I have found the article mentioned above too late to add a new comment. But I would like to leave my point of view about the article.

Yes, good education strengthens the skill to fit into mainstream society as well as to maintain the own identity at the same time. I would even say that well educated people will integrate some parts of the world of the newcomers in order to ensure the own survival. No minorial group can afford to ignore the world of mainstream society.

Without the skills learnt from Romans and Greeks the European peoples would have never had success and better lives. But in the case of peoples neighbouring the Roman Empire, this had not led to loosing the own identity. This had rather strengthened the culture of those peoples. And until today, many peoples around the world have taken over the Roman script in order to strengthen the own language.

The crime of European settlers has consisted in forcing their way of life upon indigenous peoples by force. The Romans did rather not act like that. They were faced with a foreign and modern way of life without letting indigenous peoples the chance to become used to the new world in their own pace. Surely, indigenous peoples would have taken over some skills of the Europeans by their own will without force and would have integrated them into the own world.

It is naive to think of "peoples of nature" who do not and should not change anything while they are surrounded by a completely different community. But expecting indigenous peoples to give up their own identity and discarding one´s own culture is wrong either.

The Jews are the perfect modern example of fitting into mainstream society and maintaining a strong sense of identity without a homeland. Why can´t the Aboriginal people of Australia do so either? In the long run homelands are of great use as places to develope the own culture with little pressure from foreign cultures. This again can have strengthening influence on the identity of those tribal members in the diaspora.

Only one problem Occidental, it was people like you, bleeding hearts, that stopped the slow transition for aboriginals, with too much city BS.

An accommodation had developed in grazing areas, where the grazier supported the whole tribe on the property, & paid some of the men a small amount to do some work. Most of these men did not do too much, or work anywhere near full time. The people were growing slowly into western culture.

IT was the aboriginal industry who forced full time work, & pay on both parties. The tribal support system could not be justified, or funded in this new model, & failed.

The bleeding hearts got lots of high paying jobs in the aboriginal industry, & the aboriginals lost their independent existence.

Well done. What do you want to stuff up now?

Aboriginal people adopted European skills early and often excelled at them. Sometimes they did it so well that it backfired. Just one example: Poonindie was a 19C Aboriginal mission in SA which was a successful farming enterprise, so successful that white farmers complained that the Aborigines had been given the best land (obviously Aborigines could not be any good at farming.) The Aborigines were kicked off and the land subdivided for whites.

This is well documented: See
Poonindie : the rise and destruction of an Aboriginal agricultural community / Peggy Brock and Doreen Kartinyeri
http://www.poonindie.com/poonindie/history.htm

Nothing to do with bleeding hearts. Just common 19th century racism which didn't stop in the 20C or indeed the 21C. This happens a few times (or more) and the logical reaction from Aborigines? Why bother. The results are being played out today across Australia.

Hi Cossomby,

I'm not sure that what you finally conclude from your correct description of Poonindie is accurate - especially in the settled areas of South Australia, Aboriginal people have to a large extent got down to business - they have certainly 'bothered' - and adapted quickly to the dominant, and very dominating, situation.

Since the war, i.e. in two generations, most Aboriginal people south of Port Augusta have moved away from settlements and missions to towns and cities. In the last thirty years, i.e. in the last generation, Aboriginal people have halved the difference in home-ownership, around sixteen hundred have graduated from universities (i.e. one in every nine adults in the state, one in every seven in the towns), and in many other ways joined the open society. Most still know just where their country is, and pass that on to their city-born children, but prefer to base themselves in the urban areas.

What is remarkable across Australia is that the Aboriginal people in the 'north', who DID NOT lose their land, and are supposed to be CLOSEST to their traditional culture (even though they don't live in anything like the traditional way) have the worst indices: the poorest health and education, highest levels of violence and child abuse, etc. - and, one suspects, the poorest prospects for happy and fulfilling lives of anybody in Australia, if not the world.

Could it be that separation, segregation, exclusion and bogus 'self-determination' have held 'northern' Aboriginal people back for forty years ?

And how long will it take to undo the terrible damage that forty years of failed policy have caused ?

Is that even a realistic question ? Is it already too late ?

Joe

Dear OccidentalChristian,

Education is the key for us all. I find that the more I delve deeper into any topic the more I realise how little I actually know. This especially applies to the history of our Indigenous people. We were taught a different history in our schools of Indigenous-settler relationships. It was only when I began reading books like those by Henry Reynolds, "Why weren't We Told," that I began to understand a few things. However, I've still got a long way to go before I can comment intelligently on the topic. Thanks for this Thread though. Hopefully I shall learn something from people's posts here.

The examples mentioned above show well that most Aboriginal people are not savages or "people of nature" who cannot or do not want to take over new skills and views on life. In many cases, some European settlers simply searched for reasons to justify their crimes and egocentric wants. It is not the European derived skills and ideas that have harmed the Aboriginal people, but the pure racism of some Europeans and European leaders.

The crimes have happened without doubt. But nevertheless, self-esteem comes out of that what has been achieved by the own will and efforts. Paternalistic practices will change few in indigenous peoples around the world. And the settlers cannot be blamed alone and in eternity for the crimes of the anchestors.This does not mean that the gouvernments today should not help them.

Look at the Jews. After having suffered of the holocaust, they have build a florishing country called Israel. From the end of the 19th century, they have taken action to defend themselves from ethnocide and gain back their own country.

There are examples today that such actions are most successful that are set up by the Aboriginal people themselves.

By the way, it were the skills and tactics learnt as Roman legionarian by which Herman the Cheruskian had gained the victory over the Romans. By such, the unlimited growing of the Roman's power was stopped. This is an useful lesson for the indigenous peoples in the world. Such can only be achieved by good education.

Aboriginal people...........they never had a chance.....and just by the amount thats not employed......tells the story....

LEAP

Without doubt, European leaders have bothered the Aboriginal people to get a chance. But now, they have got back lands and the discriminatory laws are abandonned. Therefore, good education is the key for the future to do better and keep their distinct identity.

Look again at the Jews: They have suffered of pogroms for centuries and of the holocaust in the last century. But nevertheless, the Jews have always been famous for their thinkers and scientists as well as for successful business as well as their distinct identity.

After the holocaust and pogroms before, one would expect similar problems as those ones of the Aboriginal people. But the state of Israel has been a history of success. One key factor has probably been their high level of education.

Of course, Aboriginal people and the Jews differ in that point that the Jews are one single people whereas the Aboriginal people consist of many tribes. And in addition, the Jews are more numerous than the Aboriginal people.. But there are very useful lessons to learn from them for indigenous and minorized peoples around the world.

QL,

With respect, that's a very defeatist attitude. You have to differentiate between different categories of Indigenous people, according to location, history, education, access to the modern economy, etc.

When you do that, it becomes starkly clear that the 'Gap' is far greater for some Aboriginal people, depending on their circumstances, than it is for others. Frankly, for about half or two-thirds of the population, their indices on health, education, housing, employment, incarceration, are not all that different from non-Indigenous Australians. But for the permanently unemployed, for the great majority of people in remote settlements, for the completely uneducated, the Gap is enormous, horrifyingly enormous.

For example, youth suicide: the Aboriginal rate - as a whole - is five or six times the national rate. But for young people in remote areas, it could be fifteen times the national rate.

Life-expectancy is maybe fifteen years shorter for Aboriginal males - as a whole. But for permanently unemployed Aboriginal males, I wouldn't be surprised if it is forty years shorter. Perhaps thirty years shorter for Aboriginal women and girls in similar depressed and hopeless conditions.

But not for employed people, especially those in the cities: their life-expectancy is not significantly shorter than it is for non-Indigenous Australians.

My wife started work, as the eldest of ten Indigenous kids, as an unpaid house-maid on a sheep station - but ended her career as a senior lecturer at a university. That sort of thing is not uncommon.

Opportunities are there, although the natural inclination is to assume that there are none - until you look, and ask around. By the end of next year, there could be thirty thousand Indigenous university graduates, and their chances of getting employment are about the same as for other graduates.

Fifty thousand by 2020 :)

Yes, this has all occurred only in the last thirty or forty years, but what is the point in picking at scabs that aren't there any more ? Like the Occidental Christian says about Jewish people, you pick yourself up and get on with life. Never forget, never let it crush you.

Dear Joe (Loudmouth),

I love reading your posts!

Hey, that's a coincidence ! Yours are sometimes very beautiful, very 'inclusive', from the heart. Keep them coming :)

Regards,

Joe

Dear Joe (Loudmouth),

I came across this poem on the web. I thought you might enjoy it:

"A Song Of Hope," by Oodgeroo (Kath Walker).

"Look up, my people
The dawn is breaking
The world is waking
To a bright new day
When none defame us
No restriction tame us
Nor colour shame us
Nor sneer dismay.

Now brood no more
On the years behind you
The hope assigned you
Shall the past replace
When a juster justice
Grown wise and stronger
Points the bone no longer
At a darker race.

So long we waited
Bound and frustrated
Till hat e be hated
And caste deposed
Now light shall guide us
No goal denied us
And all doors open
That long were closed.

See plain the promise
Dark freedom-lover!
Night's nearly over
And though long the climb
New rights will greet us
New mateship meet us
And joy complete us
In our new Dream Time.

To our fathers' fathers
The paid, the sorrows,
To our children's children
the glad tomorrow.

Yes, a beautiful work of art.

I wonder what Kath Walker would think of the situation today ? I'm sure she would recognise the lives and conditions and behaviour of many people, but that she would be surprised at how well-off many people have become, secure, confident, involved in the open, civil society. She might need to revise some of her fears about integration, however - for example:

'Throw a stick into the river, and what have you got ?
A stick in a river.'

Thanks, Lexi.

Now - how to close the remaining 'Gaps'.......

Joe

Dear Joe,

Throw a stick into a river and what have you got? got me thinking.
It may be as you suggest - just a stick in a river. However, what if its a boomberang? Or if it floats away? Or if your dog ... there's many options - it all depends, doesn't it? Depending on the type of wood the stick is made of, you could put sails on it and change it
completely.

I remember reading the autobiography of Margaret Tucker, "If Everyone
Cared," a few years ago. These words have stayed with me:

"You can play a tune of sorts on the white keys of a piano: you can play some sort of tune on the black keys: but for perfect harmony, you must use both."

cont'd ...

I just had another thought about that river stick of yours.

You could also whittle it into a spear and catch fish with it - providing your eyesight and aim is good.

So you see - it doesn't have to stay just a stick. A bit of imagination and creativity - is all you need to make changes.

Lexi,

Thank you, dear.

Kath Walker's original was about 'pouring a bottle of wine in the river - what have you got ? Only the river.'

My point is that people's sense of identity is far stronger than that, more like a stick thrown into the river than a bottle of wine poured into it: in my experience, Aboriginal people remained, as it were, 100 % Aboriginal, no matter what they did or where they went or whatever: whatever they did WAS Aboriginal, part of the Aboriginal way, because they did it.

I haven't really come across too many Aboriginal people who thought or acted otherwise, they didn't spend sleepless nights worrying over whether or not they were transgressing the boundaries of their identity by doing something new or different: whatever they did, thereby became part of their identity, pure and simple.

In other words, like anybody else's, Aboriginal identity is an extremely broad church.

I can see you two are enjoying yourselves:) I think the Neanderthals came across similar circumstances, but of course....human-nature has always been about survival of the fittest. Old religion...New religion....sooner or later it ends up in dispute, as man try's to figure-out the meanings to life.

OccidentalChristian said

"Without doubt, European leaders have bothered the Aboriginal people to get a chance. But now, they have got back lands and the discriminatory laws are abandonned. Therefore, good education is the key for the future to do better and keep their distinct identity."

And Iam sure someone else tried the same thing with the Neanderthals.............However now, there extinct:0 Maybe some things should be just left alone.

However, the hand-outs the Indigenous US Indians receive are having the same effects, and JOE, thats a touching story, and Iam sure those one,s that make it, hopefully are going to make proud additionals to a once great Nation.

You can lead a horse to water, but you cant make it drink:) Joe,Lexi.....go bite your bums:)

LEAP

Darwinistic doctrine has served as justification for crimes and injustice. But in the end, darwinistic and egocentric thinking destroys the earth. Therefore we need to consider the needs of the weaker in society. It is an even greater shame that some Europeans have even justified the injustice against indigenous peoples by referring to the Christian belief! Indeed, Jesus wants that we tell about God´s offer of salvation to others. But he surely did not want assimilation and mission by force!

But without doubt, it is necessary to adjust to changing surrondings in order to survive. Some European peoples had had to do so in order to let their identity survive and have success later, too, about
1.500 - 2.000 years ago. They integrated Roman skills and legal thinkings into society by their own will because they clearly saw that this will strengthen themselves. The Basks are a good example that a people´s identity can survive inmidst a foreign (Roman) sea.

The example of Paraguay and early Brazil shows another way what could happen if newcomers arrive: The mixing into the indigenous people whereas much of the indigenous culture is taken over by the rising nation. Up to 90% of Paraguays population speaks Guarani which has become part of national identity.

Perhaps settlers can learn from indigenous people, too, and make some cultural elements of those part of national or regional identity. Especially in Outback areas, Aboriginal languages ought to be supported across the wider community.

Unfortunately, most Aboriginal people living in urban settings have lost much of their own identity, especially their own languages. Education is again one key to claim back what has been lost in urban settings. Urban Aboriginal people could benefit from florishing homeland communities where the indigenous culture can develope in majorial settings. This is the coming challenge. And again, good education and the will to determine the own fate are major keys for this challenge

QL, you know nothing. Please try to learn something.

In the 'south', Aboriginal people have battled for three or four generations to seize opportunities, usually in towns and cities, and to a large extent they have succeeded. I don't have any doubt that the successes of the last thirty years will be repeated, in spades, in the next thirty. Even if fools like you don't get out of the way.

No, it's not all beer and skittles, but the efforts of so many Aboriginal people are paying off. They haven't necessarily been ground down, and oppression hasn't won. Those efforts will prevail, in spite of 'friends' offering shoulders to cry on, QL.

When first I went down to my wife's community with her, back in the sixties, her grandfather had just baked an apricot tart. He gave me a huge portion (it was delicious) and when I finished it, he gave me another one. Then he talked me into another portion, and I eventually, I think, ate most of it. A wonderful old man, he used to be a gun shearer, a real battler, always looking on the bright side. When he retired (he was a WW I veteran, 48th Battalion, so he used to march every year in the Anzac Day march) a very staunch Ngarrindjeri man, he used to mow the main community lawn every week with one of those old push-mowers.

Initiative, effort, resilience - these were the qualities way back then of so many Aboriginal people, QL. Why think that they no longer exist ?

{TBC}

[cont.]

QL,

People aren't necessarily ground down by 'fate' or destiny, or even history: they often stand up and spit in its eye, QL. They laugh and joke and give history a good boot up the @rse, and get on with life.

My lovely wife did that all of her life, she didn't let anything stop her. She didn't know she was supposed to be a victim, and that her role was to cop it while whites got on with being prosperous 'walruses and carpenters'. She worked for 25 years at a university and in her last weeks, even when she was very ill, she put together a terrific article about higher education and professional careers as drivers of the future. She was always completely positive about Aboriginal futures and I think she was spot-on: what she hoped and predicted is coming about.

Don't write people off, don't ever devalue them, don't ever take their sense of agency away from them: that's the worst thing you can ever do. They have a job to do, which nobody else can do, and they're doing it. Are you listening, QL ?

By the way: I am missing website versions of Aboriginal councils and some remote towns in Aboriginal languages. I have found only the website of the Hermannsburg community to have a version in its local indigenous language.

As with public signs, this is a way to show the distinct identity to the outside as well as reminding the own people of the own language beside giving information to the reader.

Dear Joe,

Once again Thanks for your posts. And I agree - a modern society contains a wide spectrum of opinions, occupations, lifestyles, and social groups. To understand many features of Australian society we must pay particular attention to the values and interests of those who exercise power - and primarily in the past according to the history books - these were people who were white, middle-aged, Protestant, wealthy, male, and of Anglo-Saxon background.

Until recently, many Aboriginal aid schemes were run by "whites" who adopted a paternal attitude to Aborigines. And therein lies the problem. Aboriginal's did not control their own lives. In recent years - legal aid, land rights, education, and health care for Aborigines have become the important issues for government Aboriginal Affairs departments.

Progress is being made very slowly in the Aborigines' fight for the chance to survive in today's Australia and although much still needs to be done, perhaps the outlook is more hopeful now than it has been in the past. We can only hope so. Many things appear to have changed. Much has been achieved. Tolerance and understanding have broadened out and hopefully bigotry is in retreat. But the racist past still weighs heavily on the present and might still destroy any hope of reconciliation in this generation. I guess we've all got to work to see that this doesn't happen.

Dear QL,

I can't bite my bum - can you bite yours? Or kiss your elbow?
Try it and let me know if you succeed. I can play the zither - does that count? :-)

Hi Lexi,

You're mostly right, about overcoming racism etc. But I would argue that Indigenous achievements in higher education - where significantly, people are acting on their own agency, not relying on someone else to do something for them - are happening very quickly. Indigenous graduate numbers seem to double every twelve years or so, and I really do think they will double again in the next twelve years, and again in the twelve or fifteen years after that: fifty thousand by 2020, a hundred thousand by 2034-2035. And that will mean a big chunk of the entire Indigenous adult population, one in six or seven by 2020, one in four or five by 2034.

See if you can get hold of a book called 'Rights, Wrongs and Remedies' by Amy Wax: she is very hot on overcoming the history of injustice against African-Americans in the US, but points out that their own agency is the key to it all, that programs which 'do' things for people may be necessary (and maybe not) but not programs which take away people's sense of agency. Enabling programs, not just service programs, are what is vital.

Which is why higher education has been such a success story here for Indigenous people - nobody can do it for you, you have to pick yourself up and do it yourself. And once you've graduated, nobody can take it away from you.

Yes, there's a long way to go - 2.2 % of all Australian adults are Indigenous, but only 1.6 % of DOMESTIC university commencements, and 1.3 % of DOMESTIC enrolments, are Indigenous. But on the other hand, in terms of enrolments, Indigenous women are participating at about the same rate as Australian women were generally in 1997-1998. The men are commencing at about the same rate as other Australian men were in about 1990, so a bit more work.

But we have come a long way since we were counting every individual graduate - there is an average of four graduates every day now, and that will rise rapidly in the next ten years.

Dear Joe,

Thanks for the book reference. I'll try to get a hold of it as it sounds interesting. And Thanks also for the good news regarding Indigenous graduates.

I certainly can identify with doing things for yourself. I didn't quite appreciate the full value of an education(despite my dad's life-long emphasis on its importance - and that this was the only way to achieve anything in Australia as he saw it)
until I pursued a career in librarianship starting off firstly as a library-technician and then getting my qualifications as a librarian while working full time (and raising a family). I couldn't have done it without the support of my husband and family - but "Oh what a glorious feeling!" on my Graduation-Day - when my youngest child yelled out in the auditorium, "That's My Mum!" as I walked up to get my degree amid the laughter and applause that followed.

If things keep on getting better for our First People, it can only be good for us all. I would like to see the teaching of their culture and languages at schools by their own teachers. How are children supposed to have a good sense of self esteem and pride in who they are if they don't learn about their culture at school? They need role models and a good self-image.

Hi Lexi,

What is somebody's 'culture' ? Their heritage, the way their ancestors used to live and believe and relate to each other, or the way they live now, the only way they have known ? i.e. anthropological 'culture' or sociological 'culture' ?

The great majority of Indigenous people that I have known have been urban people, many generations away from anything like a traditional life, with generations of mission and settlement life in between. So, with the best will in the world, their traditional world is a very distant one, and their culture has been similar - not the same, but similar - to that of Anglo-Australians for 150-170 years or more.

So to teach many Aboriginal kids 'their' culture may well be to teach something that is as alien as teaching Scottish-Australian kids about the heather and pibrochs and glens and capercallies. In other words, nothing much to do with their contemporary lives. Meanwhile, they may get a very strong impression that modern culture is not for them, they don't have the right to enjoy cultural similarities with other kids, Anglo-, Maltese-, Greek-, Afghan-Australians and so many others who they go to school with, mix socially with, perhaps will eventually marry.

And of course, there are feckwits in the education system who, perhaps unintentionally, will give Aboriginal kids the disastrously wrong impression that education and the good life is alien to them, that it sort of belongs only to Anglos.

So if kids are to be taught 'their' 'culture', then it should be the whole kit and keboodle, not some garbled version of what their ancestors maybe did and how they lived 200 years ago. The kids are living a modern, contemporary, mainly urban culture - in what way isn't it 'their' culture ?

And don't get me started on language :)

Joe

Dear Joe,

I agree with you that kids should be taught the whole "kit and Kaboodle." And, that's the whole point I'm trying to make. They haven't been. They've been taught the anachronism of Australia as a "white country." Little was taught about their history and way of life, about their myths and legends, their beliefs.

Even today, for example, apart from food, the average Australian seems to know very little about non-British migrants or their cultures.

An attempt to preserve migrant cultures in Australia was initiated two and a half decades ago, on 30 May 1978, when the first "Report of the Review of Post-Arrival Programs and Services to Migrants," was tabled in the Federal House of Representatives.Commonly known as the Galbally Report, the document recommended, "inter-alia," "that if our society develops multiculturalism through broad concept of community education, it will gain much which has been lost to other nations..."

This recommendation was based on the observation that "already our nation has been enriched by the artistic, intellectual and other attributes of migrant cultures." Therefore as far as the Indigenous people are concerned all I am suggesting is that schools, and other community bodies should endeavour to implement Indigenous programs and greater Indigenous awarness (as they did with ethnic awareness) throughout Australia.

Many voices have only relatively recently filled out the space once claimed as the "Great Australian Silence," - i.e. the history of Indigenous-Settler relations. Today we can know a great deal about the history of Indigenous-Settler realtions. It is now possible to explore the past by means of large numbers of books, articles, films, novels, songs, and even paintings.

All I'm trying to say is - Sure, teach the mainstream lessons - but also include the "Dream-Time," legends which are also beautiful.

Dear sweet Lexi,

You have such a good heart, but my point was that the culture of Aboriginal kids, especially urban kids, is substantially similar to that of their classmates', and neighbours'. It is urban, modern, contemporary, English-language, music- and clothes- and movie-oriented, just like theirs. It involves 9-to-5, school, TV, cars, interstate and overseas holidays, just like it does for other kids. They need to learn about a multi-faceted world, modern technology, how to handle money, and profit from a vast variety of skills in order to work to provide for themselves, in the towns and cities, for life, just like other kids.

So traditional life, culture, relationships, economy and cosmology are not relevant to their lives, now. To their sense of self, to their historical being, yes, it would be nice to know some of that. But it's not central to their lives, and it hasn't been for 150-180 years.

Down this way, the last person who could speak the full language of the Murray and Lakes died in the sixties - he was born in about 1880, and wasn't even from that particular group. Even David Unaipon, the guy on the $ 50 note, born in 1872, didn't learn to speak the whole language (otherwise HE would have been the last speaker). Of course, the families pass on a smattering of the language, the odd hundred household words, but the language of urban Aboriginal kids is, let's face it, English: that's what they should learn well.

Life changed very quickly for many Aboriginal people, not necessarily for the better and not completely to the manners and life of the invaders, but very quickly the old ways were left behind, superseded by far more efficient technology, mobility, broader relationships, awareness of vastly different worlds. You can't go back from that new awareness, back to some pre-invasion oblivion. Pandora's box has been opened and can never be closed again. But we don't do kids any favours by trying to deny them the real world that they are living and will be working in, even 'for their own good'.

Joe

Dear Joe,

I'm probably not putting it very well. I'm not trying to deny any one anything. I just feel that surely there must be a way to combine the best of both worlds.

In the US - American Indian children are taught about their past - to develop a stronger sense of self. In New Zealand - the Maori's have a stronger sense of self. I delved into my ancestry. I know its history, and culture. So why should our Indigenous peoples' children not be given the same opportunities as others have been? It doesn't mean that I'm suggesting they live in the past - or not be part of the mainstream culture at all. I simply am suggesting that their education be all inclusive - that's all.

Yes, Lexi, you're right - I'm just worried that Aboriginal kids might still be taken out of their clases for 'cultural activities' which have as little relevance to their daily lives as they might to Afghan or Sudanese or Chilean kids. Yes, it's good for all kids to be taught something about their (to them) distant history and culture, but not at the expense of the rest of their education.

Conversely, all kids should be taught something about the history and traditional culture of ALL of their classmates: I'm sure my English-Australian classmates could have benefited from some of the stories and exposure to the superior culture of the Scots - well, of course, they did, since we all had to learn 'Skye Boat Song' and 'Eriskay Love Lilt' and 'Loch Lomond', and 'Lochinvar' etc. My Indigenous kids would have benefited from knowing about the bravery of the Maltese fighting off the Nazis during the War, as they did the Arabs a thousand years earlier, or about Greek music, or Italian painting. It's a very multi-coloured world in many ways :)

Maybe the schools I went to in the fifties were different: in one, the houses (remember them ?) were named Nardoo, Wandoo, Wilga and Mulga. We learnt Jabbin Jabbin Kiro Kar and listened to Harold Blair on the gramophone. We learnt about the close relations between Sturt and Aboriginal groups. Of course, in those days, there were NO Aboriginal kids, or very few, in those Sydney schools: they were still excluded, out on the settlements. But even then, mission and settlement life was not traditional life, English would have been the common language, and traditional beliefs would have been distant memories of the older people, if that. So what would have been people's culture then ?

And now, here we are, in 2011 ..... A hell of a lot of water has flowed under the bridge, even since the fifties. And not just the odd Aboriginal man or woman getting through teachers' college or nursing school, but more than 26,000 graduates of all sorts. Different times, different culture.

Joe

Dear Joe,

Reading your last post put a lump in my throat. As I told you previously, I love reading your posts. And this last one was a
beaut! We're on the same wave-length!

Hi Lexi,

Thank you, dear. I always get a buzz out of yours too, there is so much goodness in your contributions.

Love,

Joe

It is clear that most urban Aboriginal people are different from those in homelands. But even in the homelands, modern way of life is present. Probably nobody, or only very few, want to live in the bush without houses, cars, TV, mobile phone, Pop music (along with traditional music) or water from the tap. But that is not what actually makes identity. That is rather made by oral and written literature, language, style of Pop and traditional music, food, knowledge about the own history or dances...

Also in metropolitan areas, students ought to have the choice to learn again their anchestors´ language. The bits and bytes what has still been transmitted very probably causes that some students want to learn the full range of the traditional culture. Why shouldn´t Australians students learn about pre-colonial history? Why should more elderly Aboriginal people pass on to young people their knowledge? It is then the choise of young people themselves if they want to get into it more intensively or not. As is the title of the article mentioned in the title, it is of course no use rejecting the today´s English-based mainstream world, but it is not necessary to forget everything else.

If immigrants as well as Aboriginal people know their own languages and about their cultures, it will be easy to go to live to a homeland or in the case of immigrants´ communities to go back to the country of the anchestors if they feel the strong wish to live in a majorial setting.