Joe, there is nothing you have written with which I disagree. So perhaps I have muddled my essential argument. It has nothing to do with how traditional or otherwise any person chooses to live. No-one is making any value judgments about levels of westernisation, education, urbanisation or integration. Everyone is completely free to choose his or her style and place of life without having their Aboriginality questioned.

My concern is for that minority who wish to continue to incorporate into their mix of western and traditional life much of the old tribal art, stories, music, foods, language and lore.

Indi, there are many places where people still hunt for traditional foods on their clan lands and seas, according to the seasons, with transport and weapons adapted from western innovations - as they have chosen the adaptation.

I am thinking of the communities on Elcho Island and elsewhere in Arnhem Land, at Mornington Island and elsewhere in North Queensland and at Papunya and elsewhere in the central desert. I have visited these places regularly since the mid 1970s and worked for short periods in all of them. Many people want to maintain vestiges of ancestral life on their tribal lands and pass them on to their children.

My argument is that present structures are making such continuation impossible. But there are alternative structures. These will permit continuation of semi-traditional communities without in any way diminishing the rights or choices of other Indigenous groups or individuals.

And, as a bonus, they will lay the foundation for closing the gaps in housing, health, poverty and imprisonment.

they will lay the foundation for closing the gaps in housing, health, poverty and imprisonment.
Alan Austin,
I have put a lot of effort at personal sacrifice into trying to help people achieve this. My conclusion is that all factors required to achieve this have already evaporated. The european australian who is supposed to be the front runner for progress has been on a downhill run of mentality for several decades & we expect the indigenous who were dictated to by those europeans to catch up with the 21st century ? You can not put on a bad show for so long & then expect the audience to be any wiser.
Alan, whilst I appreciate your concerns I'm afraid the chances of success re the indigenous in particular to secure their cultures are very slim indeed. Just look at how so-called cultural events are choreographed in the western style or how even their DNA is changing. Mainly of due to outside influence & unfortunately due to their own attitude as well. This doesn't make them any better or worse than the european, only very similar.

Indi, all your observations are entirely fair. I also have low expectations, as indicated in both the opening and closing sentences of the article.

And yet both the Greens and Labor have self-determination via an elected council as policy. So I am not entirely despairing of the long term future. We can hope there will be a groundswell of pressure for real reform at some time, as has happened in the past.

Meanwhile, continual reminders of the real causes of the many problems may well hasten that day. Thanks for your comments here, Indi. Much appreciated.

But, Alan and Individual, Indigenous people ARE determining their own futures, but as individuals rather than communally (which disappoints my socialist heart, but that's how it is, and you have to work with realities rather than daydreams).

One in every ten adults is already a university graduate and, if TAFE figures tell anything, perhaps another one in every hundred is a tradesperson.

In barely thirty years, Indigenous people have halved the gap in home ownership.

In SA, almost half of all 18-year-olds are enrolling at Year 12 compared to 10 % a decade ago.

Admittedly, nothing much positive seems to be happening in remote settlements, but I live in hope that the examples set by urban people will eventually influence their country cousins.

The bottom line is that progress and prosperity will come to Indigenous people through their own actions, not from some money tree in Canberra, and yet more social workers. And an ATSIC-style body is utterly irrelevant to that process.

The dreadful policies imposed by States on Indigenous people have very long legacies. ENABLING policies which allow people to lift their heads have been implemented in opposition to the legacy of low expectations and restrictions, but it has been people's actions rather than state policy which has worked.

People sometimes have to fight against their own history. But they usually can never forget it, whoever and wherever they may be.

Joe

Thanks again, Joe. But no-one is disputing your education statistics or disapproving of the progress being made by many Indigenous people who have freely chosen to get an advanced education and participate within Australia’s mainstream economy. This is certainly to be welcomed and applauded.

But if one in 10 has a degree, then nine out of ten don't. So do you accept that there are Indigenous people in Arnhem Land, the central deserts and right across Northern Australia who do not share these aspirations, but who want to continue with a blend of westernisation and tribalism which retains what they see as the essence of their Aboriginality?

Do you accept that John Howard wanted all these people to abandon their traditional values and become completely subsumed into the white Australian community?

Have you observed their stern resistance of this, and their insistence that their future on their traditional lands is viable – if the current state and federal administration of ‘Aboriginal affairs’ is changed appropriately?

Are the aspirations of these people worth defending?

Are you familiar with any of the analysis of Richard Trudgeon? http://www.ards.com.au/ww_exec.htm

Understanding the impact of future policies probably depends on which of these points we agree on. So your continuing input is appreciated, Joe. Thanks.

Alan,

<if one in 10 has a degree, then nine out of ten don't>

Forgive me but I find that an appalling thing to write. It denigrates the hard work of tens of thousands of Indigenous people. Nobody gets their degree from the proverbial back of a Corn Flakes packet, it requires poverty, hard grind, year after year, with not a lot to give people trust that it will all be worthwhile. As graduate numbers grow, that situation is changing, but most Indigenous graduates are still the first, or amongst the first, in their families.

As well, those 'one in ten' represent 10 % of the entire adult population - roughly as many as all of the adults in remote settlements put together. By 2020, it could be 'one in six'. By 2034, less than twenty five years away, it could be 'one in four'.

So where is the initiative ? Where is the growth, the movement, the dynamism ? Certainly there may be some in remote settlements, I don't know, that's not for me to say, but there certainly is on university campuses.

Conversely, where are the problems, where is the degradation, abuse and violence ? Where are the shockingly early deaths ? The remote-area 'package' does not fill me with hope and optimism, from the little I know of it. Individual may partly agree with me on this :)

So perhaps what we are witnessing is a rapid divergence in lifestyles, 'ways of life', paradigms. The question is: can the two pathways converge, or complement each other, or is the chasm becoming unbridgeable ?

Joe