Dear Joe,

Truth certainly was stranger than fiction in the Ernie
Dingo program. It made me want to meet the man in
person.

As for what WDYTYA could tell us about Foxy?

You'd learn that - she has very strong ethnic traditions
and a rich culture and speaks several languages
including one of the oldest in Europe. She comes from
people who are known for their music and singing, folklore,
forests, amber and basketball prowess. And that's just a
start. (smile).

Dear Foxy,

I'm sure your ancestors, buried over on the other side of the world, would be proud of you. I was just watching Justine Clarke's story on WDYTYA, on iView, and the surprises she experienced, involving bushrangers, double families, Jewish pogroms and Irish dissidents. Most of us probably have family histories that are not 'ordinary', like hers. And, I'll bet, like yours :)

Come to think of it, like every Aboriginal family I know too, battlers, people seizing opportunities, making the best of the cards that they were dealt.

Love,

Joe

Dear Joe (Loudmouth),

We all have our stories and I guess every one has obstacles
to overcome. They are our greatest teachers.
Humans are the most extraordinary creatures, and a
greater part of me still wants to reach an even greater
understanding about who we are. My family reminds me each
day that miracles do happen, and they have shown me that
my heart can hold more love and joy than I ever dreamed
possible.

I've just come across this short video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Az2C-c8zC0https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Az2C-c8zC0

So any novel i could have written would already be old-hat. I suppose a lot of the discussion comes down to a proposition that Australia should never have been invaded even once, while so many others parts of the world have been invaded - try Syria - countless times. I'm trying to think of any part of the world that hasn't been invaded at least twice. North-Eastern Siberia perhaps ? Foreign armies have traipsed across pretty much every nook and cranny of Europe, the Middle East, India, south-east Asia, China, (from the little I know) Africa, and the Americas.

And of course, traditional societies themselves yes were dab hands at invading each others' territory. The pre-Republican Romans, the Greeks (Trojan War, anyone ?), the Scots, the Maoris, the Aztecs, the Ashanti, the Zulu, the Afghans, you name it. Invasion is the norm: being left alone is not only the exception, but either an extinct or a mythical species.

The next question that, sooner or later, we'll have to answer, is: on balance, Have Indigenous people here gained a net benefit from the contact with the outside world ? Perhaps the question is premature: in ten or twenty years, people may be answer it with a clearer head.

But Indigenous people have to ask themselves, honestly: would I prefer to die of various diseases or get vaccinated/treated, and survive for another twenty years ? Would I prefer to live around a campfire on these Winter mornings, or have clothing, blankets and air-conditioning ? Do I have to have six kids in case three die before twenty, and the others go off to marry into other groups, and I'm left under a bush at the old age of fifty, OR would I be happier on some sort of pension and free medical attention ?

Still agonising over that one.

Joe

Dear Joe (Loudmouth),

Perhaps you're asking the wrong questions of our
Indigenous People?

Perhaps the questions we should be asking should
go along the lines of:

1) What if the Europeans had accepted the Indigenous
People as equals and did not try to convert them?

2) What if the Europeans did not think of themselves
as the "superior" race?

3) What if the Europeans were not convinced their ways
were better and did not try to teach them to be "like them?"

4) What if close friendships, co-operation, and coexistence
between the two was encouraged - for each other's sakes?

And the lists go on. But you get what I mean.

Perhaps - what needs to be looked at - is had Aboriginal
people been treated differently from the very start -
would their life today be any different?

Dearest Foxy,

Why do people think that the main thrust of conscious non-Indigenous policy towards Indigenous people was assimilation ? I really can't see much of that in the documentary record: laissez-faire, yes; obviously, an occupation of some of people's land and the imposition of some law; but on the whole, people were left alone, the invading authorities recognised their rights to use the land as they always had done.

In turn, it seems that many Aboriginal people realised quickly that they needed to get a handle on the new society and its SWOTs - strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Many realised very early that, for this, their kids needed some basic education. Down here in progressive SA, before the missionary at Pt McLeay had even dug a well, people were camping nearby waiting for the school to open (a year later). In the first days of the missionary's appointment, long before the mission was actually set up, one Aboriginal bloke walked twenty-odd miles to ask him when the school would be ready, and whether young adults could attend. Within a year of opening, the missionary had to build a second dormitory for the rapidly-expanding school population, a huge effort for a one-man mission, busy with teaching, administering health care, building cottages, etc.

Of course, many people preferred to carry on the old ways, and they were free to do that: in fact, later, the Protector provided boats and guns so that they could keep hunting and fishing (I think seed-gathering had gone by the board very, very early).

So assimilation was not really ever on the agenda: in the mid-20th century, when some Aboriginal parents wanted their kids to come into the city to go to secondary school, the government here knocked that on the head. So by 1960, hardly any Aboriginal kids were in secondary education in SA. Hence the delay in enrolments in tertiary education later. Assimilation ? I don't think so.

Of course, the invasion was devastating, and it always would have been. So if the invasion was inevitable, then so was that devastation.

Love,

Joe