Why ask questions Boaz if all you want is a responses that concurs with your own cocked up social theories, mixed up theology and paternalistic racism?

Welllll Ranier..*touching a nerve* ?

The more I look at the 'Roadmap to Reconciliation' the more I see it as a 'white mans roadmap to racism' I'd be interested to know 'who' was on the Reconcilation committe and their color :)

I suggest returning signficant land TO the Aborigines and "Your a cocked up paternalistic racist" now now.. amazing stuff... There is no pleasing you Ranier.

"ROADMAP" ..some quotes.

1788 "Australia" (which did not exist)was 'owned and occupied' by ..Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders"

Ummm..which ones ? did they 'own' this bit or that bit ? were there ever territorial disputes ? wars ? which tribe owned most?, what tribal alliances existed ? of course not because those things only happen in 'other' countries :) we all know that.

Here is a good one

"Aboriginal and TSI children .. many were forcibly removed from their families as children, effecting whole communities."

most of these were of mixed blood (unless otherwise can be shown) and do you notice how the 'white' ancestry is suddenly 'disappeared'(stolen ?)It has ceased to exist and now they are purely 'Aboriginal'. sorry, you cannot deny the paternity and white ancestry of so many of these mixed children.

LEGISLATION "State and Territory Governments are to take account of 'traditional laws' in sentencing."

Ooo...k.. to a point, I'm not ok with female children being given to old men. Just like I'm not ok with the Kelabits of Borneo putting salt in the mouth of twins and letting them starve to death over a week.

There are areas where traditional law will work under the umbrella of the legal system, and those where it will not.

"Self determination within the nation" Ok.. lets call spades spades. There is only ONE 'Nation' here.. and that is the one we see all around us. Your either with us or agin us. How can there be self determination unless you have a country ? Which 'tribe' is boss ...More to say on this, but am basically sympathetic.

Boaz,

No nerves touched with me. To me what your speak of is not new and are simply a dinosaur that somehow managed to survive and in complete isolation from the 30 years of progressive thinking.

I would not be surprised to learn that the only reason you engage is because you see these types of discussions as a bit of cheap sport.

Do people think of you as a bit strange?

But I also sense that one of the fears you have is that we don't need or seek out people like you to support us. That our Borneo brothers and sisters have to endure your presence is truly sad to me. They, like us, do suffer fools paternalistically nesting themselves in our lives, but not for long.

The people at the stalls you spoke of are at least walking their talk.

What have you ever done?

Perhaps you need to reconcile with your own lack of credibility in this discussion first? To do this you'll have to get over yourself first. Yes, I know I'm asking for the impossible, but I'm hopeful.

BOAZ_David, I don't agree that all of your ideas exist only in the time of the dinosaur however, just as you wish others to see the obvious, you must, in turn, recognise what is clearly apparent.

The inevitability of colonisation does not diminish its impact nor vindicate its manifestly unfair application. The children removed from families and communities ripped apart are not echoes of history but continued to happen within our lifetime.

Stories such as 'Rabbit Proof Fence' engendered a belief that anthropologists roamed the countryside stealing off-white children for Europeanisation and exploitation.
This, I believe, allowed a 'soft' reproach for ourselves. We could blame 'the man' or the system, anything undefinable that would always shift the responsibility just off centre and not quite on us. We embraced this story because science was wrong, the government was wrong, everybody but us was wrong.

I am sure that many white missionaries were wonderful caring people and much legislation was put in place for all the best intentions. But the aura of good intention does nothing for the colonised to whom the underlying assumptions of those good intentions created fear, death and families ripped asunder and cast adrift from corrupted communities.

Rabbit Proof Fence gave one story in a mirrorball of reflections that we cannot even begin to comprehend. I have talked to some of those directly affected and came away profoundly affected myself. None that I talked to denied their white legacy but were simply proud of their black heritage. You talk of black almost as if it is a colour that should come off on your hand. You do yourself, your God and Indigenous peoples a great disservice.

I am not sympathetic to Rainier's intellectualisation of Indigenous Australia nor its focus at times, but his sentiments have a factual basis that you refuse to see. Perhaps I have a problem with that one issue. That it is not that you cannot see but that you choose not to. I know that we need pragmatic solutions to contemporary Australia but never underestimate the damage we wrought in defining our country

Hi
Ive just found this site, good to see a serious discussion happening. My blogspot -http://johntracey.blogspot.com/ has some articles on the subject if anyone is curious.
This one - http://johntracey.blogspot.com/2005/12/neo-colonialism-in-australia.html is directly related to this thread.

Another site to check out is http://www.kalkadoon.org/ This is the site of Aboriginal Women Reclaiming Culture and Land (AWRCAL) Baganan, who owns the site, operates from a position of Aboriginal sovereignty. However this has nothing to do with native title. Ideologically it is obvious that native title is a white construct. In practical terms it has caused divisions amongst traditional owners which need not exist, has become a mechanism to extinuish land rights instead of affirm them and it has delevered next to nothing in real terms to Aboriginal Australia. In the raw power struggles of society, sovereignty means "getting in the ring" and asserting will. On Baganan's case, this is the basis of economic development strategies which will, apart from address welfare dependancy, provide an economic power base, as opposed to a legisitive "rights", for traditional owners to flex muscle on their country. - sovereign power in real terms.



Take it easy, but take it.
King Canute

By emphasizing that cognitus nullius is slippery, and until recently quite uncertain as an academic category, Lorenzo wittingly excuses academia’s deliberately unspecific use of tax payer’s funds.

Academic liars are ultimately right - in response to critics - in detecting symptoms of the return of truth and rejecting them as a category of intellectual inquiry. I shouldn’t really need to point this out, but this polemic ultimately proves how disturbing it is for some academics that their disposal of government funds and sanity should be noticed and that someone should mention it.

Lorenzo perhaps thinks that if cognitus nullius is proven to be a myth it would disappear. This is odd - like expecting a lie to disappear if we prove that it was intended when executed. This is also odd because the doctrine he specifically attacks actually showed how cognitus nullius had not been academic non-policy and that there had been oscillations in its relevance.

Is Lorenzo sure that a description of the insanity of academia’s “solid Western rationalism” rather than cognitus nullius would be preferable for academia’s “national asylum”?

If we abolish cognitus nullius from the public understanding - indeed if we ensure that one of its versions becomes again fully operative and that one of its specific characteristics, its invisibility, becomes reintroduced - we will still need to face a lot of ruthless and senseless unknowing of the dispossession of sanity for lack of a better term and despite Lorenzo’s efforts, we may end up calling it cognitus nullius after all.

Academics don’t like to be reminded that sanity dispossession is one foundation of academic history, Lorenzo and his enthusiastic inmates intend to censure the cognition that undermined itself. By doing so, not only do they prove that cognitus nullius did not non-exist; they also indicate that it persists to exist and non-exist until a new non-existent existent is synthesised.

John Dawson

You see - I can ejaculate words onto a page too. Can I have my Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Australian National University now?