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Dear Joe,

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You wrote :

« Your ramble about culture is not really relevant any more, and perhaps hasn't been relevant in Australia for around 100 or 150 years »

Now that you mention it, Joe, I do feel as though I’m becoming something of an ancestor, but I haven’t hit up a century yet. I’m not sure if I’ll make it. I’ve still got a fair way to go.

Though I’ve been based in Paris for quite a few years now, I manage to get back home pretty regularly where I still have lots of family and friends. I was in Tenant Creek not so long ago to wire down some plastic flowers on my father’s grave (to prevent them blowing away in the scorching dry wind). I guess there must have been some change, as you say, over the past 100 or 150 years, but judging by all the old photos on the walls of the main pub on Paterson Street where everybody hangs out in the evening, it doesn’t seem to have changed all that much.

I got the same impression at the Batterey Hill Mining Centre a few kilometres out of town on Peko Road where, again, there were lots of old photos of the gold miners on display. Things have been preserved pretty much as they used to be. Admittedly, the aboriginal people I saw wandering about out there looked a lot more civilised than the nomad tribe I encountered on the Nullarbor Plains in 1963, but still, I’m surprised that you write that Aboriginal culture “hasn't been relevant in Australia for around 100 or 150 years”. I certainly didn’t get that impression.

Perhaps you had in mind the 75% of the Aboriginal population who live in the major urban areas of Australia. I’m willing to believe that most, if not all, of that urban population has lost much of its traditional culture, but I’d be very surprised if that’s the case of the other 25% who live in remote and very mote areas that cover 85% of the country :

http://aifs.gov.au/publications/families-regional-rural-and-remote-australia/figure1

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Rodney,

God, this is like trying to turn a car around with four flat tyres. Yes, across the 'South' (and you know what I mean if you've lived in Tennant Creek), people have adopted a range of modern, westernised, cultural practices over the past 150, even 200 years, and put traditional practices on the back-burner - no, they haven't 'lost' them, they have put them on the back-burner and gradually ceased to practise them, as they became increasingly irrelevant to their daily lives, even in their own countries.

Since the vast majority of those 'southerners', [particularly if they are over, say, forty, know mainly, even only, their Indigenous relatives. That pretty much makes them Indigenous, in my book, even if they rarely go outside the city where they live and expect to spend the rest of their lives, or know how to do the kangaroo eating dance.

Urban living IS legitimate for Indigenous people, Rodney. Yes, you're right, the great majority of Australia's Indigenous people live in towns and cities, perhaps 81 % at this year's Census. You may have faint doubts that they are 'really' Indigenous because of that, but I'll tell you something: they don't. Get used to it.

Joe

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Dear Joe,

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You wrote :

« … across the 'South' (and you know what I mean if you've lived in Tennant Creek), people have adopted a range of modern, westernised, cultural practices over the past 150, even 200 years, and put traditional practices on the back-burner - no, they haven't 'lost' them, they have … gradually ceased to practise them, as they became increasingly irrelevant to their daily lives, even in their own countries »

Yes, we’ve been through that before, Joe. As I indicated much earlier on in our discussions, I find that quite remarkable - particularly the fact that over 40 000 Aboriginal people (university graduates) have achieved in 228 years (since 1788) and less than 10 generations, what it took us 50 000 years (since the arrival of the first Africans in Europe) and 2 000 generations to achieve :

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=18533#331349

But, as you, yourself, have often commented on this thread, it is up to our Aboriginal compatriots themselves to decide if they want to adopt “modern, western culture” or perpetuate their traditional culture. The problem is that, for one reason or another, many of them are caught between the two. They can’t go back and they can’t go forward.

While I agree that we should not adopt a patronising or paternalistic attitude consisting in taking the decision for them, I consider that, as we are at least partly responsible for their current disarray, we have a moral duty to create the appropriate conditions to facilitate their decision and take full charge of themselves as quickly as possible.

You also wrote :

« Urban living IS legitimate for Indigenous people … You may have faint doubts that they are 'really' Indigenous because of that … »

No, I don't, but I was surprised when I learned that somebody who had no Aboriginal ancestors at all could legitimately claim Aboriginality, provided he or she is accepted as a member of an Aboriginal tribe. I now see it as the equivalent of our system of adoption.

As for me, all my family is French except me.

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Rodney,

You suggest that I: " .... have often commented on this thread, it is up to our Aboriginal compatriots themselves to decide if they want to adopt “modern, western culture” or perpetuate their traditional culture. The problem is that, for one reason or another, many of them are caught between the two. They can’t go back and they can’t go forward."

Perhaps you've misunderstood whatever I wrote slightly: my point was that it is NOT up to NON-Indigenous people to dictate to Indigenous people whether or not they should or, more properly, should have, adopted modern, western cultural practices - they've done that, and often a very long time ago.

And no, I don't fully believe the old stereotype about being "caught between the two". Very many people are certainly NOT caught between the two, they have happily and successfully chosen, or grown up in, a modern world. More than likely, their grandparents made those choices generations ago.

But yes, people in isolated and segregated settlements have been blocked from full entry into that world: they may live very much as other Australians do, except for the work bit, (and for their kids, the education bit), but through a combination of misguided policies since 1972 and their own self-seeking responses to its opportunities, have locked themselves out of that world. Hence, the pathological death spiral.

I strongly urge you to get hold of Keith Windschuttle's latest book, 'The Break-Up of Australia', which has been a real eye-opener for me: after fifty-odd years, I feel as if, all along, I have been a mug, a sucker, a dupe, to adhere to the Indigenous Movement so uncritically, that its 'leaders' have deceived and betrayed that good faith, such as it was, for all of that time.

I think their aim is eventually (this sounds utterly absurd but there you go) to empty Australia of non-Indigenous people, and to divide all the inherited property amongst themselves. A bit like Will Smith in that movie. When the food runs out, then they can start worrying, maybe go hunting and gathering. Yeah, right.

Joe

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Dear Joe,

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Many thanks for drawing my attention to Keith Windschuttle's latest book, 'The Break-Up of Australia'. Windschuttle’s name was vaguely familiar to me and I discovered that it was because he is the editor of the conservative “Quadrant” magazine.

I see that he has become deeply embroiled in what has become known as the “history wars”, an ongoing public debate over the interpretation of the history of the British colonisation of Australia and its impact on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples :

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

As a non-specialist, I am incapable of separating the wheat from the chaff. However, I see that one of Windschuttle’s predecessors as editor of “Quadrant” magazine, Robert Manne (Emeritus Professor of politics and Vice-Chancellor's Fellow at La Trobe University) severely criticised the polemic style and historical inaccuracies of Windschuttle’s self-published magnum opus, “The Fabrication of Aboriginal History” :

http://www.themonthly.com.au/nation-reviewed-robert-manne-comment-keith-windschuttle-2256

I also found an interesting article published in “The Age” of December 7, 2004 by Gerard Henderson in which the author writes :

« The problem with Windschuttle's work is that, at times, you get the impression that he is a former Marxist - turned political conservative - who is waging a personal war on the very left-wing interpretation of Australian history that he once both embraced and proclaimed. His revisionism is essential reading for anyone who wants to join the debate on Australian history. Yet, because his history contains a substantial degree of personal polemic, it sometimes lacks empathy »

That certainly reminds me of somebody !

And, last but not least, I found this Part 1 extract of Windschuttle's latest book, 'The Break-Up of Australia' in the November edition of “Quadrant” magazine :

http://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2016/11/break-australia-part/

I look forward to reading the Part 2 extract in the up-coming December edition.

In the meantime, here are my initial comments on all this :

1. Apparently, it’s easier for a radical to change his political views (from left to right and vice-versa) than it is for him to change his mind-set (from radical to moderate).

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(Continued ...)

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(Continued ...)

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2. It is estimated that at least 20,000 Aboriginal people were killed as a direct result of colonial violence, compared to 2,000- 2,500 settler deaths.

3. The British Crown seized the whole of Australia from the Aboriginal peoples without purchasing it.

4. The cost of colonisation to Australian taxpayers represents 2.25% of GDP in 2016 ($30 billion cost compared to $1330 billion GDP)

It seems to me that that’s not such a bad deal for the Australian taxpayers, but, as I indicated in the article, the British Crown and government who bear the prime responsibility for colonisation, should share in the financial burden of providing compensation for the prejudice caused to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island peoples.

On the question of recognition in the Constitution of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island peoples as the first peoples of Australia, I confirm that I am in favour of this, as clearly stated in the article.

I note that I am in disagreement with Keith Windschuttle on this question. I do not share the fears and misgivings he expresses in his book.

I also confirm that I consider it to be totally unrealistic to imagine that the 250 independent aboriginal nations at the time of colonisation could possibly survive in today’s aggressive world of thermonuclear weapons and technological warfare. It is not in Australia’s best interests and it is certainly not in their own people’s best interests for aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ sovereignty to be reinstated to its pre-colonisation status.

I consider that we need to establish a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), or similar document, to the effect that as Australian citizens we constitute a single nation even though we come from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds which we are free to continue, to honour and cultivate, provided we do not encroach on the freedom of others.

As we are not at war with our Aboriginal compatriots, I consider that a “treaty”, which, apparently, some Aboriginal elders have suggested, is not appropriate.

More next month, perhaps ...

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