Alan austin,
apologies for not answering your 4th point, had to dash off to work. I, as does Joe, do not wish to see yet another indigenous department (white bureaucrats slush fund) like those mentioned by Joe. We're led to believe that there are many indigenous people who are more than qualified & capable to lead their people within a western society. Offer them to go to communities & do the work that is presently being done by non-indigenous. Let's see how many are willing to take up these offers & then we can all start planning. In the meantime we can just move on with just being australian. One other way of putting a stop to the exploitation is to introduce fuel & freight subsidies so Governments don't have to pay the outrageous remote area incentive allowances etc. Once we get rid of that insidious carrott only people who WANT to go to communities will go there & become part of the community rather than 18 months career bureaucrats with no interest whatsoever in living in these communities. Take away the Dollar & you take away the problem. No need for yet another Department.

Hi Alan,

You wrote that: <Joe and I have been discussing replacing the current state and federal government Aboriginal departments with an elected Indigenous body – like ATSIC but set up properly by Indigenous people themselves, not foisted on them.>

Actually, I wouldn't go along with that: governments have their roles and responsibilities towards Indigenous people, just as they have for all Australians and they should be held to account for those responsibilities without trying to pass the buck to some other body.

This is not Apartheid South Africa where groups could be excluded on the pretext of having 'their own' bureaucracies and administrations.

Much as many of the Aboriginal elite would love to be big frogs in little ponds, ruling over a captive population and with a bottomless bucket of other people's money, surely what the history of the past forty or so years has shown is how irrelevant and unnecessary such bodies have been in the lives of Indigenous people. The elites may have their Grand Plans but I don't think ordinary people want a bar of any of it. They just want to be left alone to get on with the business of life.

I am curious about why Indigenous Australians are supposed to live in 'traditional' ways before the self-apointed non-Indigenous adjudicators will accept that they are 'real' Indigenous Australians.

If the same standards were to be applied across the board that might be ok - If the non-Indigenous people were prepared to go back to living like their mob did prior to 1770 before they were classed as 'legitimate' people, we would have no problems.

However, many people who do live in flash ($500,000) houses, and you don't get a very flash house for that price these days, and drive Toyotas or Holdens etc, still do live in very traditional ways. Just because people are able to function to a high level in the mainstream society does not mean that their worldview, culture and philosophy needs to match that of the non-indigenous society.

I doubt if many non-Indigenous people could function at a reasonable level if forced to live within an Indigenous worldview and cultural expectations and responsibilities.

Bunbadgee, I agree that 'tradional lifestyles' have been maintained as best we can, and I would like to point out that Indigenous people are intellegent and adaptable, so what people see is the adaptation of traditional lifestyle so that it can be maintained alonside traditional philosophy in the current age.

Aka,

I'm amazed that you can write:

<I am curious about why Indigenous Australians are supposed to live in 'traditional' ways before the self-apointed non-Indigenous adjudicators will accept that they are 'real' Indigenous Australians.>

Says who ? Who 'demands' such a condition on identity ? Are you imposing it yourself - i.e. are you equating 'real' Indigenous Australians with 'traditional' ways, and thereby disqualifying people who do not live in 'traditional' ways ? I certainly am not: in fact, I don't know all that many Indigenous people who are living in anything remotely like a 'traditional' way, yet I take for granted that the Indigenous people that I know are Indigenous. Their 'degree of traditional ways' frankly means nothing to me: they are Indigenous, they have been through the Indigenous experience and cope with the legacies of past policies ranged against Indigenous people, their relations and histories are Indigenous, so regardless of whatever degree of traditional culture they may practice, they are Indigenous. Try to tell them otherwise ;)

So who is equating one with the other, 'real' Indigenous people and people living in 'traditional ways' ? Is there a mote in thine own eye, Aka ? Do YOU regard Indigenous people who do not practice any traditional ways as Indigenous ? Are YOU prepared to try to tell them otherwise ?

Just asking :)

Joe

Joe, Indi and Aka, thanks again for these comments. But the key question seems not to be so much about traditional lifestyle versus adaptation of western values. Rather, are those communities and families which choose to continue their traditional stories, art, music, language and lore being allowed to, or are these aspirations being thwarted by the management of Indigenous affairs currently being imposed?

John Howard memorably said in 2007 about Indigenous people: “Their future can only be as part of the mainstream of the Australian community.” Then, with the NT Intervention, he completed the process of destroying the foundations of indigenous aspirations other than being subsumed into the dominant white culture.

Howard's philosophy and actions were summarised here: http://www.crikey.com.au/2007/08/30/howard-signals-the-end-of-a-distinct-aboriginal-identity/

The questions raised by this week’s article is whether or not Howard’s policies are continuing, and whether this is a good thing. The related question seldom asked is: Is there any real hope of closing any of the glaring gaps while the Howard agenda remains in place? What do you think?

I certainly don't think that it is as black and white, as either/or, as you do, Alan, with respect: Identity may coexist with aspects of traditional life, of course, but it's not identical to it. One can be Indigenous without being traditional, or adhering to any particular set of cultural practices. Urban people still are Indigenous - try telling them otherwise.

After all, down here around Adelaide, many groups stopped carrying out ceremonies, initiating young people, visiting clan lands and relying on hunting and gathering in pre-European ways, in the mid- to later part of the nineteenth century. With greater Indigenous mobility after the Invasion/Settlement, people married into and between groups and settled at missions with much greater diversity, so that from 1860 or earlier, as missions were set up, children often already could not speak the language of that region: when Rev. George Taplin was appointed to set up Pt McLeay mission, the first thing he did, and for weeks, was to learn the language. When he set up the school, he tried to teach in the local language but found quickly that many children could not speak it, so after four years trying, he went back to English which they all understood.

By 1900, very few children were learning the full language (the last person who could speak the full language was born around 1881), the last young men had been initiated twenty years earlier (and that, in a very abbreviated form) and people had started to forget where their particular clan lands were.

With European-style land-use dominating the landscape and the economy, only the older people were still relying on fishing, hunting and food-gathering - ironically, helped along by free equipment from the Protector. Sorry, that's how it was: if people chose to live on the Murray river, the Protector provided them with a free tent, rifle or shotgun, 15-ft canoe, and annual supplies of blankets, fishing lines, hooks, etc. Rifles and shotguns were repaired free. Sorry, I know that does not fit in with the stereotype of history, but there you go.

[TBC]

Joe