He speaks from what he has experienced
and seen
Foxy,
I have difficulty in believing this on account of my own experiences. It is my opinion that John Pilger writes what he wants to hear & see.
I'd like to have John Pilger work alongside me for a week & then write about what he heard & saw.

John Pilger, work!

Go wash your mouth out individual.

Foxy: I imagine it's easy for urbanites like ourselves to judge others by our standards.

Urbanites, we are & as such, we, as a society have a acceptable standard of behaviour & hygiene, for Indigenous as well as Whites. I know some Whites fail too. I've seen the Current Affairs programs. Regardless, That sort of Low Standard is abhorrent, you must admit, to everybody.

Even so, there is no excuse for the in the Indigenous Communities Outback to live in the filth that they live in. There is no excuse for the rubbish lying around breading sickness, both inside & outside the houses. There is no excuse for not brushing the Toilet down or cleaning the bath tub or shower recess. There is no excuse for rotting food left on the floor, benches & sinks breading sickness in the children. There is no excuse for not keeping their clothes in decent repair & clean. There is no excuse for the state of repair of the houses that have had every wall punched in. That sort of Low Standard is abhorrent, you must admit, to everybody

They get money given to them, A lot more than White people on the Dole get by way of extras. What do they do with it. Goonies?

Foxy: I'm not sure if I'd be worried about hygiene and proper behaviour as my first priority, if I didn't have access to the basics
(that we take for granted in the cities), and my kids were hungry and sick.

Why are the kids hungry, Foxy? Has it to do with what they spend their money on instead of food for the children?

I've been down there too. Bread & jam for two weeks once, Savaloys, another time. lived in the car for two weeks, lived in a fettlers hut until I got caught, I was living on tomatoes, beans & raw potatoes from the field for a week until my first pay check. I always kept myself, my clothes & my surrounds clean.

Dear jayb.

I don't have the answers by a long shot.

But at a guess - the Australian Indigenous culture
historically is the most primitive in the world.
Other cultures such as the Indians in the Amazon
and some African tribes in Central Africa have a
culture that does not readily advance as do the
European or certain Asian cultures. For example
in today's modern society computers and other advanced
technologies are readily accepted by most educated
people and yet there are many in the older generation
that don't accept that technology. So too with the
Indigenous people - where traditionally their culture
is handed down by the elders they are inclined to
follow the old ways. Historically being nomadic
they walked away from their camps and established new
camp sites. Leaving behind the mess of their previous
inhabitation. With such cultures it will take many
generations to accept the changes in their environment.

Migation since the second World War from Europe brought
many cultures and traditions to this country and it
takes as much as three generations for those traditions
to be abandoned. So what do you expect from a primitive
culture - living in their tribal areas where they are
constantly reminded of their ancestry and where they have
not had the benefits of education and modernity that
the rest of the nation has had. They don't get the education,
there are no jobs, they're unemployed, and they're influenced
by their elders. You can't expect a nomadic people to be
permanently settled and appreciate their surroundings.

Hi Foxy/Lexi,

Culture is one thing, people and their ability to learn from their circumstances is another. Culture is not innate. Culture is what and how you learn about the actual, real, living environment, social, economic, political, around you, and Aboriginal people have been learning amazingly quickly from the earliest days of contact with the outside world.

In South Australia, my adopted state, Aboriginal people were already highly mobile and conversing with each other in a common language, English, by 1845, eight years after contact. People were taking out land leases by the end of the 1840s, and by the 1890s, more than fifty had 160-acre land leases, rent-free, 14-years.

By the 1860s, in the 'settled' areas, a high proportion of Aboriginal kids had been through Mission schools, each teaching a fairly standard curriculum for the times - actually a higher proportion of Aboriginal kids in those areas could read and write than the rural non-Aboriginal kids by 1870 - even after that, since it wasn't compulsory for white farm kids to go to school if they lived a certain distance from a school, Aboriginal kids on Missions would have been far better educated than those poor white kids.

Nowadays, of course, those poor little bastards in remote areas are getting bugger-all education, thanks to well-meaning 'teachers' and the kids' parents, a deadly alliance. God knows what might happen with this new policy against truancy - I suspect that many of those parents will be put on full salaries as something like 'education re-engagement officers' or some such, and nothing much will change. Experts like 'Individual' will be in the position to observe what happens, thank God. Thank you in anticipation, Individual :)

Meanwhile, in the cities, Indigenous people will race away. Those poor deluded b@stards in remote communities, thinking they on a pig's back, on lifelong welfare, will be left further and further behind. And their poor kids will suffer, for yet another sh!t generation.

Cheers :)

Joe

I blame the experts who insist on forcing the system of education onto these kids when all they require to build a healthy mentality is education.
We can not expect the children to learn anything from people who know nothing. Get the teachers through two years national service & then put them in a classroom, not before.
Stop indoctrinating indigenous kids to hate.