Book Review: A Matter of Justice
| Published date | 01 March 1979 |
| Author | David Partlett |
| Date | 01 March 1979 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0067205X7901000107 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
BOOK REVIEWS
AMatter 0/ lustice by C. D.
ROWLEY.
(Australian National University
Press,
1978),
pp. 1-249. Cloth, recommended retail price $13.50
(ISBN: 07081
06587);
Paperback, recommended retail price $6.95
(ISBN: 07081 0659
5).
Dr
Rowley has given us in AMatter 0/ lustice an up-to-date
summation of some of the themes contained in his superb trilogy The
Destruction 0/ Aboriginal Society
(1970),
Outcasts in White Australia
(1971)
and The
Remote
Aborigines
(1971).
T'his trilogy marked a
watershed in scholarly and insightful writing about Aborigines in
our
society. AMatter
of
Iu.stice joins them in importance. This book
is
less
rigorous in ascholastic sense
than
those previous works.
In
drawing
on them,
Dr
Rowley makes incisive points about the conditions of
Aboriginals and Aboriginal society in Australia. There are no new
insights for the well versed reader; it
is
the synthesis of materials
that
makes for the book's importance.
It
is
asocial and political commentary,
in that the
author
constantly points up injustices and makes observations
on
past and present Government policies as well as constructive sugges-
tions on remedies.
This review focuses upon substantive aspects of
Dr
Rowley's book.
However, it should be acknowledged that the force of themes, argu-
ments, conclusions, and suggestions for reform
is
reinforced by the
author's particularly lucid style. There
is
an
absence of sociological
jargon and other obstructions to understanding in expression which
often make the writings of social scientists inaccessible to the general
reader.
General Themes
TheAboriginal Embassy established for some time outside Parliament
House in Canberra
is
used in Chapter 1to counterpoint the Aboriginal
condition; apocket of black poverty in an aflluent white society. This
symbolises atheme of the
book-the
stark comparisons in living,
working, learning, growing up and dying between Aboriginals
and
white
Australians.
In
Chapter 2the
author
points
out
the vast differences in the
Aboriginal
and
European cultures, the reasons for the uniqueness of
Aboriginal culture and the violent abuses
that
were suffered in the face
of the worst elements of industrial revolution European culture.1
At
this point the differing notions of justice are shown.
In
the Platonic
idea of "balance in
human
relations, between groups and individuals
...
"
the Aboriginal system of justice had its role in the restoring
of
ajust
balance between members of the Aboriginal group.2 No bureaucratisation
of the law took place. There were none
of
the peculiarly individual rights
that
became embedded in the common law.3The common law with its
1Rowley, "A Matter of Justice" (1978) (hereinafter referred to
as
"Rowley")
33.
2Id.34.
SId.
22.
108
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