“The causes of crime among Aboriginal people are the same as the causes of crime in ghettos of disadvantaged people the world over.”

Hardly new and certainly not profound. So, get aborigines out of the ghettos and give them a chance of doing something for themselves as everyone else has to.

The author’s reference to Macquarie Fields could be said to be valid, but Snowtown? The postcode book shows only one Snowtown, the place in SA of bodies in the barrels infamy. Nothing to do with the residents of the town, who would be really pleased to have their town compared with aboriginal camps. Zero marks for Ms. Clarke there.

Loss of credibility for Ms. Clarke again when she tries to compare white crime in rural areas; she admits not knowing much about non-aboriginal crime there, and advises that not many non-aboriginals live in the country anyway.

Then there is the ‘fact’ that home is so bad for some aborigines that “jail looks like a lifestyle option.” She hasn’t heard of aboriginal deaths in custody apparently and the reputed horror incarceration has for aborigines.

“Rural decline” has nothing to do with aboriginal communities. People living in ‘declining’ country towns still manage to have decent lives, and to trying to compare the plight of aborigines with such people is nonsense, as is Clarke’s comparison of middle class white children with Ipods with poor aboriginal children living in camps.

If Jennifer Clarke teaches the same stuff at ANU as she has written here, there is definitely no hope now, or in the future, for any change in the aboriginal situation

unlike leigh,

i feel you make a very valid point regarding the levels of non aboriginal crime in rural areas.

not all white kids in the bush have 4wd farm owning parents. the majority of non indigenous people in rural areas live in an urban-suburban environment. The claim that hardly any white people live in rural areas is wrong.

Non aboriginal youth living within similar circumstances as that of aboriginal people (eg Gordon Estate Dubbo, Southside Inverell) can have very similar obstacles and disadvantages as that of aboriginal people, and therefore black, white or brindle you live with lack of opportunity, you also can be susceptable to being caught up in criminal activity.

back to the point, custmary law should never have replaced normal law, as all people in this country must live with the same rights and responsibilities, and face the same remedies if they encounter the law.

Customary laws and obligations will be there and will exist regardless if they are recognised or not. It should not be an alternate as they may be at odds to the expectation of wider society in some cases, merely an extra obligation and extra reason not to commit crimes.

Leigh was a bit harsh on you, best of luck your heart is in the right place

Here Here Realist, I agree usually with Leigh however in this instance I am unable to.
Aboriginal deaths in custody has nothing to do with what is going on with young MURRIS as they call themselves in this neck of the woods. Straight out boredom, crap home life and sit down money are the most likely culprits of why jail becomes a lifestyle option. Its a sad thing but its more of a rite of passage now days. Still its better than petrol sniffing.

The white gate keepers and there ilk should just leave the poor bastards alone, dont need no religion, dont need your law and the ones who still live semi bush life shouldnt need money or 4wd or anything else.

Beware white lady they might have liked your company 15 years back but the next generation hate your guts.

Just came back from the Torres Strait, is the most racist place Ive ever been.

In my humble opinion,

The state needs to protect children from sexual predators no matter what their race. If the culture of the man permits this behaviour than that culture needs to change, similarly if the culture is sexist, etc... it needs to change

Western culture has undergone a social revolution in the past half century which I believe is for the better. Our culture used to be similiar (to Aboriginal culture) in that it was chauvanistic.

Culture is something which changes all the time and the regressive parts should not be held onto too strongly. I believe that the right of a women to choose who she wants to live with (for example) is a universal right irrespective of culture.

I don't know alot about Aboriginal customary law. If it works then fine as long as it upholds universal values.

On a side note, I reckon crime in Aboriginal communities would be reduced with more policing. I mean imagine the crime rate in Sydney if there were no police.

Some aspects of aboriginal custom are unlawful, according to non-Aboriginal law. Truancy, for example, is often the consequence of traditional education (dreaming).

Non-aboriginal laws require that aboriginal education must occur outside of the dreaming, in an artificial environment, in the language of the oppressor and in the context of becoming better Australians by becoming less aboriginal.

Traditional education is invalidated by compulsory attendance requirements. Any resistance feels the full force of non-Aboriginal law, which in remote aboriginal communities forms the frontline of non-aboriginal Australia’s intolerance to Aboriginal self-determination.

Imagine if Australia were overthrown by invading hoards and survivors were required to adopt the language and customs of the oppressor or face severe penalties. Never being able to conceal the fact that they are not only racially distinct, but also despised, there would remain a loyalist, defiant resistance.

If this hypothetical resistance was Caucasian and the oppressor was not, would there be a greater degree of contemporary sympathy?

Australian jails are over-represented by aboriginal political prisoners and young men are honoured to be incarcerated into such respectable company.

What is "traditional education", Neil? To learn that somehow the rocks, watercourses and other features of the natural environment around you were created by "ancestral beings"? The trouble is that these "beings" never, ever existed. It isn't racist to say this - just a mere statement of FACT.

Let's face it, Neil - the Dreaming is dead and no amount of moaning and groaning is going to bring it back. As for having to learn the language of the oppressor, I can't speak or write Scots Gaelic which many of my ancestors no doubt did but I'm not losing any sleep over it.

It's time to smell modernity Neil and stop being an advocate of archaic systems which are of absolutely no help to Aboriginal people in the 21st Century.

Realist and Scotty,

Your opinions on this contribution were different from mine. All you need do is state your opinions. You don't have to agree or disagree with mine.

Like you, I am not a contributor; I am a poster with an opinion. My opinions are not put up for discussion. The contributors provide the material for that.

If I can manage to lay off other posters, no matter how silly I think their opinions are, so can you.

You two at least were not rude, and expressed your own opinions, unlike many others. I have to say that I am so sick of silly sniping from people who seem to prefer criticising others to using their brains to express an opinion.

EnerGee.

Describing a thousand or so generations of accrued wisdom into a couple of lines of ‘non-existence’, as FACT, reveals the obstruction to your understanding.

Do you not dream? I know I do; although I admit that I pay far less attention to their instruction than I should.

I once rode an XR600 from Lajamanu in the NT’s Tanami Desert to the Daintree rainforest in TNQ. I slept soundly on the Queensland side of Wollogorang, just across the border, and dreamt, without specific recollection, but for the prominence of dingoes. Such was their insistence that I willed myself from my dream and opened my eyes to find two dingoes standing over my supine form. My undignified explosion into full consciousness sent the dingoes running, but I have never forgotten the significance of that subconscious forewarning.

Traditional education occurs in the dreaming. Disrupting an aboriginal education to purportedly educate them by a non-Aboriginal person in a language not of the vernacular about matters of little relevance to their homeland existence, is racially offensive.

I suspect that with your ‘Scots Gaelic’ reference that you have missed my point, but let me emphasise that my advocacy neither regards indigenous wisdom as archaic nor incapable of helping non-Aboriginal Australians in the 21st Century and beyond.

Jennifer Clarke, you write, "If girls are unwilling to marry this way any more, it is difficult for their communities to make them."

I would say that if girls are unwilling to marry this way any more, then their communities should not try to make them!

A few hundred years ago you were the property of your father to be married off at his will and then you would become the property of your husband - I bet it would be pretty difficult for your community to make this happen now - and I suggest that is a good thing

Neil Hewett

I do not have an “obstruction to my understanding”. However just because some Aboriginal people are the descendants of people who were living in Australia 40,000 years ago does not necessarily mean that they are the heirs of “a thousand or so generations of accrued wisdom”. The traditional Aboriginal interpretation of the Australian landscape is unscientific tosh – one could better argue that what we have here is “a thousand or so generations of accrued baloney”.

I will repeat it again. There are no spirits inhabiting this country who somehow willed the landforms into existence. The Tjukurpa stories of the Anangu, for instance, are not historical descriptors but MYTH which has no more validity than tales by ancient Greeks about their gods inhabiting Mount Olympus. Or do you believe in Zeus as well?

As for your statement that: “Disrupting an aboriginal education to purportedly educate them by a non-Aboriginal person in a language not of the vernacular about matters of little relevance to their homeland existence, is racially offensive.” I can only conclude from this that you are quite happy to condemn Aboriginal children to levels of education that are so low that they can never participate in a modern economy. Now I would call that racially offensive buddy.

EnerGee,

A thousand or so generations of accrued wisdom forms the foundation of traditional education, via dreaming.

Would you define the accrued knowledge of western culture as unscientific tosh? How about if you were lost in Aussie wilderness and an indigenous person kept you alive with spinafex, beetle larvae and insect viscera; would you condemn them for their cognitive incompetence?

For all your fervour, I would have thought that it was obvious that I do not condemn Aboriginal children, at all.

As for modern economies, this is the key issue and I applaud you for identifying it.

How do we reconcile capitalism with aboriginality?

If we could somehow stimulate the economic importance of aboriginal relations with natural and cultural landscapes, then traditional education might be revitalised.

Don’t give up the search.

Neil,

Saved by beetle larvae, viscera ? Honestly mate there would be a handful of blackfellas in a few scattered communities around Australia who might have that kind of nohow even then quite doubtful.

Most of that kind of nohow is kept by the non indigeneous because they just coundnt give an iota. And even if they did it is near impossible to teach them what should come naturally.

Fairdinkum you city blokes (or probably a pom) ride a trail bike thru the outback on some romantic holiday with your belstaf flapping majestically in the desert wind and throw a few lollies to some kids in the communities like your some kind of Lawrence of Arabia and hey presto your a bloody expert on aboriginals.

Get real your a concieted jumped up tourist.
Thier culture was only ever as good as thier next feed, they breed only because of our tax dollars.
Try reading the accounts of Dr Logan Jack, Ludwig Von Leichardt and any other explorer in this country. They had more in common with dingoes than humans. Any notion of the noble savage doesnt wash here buddy. Still if the largest aboriginal community in Australia at Port Keats or Wadeye as it is called now is a shining example of what they have become then well...........

Neil

The accrued knowledge of Western culture includes biology, chemistry, geology, geography, meteorology, physics, etc, etc, etc - a bit hard to descibe it as "unscientific tosh".

While I don't condone SCOTTY's remarks which are fairly/very offensive, how exactly does the knowledge of survival in the Australian semi-desert on a meagre diet of spinifex, beetle larvae and insect viscera benefit Australia in comparison to the knowledge that has been gained by advances in medicine for example? My chances of being placed in a situation in the "Aussie wilderness" where I might be kept alive by an indigenous person on your suggested survival diet are next to zilch, however my life has certainly been improved by drugs developed in the 20th Century. I had pneumonia as a child and was very sick - I'm glad that penicillin was at hand then and not insect viscera or beetle larvae as the remedy.

Scotty,

There's only about 15,000 pure blood Aboriginals left in this country, most of which live in Arnhem Land etc. in the north.

Relatively few white fellas visit remote Aboriginal communities. Where did you learn about Aboriginal culture?

Did you know that there was between 500-700 different Aboriginal dialects spoken in Australia at the time the Arthur Phillip and the convicts arrived?

If Jennifer Clarke is writing about The 'abolition' of 'customary law' will do little to reduce violent Aboriginal crime in Australia.

Then why did she use the American term of jail instead of The Australian term of Gaol?

I have recently moved to Mount Isa and am struck by the amount of indigenous families that are referred or are listed as "in need" of government department "help".

Pride in our culture, regardless of which one we identify with is the major reason we follow the rules set down by our culture.

How is it then that "whiteys" are predominantly the ones who decide the rules of a culture they do not belong to but take great pains to show that they understand?

I am white and believe in the saying "live and let live and when dead, God can sort it out"