"For the umteeth time I acknowledge the impotence and value of tertiary education for aboriginal people..."

Really, Paul, you do need a spell checker, what have teeth got to do with it?
How do impotence and value go together, unless it's some form of population control?

Still around Issy? being a little "Troll" now, okay with me. Try counting to 1,600,000, you know the score, and you might get over it. No fool like an old fool, but I still love ya.

Paul,

" No fool like an old fool, but I still love ya."

You're not really old.

Hi Paul,

You write some weird things. I haven't mentioned making Aboriginal Flags for years. I HAVE written about 'communities', self-determination (I wonder what differences sixty thousand university graduates, one in eight adults, could make to genuine self-determination), what has happened in Indigenous history, the need for evidence to back up assertions, etc. as well as tertiary education. Why does that get up your nose so such ?

Invasion of Australia was inevitable, but for very many Indigenous people, dreadfully tragic, and continues to be. There seems to be a divide between, putting it crudely, city and rural/remote populations, with rural and remote populations trapped - partly by remoteness and partly by culture and history - outside the rapid social change impacting on all of the rest of Australia. I don't know the answer to their problems - well, you can lead a horse to water, etc.

I have a great fear that 'communities' will wither away with very few people able AND willing to make the leap into the opportunity structure of Australia. Certainly, people are leaving remote 'communities' and moving to the parklands of towns and cities, bringing their lifelong-welfare life with them, and utterly unskilled. I fear that they will raise their kids in the same way - and in turn, THEIR kids as well. Oscar Lewis' 'culture of poverty' comes to mind, the intergenerational transmission of a welfare and skill-less culture.

Meanwhile, the descendants of those Indigenous people who moved from communities after the War, to work in all sorts of fields across rural Australia, and then into the cities - it's their grandchildren and great-grandchildren (that's how long it takes) who are seizing opportunities in education. So I am full of hope for that population.

Joe

Well said Joe! Your best post in sometime.

Remote communities/small isolated communities suffer disadvantage. I come from out in the central west of NSW. At one time the village there had 2 shops, a post office, a one room primary school for about 40 kinds k to 6th class, 2 small churches, service for each one a month, and a maned railway station, believe it, the village even had a tennis court. A thriving village of about 30 to 40 houses dotted around, everyone knew everyone, a lovely place to live. Sadly progressive change has seen all that go over the past 50 years, a trend that started after WWII.

I do remember the flag making, you mentioned it again a few months back. I still have one from years back, maybe you made it.

Hi Paul,

If it had a wonky centre disc, it probably was.

There are grave and fundamental misunderstandings between remote Aboriginal people and the realities of modern life: in your description of a genuine community, like so many across Australia, you'd surely note one crucial factor: the people there do it pretty much all themselves.

In remote Aboriginal communities, the misunderstanding is that may, if not most, if not all, people there think that some government agency or organisation will do it all for you. Rubbish in the streets ? Well, who made that packaging ? White fellas (i.e. outsiders). So 'it's their job to come in and clean it up', and 'anyway they do it for whitefellas' communities, don't they ?'. Schools, two or three hundred metres away ? 'It's their job to send the bus around to pick up the kids'. No matter how tiny the population, 'we want a shop'. No matter how far out from town, 'we want our roads graded, and if possible, sealed.'

Innocent misunderstandings about how the world works. I'm certainly not saying that people are lazy, or dim, simply that they have got the wrong end of the stick about outside life. Many people in remote communities think that whitefellas all get free houses and someone to come in and keep their gardens tidy, that they get free cars, etc., 'so why can't we get all that' ? So resentment built on total misunderstandings. For those reasons, I don't think that 'disadvantage' is the most appropriate word, although it is certainly a cultural factor.

Joe