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The Forum > Article Comments > War and peace: the Government’s engagement with Indigenous realities > Comments

War and peace: the Government’s engagement with Indigenous realities : Comments

By Andrew Jakubowicz, published 18/7/2007

The Government has a war aim, the total dissolution of Indigenous communal life and the atomisation of Indigenous communities into indistinguishable Australians.

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FrankGol I note you think that “Assimilation is soooooo monophonic. No one listens to that stuff anymore.”

so it is pretty obvious, you do not support “assimilation”.

There are only two choices – assimilation or not assimilation

That said, I would admit that regardless of how old the values are, I am pro-assimilation.

Why?

Because assimilation is the way of “inclusion” and of removing social barriers.

That is the way in which more can aspire to being treated equally.

So lets see who else supports your view and thinks assimilation is a bad thing

1 the Klu Klux Klan are against assimilation
2 The Apartheid government of South Africa was against assimilation
3 Ever small minded and frightened little tin pot dictator is against assimilation.

So I guess Frank, that sums up the sort of pond life who generally reject “assimilation”, the fascists, racists and kindred scumbags.

For myself, I support the leadership examples of Dr Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela.

Whilst you are entitled to your view and I am entitled to mine, I can assure you, I am far more comfortable with the values of those who share the assimilation view to the ones you seem to be standing shoulder to shoulder with.
Posted by Col Rouge, Sunday, 22 July 2007 6:59:14 PM
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Perhaps readers would care to look at the statistics and other facets of employment of Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders in the Australian Public Service at http://www.apsc.gov.au/stateoftheservice/0405/indigenous/census2.htm

The number is somewhat in excess of the proportion of those claiming Aboriginality in the whole Australian population. It would seem that the government is doing more than a little bit towards giving employment to our native brethren.

Another statistic is the increase in the number of people claiming aboriginality from 1971 to 1991. If the number is to continue at the same rate until the end of the 21st century, there will then be 24 million people claiming aboriginality. Such a figure may be somewhat hypothetical, but I would suggest that assimilation may help produce something approaching that figure.
Posted by VK3AUU, Sunday, 22 July 2007 9:52:31 PM
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Col Rouge says: "There are only two choices – assimilation or not assimilation." And that's essentially authoritarian - a travesty of the concept of 'choice'. The earth is bipolar geographically, but politically and socially there are many choices. Assimilation is but one of a number of possibilities - there are various versions of democratic interaction including positive models of cultural diversity within a framework of common laws.

Col Rouge pulls one of the nastiest debating tricks in the book - guilt by contrived association. The Klu Klux Klan, the Apartheid government of South Africa and every tin pot dictator might have opposed assimilation.

But it's absurd to asssert that everyone who is against assimilation must be standing 'shoulder to shoulder' with 'fascists, racists and kindred scumbags'. Gutter tactics Col and illogical.

It also misrepresents these scumbags. They wanted total political and economic power, and claimed 'science' showed that people who were racially different were inferior. 'Science' legitimated their repressive regimes.

I oppose assimilation because it's been tried and discredited as a total failure with poisonous outcomes. In the real world, assimilation means that you pretend that everyone is the same with the same life chances and the same life choices, when they clearly have neither equality of opportunity nor equality of access to resources.

Assimilation means that you treat all people the same way despite their different needs. It means you expect all people to conform to some notion of 'normality' which the Col Rouges define. Assimilation means you won't and don't tolerate other world views.

Under assimilation THEY do all the changing because WE are superior and THEY are inferior. WE will make everyone the same as US because WE are best. Assimilation means THEY will only be worthy of support when WE decide THEY are like us.

In his illogical bipolar world of assimilation, Col is blind to alternative democratic processes such as Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela struggled for. They would be appalled to have their name invoked as supporters of assimilation.
Posted by FrankGol, Sunday, 22 July 2007 10:51:10 PM
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Whether readers agree with Andrew Jakubowicz's 'state of war' assertion or not, its clarification of complex social relationships through the metaphor of warfare, cuts to the very heart of one of the most important and hitherto unresolved issues facing every Australian.

Not only is the reader asked, "What will it take to make a peace in this troubled land? How do we end the war? What are the terms and conditions for building trust between the parties?", they are also encouraged to recognise that "Australian society needs to declare that it wants to make peace, and to espouse a peace plan".

However, much of the discussion on this thread not only enunciates denial of the state of war, but also its consequential unwillingness to peace. Even though the author described a return to assimilationist policy as a recent war strategy change, more recent posts wrangle with (its) propriety place in public policy.

Assimilation is not a one-way street. Non-indigenous Australians could also assimilate into a degree of aboriginality. Caring for country, for instance, could be assimilated into the cultural fabric of a more sustainable future-Australia.

Taken to the opposite extreme, where non-indigenous Australians may only function in conformity with indigenous tradition, the sensibilities of contributors to this debate might be so offended that they might just see the difficulty of contemporary assimilation, from an indigenous perspective
Posted by Neil Hewett, Monday, 23 July 2007 7:37:59 AM
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Any persons who wish to live apart from the greater Australian community ought to be able to, whether they are Aboriginal or not. They should also prove the courage of their convictions and forgo all dependencies on that greater community and not accept welfare, medical and dental, policing, educational or any other products of that society. Let each person assume responsibility for their own decisions and actions and stop with the moralist cultural babysitting. If the Aboriginal is to survive into the future let them do so on their own two feet as proud, independent people not manipulated by those of the "other" society whom think they are the moral and ethical conscious of the world.
Posted by aqvarivs, Monday, 23 July 2007 9:25:32 AM
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Neil Hewett is right to remind us that Andrew Jakubowicz's 'state of war' metaphor of warfare cuts to the very heart of the unresolved issues facing every Australian and that "Australian society needs to declare that it wants to make peace, and to espouse a peace plan".

Neil says "Assimilation is not a one-way street. Non-indigenous Australians could also assimilate into a degree of aboriginality." And his example of caring for land is apposite.

However, Neil is using Assimilation in a particular way that is not recognisable to those who recall the one-way Assimilationism of the past as exemplified by the parallel White Australia policy, by dispossession and absorption and by the Stolen Generation.

Neil's concept of interaction might better be described as a mild form of Integration. His contribution takes no account of the core issues of power/powerlessness, racism, the centrality of land rights, structural inequality and the failure of recent governments to support reconciliation.

Unless we get to grips with those core issues, we will never be at peace in this country.
Posted by FrankGol, Monday, 23 July 2007 9:50:55 AM
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