Anthony J.H. Morris, a Brisbane barrister, believes that virtue signallers , using Australian aborigines to demonstrate their goodness, do not have “much to work with”. What has been invented by “white clerics” and “academics” who “pretend to push the barrow for indigenous reconciliation and advancement”, is “intense racism” and “xenophobia”, he claims.

The lack of genuine material to work with stems from the fact that there is little to praise in a culture that had “no written language or literature, permanent architecture, horticulture or animal husbandry.... no wheel, no pottery or ceramics, no use of metals, and only the most basic wooden or stone hand-tools”. There was no calendar, no writing system. No science and no numbering above five. Graphic art still only “demonstrates a level of technical and artistic sophistication not elevated above the stone-age art of other world cultures.”

Hence the inventions, some of which are 'corroborees' and the 'smoking ceremony', supposedly traditional, performed for gullible tourists; and 'welcome to country', which can be traced “all the way back” to the first one performed by actor, Ernie Dingo, in 1976. ( In 2012, Northern Territory MP and traditional Warlpiri woman Bess Price told a reporter that Welcome to Country ceremonies were not meaningful to traditional people, saying "We don't do that in communities. It's just a recent thing. It's just people who are trying to grapple at something they believe should be traditional”).

ttbn,

I have spoke to a number of aboriginals who have stopped and passed by ayers rock in the past. Not one of them had objections to people climing the rock. The superstition has been a recent made up story.

btw see Mundine being able to speak about homosexuality not being normal with very little condemnation from press. How must Margaret Court feel. Its always been about sides ands sick warped ideology when it comes to the leftist. They use aboriginal people as useful ---.

runner,

Warren Mundine has described people, including aboriginal identifiers, making a fuss about Australia Day as "vile" and "destructive" people who do not care about Australia.

Ttbn: There are several possible responses to your post re Aboriginal 'goodness'.

1. I could go through each item that you allege the Aborigines didn't have and challenge it. No language? Of course they had language, complex and poetic. No literature? Stories, songs and poems, similar to other oral traditions such the Scandinavian sagas. No room here to go on, so I'll direct you to a couple of books. Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel on the history of human invention and why some places in the world were more advantageous for this than others (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Germs,_and_Steel); Bruce Pascoe's Dark Emu, for the story of Aboriginal plant and animal cropping and domestication; Ronald Berndt's Love Songs of Arnhem Land. I'm afraid these are not written by lawyers, I tend to go to people knowledgeable in the relevant field.

2. But I agree, Aborigines did not invent the useful technology that European and Asians did. Your post suggests that this means they have no attributes of 'goodness'. They also did not invent: jails, the guillotine, the hangmans noose, electric chair, torture instruments, machine guns, chemical warfare, land mines, bombs of all kinds, especially atomic. Nor did they invent caste and class systems, serfdom and slavery. Perhaps this does entitle them to some small credit of 'goodness'?

3. While the current 'smoking' and 'welcome to country' ceremonies may be new developments, there are many recorded traditional precursors. Again, too many to cover here, but just one example, the used of green boughs or leaves in meeting ceremonies was widely recorded by early explorers and settlers, and could direct you to numerous accounts. Smoking was also used to purify places, for example where people had died, or graves. There are some archaeological traces of this (the remains of ashes of small fires set in the base of the grave). Development of old customs in new ways is widespread in all cultures. (cont.)

ttbn (cont.) Much more serious is the underlying assumption of your post, that the way the British settlers and their descendants treated Aboriginal people was dependent on the 'goodness' of the Aborigines, however you want to measure that.

But you and the barrister have it exactly the wrong way round. The way the British and we,their descendants, now Australians, have behaved towards Aborigines was dependent on OUR goodness. And as Christians, we had no excuse to treat them badly on our supposed measure of their 'goodness', or 'worthiness'. We were the ones with the rule: judge not others lest ye be judged.

Is it 'virtue signalling' to say that the British in the past, or their descendants here today, should live up to their own professed religious and philosophic standards rather than justify their/our bad behaviour on the grounds that 'oh, they didn't and still don't deserve to be treated well'?

If so, virtue signalling = Christianity, generosity, morality.

These 'virtue-signalling' views are nothing new. Here's a quote relating to the 1938 Australia Day celebrations:

"Excessive self-glorification, unaccompanied by any self-examination of our many past follies and injustices, does not evince a high degree of moral development... The past cannot be undone, but let us not continue to withhold justice."

(Letter to the editor, Katoomba Daily, 26 April 1938). See https://aiatsis.gov.au/exhibitions/day-mourning-26th-january-1938.

And that is why we need more rational, informed voices
on this forum.

Thank You Cossomby.

Someone indeed Had to Say it!

Why are the Aborigines still whinging - it was 230 years ago?

If you don't know why, I'd recommend the film 'Lousy Little Sixpence' to be shown on NITV tonight at 8 o'clock. This is about what happened in the 20th century, not 230 years ago, and in NSW, not somewhere in remote Australia. (It was much the same in Victoria, SA and Queensland).

//a culture that had “no written language or literature, permanent architecture, horticulture or animal husbandry.... no wheel, no pottery or ceramics, no use of metals, and only the most basic wooden or stone hand-tools”. There was no calendar, no writing system. No science and no numbering above five. Graphic art still only “demonstrates a level of technical and artistic sophistication not elevated above the stone-age art of other world cultures.”//

Yeah, there is no denying that their technology was extremely primitive by the standards of the European settlers. It's not really surprising, given how isolated they were. I fail to see how that makes them worse people, though. Or better people, for that matter: the idea of the 'noble savage' is just as bunk as the idea that idea of the 'wicked savage'. It just means they were people with worse technology, and the level of technology a given society enjoys at a given point in time is largely an accident of history. The Aborigines kind of drew the short straw in that regard by settling a country that was so geographically isolated.

//Hence the inventions, some of which are 'corroborees' and the 'smoking ceremony', supposedly traditional, performed for gullible tourists; and 'welcome to country', which can be traced “all the way back” to the first one performed by actor, Ernie Dingo, in 1976.//

I'm pretty sure our culture has changed in the last 200 years. I see no reason why Aboriginal culture should have to remain stagnant and unchanged for 200 years to be considered authentic. I guess some people are just a bit too attached to romanticised ideals of what they think Aboriginal culture should and should not be. But I'm not really sure it's up to them to decide.

Cossomby,

1. No WRITTEN language. Not reading what you want to criticise is not a good way to start.
2. Technology or the lack of it has nothing to do with 'goodness'. And you are obviously completely ignorant of the cruelty and savagery the original inhabitants of this continent indulged in, particularly against women and children. They also spent a good part of their time fighting inter-tribal wars.
3. “Too many (cases) to cover”; it's more likely that don't know of any cases, and you think a nasty old white man will just accept your bluff. You provide no references to your claims at all. In contrast, everything Anthony Morris writes is patently obvious and evident to all but the ideologically blinkered. Your “you and your barrister have it exactly the wrong way around” is not much of an argument.

I note that you have nothing say about the comments of Bess and Jacinta Price. I suppose you regard them as the female equivalent of Uncle Toms. Ernie Dingo also thought that the ceremony he and a mate performed was a bit of a joke, by the way.

60,000 years, and absolutely nothing to show for it, compared with the advanced societies the natives of other continents had achieved up to 1778 when Britain brought civilisation. Facts outweigh ideology.

Ttbn. True no written language, but written language has only been around for a very short time in the human story.
As for your sneer about my knowledge, well, mate, you asked for it. Starting tomorrow, I'll provide a crash course in Aboriginal history, in small snippets. I did't pick up all your points earlier, so as to keep the posts short.

I can see that in a country one of the driest on earth maybe they were
too busy food gathering to put someone aside to invent things.
You need excess energy to produce inventions and improve knowledge of
materials such as metal ores.
The one thing that is surprising is that they never invented pottery.
They had stacks of clay and fire the two ingredients needed for pottery.
Virtually every other society on earth developed pottery.
What were their marriage rules ?

Were any Indonesian artifacts ever traded from the north ?
Someone could do a doctorate on that.

CONT
Did they develop any form of agriculture ?
All societies seem to have started agriculture and they certainly
had the time.
In the north did the Macassens teach NT aborigines any agriculture.

Excess food and energy is need to develop any technology.

ttbn: 60,000 years, and absolutely nothing to show for it, compared with the advanced societies the natives of other continents had achieved up to 1778 when Britain brought civilisation. Facts outweigh ideology.

I said all that in a previous discussion. But, you are right.

Bazz: You need excess energy to produce inventions and improve knowledge of materials such as metal ores.

Well Australia has an abundance of Metal Ores. I find it strange that they never advanced from a pointy stick for a spear. even 250000 years ago in Africa & everywhere else they put a stone tip on a spear. They did make stone Axes but the polishing of the face didn't start until 10000 years ago & fully polished ones only about 4000 years ago. I have a very Primitative Stone Axe I dug up from underground at Bluewater in Nth. Qld. It was dated at 10000 years.

Bazz: The one thing that is surprising is that they never invented pottery. They had stacks of clay and fire the two ingredients needed for pottery.

The Melanesian type Aboriginal of Tasmania were actually going backwards at a great rate of knots. They had lost the ability to swim & to make clothing & had trouble making fire, relying on forest fires which they kept alive. According to my ex Father-in-law whose father looked after Tugganinne for many years. One famous Anthropologist, a few years ago, even went as far as to say that if white man hadn't come along the last Aboriginal on Tasmania would have died out before 2000.

Cossomby,

Don't bother, I'm not interested in reading anymore of your leftist, feminist garbage. You are wrong, and that's the end of it.

Bazz: Were any Indonesian artifacts ever traded from the north ?

I believe they did. The Macassens brought fruit trees such as Mango's & Tamarind & dogs. The Chinese brought China Apples to the Northern Goldfields later. I believe there was a recorded instance of an Indonesian sword being found with some Aboriginals near Bathurst. apart from some interbreeding (Yellaboys) I don't think they left anything of any significants that I have heard of. I feel that Mango's & Tamarinds were brought with the Macassens as food for the journey & grew naturally from the seeds left scattered around. The local Aboriginals only picked the fruit in season & the Macassens used the fruit for the return journey after they had caught their fill of Sea Cucumber.

Bazz and Jayb,

I would like to make it clear that I have nothing against modern Australians descending from the original inhabitants. You probably feel the same way. What I do object to is ignorant, virtue signalling anti-every-everything-Australian whiteys spewing out rubbish about people who were trapped in the Stone Age when civilisation found them. Australians of aboriginal descent have the same opportunities as the rest of us, and most of them have availed themselves of those opportunities. Dragging up bullshite from two centuries ago, much of which has been proven false, and none of which is our fault is, as Warren Mundine said, vile and destructive. These white renegades are using other Australians in a cynical manner for political reasons. They are the same mob that spat their hatred at anyone against SSM. They won that one with trickery, and are now emboldened by the success to try undermining more of the society they hate. And, they are gutless cowards who use the democracy they hate because they know they can get away with it - more's the pity. If they ever get their way, the rest of us will be in unable to express an opinion.

The Aboriginal people invented the atom bomb in 7635BC, but found it totally useless so they abandoned the project 12 months later. My wise old fart-in-law told me so. Seems if you're an old and crusty right winger on this forum, quoting the wisdom of the fart-in-law is the way to go. I've come across a couple doing so lately. Personally, my old F-I-L knows nothing, can't do anything, makes a cock up of it all, and he's not even black.

All the developments, discoveries, advancements in society come about through the efforts of less than 1% of the population, call them the Einstein types . Even the 1% require to some degree the use of previous knowledge to build on, call them the Edison types. What are the rest of us doing, I'm happy to include myself in the 99%, as far as human advancement is concerned, absolutely nothing. We are busy living, labouring in this Utopian society the 1% have provided for us, call us the drones, workers, plebs, what ever, but don't try and take any of the credit for the efforts of the 1%.

Remember, the next time you bash on your keyboard, or put your mobile phone to your ear, or eat polyunsaturated margarine, the chances are you did nothing to provide those things for yourself, someone else did.

//Technology or the lack of it has nothing to do with 'goodness'.//

Then why did you devote about of your third of your original post listing all the technology Europeans took for granted but Aborigines lacked? Why would you bring it up if it's not relevant?

Technology or the lack of it has nothing to do with goodness.
Goodness, not my word but first used here by a semi-literate person, has no connection with goodness. I wrote of technology before the semi-literate used the word. Technology is useful and is the mark of a civilised society.Lack of technology is just one indicator of an uncivilised society, if you can even term aboriginal culture at the time as a society. Your common refusal to actually say who your querulous post are directed at probably precludes you from understanding 'society' and 'civility'.

"Remember, the next time you bash on your keyboard, or put your mobile phone to your ear, or eat polyunsaturated margarine, the chances are you did nothing to provide those things for yourself, someone else did."

Thankyou ,Paul. I always give thanks to people smarter than I am - I have never invented anything myself - but I also remember that the Stone Age occupiers of this country never provided me, or you, with anything, and did not contribute one iota to the country we now live in, although they, like us, benefit enormously from the efforts of those who did.

Technical innovation in the early days of human history was incredibly difficult to bring about. Peter Bellwood, in his "First Farmers", concluded that agriculture had been initiated in only half a dozen places on earth: Mesopotamia, perhaps northern China, perhaps west Africa, New Guinea, Meso-America and perhaps Peru. Innovation has spread painfully slowly across the African-European-Asian landmass, from which Aboriginal people were isolated, even more so in that crucial period after the Ice Age.

So intelligent people here were trapped in the Stone Age, with the most primitive technology, weapons, food-collecting tools and household implements. No pottery, so a huge amount of the available plants simply weren't accessible for food. Of course, since foraging people are, by definition, mobile, lugging grinding-stones around with them already (well, the women, of course), lugging even more fragile pots would have been impractical.

Groups would have been vulnerable to Australia's frequent and devastating droughts. So populations would have reached a very low level of capacity, only to be cut down again and again by those droughts. Life expectancy would have been barely forty, given the high infant mortality and - let's be honest - extremely hard lives, especially for women. Extinction of entire groups was highly likely.

Then along come the British in 1788. Can any Aboriginal academics or spokespeople really claim that everything would have been better if they hadn't ?

Of course not. So the Narrative has to dwell on the most dreadful stories and policies that its adherents can dream up. Hence the ceaseless clamour for rumoured massacre sites to be thoroughly examined by archaeologists and forensic scientists. [Or did I dream that ?]

Evidence is what counts, not rumours, after all.

Joe

//Goodness, not my word but first used here by a semi-literate person//

//Anthony J.H. Morris, a Brisbane barrister, believes that virtue signallers , using Australian aborigines to demonstrate their goodness//

XD

ttbn. to prove my point; On 'Gilligan's Island' the Professor could invent anything you like, even a way of keeping your one and only set of clothing looking brand new forever. But the silly sod couldn't fix a one metre square hole in a boat, and get em' off the island. Then I think he didn't want to, as he was bonking Ginger! Personally I would have murdered Gilligan on day one, all problems solved!

p/s When their gear was in the wash, what were they wearing? Unfortunately I missed that episode.

ttnn:
I would like to make it clear that I have nothing against modern Australians descending from the original inhabitants. You probably feel the same way.

Neither do I.

What I do object to is ignorant, virtue signalling anti-every-everything-Australian whiteys spewing out rubbish about people who were trapped in the Stone Age when civilisation found them.

I'm not anti-aboriginal. These people were trapped in the stone age when civilization found them. That can't be deigned. Some, like the ones in very remote communities are hell bent on retaining that stone age past but also want modernity given to them for free.

The ones I dislike intently are the Socialist Academic Aboriginals who just like to kick up a fuss but don't really do anything to help their own people. As long as they keep getting paid heaps from the Public Purse. If they fix the problems then they might lose their Pony.

<Technology or the lack of it has nothing to do with 'goodness>

Absolutely right.

ttn: I have never invented anything myself

I have. I've had to. As the old Jewish man said, "You should be married to my wife."

Paul,

I never watched it. It was during my anti-American time, and I was strictly ABC.

Jayb,

Yes, and the Socialist Academic Aboriginals are the ones who have benefited most from British settlement. As for those in remote communities, they have Nugget Coombes to thank for that. He and Gough Whitlam wanted to keep them out bush as part of a living museum their fevered, mad brains imagined. And, of course, the Fabian socialist Whitlam was only too happy to spend other peoples' money doing it.

Aboriginal activist Tarneen Onus-Williams, who said at an anti-Australia Day rally: “ feck Australia. Feck Australia, I hope it fecking burns to the ground” benefits from the society she hates by sitting on state government funded council that receives half a million from Victorians every annually: the Koori Youth Council. She is also on several other taxpayer-funded boards.

Hmm.

Hi ttbn, since you're not familiar with 'Gilligan's Island' I'll fill you in. GI was a much awarded doco series in the Davo Attenborough mould. It starred that Academy Award winning heart throb Bob Denver, brother of John. and let me say best remembered for his poignant portrayal of Maynard G Krebs in that suspense drama series The Dobie Gillis Show.

I digress, sorry, well the show very much explains what you are banging on about, worth checking out. One white guy, The Professor being continually shafted by this bunch of Aborigines, played by white guys, The Skipper, Thursten Howell III, "Lovey" Mrs Howell, Ginger (hot), Mary Ann (also hot) and Gilligan (totally stupid). Even though the black guys were played by white guys it didn't detract from the forceful thought provoking imagery the show projected to its culturally perceptive audience.
Sorry you were watching the ABC at the same time, 'Mr Squiggle' was indeed a worthy alternative for some.