a person with no black shadow

You’ll have a white shadow

So you must remember that

Anyway, I’ll pause for a while
and we’ll hear Archie Roach
singing
‘Took the Children Away’

You remember this

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You won’t have to come back
if you don’t leave your grass roots

So remember that

Your beginning starts
where the root starts

And if you turn your back on that
then don’t call yourself an Aboriginal
and ask for special grants
to go through a higher education

Because you’ll become a traitor
to your Ancestral Grandfathers and Grandmothers

The persons responsible
for your very existence

Through your mother
and her mother
and her mother

And your father
and his father
and his father

So remember that

My name’s Robert Bropho
the shit stirrer
the person who’s got something to say
he’ll say it to you
whether you like it or not

I live in the Swan Valley
on the Dreaming Track
of the Rainbow Serpent
the creator of all waterways
and we’ve never left our Homegrounds

Our roots

We know where they are
we know where we belong
and we know where we want to be

© Copyright Swan Valley Nyungah Community 1992, 2007

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