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The Forum > Article Comments > Another angry, confused, condemning white voice > Comments

Another angry, confused, condemning white voice : Comments

By Robert Chapman, published 8/8/2008

Paul Toohey's 'Last Drinks' Quarterly Essay assumes that outsiders have a better understanding of the problems and solutions involved in contemporary Indigenous life.

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steven, I found food for thought in your post but it's also very obvious that the nature of the indiginous experience in Australia and jewish history have been very different.

As an outsider (not angry or condeming, possibly confused and generally somewhere between white and tanned) the jewish experience seems to have involved a number of massive upheavals, a love of a land they believe was given to them by god but which they've not always occupied. It's involved long term conflict with neighbours with quite different beliefs, it's had the written word. It's had the view that the religious practices of the faith are still relevant in distant places (I don't know how that works for indiginous australians). Jews have had a good grounding to adapt their culture, to take it to strange places and make it work for them.

The ability of the jewish culture to adapt yet hold firm to some core things is a product of some of it's elements and a lot of practice.

R0bert
Posted by R0bert, Sunday, 10 August 2008 8:33:01 AM
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Well the article made sense to me, on the whole. I grew up in the NT
btw.

It’s interesting that some people condemn Aborigines for not
adapting to the dominant culure at the same time that they are
accused of inauthenticity (or something) because a large number live in populated centres and major cities – where people are clearly doing their best to adjust to mainstream culture and have been for generations. Whichever way they go they are targets for criticism.

Interesting thing about the critics is that somehow they adopt an authoritative stance as if it’s up to them to decide what is legitimate; what is not. Nobody questions, and it would be impertinent of them to do so, whether Anglo-Aussies are more or less Australian because they hail from the city or the bush, or Europe or the Middle East or anywhere else for that matter.

As to whether ancient Aboriginal society constituted a “civilization”, I would say that identification of “civilization” is largely in the eye of the beholder. It’s more about having a shared and understood culture and social institutions like family, education, law, economy and such . The complexity of the Aboriginal culture and social arrangements are, I think, beyond our knowledge or capacity to fully appreciate.

The thing that amazes me about Aboriginal culture and society is that
despite a couple of hundred years rift between their society as it was at settlement, and now - along with lots of upheavals; relocations and separations – even with many descendents moving to cities and partnering out of their clan group – most Aboriginal people (well all that I know anyway) can identify their clan grouping by name; speak some of the original language; know what region they occupied and identify other groups as well.

I don’t know what could match that for evidence of determined survival and adaptation.
Posted by Pynchme, Monday, 11 August 2008 10:57:45 PM
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Most of these comments make even Toohey look erudite and balanced.
For a more positive, informed, and, above all, constructive, view, have a look at this paper - Ngurra-kurlu: A way of working with Warlpiri people - published in the last few days by the Desert Knowledge CRC, lead-authored by a Warlpiri man, Jampijinpa Patrick.
Link below:
http://www.desertknowledgecrc.com.au/publications/downloads/DKCRC-Report-41-Ngurra-kurlu.pdf
Posted by Jupurrurla, Tuesday, 12 August 2008 1:09:35 PM
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Pynchme

You write 'Whichever way they go they are targets for criticism.'

This is exactly how many white people feel. Many have sacrificed much to help indigenous people only to be labeled 'white trash'. I know and have heard of many who have gone to communities as teachers and nurses with good intentions only to be seen as intruders by elders. Some resent their children receiving 'white man's medicine' even if it saves a life.

It is not only the whites who have 'angry, confused and condemning voices. In most cases it is the aboriginal activist (who is often white) with a political barrow to push that screams the loudest.
Posted by runner, Tuesday, 12 August 2008 2:26:13 PM
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Dear Dear, another blind, accepting, do gooder excuse maker. For someone professing to know so much, Chapman knows so little. Permits are nothing like the common law of trespass - they are statutory rights enshrined in separate legislation that applies no where else - the ALRA. They are not issued and revoked by Police, they are issued by the land councils and TOs. Police can't revoke them. Permits don't apply to aboriginal people whether or not they are Traditional Owners of particular land.

No other land holders have statutory permit systems regardless of the size of their land. If Police had the same powers, then, by definition, permits wouldn't be necessary. Nothing like trespass. Further, why are we putting public roads, public infrastructure and public housing on private land if you need permits to get to them? What got missed here was that permits were only being revoked for the 'public areas' so they got treated just like any other public area.

Public servants don't get them as of right - some get them according to Ministerial direction, but others had them issued by the normal processes - as was the case even for the intervention.

As for "ceremony is like school", what crap. Ceremony is important for culture but it doesn't equip people for economic independence. It doesn't teach people to read or write or to hold down a job.

An entirely useless article from someone whose whole four years of experience seems to do nothing but make excuses for the entrenched problems that Toohey was writing about and to obfuscate the issues with petty and trivial technical points - some, likepermits, that are actually wrong.
Posted by gobsmacked, Tuesday, 12 August 2008 3:18:44 PM
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Pynchme says: "As to whether ancient Aboriginal society constituted a “civilization”, I would say that identification of “civilization” is largely in the eye of the beholder. It’s more about having a shared and understood culture and social institutions like family, education, law, economy and such."

Gee, on that basis why bother about such arcane concepts as standard definitions? If everything is to be identified via the "eye of the beholder" then I am entitled to regard a bicycle as a car, or a pigeon as an antelope? I think not.

I know Wikipedia might be derided in some quarters but I think its defintion holds water. This is it:

"A civilization or civilisation is a society or culture group normally defined as a complex society characterized by the practice of agriculture and settlement in cities.

Compared with less complex cultures, members of a civilization are organized into a diverse division of labour and an intricate social hierarchy."

Ipso facto, if pre-1788 Aboriginal societies did not settle in cities or maintain a diverse division of labour in this country, then they did not establish a civilisation.

As for Pynchme's statement that, "The complexity of the Aboriginal culture and social arrangements are, I think, beyond our knowledge or capacity to fully appreciate" - this verges on racism and would be howled down if it was said in the reverse direction.
Posted by Savage Pencil, Tuesday, 12 August 2008 4:51:52 PM
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