MISSION: Southwest Research and Information Center is a multi-cultural organization working to promote the health of people and communities, protect natural resources, ensure citizen participation, and secure environmental and social justice now and for future generations

Australia
SENIOR CULTURAL WOMAN REBECCA BEAR-WINGFIELD SPEAKS OUT

“The medical profession in Australia does not acknowledge that there are any problems associated with the uranium industry.”

– Rebecca Bear-Wingfield

My name is Rebecca Bear-Wingfield. I am a senior cultural woman from the Kokotha and Arabunna nations in Australia. I was stolen at the age of seven. I returned to my community as a 20-year-old with a British accent. I had no idea of any culture, and had no language. I had to learn that I was an aboriginal person. Luckily, there were enough old people left that know what it is to be aboriginal. They took me out to the bush and gave me the knowledge of how to walk in my country. I was invisible when I was taken away. But I learned the British system really well. I learned how to talk, I learned how to stand up for myself. And it taught me that we just got to do something.

On the 15th of October, 1953, the British government conducted their first nuclear bomb test at Emu Junction. My mum lived under that nuclear bomb cloud. I had always wanted to be a mother; I planned to have five kids. In 1993 I was pregnant, but then things started to go wrong. I went to three hospitals in one day. The doctors said, “You got three ovaries” -- that is all they said. I went away and found a bit more about the nuclear bomb, and I kept seeing people get sick. Then the old ladies started telling me about how they stood under the rain clouds and saw it coming. They didn’t know it was the first nuclear bomb. In fact, most Australians are largely ignorant about nuclear testing, but that makes sense when you consider that aboriginal people were governed under legal terminology called terra nelious. In other words we didn’t exist as people, as human beings. For many years we were listed under the Flora and Fauna Act. Under the revolutionary scale of Social Darwinism, we were classified as above the apes. So it makes sense that the government didn’t even know they were bombing us in our own country (“geographic territory”). I can never have biological children, but I was gifted with my sister and my family’s children. So that was how my journey started, because I know firsthand the denial of not being able to be a mother. I became very angry and very lost for a number of years. And then I decided that it was meant to be. It’s about protecting our children, and it’s about talking clearly about uranium.

Pretty well half my life – 22 years – has been spent in Australia actively working for human rights. Actively working to make a difference. Actively working to create a better Australia, to create an understanding of our responsibilities collectively, whether we’re indigenous Australians or newer Australians. I had a comfortable life. I was working in a university. I was consultant nutritionist, and aboriginal studies. Boy, my tribal husband, died when I was 36. I went home to recover. This was sometime in 1998, and I was grieving. Word came that the government was looking at starting a waste dump in our country. My mother said, “You not doing anything tonight. Would you drive me to the school gymnasium?” I said sure. As we were driving, Mom said, “Well, now you’re driving me, would like to introduce these people?” And here I am today, so be careful when you drive old people. (laughter) They sent me to a meeting not long after. It was my first official meeting. We walked in and they put this paper on the table. They want to put nuclear waste in my country. I thought I must be mistaken because they want us to agree to it. I am going to say straight out no. I went home and I told my mom what they wanted to do, that they want to put what was termed a low- to medium-level waste repository in an area identified as Billa Kalina. We had a Kupa piti kungka tjuta – women’s council of grandmothers. In aboriginal culture, you only speak publicly when you have cultural authority.

I was very young, but the women’s council said “Now you can be a spokesperson for senior women.” We sent a letter to the grannies to come and help us. We started talking and worked out a trip – the first trip they ever went on. We’re talking about 30 women that have never left their country, have never been to town. They still live in a hut, with no running water, and no electricity. We decided to go to Melbourne. It was the first time for some of them to step out of country. That’s how much resolve we had to defeat this. Some people said, “Why are you doing this? You’re not going to win.” We went to Melbourne and made connections. We went back home, traveling around, and got asked to go around and do actions. We lobbied politicians. We sent letters everywhere. We developed a core group of grannies, environmentalists, and young women who supported us. We worked and we worked. And finally in 2004 our Prime Minister announced that there were no more plans to site a nuclear waste dump in Kungka country.

In 1953 when the British government wanted to do nuclear bombs, they moved everybody out and put them on reserves and missions. Then they decided to build a mine in Roxby. They’d taken all the ancient waterlands, and now they want to make it into the biggest uranium mine in the world. The mining company that had been on my ancestral lands for 30 years has changed ownership, and boy have I been busy ever since. We’ve now got a multinational company called BHP Billiton. They have been coming into our community for just over a year. We had a community meeting to talk about going to the negotiating table. It was a very hard meeting for me, because I did not want to offend my mother, my grandparents, my brothers. I didn’t want to vote because this is wrong, we shouldn’t be expanding the mine. I respect the reasons the community made the decision to at least negotiate, and I understand the political pressure due to the fact that if you have a company that large in your country. How else can you deal with it?

The medical profession in Australia does not acknowledge that there are any problems associated with the uranium industry. So I was honored to be able to come here and meet with people who have been doing significant work in this area of epidemiology. It’s very hard when you don’t really understand that a bomb 53 years ago is why your family is now becoming ill. A lot of aboriginal people feel we’re the most researched group in the world, so it becomes very difficult when you want to start asking questions. Why do people have six digits on their hands? Why do we have a high level of miscarriages? Why do we have incredible levels of diabetes? These are the questions we’re asking. We’re actually at a stage where we’re starting to challenge.

When dealing with cultural issues in our communities, it is traditionally a very restricted conversation, even today. We have restricted language and restricted behavior. Sometimes you can’t get evidence and you can’t document stories, because if somebody dies, everybody with that name becomes kumina, which means “no name.” We’re not allowed to talk about that person and their name. Even the stories that my mom and the other old ladies talk about, there’s no aboriginal word for a “jelly baby” (infant born with no bones and other massive deformities). There’s no aboriginal word for a lot of these concepts. We’re actually starting a preliminary community education.

My nephew’s got brain cancer. We have the highest level of kidney failure in the western world. So I’m so glad to be able to come here and meet with people who actually do understand because once you take the uranium out, there’s no going back. Now that they’ve decided to have the biggest uranium mine expansion on our land, we’re going to draw on our campaign and use the tools that we developed. In a way, the nuclear dump was a training run. I think about retiring, but when I look at the record of my grandmothers, my mother, and my sisters, I think I’m just dreaming. I’m not going to get to retire. Thank you.