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The Forum > Article Comments > I have a dream > Comments

I have a dream : Comments

By John Tomlinson, published 15/6/2010

Sometimes people who have been visited by a Kadaitcha man get sick and die within a few days ...

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Loudmouth "The concept of Environmental Awareness and concern were utterly unknown ".
That is not right- you are trying to have a lend of us .
The South Australian Maralinga Aboriginals were appalled, and could not believe, that any person in their right mind would blow-up and destroy their own Country [now controlled by the whites] with the Atomic Tests of the 1950's .
This Land to them was the source of their food And Religion and worthy of protection and conservation .
Australia has gone backwards Environmentally from day 1 of our Invasion to have one of the worst records of Species Extinction in the World .
Sure we have every "awareness "of what we have done and continue to be "concerned " !
Posted by kartiya jim, Wednesday, 16 June 2010 6:39:31 PM
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'Australia has gone backwards Environmentally from day 1 of our Invasion to have one of the worst records of Species Extinction in the World .'

Is that why boatloads of illegals (the ones lucky enough to make it) risk their lives daily to come here. You certainly would not have a computer or a car to drive if Europeans had not come.
Posted by runner, Wednesday, 16 June 2010 7:35:27 PM
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Kartiya Jim,

I'll stick by what I wrote: are you suggesting that it was common belief 15,000 years ago that atomic testing was harmful to environment and human life and that's why the Stone Age societies of the time banned it ?

Just because people don't do something (build dams, conduct atomic tests, drain swamps) doesn't mean that they have carefully thought about it and decided against it, not 15,000 years ago anywhere in the world, not sixty years ago at Maralinga. All human beings are equally intelligent, but technological levels may differ at different times over the past 15,000 years, and what one can even think about may be limited by what one'e technology extends to. Not many could even imagine germs until the appropriate microscope technology was developed. Huge arches (say 100 m) could hardly be thought of, and certainly could not be built until the Romans developed the technology to process cement.

Our technology limits what we can think of, what we think we can do, and what impact we think we are having on the environment, even when we are unintentionally having a far more negative impact - whether grazing practices in the Middle East, firing practices in pre-1788 Australia and pre-conquest US, or over-cultivation in Mayan Central America.

And a hundred years ago, almost nobody in the world was at all concerned about the human impact on the environment (perhaps apart from the Dutch): that is really a very recent phenomenon, post-war.

Joe Lane
Posted by Loudmouth, Wednesday, 16 June 2010 7:52:55 PM
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"You certainly would not have a computer or a car to drive if Europeans had not come."

So what - I wouldn't miss them either.

So I would not have a Ph.D. and I would not know that atomic-testing is bad for the environment, would I be missing anything?

As a child I did not have airconditioning, but did not seem to miss it either. Mind you, I also did not have to work every day in a work-place with air-conditioning, germ-circulator, which I was not allowed to turn off even when I'm freezing and getting a cold in the middle of summer.

"ease of living"? what's so easy in today's rat-race?

Yes, you have a car, so you can visit your loved ones, whom before population grew so much, used to live a few steps away. But then you rarely get the time to visit them, because you are so busy paying for the car and the fumes it produces.

As for cannibalism, why should eating human-flesh be different than eating the flesh of other animals?

Span of life?
Life is not measured in years, but in moments, not by subtracting the "date-of-birth" from the "date-of-death", but by counting the moments of awareness, of freedom, of joy. Going through a fog of busyness does not count.
Posted by Yuyutsu, Wednesday, 16 June 2010 8:38:06 PM
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Jennie - define "Aboriginal Culture"? Do remember when trying to do so that "aborigines" were/are a diverse mob with genetic differences between top end people and those further south. They were insularly tribal and frequently aggressive towards their neighbours - as per Loudmouths comment on the death rate of young men. (Nothing much changed there) There was great diversity of language and 'cultural practices' as well.

They appear to have common belief in an ancestral super-being/animal - usually a Water Serpent and numerous supernatural entities which varied between tribes and regions and were honoured and appeased through art and ceremony. There seemed to be consensus on an 'afterlife' though its form varied. Communication systems that relied largely upon drawings/carvings/markings and story-telling were also the norm. Many of these similarities carried scant importance between tribes.

Tribes lived largely nomadic lifestyles wandering within loosely defined territories hunting, gathering, building rough shelters taking what they needed from the surrounds.

There is much talk about the 'relationship with the land' and claims that Aboriginals were somehow the great custodian caretakers. That aspect of the 'culture' was centred on the Earth providing for them not vice versa. So what's new with humankind? There's certainly strong evidence that Central Australia's deserts and the extinction of the mega-fauna were at least partly due to the practice of burning off to flush game and in reality Aboriginals had no concept whatsoever of 'conservation'.

So in 10/15 thousand years they progressed nowhere and were no match whatsoever for Caucasian invaders. Sad maybe but it's history past.

Today, Aboriginal Australians in every form, from 'fullbloods' in remote areas through the various mixes down to the yella-fellas, those who had a distant Koori relative and claim 'aboriginality' from tribes to the North, South, East & West, have a choice. Learn to live in the "White Man's World" cos that's the reality, or perish.

Most are getting on with it - very successfully in many cases but those living in highly dsyfunctional more 'traditional' community groups are generally doomed along with their unfortunate offspring.
Posted by divine_msn, Wednesday, 16 June 2010 8:50:39 PM
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Divine _ msn and Loudmouth , the Big difference between you and Aboriginal People is that you are happy to have your lifestyle supported by unsustainable population Growth coupled with it's inevitable Environmental Vandalism.
This attitude and lifestyle has a limited lifespan .
Already we see Overpopulation ,sex selection, abortion, childless marriages and ADD as products of our mindless greed and Civilized Disfunction all done with gusto as we "progress".
All this with our University Degrees and Plans for the lucky ones to Colonise Space for when we have really stuffed up Earth .
Aboriginal Mythology has many stories of great Love between men and women . Nothing flash about their lifestyle but one to take their Societies through for another 60,000 years .
Posted by kartiya jim, Wednesday, 16 June 2010 10:38:21 PM
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