Acknowledgement of country 'culture wars'
March 17th, 2010 by Kim | Published in Culture, Indigenous, Language, Politics, Race | 272 Comments
They’re at it again:
Members of the Liberal Party have been creating a minor storm about the matter of Indigenous recognition. In statements made to the Adelaide Advertiser yesterday, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott implied that formal recognition of traditional owners at the beginning of significant events is superficial and unnecessary. ‘I guess this is the kind of genuflection to political correctness that [Labor ministers] feel they have to make’ he said. ‘Sometimes it’s appropriate to do those things, but certainly I think in many contexts it seems like out-of-place tokenism.’ Liberal backbencher Wilson Tuckey weighed in a few hours later, claiming such recognition was a ‘farce’, while Senator Eric Abetz called it ‘outdated’ and a ‘fad’.
One of the more eye-opening things to come out of this, for me, was learning on Q&A that the soporific Peter Dutton had actually offered his resignation to Brendan Nelson, so strong did he feel about not attending the Apology.
These sorts of culture war debates are, of course, plagued by false dichotomies. They’re also plagued by sneaky elisions of meaning – if something is ‘superficial’, that doesn’t imply that it is ‘unnecessary’, but rather that the meaning embodied in the words should provoke thought, stimulate reflection, change minds, incite action. To that degree, there’s a sort of validity in the criticism, as Stephanie Convery says, but not of the sort that Abbott and co. think:
But the problem is not in the act of formal recognition but in the assumption that lip service is all there is to it. The truth is, there is a disconnect between political symbolism and action on Indigenous issues in Australia. The recognition of traditional owners, the welcome to country, is essential if only because it draws attention to this disconnect. It reminds the non-Indigenous listener of the fact of their colonial heritage, of the continued existence of Indigenous people and culture, and their direct relationship to everyone who calls themselves Australian. Or at least, it should.
I think her conclusion is spot on:
If the mere act of speaking recognition has become tired, perhaps that is because we are no longer paying attention to what we are saying. It doesn’t follow, however, that the act of speaking should be omitted. Formal recognition is a sign of respect for Indigenous people, their cultures and their status as first Australians. It should be seen as an important step, but only one of many towards mainstream recognition of the complexity and breadth of Australian history and identity, and ultimately, reconciliation.
Elsewhere: Pavlov’s Cat:
What floors me is that even people whose stock-in-trade is language seem to feel quite happy about trashing language as essentially worthless. It’s nothing more than intellectual laziness: an acceptance of the notion that words and deeds are somehow the opposite of each other, each with a clear moral value and no prizes for guessing which is which. The lure of the false dichotomy is strong, I know — it makes opining so much easier — but you’d think a Rhodes Scholar would have been taught at some point in his education how to avoid its simplistic snares.
Because speech is an act, and so is thought, and so is decision-making about how you will behave. To acknowledge traditional owners at a public function is to remind everyone present of Aboriginal history and culture. It’s a small reversal of erasure and a little raiser of consciousness. Recognition is an act, and so is the expression of respect.
Is there no issue too petty or small for these armchair culture warriors to gibber and fret about?
Very well, if we’re going to do away with “tokenistic” and “superficial” rituals, let’s do it properly:
- No Lord’s Prayer at the start of Parliament.
- No more raising, or saluting, the flag.
- No singing the national anthem at sports matches, shopping malls, school assemblies, etc.
- No more minute’s silence at sundown in the RSL clubs (it interrupts the pokies).
- No more annual orgy of ANZAC backpacker nostalgia at Suvla Bay.
- No ‘straya Day piss-ups.
- No safety demonstration at the start of airline flights.
- No health warnings on cigarette packs.
- No singing Happy Birthday for people you don’t like and giving gifts they don’t want.
- No going to church on Xmas and Easter unless you’re a regular (same with Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah!)
- No wedding receptions full of in-laws who wouldn’t ordinarily sit in the same room if you paid them.
- No greeting people with “how are you?” unless you’re interested in the answer .
- No saying “fine” in reply unless you actually are fine.
- No Yr 12 high school formals where everybody promises to stay friends forever.
- No Oscars, Logies, Walkleys, ARIAs, So You Think You Can Dances…
- No “performance management” for people who are, definitely, come hell or high water, getting the sack.
- No spouses pretending to listening to their other half while watching the telly.
- No bow-ties.
Think that’s silly? No sillier than what they’re crapping on about.
It’s just dog-whistle, the real message is “Shut-up about those dirty, drunken Abo’s, white people created this great Nation of Olympic Swimming Champions OY! OY! OY!”.
Why do I need to be welcomed to my own country? I was born here and I am Australian, no more or less than anyone else.
It looks like Tony Abbott’s moment of enthusiasm for indigenous sovereignty at Cape York has now well and truly passed.
Gee Dutton’s a stooge. I get Tuckey and Abetz – guys like that have been roaming Oz since 1788 – but Dutton makes my head shake every time he makes an appearance.
Today’s SMH editorial opinion (unattributed)
Abbott’s welcome to an old country
Ian Conway is the Aboriginal man who rescued a lost Tony Abbott and his quad bike-borne party from the gathering dark in the central Australian desert recently. The Opposition Leader could do with a similar guide through the tricky ground into which he has just wandered with his jibe at ”welcome to country” greetings by Aboriginal elders at important functions.
The Aboriginal people Abbott has met on his several forays into Northern and central Australia have a link with land, ethnicity and tradition that is quite obvious. The vast majority of the half million-plus Australians identifying as Aboriginal have more tenuous links, resulting from decimation and displacement in the early days of white settlement and more recent policies aimed at absorbing them into the majority culture.
How much easier to visit the remote traditional communities in their harshly scenic localities, especially when they throw up self-help, anti-welfare figures like Conway or Cape York’s Noel Pearson, than to mingle with the people left by dispersal and attempted assimilation. These are battlers, mostly living and working in the wider community, but proud to preserve and pass on the cultural threads from their forebears.
Their elders, as the NSW Aboriginal Land Council’s Bev Manton points out, tend to be those who were moved onto reserves and missions, sometimes taken from their parents, and stopped from speaking their own languages or learning traditions. The welcome-to-country ceremonies they have come to provide may be thin and simple cultural vestiges, and their bodies no longer those of hunters and warriors – something knockers like the Liberal MP Wilson Tuckey derides – but these brief greetings are an opening for our imaginations into a world that has disappeared, a country in a more pristine form.
Tuckey says he feels no need to thank ”anyone for the right to be on the soil that is Australia”. On the contrary, most of us do feel thankful for being in this land, and appreciate the hand of friendship Aborigines are still holding out, after all that has been done to them.
Abbott says that in just two years (under Labor) the welcome ceremonies have veered towards tokenism and a ”genuflexion to political correctness that these guys [i.e. Labor] feel they have to make”. Of course they are and always have been a token – as respectful gestures usually are. How much more token are occasional adventure tours in the wild, by a former health minister whose several years in the job produced little noticeable change in the appalling indicators of Aboriginal health.
Honestly this bullshit makes me puking goddamn sick. It ashames me that we live in a nation where casual racism and the historical denialism that goes with it is accepted and promulgated so goddamn casually and ignorantly.
I’ve been having an argument on another forum about “censorship debate” on the encyclopaedia dramatica entry.
I swear, if it wasn’t for my partner, I would be in fucking Finland, Sweden or Norway yesterday.
John Howard’s legacy carried forward by his puppet(s). Need I say more.
patrickg @ 4,
Agree absolutely.
Mercurius is correct. The mindless repetition of the lord’s prayer each day in parliament is superficial and unnecessary. It’s a genuflection to political correctness that politicians feel they have to make. It’s OK to say it sometimes but in parliament it’s out-of place tokenism. It really is an outdated farce.
Then again nobody wants to hurt the feelings of the Senate moron from Family First, but who gives a continental about the blackies?
No bow-ties.
*grabs pitchfork and torches*
Methinks this tripe shows some desparation on behalf of the lycra-clad loonie, cause I’m stuffed if I know what he would hope to achieve by this bull-shit, apart from to reinforce the fact that he is as shallow as a puddle and that anything is up for grabs in his quest to live in the Lodge. He really is nasty and this constant chanelling of the rodent may yet bring him undone.
And wot Mercurius @ 1 sed.
Not pathologising of Aboriginal kids much? Dutton says he wants tangible outcomes for “kids being raped and tortured in the 21st century”. I think we can say with certainty that not every Aboriginal child is being raped and tortured in the 21st century nor lives in the middle of Australia. Kind of like non Aboriginal kids really. This here is nothing more than thinly veiled racism posturing as benevolent concern. He can draw upon all his phantasmagorical visions of nightmare Aboriginals raping their children and in need of ‘practical reconciliation’ all he likes. The fact remains that if this land was founded on the principle of terra nullius, then every acknowledgment of the original owners, slaps down that principle every single time. And that makes him uncomfortable. As it should.
If Indigenous people or culture is more involved in a particular activity than the average Australian then it might be appropriate to acknowledge that involvement in a way consistent with Indigenous culture, otherwise Indigenous people and culture should be treated the same as any other. The Australian government is supposed to represent us all equally. The ‘some are more equal than others’ component of the above argument is nauseating.
Mercurius:
I agree with your first point about prayer (and with Abbott on the matter of excessively pervasive indigenous recognition), however the rest of your points are about individuals or private groups other than the government, so I don’t see how they apply to this issue.
All is not lost bro’s. A couple of years ago ABC FM did an outside broadcast in WA and in the nature of these things there were a couple of awkward stumbles of intro.
I wrote to them suggesting it would be a good idea if they adopted a welcome to country on such occasions. To my surprise they swiftly agreed. So while the likes of Abbott and the loathsome Dutton procrastinate, my suggestion is deal with the bureacracy and in time their sense of humanity, justice will outflank and bury the reactionaries.
I was hoping LP would post on this. Thanks Kim and Merc @1.
Rationalist: You’re somewhat missing the text and the point. It’s not “welcome to this country of Australia” but “welcome to country” as in the traditional lands of individual clans. A typical welcome would be:
(indigenous)
Hello my name is [insert name of speaker] a representative/Elder of the [insert organisation or local Indigenous group]. I would like to begin by paying my respect to the local Indigenous people [or insert name of Indigenous people], the traditional custodians of this land where we are meeting upon today. On behalf of the traditional custodians [insert local Indigenous group's name] I welcome you all.
(non-indigenous)
I would like to acknowledge that this meeting is being held on Aboriginal land and recognise the strength, resilience and capacity of Aboriginal people in this land.
Nowhere is it implying that anyone is more or less Australian than anyone else, it is simply the continuation of a tradition that is thousands of years old. In a country where we often lament our lack of History, and where we place such a high cultural value on the history we do have, it’s surprising that people don’t jump at this.
Having a problem with welcome to country speeches shows either a) a misunderstanding of what it means or b) dogwhistle racism.
This was Pauline Hanson’s line of reasoning. I take it you agree with her thinking then?
Totally agree that tokenism and mindless ritual are gruesome to watch. However, societies seem to be full of ritual. Lots of people seem to like it.
Churches are full of ritual. If Abbott has a sudden dislike for ritual, then he should have a look at the proceedings next time he attends mass.
The welcome to country ceremonies and the formal recognition are quite small items, which mean a great deal to some people. People who have felt marginalised for a long time. Why must we be ungracious?
Anyway it is uniquely Australian, and the welcome ceremonies add a bit of spice to proceedings. The poms have their queen in a golden chariot, we have a mini-corroboree or somesuch. Why not egg them on, and make a grander ceremony of it, not less?!! :)
Am I right in thinking that Wilson Tuckey, if nobody else, simply doesn’t understand the difference between an Indigenous welcome to country and an acknowledgement by (usually white) chairpersons and MCs and so on of traditional owners? Is that where all this gibberish about overweight dancers is coming from?
(Memo to Ironbar: maybe if your mob had lifted its game on Aboriginal health some time during the eleven years it was in government, fewer Aborginal people would be in the bad shape you so despise.)
Casey,
Yes, there were some arguments put forward by Pauline Hanson that I agree with. I fail to see what her support of an idea has to do with it’s merit though. Are you in the habit of disagreeing with something purely based on who supports or opposes the idea?
Dutton was a Queensland copper before he went into politics. Apologise for past wrongs? Acknowledge traditional ownership? My guess is he’d rather eat his own excrement.
It’s hard to fathom the hypocrisy, stupidity and downright ignorance of this mob. Watching Dutton on Q&A postulate his mealy mouth, disgraceful excuse for an opinion gave new meaning to the word disgusting.
These are people that are beneath contempt, yet they are seriously putting themselves forward as an alternative government of this country.
patrickg@6 – my sentiments exactly.
Desipsis:
Then allow me to explain. They reflect social and cultural mores that exemplify our ideals of behaviour, even though we often fall short of the ideals we espouse, and often fail to follow through with acting on the ethical and moral imperatives they imply. (Except for the bow-ties.)
You’re smart enough to join the dots from there.
Desipsis, I don’t see how a factual exposition and reminder of chronology (they were here first, now we’re here, they’re now saying “welcome” after a fairly patchy start to the relationship) amounts to a ‘some are more equal than others’ component. Are you sure you’re not reading into the proposition a value judgment that just isn’t there?
No Depsis, it was not about that. I was interested to situate your argument in an historical moment in time. That Hanson’s ascendancy occurred in the wake of Mabo is important. The Hanson argument was interesting in that the ‘call to sameness’, which you are repeating verbatim, elided difference and gained a foothold with a bunch of disenfranchised white people at a time when Australians were getting to grips with the fact that Indigenous presence had been enshrined in law with the Native Title Act. The other half of this, of course, was that Hanson raised up “the white man” as the biggest victim of all.
I am also interested in this construct you use -’average Australian’ – what is an ‘average Australian’? I’m curious because it is this construct you use to differentiate Aboriginal people even as you insist upon their unremarkable sameness. So what exactly is an ‘average Australian’?
Mercurious,
However most of those are done at specific and relevant times (or dates). I don’t think many people would have an issue with such things being said on national day dedicated to indigenous people and culture.
Although the main disconnect I see between your points and the indigenous acknowledgement issue is that I don’t have a problem with people acting in ways symbolically linked to their ideals. What I have a problem is with our elected representatives engaging in acts on everyone’s behalf that symbolically raise one race or culture over all others where there is no cause to do so.
We can do without the Lord’s Prayer in Parliament – as a Christian I find its usage in that context little short of blasphemous.
However – welcome to country has to do with respect and reminding us of a significant element of our history which has been ignored misrepresented and passed over – the invitation to Wilson Tuckey from people at the Aboriginal embassy to come down and have “a cuppa’ was gracious not matched by his comment that he wouldn’t go down ther because “it was a slum”.
What makes that element of chronology any more important that the rest of history to the extent we need drum it into peoples heads everyday. What other part of history do we acknowledge daily?
Tony always starts a sentence without a ritual um…, arr.. or er…
I think it’s out of unconscious recognition of the random drivel he’s about to inflict on the listening public.
A kind of warning to country.
It’s an abstract concept. If indigenous Australians make up 2.5% of the population then the average Australian is 1/40th indigenous. If the national government emphasises indigenous people and culture in a way that is not roughly in line with that fraction then it does not represent the average Australian, and individual Australians are not being represented equally.
None of us are ‘average Australians’, hence we are all different from the average Australian. It’s not a term I use to differentiate specific races or cultures.
desipis must be Ms Hanson’s former press secretary.
Hear, hear patrickg @ 6!
I was gobsmacked when I was listening to a certain Lib member on Hack (I think) going on and on about this and talking about how ‘before white people got here there were only 300,000 of them and that’s the best they could do.’ I was gobsmacked.
Less of a dog whistle there and more or a call to arms.
As if anyone is still listening.
As someone said in another thread. Any Hansonites out there who’d be interested in such a call would still remember the role of the current leadership in Hanson’s downfall.
Speaking of which…someone should do a new edit of that Downfall thing.
Ever been in the bush, desipis, day or night, on your own, in the quiet, some sense of place, some unacknowledged spirit? Or, on a dark night, through the think white gums beyond,where you definitely cant see, something you don’t want to meet, let alone know, is there? Heard some wild call, a strange bird, the grunt of some passing hidden beast, the rustle of something dashing through the long grasses in the middle of the day, gone so quickly you can’t see it? These are the kinds of things the Aborigines are custodians of, these things and countless more. and that’s what we, as Europeans, acknowledge as welcome to country, that, and much much more. Its part of the very Australianesss that has become part of us, indigenous or European.So that’s what makes it important for all of us.
I see what you mean Desipis. And what percentage are white people of anglo origin would be. How many parts of the ‘average Australian’ would they represent do you reckon?
Sorry, I mean “what percentage are white people of anglo origin” in your calculations?
Aborigines are custodians of my over-active imagination (or spiritual experiences)? Really, that’s your argument?
‘None of us are ‘average Australians’, hence we are all different from the average Australian. It’s not a term I use to differentiate specific races or cultures.’
I’m puzzled then why anyone would use it at all.
‘What other part of history do we acknowledge daily?’
I’m told many children are forced to honour the flag daily; a symbol of our British colonial legacy. Balancing it with an occasional reference to the people who were here for millennia before the union jack arrived seems an unexceptionable practice, to anyone who is not actively seeking excuses to whine about aborigines getting special treatment.
If you put all ‘white’ people into one simplistic monolithic culture then probably quite a lot. The numbers are here. We have more people identify as being from China than we have that identify as having Indigenous origins, why don’t we acknowledge the contribution they’ve had to our culture every day (or any of the other nations/races/cultures that form a significant portion of our society?
Because I figured people would understand it the meaning as being that such focus on indigenous Australians is disproportionate with the racial and cultural make up of our country. But I guess “average Australian” is one of those unPC terms that causes a failure of thought in progressives. I’ll have to add that to the list of terms not to use when having a discussion with people who like to shoehorn people who disagree with them into simple ideological boxes.
desipis @ 35,
No.
@37 – Because Indigenous peoples are the first peoples of this land, Desipis. Surely that’s obvious.
Paul Burns @ 39,
Care to state your argument directly then, rather than trying to make me extrapolate it from examples?
Mark@37,
The fact is obvious; the reasoning between that fact and the cause to reference it daily eludes me. I don’t see why that fact alone is enough.
Mark #40. The current “indigenous” are roughly the 5th wave of occupants. First people here they ain’t.
Rockstar Philosopher’s comment is the only one making much sense.
The welcome to country is localised and specific to the area and the people traditionally associated with the area.
This statement by Abbott is politics and nothing more – low , base , typical behaviour of a dog whistling attention seeker.
In the policy free zone the Liberal Party currently floats in the only thing that counts is the amount of noise being generated.
Many other comments on this thread are very exaggerated or tendentious in their intent- hey what would LP be without them?
And Casey – would you be including the irish in with the anglos you are asking about?
You wouldn’t consider them the same surely.
Then desipis your opinion differs from that of many people here; more to the point, it differs from that of the prime minister. People of goodwill have different opinions about all kinds of things; usually we don’t seek to imposer our opinion on others unless their actions are interfering in our own affairs.
What you have failed to explain is why this difference of opinion over a trivial matter outrages you so much. If it’s appreciated by indigenous people, and it doesn’t hurt you or cost you anything, who on earth are you so agitated about it?
The formal recognition of country implies that aboriginal people have rights in that country, to speak for that country and carry out activities that are recognised by others in that country. Accordingly they have existing (and surviving) Aboriginal identity and culture. It is this that achingly grinds some of the libs so. These blackfellas should just go and get a job and forget all that stuff and all will be sorted. Australia is pretty much thirty years behind other nations in acknowledging first nation people.
One’s opinion differing from that of the Prime Minister is a positive, Ken Lovell, not a negative. The current Prime Minister is incompetent on a jaw-gaping scale, in just about every aspect of life.
Desipis, if you are going by population fraction then yes, you should expect the Acknowledgement of Country to take up 1/40th of the time, so the single minute it takes at my son’s school speech day is dreadfully inadequate. The two-hour event should devote three minutes to this matter. Of course if you want to go by proportion of history rather than population, you’d get quite a different result…
I am not sure where Acknowledgement of Country speeches occur daily. Mostly they occur at ‘significant events’, where you might expect to sing the National Anthem.
Australia, like everywhere else, has had some glorious moments and some inglorious ones in its history. I’m not sure why people find this hard to cope with — after all, we whinge about the Japanese because they don’t teach their kids what Gramps was actually up to on his little holiday in Singapore/Burma/Manchuria…
I’m not outraged. (I mean if it’s trivial why do it?) What “bothers” me is the way the general governmental approach towards indigenous people is inconsistent with the ideals of equality (along with how readily people will abandon such ideals when it suits their political cause).
I’m curious what the majority of Australians think of this issue, have there been any surveys done?
“The Australian government is supposed to represent us all equally. The ’some are more equal than others’ component of the above argument is nauseating.”
This, specifically, seems to be your gripe; that the government is favouring one group, in all things, over another. However it’s total nonsense. You imply that the welcome to country demonstrates a bias towards aboriginal people by the Australian government, I put it to you that that is a figment of your fevered imagination.
The Australian government does, for all intents and purposes, represent all citizens equally. Indeed all citizens are equal before the law which is probably more important. The ceremony under discussion here does nothing to change that formula. People like you are so deeply prejudiced that they respond like hounds to this racist dog whistle. That you try to put a rational spin on you spurious argument only highlights its flaws and you own disconcerting beliefs.
“Welcome to Country” ceremonies are not such a regular event that I have ever seen one. (The “acknowledgement of tribe X traditional owners” is quite common however).
As far as I can make out, the welcome to country ceremony is a recent development & has no basis in traditional culture.
The only time I have come anywhere near to encountering such a ceremony was when a new staf member announced that they would not be commencing work until a “welcome to country” ceremony (complete with “smoking in”) was conducted in the office, in about three days time.
You can guess the rest.
Abbott’s comments make me feel simply sad. Not, however, disheartened. If there are people who don’t understand what it is to feel that you are ‘in country’ then that is their problem. Plenty of non-Aboriginals do understand what it is about and especially those Australians residing in their country where they feel a special affinity with the landscape and the life forms that inhabit it. Not understanding that feeling of ‘my country’, the special place where your heart and meaning is, testifies to the brutalised hearts and minds of the uncomprehending and nothing else.
As to recognising first Australians by agreeing to participate in their ‘welcome to country’ or acknowledging their initial occupancy – it always feels genuine to me and stands in stark contrast to the horrible oikishness of ANZAC Day at Suvla Bay. My all time favourite footage of Howard is of him addressing a freezing crowd of stuporous drunks wrapped in flags at Gallipolli one year at ANZAC. Pathetic. There really are two types of citizen here – those who’ve made their peace with Aboriginals and those who’ve not.
@ desipis
Where exactly do we have daily recognitions of aboriginal history etc? I’ve worked in retail, health and politics and never come across it on more than an occasional basis. On top of that, how exactly are indigenous people being treated ‘more equally’ than everyone else? Do they get special treatment in law courts? Are they given top priority by our health system? Are the perhaps over represented in parliament and at the head of major banks and businesses? I’m just curious to know what ‘extra’ equality acknowledging their existence a few times a year grants them.
Desipis I suggest you actually read the post, specifically the observations by Stephanie Convery and Pavlov’s Cat. You’ll find they anticipated and dealt with the things that ‘bother’ you @ 48. If you disagree with them you might constructively comment by engaging with their arguments, instead of stating your personal opinion as if it brings some fresh insight to the discussion.
Chookie:
It goes to relevance. Unless your son’s school is one of those with high proportion of aboriginal students, aboriginal culture has very little to do with what the school speech day is about: recognising the achievements of the teachers and students. I’d also say the same for the national anthem, Australian flag or external cultural symbols.
Yeah, if we did they we’d spend most of the time worshipping a lifeless rock and non-sentient life.
Legislatively yes, however the executive/administrative sections of the government have long made policies that discriminate on a racial basis.
despis
I read through the comments thread thinking you are a bit of a dill and wanted to respond to your points against an acknowledgment of Indigenous Australians, however I could not think of anything to say. So I read only your posts in this thread and realised its because at no point do you actually articulate a reason not to have an acknowledgment of Indigenous Australians.
You have used some vague arguments against an acknowledgment and used peoples responses to go further from the original point. The best I can work out is you have some weird opinions about counting everyone’s exact racial history and using that to make things somehow equal.
You can’t even keep a coherent argument together. In Post 25 you say you would be okay with an acknowledgment on a day dedicated to Indigenous Australians, but then you go on to say “What I have a problem is with our elected representatives engaging in acts on everyone’s behalf that symbolically raise one race or culture over all others where there is no cause to do so.” How can you acknowledge a whole day for Indigenous Australians when it would not fill your idea of equal because of your apparent race quota, and it would mean elected representatives raising one culture over another?
Aboriginal people were here first and it is a sign of respect to acknowledge that fact. Its pretty bloody simple and if its too hard for you to comprehend well that’s your problem.
@55 well put Yuwalk.
And this is why one Keating is worth more than a hundred Abbotts. If we bulldozed their past like their paddocks, what would their passive-aggressive racism come up with? Despicable.
RP @ 16 ” it is simply the continuation of a tradition that is thousands of years old.”
Really?
I wondered how long it would be before Tony Abbott started dog whistling. Sure enough, I wasn’t disappointed. He’s well-versed in the old Howard textbook on how to score cheap political points by playing on people’s prejudices. Peter Dutton is no surprise either -I think he’s probably to the right of Wilson Tuckey on racial issues, which is saying something in itself.
I was fortunate enough to attend a Young Labor/Young Liberals NSW parliamentary debate a few years ago, just after the Clarke/Hawke faction gained the upper hand and installed all their right wing factional buddies in key positions. The NSW Young Labor crowd, from time to time, began their speeches by acknowledging the traditional indigenous owners of the land on which they were standing. The NSW Liberals tried to come up with their own version of this by acknowledging Her Majesty the Queen and the British before beginning their speeches. It honestly was the lamest thing I’d ever seen but undoubtedly Abbott would have done exactly the same
For me, you can never acknowledge the traditional owners of the land enough. It’s a sign of respect, an acknowledgment of the significant role that our indigenous forefathers played in our history and an acknowledgment of the fact that what we enjoy today came at a great price to those who preserved and protected the flora, fauna and landscape of this beautiful country for centuries. For that reason, I hope that politicians from all across the political spectrum will ignore Mr. Abbott and the cultural war hatemongers and keep on acknowledging and honoring the role of indigenous people
Razor @57: you have more accurate information?
Really?
Primarily, because as a non-Indigenous Australian it offends me that non-Indigenous contributions to our country remain unacknowledged in an equivalent manner. What is your reason to not also include acknowledgement of Australians of British and other cultural or racial heritages at the same time?
There are already days acknowledging cultural sources as (or less) arbitrarily significant than the influence of indigenous culture. There aren’t any such daily acknowledgements, except perhaps for the religious ones that I also support not doing (or at least doing so in a more comprehensively inclusive manner).
Yes happily little vegebees, I’m back, tanned, rested and nixonised after unfortunate coup de perestrokia with negative elements. Administrative detention proved surpassingly slimming. Then the table was inverted and now deviant running dog rival Helmuth getting taste of no food diet.
I fully endorse and sanctify this “hello to county” block party cool runnings move.
When Boskone incorporates fresh juicy planets into our glorious co-prosperity sphere of first galaxy influence, we always ask at mauler point that occupants welcome us to country, so we feel justifed. legalised and ancient as we rave party on their metallic resources, beachfront stimulants and Hefner breeding stocks.
But true, if we don’t get welcome to country then they get negaspheres in all offices and orifices while we wash our *untranslatable* like your famous bible pilot, Antoine De Sade. Not our fault they didn’t invite us.
Then we read them their rites. You betcha, plastic simulacrum of unweaned female human.
Boskone abides! Unlike Merry AIG Lynch Lohan.
So, you are saying that you want every single cultural and racial grouping acknowledged at every official function so that the ‘average Australian’ can be represented adequately? This is a fair arrangement to you?
Pavlov…what I loved about Ironbar’s talk of overweight dancers is that it was said without a nore of irony.
Steve at the Pub raises an interesting issue. Although I read in Nexus that there were only one or two peoples her before the Aboriginals but hey, I love the logic.
Just imagine if I was to go into the cop shop and complain that I’d been rolled only to be told “sorry mate. Says here that one of your ancestors was transported for stealing bread and raping sheep. Morally we can’t and won’t follow it up. In fact, instead of driving you to the hospital we might just mock you instead. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”
(Next up in the sidline olympics…my favourite arguement “Hey if you feel so strongly about just compensation for the Aboriginals why aren’t you for the English sueing Italy for the Roman invasion hmmmmmmmmmmm? Hypocrite.”)
Are you smoking weed, dude? The is no perfect equivalent, because indigenous and non-indigenous cultures are different. Moreover, there are constant ceremonial occasions recognising the contributions all Australians. So many, in fact, that I’m going to leave it as an excercise for you to look them up.
Are you serious? Who do you think the welcome is aimed at? It a meeting of two parties, with local indigenous people on one side, and on the other…
If you don’t get it you are either an idiot or something much less useful.
Desipis: For a person who claims not to be outraged, you sure spend a lot of time disproving this. So far some 14 of the 62 comments (22.5 per cent) of the comments have come from you. A bit over the top, I suggest.
I’m wondering how the Depisises and Razors of the world would feel if the argument was reversed.
We are constantly reminded that, if it hadn’t been for the efforts of our brave lads (and our allies) during WWII we’d all be speaking Japanese now. So what if that had happened and now, sixty years later, English-speaking Australian-born people of Anglo heritage and their descendents were no longer the dominant demographic in Australia?
How would we feel, do you think, if our own history was rewritten by the conquerers? How would we like to have our sufferings and disadvantages ignored; our language and cultural history virtually erased and any attempts by nice Japanese people to acknowledge our previous ownership of the land belittled by other Japanese people who think we should just get over ourselves and accept the dominant culture?
Hmmm?
Desipis, I am prepared to apply your fractional fantasies to the thread. Given your comments are only 22.5% of the whole, as JohnL points out, you should remain ignored and unacknowledged. After all you just a minority in the whole that makes up the average commenter on this thread.
Now be quiet from here on in. You are not special. There are more of us that disagree with you than agree with you, so only the majority which represents the average commenter here should speak.
How is that working for you?
Casey,
Short answer: yes. However practical limitations would lead me to suggest some sort of rotation or roster of cultures, say each culture one gets its own day (or more depending on significance) of the year?
despis – wot a wamker.
Just on the recognition component, I think it is becoming less meaningful because of how often it is done, becoming more notable by its absence these days than its presence. The equivalent would be people feeling it necessary to have a minutes silence at the start of all events to honor Australian soldiers. And I have begun to wonder how much people insert it into their talks believe it or if its more like staff at a shop asking me how I am today. FWIW I have similar views about singing the national anthem at events.
I don’t have a problem with people doing it if they want to – I went to a religious school so my mind naturally wanders off to other things while people get through their rituals and as other people have pointed out its over in a few seconds anyway and it doesn’t really cause any harm. I don’t think people should feel obliged to do it though.
tssk @ 62 said:
Do you have any links to that. I vaguely remember references to prior people in high school history classes but have wondered recently if someone just made that up. Then again I guess if you comprehensively wipe out prior inhabitants you get to rewrite history and call yourself the first people when the next lot of invaders come along.
When is this going to stop? Are we going to pay tribute to the Germanic tribes who were colonized by the Romans a millenium before the Saxons invaded Britain and then modernized Australia?
Australia is a relatively tolerant, democratic and meritocratic society. Get on with it; get a job and shut up. Thank God you’re not an ethnic minority in China.
The first time I saw Welcome to Country was at the Sydney Festival launch. I didn’t really know what it is all about. Similarly with Greens meetings: the acknowledgement of traditional owners had me a bit befuddled, because I hadn’t encountered it elsewhere. It wasn’t until this thread that I thought on its importance, on par with Lord’s Prayer. I don’t especially like the Lord’s Prayer and I’d rather it not be there, however we’re a tolerant society and we should respect our heritage. The Lord’s Prayer make a significant part of that, as does Acknowledgement.
I think, simply, that the meaning of Acknowledgement or Welcome to Country is lost. To someone who doesn’t know about its tradition and doesn’t have much interaction with indigenous Australians, it can be seen as blatant tokenism and political correctness gone wild, and that’s essentially what I thought until now.
“Australia is a relatively tolerant, democratic and meritocratic society.”
Agreed, J.
Despite regularly being forced into the shallow farce of acknowledging the priority of the people we systematically dispossessed, raped, murdered and discriminated against for 200+ years, we still seem to muddle through okay.
Chris…I’ve never seen any proof. I just don’t like the thinking that goes along with it. It allows a get out clause of recognising Aboriginal rights at all. “Hey! They wiped out some group of people before them! So our civilised society can do the smae and we need not worry.”
I actually didn’t read it in Nexus by the way. I used to hear it from my elders years ago, usually while the respected speaker was slurring about how “they” got special treatment, more dole, houses etc before turning back to the cricket.
despis you say “Primarily, because as a non-Indigenous Australian it offends me that non-Indigenous contributions to our country remain unacknowledged in an equivalent manner. What is your reason to not also include acknowledgement of Australians of British and other cultural or racial heritages at the same time?”
I have aquick answer for you. Firstly the vast majority of Indigenous Australians do not care about having some sort of ceremony first and the vast majority of Indigenous Australians do care about having some sort of acknowledgment.
You then say “There are already days acknowledging cultural sources as (or less) arbitrarily significant than the influence of indigenous culture.There aren’t any such daily acknowledgements, except perhaps for the religious ones that I also support not doing (or at least doing so in a more comprehensively inclusive manner).” Now obviously in your second sentence what you are saying makes perfect sense in your world view. Personally I think it points to all sorts of crazy and would lead to some Government Department feverishly counting and updating the racial/etnic/cultural backgrounds of all Australians so some sort of despis type equality can be achieved by saying a few words before holding a meeting.
Anyway to your first sentence. As you so obviously care so deeply about this equality thing can you point me out to your campaign to make sure there are equal days for all Australian backgrounds. I am sure we are lacking days for many ethnic backgrounds. In fact one of the greatest injustices I can think of right now required the suspension of the racial discrimination act to target just one group of people. I would be interested if you could direct me to any comments you have made on the subject?
Thanks.
There, fixed that for you.
Thanks, Mercurius. Quite seriously, it’s been an enlightening thread.
And there’s the philosophy of Australian conservatism in 2 pithy sentences – we’re alright and it’s only bludgers and no-hopers who say otherwise. Bewdy mate!
@ 76 Yep Gummo: that could be the conservatives’ next campaign slogan.
It combines all their best features – complacency, spite, defensiveness and insecurity all wrapped up in one luvverly bundle of over-compensating bravado!
this is just weird, desipis. Doesn’t saying the Lord’s prayer at Parliament count as acknowledging our colonial heritage? Australia and ANZAC day? Queen’s birthday public holiday?
For all your waffle about different cultures, there are three main streams which make up Australian culture – Aboriginal, white colonial, and immigrant. Acknowledging all three doesn’t do any harm and can only do good.
As for the school example – if the school is built on land that was stolen from someone who will never get it back, and whose descendants won’t get it either, don’t you think recognising that for 1 minute once a year might not be too much to ask? 100% of the school’s existence depends on the disenfranchisement. What’s the problem?
I for one would be happy to pay the Danegeld, so long as it were a properly progressive means-tested tax instrument. I mean, if the alternative is having every flax-headed backpacker burn my turnip fields and carry me back in chains to Copenhagen; I’m all for it.
Tha achievements of the students are without consequence if they occur in a bubble. The presence of civic leaders and broader cultural elements (Acknowledgement of Country, Anthem, MP’s Speech etc) tells the children that their achievements are important in our culture, not just in the world of school and family.
The flag, with its expression of both our British civic heritage and colonial history, is raised and lowered every day at our school. This is hardly a lack of acknowledgement! The Acknowledgement of Country on Speech Day doesn’t seem disproportionate to me.
Incidentally, I’d like to know which is the group where the traditional religion involves “worshipping a lifeless rock and non-sentient life.” I’m no expert, but it doesn’t look to me like Aboriginal religion involves any worship at all: it’s more like spiritual maintenance of physical constructs. Or are you speaking from ignorance?
@53
If you live in Australia, it’s relevant.
There would be no achievements of the teachers and students without first dispossessing the original inhabitants of the land and building the school. The students’ efforts and endeavours can be celebrated throughout the remaining 119 minutes of the assembly, but are they really so immature and starved for attention that they can’t handle 1 minute of acknowledgement that they are the direct beneficiaries of an historical act of dispossession? (or is it just the “grown-ups” who fidget and can’t handle this?) And that a formal welcome to the children by an Elder is a very important act in healing for the future relationship of different peoples?
I hear many people wax lyrical about the luminous benefits of civilisation that settlers brought to this continent. Well, one of the things civilised people do is acknowledge and memorialise historical and present injustices. Viking raiders smash the sacred sites and move on without looking back or remembering. Civilised people pause and reflect. It’s called being an adult and acknowledging things that occur beyond the end of your own nose.
The call for “relevance” just reads like a child’s desire to make everything all about you and not extend one’s awareness into how one got here and what made our achievements possible. Dispossession is part of that story. In fact, it’s the first part, so it doesn’t seem too much to take one minute at the start of a 2-hour assembly to acknowledge that. That is, if we are the civilised adults so many of us loudly brag about being, and not Viking raiders.
Terry #4, Peter Dutton became enthusiastically involved in Queensland conservative politics as a teenager when the fallout from the Fitzgerald Inquiry was at its most intense. I think that tells us a lot.
There are some things Abbott feels strongly about, dislike of trade unions for example, but the cultural stuff is him a sop to the those in the Libs who take it seriously. Abbott’s is so often an undergraduate debater trying to rile an audience.
Chinda63 at #65: nice one. I like this argument about Japan because I have used it myself on a number of occasions in fights with my father (Royal Australian Navy 1944-46, trundled around the tropics in a corvette for two years and then round the coast minesweeping after the war ended). But here’s the problem: many people just can’t get their heads round analogies, and will simply look at you blankly and say ‘But it’s not the same.’
OTOH, it could be an indication that you’re a neo-maenad. Especially if you’re a female atheist.
The formal recognition of country implies that aboriginal people have rights in that country, to speak for that country and carry out activities that are recognised by others in that country. Accordingly they have existing (and surviving) Aboriginal identity and culture. It is this that achingly grinds some of the libs so. These blackfellas should just go and get a job and forget all that stuff and all will be sorted. Australia is pretty much thirty years behind other nations in acknowledging first nation people.
zoot @ 58 – my current understanding is that this ceremony is less than 40 years old. If there is anthropological evidence that it is older please educate me.
WHat it comes down to is that Liberals like Abbott and Howard don’t have a problem with Aborigines as individuals – I’m sure Abbott would be thrilled if one of his daughters married someone like Adam Goodes – but they can’t come to terms with Aborigines as a people and as a culture.
So a roster you say Desipis.
Will we be doing it alphabetical?
Just to be fair?
Or will we be doing it by dominance?
Just to be fair.
I vote for dominance. Forget the Germans. The Italians come after the Anglos and you owe us some love for the coffee at least.
Now be reasonable Desipis. Your suggestions are getting plain weird.
You need to acknowledge the original owners. Why? Cause they were the original owners and we stole the land from them. They give us a welcome because it’s their land. Gracious of them really. Or don’t you believe that?
Abbott might not be so thrilled if one of his daughters married someone like Michael Mansell.
I’ll tackle only one of the numerous possible crude responses to the issue that I’ve seen so far and Razor’s it is:
“my current understanding is that this ceremony is less than 40 years old. If there is anthropological evidence that it is older please educate me.”
The very idea that authentic indigeneity must conform to anthropological standards is itself a racist denial of indigeneity as cultural form that unfolds and stands authentically in the present. Your view is commonly known as the wooden Indian approach or, to reshape that Americanism in Australian terms, the concrete garden warrior version of Aboriginality. In other words you recognise Aboriginality or indigeneity only in so far as it conforms to your ideas of authenticity by wearing head dresses and smoking peace pipes (American first peoples) or standing around on one leg, preferably against a setting sun, with spear and boomerang in hand (Australian first peoples).
What total arrogance on your part to presume that Aboriginality has a specific form that you are entitled to discount or acknowledge depending on the state of your own ignorance.
Razor, your current understandings are almost always wrong, but even if you’re right, so what? ANZAC day isn’t even 100 years old, so does that mean we should all just piss it away?
Well, Razor, let’s leave aside the fact that a ‘welcome ceremony’ for settlers could only be at most 222 years old, and that the active shooing away (and shooting) of Indigenous people ceased less than 100 years ago, and we stopped nabbing their children about 50 years ago, and they’ve only been enfranchised for 43 years, and they’re still dying in our gaols in unconscionably high numbers, how old could a sincere welcoming ceremony possibly be? I’d say 40 years is about the maximum possible age, given the circumstances of history. And furthermore I’d say it’s extremely generous of these Elders to so swiftly and fulsomely offer a hand of welcome, given the circumstances of history.
My take on political correctness is that, too often, it is a case of: “us superior people protecting those very inferior people from those uncouth inferior people.” It also shows up in an attitude that says: “It is OK for us (and aborigines) to attack European religion, culture etc. but we shouldn’t challenge these things when we a re talking about the religion etc. of those primitive people.” It also says it is OK for Aboriginal leaders to talk about us in a way that would be (rightly) condemned if we talked about Aborigines that way.
So I guess I would tend to agree with Tony when he says:
You could say that about many of the things on the Mercurios @1 list. They have all been devaulued by being said too often and being seen as something that has to be done for the sake of some form of correctness.
Sometimes it is appropriate to treat people from different cultures differently. For example, I would try not to use the name of a dead person in front of a Groote Eylandt friend any more than I would fail to provide pork free food to an Islamic friend who had come to dinner with us. However, in general, it is desirable to treat people with the same respect and expectations no matter what their ancestry is.
Tony is an interesting person when it comes to Aborigines. He has done hands on work at cape York and publicly respects Jenny Macklin and what she is doing. My impression of the quad bike saga was of someone doing something he wanted to do with people he got on with as human beings.
Is this redneck code for “the darkies should know their place”? Just wondering.
You see, 222 years ago, 100% of what went on this land had ‘relevance’ to Indigenous culture.
Then our ancestors came and planted our crops and built our highways and ran our cattle, and in doing so crowded out the space of Indigenous ‘relevance’ to a comparatively infinitesimal proportion of what it had held in the preceding 40,000 years.
So when the latter-day well-fed beneficiaries of all this magnificent dispossession take umbrage and high dudgeon about the ‘relevance’ of a brief welcoming ceremony, it seems to me just a tad…ungracious.
I honestly can’t believe I have to explain all this to a grown adult. I’ve taught 12 year-olds with a more intuitive and better developed understanding of good manners.
A bit off-topic but there is quite a commotion about this entry about Aborigines at Encyclopedia Dramatica.
An alternate-reality version of Wikipedia, this website usually displays screamingly funny undergrad piss-takery.
The Aborigine article is, however, nothing but the most vile, KKK inspired hatespeak.
http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Aborigine
CMMC @ 96 – Its difficult to find an encyclopedia dramatica entry that isn’t highly offensive to some group out there. But don’t worry, once the government’s filter is implemented no one in Australia will be able allowed to see it. Safe again.
And another thing for those who think that recent cultural developments fail the test of authentic indigeneity. According to those values the painting of Emily Kame Kngwarreye isn’t authentic because it uses “introduced materials” and nor is the dance work of the Bangarra Dance Theatre presumably because the company utilises modern music and amplifiers.
Strewth.
desipis,
There are spirits out in the bush, the jungle and the desert, sometimes even in places in the city. I had an Aboriginal friend take me to a very spiritual rock outcrop near Guyra years ago. These kinds of phenomena are the kind of things the Aboriginal people are guardians of. As I understand it threy’re tied up with their concept of ‘country’.
If you can’t fel it, you’re missing something. And I reckon thats one of the reasons we should have a welcome to country. The other one is common decency.
Quite right Anthony. We are very lucky that our culture has moved well away from the Georgian English culture of the first fleet.
We should also be very careful that we are not pressuring Aborigines to stay close to their “genuine” culture of 200 years ago. It has always struck me that this PC “cultural preservation” mindset is more about preserving something for us rather than doing something that is necessarily “good” for Aborigines.
It is also worth reminding ourselves that 2000 years of Jewish history has demonstrated that minorities can maintain separate cultures that do take advantage of innovations of the broader culture. It is also a demonstration that minorities don’t have to maintain a monoculture to survive.
What really matters is that the lives of Aborigines improves in terms of their evolving priorities and values.
anthony @ 95 – so it is OK for some to claim it is a ancient ritual, when in fact it is something they just decided to make up recently and now we (taxpayers) pay them to come and perform it. I’ll give them an A for business nous.
I see parallels with them claiming their traditional rights to hunt and kill protected species of animals (turtles,dugongs) and then use motor vehicles, outboard motors and guns to do the traditional hunting with.
Either it is ancient and traditional or it isn’t.
As someone who attends many government functions I hear the Acknowledgement of Country at least twice a week. Usually it is said and then the evacuation procedures and exits are explained. It is obviously part of the script and is said with very little meaning.In that way I think it demeans the whole idea.
I also regularly see Welcome to Country at conferences and that is usually something more meaningfu although it can sometimes be hard to find who should do the Welcome when different clans are fighting over who has the right to do the Welcome. It is often felt though that it has to be done though because it is now expected.
Maybe its the expected aspect that gets people riled up. The Acknowledgement in particular has lost a lot of its sincerity.
Some people on the thread have said things such as “people being acknowledged as having a special place and special relationship with this land upon which we and our children shall live together” and “acknowledging the priority of the people we systematically dispossessed, raped, murdered and discriminated against.”
Again, maybe its the “special place” and the “priority” that gets up people’s noses when there is an argument that there are many groups who are also deserving of priority when it comes to an Acknowledgemente.g. disabled people, survivors of domestic violence etc. How did it become that it was Acknowledgement of Aboriginal land that became the thing that was acknowledged.
I’d like to extend some of desipis and Razor’s arguments to Japan, if possible. Presumably:
1. they shouldn’t apologise for Nanking because it’s just tokenistic
2. neither desipis, Razor, SATP or Tony Abbot were bothered by Koizumi Junichiro’s trips to the Yasukuni Shrine because they’re just tokenistic and meaningless
3. in any case it’s just fantasy that he’s paying homage to when he talks about the souls of dead war criminals, so why should desipis care?
4. Japan has a 5000 (?) year history with lots of wars, so it’s silly for them to teach world war 2 for more than a few minutes
5. it also doesn’t matter what they call the Nanking “incident” or the “greater asian war” because words have no power
6. we shouldn’t have wasted a cent or a second on finding the belongings of those people in the mini-subs, let alone sending them back, because it was just a brief dot in time – it goes to the relevance of the thing. And why should we waste time on symbols?
7. the Kokoda trail is a complete waste of time (except for weight loss)
8. all those old fogies at the RSL should just &#*ing get over it
I think this is a policy that Tony Abbot should adopt based on these first principles of “tokenism”, “relevance” and the powerlessness of words. The Australian people will no doubt approve of his stance.
By that standard Razor, we’d better abolish the jolly red Santa Claus, since he’s barely a century old. Would you like tell the kids that Santa is an invalid non-traditional cultural bastard or shall I?
Meanwhile, a wise Rabbi once remarked that Judaism is a religion hallowed by over 50 years of tradition.
Razor, if you can show me one people or culture on the face of this earth who is living like their ancestors of 40,000 years ago, I’ll buy your argument. Otherwise I’ll just point out that you are holding Aboriginal culture to a standard that nobody on the face of this earth could achieve. I wonder why you’ve set the bar so high for this one, particular,
racecase?Out of one side of their mouth, those who argue like Razor will insist that Aboriginal people must maintain a hermetic cultural purity that is continuous and unbroken (or otherwise fully assimilate); and out of the other side of his mouth, those who argue like Razor will condemn Indigenous culture as making ‘no progress’ and having ‘nothing to show’ for their 40,000 year inhabitance of the land. It’s the all-too-familiar Catch-22 of the victim-blaming bully that thankfully will soon go the way of the dinosaur.
Why do those who claim they support ‘equal treatment’ for all races in Australia hold Aboriginal people to a far a higher standard of what “counts” as valid cultural practices, than any other peoples or races?
Like most authoritarian thinkers, it’s all or nothing with this crowd. The “good” Aboriginies (about 2% of them) are either the ones living like their 40,000 year old ancestors, or the ones who are totally assimilated. The “bad” Aboriginies (about 98% of them) are living with cultural hybridity, and are to be condemned for it, apparently.
Fact: every culture on earth is hybrid, polyglot and “mongrel”, for want of a better word. Cultures that encounter each other change each other. To insist as Razor does on hermetic cultural purity is to deny reality and, in a conspicuously racist fashion, to demand that Aboriginal people (alone) must leap over a far higher bar than any other cultural group, or else their practices are to be marginalised, ridiculed and ignored.
Me, I’m going to sincerely receive and enjoy the next Welcome to Country I attend. I’m going to reflect on how good it is that young Austrlaians growing up today can hear an Elder formally welcome them into this land of their birth. And I’m going to thank the bigots for reminding me just how important ceremonies like this are.
Yes, it’s a non issue. This whole notion of ‘must be traditional’ is just a white colonialist fantasy. Of course cultures change, and it would be very strange indeed if a culture which had been violently dispossessed maintained every jot and tittle of its ritual life identically over time. While this objection appears to have some force to those who want to hold Indigenous culture constant according to Anglo ideologies, it has absolutely bugger all to do with whether or not welcome to country ceremonies are (a) meaningful; (b) should be celebrated.
My argument is that the current generation’s level of guilt for past atrocities diminishes with each generation. For example, we hold Germans much more responsible of the actions of the Third Reich than we do for the – relatively more devastating – atrocities of the Thirty Years War.
So when Aboriginals and their apologists call this ‘their country’ and demand apologies and recognition for the actions of British settlers in the late eighteen century, wrong by today’s standards but not by the standards of their time, they claim is decreasingly valid.
Similarly, we must ask, is Britain today the country of the descendants of ancient tribes who lived there? Do they have more claim on the land than do the descendants of Anglo-Saxon settlers, or Norman invaders? Of course we must stop making these differentiations. Similarly, it is not appropriate to classify Australians by the status of their ancestors 200 years ago. Australians are Australians, and we must stop blaming past events for the unfortunate circumstances Aboriginals find themselves in today.
The real problems Aboriginals must face are cultural ones: little emphasis on education, work, and refusal to make hard pragmatic decisions regarding lifestyle. Our Anglo-Protestant tradition teaches us of the virtue of work and of learning and education. Australians who do not work hard at career and education also have lower living standards. Further, whenever we hear about the bad living conditions of Aboriginals, we always discuss those in rural communities. Guess what? Everyone’s living standards are lower in rural communities. If Aboriginals were to move to the cities, their living standards would rise. Instead, notions of native title and spiritual land keep Aboriginals impoverished by holding them back from geographically locating to places where there is more work.
Clearly, all Australians who are dissatisfied with their standard of living – Aboriginal, Anglo-Protestant or other – should not whine about past atrocities, but consider upgrading their education, work ethic or relocating geographically to more prosperous areas.
To be fair to Razor, his initial comment was in response to a statement that the tradition was thousand of years old. I’m no anthropologist, but my understanding is that the practice of welcoming outsiders to country is in fact thousands of years old, even if it has been in its current form for “only” forty years.
It shouldn’t need restating, but clearly it does, that the issue is not one of current generations’ guilt for past atrocities, but of the ongoing Australian nation’s historic responsibility for past actions committed by itself and its agents.
By way of one analogy, the Proctor & Gamble corporation can and should be held legally and morally liable for pre-natal harm suffered by people whose mothers took thalidomide in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It is legally and morally irrelevant that most of the company’s current shareholders probably weren’t shareholders at that time.
By way of another analogy, virtually none of the more conservative commentators on this thread behaved heroically at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915, or were even alive at the time, yet they no doubt regard this event as something in which they and all other Australians should take collective historic pride. WHy then can’t they see that ignoble acts by the Australian nation and its agents should be a matter for collective historic shame, and the formal apology by the sovereign legislature of the Australian nation which was adopted two years ago?
Mark, societies who maintain every last bit of their ritual life end up either like the Amish (pickled in aspic) or the Ghost Shirt Society (dead).
As others have pointed out, it’s nonsense.
Razor, my longtime understanding, which is supported by a quick Google search, is that Welcome to Country rites have been performed for thousands of years, when one clan travelled to meet another. See here and here for example.
I have zero expectation of this changing your view about anything.
Thank you for explaining our racist history so clearly, J. I’m glad we have nothing to worry about.
The plea for cultural authenticity from whites to aboriginal people is always racist and always a way to deny most indigenous people a place from which to speak. You’re not black enough, traditional enough, authentic enough etc, etc. We can choose how we’d like to change and what traditions we’d like to keep. You must be pure and never-changing. But then, of course, if you are living a traditional life, we’ll criticise you for not changing with the times and clinging to outdated rituals and beliefs.
i.e. they’re ignorant, lazy and dirty?
You mean you didn’t know that,sg? For shame!
Seems to me there’s far too much serious discussion about all this when it is far too minor a matter for Abbott’s pronouncements to be anything other than a dogwhistle.
Very interesting thread.
I have never witnessed a welcome to country. Am glad that they happen, sound very interesting.
sg@ 116, that is a much more succinct statement.
Yuwalk @77: “Personally I think it points to all sorts of crazy and would lead to some Government Department feverishly counting and updating the racial/etnic/cultural backgrounds of all Australians so some sort of despis type equality…”
This reminds me of a story about Helsinki, related by a Finn. They have street signs with multiple names, and the names have rotated the top poling spot at various times in history. Political correctness gone mad, or just practical?
Finland has had the misfortune of being invaded multiple times, backwards and forwards, principally by the Swedes and Russians (and also more recently by the Germans during WW2). Maybe this accounts for their affinity for grim storylines in movies?
Anyway, when Finland was annexed variously by Sweden or a Grand Duchy (or somesuch) of Russia, each time the street names in Helsinki were Swedified and Russified accordingly. It apparently became confusing for the residents, trying to remember and explain where they lived…
Being a practical people, they devised a wonderfully pragmatic solution, whereby the latest rulers got top billing and they simply rotated names when the next lot moved in. In some cases, the signs had 3 different street names on them (Finnish, Swedish and Russian). Some of those bulky signs were still in existence in the 1990′s. I don’t know if they are still there though.
Would this unique signwriting effort signify equality, despis-style? ;)
J@110
[So when Aboriginals and their apologists call this ‘their country’ and demand apologies and recognition for the actions of British settlers in the late eighteen century]
I am not aware that Welcome to Country is “demanded” by anyone. When it is done it is done voluntarily and is simply a recognition that we are on land previously belonging to someone else.
The broader issue of an Apology and recognition of past wrongs has nothing to do with Welcome to Country.
J @110:
The most narrow-minded, ill-informed statements on this entire thread.
You must live on the moon with statements like that.
By your definition, all cities have no poverty. If only the rustics jumped on a bus or a train and headed for the big smoke, their every problem would be solved!
Where on earth have you been living?!
Frankly, its statements like these – straight out of the Bigotry For Dummies book by Peter Dutton – that continue to covertly perpetuate the abject marginalisation of the Aboriginal culture.
You should stop whining about being accused of comitting past atrocities!
First up, I preferred the pithy, 2 sentence statement of the Australian conservatives’ philosophy, revealing as the exegesis is.
A more precise statement of the sentence I’ve emphasised is:
That’s debatable – you might find those things virtuous; others may not. In general, I regard the acquisition of knowledge, and education, as good things but I think it’s a fallacy to assert that learning more makes you virtuous. I’ve met too many learned arseholes to believe that. With those two disposed of, let’s move onto the question of whether work is virtuous.
The answer, clearly, is no. This can easily be proven by finding an example of an occupation – a form of “work” (i.e. paid employment) that routinely involves acts which are not virtuous. For example:
Well, no ya don’t.
NB – that line about Charlie Partanna isn’t a quotation.
Binagari razor,
Were yea goin broh, looks like you lost there. Look here mate, your law is all about POWER & MONEY, in Bama eyes it is about the LAND. Bulmba is the land, the law, the order of the universe. The land is the national anthem or flag or NGDP. The Land is the story, live, our selfs. There are less Bama and Burriburri now, but the land still tells the story and looks after us, it ever has. You don’t own the Land, but you owe the land. Have some respect for Bulmba and the stardust that makes your being.
Now you people have some mongrel, so Bama people have some mongrel. Our blood has same colour,we are same people, same mother. Bulmba, the law, the land will look after Bama mongrels spoiling the land. Does the Westminster law look after your mongrels that spoil the land?
Garu!
Just a little note, about an event a few years back, before Sorry Day.
I was walking across a park near the city in Perth, and a group of Aborigines were sitting under a tree. One stood up and came towards me as I walked by.
“We have a right to live here too, you know?”, he said in a plaintive voice.
All I could think to say was, “Yes, I do understand…”
That is what I think of, when I think about the Welcome to Country ceremonies.
I’ve been present at four Welcomes to Country that I can think of: an elaborate performance as part of an Adelaide Festival event by a group of Kaurna boys and men, involving dance, mime, fire and jokes; a sequence of events that began with a small group of us, as visitors, walking slowly and quietly through the bushland-like grounds of Taoundi Aboriginal College in Port Adelaide and throwing tiny stones that we had been given at the gate into the foliage of bushes and trees as a non-threatening signal that we were approaching; and a young Peramangk woman giving a short speech of welcome at a literary fundraiser in the Adelaide Hills, with her little boy up at the mic holding her hand and learning what it was about and how to do it himself. And finally there was the Adelaide Thinker-In-Residence public lecture I blogged about in November 2008:
Every one of these welcomes was a revelation, to me and to most of the other people there.
I think government should be seperate from religion. I don’t think they should say prayers in Parliament. Nor should we have “smoking ceremonies”, or welcome to country platitudes.
so Razor, what should Rudd do when he is invited to visit a religious ceremony and the head priest invokes their imaginary figure? Refuse to listen? Maybe he should clap his hands over his ears and yell “lalalalala”?
P-C: nice account of what can happen. I attended a survival day ceremony at La Perouse some years back where I heard the didge for the first time. I mean, really heard it. There was a player from the central desert with a big PA system behind him who used sound to sculpt the air which came alive in ways that I hadn’t imagined possible. It was breathtaking for everyone there.
Waleed Aly pulled the ‘its just symbolism’ argument apart entirely comprehensively I thought on Q&A the other night:
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s2840015.htm
sg – If I have to go to church I don’t bow my head when they pray, or kneel or go up for a blessing or take communion, but enjoy having a good sing because I am so bad at it. That is my choice. As far as I am aware Kevin believes in imaginary friends so he wouldn’t be covering his ears.
Oomboon – yes the Westminister Law, as you chose to call the Laws of Australia, do include environmental laws.
Jenny, you win the internetz! I had that thought also this afternoon, upon reflection.
Urban Dictionary provides the perfect definition of this “debate”…
Nontroversy: A controversy that does not exist until created for political gain.
It’s trollbait dressed up as politics. I can’t believe I fell for it, again. D’oh!
Thread quickly approaching white robes and burning crosses conclusion.
Mercurius @108, further to your thoughtful review on the vexatious issue of:
“Either it is ancient and traditional or it isn’t.”
I say Bollocks!!!
Why not encourage the Aborigines to develop modern interpretations of their Welcome ceremonies?
We do modern interpretations of all sorts of things, from Shakespeare to Ballet to social dancing styles to fashion, etc, you name it.
Why shouldn’t the Aborigines have the same flexibility in expressing their culture?
Josh @ 114 has already pointed out that Welcome to Country ceremonies are thousands of years old. It should also perhaps be pointed out that ‘Welcome to Country’ is not ‘Welcome to Australia’, but Welcome to Garawa country, or Arrente country, or Taungurong country or wherever you might be standing. The acknowledgement of traditional owners – the two line statement at the beginning of speeches etc. – is, on the other hand, not thousands of years old, but paying respects to elders of the country you’re standing on is not exactly an un-Aboriginal thing to do.
I said some of this stuff over on the original Overland post already, but I’m going to put it here too because I think it’s relevant:
Surely reconciliation is about more than just performing amends when Indigenous people are watching, but also incorporating aspects of Indigenous culture into everyday Australian life, and at the very least recognising and respecting it as having a valid role to play in contemporary ‘white’ Australia? If the intent of the organisers of an event is merely to pay lip service, sure, it probably won’t achieve much materially, but I’m not sure how it can be a bad thing, and given the dearth of recognition of Indigenous Australia in general I do not see how removing it could be at all the better alternative.
Most non-Indigenous Australians blithely go about their day-to-day business without ever thinking about the fact of how they and their families came to be standing on that particular piece of dirt. So I think the reminders, however perfunctory, are important. If it draws attention to the hypocrisy of the speaker on the issue – and dare I say, the majority of the audience – so much the better. Having to face up to the difficulties of reconciliation is hard – on a personal level as well as a political level. It requires a whole reevaluation of one’s sense of identity, not to mention national identity. The threat of this, I think, is what makes people most uncomfortable.
Elise – what do you think the modern interpretation of the tradition of marrying 15 year old girls to old men should be?
Mercurius @ 133 your contrition is thoroughly warranted. The whole thread has reminded me irresistibly of the bullshit about Obama not wearing a lapel pin.
Mercurius @ 133:
You’re not alone – I fell for it too. Y/IHBT. Y/IHL. HAND.
But seriously – the first to fall for it were the “culture” (ie anti-science, anti-history, anti-anything vaguely interleckchewall) warriors of TEH RIGHT who didn’t just fall in line behind Abbott on this, but decided to one up him (eg Andrew Bolt, who won plaudits from Quaddy Michael Connor by saying that Abbott didn’t go far enough). It’s a bitch, but sometimes you can’t just ignore the useful idiots and hope they’ll go away. The arguments against their position have to be made, not in order to convince them that they’re wrong (if they could recognise that they were wrong they wouldn’t be idiots) but to remind every one else that they are (both idiots and wrong).
Razor @136, too easy mate!
First, set a reasonable legal age of consent, similar to the age at which you can vote or hold a driving licence.
Next, note this means actual CONSENT by both parties involved. That includes the woman, by the way.
If she is too young to be able to give meaningful consent (i.e. below legal age of consent) OR doesn’t consent (as in modern interpretation, meaning real choice), then she doesn’t consent. Right?!!
And your next difficult moral dilemma was…? :)
Dunno Razor @ 136, why don’t you ask Great Britain? In 1929, it was still legal to marry a girl of 12.
Easy. It should be the same interpretation as the tradition in the country town I visited last week, where the biggest social problem is that the Anglo police won’t report to DOCS or start a prosecution against the dozen or so 25ish Anglo males who are cohabiting with 14-year old girls and who have groomed those girls to tell visiting DOCS workers “oh yes, we sleep in the same bed, but we don’t have sex”.
Next?
Do most Aboriginal people like Welcome to Country’s and Acknowledgements of Country?
I have three Indigenous friends and when I asked them that question separately they all said the Welcome to Country was fair enough but with the Acknowledgement of Country, one said it’s good, one said it’s tokenistic and one said it made him feel bad because he is an urban person who doesn’t really know the Indigenous side of his history.
I don’t know if they are representative or not.
I see Razor, so when Rudd visits a church and politely listens to some guy invoking a sky fairy, that’s okay; but when he goes to a conference and some local chap does a Welcome to Country address, and he sits politely and listens, that’s mixing religion and politics?
The points you’re refusing to address on this thread are piling up, btw, Razor. It makes you look like you’re being snide for the sake of it. 137 was a real doozy, particularly amusing given this country’s historic lack of concern for the welfare of Aboriginal children…
Razor @137: I see you are a traditionalist so we’ll reverse the question you posed to Elise and put it back to you. What then do you think ought to be the modern version of the “settler” tradition of hunting parties where the riders club out the brains of fleeing Aboriginals with their stirrups? BTW: for verification of which see the direct eye witness account in Dame Mary Gilmore’s two volume autobiography. What? Didn’t know about that tradition? Then you don’t know your own history
But wait mofo there is more. To answer the question I pose because you ain’t up to the task: the modern version of traditional settler murder of Aborigines is that Qld employs coppers who somehow accidentally fall on Aborigines in custody with sufficient force to rupture their livers which injury is usually only accomplished in a head on MV collision when the injured are travelling at about 60kph and not wearing seat belts.
See, old traditional practice alive and well in new forms. Now if the gubbs can do it why can’t Aborigines modernise their practices without losing cultural authority?
” .that the Anglo police won’t report to DOCS or start a prosecution against the dozen or so 25ish Anglo males who are cohabiting with 14-year old girls and who have groomed those girls to tell visiting DOCS workers “oh yes, we sleep in the same bed, but we don’t have sex”. … ”
*
I find that hard to believe, not because I think the cops are above derelection of their duty, because I spent 22 years as one of them and I know otherwise, but it is mandatory for Police to report this type of situation to DoCS, and failure to do so would very likely result in an Ombudsmans’ complaint. However, the Department of Community Services is staffed by some of the most useless human beings ever to consume oxygen, and what happens after the the notification is made is in their (largely) worthless hands. If you KNOW of this situation occurring, and you KNOW the cops have not reported it to DoCS, then you should complain directly to the Commissioner of Police, (a letter will do), or contact the Office of the State Ombudsman, whose contact details are in your phone book.
However, to illustrate how things work, I will offer you an anecdote from my own experience. In 2004, I received reliable information that a 17 year old girl who had formerly been a school friend of my daughter, who was the same age, was working in a local brothel. I submitted a report to the Crime Manager at my station, and I was advised to notify DoCS, which I did on the same date. The person I spoke to when I notified DoCS told me that, as the girl was over the age of consent, (16 years in New South Wales), they would not take any action other than recording the matter, even though the girl was clearly not an adult. So, without necessarily jumping to the defence of the (Anglo) cops in the town you have referred to, perhaps the issues have been reported to DoCS but were not considered important enough to warrant the diversion of their precious resources from easier targets, (like a reasonably respectable [part-aboriginal] single mother I knew, who was queried by DoCS because her son and daughter aged 6 and 8 slept in the same bedroom, in her two bedroom flat, even though the DoCS officers had to walk right past an aboriginal family of two adults and five kids, who lived in a one-bedroom flat in the same unit block). By the way, are these police officers all Anglo? No Dutchmen? Teutonics? Czechs? Croats? Swedes? People of French descent? I worked among cops from all of these racial backgrounds during my service, and most of them had skin as white as mine. I also worked with cops of Aboriginal and Asian descent, but it’s pretty hard to confuse one of them with an Anglo, isn’t it? I know you want to think those Anglo cops are irredeemable rednecks, who pick on blackfellas because that’s just how they are, and there is probaly little I can do to change your opinion, but there are two sides to every story. I am just offering you something to towards the other side.
If you want to dis-empower someone you:
Encourage them to think that only someone else has the power to fix their problems.
Make excuses for them on the basis of past history. (Even if it is partly true the repetition dis-empowers.)
Have lower expectations for them compared with others.
Make sure the media concentrates on what goes wrong in their communities.
Encourage attitudes that limit choices. (For example, the “special attitude to a particular piece of land” can be framed in a way that discourages choices that require a move.)
Do things for people instead of helping them get the information/skills to do it themselves.
Ignore success and highlight failure.
If you want to empower people:
Talk about the power they do actually have.
Challenge people to have a go before helping.
Challenge excuses.
Point out that a large slab of Australian migrants have suffered and overcome massive trauma in their lives.
Praise success and help people work out how to avoid repeating past failure.
Talk about successes of other communities and individuals.
I think this sense of powerlessness underlies much of the failure of Aborigines to take control of their lives and seize the opportunities that are there to be taken. We need to consider the effect on this sense of powerlessness on what we do and what we say. In some cases more damage is done by people who are trying to be helpful than those who are indifferent or hostile.
“Make excuses for them on the basis of past history.”
FFS, what other kind of history is there?
Phillip, you’ve got it arse-about. It’s the DOCS workers asking the cops to take action.
It must be nice to live in your world where people do their jobs, but in believe me I know of ‘mandatory notifiers’ (cops, teachers) who don’t notify, and in this particular town it is the DOCS workers trying to get the police to run a prosecution, but the cops won’t move on it. The DOCS workers know what’s going on, and it’s clear to the community leaders and elders in the town that something regrettable (and illegal) is occuring, but there’s a ‘code of silence’ and a ‘code of shame’ that prevents anybody speaking out.
Sound familiar? Sound like the sorta thing they organise Federal interventions about when the suspects are Indigenous? Somebody orta impose an intervention on these bloody Anglos who can’t run their own affairs, hmmm?
Mercurius – if those in places of responsibility and authority in that sort of case won’t take action – as Phillip suggested complaint to the Commissioner and Ombudsman types and or up the ante – the producers of Today Tonight, Four Corners etc plus the shockj jocks would love this type of thing.
So there you go – I look forward to the public expose in the near future.
The thing that struck me on Q&A was how completely uptight Dutton & Devine were about this “only symbolic” thing.
The thing that struck me on QandA was how completely uptight Dutton and Devine were about this “only symbolic” thing.
The thing that struck me on QandA was how completely uptight Dutton et al were about this “only symbolic” thing.
sg – are you referring to a situation where Mr Rudd is at Church/Mosque/Temple in a private or official capacity?
If he is there in private then it is up to him.
If he is at a religious service as an offical guest then it is correct to observe the customs of the invitor.
Both of of those situations are completely different from secular offical events requiring a religious hand-wringing at kick-off. I’ve has the unfortunate experience of being at a couple with international guests and have been frankly embarrased by the presentation both visual and verbal of the hand wringers. The guest have just said WTF?
As for the assaults and murders alledged in the Durack memoir of aboriginals – they are entitled to protection under the law as all Australians are and there is no time limit, so get into it – refer it to the police if you wish. As for the unfortunate death in custody issue you refer to, I think that is still sub judice so I am not going to comment except to say I expect the courts to do their duty.
As for the petty attacks on ANZAC Day, as that is about as close as it comes to a religious observance for me and given the open hostility to the men and women of the ADF shown by posters on this site, I expect nothing less than the bile dribbling out from those here on the subject, few of who I doubt have the courage or the abiltiy to serve this great nation. So I am not wasting more than the last paragraph on the subject.
Razor, quit yer whinin’. There’s more than a few regulars here who have seen service of one kind or another, and in my case my nascent Naval career ended prematurely on account of colour-defective eyesight. GFY.
But your conspicuous service as a brave Culture Warrior is noted.
Yeeees, well Phillip @146 this doesn’t appear to me to be at all on thread but notwithstanding that my own experience of working in child protection is that in the absence of a clear disclosure by the vics the POI’s get their way. Mercurius is correct in so far as the absence of dislcosure (a function of the traumatised being groomed) means zero capacity to act. You orta know that after 22 years, eh? You also orta know that child protection legislation has limited in it’s capacity to prevent self harming behaviour in 17 year old y/p’s.
I’m somewhat puzzled at the claim that the Welcome To Country ceremony is “religious” in the same sense as the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer.
Yo razor,
man you makin me laugh – environmental law – you are a cheeky bugger, you’r Damarri.
So you been dugong hunting lately, razor. You know the properway, or you just heard the story where some young Gungganydji lads have pinched a dingy and got dads shotgun and slugs and then butchered some cows. Yeah, yeah silly buggers, probably wont be doing that in a hurry again.
But how is your environmental law doing. This cheeky fella build massive marina resort on known seagrass beds which were dugong feeding grounds. Catchem fellow yet? You been on one of those trawlers up in the Gulf. You seen the amount of bycatch gets chucked out at the back, feedin the sharks. Youfela been trying to catch a Barra lately, much luck? BTW, you heard the big news, your clever men tellin us – we’re all bugered – not enough water in the big smoke, too big a mob on the paddock, making all that smoke heating up the planet.
You tell me, does your mob have much respect for this environmental law? Do yous respect anything or you being cheeky bugger?
Anyways, have to go mate, seen some seagulls up here in Guluy country, there’s a massive djimbu:rah headin our way, sure.
Garu
what attacks on ANZAC day, Razor? Is pointing out that it’s only 100 years old at most somehow an “attack”? If so, you started it.
Or is it that you don’t want to answer because you know the only answer you can give will leave you hanging in the wind?
How about my Japan example? Did Koizumi’s visits to the Yasukuni shrine piss you off? Do you care what the Nanjing “incident” is called? Is an apology from the Japanese for their treatment of ANZACS in prison camps unnecessary because just “symbolic”?
Inquiring minds want to know…
Lest we forget …….
the bloody dispersal, the poisoned water holes, the arsenic in the bread, the pox blankets, the native mounted police, the lost generation…….
Come to think of it, the foundation of Australia is based on State terrorism.
sg – I don’t get particularly worked about Japan and what happened in the War. That was 60 years ago – they have paid the price – we nuked them and hung quite few and virtually restructured their society. The nationalist extemists in Japan are no different to our One Nation nutters here. If the Jap PM wants to go and bow at their pissant shrine, let him. I think the Chinese wont let the world forget about the rape of nanking. You see, I can move on.
Mercurius – sorry I wasn’t able to arrange a shooting match to attend during my thirteen years service in the Army, so I probably fit in to your definition of chicken hawk. Do my mates who are out of the Army but still in Iraq and Afghanistan with the UN and NGOs also fall into the Chicken Hawk category? Would you like me to send you my certificate of service?
And ANZAC day, Razor?
sg – ANZAC Day isn’t just about the ANZACs. It commemorates all who have served. Perhaps you should put it to the general public instead of this pleasant lefty group think site and ask them what we should keep – ANZAC Day or Welcome to country ceremonies.
John D @ 147:
Nice example. But it’s not just indigenous Australians who are susceptible to developing ties to a particular piece of land. Any non-indigenous home-owner (or mortgagor) would feel very much the same about the bit of land in which they held legal title; it’s their piece of land, that they’ve worked hard to buy, so why the hell should they risk the financial losses involved in selling it and moving somewhere else? Why should they cut their ties to a community that they know and understand to move to one where they’ll be strangers and newcomers, at both a financial and social disadvantage?
Mark – the aboriginals’ attachment to country is a religious thing. The ‘welcome to country’ is an acknowledgement of this religious attachment.
well you’re the one who opposes symbolism, Razor. Perhaps you should put it to the Australian people, instead of a cozy left-wing coterie who support symbolic ceremonies. It’s your bugbear, all this time and effort wasted on symbols.
Or are some symbols better than others?
Razor, you’re being completely paranoid. If you’re talking about the description of Howard’s address to the crowd at Gallipoli, it seems pretty clear to me that the ‘attacks’ were on the crowd for being a bunch of disrespectful drunken oafs and on Howard for being an exploitative political opportunist. That comment indicates respect for the actual occasion and irritation at its being tarnished, not an attack on it.
If you think ANZAC Day is being ‘attacked’ anywhere else on this thread, I’d be genuinely interested to see where (I may have missed something). But my guess is that you’re just seeing the red mist whenever one of us lefty oiks mentions ANZAC Day and therefore not reading very carefully.
Along with many people here, I should think, I have the greatest respect for both of these things and for what they mean to the people most closely concerned, and I can’t think why you persist in constructing them as an either/or choice.
Pav – it wasn’t me who pulled ANZAC Day into the thread as an equivalent to the trite, condescending, tokenistic platitudes of a welcome to country perfunctionarily rolled off by a bureaucrat or politician under instructions to kick off official proceedings at the next public event with the required speil, even if they don’t agree or want to. Comparing ANZAC Day to this is a finely veiled attack – I think the term dog whistle is a favourite around here.
I’m with Razor. I think we should keep the trite, condescending, tokenistic platitudes of Anzac Day.
so Razor, welcome to country has now become a “spell,” has it?
It’s pretty clear now that you don’t object to the symbolism, but to the symbol. After 166 comments you finally got around to admitting it.
s p e i l
And after zoot I rest my case.
Good night.
Just to recap all the Hey! Look! Over There! moments on this thread from Razor:
@91 – The ceremonies aren’t ancient!
@105 – Taxpayers pay for all this!
@105 – Blackfellas go hunting with guns these days!
@127 – Church and state should be separate!
@137 – Blackfellas shack up with young women!
@150 – Oh, shit, so do whitefellas, uh…call Today Tonight!
@152 – Lefties hate ANZAC Day!
@158 – I was in the Army!
@165 – Politicians say things they don’t believe!
As much as I enjoy playing Whack-A-Troll, I think what staggers me the most about the “argument” against these ceremonies is its galactic-sized incoherence. Has the cultural right forgotton how to make a joined-up argument?
I guess that what’s happens when you start from an a priori position that is racist, in that it targets the cultural practices of a single group and holds them to a different standard than any other, and then attempt to r-e-a-c-h ever further into nonsense to justify oneself.
You might manage to remain convinced of your own bulldust, but to everybody else it just looks…a bit febrile, actually.
Pav – it wasn’t me who pulled ANZAC Day into the thread as an equivalent to the trite, condescending…blah blah…dog whistle is a favourite around here.
Oh rubbish. It’s a genuine comparison with a ceremony, often perfunctorily performed – it’s had a resurgene of late but there have been many a bored schoolchild or family member going through the motions – which represents something much larger. If you object to the Anzac day comparison, think of the flag raising that was made mandatory by the Howard government for yawning children all over the country. It also reminds me of the interminable prayers in my Anglican school way back in the day. You reckon every kid paid those their absolute maximum due every morning? Dreaming.
Interesting thread, and instructive reading to an outsider.
Since I’m a foreigner, totally feel perfectly free to dismiss my thoughts; but insofar as I can understand the thing (admittedly in a very limited way), the species of ceremony in question seems to me to be very humane, funky — which is a category of humane — :-), and generous, and also pretty nationally unique. So I’d say on all counts, worthy of happy support.
I think if you decided for whatever reasons that you were going to be rilly rilly rigorous about things, there are a few complex objections worthy of serious notice, at least. (And many lines of thought on this thread struck me as rather muddled, though that’s unsurprising and forgivable, given the high-emotional factor.) But the bigger point is that in the complexity of the historical circumstance, it probably ain’t a virtue to be rilly rilly “rigorous”; better to share in the humane and generous enterprise of the thing, and leave all the quibbles at home.
“We make a dwelling in the evening air,
In which to be together is enough.”
– Stevens
Thanks Japerz. It’s interesting that you consider the ceremony “nationally unique”. So many cultural practices seem to be embedded in ways that forestall attempts at transplantation.
Having spent around 18 months in your fine country, I’ve noticed many things that are common practice in the US but which don’t accord in Oz. The widespread adoption of being a hyphenated-American (African- Irish- Chinese- etc.) hasn’t really caught on in Australia, and just wouldn’t work here in the same way. And without opening old wounds, the infamous ‘Hey Hey’ Blackface skit last year was something that was very Australian in its coarse and ironic form of presentation — even moreso that the performers were Australians who happen to have (Asian) Indian backgrounds — that for obvious reasons fails to translate or even rank as “entertainment” in an American context.
There are other things I noticed: gun culture in America makes sense there in a way that it just doesn’t in Oz. Same with healthcare – I’ve had several financially disastrous (but medically beneficial) encounters with US health, but again it also helps to understand that system as a cultural product of US society, in addition its obvious economic and political dimensions. OK, rambling now, too much coffee, but you get the idea.
better to share in the humane and generous enterprise of the thing, and leave all the quibbles at home.
Absolutely!
Well, sometimes they are and sometimes they aren’t — as is the case with ANZAC Day, and surely you wouldn’t try to deny that. Given how much you value the latter and how little the Welcome to Country*, I can’t for the life of me see why you’re not far more hopping mad about some of the trite, condescending, tokenistic platitudes that get rolled out (by people who don’t mean them, as distinct from the many sincere expressions of remembrance) on April 25, as Zoot has pointed out, though you seem to have missed his point.
*Which you seem a tad muddled about; Welcome to Country and Acknowledgement of Country are two completely different things, as several people have explained already. Are you sure you’ve read the thread?
‘”of those primitive people”‘
@98
You quoting yourself here?
I was the person who brought Anzac Day and the Gallipoli landing into the discussion (at #112) and unfortunately my point in doing so has been lost on some commentators. I was not equating or comparing Anzac Day ceremonies with Welcome to Country ceremonies.
I was attempting to explain, in response to j’s comment #110 which introduced the issue of the apology to indigenous Australians, the difference between the concept of “current generations’ guilt” for “past atrocities” and the Australian nations’ collective historic responsibility for past actions, which could include regarding such actions as either a matter of national historic pride worth commemorating in the case of actions regarded as admirable, or a matter of national historic shame warranting a national apology in the case of shameful actions in the nation’s past. I used the example of Anzac Day since many of the people who opposed the apology two years ago believe strongly that the Gallipoli landing should be remembered as a mater of national historic pride.
GUMMO T@161: At least the mortgagees have the choice of selling the house and moving on if they can overcome the emotional ties. And they don’t have outsiders rabbiting on about how wonderful their ties to the land are and how important maintaining these ties are. (Because it makes the outsiders feel better?)
Thanks to the Frazer conservative government Aborigines don’t have this option which means that they don’t have get the money to help them set themselves up in the place they move to. It also doesn’t help that all of the land is collectively owned so it is hard for an enterprising individuals to make use of their share of the land.
We are all limited in our choices to some extent and we often notice more when others don’t have the choices we have (or choices we would like to have.) It is also hard to separate out the choices people don’t consider important and those that considered unimportant because the individual has dismissed them as impossible dreams.
In the context of the largely traditional Aborigines I knew in the seventies I would say that they certainly did have choices that I didn’t have. However, there many choices I had both on and off Groote Eylandt they as individual didn’t have in reality. Lack of education, poor understanding of how white society worked, fear of the unknown, lack of self belief and outsider prejudice all contributed to this lack of choice. In addition, there were cultural things such as avoidance laws, obligation etc. that made some choices more difficult than they are for us.
There were also factors that limited community choice. Perhaps the most important one was the idea that the choice was limited to staying close to tradition vs becoming more like us.
So Razor, you spent 13 years serving your country? I spent 26 (half Regular, half WOFTAM, most of it in an Arms Corps). Now that we have that particular bit of post-pissing out of the way, exactly what was your point?
Desipis @ 62 sums up the mentality of those who take exception to the ceremonies: ‘as a non-Indigenous Australian it offends me that non-Indigenous contributions to our country remain unacknowledged in an equivalent manner’.
Anyone who can make this claim with a straight face obviously has a cognitive process so different to mine that a genuine exchange of ideas is probably impossible. It’s nothing to do with right v left, but a simple matter of observing and interpreting Australian cultural artefacts.
JohnD @147, great summary!
It probably about covers how we go to the current situation.
Now, can we reverse the process?
In particular, it seems that the upskilling challenge for Aborigines outside the mainstream of Australian society is getting greater by the year, not less as we might fondly have hoped.
Most of us have learned a lot even during our own lifetimes, since school, and have taken the new technologies and knowledge onboard as we went. Our society and technologies are now quite complex to learn from scratch.
The differential with outback Aboriginal communities was probably great enough in 1770, but it is surely an enormous gulf now? Wouldn’t it be asking a superhuman mental feat to bridge the growing gulf in one generation? What would be more reasonable to expect, under the circumstances?
John_D:
There are some significant omissions from your original list of disempowerment strategies, such as
refusing to recognise that someone might make different choices from you because they hold different values;
dismissing those values because yours are much more sensible and pragmatic;
refusing to support choices you disapprove of.
It’s not a matter of the ties to the land being “wonderful” – it’s that the ties to the land exist, as a part of traditional aboriginal culture and will inevitably inform individual choices. The only reason I might feel “better” about acknowledging that fact is a personal preference for facts over uninformed opinions.
Your implied solution to that problem, given the way you have disparaged Aboriginal ties to the land as disempowering them is that they become not merely more like us but just like you. That’s a choice very few people would make.
Pav – I do get worked up about people paying lip service to ANZAC Day. In particular politicians, particularly of the Left side. Most of the current crop of ALP politicians were anti-Vietnam protestors. Few have said sorry for the harm they did to our Vietnam Veterans. Few appear to know or care about correct etiquette on the day. They are just there to be seen. It shits me and I tell them.
Just out of interest Razor, and other ex-servicepersons. Genuine question: how do you feel about descendents of ANZAC veterans (and other theatres) marching in their place in various marches? I heard some veterans were against the practice and felt it reduced the dignity of the procession, but I’m interested in hearing your impressions if you want to share them. Genuine question, no snark is meant or will be offered in response.
Relevance to the topic is our cultural practices, who speaks for and who represents whom as decendents and inheritors of culture. And no, it isn’t snark-bait. Promise.
Razor @ 186 your suggestion that people who were against the Vietnam exercise must therefore be paying no more than lip service to the sentiments of Anzac Day is both offensive and idiotic.
Elise: When I was a student member of ABSCOL I knew personally Australia’s only Aboriginal graduate. It hasn’t taken all that much time since then for the percentage of Aborigines entering tertiary education is higher than the percentage of Europeans Australians entering tertiary education when I started university. Many of these Aboriginal graduates would have overcome great difficulties to achieve this end. So I am optimistic.
Part of the problem has been the “save the children” attitude which, at its heart wants to change educate children while abandoning the adults. Some schools now seem to be having more success by including the adults in the education process. My understanding is that the adults help the kids in the morning and then spend part of the afternoon learning themselves – so the family becomes educated and the parents get a better understanding about what is happening with their children in addition to gaining more education of their own. My wife is a coal miners daughter who graduated in French and Latin and married one of those “bloody stupid engineers”. (Worse still a bearded one.) She often talks about how this education (fiercely supported by her father) did create a distance between her and her extended family. It would be much worse for Aboriginal parents in a remote community.
GUMMO T: I agree with your additions to the dis-empowerment list. Constant put downs and a rigid ideas of what Aborigines should do are dis-empowering. However, the same can be said for a romantic attitude to Aboriginal culture that tries to keep people locked into a past that clearly is no longer working. My comments about communities was a criticism of a two options only approach to the future of Aboriginal communities. There are other possibilities that may lead to outcomes that the communities or individuals themselves would prefer.
The guts of the issue is there are far too many Aborigines living in a way that are unsatisfactory in anyone’s terms and showing no signs of improving despite all the symbolic gestures and the hard work of an army of well intentioned people. One way or the other there is a need for circuit breakers. My problem with symbolic gestures is that it encourages the mindset that says that someone else has to fix the problems.
JohnD @189, agree with most of what you say, wholeheartedly.
I didn’t mean to sound negative about the prospects for Aboriginals entering tertiary education, or whatever field they were interested in. I was just noting how incredibly hard it must be to span the gulf, especially if they come from an outback community.
“However, the same can be said for a romantic attitude to Aboriginal culture that tries to keep people locked into a past that clearly is no longer working. My comments about communities was a criticism of a two options only approach to the future of Aboriginal communities. There are other possibilities that may lead to outcomes that the communities or individuals themselves would prefer.”
Of course no two countries or cultures are the same, but I wonder if there aren’t some lessons to be learned from the Saame people in northern Finland, Sweden and Norway? There seem to be a wider range of options for the Saame people than “noble savage” or “whitefella way”, to put it as gruesomely as possible.
Some of the Saame descendents are a fully-integrated part of society, and indistinguishable except for slightly different colouring and facial features. We had them in our workplace I’m sure (as geologists, engineers, etc), but noone made reference to it in any way, ever. It wasn’t considered an important issue, as far as I could determine.
Actually, more comment and notice was directed at myself as a non-local, trying to fit into a foreign culture and learn a foreign language. It was this experience that got me thinking more deeply about the difficulties faced by Aborigines trying to coexist within the imposed “European culture” in Australia.
Returning to the Saame, at the other extreme some of the descendents have continued with a semi-nomadic reindeer herding in the tundra. A good many of these are well-educated and totally modern in many respects in their herding methods: snow scooters, 4WD, helicopters, etc. They are the northern Norway equivalent of our cattle station owners, I suppose. Similarly for the Saame fishermen, with modern boats and relevant equipment, as needed for operating in the harsh Norwegian seas.
You also find many highly-skilled craftsmen and artesans who are a part of modern society, although retaining and adapting many of their traditional skills. I have some Saame jewellery, wooden artifacts (decorated food containers and wooden bowls) and rugs at home. Much of their work is both beautiful and functional. None of it is cheap. They take pride in their work, and they make sure they are paid fairly for their labours.
In between, there are many regular members of society in all different areas, often more in the country than the city, as I understood it. The Saame also have a strong affinity with nature. They still celebrate their cultural roots and have relevant festivals, but there is no mistaking that it has a modern interpretation a lot of the time.
Furthermore, non-Saame Norwegians delight in team-building by going out into the pine forest on a hiking trek, to arrive at a Saame laavo (like a tepe tent), sitting on reindeer hides and having a beer around the central campfire in the laavo, with BBQ reindeer steaks and all the trimmings, cooked by Saame guys done out in traditional gear. A Norwegian catering equivalent of our spit roast companies. A traditional culture is celebrated, and everyone has a jolly good time team-building!
I would wish that our Aboriginal colleagues would find an equally wide range of options in Australian society, relevant to their own preferences. Surely, it should be possible, if we have the imagination to make it so?
JohnD:
I apologise for the last line of my last comment. Got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. Nothing unusual about that.
Mercurius – I am against decendants marching. It is about the veterans. If the number of veterans falls because we are generating less veterans then that has to be a good thing. The parade will always be beefed up by current serving personnel.
At least the old boys who manage to march make an attempt to dress appropriately (I like the fact that the Vietnam guys have their own style different to other vets) and stay in step – it is a march after all. Unlike many of the relatives. In the past couple of years I am certain some of the “relatives” have been backpackers in there for a lair.
I do not march despite being a member of a Unit Association and being urged by family members to march each year. I have never seen active duty. I have not earned the right or the respect that true veterans deserve. I marched when I was in as part of my Unit because we had to.
I don’t know what other Cities’ marches are like but the tail at the end of Perth’s has all these cultural groups which is ridiculous.
I read my daughter (and from this year my son) a book called “My Grandpa Marches on ANZAC Day”. Last year, at 4 years old, she came to the Dawn Service and knew what was happening and how to behave. She waves at Poppy as he marches by. But they won’t march once he stops.
Ken Lovell@183:
I guess I’ll never see eye to eye with someone who supports racist ideals.
I don’t think J at 110 quite understands the history of colonisation. Thirty Years war indeed!
Racist ideals? This has nothing to do with race, unless you’re referring to human race. Aboriginal memory and cultural expression and recognition, as attenuated and diminished as it may be today even in such a short span of historical time is simply the legacy and ongoing precious knowledge we all have of ourselves and where we have come from as a species.
hey desipis, isn’t one of the rallying cries of the culture warrior that as soon as they open their mouth to tell “Teh TRUTH!1!!” they get called a racist? But here you are up to it already!
Razor @ all over the place: you’ve proffered the treatment of ANZAC day, so far as I can tell, as an example of how things ought to be done or, failing that because I’m a bit confused as to what your issues are around ANZAC day but for the sake of the discussion here I think it important tyo note that aborigines suffered excliusion from citizenship and from the benefits that flowed to non-Aborigines from armed service in Australia.
More here.
Now, for the record, because you’ve raised your own history of service, let me say the Australian left has as significant and proud a history of military service as any other political group and that the reactionaries don’t own ANZAC day as Howard would have wanted. My own family history involves one decorated homosexual anarchist who served in the Field Ambulance in France and only enlisted after he was sent white feathers signifying cowardice. He was a miner who lived in a small Hunter Valley mining town and couldn’t tolerate the insult. He survived and went on to to lead a life of ease growing vegetables with his Chinese lover and smoking home grown opium in the same small town. My maternal Uncle was a member of the Communist Party of Australia who flew with the RAAF and was engaged in the Battle of Britain flying spitfires with the RAF. The bloke who educated me politically, also a member of the Communist Party of Australia was the Trades Hall Council secretary of a regional THC. He saw service in Timor with “sparrow Force” and was an adamant peace campaigner and campaigner for East Timorese independence. I lost two other uncles in the Battle of the Coral Sea.
None of those people would support your attitude to either Aborigines or ANZAC day. Like a lot of returned servicemen they felt sickened by the way warmongers have captured symbolic of the day.
As for me: I was weeks from conscription. God bless Gough. Lost my childood mate in VietNam.
You don’t own ANZAC day and never will.
Desipis
New Zealand seems to cope with First Nation ceremonial and integrates same into life. The difference to me is they entered a treaty and history shows respect has
gradually grown out of that.
The Indigenous Australians do, when they meet others, have a long tradition of welcome to ‘my’ country, welcome to my home, my village as it were – it is an exchange which respectfully identifies one’s tribe, regardless of origin. We, the interlopers remained largely ignorant of this until it was brought to our attention. We didnt even ask. We just carried on as if respect didnt matter in this instance.
In some countries peoples have short greetings, some very involved but nonetheless they are important to be acknowledged.
Isn’t it fortunate that we live in a land where that ongoing respect is a remote possibility – why not support the welcome to country for the potential good it may eventually achieve.
Isn’t there some language (or maybe it’s a lot of languages) that anthropologists are fond of citing, where the basic word of greeting literally means “I see you!”
Isn’t that sort of what this is on a bigger scale, all the various involved parties mutually admitting “I see you!” Sounds like a positive thing.
I think the ‘I see you’ is exactly what the acknowledgement is about. The welcome to country is I think a much older thing and probably has other meanings. But the ‘I recognise you as part of our community and I respect your deep attachment to the land’ is an important step to build trust, especially coming (as it always seems to) from community leaders.
I find that often if you give an aboriginal person on the street a nod, a smile or a hello the same as you would anyone else, their whole face lights up – they’re not used to being treated as humans, just as potential criminals. The acknowledgement of country is the equivalent for communities.
It’s also asserting that we wouldn’t really just prefer you to disappear – maybe this is why it’s controversial for some who don’t see what was wrong with assimilation
Whatever else happens this year at least this nutbag will be out of the parliament:
He’s retiring
If you can find it, read Baldwin Spencer’s account (and photos) of the coming together of two groups near Alice Springs around 1901. (The Aboriginal Photos of Baldwin Spencer – Published by John Currey, O’Neil for the National Museum of Victoria 1982) It is a “welcoming ceremony” with numerous conventions to help avoid all the pent up quarrels erupting into a serious battle. Spencer was his usual observant self with care being taken to distinguish between boomerangs thrown to demonstrate strong concerns but not to hit and those thrown with more deadly intent. The final comment was “The intense quarreling finally subsided but it was two days later before all the ill feeling died away.” I assume that welcoming ceremonies have evolved and lost their purpose since then?
Elise: What you said about the Saami was interesting. However, when you say:
I would say that it is OK to suggest to Aborigines that they should consider a wider range of possibilities than the two big alternatives. But I would emphasize that they are the ones who must imagine, think about what they really want and work to make it happen.
Fascinated,
I have no problem with greeting ceremonies. I just think they should formed in a way that is inclusive of all Australian culture and not in a way that elevates the importance of one race/culture over another.
I see you, jpz. You got it there in a nutshell. A cross-cultural contact or aknowledgement. Interesting in that context is Inga Cledinnens Dancing with Strangers. A startlingly and refreshing look at the initial ‘first contacts’ or ‘welcome to country’ here in Australia.
jpz, did you know Capt. James Cook Naval Handbook had clear instructions as in how to engage with the natives. It recommended to engage in singing and dancing with the strangers (hence the title). Interesting too, that the Euora* males encouragingly offered their wives in return, as it seemed was the custom. They all must have had a good time, could we try to have one too.
*Apologies if I got the wrong mob here.
Fran Barlow @ 200:
After reading your comment I just had to Google Bidgood. I was expecting to find that he was a Liberal so I was disgusted to discover that he’s a Labor member of the Federal Parliament. And every bit the fruit loop you describe.
OK, so he’s Queensland Labor, but still…
(and he’s seriously off-topic for this thread too)
…and I think Noel Pearson has just realised he’s woken up on the wrong side of the bed.
It’s worth reading the entire sprawling article which deals quite comprehensively with every objection that Desipsis and Razor have raised. Here’s a taste of excerpts from a very long article:
(snip)
(snip)
So in the last fortnight, Abbott has managed to piss off many of his closest supporters with his big damn-fool mouth. First many of his party-room supporters were really stung by his unilateral parental leave announcement, now he’s managed to sting Pearson as well. He really doesn’t know when to stop digging, does he?
All I can say about Noel Pearson is…at last.
Maybe he has finally realised he has been trying to deal with the sort of people who wouldn’t want him round for dinner.
As an ex welfare recipient I can understand the mindset of proving that you aren’t one of “them bludgers” but maybe like me he’s realised that some people will be blind and judge you nonetheless.
I would say though that this was less Abbott’s doing and more Wilson Tucky’s doing. When I heard his comments last week I was sure I had dropped back in time.
Oh FFS what’s the use?
*Tears hair*
Its Eora.
I have no doubt Pearson will go back to being the Libs’ pet black soon enough. After all, he couldn’t ignore a glaring piece of racism like this one from Abbott -(well, he could have. God knows he’s sold out his people so many times I’ve lost count.) But he didn’t, and, credit where credit is due, that’s good.
What disappoints, depresses and enrages me again and again with the manner in which Australians discuss Indigenous questions is the sheer meanness, the parsimonious hard flinty chin-jutting worldview of folk like Tuckey and the words of the Abbotts of the world. Abbott does know better; Tuckey doesn’t – who is worse? Blind bigotry or political expediency? Frankly, from an Indigenous perspective “they all suck. Big time.”
Paul Burns,
“the Libs’ pet black”
This is as bad as anything Tuckey said.
As for those people who feel that Pearson has had some sort of revelation or transformation in his attitude towards the coalition, I sugest this indicates an ignorance of Pearsons consistant approach over 20 years and it is you, the white commentariate, who has just realised Pearson may not be “The Lib’s pet black”. Pearson, and the Cape York communities, have never conformed to any left/right dichotomy.
How much do you know of Pearson from what he himself has said and how much of your perception of Pearson is built on comments from John Howard, Mal Brough and Peter Beattie about him.
For example, did you know he said from the beginnig that the NT intervention would fail because it was not done the right way? Yet even the leftish commentariate believed Howard and Brough when they claimed the endorsement of Pearson by way of decontextualised slogans appropriated from Pearson’s vocabulary.
@Pavlov’s Cat,
Desipis is desperately trying to shift the frame to make indigenous country acknowledgement about cultural recognition instead of territorial recognition based on past dispossession and current reconciliation procedures. Because then he can continue to pretend that indigenous Australians are not uniquely disadvantaged by that past dispossession.
Desepsis @203: but what if some groups have made a more significant contribution than others? Do you not think, for example, that on ANZAC day the contribution of non-citizen Aboriginal soldiers to the Torres Strait Light Infantry Battalion might be deserving of particular mention? They served when they didn’t even have the vote and were paid, as the link states, one third of non-Aboriginal service men and women’s wages at the time.
“I have no doubt Pearson will go back to being the Libs’ pet black soon enough.”
Paul, in my view Pearson is no dummy and I find this line a bit, well, I don’t like it. Do you think Noel Pearson might not know what he is doing? Do you think that perhaps he is more interested in using whoever it is that happens to fit his mindset instead of the other way round?
I think so.
I was being a little ironic but since it was over the top, I apologise.
It does seem to me, though, that Pearson was not that critical at all of Howard policies and I think he’s very much on the conservative side of politics. He was/is undoubtedly one of the prime advocates of a welfare crack-down that led to work for the dole and will probably lead to welfare quarantining for the underpriviliged throughout the community. That does not seem to me to be a compassionate stance toward the poor and underprivileged one expects from someone who is on the left.It reflects a lack of understanding from many on the centre-left (where I don’t think Pearson is) that if you introduce a policy that refects right wing thing the right will seize on it and make it ten times more inhumane than the centre left ever intended. Because he is a spokesperson for the right, I reserve the right to lambast him.
Desipis, I thought we’d taken the roster system as far as we could go and I assumed, though admittedly, I didn’t get your agreement on it, I did think that your silence suggested you had indeed understood that a roster system for your united nations of Australia was indeed insane, and beside the point. Now you’ve gone back to square one. I spent 24 hours all socratic like you are like, waaaaah waaaah waaaah, it’s not fair!! Which is where we started.
Now address part 2 of my last comment to you. The colonial enterprise was such that land was stolen, people murdered and separated from each other, and no recognition of this fact was entered into national law until Mabo and the resulting Native Title and Wik acts. (And even these small concessions regarding crown land and shared access were shamefully watered down by Howard as you know). Therefore anyone who is a beneficiary of that original land theft is responsible for righting the wrongs of the past and for working towards reconciliation. Part of that process is acknowledgements of the original owners. As a start. Beneficiaries include the descendants of the original colonists as well as any migrant who has to this country ever since. So it doesn’t matter what cultural or racial group you come from, you are benefitting from being here in Australia on Aboriginal land. The least you can do is acknowledge that you are on Aboriginal land. Not much to ask IMO.
Now: If we could move on from your ‘one day for every country’ scenario, what do you make of that?
215,
Correction. ‘right wing thing’ should be ‘right wing thinking’.
Mercurius @206: I am all in favour of programs that help deal with poverty, isolation and dysfunctional communities. I also recognize that the implementation of some of these programs has to take account of culture and the particular circumstances of the target individuals and communities.
However, I am less comfortable with programs that allocate special benefits on the basis of race even when you can argue that people of that race have not been fairly treated in the past. For example, I remember a senior foreman I knew whose boys were getting special scholarships on the basis of their Aboriginality even though their father was getting paid much much more than others whose children were not eligible for equivalent scholarships even though the family income being paid far less than the senior foreman. Personally I was glad to see the boys get the scholarship but I did recognize at the time the unfairness of this system and potential for people like Pauline Hanson to exploit the resentment of poor whites.
The special features of Aboriginal land rights may have benefited some of those who received these rights. However, there were a number of negative outcomes. The most important of these was that the special mineral rights prompted a major campaign from the mining industry that successfully prevented or delayed allocation of land rights to many communities. Secondly, the collective ownership and bans on selling the land have been a significant barrier to economic development both in terms of discouraging outsiders from establishing businesses and making it harder for local entrepreneurs to establish and run their business.
The potential for special treatment has also distorted the priorities of Aboriginal leaders. Too much effort has gone into seeking special treatment and not enough into encouraging their followers to do things within their power to improve their lives.
What I like about Noel Pearson is that he understands the importance self help as well as the importance of pushing governments to do something about the blockers that make self help harder.
John D: fail.
See Paul Kelly’s Special Treatment on You Tube.
desipis
This conversation is obviously not going anywhere. Even if your ideas of equality are right in theory in practice they are unnecessary and impractical and would require government judgment over race and culture and imposing that judgment on others, which is something that you seem to be against. A cognitive dissonance if I ever saw one.
Lets just take a step back and look at this differently. I have not researched this at all, but I am assuming that in some places (up here in East Arnhem at least) that there is a historic connection to acknowledging when you are on someone else’s land. I do not know who it was or when it started, but some Indigenous people or group have advocated for or got in the ear of the right committee and an acknowledgment has been recommended somewhere. This has been taken up and is now generally standard practice across the country. In other words Indigenous Australians worked for an acknowledgment and got one themselves.
If you want an acknowledgment that is somehow more encompassing then you are welcome to start a campaign to recognise the various different races/cultures that historically have shaped and now make up Australia. If enough people care like you do then it may well be that some sort of broader wording could be added to the acknowledgment. Indigenous Australians may even be happy for it to happen.
I think you need to take some self responsibility in this area despis and stop relying on the Government to do everything for you. In the absence of this action all you are really doing is playing the victim and having a bit of a sad pathetic whinge. I hope that is not the case so good luck with your campaign.
Casey:
It’s not Aboriginal land. It’s Australian land. It may have been taken from them unfairly in the past, however the Australians of today are not responsible for that. So what we have is a diverse collective of people who all have a claim to the land. We need to move forward as equals. Acknowledgement of the wrongs of the past is important but it is not something that needs to take place daily. Doing so is just an obsession with one particular part of history.
What of those who’s ancestors were convicts, ripped from their home shipped in dismal conditions to the other side of the planet and dumped in a foreign land all for just trying to survive? Their children grew up disconnected from their cultural homeland and so have formed a new culture in a new land. Where is the daily recognition of the past inhumane treatment of these people?
“It does seem to me, though, that Pearson was not that critical at all of Howard policies”
Which Pearson? The one that called the Howard Govt racist scum? Or the one that approved of the Howard Govt’s intervention? I think Noel Pearson allows himself to be courted and will court whichever party will do what he thinks needs doing for Aboriginal people. You can approve or disapprove of his paternalistic and old school missionary style correctives ( and did you read his Griffith Essay? Using the platforms of WEB Dubois and Booker T Washington where he traces his own vision for Aboriginal Australia?) but he is no one’s lackey IMO. Not that I’m inclined to agree with his views at all, but I’m not up there in Cape York either. But whatever else you may think of him, he’s not a Liberal lackey IMO.
Noel Pearson is okay as he moved the debate forward and he is doing some great work on the cape. He has been unwelcome in that he advocates for programs that may or may not be working in the cape and then pushed for it to be put in all through the NT.
John T I would be interested in a link to Pearson’s comments because my recollection is the opposite.
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2007/s1962844.htm
There are programs that work at Yirrkala that wont work down the road at Ski Beach or Gapuwiyak. Expecting ideas like this to work everywhere is just asking for failure.
anthony nolan@213,
Certainly if in the past Indigenous soldiers have been denied recognition then particular recognition is due. However once this particular recognition is given, then they should be a part of ANZAC day just like any other soldier. The special recognition shouldn’t be an on going thing.
Desipis, very interesting stuff:
“It’s not Aboriginal land. It’s Australian land. It may have been taken from them unfairly in the past, however the Australians of today are not responsible for that. ”
Yes but while not responsible for what happened, you enjoy the privileges and benefits of the theft of their land today. As I see it, you are responsible for righting the wrongs of the past as long as you continue to benefit in a very real material way from the colonial land theft.
“What of those who’s ancestors were convicts, ripped from their home shipped in dismal conditions to the other side of the planet and dumped in a foreign land all for just trying to survive? Their children grew up disconnected from their cultural homeland and so have formed a new culture in a new land. Where is the daily recognition of the past inhumane treatment of these people?”
What do you propose England does to right this wrong Desipis?
John D has a point. There was an interview on ABC a few months ago, in an item about scholarships to top private schools for disadvantaged Indig kids. All sounded positive and wonderful – until a northern NSW coast interviewee mentioned that ALL SEVEN of her grandchildren were on said scholarships. There are not that many available – and as is rife in Indig communities, powerful families can too often get in and grab all, while oppressing other families.
desepsis and John D: two birds, one stone. Special recognition needs to be ongoing so long as the special treatment keeps on being meted out.
I’m worn out by the obduracy of negative attitudes to Aborigines on this thread. As a parting comment, mind you just while I reload, for those who don’t get how to deal with the history of this country or how to relate to Aboriginal people. I learnt this from Awabakal people to whom I was introduced a long time ago by Roland Robinson who lived near to them. It is a three step process: open your heart; don’t try and run their game for them; the special role of non-aboriginal allies is fighting with racists of our own ethnic background.
desipis, the descendants of those convicts who were “ripped from their culture” got to become colonists and squatters, and steal aboriginal land. That’s the context in which they made a new culture in a new land. What are the Aborigines who lost their land to do?
The comparison of these two wrongs is completely vacuous.
Casey,
I’m all for sharing the benefits of the combination of modern civilisation and the Australian land, and helping all those in need. What I’m not going to do is accept that people should have different rights, benefits or privileges on the basis of race.
Nothing. They can’t. Just as they (or we) can’t right the wrongs done to the Indigenous people. We need to find what’s right for the present not obsess over or try to pretend we can change the wrongs of the past.
anthony nolan,
In case you haven’t noticed I’m arguing for an end to the special treatment.
@218: John D, you use such reasonable language that it’s now clear to me where the proverb ‘white man speak with forked tongue’ came from.
1) For Aboriginal people to have access to land, food, housing, education and employment in their own country is NOT “special treatment”. That single fact alone renders your entire objection spurious. But I’ll continue because I think readers need to see just how meretricious are the ideas you have dressed up in such reasonable tone.
2) Noel Peason has already called out people like yourself who argue as follows:
That is exactly the form of your opening statement at @218…
You’ve been pwned by Pearson. I suggest you take up your argument with him if you wish to maintain your position.
3) Scholarships aren’t given out only on the basis of race. You choose only to see the race of the recipients and ignore the other factors that contributed to getting the scholarship. Academic aptitude is one such factor. Another crucial factor you mentioned was the wealth of the father – it is common that middle-class people navigate bureaucratic systems more successfully than the poor, so those scholarship outcomes were also subject to class factors. That you hone in only the race of the recipients means you are doing exactly what you accuse such programs of doing – singling people out on the basis of race. I have worked in the area of equity scholarships, which have strict written guidelines (hint: they’re longer than ‘give it to the Aboriginal kid’), and I can assure you that race is only one of a multitude of factors that lead to scholarship outcomes.
4) Finally, I would like you to really think about the inherent privilege and presumption, afforded to your by your whitefella status, that enables you so blithely declare…
…You see, us whitefellas carry the proud presumption that the codes of law and policy in this country should conform to notions with which we are comfortable. That’s because nobody’s ever taken it from us, and told us we can’t have it, that we’re too lazy and dirty and uneducated to use it; and any shred they grudgingly ceded back to us they call ‘special treatment’.
You presume the prerogative to organise the affairs of this land to your liking, which enables you to declare what you are and aren’t “comfortable” with. Nobody’s ever told you to “shut up, you whinging black”. You can’t even perceive the power and prerogative you were born into through your race, for the same reason that a fish doesn’t know it is wet.
Even debates like this, started and conducted by whitefellas, are just perpetuating the 222-year old mindset of the settlers in this land: we decide what is and isn’t appropriate for Aboriginal people, from whether or not they get a scholarship, whether or not they get housing, and whether or not they should hold welcome ceremonies. It’s always all about what makes us feel “comfortable”. Christ, no wonder Howard kept winning so many bloody elections.
@227: AdamTucker – the scholarship outcomes were patterned by class, not race. Wealthy people in this country have always tried to snaffle more than their fair share of educational resources, or hadn’t you noticed? Didn’t see too many poor Indigenous kids get those scholarships, did you?
@231 Desipsis, you’re shadow-boxing, again. Everybody in this country has a right to land, shelter, food, education and work. Also decent health, and freedom from violence, intimidation and arbitrary arrest. Aboriginal people as a group are worse off on all those measure than are the rest of the population. The ‘special treatment’ exists only in your mind – in reality, they’re worse off on every measure. So get over it, already.
More on 227, and sorry for the comment flood:
Adam, I would’ve thought you’d be impressed that this Aboriginal family had assimilated enough and taken on enough whitefella values to snaffle all the educational goodies for themselves and leave the other kids high and dry? If they’d stuck with their “backwards” “stone-age” communal ways, they might’ve found a way to share it with the clan, but fortunately they were enlightened enough by our society to keep it all to themselves.
This is what ‘living black’ is like: a whitefella is always there to tell you that you’re either not successful enough, or too successful. You have too little education, or too much. You’re either too traditional, or not traditional enough. You’re either too black, or not black enough. There’s never a ‘just right’ Goldilocks moment.
And yet, despite all this, despite the whitefellas always feeling entitled to dictate what and where and how Aboriginal people should live, when they can speak and what ceremonies they can perform, and then moving the goalposts whenever we don’t feel “comfortable” with what the black people are doing, they still – still – are prepared to Welcome you to their country. What an extraordinary act of grace. Maybe one day you’ll be grateful, and humble, enough to receive it.
“Just as they (or we) can’t right the wrongs done to the Indigenous people.”
Heh, Desipis, I think you have reached the logical end of your arguing. Again. What was the referendum which gave Indigenous people the vote, but a righting of past wrongs, what were land rights but the (very minimal) righting of past wrongs. What was the apology about but the righting of past wrongs. What were the Sorry Marches?
Why do you insist on arguing yourself into oblivion?
You enjoy privileges thanks to a past wrong. It takes very little and very little has been asked of you in order to take part in righting past wrongs. The least you can do is acknowledge the people whose land this is and with graciousness accept their welcome to country when and if you get to experience one. Though I tell you you little deserve a welcome after the stuff you have said here. What you deserve is for me to stick my fingers in your brains and re-route your synapses pronto.
An Australian urban myth:
The 1967 changes to the Constitution don’t look all that progressive by today’s standards, particularly the change to section 51 (xxvi):
When I look at that section of the Constitution these days it strikes me as a bizarre provision – why should race be mentioned in the Constitution at all?
Gummo Trotsky@#237
Anyone with some experience of living conditions up North and an ounce of commonsense can answer that question. Post-modern liberals have attempted to deny the reality of race.
The reality of extraordinary disparities in racial situations requires federal intervention. The Intervention is based on the reality of an emergency.
This program is being carried out according to the Commonwealth’s race power, as authorised by the 1967 Referendum, which proves the sagacity of the Constitutions founders and amenders. Wikipedia states that:
Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.
Philip K. Dick
It was a righting of an on going wrong. The referendum couldn’t enable Indigenous people to vote in past elections, they could only enable them to vote in future ones. I’m all in favour of stopping on going wrongs. I’m against enacting new wrongs in an ignorant attempt to balance the wrongs of the past.
I don’t have a problem with acknowledging the past, I just see daily ritualistic recognition as obsessive. I probably would have graciously accepted a welcome to country if it had of been performed when I was visiting approximately 2 dozen communities around the territory.
what is this “daily” shit you keep spouting, desipis?
Yes, sorry, of course you are right Gummo.
History of the Aboriginal vote also here:
http://www.aec.gov.au/voting/indigenous_vote/aborigin.htm
However, it was the overwhelming majority of that census vote which paved the way for a greater Commonwealth role in Aboriginal affairs from there on in.
Mercurious:
I’m all for tackling the causes of the on going difference of these measures. Dealing with the remoteness, the incomparable elements of the cultures with modern society, the harmful influences of western culture, the limited contribution to the wider society, the heterogeneity of Indigenous communities and culture, the lack of education and effective management skills, etc. Their race and any incidental racism enacted against them do not continue drive the real and practical issues they face, even if they once did. The constant reinforcement of the idea that these issues are deliberately created by the racist white-fella slows the acceptance of the change required to reduce the differences in the measures you talk about.
sg,
I understand that current government policy is to do it at every public event, while Bob Brown has suggested it be done at the beginning of each Parliamentary day. I may have been conflating the two a bit; apologies for the confusion.
Mercurious @ 235 – I’ll still pass on the paid welcome to country, thanks, if accepting it requires me to endorse unfair treatment of kids “from the wrong family” in comumunities. I happen to agree with Pearson, that whites feeling guilty about past wrongs should not allow corrupt behaviours and abominations, supposedly excused by “culture”, to continue.
Yuwalk @223
I cannot find the link where Pearson predicts the failure of the NT intervention but his reasoning was that it was not owned and controlled by the communities.
In the link you provided he says….
“You know, the big danger for the Government, I think, is that they can’t go marching in like cowboys. They’ve got to go marching in with humility, with support, not with arrogance, and they’ve got to enjoin the Aboriginal people of that community.”
” Now there’s points of difference between myself and the Government in relation to implementation. I urge once again that the Government enjoins Indigenous leaders, because at the end of the day you have to engage Aboriginal people in this process. You have to get moral ownership of this issue and, you know, it’s a poor reflection on us as a people if we put politicking ahead of the moral ownership of this question of protection of our children.”
“But the intervention that I want is one where it is only people who are being irresponsible where the intervention takes place. Where parents, and there are many Aboriginal parents who are responsible in relation to their children, and they should be left and encouraged in the continuation of that responsibility. We should only intervene where people are doing the wrong thing so that we send the right message.”
If you provided the link to somehow prove Pearson’s endorsement of the NT intervention then perhaps you have mis-read the interview.
Peason has always insisted that “something” must happen to respond to child abuse but he has never endorsed the NT intervention. It is not his country and has nothing to do with him.
What he has consistently promoted is the Cape York Welfare trial and the family responsibilities commission – which were designed by Aboriginal people and, as far as I am aware, is the first time any legislation has been drafted by an Aboriginal group. The four communities that are part of the trial volunteered to participate by way of a mandate from the council electtions. The Cape York plan does not have blanket quarantining and is controlled by community elders.
The ignorant ideologues have just lumped the Cape York trial in with the NT intervention and the two have nothing to do with each other. The U.N. special rappouter (however you spell it) on indigenous rights investigated the Cape York trial and found nothing wrong with it.
Just because Pearson speaks out for urgent and drastic action does not mean he endorses the NT intervention.
Casey – thanks for the link. An interesting little history that.
Jack – I see you’re having a bit of trouble with impulse control today. You’ve hardly made a cogent case for the inclusion of a race power in the Constitution. I doubt that when the constitution was framed, the Founding F-wits were looking ahead to a day when a governemnt would decide that a big, paternalistic military occupation would be needed for Aboriginal welfare in the Northern Territory. Section 127 of the Constitution – which was removed by the 1967 referendum – gives a very clear indication of where Aboriginal people fitted into the Federation:
Here’s an excerpt from the history Casey linked to which describes how the race power in Section 51 of the constitution was applied in the new Federation:
The reason there’s a specific race power in the Constitution is that the Founding F-wits believed, like you, that race is real and politically significant. They were only half right – race is politically significant – but only because people continue to believe in it and make it a political issue. When you stop believing in it, it goes away – its place is taken by genetic and cultural variation.
The race power in the Constitution is a nasty relic of a nasty era. Section 51(xxvi) of the Constitution could be struck out without in any way diminishing the power of the Commonwealth.
[Polite applause for Mercurious and Gummo]
Strawman @ 244: Accepting a Welcome doesn’t require you to do any of those things Adam, and you know it.
All it requires you to do is listen to Aboriginal people speaking on their own terms, on their own land.
Obviously that’s a bridge too far for you. Your loss.
Desipis, just one more thing, if you don’t mind. I take it by crossing out my “is” up there and putting in a “was”, you don’t believe that Indigenous land is Indigenous land? Is the connection to land over now and in the past? Does history and the passing of time wipe out Indigenous reality? Is that why you don’t like acknowledgements of Indigenous land and welcomes to country? Because it’s not their country anymore?
Casey,
That’s an odd way to frame a question. I don’t see Australia as a whole as Indigenous land. However, there are sections that are.
I’m not claiming that Indigenous don’t have a connection to the land. I’m arguing that it’s not the only connection to the land that matters.
No, it’s not their country any more. It’s our country (where “our” is inclusive of Indigenous Australians).
How very precisely – and economically – you contradict yourself, Desipis. If “our” includes Indigenous Australians, then it is their country (Apologies to everyone else for this statement of the bleeding obvious.)
We made it “our” country by taking it off them. That’s a fact that we all (Indigenous people and the rest of us) have to live with. Refusing to acknowledge that fact isn’t a particularly good way to live with it. Neither is stridently objecting to occasional public recognition of that fact. Another bit of relevant history:
It amazing how such a short shift in perception, is such a giant leap for some people to make. How insecure they must be to feel threatened by an invitation! Perhaps if they were better informed on such things they would know how to express their objections in a way that is recognised by those who have the generosity and decency to offer the invitation.
Yuwalk @223
I wrote a reply previously but it must have been spammed.
I can’t find the link where Pearson predicted failure for the NT intervention but if you read the link that you provided Pearson explains his difference with the NT intervention including criticising programs that are not created with communitiies and criticising blanket welfare quarantining. Far from proving that Pearson supported the intervention, that link identifies Pearson’s critique of it.
There is a big difference between the Cape York trial and the NT intervention. Pearson promotes the Cape York plan but it seems many of his critics have not bothered to find out what that plan is and just lump it in with the NT intervention.
Desipis, as has already been explained several times on this thread, Aboriginal people use the word ‘Country’ in a completely different way from the way you’re using it to mean ‘nation’. The only way to understand this properly is to actually read some Aboriginal writing. May I recommend an *ahem* excellent book that came out last year, The Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature, which, thanks to section editors Anita Heiss and Peter Minter, includes the best collection of Aboriginal writing ever put together.
/shameless plug
Now in paperback, I believe!
@Pavlov’s Cat,
Indeed, our indigenous peoples use the word “country” to mean pretty much what Jane Austen meant by the term when she applied it to what is now referred to in England as a “county”. You are familiar with historical variant usage of the term “country” in the English language, aren’t you, Desipis?
@254 – and it’s still used in that sense by some rural white folk, tigtog, at least in Queensland; and particularly graziers.
Mecurius @232: I have this quaint idea that treating people differently on the basis of race is, er, racist no matter what Noel Pearson says. It doesn’t matter whether the discrimination works for or a against. It is not logical to accuse someone of racism, just because they argue against discrimination in favor of Aborigines.
I also think that well meaning racism can and has done serious damage to Aborigines in the past and is still often working against Aborigines right now. (See for example, what I said at 218 above.)
Well meaning racism should be seen as a last resort. As far as practical, programs should not be framed in a racist framework. I am all in favor of programs aimed a reducing poverty, poor health, lack of education etc. I don’t have a problem with the delivery of these programs taking account of the culture of the individuals and communities targeted by these programs. But I do have serious reservations about programs that actively discriminate in favor of particular groups.
Some times it is difficult to avoid some necessary programs being framed in a racist manner. In these cases, it is desirable that the special circumstances be acknowledged and sunset clauses included. Sometimes too “avoiding a racist framework” may mean changing a law to extend the special rights to the rest of us (and to cover special needs in a way that deals with the need rather than a group.)
Just to clarify, would you include the NT Intervention in “well meaning racism”?
Right – so now we’re in the “It’s TEH LEFT who are the real racists who oppress blacks with lowered expectations” debate, well known to casual readers of Andrew Bolt. Topped up with the auggestion that present action to redress past wrongs is racist because that onvolves actions that are (maybe) harmful to folks who aren’t Aboriginal. It’s time to withdraw that apology I proferred earlier, when I was foolish enough to believe that your arguments might have come from a genuine concern for Aboriginal people and their welfare. It’s now very plain that they didn’t, and that my first assessment of your comment at 147 – that it was just a shitload of pop psychology offered with extreme prejudice – was correct.
Pavlov’s Cat@252,
Language issues aside, the arguments I’ve put forward scale down to the “county” level. At that level there may be some areas where aboriginal culture is dominate and hence should lead any official welcome. In other areas official welcomes should be inclusive of all the local cultures, and all residents of the area be considered to have “ownership” of land.
I’m curious as to what events where acknowledgements/welcomes to country are made you are envisaging which don’t also involve a recognition of the eminence of the local mayor, premier, governor, governor-general etc, which don’t also involve a recognition of the hospitality of the current holder of legal title to the property on which the guests are standing (grazier, National Park, religious organisation, municipal council etc), and often recognition of many other people who have contributed to whatever event is taking place. That seems to be quite inclusive of all the local cultures to me?
Not to mention that acknowledgements to country are generally given in English rather than any other language, so just how much more dominance of the ceremony do you think all the other local cultures need?
You just think that these rituals give Aboriginals too much X, as Noel Pearson said, where X is ANY gesture of respect, it seems.
As to acknowledgements involving all residents of the area considered to have “ownership” of the land, all the other resident owners in Australia actually have a legal piece of paper in the form of a deed to property that recognises their title to the land, a legal certification of ownership that was transferred to them at the time that a consensual transaction took place, which they can reference and display at any time, which they can use to raise capital and which gives them rights to use their property in certain ways. That recognition has happened
beforeat the moment of property transfer and is of ongoing benefit to them still, every single day of the year whether they spend it at a public event or quietly at home. Why do you think that other resident owners in Australia deserve verbal recognition on top of this legal recognition, when the traditional Aboriginal owners are getting verbal recognition only?desipsis @259: as the thread iniated around acknolwedgement and welcome to country ceremony it is as well to return to precisely the point. Your suggestion above of a sort of sharing of officiating at ceremony depending on the regional dominance of land ownership by ethnicity is so bizarre that it really does confound the senses.
What is lacking here is any real appreciation of the distinctiveness of Aboriginal relationship to country. They sing country, dance country, paint it and own it in ways that non-indigenous Australians don’t and never can. We have our own special forms of relationship to and representation of country. However, in failing to recognise the cultural authority of Aboriginal peoples as primary representatives of and spokespeople for country then we fall into the trap of perpetuating the ‘terra nullius’ myth. Welcome to country and ceremonies and recognition of first peoples is an historical corrective for dispossession.
These ceremonies are clearly highly effective at making the point, again and again, that they’re still here. I think that this is really what irks Tuckey and Abbot and their ilk. The fact that they’re still here. Still present. Still visible despite more than 200 years of attempts to literally obliterate them.
Desipis your complaints over the minor issue of acknowledgements and welcomes to country have been informed all along by your implicit and explicit belief that Aboriginal people are no different to any other group in Australia. And in this you are wrong. Not that you should rely on white law to tell you this, but if it helps you come into the reality of your own country’s position on the matter, no other racial and cultural group has been found to having continuing rights to land which were not extinguished in 1788. You need to go read the Mabo ruling. There the high court judges found “that Indigenous peoples systems of law and governance were recognised by the Australian legal system at the time the British claimed sovereignty. Moreover their rights and interests, in land at least, under their laws and their traditional customs survived the acquisition of British sovereignty.” (Treaty, Brennan, Behrendt, Trelein, Williams) Because Indigenous people are recognised in law in this way you cannot make up your own rules about how they are one of many groups in the “We are one, we are Australiun” Qantas song. Get over it. Your attempt to merge Indigenous people into the wide pool of multiculturalism carries with it a denial and an erasure that the High Court overturned in the Mabo ruling. That is, recognition of their unique status has been accorded in law. You can’t go back Desipis. If you want to continue to play the disaffected white man with your colonialist Howardian/Hanson fantasy 20 years after the event, by all means go ahead. But no one is listening anymore. Howard is just an old guy whose greatest claim to fame these days is that he bequeathed Abbott to the Libs and condemned them to obscurity and Pauline is off to England in search of a whiter shade of pale (and like, heh). It’s just you Desipis all by yourself moaning like one of the querelous characters in Endgame.
New thread started, specifically to examine Noel Pearson’s article in Saturday’s Oz.
Thanks to all on this thread for a civil and constructive discussion and an absence of hysterical denunciation. I think that the anti-ceremony contributors have thrown everything they have against the wall, and nothing has stuck. Obviously we’ll have to agree to disagree, since the anti-ceremony crowd hold as dogma that Welcome ceremonies and acknowledgement of country are ‘special treatment’. All the propositions they have advanced in support of that view have been roundly debunked, but hey, it’s dogma, so it won’t be shifted.
Fortunately, that crowd have lost hold of the political and instrumental means to impose their dogma on Aboriginal people. We must guard against a resurgence of course, and enacting and participating in Welcome and acknowledgment ceremonies as a cultural practice on a continual basis is perhaps the most appropriate and historically just means of doing so.
Exactly, that’s what I was trying to get at at #254, and I suggested (knowing it seemed unlikely ever to happen) that Desipis do the reading of what Aboriginal people have said about it because the only other thing I could think of was to draw an analogy with various white experiences of attachment to land(scape) (including my own) that are about identity and feeling, and have nothing to do with property-holding. But that’s absolutely not on either — there is no equivalence.
The real problem here is not so much the lack of understanding of what the issues are, more the absence of desire to acquire any. I dunno why we’re all knocking ourselves out trying to explain it.
Comments crossed, soz. Mercurius’ last sentence there is the right answer to mine.
Mercurious:
Probably for the best, as our disagreements seem to be ideological and are unlikely to be resolved through rational arguments. You can continue to view historical context as a justification for racist polices, and I will continue to believe reconciliation involves us all moving forward as genuine equals with mutual respect.
Again you contradict yourself desipis – such a contemptuous distortion and dismissal of Mercurius’ position is hardly moving forward with mutual respect.
Grow up you peevish little bugger.
There is obviously no point engaging with desipis because his or her mind is closed more tightly than Fort Knox, but passages such as ‘It’s not Aboriginal land. It’s Australian land. It may have been taken from them unfairly in the past, however the Australians of today are not responsible for that’ are valuable. They illustrate how comprehensively many Australians impose their own conceptions of ownership and social relations on minority groups and are literally incapable of understanding any other conception (and of course the reference to ‘Australian land’ is misleading bullshit; it’s mainly land owned by individuals and corporations, some of whom have no other connection with Australia).
I would have thought simple justice required an acknowledgement to the descendants of the dispossessed that our lifestyles depend on the fact that our ancestors acquired our land unfairly. This single fact totally destroys despisis’s contention that Aborigines are just another ethnic group. It also justifies and IMHO compels continuing programs to reverse the harm that this unfair confiscation of land has done to Aborigines, even at considerable cost and inconvenience to non-indigenous Australians.
The root cause of attitudes like those expressed by desipis and others seems to me to be an inability (or a refusal) to grasp the enormity of the crime committed against indigenous people, of which they are amongst the beneficiaries. The “We’re all Australians now so let’s just move forward together” crap is nauseating and reflects a grotesque absence of moral values. Pretty much sums up most of the Howard bunch, I guess, who clearly continue to dominate conservative politics.
One thing which struck me recently about the Haka in NZ is how although its roots are Maori it seems to be owned now by all New Zealanders not just those of a certain racial heritage (I guess a NZ’er will correct me if I’m wrong). So it acts to bind the community together rather than divide them. By sharing the culture, the traditions are much more likely to survive and fellow NZers are more likely to embrace them than reject them.
Gummo Trotsky@#246 said:
“Founding F-wits” is rich. I can see that I am not the only one “having trouble with impulse control today”. Your condescending epithet shows the typical progressive conceit of hindsight. Let Barton, Parkes and Deakin be as racist as you like. The “Founding F-wits” only founded the most successful of the 20thC’s new nations. Whereas Left-liberals achieved miserable failure in their own pet project.
Although you have made a true, if unintentionally ironic, point about the their lack of foresight. It would have stretched the powers of the bleakist and most absurdist late 19thC satirist, never mind the framers of the Constitution, to foretell the farce of ATSIC never mind the horrors of NT remote indigenous communities.
Left-liberals spent all those years denouncing the awfulness of the Australian federation establishment treatment of Aboriginals. But when the nice post-sixties generation took the reigns in the seventies they managed to pull of an almost impossible feat, to actually make out-back Aboriginal social pathologies even worse. Who is the “F-wit” now?
Gummo Trotsky said:
I would be the first to acknowledge that the foundational error of our federalists was the failure to grant full civil rights to Aboriginals. It flows from my modernist, rather than post-modernist, construction of rights. As I pointed out on this blog a couple of years back:
My own view, FWIW, is that the FF’s should have granted native Australians full citizenship rights from the moment of Federation. This was more or less the view of the more enlightened US Founding Fathers (eg Washington) in regard to native Americans.
My view flows from the common sense functional school of cultural conservatives, such as Burke, de Toqueville, Weber Durkheim etc. It would have been much better to have eased into native Australians into modernity in the more sensible early years of the 20thC, under Queen Victoria, rather than getting thrown into post-modernity during the later years of the 20thC (when Left-liberals were more likely to honour Queen Pricilla). Their belated emancipation amplified culture shock with predictable results for social pathology.
Gummo Trotsky said:
I’ll grant you that making “a cogent case for the race power” is a tricky for me, given my modernist construction of universal civil rights. But the High Court has managed to pull off the trick (Justice Murphy and Kirby, no less) so I perhaps I can do it. They found that the “race power” is an institutional ratchet, which cannot reduce the civil status of a given race within the Commonwealths jurisdiction but can and should only be used to improve its conditions .
It should not allow the Commonwealth to take away fundamental civil rights to vote, associate, express opinons and generally participate as full citizens in Australian society. The founders wronged the Aboriginals in this respect, which oversight has been corrected by the 1967 referendum.
But it should give the Commonwealth the power to make special administrative arrangements for the several races entitlements. So long as these are done for the benefit of the specified race.
My reading of the legal basis of the Intervention is that it satisfies the High Courts construction of the race power. Certainly no one has managed to mount a plausible challenge to it through a superior legal venue.
Nor is it true that the race power “could be struck out without in any way diminishing the power of the Commonwealth”. The Equal Opportunity Act is a federal act which would have ham-strung the Commonwealth’s power to Intervene even though it has jurisdiction in the NT. You can bet that the myriad of political interest groups threatened by the Intervention would have mounted a High Court action, certainly to restore the pernicious permit system if they thought it would get through. But S 51 (xxvi) barred the way. Tough luck for child molesters and wife bashers, but there you go.
Gummo Trotsky said:
Now we are going from ideology to anthropology where the ground under your feet is even shakier. Although characteristically you do not seem to realise it.
I see no reason for those in the post-modern era to pat themselves on the back for allegedly transcending the “nasty relic of nasty era”. The price of such race blindness in the case of Native Australians was letting child abusers go on a rampage for decades on the grounds that it would be politically incorrect and culturally insensitive to intervene. Until Howard – “nasty relic of a nasty era”! – decided to impose adult supervision.
Race is real because it can be predicted by biological science using DNA. The notion that “race goes away when people stop believing in it” deserves to go down in the annals of post-modern fairy tales. You have no business castigating ecological denialism in life science when you indulge in biological denialism in human science.
Race unrealism was comprehensively refuted by the HGP which classifies human species under a five races that would have been immediately recognized by the FF’s. Not to mention the countless forensic DNA analyses done over the past generation which somehow manage to determine racial and sexual identity.
And because race is biologically real it is sociologically relevant, as anyone with ‘lyin eyes to see can say. That makes it politically significant, for better and for worse. Whats more as nations globalise with other nations and diversify their own nations the odds are that race is going to become more, not less, politically significant. Note the current political trend in the EU.
The trouble with Left-liberals is that they do not recognise their true political saviours. Howard chased One Nation of the political stage with sound policy and savvy politics. Do you think that parotting “dog whistle” and chanting “race is not real” will make the National Front and Tea Parties go away?