‘I was amazed’: The statement that stunned academic Marcia Langton

Each week, Benjamin Law asks public figures to discuss the subjects we’re told to keep private by getting them to roll a die. The numbers they land on are the topics they’re given. This week, he talks to Marcia Langton. The academic and professor, 71, is a descendant of the Yiman and Bidjara nations. She is University of Melbourne’s Associate Provost, was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2020, and is the author of many books.

“Unpack every concept. Unpack every statement. Don’t ever fall for the simplistic, easy statement.” Credit: Tim Bauer

RELIGION

What do you believe in? Among close friends, I usually say, “I’m a very lazy Buddhist.” My basic rule in life is, be respectful of other people’s beliefs, unless they’re highly dangerous and morally unacceptable.

Tell me more about Buddhism. About 50 years ago, I was on a bus in Taiwan. It was one of those roads that clings to a curving mountain cliff, and the bus was swaying. I happened to be sitting next to a Buddhist monk. At some points, when the road was giving way, people on the bus would start screaming; the Buddhist monk just giggled. I said to him, “Why are you so happy?” Basically, he said, the point of life is to be happy. And I thought, “Well, if we’re gonna go over this cliff, I suppose he’s right. We might as well be happy ’til the end.” [Laughs]

Did that resonate with you because you want to be that kind of person, or because you already are? Oh, I’d love to be relaxed like Buddhist monks are all the time. It’s very hard to achieve that state. But I think the principles of Buddhism are very fine ones. And I agree with them more than the jumble of Christian principles that I’ve come across in my life. From a young age, I really could not agree with the dictate that women are inherently sinful.

How does Aboriginal spirituality fit in? When I was very young, I had aunties and uncles who were very spiritual. I took their attitude to life for granted. Then, when I encountered Aboriginal religious ceremonies in the NT and the Kimberley in my 20s and listened to what people were saying, I thought, “Oh, this is like my aunties and uncles out in western Queensland.” There were substantial vestiges of the old religion in my childhood, which disappeared from my life when we went to the city.

You’re a public figure. Do you ever doubt yourself? Of course. Doubt, and more particularly, scepticism, are essential in the toolkit of being an intellectual and social scientist. My own work as an anthropologist and geographer requires that I’m rigorous in analysing the evidence and applying the methodologies we use. I must be very, very particular about drawing conclusions.

What I’m hearing is that to doubt is natural and necessary, but to mitigate it, you do the work. You do the work. Exactly. As my supervisors would say, unpack, unpack, unpack. Unpack every concept. Unpack every statement. Don’t ever fall for the simplistic, easy statement. Have a good look at the evidence and the assumptions. Read widely. Argue the point. And have wonderful arguments with yourself.

MONEY

What was money like growing up? We were incredibly poor, the poorest of the poor. There were several periods when we didn’t live in an actual house. As a child, I lived, for a period of time, in a native camp: shelters made from bush timber and old sheets of metal. Corrugated iron, dirt floors. One of my jobs was to find firewood and cart water from the creek.

How did growing up poor affect your perception of how you wanted to earn a living when you were older? I never imagined myself being rich or even comfortable. I assumed that poverty was the inevitable fate of Aboriginal people. Queensland had a weird kind of apartheid system when I was a child. We had to walk on a certain side of the street, wait ’til all the whites had been served in the shop. Then, when I went travelling, I met people of colour who were not poor; some were fabulously wealthy. What these experiences did was break the link between being an Aboriginal person and being poor. It became clear to me that it was about history, economics, capability, and issues such as equity. Not all inequity is determined by racism, [but] the more racist the society, the greater the inequity.

What do you most like being able to afford now? Having a beautiful dog: a Chow Chow named Dhuga.

Pets do require money. They do. And I have children and grandchildren. Being a grandmother can be a costly exercise, but I enjoy it.

POLITICS

Your most recent book, co-written with Professor Aaron Corn, is Law: The Way of the Ancestors. What does Aboriginal law-making have to offer our current understanding of law and rule-making? One of the great teachings of Aboriginal law is respect. Respect for others, respect for all living things. Also, humility. We also show how the purpose of Aboriginal law is to enable people to live together in a way that makes life worthwhile, satisfying and happy; that allows families to raise children and allows people to have an economy and to live in the world in a satisfactory way.

You’ve been on committees working out how Aboriginal people should be recognised by the constitution for decades. Is it exciting that the referendum is finally happening, or frustrating that it’s taken so long? Of course I’m frustrated. We’ve been through eight inquiries on this question of constitutional recognition. I’ve been involved in two of them, and followed the others in detail. It’s a can that’s been kicked down the road by successive governments for well over a decade. We’ve been lied to, we’ve been tricked, we’ve been ignored. So, I’ve gotta say, when I heard Prime Minister Albanese say at Garma last year that he would commit in full to the Uluru Statement from the Heart – to Voice, Treaty and Truth – and outlined a constitutional alteration question to entrench the Voice, I was amazed.

Are you feeling optimistic or pessimistic right now? If I were a gambling person – and I have been known to put a bet on a horse race – I’d put our odds at 3–2.

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