Individual,

Yes. I believe that that's what you believe.

Hence you stay as you are.

Joe,

I managed to access one of the links.

Our nation does have unfinished business. And there are
lost of opinions out there on how we traverse law, history,
and culture to map the path to change.

Mitchell Rolls wrote an article - "Why I don't want to
be an ethical researcher". To which Frances Peters Little
made an interesting response.

"While there may be no such thing as ethical history.
There is nonetheless such a thing as non-ethical history".

Anyway - I guess there are two aspects to Indigenous
disadvantage and disempowerment.

One aspect is personal and communal responsibility.

All individuals must take responsibility for their
circumstances and behaviour. They must send their kids to
school, abide by the law and contribute to a safe and
productive society.

There is no disputing the importance of personal responsibility
in adddressing disadvantage- Indigenous or otherwise.

The other aspect to Indigenous disadvantage is structural.

No person or community can take truly take responsibility
unless they have power.

If government calls the shots through top down policy,
uninformed by local views and preferences then people are
disempowered.

There is a structural and constitutional dimension to
persistent Indigenous disadvantage .

Until we address this dimension, the gap will not close.

The current system is not working. It does not produce
good results. The systemic and structural failure of policy
making is perpetuating disadvantage.

If we agree that the current system is not working, we
should want it reformed.

Responsibility requires two things . That people are
willing to take charge of their problems, and that
governance structures ALLOW and empower them to take
charge.

See you on another discussion.

Foxy,

"The current system is not working. It does not produce good results. The systemic and structural failure of policy making is perpetuating disadvantage."

Yes, indeed - there are large sections of the Indigenous elite who don't want things to improve - after all, they live (and thrive) off the welfare population.

Sometimes I'm so disgusted by the venality, incompetence and self-interest of so much of the Indigenous elite that I really do feel like migrating.

On the other hand, I'd estimate that half of the Indigenous population is trying to do the right thing, and not live off the taxpayer OR live off the population living off the taxpayer. Many decent Indigenous people don't want to be part of that dirty alliance.

We forget that, under Apartheid in South Africa from 1948 to 1994, some, not many, Africans did quite well out of it all - bureaucrats, politicians, the army and police. I hope that I'll never ever be a part of anything so rotten, so anti-Indigenous.

Joe

Joe,

I don't for one moment doubt that your heart is
in the right place.

Take care.
Stay safe.

Joe,

Thanks for those links - tremendously informative and compelling.

In pursuit of a workable and respectful resolution to disadvantage, whilst protecting and retaining culture and heritage, I am drawn to suggest that, in addition to providing and promoting provision of all the essentials for a reasonable and acceptable quality of life in remote and marginal communities - housing and services, health, education, employment, sport, recreation, safety, communications and whatever else it takes - and, importantly, a centre for cultural learning and exchange, and, additionally, establishment of a cultural exchange "program" whereby townie/city indigenous youth and adults may spend time in the remote community so as to properly acquaint themselves with their "roots" and heritage.

Coincidentally, youth, and possibly some adults, from remote communities may exchange places with such townie/city "students" - to familiarize themselves with life on the other side of the cultural "fence". (Something like the student cultural exchange programs running for some students of the language and culture of some of our neighbours.)

Maybe the divide can be bridged without any loss of identity, culture or heritage, by providing a greater impetus and facility for the retention and development of those vital cultural assets, history, language, respect for the land/territory and familiarity with its resources, its life, its materials and their use, and awareness of the seasons and cycles and areas of special interest and heritage values.

Later, with observation of due respect, some tourism potentials might also be explored - both as a source of income, and as a means to further bridge the cultural divide and acquaint interested outsiders from other cultures/ethnicities with the wealth of cultural understanding and heritage understood and preserved for the benefit of future generations, and for assured retention of what is, after all, a part of our national heritage.

I do not pretend knowledge of this complex issue, but I am distressed by the current situation, and by the vexatiousness with which so many are approaching resolution, and, with the misinformation and politicizing associated.

Maybe?

(Treaties, Voice, Reconciliation, class actions, High Court challenges, UN intervention and Reparations notwithstanding.)

Hi Saltpetre,

Thanks for, that your heart is in the right place too, but your suggestions are just a little impractical.

I don't know what might work. Maybe nothing will, a desolating thought. When it comes down to it, it's up to the people what they do with their lives, nobody else can sort of reach over their shoulders and move their feet and hands and lips for them; nobody else can think for them.

Example: my wife came from a mission on Lake Alexandrina, the eldest of ten kids, left school at 15. She worked her way up to be in charge of the Indigenous Student Unit at the Uni of SA, three hundred students across six campuses and five off-campus Study centres around SA.

In 2003, she was desperate to get a Study Centre (cum- information centre, homework centre, women's centre, historical centre, etc.) at her home community where she knew that a dozen or so young people were enrolled in a do-nothing TAFE course, each writing the same identical two essays each year, one each semester (one girl had done that three years running: it was called 'Aboriginal TAFE') She asked them if they wanted to do something at uni. They asked, could they also get CDEP (i.e. unemployment benefits) as well as study grant ? No, she said. Bugger it then, they said. She was devastated.

At the time, that community had a brand-new dairy, run by her brother. He had a bad accident; they closed the dairy. 12,000 acres of good land, now running a couple of hundred beef cattle, nothing else. People's choice; and people's consequences. But I don't think that anybody there cares two hoots.

The best-laid plans of mice and men, Saltpetre .......

Joe

Joe. I am part way through reading the paper by Mitchell Rolls. His comments concerning the gulf between the urban aborigines and the bush blacks are right on the mark. It appears to me that the "gap" is mainly between these two entities. The white community at large which includes parliamentarians, takes too much notice of the urban blacks to the considerable detriment of the advocates for the bush blacks like Bess Price and her daughter Jacinta.

The paper by Rolls should be required reading for anyone with an interest in the subject.

David