In all of the talk about aboriginal petrol sniffing and alcohol problems, why is no credence given to the idea that the so-called “communities” some aborigines live in might be enough to lead anyone to self-destructive behaviour. Nugget Coombes is long dead. Times have changed. Isn’t it time we stopped thinking of “assimilation” as a dirty word in relation to aboriginal Australians and give the young ones, at least, the opportunity to live in the wider community. Most aborigines in Australia are urban dwellers who conduct as normal a life as other Australians.

Eleanor Hogan ““Petrol sniffers must take responsibility for their own problems.”…..
This statement chilled me; I thought these words were harsh and ignorant.”

The words are real and enlightened.

If petrol sniffers do not take responsibility for the problems the induce upon themselves

Who should take responsibility?

Some Idiots sniff petrol.
Other Idiots traffic dope in Indonesia
I do neither and am not responsible for the outcomes of these self destructive practices.

Having said that, I used to smoke cigarettes, my life expectancy has been prejudiced by that idiotic act but I accept responsibility and suffer the consequences of it.

Eleanor Hogan “The fact that the wider Australian community has a responsibility to assist Anangu to address the problem of petrol sniffing, which has no precedent in traditional culture, is clear. Governments should not approach the task on the basis that the solutions must come from Anangu communities alone.”

The collective Anangu community is not “responsible” either.

In the case of petrol sniffing juveniles, the parents are responsible or for orphans, their legal guardian is responsible. The Anangu community and wider Australian community both care that people should be so self destructive but we are all responsible for ourselves, not each other and certainly the government is not either.

God forbid we should ever promote a situation where government were “responsible”. The restriction on personal choice and freedom necessitated by such “centralist responsibility” would certainly pave the way for an extremely repressive dictatorship with far worse social consequences than the individual outcomes of Idiotic pursuits, including petrol sniffing.

CoL Rouge
I disagree. The government throws my money and yours at the aboriginal community. Ever seen the public service jobs where the first selection criterion is "Aboriginality"? Ever had a friend who was 1/xth aboriginal and could get free dental care? etc etc. If the government insists on "helping" the aborigines in this way, then the government is, at the very least, partly "responsible".

Leigh
"Most aborigines in Australia are urban dwellers who conduct as normal a life as other Australians" - O really? If by "urban" you mean Central Station, then yes. But the only time I see Aborigines conducting "as normal a life as other Australians" is on local TV soaps

Dear Elanor Hogan,

Many thanks for your evocative prose.

Alas, aboriginal petrol-sniffing is predominantly an adolescent male behaviour and incarceration is another. Both are objectively self-defeating and endemic, nonetheless.

Periodic seizing of headlines merely enunciates a racial compassion/superiority complex and there is nothing sexy about it!

I beg to disagree with your notion that petrol sniffing could be constrained, insofar as cultural obligation is concerned.

I’ve had somewhat of a history with these young men and I can assure you that they are mocked. Their physiological ascension to manhood against the shame of incomplete-initiation, demands petrol sniffing or incarceration or whatever is available to reconcile perceived shortcomings … between the proud heritage and shameful, invasive, cultural expectations of another.

Prime Minister Howard appropriately recommends a “holistic solution” to the problem of petrol sniffing and suggests ultimately that the solution to the problem is in the hands of the communities, as much as it is in the hands of governments.

When Australia positions traditional Aboriginal culture at the upper rung of its social order; so that mainstream cultural direction is driven by the millennia of indigenous triumph over its definitive landscape and indigenousness represents anthropogenic superiority, then we might see constraint.

Until then, we must endure the discriminatory ugliness of racial oppression.

Neil... I think you might have touched on am important issue..

"Incomplete Initiation" leading to low self esteem leading to escapism...etc.

This is one reason, why I generally harp on about attacking indigenous problems from an anthropological perspective rather than a social welfare perspective. You could throw ALLLL the social welfare, and score inumerable political points on indigenous issues without even realizing the root cause. Sometimes it can be as simple as knowing the cultural trigger for such behavior.

I think it might be beneficial to try to pinpoint this further, and if possible, by sympathetic liason with tribal elders, to look for more modern equivalents which would suit the social realities of today, by which the youth can still feel they have 'arrived'.

As a Christian, who has worked with indigenous people of Borneo, where the tribe concerned were drunk more days per year than they were sober, to the point where the government actually documented that they were to be "allowed to die out"... yet today seeing doctors, lawyers, members of parliment, and a thriving vigorous community where they have replaced the old custom with many Christian equivalents, (sadly some of the valuable they themselves have left behind in the mistaken belief that it was 'not Christian') I will always have an optimistic outlook for indigenous people.

The point may be well made, that Christianity may seem a 'cultural intrusion' to those who don't share our faith, but the indigeneous church of Borneo, now over 500,000 strong and growing,is one which is self supporting, self governing and self propogating; and from the outset was never mean't to reflect any particular tradition of 'The West'. The 3 founders of the Borneo Evangelical Mission were from 3 different denominations anyway. (protestant)

Bottom line, petrol sniffing, is just a symptom, careful analysis will reveal the root cause, and whether the answer is a committment to Christ, or the emergence of modern cultural equivalents to initiation rites, the aboriginal people have just as much potential and hope as any other group

Thanks Eleanor for this piece. I'm sure you feel your analysis could go deeper and wider than what’s allowes here.

The media constructions and representations of 'Aboriginal social tragedies' continues to be part of a media menu and invokes an emotional panic in white Australians. This panic displays itself in many ways but usually its one where

1 .'blame' accorded to governments
2. blame is accorded to Aboriginal people and communities *see lisamaree’s eloquent elucidation.
3. blame is accorded to ideological thinking

This is a phenomenon that goes back decades in terms of media coverage of Aboriginal issues and non-Aboriginal responses. Mabo, Wik, the Stolen generations all share a common denominator in that they invariably evoked a deep primal panic about

1. national responsibility
2. moral responsibility
3. historical culpability
4. privilege and power and denial

In the public commentary and debates one fundamental element is always missing and that it what Aboriginal people think about their own solutions to their problems are.

And put simply, I feel this is what Eleanor has attempted to highlight.

A large part of the solution to petrol sniffing and other social problems is that Aboriginal voices, opinions and ideas must play a greater role in reaching consensus.

Commentators such as Noel Pearson have willingly prostituted themselves as substitutes for these grassroots opinions. A thousand government enquiries will not fix this wide spread hearing problem. People and media listen, but they do not want to hear