Joe, I apologise most profusely, but it was either anthropology or sociology, so I settled for the lesser of two weevils...

That information is fascinating. It fits with my rather sketchy hypothesis, but it would be interesting to know what experts in the field think. I suspect the problem will resolve itself in a couple of generations at most, if left alone to do so. Aborigines have survived lots of other threats to their survival during their time in Australia. It may just be a matter of showing a better way and waiting for the older generations to die off. In the meantime, the problem is probably best managed as harm minimisation rather than active enforcement of punitive laws that don't work.

Shadow Minister, you haven't actually been paying attention, have you?

Hi Craig,

The late Helen Hughes, and Gary Johns and Stephanie Jarrett have written eloquently about the prevalence of violence in Aboriginal 'communities'. I guess we all have our memories of women being stripped and chased around the yard by their beloveds armed with various blunt instruments and a skinful ? Or maybe not.

This article focusses on one 'community', by no means the most notorious: https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2008/11/the-cultural-roots-of-aboriginal-violence/

Highly recommended :)

Cheers,

Joe

Thanks for that link, Joe, it's an eye-opener. The same kinship models operate up in PNG as the "wantok" system; wantok meaning someone who shares your plestok, or in other words, comes from the same village, or at least the same valley. They also have a strong "bigman" system, although to a large extent it is more binding on the leader than his wantoks. It's what has caused so many problems with corruption in PNG, as people in charge are to some extent coerced to give wantoks special treatment and to ignore infractions.

It's a very primitive form of social organisation arranged around mutual obligation and as the article points out, it causes no end of trouble. PNG people share a simlar problem with alcohol, too. I seem to recall that both groups lack one of the key ADH genes that help with alcohol metabolism in the liver, but I could be wrong.

I knew there was a lot of commonality between the peoples of PNG and of Australia, but I'm coming to realise just how closely linked they are. It seems to me that the major cultural differences are related to the nature of the country rather than anything else.

In PNG the post-colonial experience hasn't been all positive, but there is certainly much to be proud of. The people seem to be getting on with dragging their own cultures in a very short period of 2 or 3 generations through a process that took Europeans several thousand years. It's not surprising that there are problems. I think we'll find that Aboriginal people will do the same, if given the chance and support.

The PNG people have the advantage that in the majority of cases they maintained local autonomy within villages, where the Aborigines been forced to completely change lifestyles from nomadic to closely settled; from small tribal groups to large townships with several tribes, with very little time to adjust

Joe, you might find this interesting.

http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/09/humans-are-unusually-violent-mammals-but-averagely-violent-primates/501935/

"Gómez’s team calculated that at the origin of Homo sapiens, we were six times more lethally violent than the average mammal, but about as violent as expected for a primate. But time and social organizations have sated our ancestral bloodthirst, leaving us with modern rates of lethal violence that are well below the prehistoric baseline. We are an average member of an especially violent group of mammals, and we’ve managed to curb our ancestry.

Gómez’s team predicted that when our species arose, around 2 percent of us (1 in 50) would have been murdered by other people."

That goes along with Steven Pinker's work in "The Better Angels of Our Nature", where he makes a clear case for our times being the least violent in history.

The thing is that evolution, whether cultural or genetic, takes time. It's been 500 years since the Enlightenment and yet in some parts of the Western world there is still cultural resistance to Enlightenment models of thought. Pity the poor bloody Aborigines who have to try to leap several thousand years in a century or two.

Thanks Craig,

All is forgiven ! At least you didn't accuse me of being a sociologist :)

I've thought about that problem with metabolising alcohol for years, coupled with what seemed to be the huge quantities and rapidity with which alcohol is often consumed. As well, maybe in a foraging society, and societies evolving from foraging societies, the ethos is boom and bust: if it's there, go all out for it; if not, then go without. Maybe that 'it's now or maybe never' approach transfers easily to all forms of consumption including alcohol.

In the 1877 Victorian Royal Commission into the Aborigines, the missionary at Coranderrk complained that, when the men finished their shearing contracts out in the western districts and were paid off, they would blow their entire wages on grog, and sometimes in the one night - certainly before they got back home on the Mission. He suggested that all cheques be sent directly to him, so that he could make deductions for the on-going provision of rations and stores to the families of the men, then pay them out whatever was left over. Actually, that's how it worked over this way down around Pt McLeay Mission. At least the wives were happier that way, and that's all that matters ;)

Maybe the missing ingredient is employment. But after all these years, nobody has come up with projects which actually worked in remote communities. Many things COULD work: vegetable gardens, orchards, in remote areas date palms, etc., stud cattle and/or sheep operations, but all these need two components: effort and expertise, and both of those are in slightly short supply.

But without those, i.e. education and a work ethic, the default position is DV, abuse, neglect of children, poor diet, lack of physical activity, brutal lives and early deaths.

Meanwhile, amongst working Indigenous people in the cities, lifestyles are similar to those of non-Indigenous working people, and life expectancy is probably the same too - and their numbers are growing rapidly. The Gap widens.

The elites' solution ? Talk about 'Recognition'. Yeah, that might do it.

Joe

Craig, your reference to the similarity between aboriginals and Papuans is correct. The recently released DNA studies done across Papua and Australia show that the two peoples were actually the same until about 40,000 years ago, when a group apparently splintered off from Papua and crossed into the top of QLD. Given that aboriginal elders always strongly resisted any change suggested by the young men, I would say that many cultural practises remained intact after the separation.
As regard the current level of violence, firstly I don't think it's possible for anyone to actually understand the reality of the barbarous level of violence and how normal it is considered until they actually live with it. Like Joe I had a very abrupt initiation to family violence very early in my association with my husband. He had taken me to visit an aunt and uncle who were having a barbecue. Sitting in the back yard I could hear all these screams and grunts going on down the far back of the yard. When I looked at my to be husband he shrugged and said, don't worry that's just one of my aunts and uncles, my aunt caught him with one of the young gins in from a station.
Fortunately those two were an exception in his close family but that sort of behaviour is still totally normal within certain social structure.

(cont)