can somebody please elaborate on this "rich and vibrant nature of Indigenous cultures"?
What is it exactly, and what was here (culturally) before the brits got here. The poor buggers hadnt even discovered the wheel or collective farming. Apart from the digeridoo and the boomerang, I literally cannot think of anything useful or interesting from their 'culture'

Shortly after arriving in this country I heard an Aborigine say “If four hundred thousand Blackfellas dropped dead today one million Whitefellas would be out of a job tomorrow.” In one sentence he explained why reconciliation is impossible. Too many people have a vested interest in a state of non-reconciliation.

What would all those self-righteous commentators do if there was reconciliation? What would Mr. Dodson do?

The present situation suits everybody. People who are so inclined can flaunt their virtue through empty gestures such as “sorry days” and issuing meaningless apologies. Inept governments can attempt to distract the electorate from their failings by proposing meaningless constitutional referenda. Aborigines can, if they so choose, evade all responsibility for their actions by blaming those horrible “White racists” while aforementioned “White racists” can wallow narcissistically in their guilt. And tens of thousands of “Whitefellas” can earn a living “rescuing” Aborigines.

This is a win-win situation.

So Peter I presumed that the OPENING comment filled you with such disgust and rage that you immediately stopped reading to write your comment?

To everyone else, please read the entirety of Patric Dodson's article- it makes a lot of very good points and what he endorses is more than a fair request (especially considering how little we have to lose from the way we currently run our industrial and management practices, a bit more accountability is no skin off my back- in fact we should add to the referendum that WE acquire these rights to).

As for the referendum- I sincerely hope Gillard doesn't fudge it into nothing more than another symbolic slosh. Were it any other cause it would be sad enough that we are reinforcing ourselves as a nation of shallow superficialities to mask business as usual;
To do this, again, to the Indigenous community with some long-overdue rights would be criminal.
(of course, if even the second case came through, you would have to convince every redneck with a gigantic chip in his shoulder over indigenous affairs that it would be to do the right thing and would not sacrifice anything to do it (the government would never, ever do that if it wanted to be re-elected).

Dear Patrick, it is hard to read your article and not feel sadness and compassion for the Indigenous Peoples of Australia.

That said, I wonder if your view of reconciliation is far too internalized and, as a consequence, tends to overstate the “soft benefits” promoted to the rest of Australia. By that I mean most of what you promote as beneficial is beneficial to whom?

Most would accept some cultural values however; outside of this many Australians look more at contribution to our society as a basis for inclusion. Yes there are many Australians who would like to see good things happen for Indigenous Australians and many people of good heart have many “solutions” to offer. Sadly, all the solutions from all of the people over a very long period in history seem to have amounted to little.

A “fair go” Australia is compassionate however, it is also dependent upon mutual effort and only goes so far. The mantle of “victimhood” is wearing very thin and predictably draws only a tokenistic approach to solutions. You have to admit that initiatives like saying sorry might have had temporary feel good value for Indigenous Peoples but sadly it offers no sustainable basis for anything.

There has been so much good intent brought to bear, so many institutions, bodies and entities created to “solve your problems”. As I look around Australia today I see very little evidence of any positive outcomes.

You place so much hope in constitutional inclusion, declarations on indigenous rights and referendums and yet fail to recognize that whatever solutions are implemented must be a workable solution for indigenous and non-indigenous people if they are to be sustainable.

If you try to force Australians into incorporating “Indigenous knowledge systems” into our industrialized society you will need to tell investors how this works. How relevant to our society are your knowledge systems?

Sadly there are too many Australians who will tell you what a great idea this is. And for too long you have listened to them. It’s time for indigenous peoples to show and tell and not just “tell”.

I found this article short on practical solutions, stating that " a real dialogue between us can proceed" only once " a proper recognition of the Indigenous people of Australia as the First Peoples, and an acknowledgement of our culture, our languages, and our economies within the Australian constitution." Perhaps you could state some practical steps that can be taken rather than empty symbolism leading to nothing but empty words.

You seem to blame the government for the regime of social oppression, yet appeal to them to make things right. It is time that the aboriginal people face reality, and realize that there is no economical way of surviving in remote places in the outback where there are no jobs, schools or hospitals. When I was a child we had to move around the country when there was no work to be foundin the area where we were living. That is called adaption. Second, back to reality again, "the Aboriginal peoples managed for millennia to maintain a balance between sustaining our societies, feeding our people, and living within our lands, sea, and waters without destroying another species of bird, fish or animal." get off your moral high horse, the aboriginal people significantly altered their environment with large-scale burning of the land, and hunting practices resulted in the extinction of many species in australia, including megafauna. This is supported by many studies now I'm sure you must be aware of. Written records by colonialists as well as Charles Darwin mention that at the time aboriginal people were often found starving, with vines tied around their stomach to alleviate the pain of starvation. Time to face reality and take responsibility for your own future.

The rich and vibrant nature of Indigenous cultures is too complex to be explained in a brief post. The sad fact is that most of us know more about Balinese, Italian or Vietnamese culture than we do about our own. I've been learning about Indigenous culture locally and through the University of South Australia. For a start the Indigenous way of seeing things is far more holistic and I think we'd all benefit from that. Local people have been teaching me about their culture and it connects me to country (which includes the sea and air) and what I'm taught totally makes sense and its very much about caring for country and looking after resources. If we are to learn anything about Indigenous cultures we have to go looking because they have been devalued by the mainstream. It's not just boomerangs and paintings it's a whole other way of seeing the world and the way the world is going it'd be very timely for the nation to learn from it! Most of us weren't taught anything at all about Indigneous culture when we were in the education system and non-Indigenous opinions have been formed by social myths and media stereotypes. Not knowing about culture doesn't mean it doesn't exist. If you want to become informed please visit your nearest Indigenous cultural centre, they're not just for tourists to visit. Also there are great resources for becoming informed on the Generation One website.

Amanda

What little I know of Aboriginal culture suggests it is typical of the pre-literate tribal cultures I encountered in Africa. There is little or nothing that is relevant to the 21st century.

The “holistic” approach you talk about has nothing to do with actual tribal culture. It is a “manufactured product” marketed to gullible Whites. It is a reflection of what gullible Whites want to believe about tribal cultures.

In other words, Amanda, some shrewd Aborigines figured out what you, and people like you want to hear, and sold it to you. I saw it happen all over Africa and it seems to be happening in Australia.

There is no “ancient wisdom” in primitive pre-literate tribal cultures. A much better guide to who and what we are is emerging from our understanding of our evolutionary origins as well as our growing ability to probe the functions of our brains.

If you want a truly holistic understanding of our environment study ecology. We’ve learned more about the functioning of eco-systems in the past century than in all of previous human history put together.

If it’s ancient wisdom you’re after there is more to be learned about the human condition from the plays of Sophocles and Euripides or the novels of Jane Austen or Emily Bronte than from primitive pre-literate tribal cultures.

I’ve used phrase like “primitive pre-literate tribal cultures” a number of times. That’s deliberate. These are pre-literate cultures and, in truth, there’s little we can learn about them. Mostly what we get is what purveyors of that “culture” believe we want to hear. For the most part Aborigines themselves know little about what life was like here before the arrival of Europeans.

Stezza,

Of course there was hunger among Aborigines in Australia. Even when population densities are low primitive pre-literate cultures have a hard time feeding themselves.

Here’s the thing Stezza. The White dominated compassion industry needs victims – especially victims of a darker hue. Aborigines fill that need. It’s a symbiotic relationship.

My god the pettiness of the other posters is mind boggling. I don't think a referendum will launch at all if the only thing you people whinge about is superficial 'victim mentality', the commentators complaining about the situation and whether the rest of Australia has to feel bad about it;
Grow up. This is an incredibly serious issue.

It seems nobody DID read over the article, because potential implications of being barred from prime food and material resource estate formerly owned could indeed be a common practice and explain a lot about new hardships. Nor, what Dodson went on about throughout most of the article, that little thing about a low guarantee of Aboriginal rights in Ausrtalian constitution or law (the NT intervention being proof).

I think we should make a special request upon people who post in Aboriginal issue threads- that they can step outside the "whites are badguys and Aboriginal people won't let it go" mentality and actually analyze the situation from a NEUTRAL rational manner (like me), instead of huffing and puffing as if you were unfairly put into the naughty corner?
Because people carrying around the black-armband mentality (whether of guilt or the angry Abo-bashing angst) are just, quite frankly, mentally ill, and emotionally unstable morons who desperately need psychiatric care long before they are fit to speak in these topics.

I bet nobody will get it though.

ah, so anyone who disagrees with king hazza "are just, quite frankly, mentally ill, and emotionally unstable morons who desperately need psychiatric care"

I love democracy, where people are allowed to comment that anyone who disagree is mentally ill.

Come on kh, people are allowed opinions, as much as you think they should not be allowed them, oh and by the way - they probably think the same of you, but would probably add, intolerant high horse finger wagging chip on shoulder pompous git .. metaphorically speaking of course.

i think there will never be reconciliation, since Dodson and his ilk are only after "special treatment", since they are so used to it and want it enshrined.

Don't touch our constitution, to most of us, this is just an opportunity to put themselves above the rest of Australia, it's inherently racist (as usual)

I cannot understand all the protestations coming from people about this Referendum. Giving our First Australians equity enshrined in law seems to be something that is long overdue and it's a good place to start. As the author points out much work will need to be done, and of course it will just be a first step. However, nothing else seems to have worked in the past - perhaps because tolerance and understanding have not broadened out as much as we like to think that it has.

Hazza,

[Sorry, mate, I'm a republican]: you wrote:

"I think we should make a special request [see (a) ] upon [see (b) ] people who post in Aboriginal issue threads- that they can step outside the "whites are badguys and Aboriginal people won't let it go" mentality and actually analyze the situation from a NEUTRAL rational manner (like me), instead of huffing and puffing as if you were unfairly put into the naughty corner? [see (c) ]

"Because people carrying around the black-armband mentality (whether of guilt or the angry Abo-bashing angst) are just, quite frankly, mentally ill, and emotionally unstable morons who desperately need psychiatric care long before they are fit to speak in [see (b) again] these topics."

[a] 'special request' ? At least as far as I can understand your language [see (b)], are you suggesting that us [we] citizens should have fewer rights to analyse, criticise, comment on, debate, discuss etc. Indigenous issues than other issues ? Not a good start to full and frank exposition of all of the issues that Dodson alludes to, let alone the ones he avoids.

[b] Forgive me for being a bit pedantic but PLEASE use the appropriate preposition: ' ... a special request TO or FOR people ... ' and ' ... fit to speak ON or IN RELATION TO these topics.' Why do some writers think it's cute to use any preposition that comes to mind ? What we/you write has to make sense: none of us should pretend to be Delphic Oracles.

[ c ] Pot and kettle ?

And 'quite frankly', I can't make any sense out of your last paragraph: who [whom] are you having a go at here ?

Joe

lexi - everyone needs to express their opinions .. whatever they are, they are the reflections of Australian contempory thought - like it or not.

Tolerence and understanding is a two way street, many Australians clearly do not feel it is - and when they express that, they are howled down as racists, rednecks or whatever it was kinghazza said.

These typical attacks on Australian expressing themselves are intended to suppress debate, all it does is drive it down to a murmur, but the feelings are still there.

you yourself are amazed "perhaps because tolerance and understanding have not broadened out as much as we like to think that it has.", because you don't hear or want to hear typical Australians .. you don't, it doesn't mean these attitudes go away.

many posters here are just reflecting the community .. and some posters reflect the intolerant liberal/progressive stance of no dissidents, typical fascist lefties who support the victim mentality.

A referendum will fail, not because people are against aboriginals, but because THEY (ordinary hard working Australians) are not heard and are damned if they are going to give someone else a leg up to lording it over them.

Calling Australians names and berating their opinions, is not going to help aboriginals in any way.

Respect cuts both ways, not just a one way street, reconciliation is not a one way street. Some talk reconciliation, but really mean, recognized racial benefits and superiority ensconced it seems.

Lexi,

Actually something IS working, and the Indigenous people are doing it themselves, without waiting for either their elites or kind-hearted whites to do it for them: university education. Currently, about a quarter of young Indigenous people can expect to graduate from university at some time. In 2009, the latest year of data, there were by far record commencements (up 12 % on 2008) and enrolments (10 %), and close to record graduations.

Think of it this way:

* there are currently about nine thousand Indigenous people aged twenty;

* in 2009, 4,832 Indigenous people commenced university courses;

* nearly ten and a half thousand Indigenous people were enrolled in university courses;

* around fourteen hundred Indigenous people graduated from university courses in 2009, bringing the total to over twenty five thousand;

* by 2020, close to fifty thousand Indigenous people will have graduated from university courses, a quarter or more at post-graduate level;

* there was a massive boom, about 40 %, in the Indigenous birth-rate from the late eighties onwards, to 12,000 in each age-group.

Where are most of those students and graduates ? In the cities, where most of them have been raised, and where they will spend their working lives. So here's a couple of questions:

* are remote communities dynamic, full of promise, bursting with potential - or are they dead in the water ? Are they part of the problem or part of the solution ?

* are urban communities, where one in seven adults (one in five women) is a graduate, full of promise and potential ? Are they part of the problem or part of the solution ? Where is the dynamism in Indigenous social life - in remote areas or in urban areas ?

And where will the dynamism be coming from over the next few decades ?

Joe

That really is frightening Loudmouth.

That must mean the Aboriginal Affairs Department will have to expand every year, by that many employees.

Yes we do need reconciliation. I need to be reconciled to how much tax is wasted in this area.

Hasbeen,

No, not at all ! The great majority of Indigenous graduates are in the mainstream, not in Indigenous organisations - they are teachers (maybe six to seven thousand), nurses, doctors, you name it. Yes, many are in traditional 'helper' roles, in social work, etc., but as time passes, those jobs are already taken up, and new graduates have to find work outside the Indigenous industry.

My point is: the Indigenous elite, the Indigenous middle-class professionals AND the Indigenous welfare class each have different aspirational goals, economic directions and social futures. In spite of proclamations to the contrary, neither group feels much allegiance or obligation to, or for, the others, and neither should they: after all, if 40 % of the Indigenous population can make the sacrifice of years of study, quite reasonably they would feel, why can't others ? Why should people who have put in the effort feel particularly compassionate about their relations who haven't ?

So - just as Blacks in the US or Maori in NZ are doing - groups are moving off in different directions. If Indigenous unity is to be maintained (assuming there is something like unity at present), how is it to be done in such dynamic circumstances ?

Joe

Yes Joe (and RPG who clearly suffers a reading impediment) a REQUEST. Not "ban".But nice try attempting to pin me up as a fascist though.
So you know, the more you try to continue that discourse, the dumber and more disingenuous it will make you look when even my original point is quite immune.

The request (that is, ask) that I make to everyone approaching these issues to TRY to shed the black-armband mindset, or otherwise they cannot view this topic rationally.
In fact, let's instead pretend that we're all English and the Aborigines are all Scottish- because when the Scots made quite a reasonable request for a local parliament (being the traditional owners of that part of Britain presently an annexed state in a federation), what did the "whiny" Poms do? They agreed to their request, and they did it without bitching like you lot are now.

When you browse English forums on issues of Scottish Independence, do you see whiny rubbish like "they should be thankful" or "oh but they secretly enjoy the power of complaining at us" or "600 years ago some Scottish king did this to us so we shouldn't be sorry" to the extent that Australians whinge whenever ANY Aboriginal issue comes up?
No.
That is my point.
We are whinier than anybody else, and are letting a serious topic about civic rights be turned into a circus full of pettiness.
This is why my patience is very low.

Sorry, Hazza, I still don't know what you are on about. Who are you whingeing about now ? Not that I'm saying that you don't have a right to whinge, but so does everybody else.

Run out of patience all you like, implicitly threaten violence in that way, but people will still exercise their rights to free speech, to their opinions.

And surely even you can see the value in having a better idea of what people think ? People can't be bullied, Hazza, into supporting one position or another, and they certainly have the right to raise queries about something.

Are you demanding support for reconciliation, without question ? Because I have many questions and you might have a job labelling me as some fascist, right-wing nut-job.

Personally, I believe that, of course, reconciliation must come about - but AFTER the gaps have been closed, and closed to the satisfaction of the Indigenous people. Anything before then is almost bound to be fraudulent, a sell-out, like so many other panaceas have been: great for the careers of some, but meaningless to the lives of the great majority of Indigenous people.

After forty-odd years in the 'business', I don't want to waste time on anything which does not bring meaningful and material change to the lives of Indigenous people. I don't care about the careers of the elites, they're always going to do okay. But I'm learning to listen to what people have to say on all the issues affecting the majority of indigenous people, not the tiny minority.

Joe Lane

Joe (Loudmouth):

You should get a different name, "Loudmouth" doesn't suit you at all.
You sound lovely. And Thank You for the information. Wow! I had no idea - the statistics you give are impressive - (a sign of hope,
definitely). Of course, there are still many questions that need answers that I still can't quite work out. If some can succeed so brilliantly, why are there still so many who don't? And, would having rights enshrined in law, help those being mistreated out in the outback/rural areas where many of the problems exist? I imagine it would take a great deal of character to get over being treated as second-class citizens - to still believe that you could succeed in life. That would be a very huge mind-set to overcome. Also if you train somebody to be dependent on others - it would be a massive job to get them to think and believe in themselves.

For our shared humanity we need the Referendum and we need it to succeed. Rights need to be enshrined in the constitution because the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 didn't offer any protection. In 2006 the government simply suspended it to bring in the Intervention. The Intervention didn't target individuals or communities according to how well or how badly they were doing - it was done on the basis of race. That's why the UN criticised Australia for its human rights abuses. The excuse for the Intervention was the report "The Little Children are Scared" but the Intervention brought in a raft of measures that weren't tied to child welfare and the authors of the report were appalled that their work was used in this way as the Intervention contravenes their recommendations. It was like the WMD debacle, a device for gaining public approval of government action. Remember the stories of paedophile rings operating in Indigneous communities in the NT? None have been found. The Intervention is appalling. Amongst other things it is compulsory for communities to lease their land back to the government. Constitutional protection is vitally important.

We need to work together in the present for the future. Like Archie Roach says we've been apart for too long. Patrick Dodson is right in saying we can't leave it to governments. Reconciliation needs to take place at community and individual levels too, and for me that means getting informed.

When someone starts a post saying they know little about Aboriginal culture then passes a negative judgement I think they have a closed mind. That post gave me a Monty Python type image of an African attempting to explain local culture to me while John Cleese bellows "Get on with it, it's all the same, isn't it".

The man who has been kind enough to teach me how to catch and prepare seafood the way it has traditionally been done here for thousands of years would be surprised to know that this knowledge is a "manufactured" product. And yes what I'm learning is very relevant to 21st century.

King Hazza, Sorry, but your responses are typical of those who seek to control the debate by controlling the language.

On the substance, so-called 'rights' and 'self determination' agendas are not pathways to salvation as 30 years under the Coombs reforms demonstrate.

I did read Dodson's article and disagree on so many levels its not funny. But, not the least because, if you want the referendum to fail, insist on taking a divisive domestic agenda, cross breed it with a UN convention and insist that it be embedded in the Constitution. It will join the many other failed referenda.

What '67 achieved was not a vote for a relationship as dodson characterises it. It was much more practical than that. It essentially provided the head of power for the Commonwealth to make laws and it provided for Aboriginal people to be counted in the census. Not only did it capture a will toward reconciliation (not that the term was used), but the measures were so self evidently fair that it got broad support. What Dodson is proposing is to extend a set of rights and suborn the Constitution to a UN Convention for a discrete subset of the population. Keep in mind that the advocates for the UN Convention and those who oppose the NT Intervention are asserting esoteric adult rights not just over other Australians, but over the right of Indigenous children and women to live safe lives.

I fear that those who support Dodson's proposition must want the referenda to fail, because any serious attempt to do what he proposes would cause so much rancour that the only winners will be the self appointed powerful men in the indigenous lobby who could continue to scream racism and victimisation but not engage with real and practical action.

The other posts to which you object are only a litmus test of the reaction to Dodson's proposition. And the shame is, i think most Australians genuinely want practical action to improve the living conditions and opportunities for Indigenous Australians.

gobsmacked, well summed up, thanks .. as usual with the aboriginal industry, a few strong men are trying to tie it all up for themselves.

The whole new first peoples thing is stolen from the American aborigines, and is emotive.

hazza, you start out with "My god the pettiness of the other posters is mind boggling" .. then go on to "So you know, the more you try to continue that discourse, the dumber and more disingenuous it will make you look when even my original point is quite immune."

your point is immune,because it's so badly made as to be indecipherable, other posters notice the same thing.

The emotive bullying language is typical of people trying to suppress or control debate .. no thanks. Insults and bullying just don't cut it as an argument, but do keep trying.

IF Dodson's referenda passes the Commonwealth shall proclaim it as a vote supporting other racist legislation qualifying rights and responsibilities of Australians by racial tests.

Supporters of racism likely to support such referenda.

Opponents of racism likely reluctant to support such referenda.

To enshrine rights, responsibilities or interests qualified by racial identification within our Constitution supports Commonwealth continued racist practices - despite repeated demonstrated failures.

Patrick Dodson still supports Australian families being segregated on basis of racial testing, which the Commonwealth practiced prior to 67 referenda, and continues to still.

Patrick Dodson supports racism, supports apartheid, and seeks Australians to enable such practices to continue...

Most Australians do support equality of opportunity and equality of responsibility.



Earlier customs and practices needing protection Dodson proposes likely irrelevant to our grandchildren.

I heard an interesting comment resulting from our failed bid for the 2022 Football World Cup. I thought it was entirely appropriate.

Something along the lines that the most trustworthy people are those that tell you they will “not” vote for you. Like I said “there are too many Australians who will tell you what a great idea this is”. Beware the false prophets.

If the Indigenous Peoples of Australia keep listening to those who have all the answers on your behalf, ask them what the question was?

Loudmouth has it nailed. I suggested that Indigenous Communities need to “show and tell” and stop just the “tell” bit. Congratulations Joe you are showing and telling. For that your community earns respect, the well deserved support from other communities and has earned a “fair go”.

The rest of you who think you have that answer to Indigenous justice and equity need to apply for sex and travel.

“Onya Joe, you are gaining more respect than you can possibly imagine.

Sorry Joe, you do know and I didn’t mean to patronize.

Are you listening Patrick?

what Australia can't afford is to allow our first people to continue with their victim mentality. How on earth are these people ever going to live productive lives when they are taught disdain for all Europeans. They will continue to justify uncivilized behaviour and blame everyone else. Yes mistakes have been made. My mother being thrown in orphanage at the age of three was not nice. Plenty of Europeans have not had it easy. People living in areas where aboriginies have a victim mentality resulting in thievery and constant anti social behaviour have not had it easy. Stop the victim mentality which allows disgusting behaviour to be excused. It is time our first people counted their blessings rather than harping on about the past. No progress can be made by enshrining law that rams home victim mentality.

Loudmouth, you've sadly walked straight into my trap- instead of realizing you walked into a blunder trying to pretend my post (very clearly stating "request" to the posters to stop and consider their viewpoints), was instead a demand to censor- which you substantiated your entire point around- complete with a little remark snuck in that I "implicitly threaten"?

Again, could you and RPG actually address my Scotland point, because I'm convinced you're trying to avoid it (among my other examples).
Why is it, that the English today seem to have little trouble allowing the Scottish regional autonomy- to the point of being allowed to elect their OWN parliament to legislate on their own behalf- and the concept meets little opposition amongst the British people: yet somehow the idea of similar proposals by the Aboriginal community send you, Gobsmacked, Runner and RPG frothing at the mouth over?

Why is that?

I doubt you will of course answer this question and will instead avoid it in your next post though- so I'm not holding my breath you will be able to answer.

LOL Amanda

It’s nice that you got a seafood recipe from an Aborigine. As a keen amateur chef I’m always interested in new recipes. The recipe may or may not reflect one of the ways Aborigines prepared seafood prior to the arrival of Europeans.

But the point is, so what? If there are Aborigines who feel their culture, as they understand it, is worth preserving let them preserve it. If other Aborigines aren’t interested let them abandon it. Each to his own.

If you feel there is something wonderful in Aboriginal culture by all means immerse yourself in it.

But none of this requires a constitutional amendment.

PAT....just 'what' do you mean by..."reconciliation" ?

I read your article as code for some other agenda.

Reconciliation suggests that 2 disparate parties come together and agree on certain things which mutually bind them.

Article 3
Indigenous peoples have the right to self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.

Hell will freeze over before Australians agree to have a 'government within a government' or.. '2 governments'.

We have already SEEN where 'that' pandora's box leads with Michael Mansell.

MICHAEL MANSELL ON NEWSREEL: I'm not advocating violence, but you can suppress and oppress people for so long that sooner or later someone will turn down that track. I'm something of a cynic of the words of Clyde Holding and his government because instead of responding to the needs of Aboriginal people, they've come out - since I've returned to Australia - in nothing but a personal attack. If they continue their political madness and racist approach of cutting the Aboriginal Affairs budget next year, then I can indicate now that I will return to Libya and I will specifically be seeking funds.

Now...you don't need to be a rocket scientist to know what that means.

FUNDS=STRINGS. Libya is a Muslim country, Gadaffi sees himself as a kind of Muslim Messiah (until the US bombed the bastard back into his box)

If Gadaffi cannot do it one way....he tries another...through gullible dupes like Mansell.

"SELF DETERMINATION" (for Indigenous people) implies way too many *dangerous* things for any thinking Aussie. They are FREE to 'be' and 'work' and 'thrive' in Australian society under the rule of law. ONE law.

If the interests of Indigenous people are in conflict with mainstream Australia's...then Houston...we have a problem!

We should really ask "who is pulling Pat's strings" ?

Ideologically?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Dodson

//He was the first Indigenous Australian Roman Catholic priest, reasons for leaving the priesthood in the early 1980s included Dodson's understanding that traditional Aboriginal ceremonies and Christianity can be reconciled and his rejection of clergy celibacy.//

SOME...traditional ceremonies and Christian belief CAN be 'reconciled'.

We faced the same thing in Borneo with Tribal people. "They" themselves know which ceremonies and practices are not compatible with Christian values.

SOME INDIGENOUS PRACTICES.
-Medicinal herbs/leaves etc from the Jungle ? =No problem.
-Wailing and recounting the life of someone just dead... =no problem.
-Talking/praying "to" the dead.... nope...=problem!
-Not carrying out a harvest of ripe rice because of fear of spirit retribution due to a bad omen ? =Problem (starvation)
-Any ceremony which honours, bargains with or pleads with 'spirits' of either departed ancestors or demonic spirits....= "problem"
-Utilizing fetishes/spells etc to impose physical harm on another person.= "problem"
-Using black arts to acquire/seduce a woman = "problem"

Some things can be integrated into a Christian world view. Other things...emphatically, cannot.

THE BIBLE and RACIAL DIFFERENCE.
26 So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, 27 for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Gal 3:26ff)

Ummm AGIR, I'm not sure what Dodson's retreat from the priesthood is supposed to prove, or why you think you're free to invent things that he might be in favour of.

There are a lot of men his generation who took Catholic holy orders who either didn't get through the seminary, or didn't survive long as ministers, or who have since left the priesthood. I find it hard to understand why this should be relevant to their positions on public issues.

You are completely speculating about what Pat may or may not believe, and appear to be making some of it up anyway. Why would harvesting crops be an issue? I'm not aware of any instances of aborigines farming, although I stand to be corrected.

So your post appears to me to be dangerously close to being off-topic. This is not a thread about lapsed priests or whether indigenous practices are acceptable to any particular brand of Christianity.

I also noted Hazza's comments about mental illness. It was a while after the comment was made that I saw it and commenters on the thread seemed to deal with it pretty well, but calling other posters mentally ill is flaming. I'll leave the comment there because it didn't disrupt the thread, and to remove all the comments that referred to it would.

But I'd appeal to everyone to keep it civil and assume that others are posting in good faith.

Very well Graham; I will behave myself in future.

AlGore Boaz
"Hell will freeze over before Australians agree to have a 'government within a government' or.. '2 governments'."
This would generally be something I would agree with, but again I would refer you to England and Scotland- where the English DO allow the Scots to effectively practice a 'second government within a government'- and only the Scots and other long-standing British nations, for that very reason.

The reason I (and they) would justify this is because regardless of 'who did what'- the English understand that the UK is, as of today, a primarily English union, with a few involuntary indigenous nations inside, that request more sovereignty on the basis that the country they were made part of simply doesn't govern them the way they need, or their wishes are too apart from those of mainsteam society for them to effectively be represented- and as a specifically pre-existing nation as part of a larger country, this is a reasonable point.
Similarly, as it stands today, Australia is a federation including many annexed Aboriginal nations, who each demand more autonomy and land-rights they used to have.
I'm feeling no guilt of my own about it but I would most definitely consider this fair. Similarly, I wouldn't really see much difference in this as opposed to giving Nauru more sovereignty and self-governance as we have already done.

I think certainly the claim for each individual Aboriginal nation for some more sovereignty enshrined in our laws is little different to those of the Scots.
And it would not be like a pro-shariah lobby demanding we surrender ground so they can build a nation on, because they never had one to claim- to them we'd just show them the door to where they can find their long-lost Shariah nation.

<<Can Australia afford not to be reconciled?>>

Can Australia afford to be reconciled?

If it was just a one-off payment then the offer would be tempting -

Here's $50 billion.
Go away.
Get a job.

The trouble is "reconciliation" could only involve -

existing payments in perpetuity
PLUS
additional payments in perpetuity.

Nice work if you can find it!

Go away.
Get a job.

24-hours are up :)

Thanks Lexi, I'm not all that lovely, really. Don't let internal appearances deceive.

Thanks, Spindoc, no, I'm not Indigenous, AFAIK, Scottish mostly.

Which brings us to Hazza: you write, somewhat incomprehensibly:

"Loudmouth, you've sadly walked straight into my trap- instead of realizing you walked into a blunder trying to pretend my post .... was instead a demand to censor- which you substantiated your entire point around- complete with a little remark snuck in that I "implicitly threaten"? "

Can you please re-phrase that, so that I can feel appropriately shamed, enraged, amused or whatever your aim was ?

Scotland: If I were there, I would vote for self-government, although the first actions of the members of the new house were somewhat discouraging:

1. Give themselves a massive pay-rise;

2. Adjourn indefinitely.

Sounds a bit too much like the last time in 1707.

Scotland a propos the Australian Indigenous situation: Yes, very similar, in that people IN REGIONS vote, not BY RACE: i.e. whoever is living in Scotland, or in any part of remote Australia, Scottish or otherwise, Aboriginal or otherwise, can vote. I am not aware that in Scottish elections, only those of proven Scottish ancestry can vote. Neither am I aware - nor would I support - a situation anywhere in Australia where, in local or state/territory elections, only Aboriginal people could vote, or conversely, where they were excluded from the vote because, after all, 'it wasn't Aboriginal-controlled country'.

Why not ? If only, Hazza, for the simple corollary that, if there were an Aboriginal-only electorate, then there would also be at least one Aboriginal-excluded electorate, so most Aboriginal people could not ever vote, or be represented, in regions where they actually lived - i.e. the majority. Dumb-@rse Michael Mansell has never understood this simple consequence of his idiotic notions of separatism.

[TBC]

[cont.]

I shouldn't be too hard on Mansell [I live in hope that he has one of those slap-the-forehead-Jesus-what-did-I-just-say moments]: my late wife Maria and I were separatists up to about the end of 1972. We made the first Aboriginal flags and were sending them all over the country, and the world. We gave one to Buffy Sainte-Marie, the Native Canadian singer, when she visited Adelaide, and she invited us all to have tea with her. I asked her what she thought of a separate Aboriginal state, like the NT, and she looked at me as one does an idiot and said, 'Who would leave their own country to go there ? And whose country would they be on ?'

That was that: I realised what a dumb, indeed racist, idea it was. And Mansell's dumb and dumber idea of passports has only reinforced my view that separatism is racism.

One other problem with Aboriginal separate government: there is no region in Australia where Aboriginal people are in the majority. Depending, of course, in how large or small one defines 'region'.

And what on earth do you mean by this, Hazza:

"And it would not be like a pro-shariah lobby demanding we surrender ground so they can build a nation on, because they never had one to claim- to them we'd just show them the door to where they can find their long-lost Shariah nation."

Are you having a go at Anthony Mundine ? Dumb, dumber, dumbest.

Graham

//This is not a thread about lapsed priests or whether indigenous practices are acceptable to any particular brand of Christianity.//

You seem to misunderstand. The list of issues I made was typical of what animistic societies do. I mentioned that we encountered such practices in Borneo.

Patrick want's 'reconciliation'..... but what does he MEAN by that?

If you look closely at what such people write, it usually boils down to....money and power. "Self determination" means a country within a country. This is not Scotland and England (Hazza) in any case, the Scots realize that they cannot really go it alone outside the British Union. The aboriginals should also. They (Scots)also happen to have a very identifiable land area. Aboriginal land is ALL of Australia if one wishes to be pedantic.

So... it's DODSON who makes the point about reconciling Christian belief with Indigenous, not me. I simply take his lead and expand on it from the perspective of Christian belief and practice.

On the Political side ? I do wonder..'who' is pulling his strings.
In the absense of specific information, I left it as a question 'who'......

But the idea that such an individual does not operate from a particular ideological base which may well have been influenced by his education and exposure to any one of a number (most likely left) of ideologies is rather naive in my view.

Algore and Loudmouth, I am telling you, that right as we speak, Scotland has its OWN parliament to which are elected members of electorates that reside inside Scotland, by members of those electorates regardless of race. Scotland is in fact a clear definition of a nation- complete with traditional territories and electorates. They are still part of the UK, and they have no army but the same UK army. The UK still has authority to ensure that the constitution is upheld all over the UK.
Granting regional autonomy to a regional nation within our country does not necessarily mean a cut, as you seemed to have been implying.

In other words, it has nothing to do with race or ethnicity at all, but who is a resident of that bit of land we were to agree to extend autonomy to- and that bit of land would need to have previously been an autonomous nation to justify their title- therefore, nobody who wants out can simply raise their hand- they have to PROVE they actually have a bit of land they are entitled to govern, before we negotiate letting them have some more autonomy.

Which should answer your question well Loudmouth- of course, if you'd like to pretend that the above passage was too confusing in your next post and continue to pretend that the constitutional amendments will be racially-based instead of geographically-based: as you have pretended with two posts that I am going to "implicitly threaten to use violence" to silence dissent (which you still haven't elaborated on where I said that); I won't mind- as I won't actually be the one that will look bad by it- because, among many other reasons, it's actually quite a simple concept that is already in practice around the world with little fuss.

Thanks, Hazza, for supporting my interpretation of Scotland's (and, by extension, any Aboriginal) concept of self-rule: EVERY adult in a REGION, regardless of race, ethnicity, etc., can vote in such elections. In Australia, such electorates are called, for example, Lingiari, Casuarina, Solomon, Kennedy, Jagajaga, Bradfield, Bennelong, Eyre, etc.

In Australia, an Indigenous person can stand for local, State and federal government, like anybody else. There are now elected Indigenous representatives in the WA, NT and federal parliaments. There are no 'Indigenous' electorates, or regions without non-Indigenous electors.

An Indigenous government, representing only Indigenous people, in an exclusively Indigenous region, is a racist pipe-dream. The great majority of Indigenous people now live in towns and cities, and are likely to stay that way: an 'exclusively indigenous region' would require forcible deportation: would you be in favour of that sort of thing ?

Now can we get back to real-life issues ? For instance, what are the issues as far as the twenty six thousand Indigenous university graduates are concerned ? In 2020, what might be the issues that concern the fifty thousand Indigenous university graduates ?

As for your 'implicit threat to use violence', if somebody in a pub says to you ' .... my patience is very low ...', would you interpret that as an implicit, or an explicit, threat ?

Just a word of advice: read over what you have written before you post it. Ask yourself:

: 'does this make any sense ?'

: 'is it grammatical ?'

: 'if I were NOT an undoubted genius, but a bit slow, short-sighted, English-as-a-second-language, like those hoi-polloi on OLO, would I gain a clear sense of this gem of wisdom easily ?'

Take some time to make yourself comprehensible: you will find your efforts amply rewarded.

Joe

"my patience is very low"
THAT is what you assume is "implying threats to use violence"?
Wrong again. Nice try though. :)

Anyway, you might be aware that we have granted, and continue to analyze formal requests to grant traditional Aboriginal areas NATIVE TITLE; certainly if these areas would request more autonomy, it would be of no skin off our back? Anyone not of their race who has residency in these areas will surely be just as successful in playing a role in government in these regions, as an Aboriginal Australian would be to get into federal politics, right? Just as the right of the Scots to legislate in Scotland but also to elect members in the UK Parliament seems not to upset many English people; they simply accept that if they don't like it, they would call for Scotland to be booted out entirely, or accept that permitting a not-quite voluntary nation within their union some local autonomy is a perfectly reasonable concession. Knowing well that this union primarily represents England and thus representing English viewpoints satisfactorily, or, feeling it doesn't, could always follow the Scots example and demand for themselves a regional autonomous body, and be perfectly equal.

Again, a lot of song and dance over a simple concept that the "Whiny Poms" are whining a lot less about and actually agreed to it long ago.

AGIR, you are going to have to point me to the specific sentence of paragraph where Dodson makes that claim. I've just done a word search on the text, just in case I missed something, and "Christ" including its various derivatives as well, does not come up once.

Dear Graham...it was not in the article Pat wrote but it is in his wiki bio *here*

//He was the first Indigenous Australian Roman Catholic priest, reasons for leaving the priesthood in the early 1980s included Dodson's understanding that traditional Aboriginal ceremonies and Christianity can be reconciled and his rejection of clergy celibacy.//

It's from wikipedia...a bio of Pat.
But it nevertheless is about him and his background.

I was addressing his position from the bio...not the article. I don't think we can understand the article without knowing more about the man and any position he happens to hold on particular issues.

For me the key for the article is what does he 'mean' by "reconciliation" ?

Given that the bio indicates what it means to him, i.e..that

*traditional Aboriginal ceremonies and Christianity can be reconciled*

I don't see why that belief cannot be addressed...

I provided the source link...

Back in the days of Whitlam, indigenous activists and social scientists led the public and politicians to believe that self managing communities would be the solution. From then on the Spinifex curtain that was quickly drawn down on indigenous communities ensured that media scrutiny was prevented.

For decades millions of dollars of taxpayers money were tipped into 'indigenous affairs' under the guiding hands of a special department and other governmental bodies staffed with indigenous workers and advised by academics and other consultants (certified 'sensitive' to the indigenous) who supplied services for apparently endless needs. The demand was for a never-emptying trough of public money and self-management. The mantra was to let aboriginals manage themselves because they knew best - along with the hordes of consultants, of course. Even the usual reporting for expenditure of 'guvvy' money was declared discriminatory, though the Australian National Audit Office still managed to get a leg in when the proverbial hit the fan, which it often did.

In all honesty, it was only the occasional whistle-blower (so often medical professionals who were quickly damned and their careers ruined for having the temerity to comment on indigenous matters by advocates of the people they were trying to help) who managed to lift the Spinifex curtain to make a shocked public aware of what was really going on. The many nurses, teachers and other public servants who tried to help the vulnerable women and children in the communities were more easily silenced, often by their own managers who feared the certainty of retaliation through accusations of racism and discrimination.

tbc

contd.

The social experiment of creating a nation within a nation has already been tried and it has been an abject failure. Anyone who has had occasion to drive through (you never stop for fear of abuse, theft and assault) townships like,
Wiluna
Arukun
Walgett
Brewarrina
Bourke (Crystal City!)
Halls Creek
Roebourne
Wilcannia
South Hedland
Dubbo
Moree
(..need I go on?), would agree that it isn't more autonomy, more guvvy hand-outs or more experts that is needed by the indigenous people, it is the full-time employment that develops self-reliance and self-respect. That and law enforcement to protect the vulnerable, resident and visitor alike, from drunken bullies.

It is a wry but common joke that newly trained school teachers and doctors arrive in these towns preaching understanding and indigenous rights, only to depart cursing at the end of their compulsory stint, vowing never to return again.

You just don't encounter a similar extent of violence and drunkenness among indigenous stockmen and other workers. It isn't necessary for the property or business to have indigenous ownership, it is the full-time employment that makes all the difference. It isn't the money, it is the job, something productive to do with available time.

Although it is heartening to see so many indigenous students successfully completing tertiary studies, there is plenty of opportunity in skilled and semi-skilled trades, as evidenced by the demand for migrant workers. The problem is that the employment simply isn't available in country towns and isolated communities. Walling off more of Australia and permitting indigenous communities to approve entry and levy taxes (eg., visitor fees and mining royalties) add to existing problems and do not increase jobs.

It is great to read Pat Dodson's speech on OLO. This is a high calibre article.

Pat suggests that dialogue is an integral path to reconcilliation but sometimes this meaningjul conversation is deralied by those who are to afraid to let go of their preconcieved ideas and hatred.

Most of the posts are not on topic or are hellbent on denigrating Pat - why? What makes people so afraid of opening their hearts and mind and engaging in meaningful and constructive conversation with Indigenous Australians.

Australia does need reconcilliation for as long as Indigenous Australians are subjugated and live in poverty relevant to other Australians, Australia as a nation will never be the first world, socially just, and egalitarian society it likes to think itself to be.

Non-Indigenous Australians need reconcilliation so they can walk tall without the taint of hidded dirty past deeds, and ongoing dirty deeds like the NT intervention.

I haven't read all the remarks, but of those I have read, I wonder if any have really been in contact with any of the indigenous people they are talking about. Sure we have seen some people in the community who are surviving very well, and some who are not, but I believe we are talking more about those in the areas where they are really fenced in under white man laws, by people who presume to know what is best for them. We had Whitlam building good homes for them to live in back 30 or 40 years ago. They had never lived in anything like that, and they were being taught into an era of we'll look after you, just leave everything up to us. Some of the houses were vandalised, a number of families – probably a tribe, would all move into the one house. Nobody considered that they should be allowed to join the main community at their own pace and learn the ways in their own time, but there are all those people who want to go there and take over the areas for their own prosperity, and as far as they are concerned, kick the indigenous people out without any conscience.

Cornflower!..... spot on.

//indigenous activists and social scientists led the public and politicians to believe that self managing communities would be the solution.//

What ideology was driving those 'activists'?

Outcome?

1/For decades millions of dollars of taxpayers money were tipped into 'indigenous affairs'

2/ The demand was for a never-emptying trough of public money and self-management.

Indeed.

Now..connect this to the more generalized problem of progressive/left wing exploitation of social issues for:

a)Their own enrichment
b)The promotion of valueless,failed,Socialism to impose it on us all.

Gary Foley is a classic.

Wiki
Foley is currently completing a doctorate at the University of Melbourne, where until 2008 he was also a lecturer and tutor before resigning in protest at the University's apparent lack of commitment to Indigenous education. Foley also maintains the Kooriweb site on Aboriginal history and was formerly a senior lecturer at Swinburne University. Foley is currently lecturing and tutoring at Victoria University.

Which of course....raises the issue of "If HE can make it in the white mans world..what is stopping others?"

What will ever be 'enough' committment to indigenous issues?

Dare one suggest Aboriginal sovereignty the dismantling of so called "White power structures"?

PINNED LIKE A BUTTERFLY: WHITENESS AND RACIAL HATRED LAWS
http://www.acrawsa.org.au/ejournalFiles/Volume%204,%20Number%202,%202008/O%27Connell%20Pinned%20Like%20a%20Butterfly%20FINAL.pdf

Make sure you read page 6-7

//Being ‘white’ per se is not in my view descriptive of any particular ethnic, national or racial group. Nor is it of
itself a term of abuse.// (Magistrate Brown FM)

So, (this might be a surprise your honour) but SO IS "BLACK" not a particular ethnic group!

Patrick Dodson refers to the 1967 referendum result as a 'resounding demand of that earlier generation “for a just relationship between our peoples”'. That's not exactly how I remember it.

The bipartisanly supported case put to the public was essentially one of simply 'giving aboriginal people the vote', a case presented to a public that was largely incredulous as to aboriginals not having had that right all along. The Constitutional alterations were presented (like, 'trust us, we're politicians') as being simply requirements necessary for that to be able to happen. 'Just relationships' and 'land rights' weren't even on the horizon, let alone on the public agenda, at that time.



It turns out the gut feeling of the Australian public was pretty accurate. No wonder the 1967 referendum, in Patrick's words, "turned out not to be much of a step forward at all". Its promotion had been based upon a lie. All Aboriginal Australians had had the vote since 1962!



It is to Patrick's great credit, if the words of the opening sentence of the article are truly his own rather than those of an editor, that he has been completely up-front about the intended effect of the proposed referendum meddling with the preamble to the Constitution. That intention is to subordinate the Australian Constitution, and thereby all Australians and the laws under which they live, to an external, unaccountable, unelected overlordship of elitist bureaucrats working for that parasite upon the bodies politic of functional states, the all-too-clearly dis-United Nations.

I think ordinary Australians are increasingly coming to the view that the aggregate effect, across the political spectrum, of the political 'work' of Australian politicians is increasingly the effective representation and advancement of the interests of other than Australians.

I wonder whether the claim of 'Terra Nullius' was made more to pre-empt any residual claims arising out of the Treaty of Tordesillas, than to any intent to disinherit Aboriginal Australians?

Some interests wishing, perhaps, to re-write history by altering the historical record of transfer of authority that is the Preamble?

After reading Pat Dodson's article I am still unsure how we can 'close the gap' for indigenous people in remote communities where there are limited resources. Changes to the Constitution will enshrine rights (on paper in any case) but it is not real action on the ground nor does it dictate positive change.

What would it take to close the gap? That is at the heart of this issue. I have always thought we should have more of Australia's first peoples involved in parliament with representatives from some of those remote communities speaking on behalf of, and in consultation with, Aborigines.

This can be achieved without a government within a government approach which in the long term would be more divisive and would not in itself, limit dependency on 'white man's' government nor necessarily improve the lot of remote communities. Aboriginal people have to become part of government and take a different approach ie. away from simply taking welfare handouts (that don't produce any change to long term living conditions) to self-sufficiency where this is possible in remote regions.

Much has already been achieved by Indigenous Australians as regards to education and participation in the teaching and medical professions. Much of the problems that I can glean stem from bureaucratic processes.

Forrest's quote about representation sums up the current approach Australian governments and is so good it is worth repeating.

"I think ordinary Australians are increasingly coming to the view that the aggregate effect, across the political spectrum, of the political 'work' of Australian politicians is increasingly the effective representation and advancement of the interests of other(s) than Australians."

Well there are a lot of factors inhibiting Aboriginal integration:
Near history- perhaps even as close as the 80s, where experiences of staunch discrimination reduces willingness for many Indigienous persons who experienced it themselves, or raised by them, to engage the same system being one- growing up in a community that is generally stigmatized by the surrounding population (regardless of who is at fault initially) ensures few would want to ditch their families and friends to fit into the other society, and becomes a vicious cycle (this predominantly applies to urban communities).

Rural communities are obvious- isolation from medical and tertiary sources, unwillingness to abandon their homes and lifestyle to work jobs in the city under circumstances, and people, that I listed above;
Possible inhibitions on access to traditional farming ground granted through native title (but whatever property they managed to buy initially- but given the long-standing poor integration in urban environments, that takes us back to square one).

In short, with a long lingering reputation of bad integration with Australian city environments- the ability and willingness to embrace (our) system isn't quite getting a good start.

King Hazza,

Seems to be a self-fulfilling prophesy at work in there.

To apply Occam's razor and a little change theory, maybe some see more rewards in not changing. Unfreezing is always difficult, but as long as there are rewards and excuses for not changing why take the risk?

Should they choose, many migrants could blame all sorts of influences too. Some have endured the most awful lives before choosing Australia as their new home. Yet many first generation non-English speaking migrants are now employers in their own right and the numbers are even higher for second generation.

Everybody has been affected by globalisation, especially people in country areas and not just the indigenous people living there.
Shouldn't we be talking about the empowerment that comes from casting away the baggage of past wrongs, real and imagined, and getting on with life?

Employment (in real jobs!) is the missing element. Breaking out of the unemployment poverty trap is difficult without a decent education (and support at home).

Cornflower wrote:

“Shouldn't we be talking about the empowerment that comes from casting away the baggage of past wrongs, real and imagined, and getting on with life?

“Employment (in real jobs!) is the missing element. Breaking out of the unemployment poverty trap is difficult without a decent education (and support at home).”

May I refer you to Loudmoth’s post of Friday, 3 December 2010 12:43:19 PM on this thread.

Fact is Cornflower, most Aborigines do seem to be moving on. It seems to be mainly the “professional grievance mongers”, White as well as Black, who are still stuck in the past.

King Hazza,

<< Why is it that the English today seem to have little trouble allowing the Scottish regional autonomy- to the point of being allowed to elect their OWN parliament to legislate on their own behalf>>

Rubbish, the English are bitterly opposed to the Scottish parliament because its parliament and its economy are subsidized by the English.

<< and the concept meets little opposition amongst the British people:>>

Rubbish, The Scots, Welsh, Ulster and English are the British.

Be very careful using the UK in general and Scotland in particular, as any basis for any form of indigenous rights.

The Scots actually came from Ireland into the Southwest in the 5th century, nurturing the spread of Gaelic language and culture which the influenced the resident Picts.

Robert the Bruce was himself Norman and descendant of Robert de Brus who fought with William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings. Bissett, Boyle, Colville, Corbett, Gifford, Hay, Kinnear and Fraser in the 12th century.

Now run the Scottish analogy by us one more time?

Mr Gump,

In relation to your mention of this myth of 'terra nullius':

A few years back, I was doing some research on the Pastoral Board here in South Australia and, a couple of times - and a few times since then - I came across stipulations in all pastoral leases in favour of Aboriginal people, as follows :

' ... And reserving to aboriginal inhabitants of the said state and their descendants during the continuance of this lease full and free right of egress and regress into upon and over the said lands and every part thereof and in and to the springs and surface waters therein and to make and erect and to take and use as food, birds and animals ferae naturae in such manner as they would have been entitled to if this lease had not been made.'

I have since seen something similar in Bleakley's 1928 Report, references to it in the SA 1899 Select Committee 'on the Aborigines' and in the Aborigines' Friends' Association Annual Report 1936 (pp. 35-37), and also in earlier Environmental Acts here in SA.

The gist of the AFA report was that such clauses were in all pastoral leases in all states and territories of Australia, except for a handful of leases issued by the Commonwealth during the twelve years after its assumption of control of the Northern Territory in 1911.

So I am puzzled how this squares with notions, or myths, of terra nullius. Was terra nullius the prevailing law or not ? This has enormous implications for the interpretation of earlier Aboriginal-non-Aboriginal relations, not to mention the initial positions that negotiators over land rights took after Mabo.

[TBC]

Is the grumblings coming from black aboriginies, or white aboriginies when the mood suites them.

[continued]

And what is implied by that last clause: '... in such manner as they would have been entitled to if this lease had not been made.' Does this suggest that Aboriginal people had all of those usufructuary rights on Crown Land as well as on pastoral leasehold land ? And would this suggest that Aboriginal people thus have always had usufructuary rights over the greater part of Australia ?

Many of us, especially on the Left, labour under many false suppositions, instead of finding out realities: it's easier. For instance, I always thought/assumed that, as the frontier moved outwards, Aboriginal groups moved AWAY, further out. After forty years, I asked myself, where's the evidence either way ?

Lo and behold, in at least two of Arthur Upfield's 'Bony' novels, to which I confess an addiction, he refers to pastoralists building dams and weirs on creeks and ephemeral rivers, to trap water and thus attract Aboriginal groups to settle closer to their homesteads. And it dawned on me, of little brain, that all of the early accounts spoke of people coming IN from outlying areas, TO frontier towns. So, in some ways, recognising those usufructuary rights of Aboriginal groups may have been a way of managing the flow of people to stations, and to and from towns.

Genuine research often throws up such awkward surprises !

So here's a couple of questions for Mr Dodson, and Aka too:

* what the hell were those lawyers doing in the nineties, in 'negotiating' land rights deals, when people already had ususfructuary rights ? Didn't anybody do due diligence ?

* Why did people rely so much on their gut feelings and oral history, to actually pass over the real legal position and run with the easy 'we got nothing ! nothing!' approach, which may have been very satisfying, in the well-mined vein of 'Whites are all b@stards, and they took everything from us', but actually gave away far more than they gained.

Sometimes genuine liberation is a lot of hard work, but is no less valuable for that.

Joe

Hazza,

In connection with your remarks about integration in the cities:

* around ninety per cent of Indigenous people in cities are inter-marrying, thus bringing large numbers of non-Indigenous people into the fold of Indigenous society. We are talking about perhaps hundreds of thousands of non-Indigenous people, now and into the future;

* in my experience, Indigenous university graduates are MORE likely to consciously see themselves as Indigenous, and to actively seek out closer interaction with other Indigenous people - breaking away from their families, and from the community, rarely seems to happen, quite the reverse in fact: people certainly seem to get more choosy, and to focus their relationships more selectively, but that's partly a function of scarce time-resources, and an awareness that they don't have to put up with humbugging, even from relations;

* Indigenous people in cities, particularly graduates - particularly any Indigenous person in employment, actually - tend to have better health and far less trouble with the Law [see Cornflower's remarks, above], they are more likely to be buying their own home, and much more likely to interact with their children's school.

Sorry, mate. I presume you are non-Indigenous and think of yourself as on the Left ? Try to get some actual experience of Indigenous people across the spectrum of class and location: this would be a great antidote to so much of the rubbish that you believe.

Just trying to help :)

Jo

Loudmouth says:

"Many of us, especially on the Left, labour under many false suppositions, instead of finding out realities..."

and;

"what the hell were those lawyers doing in the nineties, in 'negotiating' land rights deals, when people already had ususfructuary rights ? Didn't anybody do due diligence ?"




To answer Loudmouth's concluding question: I suspect not, or if someone did they were rapidly sidelined and any evidence of their work buried.


It is now much clearer that the purpose of the 1967 alterations to the Constitution was to empower the Federal government to make racially-based legislation in respect to land. If it were not so intendedly racially-based with specific respect to aboriginal people, to the implicit detriment of other subjects of the Crown resident in Australia, the wording of Section 51 placitum (xxvi) would either have been removed in its entirety or the placitum left unaltered (the words as shown in strike-through format in any printed copy of the Constitution continuing to apply) as a specific protection of aboriginal people against 'special laws' of the like that we now see in operation in the NT.

Which brings up another matter in respect of which due diligence seems to have been lacking: By what authority was the wording of Section 127, that repealed by Act No. 55 of 1967, totally removed from printed copies of the Constitution when all other alterations remain on display in strike-through format? Has a convention applicable to the printing of ordinary legislation been wrongly applied to the printing of the Constitution? All Australians surely have the right to see their own legislative tracks in this very special piece of paramount legislation. Who fudged it? Quo warranto?




What I think few, if any, have considered, is what opportunity this constituted should ever the electoral process be covertly subverted in Australia by a foreign power, or indeed by any interest(s) other than the Crown as by the Constitution constrained.




How much easier for transnational corporations, for example, to negotiate mining rights with small local tribal or land councils rather than with the Crown?

One of the really good things about OLO is that it provides a means of at least partially redressing, even if only initially to a limited viewership, such deficiencies with respect to due diligence in matters of constitutional law research as Loudmouth has highlighted.

One of the names applied in earlier times to the continent that was eventually to become known to the world as Australia was 'Terra Psittacorum', Land of Parrots. This name has proven particularly apt with respect to probably the overwhelming majority of Australian Federal politicians over the years. They tend to faithully recite the lines given to them by what is increasingly being recognised as a self-styled political elite hostile to the concept of constitutional monarchy.

It was particularly sad to see the clean political slate of the youngest member of the present Federal Parliament defaced with one of these elitist shibboleths in his maiden speech, during which mention was made of the "dreadful discrimination against aboriginal Australians that had been removed from the Constitution in 1967", or words to that effect.

For the record, here are those words that have been removed from public view:

"127. In reckoning the numbers of the people
of the Commonwealth, or of a State or other
part of the Commonwealth, aboriginal natives
shall not be counted."

They can be viewed on a National Archives of Australia webpage called 'Documenting a democracy', here: http://bit.ly/frqpsb

Granted that the law, including that of the Constitution, can often appear to be obtusely worded, what was wrong with these words remaining in strike-through format so all would know what had been repealed? Could it have been thought that with the original words on view it would be difficult to construct upon them a mythology of institutionalised racism and intentional detrimental discrimination, a mythology essential to the sustenance of the guilt-peddling necessary as a smokescreen for the intended removal of sovereignty implicitly flagged in the now-altered wording of Section 51 placitum (xxvi)?

As Loudmouth says:

"Sometimes genuine liberation is a lot of hard work, but is no less valuable for that."

As always, Patrick Dodson has some wise words - but I was surprised by the 'noble native' overtones.

While this article calls for reconcilliation it is far from concilliatory.

I am not at all convinced that aboriginal culture has the answers and it would seem that, generally speaking, neither are aboriginal people themselves.

Whether out of desperation or ignorance of their own roots, so many now claim to be "owners" of the land in total defiance of the original understanding that might yet make a real difference - that man can no more own the land than the air, the water or the sunlight - that we are all OF the land, not owners of it.

I reckon we all have important things to contribute.

Cornflower
"Shouldn't we be talking about the empowerment that comes from casting away the baggage of past wrongs, real and imagined, and getting on with life?"
Correct Cornflower, but you're reading me wrong: I'm not actually thinking about past wrongs at all- nor feeling no guilt about it: instead I'm analyzing it in the context today whether an indigenous request for Autonomy is fair- and to be quite honest it is IMO.
If someone immigrated here, we would expect them to adapt to our way of life- but for an Aboriginal case, it becomes a little harder to actually justify comformity to our own standards but to deny any local rights to their own, as they do make a fair point that we are excercising our standards on land each group does have a fair claim to.

Spindoc- Oh I'm so sorry I got it wrong- somehow, because the Scots had only inhabited the area for a meager one thousand five-hundred years, the claim that a clearly-recognized geographical entity known as Scotland, who very much DID exist as such for a long time before the UK was founded, suddenly becomes moot?
To be fair, I hope my above reply for Cornflower's point helps answer your question. Anyway, I already answered your subdidization point before- the majority of complaints by the English I have found are those that would just as happily see Scotland completely cut from the UK to deny the subsidy- and definitely lesser than the hostility expressed in an Australian forum on the same topic.

Loudmouth:
Those figures would indeed be quite true, but my examples are still quite widespread problems that are claimed by many official reports to be major obstacles for integration.
And this of course is only made harder by those who live in remote areas (for rather more obvious logistical shortcomings).
But no, I'm most definitely not a "lefty"- if anything I'd be quite conservative in my viewpoint- however I simply do not try to pick a 'side' and root for it- I take each issue on its own.

Hazza,

I think spindoc's point was that ALL adults who live in the REGION called Scotland have the right to vote for or against self-government, independence, home-rule or whatever - not just the people with Scottish (and Pictish) ancestry: with such ancestry myself, I couldn't vote there because I live here in Australia, but I could vote if I moved to Scotland, but BECAUSE I WAS LIVING IN SCOTLAND, not because of any Scottish ancestry. Somalis, Vietnamese, Afghans and Irish who are living in Scotland CAN vote in such a plebiscite, or ordinary election, BECAUSE THEY LIVE THERE.

To labour the point, wherever your Fantasy Island in Australia may be, the Indigenous people there would not be the only ones to vote, and unless you go down to a pretty small level, individual communities, then the Indigenous people would not be in a majority.

In individual communities, like Wadeye or Pipalytjara or Galiwinku, concerning the matters that people would want voting on, i.e. through their community councillors, issues of autonomy simply would not come up: being as UN-autonomous as possible, and as dependent on 'outside' service provision and welfare payments as much as possible, would be a bit more likely. And they already have those voting rights, from the local right up to the federal levels.

But thanks for your examples showing that the more separation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in Australia, the worse the situation is for Indigenous people.

Sorry, mate, separatism is a racist pipe-dream. Give it away.

Joe

[Deleted for flaming.]

Hazza,

Just to add to what Spindoc wrote, Scotland is probably not unique in being the product of a few thousand years of migrations and invasions and colonisations, which have all contributed to the make-up of the population.

The various Celtic groups, the Picts, the Scots, the Norse and the Danes, the Normans, the southern border populations, the various mongrel breeds of English, long-term interaction between the Islands to the north and west and the mainland these have all added to a very complex gene-pool. Japanese ship-building crews, Russian refugees, post-war immigration - Scotland is nowadays a very beautiful, polyglot, poly-ethnic society.

And they ALL vote in Scottish elections: there is no 'racial' or ethnic qualification required: whoever is there, can vote. All of them, together.

I guess, my mob, from Aberdeen, Forfarshire, Lanarkshire, and Roxburghshire, are a mixture of all of those groups.

So how does that square with your notion of an Indigenous-only electorate somewhere in Australia ? Conversely, how similar is your notion to the old Apartheid dream of separate 'nations' for 'different' groups, with the whites of course fairly explicitly still in charge ?

Is that what you really want ?

Meanwhile, the great majority of Indigenous people live in towns and cities across the entire country: I'll repeat - do you really think they would tolerate being deported away from their homes, to their 'own' country, just for your perverted fantasy ? I don't think my kids would agree.

For Christ's sake, think about what you are saying.

Joe

Dear Hazza, my post was deleted by GY for “flaming”, and rightly so. If you read my post before it was deleted and any offense was caused, I apologize.

[Deleted for aggression.]

@ Hazza.
Don't pay too much attention to the genocide apologists.
Contrary to what they say the indigenous people of the British Isles are not terribly genetically diverse as recent mapping has shown.
The Irish have less than 2% genetic admixture from the continent, in Wales, Cornwall and Scotland it's less than 10% and among the "mongrel English " (that Joe hates so much that he compares them to dogs) the European admixture is no higher than 30%.
Africans have never invaded Scotland nor moved there of their own volition.
Asians have never invaded Scotland nor moved there of their own volition.
It is unnatural for those people to be in Scotland as they are not Indigenous Scots, just as it is unnatural for White, Asian or African people to be in Australia.
The dilution with non Indigenous immigrants of the Scottish people was done on purpose specifically to reduce the number of indigenous Scots in that region.
We are however stuck with this situation, we can't go forward and we can't go back with the system we have now.
The definition of Genocide under international law is purposefully broad so that there can be no tolerance whatsoever, in public policy, political thought or public speech of crimes against specific racial or ethnic groups.When Joe talks about the "Beutiful Polyglot" Scotland he's justifying Genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Indigenous Scots, he's promoting something that defies all laws both natural and man made.
Similarly your plan to ethnically cleanse a specific area of Australia for the benefit of one particular group would come under the definition of Genocide.
So this is the impasse, we have laws to stop genocide because of events which have occurred in the past yet because of mass third world immigration into White countries and only White countries we can't go forward and we can't go back.
Ever get the feeling someone wants things this way, that they want the people of Australia to be powerless to change the status quo?
The term Anarcho-Tyranny comes to mind.

Interesting company you keep, Hazza.

Jay, you wrote:

"The dilution with non Indigenous immigrants of the Scottish people was done on purpose specifically to reduce the number of indigenous Scots in that region."

By whom ? The US ? Jews ? the military-industrial complex ? the bankers ? the Swedes ? And I thought that conspiracy theory was a Left monopoly.

And then you partly redeem yourself by writing:

" .... your plan to ethnically cleanse a specific area of Australia for the benefit of one particular group would come under the definition of Genocide."

No, not genocide, but certainly ethnic cleansing. But deporting half a million people or more out of 'Indigenous' areas, and close to half a million Indigenous people out of the other 'non-Indigenous' areas would probably degenerate into full-scale murder, as in India-Pakistan in 12947-1948, or in the former Yugoslavia in the nineties, so you are probably right.

To reiterate Hazza's point: he is seeking to empty one part of Australia of non-Indigenous people (either that, or keep them permanently disenfranchised), and presumably require Indigenous people in 'non-Indigenous Australia' to be deported out to their 'natural habitat', 'Indigenous Australia'.

Ergo, ethnic cleansing.

If Hazza thought this through - or Michael Mansell and the other pipe-dreamers - they may realise the horrific consequences of their Brilliant New Idea.

No, probably not.

"Ever get the feeling someone wants things this way, that they want the people of Australia to be powerless to change the status quo?"

Yeah, those conspirators have always had enormous power to shape the universe. Whose do you mean, Arjay's or AGiR's ?

That's interesting - I wonder if they are the same person. And I wonder if they know it.

Joe

Jay:

"When Joe talks about the "Beutiful Polyglot" Scotland he's justifying Genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Indigenous Scots, he's promoting something that defies all laws both natural and man made."

So ..... I'm responsible for history ? Wow, and I thought I was just a short, fat, old fart, living peacably here in SA.

I'm certainly not happy with what happened to the people in Scotland under the English heel, expelled from their lands and dispersed all over the world, just for a few English sheep. I get the idea that my ancestors had to shuffle all around Scotland and even into England, looking for work. My convict gt-gt-grandfather may or may not have stolen a loaf of bread, as the stereotype goes, although yes, my English convict gt-gt-grandmother was up for thieving what would be worth tens of thousands these days, but that's the Poms for you.

What's been done, has been done. No amount of ranting, or praying, or weeping will change that, anywhere. How do we pick ourselves up and move on, never forgetting ? How do we prevail over adversity rather than let it dictate our destinies, and drag us down ?

Joe

@ Joe.
You're clearly a decent person, you clearly understand the situation and I don't for a minute think that you really believe most of what you post on racial matters.
The point is that you regularly try to justify the purposeful displacement or dilution of indigenous Europeans and proclaim the results beautiful.
I accept that you have Leftist "Standards" to uphold so I don't dwell on your posts but I'm offering you a decent alternative and an evolving position.
Everybody says there's this race problem and that the final solution to this race problem is for the third world to pour into White countries and only White countries.
Every race has people who seem to want to destroy everything in their path, our race unfortunately has more than people working against the interests of the planet than any other and we have a concentration of extremely toxic people at the top of the "Western" world, what we call the Anglosphere.
Now we agree that these "Toxic" people exist in every race and we have a message for them YOU GOTTA GO!
What I object to is this idea that we should sacrifice the entire White race to get rid of this poisonous, Anti Human elite.
Nobody is talking about assimilating Africans out of existence for the excesses of a few of their elite.
If I suggested pouring millions of non Africans into the Congo or Sierra Leone to solve their race problem you'd call me a Naziwhowantstokillsixmillionjews and the Africans would rightly be up in arms.
We have a race problem,we need to deal with it but burdening ourselves with guilt over the actions of these "Toxic" people and wiping ourselves out is not the solution.
It was a Toxic Anglo elite that destroyed the Australian environment including it's indigenous inhabitants but it's ordinary White people like you and I trying to save it.
Similarly it was a Toxic European elite who practiced slavery, less than 2% of Whites owned slaves yet it was ordinary White people like you and I who stopped the trade.

[Deleted for arguing specific moderation decision on the thread.]

Hi Jay,

No, with respect, I don't think we agree on very much at all.

For example, I don't believe in the ' .... the purposeful displacement or dilution of indigenous Europeans ... ' - quite the reverse.

If anything, in my experience, it has been Indigenous people who are quite free and easy about inter-marrying, and Whites who have historically been more in favour of segregation and 'apartness'. After all, it was illegal for white men to associate with Indigenous women, from the late thirties until the early sixties. The 1960s. If you took a poll of Whites even now, I suspect that most of them would be less than enthusiastic about inter-marriage, especially of their own children. But it's going to happen - our children and grandchildren will be living in a beautiful, coffee-coloured world, Jay. And as Darwin wrote about hybrid vigour, our grandchildren will be more intelligent, vigorous and beautiful than we are - speaking for myself, of course.

Then, boyoboy, you write: 'Everybody says there's this race problem ... '

Everybody ?

' .... and that the final solution to this race problem is for the third world to pour into White countries and only White countries.'

Everybody ? A final solution ? Manipulated mass migration from one part of the world to another ? And it's all orchestrated and planned by whom ? Is this yet another conspiracy theory ? If so, it's a beauty:

* civil wars and collapse of governments, creating tens of millions of refugees, are the work of plotters;

* the economies of countries like Australia are manipulated so that we have to bring in foreign labour;

Devilishly cunning !

Pity it's pure cr@p.

There is so much else that I disagree with, but I'll leave it there.

To get back to topic, I do have confidence that reconciliation can be brought about, but at the time of choosing by the great majority of Indigenous people, not just a handful of their elites. Otherwise, it will be just another 'magic bullet', eventually satisfying nobody much.

Joe

Loudmouth:
"To reiterate Hazza's point: he is seeking to empty one part of Australia of non-Indigenous people (either that, or keep them permanently disenfranchised), and presumably require Indigenous people in 'non-Indigenous Australia' to be deported out to their 'natural habitat', 'Indigenous Australia'."

A precedent for legal ethnic cleansing has already been set in Australia, with Land Rights has it not? I and many other people cannot go onto tribal lands without permission, simply because we are not of the correct race.

Of course Anti-Whites do not call that ethnic cleansing, because it is White people that have been ethnically cleansed. This double standard is just one among many, that prove:

Anti-Racist = Anti-White

Loudmouth:
"If anything, in my experience, it has been Indigenous people who are quite free and easy about inter-marrying, and Whites who have historically been more in favour of segregation and 'apartness'. "

Which "Aboriginal people" are you referring to? The Aboriginals that were here when the First Fleet arrived, would not accept the ones that call themselves Aboriginal today, because the Genocide by Assimilation that occurred has rendered them unrecognizable.

The full bloods of northern Australia are similarly dismissive of Aboriginal peoples in the south, for the reason that they simply don't accept them as Aboriginal.

Loudmouth:
"But it's going to happen - our children and grandchildren will be living in a beautiful, coffee-coloured world, Jay."

So what you are saying is, if your kind get your way, because "its going to happen" (You have no choice), there will be no White people in the world. That means that you and people that agree with you, are demanding a global Genocide of White people, so they can have their perfect world.

The only problem is:

No one is flooding Africa with non-Africans and saying, "Our children and grandchildren will live in a beautiful world, with no African people."

No one is flooding China with non-Chinese and saying, "Our children and grandchildren will live in a beautiful world, with no Chinese people."

No one is flooding India with non-Indians and saying, "Our children and grandchildren will live in a beautiful world, with no Indian people."

I could go on like that for every non-White nation and find no organized groups, who would have the audacity to say what Loudmouth just said.

However in every White country, there are individuals like Loudmouth and organizations saying, there will be no White people, it is the LAW and we have no choice in the matter.

Are you sure you want to promote White Genocide, on a public forum Loudmouth? Its a dangerous limb, you have just stepped out on.

@ Joe.
There you go again, condoning Genocide, it's a reflex action is it?
If there were no Whites in Australia there would be no coffee coloured people here.
If there were no Black people in Europe there would be no coffee coloured people there either.
The thing about you Pink Rabbits is that you behave in a totally unnatural way with all this talk of "Hybrids" and your obsession with Black people and a blended humanity.
It's bizarre, Africans don't walk around saying "Hmmm...a blended humanity!...that'd be the way to go!"
Your solution to this race problem is for White people to become coffee coloured, you're so jazzed by the idea that you'd put yourself at risk of charges of promoting genocide on the basis of some fantasy about Black people.
You say you are Anti Racist, what you are is Anti White.
Anti Racist is just a codeword for Anti White.

It's interesting where an ideology of separatism leads, isn't it ?

Hazza,
Sorry for misreading some of your points. But your insoluble problem is that there is nowhere in Australia, no region, let alone state or territory, which is populated only by Indigenous people: everywhere, and the larger the entity, non-Indigenous people are in the majority. In Australia, as a formal democracy, everywhere, non-Indigenous voters are in the majority, and I really don't hear any calls for autonomy, let alone statehood, let alone independence from them.

Of course, there are settlements and towns and villages and out-stations which are overwhelmingly Indigenous, but I'm presuming that you are advocating separate rule for entities which are large enough to be called regions ? Are you proposing that the non-Indigenous people there should not be able to vote on issues to do with federal-regional relationships ? If they can vote on those issues (that's if those issues ever get raised), then why hasn't it happened already ?

Please consider chucking aside this notion: I'm not saying that you are racist, but this notion is fundamentally racist. Mansell's notion of an independent Black Australia is a racist idea, especially if it presumes that there are parts of Australia which are NOT Indigenous: all of Australia is Indigenous and also non-Indigenous: it belongs to all of us - apart from the private property rights (including Native Title rights), of course.

Alison,

Any private property owned by an Indigenous group or individual is still private property - you can't go onto it, any more than any Indigenous or non-Indigenous person can come into your yard, on onto your property without cause. BUT -

* any roadway, facility, school, clinic, etc., on Indigenous land, which has been financed by public funds, is a public facility: you and I can make use of it. If a publicly-funded road goes through an Indigenous community, then you and I can drive on it. We can send our kids to the school there, get treated at the clinic there, use the publicly-funded airfield there if they have one.

And vice-versa.

[TBC]

[cont.]

As for our grandkids being coffee-coloured, I'm not engineering it - it's happening, as it always has done. People fall in love with each other, regardless of what you or I might say - kids are like that, isn't that so ? Watch who mixes with whom as they come out of school - kids are often not as racist as their parents and grandparents, they mix with whoever they damn-well like. Nobody has to force it - Jay is absolutely right:

"Africans don't walk around saying "Hmmm...a blended humanity!...that'd be the way to go!" '

Alison,

There is no conspiracy, except perhaps from people who organise or distribute racist material AGAINST the free association of everybody in Australia. That way, of course, lies Apartheid. Is that what you are proposing, all over again ?

Or are you proposing some form of pre-emptive Apartheid, by campaigning to stop immigration altogether ? Back to the fifties, is it ? And would you drive the Indigenous people back to settlements and missions - although nowadays, in the name of 'autonomy' ?


And 'flooding' ? The largest groups of immigrants are still those from the UK and NZ. Australia has refugee obligations, given that there are forty million of them in the world.

But 'flooding' ? I was driving around a bit here in Adelaide yesterday, and saw probably a dozen Africans who, being usually without cars, tend to be waiting for buses, and on the streets more than people who have cars: there's nowhere near as many of them as you fear, Alison. I wish there were more.

And nobody is saying that you have to marry one of them, or an Afghan, or a Vietnamese, or anybody else other than someone lily-white, if you don't want to. If you don't want to be friends with people from other countries and experiences and backgrounds, you don't have to. But you'll never know what you've been missing.

[TBC]

Jay,

Nobody is saying that, as each beautiful, coffee-coloured baby is born, some pasty Whitefella has to be euthanased. There is no genocide involved in marrying whoever you like and having their kids. As a pasty Whitefella myself, I'm aware of how inappropriate our complexion is for Australian summers - extra melanin would better ensure the better survival of our grandchildren.

But if you yourself want to promote the genocide of White people, by all means, advise them to all inter-marry with each other and get plenty of sun. I'll just sit in the shade and marvel at the beauty and grace of my coffee-coloured kids and grand-kids.

To get back to the topic, yes, there has to be reconciliation sooner or later, but panaceas come and go, leaving behind only a sense of deeper disillusion as each one falls short. Let us do the job of closing the gaps first, then when Indigenous people as a whole are ready to reconcile, and not just their 'leaders', we can make reconciliation real.

Just by the way, about 2.6 % of the Australian population is Indigenous. But more than 4 % of the Australian population under 15 is Indigenous. About 2 - 2.2 % of the Australian adult population is Indigenous. Commencement numbers of Indigenous women at universities is about 2.4 % of the NON-Indigenous men's numbers.

Yes, they are participating at a better rate, for their population, than NON-Indigenous men. To me, that's one giant step on the long road to genuine reconciliation.

Joe Lane

@Joe
Nobody said anything about Euthanasia, though in theory that could be a tool of genocide.
You're being called out on your persistent calls for white Genocide, if you put yourself in that position you can't expect much sunshine to come your way.
The only people who, in your view would need to become coffee Coloured would be White people, you want White skin eradicated for a whole host of reasons which you've listed in this thread.
Your views apply to White people and only White people.
You can laugh all you want but you're out on a limb here, you support Genocide in a public forum, where your IP can be noted, that's a pretty silly thing to do.
Hitler didn't physically harm anyone but he talked about it a lot and some folks got the Steel Broom treatment all the same, the repercussions are still being felt today.
We can only offer you a respectable alternative for so long, nice people don't joke about eliminating a whole race because of, among other things the colour of their skin or this Race problem we have, so will you answer the Iron question once and for all?
Are you pro White or Pro White Genocide?

Jay,

Without the slightest hesitation, I support inter-marriage - marriage between willing partners. But whether I support it or not, it will keep happening, on an increasing scale, and with increasing degrees of complexity. There is little I can do to promote it, nor much you can do to stop it.

The common pattern seems to be that once a new group of migrants get used to their new society, its characteristics and opportunities, and once the rest of the population gets used to their newness and difference, and realises that they are human beings like the rest of them, then friendships and long-term relationships are formed, and marriage and children follow.

The logical consequences of inter-marriage on a large scale in Australia will be the creation of many, many coffee-coloured, honey-coloured, milk-chocolate-coloured children, usually dark-haired and dark-eyed, almond-eyed and beautiful, with rich and very mixed ancestral histories. We should be so lucky, Jay.

You're right, I don't find White people particularly attractive or superior in any way. But history is on MY side: the mixing of groups has been going on for thousands of years. And of course, people who don't want this to happen to them always have the option of returning to Europe if they ever find trying to live with beautiful people around them is, for some reason, too difficult.

Nobody is going to get eliminated, Jay. You and I may not pass on our 'pure' White genes, that's all. We don't have much control over what our kids decide to do, or what happens after we are gone. Just rest assured that your descendants and mine will be better-looking, more intelligent and probably better people than either of us :)

I hope that you can reconcile yourself to a better future for our kids.

Joe

Joe.
"Groups" have not been intermarrying for thousands of years otherwise we would have a blended humanity already, the fact that there is any interaction now is due to a deliberate change, post 1945 in the laws in White countries and only White countries.
Nobody is flooding Japan with non Japanese.
Nobody is flooding Nigeria with non Nigerians.
It's White countries and only White countries that are being opened to non White Migration and being required to "assimilate".

You say there is a race problem with Whites and the inevitable and final solution is to make everyone in White countries Brown.
You say you are Anti racist but what you are is Anti White.
Anti Racist is a simple code word for Anti white.
Other posters don't seem to be leaping to your defence, I'd assume it's because they don't want their profiles associated with the promotion of White Genocide.

Hi Jay,

First, nobody is 'flooding' Australia with anybody, except Poms and Kiwis, as far as I can tell.

Second, groups don't inter-marry - individuals do, and more power to them.

Third, no, I don't believe that "there is a race problem with Whites" or with anybody per se, nor would I even contemplate that "the inevitable and final solution is to make everyone in White countries Brown." Inter-marriage is happening, and will continue to happen into the future - it is a function of association and interaction, pure and simple. It's voluntary, so anybody who doesn't want to get involved, doesn't have to get involved. Nobody's forcing you, Jay.

Fourth, 'genocide' to my simple mind, means the killing of people. How can people loving each other and having kids together constitute the killing of anybody ? Wouldn't the banning of inter-marriage lean more towards genocide, by limiting births, than inter-marriage itself ? I'm not accusing you of genocide, Jay, but I think you have a job on your hands to prove that I'm guilty of it either.

And if you can't see beauty in people from all over the world, I'm truly sorry for you.

Joe

Loudmouth keeps oscillating between saying white genocide is inevitable and saying it's "voluntary." How can it be both? Can anybody make heads or tails of this?

I think that some people here are confused
between genocide and what used to be called,
quaintly, miscegenation. Genocide refers to
exterminating an entire ethnic group, while
miscegenation means, literally, mixing of blood.

The former is a crime against humanity, while
the latter is simply evolution in action.
I think that Loudmouth (Joe) has made the most
reasonable and intelligent comments lately
in this discussion.

Hi Arminius,

No, I have never said that genocide is inevitable: point me to a quote :) For the record, I fervently wish that it would stop in places like Afghanistan and Congo and Uganda (from which we welcome a handful of refugees), and never happens again anywhere.

Of course, voluntary inter-marriage, and/or mixed-group children, may well be inevitable once people from different groups mix together, i.e. individuals exercising their right to choose who to mix with, i.e. voluntarily. By definition, Arminius, you don't have to if you don't want to.

But how is that 'genocide' ?

'Genocide' has a fairly explicit meaning: the more-or-less indiscriminate killing of people from a particular group. 'Killing', to me, does not mean the dying of old age from natural causes.

Yes, I certainly believe that inter-marriage should be voluntary, and that genocide should be eliminated. If you confuse the two concepts, which seem to me to be at opposite ends of a life-death continuum, then you have a serious problem.

Thank you, Talisman, for your intelligent and succinct definition. I think that should resolve the confusion.

Joe

You seem confused about the word genocide. Etymologically, it means to "kill a race." It doesn't have to involve the direct killing of individual people.

The international legal definition of the crime of genocide is found in Articles II and III of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide.

"Article II: In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."

I hope this helps with the confusion.

It certainly does, Arminius:

(a) : nope, not happening [at least, not because of voluntary inter-marriage];

(b) : nope, not happening, except perhaps mental harm to Jay;

(c) : nope, not happening;

(d) : nope, not happening;

(e) : see below at [f]. Apart from those examples: nope, not happening.

So how does inter-marriage - voluntary association between people from different groups - and the production of mixed-group children, fit into any of that ? What don't you understand about the word 'voluntary' ? Are you suggesting that such VOLUNTARY relations between people from different groups should be banned, that [presumably] the guy involved should be jailed, perhaps both 'guilty' parties should be ? Should people from different groups be segregated, not allowed to live in the same areas, or go to the same schools, or work in the same work-places, frequent the same theatres ? Good luck :)

I can see how this sort of racist idea can fit in with Hazza's notion of an Indigenous Australia segregated off from a non-Indigenous Australia. For racists, that would get rid of one group: it would just be a matter of finding similar spaces for the Afghans, Maltese [or are they counted as White?], Vietnamese, Maori, Sudanese, South Americans, Koreans, etc., etc. and 'persuading' them all to bugger off into 'their own' spaces. In the name of autonomy and self-determination, of course: that should get the support of the Left, as well as the Right. Good luck with that too.

[f] Historically, if you search around, you may find that inter-marriage has been banned in some societies, with the children of those marriages and liaisons being killed. i.e. genocide. Occasionally in history, the children of these sorts of marriages have been subject to your (e), but not for the reasons you prefer.

Do you have any examples actually linking VOLUNTARY inter-marriage with genocide ? While you are looking, I'll just sit here and contemplate a beautiful, coffee-coloured future for our grandchildren. Yours and mine :)

Joe

@Joe
In your opinion we're Racists.
You're only calling us Racists because we're White.
People in India are mostly "coffee coloured" but nobody's saying they need to assimilate to change the colour of their skin.
People in Indonesia are mostly "coffee coloured" but nobody's saying they need to change the colour of their skin.

White people are the only ones being targeted in this way, if they weren't being targeted and their homelands, and only their homelands being flooded with "coffee coloured" people there would be no possibility of them being anything other than White now and forever.
The only way that this "inevitable coffee coloured future" can occur is if the people at the top of the hierarchy in White countries create the conditions for Genocide to occur.
Limiting birthrates is genocide, there is no stipulation as to which methods fit the criteria of the U.N convention.
The definition of Genocide is intentionally broad, ANYTHING, any speech, law or physical act that contributes to lowering birthrates is Genocide.
If housing prices are causing White people to delay starting a family or to have less children that's a condition contributing to White genocide.
If media images promote Black boyfriends for for White girls and Asian girlfriends for White boys that's a condition contributing to White Genocide.
If immigration causes apprehension and mental distress to White people in White countries that's a condition contributing to White genocide.
There is ZERO tolerance for any attitude, speech,joke, song, skit, cartoon, pamphlet, film or graffiti that even so much as implies support for genocide of other races.

Promoting genocide is clearly "Beyond the pale", leftists and respectable conservatives agree that it can't be covered by "free speech" in this country.
I keep pointing out the obvious to you,that you are identifiable to anyone who, at some point in the future might decide to make a court case out of White genocide.
So why do you continue to joke and crack wise on the subject of White genocide?

Hmmm. A discussion about Reconciliation and the
pros and cons of recognising Indigenous people
in the Australian Constitution has turned into
a rant about the ludicrous notion of "White genocide".

How did that happen?

[Deleted for attempting to hijack the thread.]

In retrospect, I can see where this nonsense about
"White genocide" might be applicable in Australia, at
least in the minds of White supremacists. In stretching
the UN definition of genocide beyond any sensible meaning,
its advocates are extending and reversing the process
by which Aboriginal activists made rather hyperbolic
claims about their own treatment, such as claiming that
the "Stolen Generations" constituted genocidal policy
by various State governments in Australia.

However, while there was undoubtedly a prevalent view among
settler Australians that the Aboriginal "race" was dying out
(which should be hurried along), it's hard to sustain an
argument that this was ever official policy. I seem to
recall that arguments that Aboriginal genocide had been
sanctioned and attempted in our colonial past have fallen
flat in recent decades due to lack of evidence.

It would be even harder to sustain an argument that anything
like "White genocide" has ever been attempted here. After
my last comment, I was intrigued enough at the seeming
stupidity of the notion to do a Google search, which was
an educational exercise.

Apart from references to descendants of former colonists
in South Africa and Zimbabwe where the term might arguably
be applied, and to a peculiar historical usage by Western
Armenians, googling the term "White genocide" generally leads
to some of the more revolting White supremacist websites
that I've encountered.

[TBC]

[CONT]

While I felt like washing my hands after visiting some
of these deranged websites, I noticed a curious repetition
around them of the verbatim text that Jay of Melbourne has
posted above, and which I now notice that s/he posts regularly
in various discussions at this site. Its repetition is
appropriate, since it's apparently a White supremacist "mantra"
(they even call it that) designed to be spread around the Internet.

As far as I can tell it was first published by a racist
loon named Bob Whitaker, and has been taken up enthusiastically
by any number of White supremacist groups internationally
as a device with which to spam discussions such as this.

http://www.whitakeronline.org/blog/the-white-mantra/

Given that this "White genocide" rubbish is so very obviously
viral racist spam, I'm going to ignore any reference to it
in future. I recommend that others do the same, because
engaging with it just gives it oxygen. How insidious.

'Trickle = flood'

'Inter-marriage = limiting births = genocide'

'Inter-marriage = lowering birth-rates = genocide'

'Promoting reconciliation and interaction = 'a condition contributing to White genocide' '

"Oh, brave new world ! That has such people in 't!"

Well, all I know, Jay, is that there can never be reconciliation without interaction, or, Hazza [or Michael Mansell], reconciliation through segregation: in a free and open society, people mix with whomever they wish, people are attracted to each other willy-nilly, people marry and/or have kids, and grandkids. Our grandkids :)

So you can do your Canute thing, you're free to keep trying, to keep the world from turning.

But it still moves :)

Joe

It's good to see people promoting B.U.G.S and The Mantra instead of White Genocide.
Talisman, in your opinion Ol'Bob whaitaker is a racist loon, you're just saying that because he's White.
Abe "Foxy" Foxman talks about an ongoing Genocide against his people but nobody calls him a Racist Loon.
There's no need for anyone to "fiddle" with the definition of Genocide laid down by the U.N, it's broadly defined and open ended for a reason, that reason is there should be zero tolerance for the most heinous of crimes against humanity.

@Joe.
There's no need to embellish my posts, they're clear and explicit.
I stand by my posting record on this site as a supporter of any efforts toward Reconciliation between White and Indigenous Australians.
That's the thing about Genocide by assimilation, it never achieves it's aim and it leaves a huge mess for succeeding generations.
White people have tried to stop Aboriginal genocide from day one, they ended African slavery in Europe and the Americas, they tried to stop the deportation of Jews from the Third Reich. It stands to reason that the same character would be shown by some of us in relation to the genocide of the White peoples of Europe, just as it is typical of a certain type of White person to condone and even facilitate crimes against humanity.
I'm asking people to take a side, Pro White or Pro white Genocide, such a stance in no way precludes involvement in any other acts of solidarity or reconciliation with people of other races.
From my point of view my Pro White stance enables me to better understand other races because I can understand racial ways of thinking and understanding.

Jay,

With the greatest respect, I don't think you understand anything much at all.

In the interests of reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, indeed between all Australians, I am 100 % for reconciliation, for free and open interaction between individuals from groups (if you wish, you can call that 'assimilation').

I am 100 % pro-human. I believe in freedom, choice and the brotherhood of all humankind. This necessarily includes the freedom and choice to mix with and fall in love with whoever you like, marry who you like and have kids (and grandkids) by whoever you like.

If that somehow fits your definition of genocide, then welcome to Earth, my alien friend. When are you going back ?

Joe

gobsmacked on Friday, 3 December 2010 at 3:08:58 PM, said:

"What '67 achieved was not a vote for a relationship
as Dodson characterises it. It was much more practical
than that. It essentially provided the head of power
for the Commonwealth to make laws and it provided for
Aboriginal people to be counted in the census."

The concluding phrase of this statement betrays a common (and, from memory, deliberately cultivated) misconception as to the now-removed Section 127 of the Constitution having prevented the counting of aboriginal persons in the census. It never did.

The Year Book Australia for 1971 expressly states, on page 136 under the heading 'The Aboriginal Population of Australia' that "Aborigines have been enumerated in all censuses of the Commonwealth, ... ".

It should be noted that there exists a difference in meaning between 'not being counted in a census', and "reckoning the numbers of the people of the Commonwealth, or of a State or other part of the Commonwealth" as expressed in the now repealed Section 127 of the Constitution, the full wording of which is shown in my post of Monday, 6 December 2010 at 8:55:49 AM. The latter expression relates to the content of Section 89 (ii.) (b), a transitional provision of the Constitution, which uses the term 'number of its people' in the expression of a formula for debiting to each State, proportionally, some of the expenditure of the Commonwealth incurred in the collection of customs revenues immediately after Federation.

It is claimed that Section 127 was placed in the Constitution at Federation as a necessary safeguard for the State of South Australia, within the then Northern Territory of which resided the bulk of the aboriginal population of Australia, a population that played little if any part in the commerce upon which customs duties were at that time collected. Without Section 127 in the Constitution, South Australia may not have agreed to Federation.

This 'counting of aboriginals' aspect of the 1967 referendum has an interesting sidelight that may well illuminate some possible whitefella electoral accountancy mischief around that period.

TBC

@ Joe.
I don't call solidarity or a desire for reconciliation between Indigenous Australians and White people "assimilation"and only I call assimilation Genocide when it's forced upon people against their will or by deceitful means.
Aboriginal people had no choice in the importation of millions of non indigenous people into their homelands post 1788.
The indigenous people of Europe similarly have no choice in the importation of millions of non Europeans into their homelands post 1945.
It's the same thing, the same method of genocide being used by the same Anglo Elite and it's having the same gruesome consequences.
All the Mantra does is expose a pattern of behaviour among what has come to be known as "The West", the extreme, supremacist, ethnocentric Anglo elite which is destroying our peoples, our environment and our biodiversity.
The Mantra also leads one to the conclusion that there are always consequences for promoting Genocide, even for the most tangential or seemingly inconsequential involvement.
I posted before that I'm not convinced of your stated enthusiasm for a "coffee coloured" future because your internet persona at least takes a moral and ethical position on other matters.
I and my "White Supremacist" colleagues just point out the obvious, you can't mourn one genocide and condone or deny another, it's neither ethical nor moral.
The indigenous people of Europe and by extension Diaspora Whites such as you and I are being forced by the states in which we live to assimilate.
A state is nothing more than a monopoly on the use of force, if Chancellor Merkel is telling Germans that Multiculturalism has failed and that assimilation is the only way forward that constitutes a forceful act.
Does it not?

Continued

A Footnote to the 1967 Referendum

The notes to a spreadsheet tabulation showing Australian electoral enrolment levels for the years 1947 to 1987, contained within a submission (No.123) to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters inquiry into the conduct of the 2004 Federal elections titled 'Australia - Aggregate Enrolment Levels 1947 - 1987' shed some interesting light upon the operation of Section 127 of the Constitution, so far as the counting of aboriginal persons in censuses was concerned, prior to its repeal in 1967.

The specific note was that to Cell C27 of the spreadsheet, titled 'Disregarding the Constitution?'. It can be found at page 21 of the PDF document that constitutes Submission 123, a document downloadable by clicking that submission in the list of submissions reachable here: http://bit.ly/h5ni9J

It appears from that note that there had been an after-the-event arbitrary increase made to the 1961 Census count in 1974.

The note concluded with these questions:

"Was the 1974 arbitrary increase of the 1961
Census count by 40,114 an attempt at cover-up
of the imagined unsanctioned inclusion of
Aboriginal persons in the population estimates
prior to the 1967 Referendum? Did it perhaps
confuse total population numbers with eligibility
within that population? Did it also conveniently
serve to inflate the national population estimates
sufficiently to conceal a situation of over-
enrolment that may have been known, at least
in some quarters, to exist in late 1961?"

It would seem that there might exist a need for all Australians to reconcile as to whether such after-the-event alterations to a census count as claimed in this study were in fact 'whitefella' electoral accountancy mischief, and if so whether the 'whitefellas' instigating and/or intending to benefit from such came from within, or outside of, Australia. It is very hard to imagine, from the population numbers, that 'blackfellas' could have been behind anything of the nature hinted at by the notes.

Could the same putative 'whitefella' interests be behind the current proposal to alter the Preamble at referendum?

Thank you Forrest, that's very intriguing: before the 1967 Referendum, the states retained responsibility for Indigenous people within their borders, and held annual Censuses, fairly rough-and-ready affairs involving local coppers and missionaries, with a factor built-in for Aboriginal people still 'outside civilization'.

And as you say, the Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics published a paper in 1933, but relating only to 'full-blood' Aborigines. The AFA (Aborigines' Friends' Association) based here in Adelaide, published annual compilations of population estimates state by state from 1928, at least up to 1956. If anybody is interested, I typed them up about ten years ago and they are available at

rmg1859@yahoo.com.au

One problem with earlier census counts involved estimates for populations still believed to be 'beyond civilization' - even as late as the fifties, WA authorities still believed that there were 10,000 such people in remote areas. What is very interesting is how these figures were probably always OVER-estimates of the actual 'wild' population: perhaps people had come in to missions and stations earlier and in bigger numbers, and there were always fewer people 'out there' than the authorities assumed.

But on the AFA counts, it is clear that the Indigenous population had started to increase - at least, in terms of these AFA population estimates - from as early as the late 1920s.

And it probably doesn't even need saying that the population everywhere was probably always greater than the official counts.

Joe

The Census does not test for Aboriginality, it tests for who identifies as Aboriginal.

There are people I know that look European and suffer no disadvantage, yet identify as Aboriginal, simply for the financial benefits that status brings them.

I remember one recent case in the MSM, where well off white looking people, squeezed genuine Aboriginals that suffer real disadvantage, out of a competition, that was created solely to benefit Aboriginal people.

Of course if scholarships and competitions were created to benefit European whites anywhere on the planet, the people organizing them and those receiving such scholarships, would be harassed mercilessly by so called anti-racists.

That is because anti-racist = anti-white.

G'day Alison,

Yes, there are many white people who hop in and claim to be Indigenous. I worked in a university Indigenous student support program and I put a lot of work into publicising courses and recruiting Indigenous students. Many times I was contacted by people who I suspected were not Indigenous at all: they always had a story, often about their mother wwho had been 'taken away' and therefore did not know her family, and 'therefore' could not be checked up on.

One guy pestered me about enrolment until I asked him to put together a family tree, and I never heard from him again. He got into another, slacker, program and was in due course Aboriginal Scholar of the Year. He eventually got a good job in Indigenous policy in Canberra. I found out accidentally that his mother was Italian, a Calabresa, actually a very nice lady, and his father was Austrian, and that they met on the railways back in the late fifties, doing their two-year migrant stint out in the bush.

It's certainly not the fault of Indigenous people if whites exploit opportunities that are not really available for them, of course. Monitoring and vetting procedures in Aboriginal organisations are unbelievably pathetic, so a few whites are bound to get scholarships and jobs and houses which - given the vagaries of discrimination and segregation in Indigenous policy over 200 years - are properly set aside for genuine Indigenous people.

And until some of that trash can be cleaned out of Indigenous affairs, then reconciliation is really a sick joke.

Joe