[continued]

'Communities' have had self-determination for the best part of forty or even fifty years - autonomy, if you like. They have been free to make their own ghastly mistakes, even as they demand that all manner of government agencies pick up the pieces - since, after all, they are so 'powerless'. Yeah, right. Don't believe everything you hear from the Bilger.

And, of course, since around a third of the continent is in Indigenous hands, many people have the freedom to go back to a foraging life. But nobody does. Even in the thousands of 'communities, nobody works to build up a vegetable garden - in that regard, everybody is, if indirectly, aware of the story of the Little Black Hen.

Oh, except for the few White Benjamin Brandysnaps. Thank God for the thousands of government-funded Magic Puddings.

Come home, Banjo :)

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Dear Loudmouth,

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You wrote :

« Funny, I've never thought about Indigenous people in terms of a lack of intelligence »

That’s probably because of your long personal experience with them, Loudmouth. I never thought of them as being less intelligent than Caucasians either. I was alluding to certain reports that average IQ testing on indigenous peoples demonstrate the contrary.
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You point out that Aboriginal children could have assimilated our “dominant Westernised culture” much earlier than the 230 years since British colonisation to the present day. That may be so, theoretically, but you have to remember that that was well beyond the imagination of our ancestors who considered that they were savages, something less than human. Even today, many of our Caucasian compatriots take for granted that anybody of Aboriginal extraction is of inferior race and treat them as such. Ignorance and racial discrimination has never been the exclusivity of our Aboriginal compatriots.

You also wrote :

« 'British colonisation' currently leaves people pretty much to themselves - they can practice whatever traditions they like, while they cherry-pick the benefits of the Western welfare system. In short, people are doing whatever the hell they like, whenever they like, including some pretty stupid things, for which they reap the consequences »

That’s right. British colonisation leaves them pretty much to themselves – after having taken away their life source, their land, and we destroyed their natural eco-system. That’s like cutting the legs off a cockroach and leaving it pretty much to itself. In short, it can do whatever the hell it likes, whenever it likes, including some pretty stupid things, for which it reaps the consequences.

« 'Communities' have had self-determination for the best part of forty or even fifty years - autonomy, if you like »

No, they had autonomy for 65,000 years. The means of their autonomy were ripped off them 230 years ago.

The means of its autonomy, its claws, had not been ripped off “The Little Black Hen”. It was able to continue to forage for its traditional life source, worms, not welfare!
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Banjo Paterson,

I must dispute your assertion that " .... you have to remember that that was well beyond the imagination of our ancestors who considered that they were savages, something less than human. " Not at all - as I tried to point out ABOVE in my reference to Governor Macquarie's Aboriginal School at Black Town. I don't think it was the case here in SA in the early days either - and even if it were true, many urban-based Aboriginal people in the earliest days learnt quickly by observing this 'new life' buzzing all around them.

You have to try to understand that Aboriginal people have never been sheep, pushed here and there, learning nothing new. People had a very wide range of experiences from the outset with that 'new life'. When the Rev. Taplin set up his School at Pt McLeay in 1860, he spent much time learning the local language in the expectation that few kids could speak English. They pretty much all could by then - in fact, some had moved with their families to Pt McLeay from elsewhere and couldn't speak Ngarrindjeri. Already by 1860.

Even by then, some Ngarrindjeri adults had been to the Adelaide and Encounter Bay Schools in the 1840s and were quite literate. Men were working on the harvests by at least the early 1840s in all the regions around Adelaide. They made their own choices, they didn't have to be driven. In fact, I don't think Aboriginal people have almost ever been driven, they go where they like and, with constraints of course, do what they like, and they have done so since Day One.

No, Banjo, they do have autonomy now. Native Title covers at least a quarter, maybe a third of Australia. Communities are, and have been, free to run their own affairs for a long time now. And people have been free to 'forage' to their hearts' content, the men 'foraging' with Toyotas and rifles, knowing they can come back to the community store any time they like, perhaps dropping by the ATM first.

Joe

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Dear Loudmouth,.

The Samuel Griffith Society, named after the chief architect of the Australian Constitution, notes, as you do, that there were some early achievements in educating Aboriginal children :

« Roger Sandall has familiarized us with the concept of "crossing the ditch", the huge gap between hunter-gathering and tribalism on one side and agriculture, domestication of animals, permanent dwellings, literacy and division of labour on the other. That ditch had not been crossed by any Australian Aborigines before 1788. Once New South Wales became organised sufficiently to consider how to educate the children of convicts and free settlers, thoughts were addressed to what, if any, provision should be made for Aboriginal education. Officials and missionaries often started with feelings of optimism, sometimes fuelled by the facility many Aborigines showed in acquiring the English language and in translating one Aboriginal language into another … Governor Macquarie believed that, if "cultivated and encouraged", Aborigines would quit their "Wild wandering and Unsettled Habits" and "live in a State of perfect Peace, Friendliness and Sociality". However, early optimism about the prospects of sharing modern ideas and techniques with Aborigines was usually soon quenched, although a number of Aborigines "crossed over" the ditch without being counted. Excessive hope was succeeded by excessive despair »

Here is the link (c.f., the chapter “What should have been done?) :

https://www.samuelgriffith.org.au/papers/html/volume19/v19chap11.html

It is also interesting to recall the mentality of much of the Caucasian population at the time. Here is what John Polding, the first Roman Catholic Archbishop of the Colony of New South Wales had to say in 1845 :

« I have myself heard a man, educated, and a large proprietor of sheep and cattle, maintain that there was no more harm in shooting a native, than in shooting a wild dog. I have heard it maintained by others that it is the course of Providence, that blacks should disappear before the white, and the sooner the process was carried out the better, for all parties. I fear such opinions prevail to a great extent …

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(Continued …)

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(Continued …)

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Very recently in the presence of two clergymen, a man of education narrated, as a good thing, that he had been one of a party who had pursued the blacks, in consequence of cattle being rushed by them, and that he was sure that they shot upwards of a hundred. When expostulated with, he maintained that there was nothing wrong in it, that it was preposterous to suppose they had souls. In this opinion he was joined by another educated person present »

Here is the link :

http://www.aboriginalheritage.org/history/history/

You maintain :

« No, Banjo, they do have autonomy now. Native Title covers at least a quarter, maybe a third of Australia. Communities are, and have been, free to run their own affairs for a long time now. And people have been free to 'forage' to their hearts' content, the men 'foraging' with Toyotas and rifles, knowing they can come back to the community store any time they like, perhaps dropping by the ATM first »

What you see as their “autonomy” in today’s context is totally different from the autonomy they enjoyed for 65,000 years prior to British colonisation in 1788. The OED provides the following meaning of the word autonomy :

1. The right or condition of self-government

2. Freedom from external control or influence; independence

Origin : Early 17th century: from Greek autonomia, from autonomos ‘having its own laws’, from autos ‘self’ + nomos ‘law’

As I understand it, the British colonised their country, took possession of their life source, their land, and submitted them to British law. The only major change since 1788 is that they have been granted limited right of use over “maybe just a third of Australia”, under “Native Title”, Australian Common Law - not their own, Aboriginal traditional law. Prior to 1788, they had total freedom to do what they liked with the whole of Australia (100%).

If my understanding of the English language and this important event in Australian history is correct, our Aboriginal compatriots lost their autonomy in 1788 and have never recovered it since.

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Banjo Paterson,

So what if handful of whites think one way ? Government policy didn't usually support those views.

Autonomy ? Depends on the circumstances. Yes, it might mean choosing to sit bare-arsed on a Winter's morning around a half-dead fire with nothing to eat OR it might mean having money in your pocket, food in the fridge and the air-conditioning on a pleasant 22 Celsius. It might mean having six kids, four of whom die, OR it might mean having three kids, all of whom go to university. It might mean living to forty five and dying a violent death by club or spear, OR it might mean choosing to work hard, live a fairly comfortable life and dying at eighty five surrounded by your loving graduate children and graduate grand-children.

Banjo, you may wish to preserve Aboriginal people in amber for some obscure reason but surely it matters vastly more what they want to do ? Do they want to go back to foraging ? No. Do they want the benefits of modern, Western life, with or without quotation marks ? Yes. Right then, that's their choice and you have no right to demand otherwise.

Joe