Sympathy is not needed and there was a time when an apology - saying sorry - would have made all the difference. That time sadly has gone.

There is no chance of addressing the content of this article enough to the issue justice so only a thought or two.

"The decisions of the past were the best we were capable of at the time." I was interested in this statement as it seems to be based on the belief that 'the people' agree with the decisions of leaders. Monthly Governments in Australia introduce laws that half those that vote on it have never read.

Right now many people are completely disillusioned by the decisions of the Government of today, the anti-war protests are just one example. Even quite dramatic, large, public displays have little or no impact.

There is blame to be placed and there is plenty to apologise for.

"The bow and arrow was more accurate than the spear and woomera. Otherwise, the North American native was not technologically more advanced than the Australian native." - healthwatcher

It is also true nomads, garden states and city states would have different civic and religious systems. [A garden state is a transitionary stage where people settle for a protracted but not permanent time. In the Middle East thread there were garden states for 12,000, before Sumer.]

Aboriginals are born into a Western society, which, today, will accept them. As such, as babies, they are not at odds with the dominant culture. In their families and through kin association oppositional attitudes develop.

Stopping the clock at 1788 is not feasible. Back then, for Anglo-Westerners, the social relationships between the factory fodder and the gentele class was different, as were many legal conventions. It is gone, for the occupiers and it is gone for the occupied.

One can respect and keep alive traditions of by-gone days, as say Scottish Clans do, but one cannot go back in time. All Australians need to progress in the twenty-fist century.

Having aboriginal families reinforce the idea, that the next generation really belong to an earlier century does not help, because they dont. We all are here, now.

"The bow and arrow was more accurate than the spear and woomera. Otherwise, the North American native was not technologically more advanced than the Australian native." - healthwatcher

It is also true nomads, garden states and city states would have different civic and religious systems. [A garden state is a transitionary stage where people settle for a protracted but not permanent time. In the Middle East thread there were garden states for 12,000 years, before Sumer.]

Aboriginals are born into a Western society, which, today, will accept them. As such, as babies, they are not at odds with the dominant culture. In their families and through kin association oppositional attitudes develop.

Stopping the clock at 1788 is not feasible. Back then, for Anglo-Westerners, the social relationships between the factory fodder and the gentele class was different, as were many legal conventions. It is gone, for the occupiers and it is gone for the occupied.

One can respect and keep alive traditions of by-gone days, as say Scottish Clans do, but one cannot go back in time. All Australians need to progress in the twenty-fist century.

Having aboriginal families reinforce the idea, that the next generation really belong to an earlier century does not help, because they dont. We all are here, now.

1788
Why is there so often a blanket dismissal of Aboriginal culture as a return to 1788? Why do people think Aboriginal culture has stopped there and not developed over 200 years like English culture has?
Contemporary culture in Arnhem land or Redfern is a reality right here right now, not in 1788 or in museums.

Nomads
I always get a chuckle when Aboriginal society is refered to as nomadic. For thousands of years people lived in in this continent within stable tribal estates, where generation after generation they were born and buried in the same place. Then along came these people from the other side of the world who move house every few years as their job changes and they call Aborigines nomadic? Most Australian's extended families are scattered all over the globe as a result of our nomadic existance for the last several generations

The megafauna (mentioned in the article).
Tim Flannery, who came up with the idea that the big wombats were hunted into extinction, emphasised that he had no idea what really happened to the animals and he just had a hypothesis. The part of Flannery's hypothisis that is always ignored is that thousands of years ago humans learnt from the mistake and instituted environmental protection laws including cull limits that explains the ecological sustainability of Aboriginal culture for so long.
But he, nor anyone else knows really.
Recently, with all the climate change research going on, it has been found that their was major climatic change occuring at the time of the megafauna's dissapearence and that has now become the flavour of the month hypothesis discussed byt those experts who haven't really got a clue.

Too many unproven theories by people who don't really know are being used to cloak and justify an underlying psychological hostility to Aboriginality which has, unfortunately, been a big part of our national character.

Talk about set the cat amongst the pigeons! This has practically got it all, hasnt it? Contentiousness. Radical claims and counter claims. Ignorance. Racism. Apologists for each and every viewpoint....except the sound of a clear voice from those whose fate we so blithely discuss, dissect and otherwise dismiss.
I'm a white anglo saxon male, just turned fifty. I've had the genuine privilege throughout the course of my life to date to have enjoyed the company of aboriginal australians, chinese, and many others. We ARE an inherently racist society, although we furiously claim otherwise. This has been subtly and not so subtly enhanced and even enforced throughout our history as a nation. Many things have been done. Of these, some have been truly horrendous. If they happend today, then heads would roll throughout our society. We've come a long way....but there remains a very long way to go. We made the mess. We created the ghettoised townships and thirdworld lean-tos where we confined our darker hued citizens and compatriots. An apology WOULD make a difference...it may or may not involve a degree of financial restitution to create sustainable infrastructure and institutions to deliver the benefits...in these supposed boomtimes we can afford it after all, so we should get over the angst about that issue. The result would be that, in the eyes of the world, we as a nation would enjoy a net increase in goodwill, tourism, and trade.....so whats stopping us? Why cant we simply do the right thing? Its only good manners at the end of the day.

Firstly a couple of bizzarre quotes from the article which I challenge anybody to try and explain.

"The Dreamtime also exerted a powerful inhibition to experimentation."

"By 1788, Indigenous Australians and Europeans had the same intellectual potential but their brains had some very different neural networking."

Then some comments on some other quotes.

"As this continent’s occupants were tribal, a tribe moved over a loosely defined range of land. In stark contrast, the colonists had a strong concept of an individual’s title to a measured allotment of land."

The following is a link to a map of Aboriginal tribal boundaries (you can even find the tribal area that you live in)http://www.samuseum.sa.gov.au/orig/tindale/boundaries_intro.htm

"While acknowledging the inevitability of colonisation, the activists should also acknowledge that the Aborigines were fortunate that it was 18th century England which did the colonising. They would have been enslaved and worked to death if it had been 16th century Spain."

This link (PDF) is to the Queensland legislation that forced every Aboriginal person in Queensland either onto a reserve or onto a farm as an unpaid labourer (slave)
http://www.foundingdocs.gov.au/resources/transcripts/qld5_doc_1897.pdf

"Sea-faring canoes from Indonesia were touching the north coast maybe 1,000 years ago. These people saw no point in leaving their fertile islands for semi-arid land. Eventually people who had the technical capacity to come in from the south would be arriving - and when they did, they would be colonising the place."

This link discusses the ancient trade with the Macassans.
http://aboriginalrights.suite101.com/article.cfm/macassancrew

Trade routes ran from Australia into Asia and beyond prior to Cook, for thousands of years without anyone trying to colonise anyone elses territory - just trade.

which brings us to the question of invasion.

The article states
"The January 26, 1788 is referred to by some as Invasion Day. That label is potentially divisive. There was no invasion. When Hitler’s armies crossed into Poland under orders to destroy every trace of the administrative infrastructure: that was an invasion."

A war by any other name would smell the same.
http://paradigmoz.wordpress.com/australias-hidden-history/