Ah Graham,

You said "Just some 'line and length' stuff about Indigenous disadvantage and the pressing need to make amends."

To make amends implies that a wrongful act occured. It should be obvious that for over 40 years, the Aboriginal "Industry" has been pushing the "look what you did to us" line and playing the guilt trip. Is it any wonder that some punters actually do feel a "collective" guilt based upon racial lines.

Indeed, you are absolutely correct in that Indigenous (actually anyone born here is indegenous!) Australians are full Australian citizens and have been from 1967. As Australians they have rights and entitlements (and I dare say responsibilities) of any other Australian.

The problem, as I see it, is that a stone age culture came into contact with an industrialised culture. The "do-gooders" of the industrial culture have inflicted an imposible ideal on the stone-agers by insisting that they maintain their incapatible culture instead of selecting those components that could be incorporated into the industrialised culture, and discarding those that won't.

The reality for the Stone-Age culture is that the 20 million Industrial-Agers aren't just going to significantly change or walk back into the sea.

The unfinished business will be finished only when indigenous people let it go and realise that this is now, not many years ago. There are many that are in this country against their will and many that have had their country of origin invaded and forced here. The ancestors of most in this country have suffered injustice, slaughter and invasion, thats why their here.

The problem some indigenous face is their lack of self respect, which comes from being told they are owed something. When the facts are, they aren't owed anything, they owe their culture, country and future to what this country is now. Until they develop their own pride and go about life as many others have, the sooner means can be provided to address the social and lifestyle problems they face.

If you live in the mainstream then you accept mainstream culture and approach,. If you live cultural, then you should accept a cultural approach and get in with it. You can't take a culture from a subsistence lifestyle, thrust it into a survival lifestyle and except it to adapt straight away, it takes many generations of integration to do that.

A way must be established so that those having trouble with fitting into both worlds, can find it easier to cope with.

Well said Graham. I always find it amusing that the "usual suspects" against the arguements you make on this topic are never surprising nor original in their replies. Likewise can never offer a decent plan to move forward.

No New World country has come up with the solution to the problem of its indigenous people. I suspect that there is no solution at all. Many people believed that 'Land rights' would address the issue, but this pre-supposes that indigenous people wish to live tribal lives. Why should we suppose that native peoples wish to live in anthropological zoos?

Australian aboriginals now own 13% of the land mass - currently, 43% of the Northern Territory and most of its coastline is in Aboriginal hands. The courts have determined that native title extends across the Alice Springs town area. Most of the rest of Australia is under claim from taxpayer funded groups of Aboriginals and Caucasian Aboriginals. 10% of Western Australian has been handed over in the form of inalienable freehold title to aboriginal claimants.

Are aboriginals better off? I dont think so. I live close to the aboriginal suburb of Redfern in Sydney which is rife with crime, drug addiction, alcoholism and the mistreatement of women and children - what do 'land rights' offer to urban aboriginals? Trying to force aboriginals back into a tribal fantasy world, to a way of life that is no longer viable for anyone, is ridiculous.

The only way forward for aboriginals is to join the rest of Australia - get an education, find a job, and train the children to do the same. A lifetime of accepting 'sit-down' money is the road to nowhere. It does not promote self-respect and leads in the end to aboriginals being viewed with contempt by non-aboriginals.

Aboriginals are probably still suffering physchologically from the clash of cultures that took place 200 odd years ago. It takes more than a few generations to recover from such trauma.

Well Graham, I mainly agree with you and perhaps tactically you are on the right track but i personally do feel guilt. I also feel a direct responsibility as a white australian currently benefitting from the dispossession and massacre (come on lets be brave and say genocide) of Australia's first people.

As decendants of the people who committed the crimes against Aboriginal people all over the world (anyone descended from the British Empire at the very least) we do need to atone for the damage done and fix the problems which created a system that unfairly advantages white people.

We also need to hold people to account and there are people still alive that were part of the regime that continued to brutalise black people. And this is not even entering into a debate about current politics and continued violence, symbolic and physical. There has been no compensation paid for damages and even the stolen wages (which weren't even fair at the time) have not been returned. White Australian's should feel guilty, we are guilty, and will remain so until we admit the past wrongs and make amends. I don't think that pandering to the right on this one by appeasing the racist white folk is the way to go...but who knows.

Australians have been flayed with the cat nine tails guilt whip for the past three decades . Political correctness has been the greatest hindrance to indigenous advancement ever.
It has bred the notorious Aboriginal Industry which has been the reason why Aboriginal children have never been able to keep up with their white counterparts. Education has been a matter of whimsy instead of being a compulsory part of life.
All the political correctness has done is to assure the Indigenous society goes backward at a fast pace.
It is a total waste of people.

It is very telling that illiteracy is now widespread among young aboriginals - older aboriginals, often educated in mission schools, were (and are) both literate and numerate.

I agree about the stolen wages. Aboriginals worked for a pittance and often never received even that small amount.

Nobody with a heart could look at the state of aboriginals today and feel nothing. Throwing money obviously does not work.

I toured remote outback Australia for 2 years during the 1970s - its amazing how little things have changed for aboriginals since that time.

Talking about illiteracy - if you are referring to Aboriginal people in Australia than the capital 'A' is required otherwise you are referring to indigenous people world-wide. The 'clash of cultures' didn't just happen 200 years ago and i really don't know where to begin with the rest of you.

It is funny though that all these people talking about Indigenous people taking responsibility, are completely unable to acknowledge their responsibility. Until white people own up to the damage done by successive generations of government policy (that in many ways and places still continues) we won't be able to move forward - I try to be politically correct but these ignorant, reductive and incessant cause-and-effect comments really push my limits

ATTENTION White people..

We do owe them something for gods sake. You all have had a typical white answer said from your high horses.

We stole their land, identity, raped them, murdered and mamed them, put them in communes when they are nomads, stole their children, slaved them out, culled the population and destroyed everything.

If we are not accountable, who is? Yes you and i might not have done it with our own hands, but we as a nation did.

It is only fair that every piece of registered Australian property pay a peppercorn rent to the traditional owners. If we all paid $10 per year to to the native peoples for each piece of individual real estate in our rates we could abolish the assistance schemes, we could stop the bleeding of funds and have a strucured support base for these peoples indefinately.

That way everybody wins, the indigenous people can stop 'complaining', the blame game and guilt is over and we can all get on with our lives.

If anyone who owns real estate cannot afford $10 per year, take a good look at yourselves. i dont mind this if it means these people are not being gifted money, they are recieving what they are entitled to and they can set up structures to govern these funds. Despite what the statistics say, their is a movement of native peoples who are now highly educated, motivated and have the capacity to govern this.

Lets give them what they deserve, a traditional owners levy, and lets be done with it. Case Closed.

Why don't we pay each person who has declared their Aboriginality in some official way in the last three years - on some government form etc - $50,000 tax free each year for the rest of their lives - payable in a lump sum symbollically on 26 January. This $50,000 would take the place of all other welfare with the exception of free health treatment with no gap payment and no limit, and free education.

However, once the $50,000 was spent there would be no more for that year, but as everyone else of Aboriginal background in the community was receiving money no one could claim that they needed more money to spend on someone else.

Make this tax free, whilst also able to work and pay no income or other tax. GST would be harder to deal with, but still possible.

Have the amount indexed according to inflation.

Perhaps children could receive a lesser amount: $20,000 per year for the first five years, $30,000 until they turned 10 and $40,000 until they turned 15 and then the full amount.

The Redfern bag snatchers could be recognised for the injustices that they are trying to wrong, after all, they are simply trying to collect the rent from whites.

Would that help deal with people's guilt perhaps? Or maybe what is required is the full consideration that Australia is occupied illegally, leading to no more immigration and all of those people with dual citizenship being required to go to their other state of citizenship, whilst preventing all other non Aboriginal people from further breeding and encouraging Aboriginal people to have huge families to repopulate the land?

The word 'aboriginal' is a common noun and therefore does not warrant a capital A. The word refers to the indigines of any country, and the Australian indigines are small-a aborigines just like the rest. The people in question can be referred to as indigenous Australians or aboriginal Australians by all but the irredeemable politically correct, the lazy, or the illiterate.

What about those Romans. My ancestors are from Bath, England. Landowners dispossessed by Caesar.Until I receive recompense from the Italian Government no Italian can ever be truly rested.

I am amazed by the lameness of the posts on this thread. Four uses of "politically correct", perhaps the laziest cliche in the book. "Stone-age culture", "clash of cultures" etc etc. ugh.

Indigenous Australians have by far the worst health of any group in the country. Indigenous health is a national disgrace. Life expectancy of Aboriginal Australians is 17 to 20 years less than the national average. Infant mortality and maternal mortality are 3 to 4 times the national average. We're not talking about "200 years ago", this is right now in your state. Check here http://www.healthinfonet.ecu.edu.au/html/html_overviews/overviews_our_mortality.htm for some more cheerful reading. If this were any other group in the country there would be an outcry

Governments posture and talk about "practical reconciliation", but a relative of mine who has worked in Aboriginal health in the NT tells me that the resources are just not there. Some of these problems are fixable. We need to fix them.

Perhaps one of the things that Aboriginal (and yes, I will use the capital) people lack is self-respect. Is this because they feel that they are owed something? Or are there other reasons?

In a country that promotes multiculturalism, we are (at least officially) eager to learn the work ethic of our Asian neighbours, the culinary skills of our Mediterranean friends . . . the list goes on. But, on a level that goes beyond 'bush tucker' and the like, do we give Aboriginal Australians much credit? As a teacher in Townsville, I deal with ATSI students all the time. Many of them come from Palm Island, Doomadgee, Bamaga, Thursday Island, etc for a good education. They aren't shipped in by the government - they are brought (or sent) by their parents who want the best for them. And these kids, uncorrupted by a city upbringing, are invariably the politest, hardest-working children I deal with. Their literacy may be low, but they are eager to fix it. They may live in households of up to 15 people, but they give their families the care and respect they deserve. They may not have many books or other 'cultural' possessions, but they do have a willingness to learn - to better themselves - that many of my white students lack.

This initiative is further demonstrated by groups such as the Bwgcolman Futures Foundation on Palm. It is a community group, run and funded by the community, seeking to improve facilities on the island. They don't expect me or anyone else to feel guilty. They just ask for the occasional donation to help them achieve their goals. They don't think we owe them anything, they just recognise that there is a problem on what should be an island paradise and go about solving that problem.

It is this initiative, common to so many ATSI people, that we could learn from. Forget witchetty (sp?) grubs and emu steaks, perhaps if we valued the cultural capital of the native population we could go beyond guilt and work towards a successful future.

Otokonoko

Great post, thank you

firstly, r.e. above post. Palm Island does not have grade 11 and 12. Concerned parents do send their children to boarding school because there is no alternative.

However, on the subject of guilt

guilt is a part of western culture, inspired by christianity. It was brought to this country like smallpox, V.D. and other unhealthy things. Aboriginal people, that I have listened to, do not appeal to guilt, this issue is allways the subject of the white reaction to what is said. Aboriginal people speak of truth, justice, compassion, equality, etc. They also speak very specifically about their understandings of their own land and history.
A good example of the different cultural attitudes is "sorry". Sorry business is grieving, fully feeling and acknowledging pain. in yourself and in others. Sorry is what you feel when a relative dies because you loved that relative and you feel the pain of the others who loved them. Yet the western mind has turned "sorry" in a legalistic debate between guilt and innocense and missed the point of acknowledging pain. All that Aboriginal people were seeking was for white Australia to feel a sadness in their heart about what had happened, to truly open up as human beings. But instead it got turned around and focused on the issue of guilt and innocence of white Australia.

Guilt exists only within the white commentaries about Aboriginality, or global poverty and affluence or our lifestyles' consequence on the environment. Western culture very quickly turns to an analysis of guilt and reaches a detatched understanding that these issues belong to someone else but do not affect us. We pay for politicians to worry about these things.

Real change will occur when Australia has a change of heart. It is about the heart, which is only repressed through guilt.

Hamlet - 'The Redfern bag snatchers could be recognised for the injustices that they are trying to wrong, after all, they are simply trying to collect the rent from whites.'

Last year, my husband was attacked by 'bag snatchers' outside Redfern railway station. He is not a big man, he is in his forties, and the three aboriginals who attacked him were all in their teens. The attack resulted in 3 cracked ribs, a dislocated arm and a very bad headache when he was kicked in the head for refusing to give up his money.

Let me assure you, the cowardly attackers were not collecting 'rent' - they were simply trying to get something for nothing, and didnt care who they hurt or killed in the process, like any other scumbag.

Enough PC nonsense. Aboriginals do not have some sort of divine right, as you imply, to perpetrate robbery by violence. It is opinions like yours that have ensured that very few attackers have been arrested and charged. Perhaps if you or one of your loved ones were the victims, those opinions may change.

dee,

I lived there for years as well, me , my friends all of us were beaten robbed often at knifepoint broken bottle or swarmed even the elderly... not one of us missed this experience. None of us ever did it to anyone white or black.

Also it's a reality to be scared in Redfern if you are white, not of other races as you pass many and often in the streets at night, just of aboriginals.

On the other hand, if their is any problem community I kinda wish luck to it's Australian aboriginals, as they are from this land... but I only wish them luck in making good of themselves and not any bigger welfare or guilt/fear laying tactics... this is just ultimatly another dead end for their race.

And I'm no longer willing to "help" in anyway, why should I after what I went through with them?

Dee

I am sorry, but I thought that people could recognise irony and sarcasm when they saw it.

I have worked with enough Aboriginal people to recognise that many have climbed out of terrible conditions where they should never have been in the first place. I suggest that you look at:

http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/parlment/hansart.nsf/V3Key/LA20050322024

to learn a little about the late Judge Robert Bellear, Australia's only Aboriginal Judge. It is a shame that there have not been more Aboriginals with the education and experience to be appointed to that position or higher.

I can assure you that Bob Bellear was not 'soft' on the Aboriginal offenders who came before him.

I tell you that I have felt fear at the prospect of walking through Redfern.

A story: An Aboriginal colleague told me about a niece of hers, from La Perouse who went to visit a friend in Redfern. This girl was gang raped by a group of Aboriginals. The police said that they had been told not to get involved in crime within the Aboriginal community (early 1990s). The girl and her family went to the ALS to try to get justice, and was told that the ALS would only deal with Aboriginals charged with a crime, and that was to assist the accused. They would not help the victim.

The girl’s father finished up tracking each rapist down and administering a beating to each. He should not have had to. This was not justice.

Aboriginals are the victims of crime by other Aboriginals just as much as white Australians are. Domestic violence is rife in Aboriginal communities, and the ALS will only help the perpetrator rather than the victim, due to the idea of ‘conflicting interests’, which is why ALS services specifically targeted for women have been set up.

Your husband was the victim of the sort of violence that Aboriginal women are subjected to every day. Aboriginal culture is inherently violent against females, but you will never hear an Aboriginal male admit to that, instead they will say that whoever says it is racist.

Dee:

I have spent 10 years in the neighbourhood also and yes, I too grow weary of the violence, gang fights, robbery and stick ups, racial taunts (white c**t) and all the rest. I have been bashed, my friends have all been held up with knives. I have seen packs of men hold up shops with spears. We like to swap stories about the excuses the burglars give when confronted. A sort of local pastime. Invariably it is "I am looking for Steve, he was going to sell me some speed". Best keep the observation that they entered through the third floor window to yourself.

I had a flatmate who went up to the station to catch a train with her child. Silly girl was "asking for it" by carrying a flimsy stringy handbag. Of course she got it forcibly wrenched from he while pushing the stroller, just having been to the bank. As is typical in these situations the victim feels like an idiot and she broke down. At this point an aboriginal woman took pity on her and went off into the block before returning with the discarded bag, no cash but still with cards and licenses. She then peeled a $50 note out of her purse and said she had been paid that day and to take it, she was sick of all the scumbags giving aborigines like her a bad name.

Sad that in a decade this is the only positive story I can think of in this regard.

It is very important to distinguish between Aboriginal leaders and spokespeople who demand our attention because there is a serious crisis and other Aboriginal people who are living the worst of the crisis - such as bag-snatchers, paint sniffers and a whole range of well publicised crimes of violence.. These people have lost all respect for people, not just white people but their own families and indeed themselves - these people, mainly young but not exclusively, are the living proof that things need to change urgently, not just for the benefit of Aboriginal people but so that we all can walk down the street and be safe.
The bag snatchers and white bashers, and black family bashers are proof that the prison system does not work. Aboriginal people have been shouting this for years, and putting up solid alternatives within customary law. But the white law has dismissed this and insists it knows best. Every aboriginal person who spends time in gaol is not being "rehabilitated" - not healed in any way, they are being made harder and more hateful because that is the system that gaol socialises you into - and gives you all the contacts you need to be your own crime wave when you are let out in the community.

The reason such anti-social activity festers in Aboriginal communities is because white power such as prison has been the only strategy to tackle it.
An example. Some time ago when petrol sniffing got out of hand in Mt. Isa, some elders rounded up the young men who had taken up the habit, put them in a 4w.d. and took them out bush, against their will, to straighten up and learn some things. They had to stop that because they were facing charges of kidnapping.

The best way to stop violence from Aboriginal people would be to support Aboriginal crime prevention and correction strategies which, If funded properly would save the tax payer million$ from the police and prison budget and make the community safer too.

I have grown up on an aboriginal mission in a country town, am part Koori, then went to uni and lived 200 metres from redfern station and the block, some of my best mates are Koori and i have lived alongside and with them all my life.

My white skin has meant i have not met the same cultural disadvantages many face, and i have had the advantage/disadvantage of hearing both sides of the fence from a more neutral position (some people being unaware i was part Koori) than most.

Whilst everyone makes their own choices (i came from the same nest as many who have not embraced life and have been disadvantaged) it comes down to environment, role models and focus. Without at least 1 of those 3 the kids usually are in for a torrid time in life, as they do not know any other way.

The end of the day, white people and the Australian Nation did this to a peoples who were largely untouched for 100,000 years.

We are to blame. Nobody, not one politician realy wants to get their hands dirty with it and go out and live it for a few weeks and get a first hand understanding of issues and problems.

Whilst most of you posters with little real understanding try to tell the world why the Indigenous Austrlalians have all these problems, it is easy to make assumptions and this is part of the problem. No one wants to fix this issue, grab it by the scruff of the neck and actually begin to plan and fix things.

We as Australians got these people to this point, now lets work hard to rectify the problem. This does not mean hand outs either, you teach people how to hunt, not where to go for food. We need to do this as a society, there are not millions of Peoples you can work community by community and eventually begin to provide light at the end of the tunnel. My above theory of the Native Title levy is also part of this solution.

Sorry Hamlet - I have heard so many people say similar things ('collecting rent') etc. and mean it, that I took you at your word. Sometimes its hard to detect irony. Another infuriating thing was that my husband was attacked within metres of the so-called police station. Ironically, about 5 years ago, my husband saw an old man being mugged by four aboriginals, within full view of security guards on Redfern station and he was the only one to help.

Child sexual abuse is also rife in Aboriginal communities, but nobody wants to admit that either. As well as very young girls being 'promised' to old men, like the case recently in the NT where the man was given a slap-on-the-wrist sentence for kidnapping and raping his 14 year old 'bride' when she showed reluctance.

I wonder if Aboriginals would really wish to return to this way of life.

realist,
Aborginals have had piles of extras, you know we have tried to help them, it hasnt worked, really all thats left is for them now to adapt to modern life.

Realist wrote:

(The end of the day, white people and the Australian Nation did this to a peoples who were largely untouched for 100,000 years)

Aboriginal people have only lived in Australia for 40,000. They are trying to extend that to 60,000 but it isn't working. The Aboriginal people also displaced the 'native' pygmy people that inhabitated OZ at that time (the remains of these indigenous people have been found). My point being that most countries/nations in the world have been invaded at some point in history - and it is still going on today ... we are invading Iraq are we not ? There would be people of aboriginal heritage in the armed forces would there not ?

I am not guilty for what happened in the past, but I am capable of making sure that this type of behaviour is not tolerated in the future. Unfortunately, the only people causing racism in this country today are the aboriginal people themselves. The rest of us would just like to get on with being Australian.

I wonder why the Aboriginal people aren't sueing the churches? , they were the worst offenders throughout the stolen generation fiasco :-

I think the idea of Boarding school away from the dysfunctional families is the only idea that has any chance of working.
Every child , black or white, has a potential for good or for bad and much depends on environment.
White people have had thousands of years of civilisation in which to evolve and to create, the Aboriginal has had just over two hundred years.
The beautiful Aboriginal art and the sporting prowess shown by many is undervalued but the potential is there and nothing should be spared to give Aboriginal children a chance to shine.

TO the blinkered racists ,
You Give the native original owners of Australia no compensation , No Treaty, very little respect for their complex culture or lost lands ; alcohol and drugs instead of good food and education for 200 years, Then Throw in a good measure of white ignorance, fear and arrogance ,some dole money to ease your consciences then take away their independent voice and expect it will SOON all fall into place and we will all live happily ever after together ,you must be joking .

Beautifully said Graham. And with humour too! Insert long sigh - if only more of those guilt ridden critics of Indigenous folk could get or retrieve their sense of humour the world would be a better place for us all...

Freestinker wrote : “Unfortunately, the only people causing racism in this country today are the aboriginal people themselves. The rest of us would just like to get on with being Australian.”

Freethinker,

The next time I get racially vilified or must once listen to white rednecks publicly rave (as they do) about 'abo's, Muslims, Asians in deliberate earshot-- I'll have remind myself that its bloody well my fault they think and speak like this.

It’s got nothing to do with them; it’s because of who I am and what I look like, my history, my family. How can I stop causing them to think and feel this way?
I just want them to be peace loving, humanitarian, non-racist Ozzies.

Please tell me how?

Posted by Rainier, Monday, 1 May 2006 6:52:40 PM

[It’s got nothing to do with them; it’s because of who I am and what I look like, my history, my family. How can I stop causing them to think and feel this way?
I just want them to be peace loving, humanitarian, non-racist Ozzies.

Please tell me how?]

Where do you live ? I had a similar conversation with 2Deadly about this. It doesn't go on where we live, perhaps you should move here.

I would say that white (peaches & cream) Australians are getting a might peed off with their tax dollars being thrown at Aboriginal kids and families with nothing to show for it. It is not the majority that is the problem, much the same as racist people are not in the majority, but those minority bludgers that exist in any culture.

If you want other folks to be peace loving, humanitarian, non racist Aussies then you have to be that yourself. I forget who said this but it is one of my favourite quotes:

"You go out into the world, the world reproduces you and you experience yourself"

What about the aboriginal people from the central coast of NSW who claimed and won their traditional land, then sold it to the highest bidder. Do you think that this would make Australian people as a whole think that those aboriginal people respected their own culture and heritage ?

Alison.