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Dear Loudmouth,

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You wrote :

« 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 »

To clarify what you describe as my “obscure reasons” please be assured that I do my best to keep an open mind on everything and systematically check the facts. I have no axe to grind. I am a pragmatist, not an ideologist. I do not “wish to preserve Aboriginal people in amber” as you suggest. I place a very high value on my own, personal freedom, and have the greatest respect for the freedom of all others, whoever they happen to be.

If I had found evidence to back-up your claim that our Aboriginal compatriots “do have autonomy now”, I should have been absolutely delighted. Unfortunately, having thoroughly investigated the matter, I found that they had lost their autonomy completely in 1788 and never recovered it since that date, as I pointed out in my previous post.

You now declare that “it matters vastly more what they want to do”. I agree. You affirm that they don’t want “to go back foraging … they want the benefits of modern, Western life”.

I can understand that. Since we invaded their land, transformed their natural environment, imposed our law on them, and polluted their culture and life style with ours, it’s evident that we created conditions such that it is no longer possible for them to continue to live as they did for the last 65,000 years.

If the British had not colonised their country, and if we had not exploited it, they would probably still be happily foraging instead of living on social welfare and enjoying the so-called “benefits of modern, Western life”.

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You conclude: “that's their choice and you have no right to demand otherwise”.

I couldn’t agree more – on both counts.

I do not demand anything of our Aboriginal compatriots. I try to get to the facts and correctly understand the historical events that have led to their current situation and, as you say: find out “what they want to do”.

It is clear that they have suffered from British colonisation and our subsequent exploitation of their life source (their land) resulting in the transformation of their natural environment. I consider that the British and Australian governments should now do all that they reasonably can to allow our Aboriginal compatriots to achieve whatever it is “they want to do” – including, if that is what they want, a maximum amount of autonomy, without endangering the integrity of the Australian nation as a whole, in today’s aggressive world.

Perhaps some of them would like to have the best of both worlds: our Western culture as well as their own traditional culture.

Why not ?

Having lived the first third of my life in Australia and the second third in France, I have integrated both cultures - though I have never taken French nationality. I am an Australian who happens to have fallen in love with France.

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Hi Banjo paterson,

Autonomy yes, as long as it doesn't involve the freedom to kick your wife to death, or sexually abuse any kids you feel like just because you're an 'elder'. Autonomy within the law - i suppose that's what you mean, Banjo ?

Of course, 'autonomy' in a very remote, small, 'community, with no prospect of ever generating employment, poor schooling and health, but access to grog, drugs and gambling - may be different to the 'autonomy' of people in the cities from working families, all cognisant of the possibilities of the entire world at their feet, if only they put effort into their choices.

As for some cherry-picking of Western and traditional cultural practices, I don't think that would even be on the cards: 'southern' people, raised in cities and from families often with long work histories, have left behind fundamental cultural practices a very long time ago, perhaps with a smattering of 'kitchen language' and perhaps with knowledge of their genealogies. Usually these days, one of their parents - and perhaps parent of their Indigenous parent - might not be Indigenous, yet they choose to identify with their Indigenous ancestry, as they have every right to do (not necessarily to claim benefits as well, but that's another story).

As for your easy blending of Australian and French culture, I would have thought that that would be far, far easier than any hypothetical blending of Western and traditional foraging culture, even if the latter was possible. Blending the latter seems more akin to merging Pentecostal and Marxist-atheist beliefs: two completely different world-views.

So what's going to happen ? The proportion of urban, working, well-educated people will grow healthily, perhaps 8-10 % p.a. The proportion who are marooned out in their remote islands will decline, perhaps 2-4 % p.a., while their rates of child abuse, domestic violence and murder, ill-health, school truancy, etc. will slowly increase. What will eventually happen may be a matter of sheer attrition. I don't welcome that, but every other non-urban pathway seems to get thwarted, again and again.

Joe

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Dear Loudmouth,

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Well, you have had your finger on the pulse of Aboriginal Australia for many years now, Loudmouth, and it’s saddening to see that you paint such a bleak picture of the future of such a magnificent civilisation. The question we should now ask ourselves is should we simply stand on the sidelines and watch it slowly die, disappear, and be forgotten forever, or should we try to do something about it.

There’s not much I can do from here, except add my voice to all those who stand up and fight for the respect of our Aboriginal compatriots’ rights as laid down in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. I have in mind, in particular, articles 3-6 which state as follows :

« Article 3

Indigenous peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.

Article 4

Indigenous peoples, in exercising their right to self-determination, have the right to autonomy or self-government in matters relating to their internal and local affairs, as well as ways and means for financing their autonomous functions.

Article 5

Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain and strengthen their distinct political, legal, economic, social and cultural institutions, while retaining their rights to participate fully, if they so choose, in the political, economic, social and cultural life of the State.

Article 6

Every indigenous individual has the right to a nationality. »

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When the Declaration was adopted in 2007 only four countries voted against it: Canada, New Zealand, the US and Australia. In 2009 the Australian Government made a public statement formally endorsing the declaration.

That’s nearly a decade ago now but the federal government has still not put it into practice. Action is long overdue.

Here is the announcement made by the Australian Minister of Indigenous, Affairs Jenny Macklin, on Friday, 3 April 2009 :

« Today we celebrate the great privilege all Australians have to live alongside the custodians of the oldest continuing cultures in human history. We recognise the right of Indigenous Australians to practise, revitalise and sustain their cultural, religious and spiritual traditions and customs. We celebrate the vital positive contribution of Indigenous culture to Australia. And we honour Indigenous Australians who so generously share their culture, knowledge and traditions. We pay tribute to them, to their ancestors and the generations to come. In supporting the Declaration, Australia today takes another important step towards re-setting relations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. Working together to close the gap »
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I can understand the deception and frustration of our Aboriginal compatriots at the rejection in October 2017 by the Prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, of the Uluru statement recommendations, which included embedding an Indigenous voice to parliament in the constitution. The recommendations were quite anodyne compared to the UN Declaration of Indigenous Rights the government declared it subscribed to in 2009.

It is evident that our federal government is reneging on its commitments in respect of Indigenous rights and continuing to pursue its policy of assimilation – whether our Aboriginal compatriots like it or not. That’s it.

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Hi Banjo Paterson,

Every society in the world has been constantly changing for a hundred thousand years, sometimes very slowly, but none stay the same, or even stay in the same place. Fifteen thousand years ago, all societies, Aboriginal Chinese, Spanish, West African, Central American, were Stone Age societies, mostly Old Stone Age, with very primitive technologies, foraging every day, and with cultural practices to match.

On that huge Asia-Africa-Europe land-mass, innovations spread slowly across vast distances, sometimes through invasions and the physical movement of masses of people (it seems that Britain was invaded just over four thousand years ago by people originally from the southern Russian steppes, for example) and sometimes through the diffusion of ideas. On the mostly-arid continent of Australia, such innovations never got off the ground.

Certainly, Aboriginal 'understandings' of how the world worked were ingenious, but based almost totally on principles of religion and magic. Check out Frazer's 'olden Bough' and you can understand how it couldn't be otherwise - after all, one's knowledge depends of what you might call one's 'technology of knowledge' - e.g. it was impossible to even know about moons around other planets until the telescope was invented. Similarly, knowledge of germs before microscopes. Aboriginal 'knowledge' was limited largely to just the basic human senses. So ingenious yes, but ultimately correct, maybe not.

Anyway, that's all well in the past for most Indigenous people in Australia. We can lament that, we can demand that somehow the clock should be turned back, we can cite UN Declarations until the cows come home, but the wheel of history only ever rolls forward.

And as for those UN resolutions, yes, Indigenous people here do, in remote areas, certainly have 'self-determination' although

[TBC]