Dreaming of a future that reconciles two worlds

Around the base of Uluru, Anangu people grapple with lives spread precariously across two worlds.

Deon Cole, 13, at home during a break from Sydney’s Scots College. ‘It’s starting to make him see a bigger world than Mutitjulu,’ his father says. Picture: Amos Aikman

The craggy faces of Uluru tell stories. In one, the outline of an emu leg records the time blue-tongue lizard man learned not to steal the crested bellbird brothers’ property. Around the base of this ­ancient monolith that has become the symbol of a modern nation, Anangu people grapple with lives spread precariously across two worlds.

In one there is Tjukurpa, creation myths that teach land and people are inseparable. In the other, land was taken from the Anangu, handed back, and now a maze of legal structures seek to find a place for them in the economy built upon it. In many ways, life at the rock closest to Australia’s heart portrays challenges the country is facing.

Anangu man Gary Cole knows some of them well. Not long ago he sent his son Deon, 13, away from the family’s home community of Mutitjulu in the rock’s shadow to attend Sydney’s Scots College on an Australian Indigenous Education Foundation scholarship. Deon, a quietly confident young man, whose bedroom window looks out at Uluru, is fast coming to terms with life in Sydney’s eastern suburbs: the traffic, crowds and tall buildings were a surprise at first, but he’s finding his place. “I have a (school) friend who wanted to learn about my culture, so I told him about my culture and he told me about his,” Deon says.

At home Deon goes hunting with his father and their dogs, Donkey Boy and Whitey, the former particularly good at catching kangaroos and holding them in return for a share of the meat. At school he is preparing for a soccer trip to Japan. Even at his young age, Deon has a presence, a sense that he is prepared for the challenge ahead of him.

“It’s starting to make him grow in confidence, to see a bigger world than Mutitjulu,” Mr Cole says. “Aboriginal people have got to realise that we’ve all got to stand together. That way we can be recognised as the first people of this country. But if our people aren’t ­educated enough then we will be still stuck. I see it myself: I see we need to get more educated to fight this battle.”

Deon was inspired to venture cityward after seeing another boy benefit from boarding school education. That boy was a relative of Sammy Wilson, an Anangu traditional owner and one of Mutitjulu’s most respected leaders.

“We want the kids to go and get a good education, so maybe they can get good jobs, come back and look after us,” Mr Wilson says. “At the moment we get lots of people coming in here, doing the jobs and then going away; but the people living here, the Anangu, don’t understand the money stuff.”

Deon, who is in Year 7 at Scots, likes sport and AFL the most. “I wanted to go away to see different things, make new friends, get a good job and go to university,” he says.

His mother, Rowena Swan, hopes one day he will come back to run the community.

In coastal areas, the idea of recognising indigenous people in the Constitution can appear a means of slotting Aborigines into an established system. Out in the remote bush, where Aboriginal people dominate and culture is strongest, that system carries little meaning.

“This is Anangu land and we should be recognised for that,” Ms Swan says. “Keep the culture strong, keep the community strong and look after the old people — that’s what we want.”

Mr Cole says outsiders need to understand Anangu land has and always will be part of Anangu people, their law and culture.

Watching his cousin’s adventures has encouraged Andrew Ken, 12, who lives with the Cole family and is raised like Deon’s brother, to think about going away to school, too.

Andrew Penfold, AIEF’s CEO, isn’t surprised. “We call this the ‘ripple effect’ and we’ve seen it happen in communities around the country over the past eight years,” he says. “Deon and others are showing their peers what staying at school and completing Year 12 could mean for their future.”