I actually saw a real Aboriginal man a few days ago & it made me wonder why we never get to see any like him on TV commenting on indigenous matters. All we ever get is the watered-down half-baked whiter than I claimants.

Hi Big Nana, one thing to keep in perspective is the fact those from remote top end communities do not represent the vast majority of Aboriginal people. This bloke is a bad example, most Aboriginals viewing the film of his actions would just call him an idiot an be done with it.
Unfortunately some indigenous people try to hide behind "culture" as a way of masking their real social problems.

Indy, once again you fail to explain. This "real Aboriginal man" you think should be out there commenting on indigenous matter, what was he like, were his opinions a reflection of your views on indigenous affairs, or something else? The redneck view that all Aboriginal culture ceased to exist or was trapped in a time warp after 26th January 1788 is wrong, culture is dynamic, not static. Like our own culture, that of all indigenous peoples is forever changing and developing. What was acceptable as a cultural practice at one time, may not be accepted today. There are many examples of cultural development in our society. Over a short period of time, it has become acceptable for two people to live together in a full relationship without being formally married, fifty years ago that relationship was stigmatised as culturally unacceptable.

Indy, once again you fail to explain. This "real Aboriginal man"
Paul1405,
Those who think already got the explanation. You're the one who fails to see the real issue !
Just take the time to think outside the leftist square & you'll understand.

Dear Big Nana,

I appreciate your taking the time to respond to me
and I am very relieved to hear your explanation.
I am glad to learn that you do have positive things
to say about our Indigenous People - and don't see
the majority of them in a negative light after all.

Thanks for explaining. I look forward to hearing
more positiveness from you in the future on this
forum.

Hi Paul,

I think Individual is having a lend of you, he's got long experience of 'real Aboriginal people'.

But you are right, culture is not static, it is dynamic - in that sense, all 'cultures', to use the word inappropriately, are as long as each other, they have all been developing dynamically for half a million years.

But some phases of cultural development take a hell of a lot longer than others - our hunter-gatherer past, in all cases, was lived over an extremely long time period, up until much more recently than most people think - perhaps the past few hundred or a thousand years in Scotland and Ireland and Lithuania. Then of course, an explosion of cultural change in the last few hundred years - which Aboriginal people here are also now going through.

As for cruelty to animals, Big Nana may be able to back me up, but I do recall that young blokes seemed to be afraid of animals, such as sheep. In one community, with grapes, wheat, lucerne, stone-fruit, citrus, unlimited water licence, as well as sheep, when we were rounding up the sheep in the yards around the shearing shed, the young blokes used to back off if a sheep stopped and looked at them. They usually carried a stick (the blokes, not the sheep).

Killing baby birds was a great pastime of the kids, knocking the nests out of the trees then killing the chicks. Sheer childish cruelty, the little bastards. Maybe we all used to do that, stomping on ants, that sort of thing. But adults ?

Cheers,

Joe