LEGO; If you want to, you can look at official education files that first and foremost, entirely disprove your racist premise on intelligence!

That said and to call a spade a spade, STD's in some indigenous communities is rife and disgraceful! This outcome is assisted by overcrowding and six to a bed sleeping arrangements? And the reason for a singularly high suicide rate and why I agreed with the intervention!

I've met a few white supremacists, one of who was a great chess champion in his own lunch box, was humbled by an aboriginal housewife, who beat him in around three moves in each of the three games he played with her!

And something he couldn't live down, given each time he entered his favorite watering hole a young wag (part of the furniture) recalled his discomfort in a native tongue song accompanied by clicked sticks, a dance of sorts and load raucous laughter!

To be fair I've met a few black supremacists and a few Chinese ones as well! I suppose each ethnicity has its share, with Serbians regarding the Croatians as hugely inferior?

Ditto the Nazis in relation to the Jews! Which reminds me of a story apparently coming out of prewar Germany, Where a timid Jew, needing to eat, tried his luck in a Chinese eatery.

Do you serve Jews here, he inquired? To which the Oriental proprietor replied Yes, what kinda Jews you want, Apple Jews, orange Jews or grape Jews?
Have a nice day.
Alan B.

@Yuyutsu, I think the issue is one of entrenched generational disadvantage. Helping one form of that in a social group is not a denial of every other groups or individuals needs. 'Chewing gum and walking' simultaneously can help grasp the nettle, imo.

@Loudmouth re "the world’s oldest surviving human civilisation".

The world's oldest continuous unbroken in situ still surviving unchanged human culture aka 'civilisation', which is still known by it's people and being practiced today as we speak.

It's the ONLY one and it is 60,000 and possibly 90,000 years old and still going strong. There fixed it for you.

If only Australia had white marble vs sandstone, things may have looked different today. <wink>

Uluru was a 'seat of government' and spirituality and art. I know, been there so I looked for myself. Why waste natural resources when nature gives you what you needed anyway?

@Aspley, is money the most important thing to you too?

@Alan B, you were going great then blew it with the stereotypical myopic insults. Very unfair, untrue distortion of reality of Australian Aboriginals "getting up off of their bulging backsides and helping themselves!" Are you a military man?

Would you tell a schizophrenic or bipolar to get off their backsides and help themselves? No. So why assume even some aboriginal people in dire straits are bludgers refusing to help themselves?

This nation is built on the notion of protecting and helping the sick, frail, young and old, the broken, lost, the lonely, the uneducated, disadvantaged in our community. That is being 'civilised'! To most human beings that's what it means.

You may be listening to the wrong media and politicians. Maybe what they said wasn't really true? Eddie Mabo and Mandawuy Yunupingu were University graduates, not bludgers, nor their kids.

I do not agree with making generalised broadside criticisms or attacks on any group of people, just because it might make those to spruik it feel better about themselves.

I much prefer if people would be specific and accurate in their complaints about others.

I know, I'm dreaming. :-)
-

Hi Thomas,

When you assert that: " .... Aboriginal tribal nations of Australia had borders, national treaties, free trade, government, laws, courts, heads of state, foreign ministers, pre-colonization records, formal communication, and high levels of societal organization..... "

You may need to provide a skerrick of evidence, that the four or five hundred language groups across Australia had:

* established borders: usually, there were no-go zones between groups, even family groups, each fearful that neighbours were ready and willing to invade at all times;

* national treaties: do you mean between neighbouring groups (evidence ?) or by national, do you mean 'nationally' ? Evidence:

* free trade: beyond trade in women ? And 'symbolic' trade, exchange of stone, flint, spear-wood, etc., mainly to keep the peace between neighbouring groups ? Evidence:

* government: do you mean beyond a council of older men to decide who had killed whom by magic ? What government did foragers need ? Evidence:

* laws: see above.

* courts: see above.

* heads of state: do you mean heads of families ? a council of older men ? Your evidence:

* foreign ministers: Your evidence:

* pre-colonization records: Your evidence:

* * formal communication: do you mean smoke signals between groups ? Your evidence:

* high levels of societal organization: complicated family relationships and between related groups and groups related by marriage (hence see above: trade in women), yes. Do you mean something more complex ?

I recommend W. H. Edwards' 'Introduction to Aboriginal Studies', that's a pretty good place to start.

Good luck, it will be a very long journey, Thomas. Some of us have been on it for decades. [Spoiler alert: it never finishes].

Cheers,

Joe

Thomas,

How on earth do you know that the culture practised by Aboriginal tribes is the same as it was 500yrs ago let alone 40 000 yrs ago? This is purely conjecture.

These "nations" we are always hearing were anything from family groups to small tribes, not nations at all.

Hello Thomas,

I suspect you're venturing into dangerous waters, I hope you can swim :)

" ... The world's oldest continuous unbroken in situ still surviving unchanged human culture .... "

Really, where ? Completely unchanged ? Still the same ? No money or ATMs, clothes, houses, Toyotas, TV, Conferences in Hawai'i ?

Uluru is a rock, a dirty big rock, a special place to some desert people, esp. Pitjantjatjara. It was unknown to the great majority of warring groups. And it's a rock, not somehow a 'seat of government'.

In your response to Alan, are you assuming that Aboriginal people are in similar situations to the mentally ill ? No more than other Australians, in my opinion. Therefore as entitled, and as obliged, to work.

As you say, " ... This nation is built on the notion of protecting and helping the sick, frail, young and old, the broken, lost, the lonely, the uneducated, disadvantaged in our community."

I totally agree, but if the cap doesn't fit ......

Why assume Aboriginal people are all those things ? Currently, there are sixteen thousand Indigenous people, maybe seventeen, enrolled at universities. There are currently around forty thousand graduates, one in every nine or ten adults, in fact one in every seven women. And those numbers grow healthily every year.

You may be in love, you may want to help, but please don't play the 'incapable' card. My dear wife was Indigenous, my kids are Indigenous, and I don't recognise them in your descriptions. Find out a bit more and get real.

Cheers,

Joe