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A West Australian Aboriginal leader who compared himself to Mahatma Ghandi and Martin Luther King has been gaoled for at least 18 months on five counts of paedophilia, The Australian reports.
Robert Bropho, 78, ran the now-notorious Nyungah Camp in Swan Valley and was a vocal advocate on Aboriginal issues. Of particular interest to Mr Bropho was how tough young Aborigines have it, and how much of that the police knew was his doing.
Once Mr Bropho gets back to gaol, again branded a child sex offender, this latter-day Ghandi will doubtless enjoy many opportunities to preach the principle of non-violence to his fellow inmates.
According to The Australian, Mr Bropho was sent back to gaol despite the support of Margaret Jeffrey, a white Aboriginal-rights activist found by the court to be “evasive” and “untruthful”.
Mr Bropho and Ms Jeffrey were kind enough to lend their insights to author Teresa Ashforth, for her book Silence in Court, which details “some of the means by which the discursive processes of White law can be said to disadvantage Aboriginal people in particular.”
Ms Ashforth’s groundbreaking analysis found that because of “assumptions by Whites” and “negative police attitudes,” “Aboriginal offences against White law can be not only stimulated by but also constructed by White discourse.”
Ms Ashforth is within her rights to demand a full judicial inquiry into why police have such a negative attitude towards paedophiles like Mr Bropho. It is truly shocking to think that Mr Bropho’s act in bailing a 13-year-old girl out of juvenile detention so he could have sex with her could have been “stimulated” and “constructed by White discourse.”
Perhaps Australians owe Mr Bropho a sincere and historic apology.
