Mundine’s stairway to prosperity - The Centre for Independent Studies
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Mundine’s stairway to prosperity

CJ stairs 1This week saw the usual stories of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander disadvantage — ongoing issues with Indigenous incarceration and significant gaps in educational outcomes. However, a tonic to this tale of woe was the launch of Warren Mundine’s new book Warren Mundine in Black and White: Race, Politics and Changing Australia. The message that resonated most was resilience and that it is Indigenous people’s personal agency that will ultimately close the gap.

Mundine’s life embodies the principles of classical liberalism — of individual responsibility and hard work.

He argues against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people remaining constrained by the deficit mindset seen weekly in the media and from viewing “ . . .failure [as] their natural path in life’ (p472). What Noel Pearson describes as the bigotry of low expectations.”

Mundine is committed to pursuing strategies based on proactive Indigenous participation that produce real outcomes. He decries what he calls the “disconnect with reality” seen in the current debates over statues and Australia Day, and argues they are trivial matters to Indigenous people seeking to overcome genuine disadvantage.

Mundine’s reflections echo the theme of my coming research on Indigenous small business, which is that: “…no group of people in the world ever got out of poverty without economic development, which comes from commerce, private ownership, jobs and education.” These initiatives allow Indigenous people to take control of their own affairs and become full participants in the economy.

While such strategies are good on paper, Mundine serves a reminder that success will not come easily. Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders must play to their strengths, he contends, and adapt their culture to the modern context.

This is already happening, with remote communities leveraging traditional burning practices to target the carbon offset market, and entrepreneurs putting a new twist on Indigenous art to sell contemporary fashion products.

To ascend the stairway to prosperity, more Indigenous people need to adopt Mundine’s philosophy and seize control of their own affairs.