Makarrata - A two-way street to a better Australia

[old man emu]

Recent events have brought to the surface once again the need to settle, once and for all, the relationship between the Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples of Australia and to correct the effects of an incredible omission in the Australian Constitution of 1901.

 

Makarrata is a call for peace. On 26 May 2017, an aggrieved people, the Aboriginals, called for those who now live on their country, the non-Aboriginals, to meet them in a process of dispute resolution. This is no small thing. This is an aggrieved people leading a nation, by invitation, to engage with it on a road to a more peaceful coexistence. It is a call for reconciliation, the process of making two groups of people friendly again after they have argued seriously or fought and kept apart from each other. Reconciliation can only happen if both sides acknowledge facts of history and are prepared to forgive the transgressions of past generations, and not use the memory of them as weapons against each other.

 

What are these facts of history?

Before 1788, there were about 500 aboriginal cultural/political groups in Australia. AIATSIS map of Indigenous Australia Each of these groups had marked out the boundaries of the territory it called its own, and had agreed to these boundaries with its neighbours. "International" trade was carried on across these boundaries, but inter-national movement was limited to approved travel. Travelers needed a "visa" to travel through another group's country. Because the boundaries were set in the long-ago, culture, including spiritual and linguistic, developed somewhat independently so that communication between an Aborigine from the far south with someone from the far north would be impossible.

 

These groups toiled each day, but only as much as was necessary to ensure regular supply of food and shelter. No doubt that at times of the year they worked long hours to harvest grain to store for the rest of the year. There was, to them, no need to over-produce in order to gain wealth as understood by the inhabitants of Europe, Asia and North Africa. In Economics, this is called a "subsistence" economy. Although they exists in many places in the World, those who live by them are considered underprivileged by the peoples of the "First World". From 1788, the Aborigines began to meet with a society that failed to understand the spirituality of the relationship between Aborigine and Country. Non-Aboriginal people altered the landscape, but did not attempt to include Aborigines in the changes that even the non-Aborigines were experiencing in going from agrarian to industrial systems in their home countries.

 

Obviously, this lack of understanding eventually lead to conflict, where those with the more efficient weapons won out. Another reason for these military losses was that, although Aborigines all belong to the same racial sub-sector, they did not have the political cohesion to develop a unified resistance across the continent. On the other hand, the non-Aborigines were not adept in diplomacy. More often the people who were in contact with Aborigines were the less educated, and themselves down-trodden. As one of the first waves of expansion involved sheep grazing, the non-aborigines' job was to keep the sheep alive. Lose any sheep and you get punished. Is it any wonder that these isolated shepherds reacted violently when Aborigines helped themselves to these new animals?

 

Much is often made of the devastating effects of introduced disease on Aborigines, as though the non-aborigines deliberately engaged in biological warfare. Our recent experience with Covid-19 should put an end to that idea. Sure, new diseases arrived in the country, but they were simply part and parcel of the environment the non-aborigines came from. Probably more non-aborigines died from their homelands' diseases than did aborigines.

 

Maybe it was the White is Right idea that kept aborigines from taking part in framing the Australian Constitution, but I wonder how many of the Common Folk had a say in its wording. How much of its wording do you know?

 

So what should both sides bring to Makarrata?

 

Acknowledgement that there was wrong on both sides.

Acknowledgment that those living today, are not personally responsible for the actions of their ancestors.

Acknowledgment that there is great cultural diversity on both sides.

Acknowledgment that both sides have stores of knowledge that should be used to care for the land.

 

After the dust of Covid-19 has settled, this subject is expected to come again into the political life of Australia. Have you formed your opinions from researching the topic, or will your learned biases prevail?

[Yenn]

The Aboriginal love in is becoming a sacred cow. Only on this mornings news we hear that  a police group is supposedly anti aboriginal and denigrates them. What have they done?

They held a private gathering at a public venue and left behind a piece of paper, probably notes for a speech.

The group was the Tactical Operations Unit and they took an aboriginal screed and removed the words "aboriginal" and other similar words and replaced them with TOU.

The speech as read out on the radio news and in my opinion it did not denigrate Aboriginals and was rather well done, but it is being made out to be terrible.

We have lost the ability to see what is serious and what is of no real consequence and are pandering to those who want to stir up trouble.

[onetrack]

The Aboriginals today live in far better housing, physical comfort, medical care, transportation, and easy food supplies than they did in the period before the White People arrived in Australia. This fact is entirely due to White Peoples knowledge, organisation, financial skills and construction skills. The Aboriginals refuse to acknowledge this.

 

The Aboriginals today have equal rights and funded access to our legal system that ensures they have made huge gains in land rights, property acquisition, legal redress of former wrongs, and monetary compensation from the White People of Australia. Aboriginal people now own more land than all the White People combined (in area). The Aboriginals appear to not acknowledge these massive compensatory wins.

 

I see people who I would class as "White" in appearance, claiming they are wholly Aboriginal and supporting all Aboriginal claims and grievances. I find this strange, because they are obviously 90% White ancestry, yet they prefer to deny any of that ancestry.

 

I have little doubt that there is a Police bias against black-skinned people. But that bias comes from constantly experiencing vile abuse, constant criminality, assaults and robbery, and generally uncivil behaviour from the dark-skinned section of the population, that is way out of proportion to the percentage of the population that is dark-skinned.

 

I have little doubt that a fair percentage of the dark-skinned population is law-abiding, and honest, and indulges in civil behaviour. But a sizeable percentage of this dark-skinned population is not law-abiding, nor honest, nor civil. In fact, they are constantly involved in criminality, and abusive and violent behaviours - often against innocent law-abiding people.

 

Many of the loud mouths in the dark-skinned section of our population, claiming unfair treatment, are themselves violent offenders and small-time criminals. A certain prominent leader of the Aboriginals in W.A., constantly abusing White people for their treatment of Aborigines, was found to be a vicious, abusive pedophile, responsible for the death of at least one young girl - and he went to jail for many years.

 

The Aborigines have had well over 200 years to accept that their position as "owners" of the country was decimated when the White People arrived with a vastly superior level of knowledge and force and technology.

The problem, as I see it, is that they refuse to accept that the White People overran them and subjugated them and took control of "their" land. It appears that they will never accept that fact.

 

I suspect that the majority of the dark-skinned people protesting against White People bias against them, want all the best that the White Peoples civilisation can give them, such as money, food, clothing, housing and transportation - for free - whilst they refuse to acknowledge any need to conform with White Peoples Law, and refuse to indulge in behaviour that is not criminal, not abusive, not violent, nor uncivil.

 

I see no way that any White Peoples decision will ever appease these constantly-angry, constantly-demanding, dark-skinned peoples - who essentially carry chips on their shoulders as large as chopping blocks, and who will never be satisfied, no matter what the White People offer.

[old man emu]

2 hours ago, Yenn said:

The group was the Tactical Operations Unit and they took an aboriginal screed and removed the words "aboriginal" and other similar words and replaced them with TOU.

 

The screed was based on the  wording of "Welcome to Country" speeches. Although welcomes to country have become commonplace across the country, they have attracted criticism from politicians, historians and commentators including Bess Price, Keith Windschuttle, Andrew Bolt and Bill Hassell. Critics consider such ceremonies to be a form of tokenism, and claim that they do not reflect any element of traditional Aboriginal culture. Bess Price, a Warlpiri woman and former parliamentarian, characterises welcomes as "not particularly meaningful to traditional people." Windschuttle calls them "an invented tradition".

 

The 1973 Aquarius Festival held in Nimbin, New South Wales by the Australian Union of Students (AUS) has been documented as Australia's first Welcome to Country.The second recorded welcome to country occurred in 1976, when entertainers Ernie Dingo and Richard Walley developed a ceremony to welcome a group of Māori artists who were participating in the Perth International Arts Festival.Arts administrator Rhoda Roberts says that the Aboriginal National Theatre Trust was instrumental in developing the welcome to country during the 1980s.

 

So, Welcome to Country is a concocted thing, with doubtful true cultural significance.

 

Smoking ceremonies, however, are a traditional cleansing ceremony. A smoking ceremony is an ancient custom among some Aboriginals  that involves smouldering various native plants to produce smoke which they believe has cleansing properties and the ability to ward off bad spirits. Smoking ceremonies were traditionally performed following either childbirth or initiation rites involving circumcision when anti-bacterial properties of the smoke would be useful.

 

The leaves used are from the berrigan plant, Eremophila longifolia. Eremophila longifolia is one of the most important plant species to Aboriginal people, especially to those living in Central Australia. It was used in initiation ceremonies, to line graves, for tanning water bags and was placed in the headbands of warriors. It also had medicinal uses such as to treat colds and headaches, and was used to cleanse and strengthen new-born babies.

[onetrack]

You need to know your plants intimately - you don't want to smoke Box Poison or York Road Poison plants in W.A.!

 

Both plants are toxic in the extreme, and just inhaling the smoke from burning either plant will make you very ill.

 

The primary toxin in both Poison plants is monofluoroacetic acid. The sodium salt of this simple organic compound is widely used as a bait poison, under the trade name "1080".

 

I knew a Shire Council foreman (now called "Works Supervisors") who toasted his lunchtime sandwiches over a fire containing box poison bushes.

He ended up in hospital later that afternoon, very sick indeed - and the docs were puzzled for a while as to what he'd ingested, until some intense questioning by an alert and knowledgable doc, revealed the source of the poisoning.

 

https://researchlibrary.agric.wa.gov.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4024

 

 

[Kyle Communications]

Did the pommies apologise to India..did the pommies apologise to the USA did the french apologise did the spanish apologise....NO...what happened hundreds of years ago is done and dusted. Yes I believe the "first peoples" got a raw deal but back then thats the way it was. Later of course some bad decisions were made in regards to them but again 50 plus years ago. Stolen generation children were removed from the families....so where the whites...my mother inlaw who is in no way any amount of cast you want to pretend you have in you was taken and spent all her young years getting beaten and abused in a religious orphanage and there were plenty of them with lots of white kids in them so it wasnt JUST the aboriginals that happened to.

It really annoys me and gets up my goat that all these squealers say they are badly done by..well I have never ever gotten a govt hand out. I have worked all my life and paid millions in tax and never got a razoo from any govt. This is because I got off my arse and found work and stayed in work no matter what it was. I ran a business for 30 years and employed 10 people and paid lots of tax. Why should the "first people" get treated any different to me. I dont care if you are black white or brindle everyone is on the same footing as far as I am concerned. If you need a hand to get going or get something done I dont have a problem lending that hand but I refuse to be taken for a ride and get stomped on. You only ever get a chance to burn me once.

 

Its only this past 10 years or so its got worse because the young are being brainwashed by social media and other crap that has poisoned their brains...they cant think for themselves or reason..they are sheep they follow the loudest noise. No one actually looks into the facts for themselves..they believe all the piffel of the media cycle daily and the media are the drivers of all this too. They are brainwashing the young people to not respect police or anything its the me me now now attitude....I will end up writing pages here so I am going to stop before the steam starts coming out of my ears

 

[Kyle Communications]

Oh here is a video about the real statistics of the deaths in custody fiasco crap....these are actual govt figures ..take the 10 mins and watch it....I think us whites should be up there and protest about White Lives Matter too based on these figures. It also shows just how stupid most of these idiots are they have done nothing to inform themselves of the actual facts

 

 

Edited June 20, 2020 by Kyle Communications

[old man emu]

Definitely clarifies the statistics.

 

The first type of death in custody that could be tackled is suicide.Why do people of all races suicide in custody? For the same reasons that people not in custody suicide - hopelessness and feelings of worthlessness. If all the do-gooders would crowd fund research into the psychology of suicide.

 

The overall suicide rate in 2015 was 12.6 per 100,000 in Australia. This equates to more than eight deaths by suicide in Australia each day. The suicide rate amongst Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples is more than double the national rate. In 2015, suicide accounted for 5.2% of all Indigenous deaths compared to 1.8% for non-Indigenous people. For every death by suicide, it is estimated that as many as 30 people attempt to end their lives.

 

The causes of suicide are complex. Factors that may contribute to suicide include:

1. stressful life events
2. trauma
3. mental illness
4. physical illness
5. drug or alcohol abuse
6. poor living circumstances

By contrast, there are protective factors that make us more resilient and can reduce suicidal behaviour, such as:

1. supportive social relationships
2. a sense of control
3. a sense of purpose
4. family harmony
5. effective help-seeking
6. positive connections to good health services available

One of the things that was taught to me as a policeman as a result of the Deaths in Custody Royal Commission was that police had a duty of care towards persons in custody. In mt later years, I regularly was the Custody Manager at my Station. To do the job, I had to attend training courses that not only dealt with the paperwork of custody, but the care and treatment of persons in custody. Those people ranges from drunks to murderers. Each type had different needs and handling procedures. Domestic murderers were the ones who needed a suicide watch because in many cases the murder was a one-off explosion of passion, instantly regretted. And now the person sat in a cell, knowing that they had killed a loved one and not knowing what was going to become of them.

[Bruce Tuncks]

I have actually got to ask ( through an intermediary ) a knowledgeable aboriginal elder whether he considered his people better off after whites came. His answer as a definite "yes".

Just consider you were in his shoes and had the power to wave a wand and whitefellers would disappear as if they had never been there at all. Well everything, even your shoes, would disappear too. You would die after a few days if you were over 60 like this guy was. You would die from hunger and exposure.

 

[old man emu]

Remember my old mate, Maslow and his Hierarchy of Needs?

Non-Aboriginal migration has definitely improved the physiological status of Aborigines. The status of Safety is a mixed bag, but we could say that opportunities for satisfying this need have increased. I doubt if Aborigines weren't at the same level of Love and Belonging within their family groups as were the peoples of the rest of the world. Esteem has been battered by Non-Aboriginal migration, as has Self-actualization.

 

It is clear that the levels where Aborigines are not advancing, or at least preventing erosion of prior levels are the ones that Aborigines and Non-Aboriginals need to address. The question is do we work from the top of the pyramid, or the bottom, or is the best plan to attack from the sides?

[Yenn]

What I cannot understand as a white immigrant to this country is, what are we expected to do?

Are we supposed to hand back all that we have to the aborigines?

Are we supposed to let them run the country and make all the decisions?

Are we just supposed to give up all we worked for and provide care and income to the aborigines?

[nomadpete]

Yenn, the problem I see is that there are people passionately trying to push each of the agenda you list. Pulling in all directions results in very little real progress for anyone.

 

 

I like the Maslow perspective. I think Maslow pointed out that the bottom layers are prerequisites for building balanced, productive lives? But attention to one layer at the expense of ignoring lower layers, just leaves the individual stuck at that level.

 

On the subject of indigenous conflict with other better off Australians, I subscribe to the overall view that although it can be said that some mob of outsiders came to this country hundreds of years ago and displaced an existing mob, the present generation did not do it. Blaming me now, makes as little sense as if, for instance, I tried to blame my great grandkids for any of my bad behaviour.

 

I categorically support fair unbiased justice for all. As far as race goes, we are all members of the human race.  I can't see how any ethnic, cultural, or skin pigment can make any change of a individual's race.

Edited June 22, 2020 by nomadpete

[old man emu]

27 minutes ago, nomadpete said:

I can't see how any ethnic, cultural, or skin pigment can make any change of a individual's race.

 Obviously, these cultural and linguistic things have no place in taxonomy.  Among humans, race has no taxonomic significance since all living humans belong to the same species, Homo sapiens, and (as far as applicable) subspecies, Homo sapiens sapiens. Modern scholarship regards race as a social construct, an identity which is assigned based on rules made by society. While partially based on physical similarities within groups, race does not have an inherent physical or biological meaning.

 

So, in truth we should not talk about "racial" differences, but ethnic  or cultural differences.

[nomadpete]

Alright. I shouldn't have referred to the "human race". As you point out we are all members of the human species.

 

But I maintain that we are all upright bipedal descendants of ancient tree dwellers. The present notable differences are really only of a minor cosmetic, lingual, and cultural nature. (Sometimes 'Culture' might be debatable). No reason to be unnecessarily picking on anyone. Unless they're d!ckheads with fading orange hair.

 

[old man emu]

"Human Race" is OK. It delineates us from the other Great Ape races.

16 minutes ago, nomadpete said:

Unless they're d!ckheads with fading orange hair.

What have you got against aged Scots? Sassenach!

 

The Gaelic term for a Saxon. Survives in modern day Ireland and Scotland as a derogatory term for an English person.

[gareth lacey]

I often watch some of these so called indigenous people talking about the the crimes the white invaders did,most of these people have as much Aboriginal in them as I do and they claim affinity to "country" so do I emigrated when I was 21 and this is my country and my sons and daughter are indigenous to Australia and my grandkids are they were born here ,the so called indigenous need to get off the bandwagon and get on with life, ask Warren Mundine in a recent article basically saying that these people need someone to blame and get paid to sit on their axxses .My wife works in education and the indigenous mob get a lot more help than other people so how far do we take this so called guilt trip, I say move on ,I for one will never say sorry, My very good friend is a 1/4 aboriginal,great footy player,bartender ,barrister and now one of the states judges, he did not waste his time on feeling sorry for his self, his remarks are "get over yourself and move on, don't blame everyone else for your insecurity and bias and lets all get on together.

Cheers Gareth

[old man emu]

So why doesn't he stand up and say these things in public? Aborigines need to have leaders who can show them that they can succeed in this multi-cultural nation.

[gareth lacey]

His brother is a professor and does a lot of work in the Aboriginal community,they come from a family of eight,the other six are as he say,s all on the gravy train and blaming everyone else for thier woes, i wont mention his name because he is well known,he is very proud of his heritage (italian,british,irish,Aboriginal) but he say,s the community at large can never win the argument,to many bleeding hearts pushing agendas (non indigenous) and while we have this misguided sense of guilt it will be around for a long time, for sure that some horrible things were done to them but i am not responsible for those time , we are not a predominant racist people,but there are elements of racist people around.

[nomadpete]

OME quote:- "What have you got against aged Scots? Sassenach! "

 

Please - I could never bring myself to denigrate the Scots, nor any other proud ranga.

I was clearly denigrating the fading president elect of the Great United Stales.

(Misspell intended)

[old man emu]

1 hour ago, nomadpete said:

I was clearly denigrating the fading president elect of the Great United Stales.

I knew that. I was just having a