"In 1967 we were counted. In 2017 we seek to be heard."
May 26, 2017 4:38 AM Subscribe
At a historic convention in the centre of Australia, indigenous leaders from across the country have outright rejected the idea of mere recognition in the constitution, instead calling for a representative body to be enshrined in the nation's founding document and a process established working towards treaties. The Uluru Statement from the Heart is the result of three days of deliberations during the national gathering.
The Conversation has an Explainer: why 300 Indigenous leaders are meeting at Uluru this week
The Conversation has an Explainer: why 300 Indigenous leaders are meeting at Uluru this week
Thanks for this, valetta. Today is the 20th annual Sorry Day which remembers the Stolen Generations. Tomorrow is the 50th anniversary of the 1967 referendum which saw 91% of the voters in Australia saying YES to a proposal for the federal government to take on the responsibility, or the right to make laws on behalf of Aboriginal people, that had previously been a state issue. In this way, Aboriginal people became the same type of legal subjects as non-indigenous Australians. It is also the start of Reconciliation Week which ends on June 3, the 25th anniversary of the handing down of the Mabo decision by the High Court of Australia. This decision recognised, for the first time, that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander had property rights which were not extinguished by the assumption of terra nullius by the Crown.
This meeting in Uluru is groundbreaking and will have many flow-on effects throughout Australia in the years to come. Like the 45yr old-and-counting Tent Embassy in Canberra, the Uluru meeting is another example of how resistance and persistence is the hallmark of the world's oldest living culture.
And because it is so important... the depth within it comes from the ages... here is the Uluru statement in full - emphasis in original.
This meeting in Uluru is groundbreaking and will have many flow-on effects throughout Australia in the years to come. Like the 45yr old-and-counting Tent Embassy in Canberra, the Uluru meeting is another example of how resistance and persistence is the hallmark of the world's oldest living culture.
And because it is so important... the depth within it comes from the ages... here is the Uluru statement in full - emphasis in original.
ULURU STATEMENT FROM THE HEARTposted by Thella at 5:51 AM on May 26, 2017 [30 favorites]
We, gathered at the 2017 National Constitutional Convention, coming from all points of the
southern sky, make this statement from the heart:
Our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tribes were the first sovereign Nations of the
Australian continent and its adjacent islands, and possessed it under our own laws and customs.
This our ancestors did, according to the reckoning of our culture, from the Creation, according
to the common law from ‘time immemorial’, and according to science more than 60,000 years
ago.
This sovereignty is a spiritual notion: the ancestral tie between the land, or ‘mother nature’,
and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples who were born therefrom, remain
attached thereto, and must one day return thither to be united with our ancestors. This link is
the basis of the ownership of the soil, or better, of sovereignty. It has never been ceded or
extinguished, and co-exists with the sovereignty of the Crown.
How could it be otherwise? That peoples possessed a land for sixty millennia and this sacred
link disappears from world history in merely the last two hundred years?
With substantive constitutional change and structural reform, we believe this ancient
sovereignty can shine through as a fuller expression of Australia’s nationhood.
Proportionally, we are the most incarcerated people on the planet. We are not an innately
criminal people. Our children are aliened from their families at unprecedented rates. This
cannot be because we have no love for them. And our youth languish in detention in obscene
numbers. They should be our hope for the future.
These dimensions of our crisis tell plainly the structural nature of our problem. This is the
torment of our powerlessness.
We seek constitutional reforms to empower our people and take a rightful place in our own
country. When we have power over our destiny our children will flourish. They will walk in
two worlds and their culture will be a gift to their country.
We call for the establishment of a First Nations Voice enshrined in the Constitution.
Makarrata is the culmination of our agenda: the coming together after a struggle. It captures
our aspirations for a fair and truthful relationship with the people of Australia and a better
future for our children based on justice and self-determination.
We seek a Makarrata Commission to supervise a process of agreement-making between
governments and First Nations and truth-telling about our history.
In 1967 we were counted, in 2017 we seek to be heard. We leave base camp and start our trek
across this vast country. We invite you to walk with us in a movement of the Australian people for a better future.
If Makarrata comprehensively failed in the '80s, what hope does it have now? Given that "Recognition" had finally become too much of a farce for anyone to discuss with a straight face, I suppose we now get to spend the next five years going through the same process for "Treaty".
posted by kithrater at 5:57 AM on May 26, 2017
posted by kithrater at 5:57 AM on May 26, 2017
If Makarrata comprehensively failed in the '80s, what hope does it have now? Given that "Recognition" had finally become too much of a farce for anyone to discuss with a straight face, I suppose we now get to spend the next five years going through the same process for "Treaty".
Who's 'we'?
Five years. Sigh. Such a long time. Fortunately the country has role models for how to persevere for over two hundred and thirty nine years.
posted by Thella at 6:07 AM on May 26, 2017 [2 favorites]
Who's 'we'?
Five years. Sigh. Such a long time. Fortunately the country has role models for how to persevere for over two hundred and thirty nine years.
posted by Thella at 6:07 AM on May 26, 2017 [2 favorites]
Speaking as an Australian with European ancestry, I really want to see this get up.
posted by flabdablet at 6:16 AM on May 26, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by flabdablet at 6:16 AM on May 26, 2017 [1 favorite]
We is us lucky participants in the culture wars.
Oh, you may be intellectually annoyed by the Australian First Nations' fight for cultural survival? How frustrating for you!
posted by Thella at 6:19 AM on May 26, 2017 [9 favorites]
Oh, you may be intellectually annoyed by the Australian First Nations' fight for cultural survival? How frustrating for you!
posted by Thella at 6:19 AM on May 26, 2017 [9 favorites]
I'm Australian.
This is a furiously difficult debate. There can be no way forward without recognising our history.
And our history is of agressive, exploitative colonialism and immigration.
Our immigration policy has always been explicitly and implicitly racist.
But now we are a multiracial, many-cultured nation with our own distinct identity. We celebrate that identity together.
40% of Australians came here in their own, or their parents, lifetimes. Many of us came from nations that no longer exist.
We are a rich, storied, developed, amazing nation.
We must learn to live at peace, and with love, with all of our fellow Australians.
I have no idea how to make that actually work.
But we cannot go back to 1788.
posted by Combat Wombat at 6:19 AM on May 26, 2017 [2 favorites]
This is a furiously difficult debate. There can be no way forward without recognising our history.
And our history is of agressive, exploitative colonialism and immigration.
Our immigration policy has always been explicitly and implicitly racist.
But now we are a multiracial, many-cultured nation with our own distinct identity. We celebrate that identity together.
40% of Australians came here in their own, or their parents, lifetimes. Many of us came from nations that no longer exist.
We are a rich, storied, developed, amazing nation.
We must learn to live at peace, and with love, with all of our fellow Australians.
I have no idea how to make that actually work.
But we cannot go back to 1788.
posted by Combat Wombat at 6:19 AM on May 26, 2017 [2 favorites]
You caught me; I'm one of those people more interested in results than buying Noel Pearson's latest book.
posted by kithrater at 6:22 AM on May 26, 2017
posted by kithrater at 6:22 AM on May 26, 2017
We is us lucky participants in the culture wars
WTF?
Unless there is some context I'm missing, this is dismissive and racist.
posted by PMdixon at 6:36 AM on May 26, 2017 [8 favorites]
WTF?
Unless there is some context I'm missing, this is dismissive and racist.
posted by PMdixon at 6:36 AM on May 26, 2017 [8 favorites]
But results for whom?
Indigenous Australians would be a good start.
Unless there is some context I'm missing, this is dismissive and racist.
Are you Australian?
posted by kithrater at 6:40 AM on May 26, 2017 [1 favorite]
Indigenous Australians would be a good start.
Unless there is some context I'm missing, this is dismissive and racist.
Are you Australian?
posted by kithrater at 6:40 AM on May 26, 2017 [1 favorite]
It's an interesting question - what makes sovereignty? Once ceded, can it be reclaimed? Can sovereignty co exist with other sovereignty? If this sovereignty is valid, then must the sovereignty of the Crown be invalid?
posted by corb at 7:16 AM on May 26, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by corb at 7:16 AM on May 26, 2017 [1 favorite]
Can sovereignty co exist with other sovereignty?
Yes, absolutely. It's called a condominium.
The Crown's theory of sovereignty over Australia (and many other colonies) was terra nullius - that no people lived there (or at least no people with a civilization worth noticing), and so Australia was an empty land where the first power to arrive could assert sovereignty. In places with more organized indigenous polities the crown made treaties, none of which it took seriously but which served as an expedient means of expanding the empire. In the case of Australia, the crown never even acknowledged that anyone lived there. There's no legal reason that the crown couldn't come to its senses, acknowledge that the indigenous people of Australia constituted a civilization significantly older than anything in Europe, and establish a treaty relationship today. Whether it'll actually happen? Well, Waitangi didn't grow to the status of a founding legal document in New Zealand until my lifetime. But NZ is different from Australia.
posted by 1adam12 at 7:25 AM on May 26, 2017 [8 favorites]
Yes, absolutely. It's called a condominium.
The Crown's theory of sovereignty over Australia (and many other colonies) was terra nullius - that no people lived there (or at least no people with a civilization worth noticing), and so Australia was an empty land where the first power to arrive could assert sovereignty. In places with more organized indigenous polities the crown made treaties, none of which it took seriously but which served as an expedient means of expanding the empire. In the case of Australia, the crown never even acknowledged that anyone lived there. There's no legal reason that the crown couldn't come to its senses, acknowledge that the indigenous people of Australia constituted a civilization significantly older than anything in Europe, and establish a treaty relationship today. Whether it'll actually happen? Well, Waitangi didn't grow to the status of a founding legal document in New Zealand until my lifetime. But NZ is different from Australia.
posted by 1adam12 at 7:25 AM on May 26, 2017 [8 favorites]
Indigenous Australians would be a good start.
It was recently said, by someone who knows what they are talking about, (Larissa Behrendt, maybe?) that an indicator of a reconciled Australia would be that the babies of First Nations' people would be a healthy weight when born. To get to that point, she said, involved many layers of recognition and action that won't happen unless Aboriginal cultural rights and responsibilities are embedded in general Australian administration.
It's an interesting question - what makes sovereignty? Once ceded, can it be reclaimed? Can sovereignty co exist with other sovereignty? If this sovereignty is valid, then must the sovereignty of the Crown be invalid?
First, Australia's First Nations have never ceded sovereignty - "Always was, always will be, Aboriginal land"
Second, the Lore is different from the Law. Both can coexist in many parts of the country because both adopt responsibility for different aspects. The difference is deep, but simply put: Law is based on rights around property. Lore is based on responsibilities to 'country'. In Law, land belongs to people. In Lore, people belong to their land / the land. To fulfill responsibilities to country means performing and maintaining culture. It is all connected. As they say in the Uluru declaration above: born therefrom, remain attached thereto, and must one day return thither to be united with our ancestors.
posted by Thella at 7:36 AM on May 26, 2017 [8 favorites]
It was recently said, by someone who knows what they are talking about, (Larissa Behrendt, maybe?) that an indicator of a reconciled Australia would be that the babies of First Nations' people would be a healthy weight when born. To get to that point, she said, involved many layers of recognition and action that won't happen unless Aboriginal cultural rights and responsibilities are embedded in general Australian administration.
It's an interesting question - what makes sovereignty? Once ceded, can it be reclaimed? Can sovereignty co exist with other sovereignty? If this sovereignty is valid, then must the sovereignty of the Crown be invalid?
First, Australia's First Nations have never ceded sovereignty - "Always was, always will be, Aboriginal land"
Second, the Lore is different from the Law. Both can coexist in many parts of the country because both adopt responsibility for different aspects. The difference is deep, but simply put: Law is based on rights around property. Lore is based on responsibilities to 'country'. In Law, land belongs to people. In Lore, people belong to their land / the land. To fulfill responsibilities to country means performing and maintaining culture. It is all connected. As they say in the Uluru declaration above: born therefrom, remain attached thereto, and must one day return thither to be united with our ancestors.
posted by Thella at 7:36 AM on May 26, 2017 [8 favorites]
I think I'm going to trust Aboriginal Australian leaders to know what they need and what "results" are important to them more than some asshole on the internet.
posted by tobascodagama at 7:39 AM on May 26, 2017 [10 favorites]
posted by tobascodagama at 7:39 AM on May 26, 2017 [10 favorites]
If we're going to entrust the advancement of Indigenous Australian well-being to the Commonwealth, what's the most effective way of doing so? Spend five years developing what will inevitably be an almost entirely symbolic treaty - the exact thing that just happened with the recognition movement. Or, a massive increase to funding for basic services for Indigenous Australians?
posted by kithrater at 7:56 AM on May 26, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by kithrater at 7:56 AM on May 26, 2017 [1 favorite]
We are horrible at this. We are like firefighters with a water-tanker full of gasoline. Everything we've done has made things worse. Worse than worse, blatantly evil.
Some of you reading this are parents. Can you imagine if someone took your child, changed their name, you never saw them again, they don't even speak your language. Who thought taking their kids was a good idea? Didn't someone ask, maybe kidnapping their children is evil?
Everyone reading this has parents. Or had parents. I was orphaned when I was a kid and I know how that will effect a kid, like me, to not know them. Sorry doesn't even come close to enough. These people are orphaned from their land.
Their land. It provided all they needed for generations.
'Our help' is not what they need now. 'Our help' is cruel and evil, every time, always, we've never got it right. One example, the welfare card you can only use to buy groceries, not grog or smokes or drugs. Instant blackmarket, pun not intended. Because if you're driving a truck and you need to fill up the tank, stop here and a black fella will give you ten bucks off if you pay cash.
We fucked up, over and over again. 'Sorry' is meaningless, constitutional recognition is just more words. They need their land back, they need their kids back, and they need independence to be their own people again.
the boltheads and hansonites can fuck right off mate
posted by adept256 at 7:56 AM on May 26, 2017 [6 favorites]
Some of you reading this are parents. Can you imagine if someone took your child, changed their name, you never saw them again, they don't even speak your language. Who thought taking their kids was a good idea? Didn't someone ask, maybe kidnapping their children is evil?
Everyone reading this has parents. Or had parents. I was orphaned when I was a kid and I know how that will effect a kid, like me, to not know them. Sorry doesn't even come close to enough. These people are orphaned from their land.
Their land. It provided all they needed for generations.
'Our help' is not what they need now. 'Our help' is cruel and evil, every time, always, we've never got it right. One example, the welfare card you can only use to buy groceries, not grog or smokes or drugs. Instant blackmarket, pun not intended. Because if you're driving a truck and you need to fill up the tank, stop here and a black fella will give you ten bucks off if you pay cash.
We fucked up, over and over again. 'Sorry' is meaningless, constitutional recognition is just more words. They need their land back, they need their kids back, and they need independence to be their own people again.
the boltheads and hansonites can fuck right off mate
posted by adept256 at 7:56 AM on May 26, 2017 [6 favorites]
If we're going to entrust the advancement of Indigenous Australian well-being to the Commonwealth, what's the most effective way of doing so? Spend five years developing what will inevitably be an almost entirely symbolic treaty - the exact thing that just happened with the recognition movement. Or, a massive increase to funding for basic services for Indigenous Australians?
I can see that you have some experience in Indigenous Affairs, kithrater and now you sound tired and cynical about the state of play and I am going to assume that came from genuinely trying, and frequently failing, to institute programs that worked.
I think the whole premise of your questions above is wrong. With no sarcasm intended, let me change it for you so you see what I mean.
posted by Thella at 8:23 AM on May 26, 2017
I can see that you have some experience in Indigenous Affairs, kithrater and now you sound tired and cynical about the state of play and I am going to assume that came from genuinely trying, and frequently failing, to institute programs that worked.
I think the whole premise of your questions above is wrong. With no sarcasm intended, let me change it for you so you see what I mean.
If we're going to entrust the advancement of Indigenous Australian well-being to Indigenous Australians, what's the most effective way of doing so? Spend five years developing what will inevitably be more than a symbolic treaty - as would never have happened with the recognition movement, and negotiate the 'rent' that will be paid to fund basic services for Indigenous Australians.It's not binary. It's holistic.
posted by Thella at 8:23 AM on May 26, 2017
entrust the advancement of Indigenous Australian well-being to Indigenous Australians
But that's not what's being offered. The Referendum Council is the Commonwealth's attempt to salvage the Recognition agenda, even as Indigenous Australians increasingly see it for the bullshit that it is. There's no genuine deal for recognition of sovereignty on the table, and that's why some leaders walked out - they want meaningful change and dialogue, not to be made subservient to cosmetic constitutional amendments.
posted by kithrater at 8:47 AM on May 26, 2017 [1 favorite]
But that's not what's being offered. The Referendum Council is the Commonwealth's attempt to salvage the Recognition agenda, even as Indigenous Australians increasingly see it for the bullshit that it is. There's no genuine deal for recognition of sovereignty on the table, and that's why some leaders walked out - they want meaningful change and dialogue, not to be made subservient to cosmetic constitutional amendments.
posted by kithrater at 8:47 AM on May 26, 2017 [1 favorite]
We fucked up, over and over again
...which might be forgivable, if not for the fact that we (as embodied collectively by our duly elected representatives) are still actively doing it.
> Who's 'we'?
> We is us lucky participants in the culture wars.
> Oh, you may be intellectually annoyed by the Australian First Nations' fight for cultural survival? How frustrating for you!
> Unless there is some context I'm missing, this is dismissive and racist.
> I think I'm going to trust Aboriginal Australian leaders to know what they need and what "results" are important to them more than some asshole on the internet.
I think it's perfectly appropriate to take a jaundiced view of the culture war that the odious Windschuttle launched upon our country. The contemptuous dismissal of credible and well-researched accounts of deliberate extermination and dispossession as representing a "black-armband view of history" has been one of the most potently poisonous memes ever added to Australian public discourse.
I don't think a heartfelt desire to see the back of the professional bullshit artists who keep these culture wars stoked up makes a person dismissive, or racist, or an asshole.
I do think that a tendency to leap to ill-informed negative judgements against people we know very little about is a huge part of the dynamic that keeps ongoing culture wars viable, and I would really appreciate it if people participating in this thread could take this opportunity to practise making the effort to delete any such parts of their contributions before clicking Post Comment.
posted by flabdablet at 8:55 AM on May 26, 2017 [5 favorites]
...which might be forgivable, if not for the fact that we (as embodied collectively by our duly elected representatives) are still actively doing it.
> Who's 'we'?
> We is us lucky participants in the culture wars.
> Oh, you may be intellectually annoyed by the Australian First Nations' fight for cultural survival? How frustrating for you!
> Unless there is some context I'm missing, this is dismissive and racist.
> I think I'm going to trust Aboriginal Australian leaders to know what they need and what "results" are important to them more than some asshole on the internet.
I think it's perfectly appropriate to take a jaundiced view of the culture war that the odious Windschuttle launched upon our country. The contemptuous dismissal of credible and well-researched accounts of deliberate extermination and dispossession as representing a "black-armband view of history" has been one of the most potently poisonous memes ever added to Australian public discourse.
I don't think a heartfelt desire to see the back of the professional bullshit artists who keep these culture wars stoked up makes a person dismissive, or racist, or an asshole.
I do think that a tendency to leap to ill-informed negative judgements against people we know very little about is a huge part of the dynamic that keeps ongoing culture wars viable, and I would really appreciate it if people participating in this thread could take this opportunity to practise making the effort to delete any such parts of their contributions before clicking Post Comment.
posted by flabdablet at 8:55 AM on May 26, 2017 [5 favorites]
Cool how we now have yet another thread about indigenous resistance that white people have made all about themselves.
posted by tobascodagama at 9:08 AM on May 26, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by tobascodagama at 9:08 AM on May 26, 2017 [2 favorites]
Was happy to see this posted; can only imagine the complexities involved; didn't expect to find uncomfortingly recent non-indigenous scepticism on MeFi; will go back to hoping to learn something from the most ancient continuous civilization on this planet.
posted by progosk at 9:29 AM on May 26, 2017
posted by progosk at 9:29 AM on May 26, 2017
Unless there is some context I'm missing, this is dismissive and racist.
Dismissive? I suppose that comment marks you as an expert at being dismissive and context free.
I'll tell you who 'we' are. We're White Australia, who grew up in a culture of racism. That's the context. We were effectively segregated. Some of the kids I went to school with scrubbed the names off their cherished cricket bats because we boycotted South Africa in the cricket over apartheid. The context is that I didn't even meet an Aboriginal until I was in high-school. The context is, despite what Pauline says, people still voted for her. Again.
And again. Here we are, like addicts, knowing we're going to pay for the quick fix in the long term.
posted by adept256 at 10:07 AM on May 26, 2017 [1 favorite]
Dismissive? I suppose that comment marks you as an expert at being dismissive and context free.
I'll tell you who 'we' are. We're White Australia, who grew up in a culture of racism. That's the context. We were effectively segregated. Some of the kids I went to school with scrubbed the names off their cherished cricket bats because we boycotted South Africa in the cricket over apartheid. The context is that I didn't even meet an Aboriginal until I was in high-school. The context is, despite what Pauline says, people still voted for her. Again.
And again. Here we are, like addicts, knowing we're going to pay for the quick fix in the long term.
posted by adept256 at 10:07 AM on May 26, 2017 [1 favorite]
didn't expect to find uncomfortingly recent non-indigenous scepticism on MeFi
I don't think that such scepticism proceeds from a lack of desire to see the ongoing dispossession and intergenerational trauma stopped. I think it proceeds from paying attention to Australian commercial talkback radio, which is apparently where Australian government policy gets written in the 21st century.
Personally I prefer not to pay attention to Australian commercial talkback radio. I prefer to consider instead the way I've seen cultural attitudes on race and sexuality shift over my lifetime, and reflect on just how profound that change has been.
I'm 55 years old now. When I was in my 20s, poofter bashing was widely viewed as excellent sport; now it's generally recognized as seriously criminal and gay marriage is a thing. Back then, you could walk into any pub and be sure of hearing some respectable-looking whitefella wheel out the lazy slurs about drunken useless Abos to nods of approval from his respectable-looking whitefella mates (and not a black face anywhere to be seen, naturally - at least, not in the front bar); nowadays the only way you can really get away with doing that is behind closed private doors in the company of a carefully selected pack of like-minded fuckheads.
Even the shock jocks have been forced into using coded dogwhistles instead of actually speaking what passes for their minds.
I think it's difficult for younger people, who have spent their whole lives in a world where calling somebody a poof or a nigger or a coon is instantly and uncontroversially obvious cause for offence, to realize just how much things really have shifted in the last half century despite the best efforts of the culture warriors to roll back the tide. In fact I know full well that I will myself now be the cause of some of that offence simply for mentioning those words without employing the appropriate bowdlerizations.
So, change is happening. Way way way too slowly because this shit should have stopped before it even got started, but it's happening. The simple fact is, in 2017, more of us gubbas are listening.
I don't believe for a second that the Turnbull Government has what it takes to implement anything approaching meaningful action as a result of anything said this week at Uluru. But that doesn't make the First Nation Regional Dialogues any less useful.
Some of the people listening are children.
posted by flabdablet at 10:53 AM on May 26, 2017 [14 favorites]
I don't think that such scepticism proceeds from a lack of desire to see the ongoing dispossession and intergenerational trauma stopped. I think it proceeds from paying attention to Australian commercial talkback radio, which is apparently where Australian government policy gets written in the 21st century.
Personally I prefer not to pay attention to Australian commercial talkback radio. I prefer to consider instead the way I've seen cultural attitudes on race and sexuality shift over my lifetime, and reflect on just how profound that change has been.
I'm 55 years old now. When I was in my 20s, poofter bashing was widely viewed as excellent sport; now it's generally recognized as seriously criminal and gay marriage is a thing. Back then, you could walk into any pub and be sure of hearing some respectable-looking whitefella wheel out the lazy slurs about drunken useless Abos to nods of approval from his respectable-looking whitefella mates (and not a black face anywhere to be seen, naturally - at least, not in the front bar); nowadays the only way you can really get away with doing that is behind closed private doors in the company of a carefully selected pack of like-minded fuckheads.
Even the shock jocks have been forced into using coded dogwhistles instead of actually speaking what passes for their minds.
I think it's difficult for younger people, who have spent their whole lives in a world where calling somebody a poof or a nigger or a coon is instantly and uncontroversially obvious cause for offence, to realize just how much things really have shifted in the last half century despite the best efforts of the culture warriors to roll back the tide. In fact I know full well that I will myself now be the cause of some of that offence simply for mentioning those words without employing the appropriate bowdlerizations.
So, change is happening. Way way way too slowly because this shit should have stopped before it even got started, but it's happening. The simple fact is, in 2017, more of us gubbas are listening.
I don't believe for a second that the Turnbull Government has what it takes to implement anything approaching meaningful action as a result of anything said this week at Uluru. But that doesn't make the First Nation Regional Dialogues any less useful.
Some of the people listening are children.
posted by flabdablet at 10:53 AM on May 26, 2017 [14 favorites]
Ouch, there are a lot of words in your post flabdablet that I'd have preferred not to have seen in full. Would it be possible to start them out please?
posted by daybeforetheday at 4:51 PM on May 26, 2017
posted by daybeforetheday at 4:51 PM on May 26, 2017
ABC News: Remarks from Bill Shorten, Malcolm Turnbull and Pat Dodson.
ABC Opinion: Aboriginal people do what we must to survive; 1967 didn't change that by Bruce Pascoe.*
* Bruce Pascoe (biog) rejected a short story of mine back in the eighties when he ran Australian Short Stories and crushed forever my dream of ... naah - I had other dreams, plenty of 'em. So I don't hold that against him.
posted by valetta at 1:28 AM on May 27, 2017 [1 favorite]
ABC Opinion: Aboriginal people do what we must to survive; 1967 didn't change that by Bruce Pascoe.*
* Bruce Pascoe (biog) rejected a short story of mine back in the eighties when he ran Australian Short Stories and crushed forever my dream of ... naah - I had other dreams, plenty of 'em. So I don't hold that against him.
posted by valetta at 1:28 AM on May 27, 2017 [1 favorite]
there are a lot of words in your post flabdablet that I'd have preferred not to have seen in full
There are a lot of words in that post that I'd prefer never to see at all.
Which is exactly my point, and exactly why I put them there. When I was a child, all all of those words were all in completely general use and every single one of them ranked very very very low on the scale of Words Likely To Get A Kid The Strap.
In 2017, it's not unlikely that given the right circumstances a kid could actually get expelled for using those words.
Attitudes do change, is my point, and over the long term that change is for the better.
Would it be possible to start them out please?
What for? They're every bit as offensive when disemvowelled as they are raw.
posted by flabdablet at 4:11 AM on May 27, 2017 [4 favorites]
There are a lot of words in that post that I'd prefer never to see at all.
Which is exactly my point, and exactly why I put them there. When I was a child, all all of those words were all in completely general use and every single one of them ranked very very very low on the scale of Words Likely To Get A Kid The Strap.
In 2017, it's not unlikely that given the right circumstances a kid could actually get expelled for using those words.
Attitudes do change, is my point, and over the long term that change is for the better.
Would it be possible to start them out please?
What for? They're every bit as offensive when disemvowelled as they are raw.
posted by flabdablet at 4:11 AM on May 27, 2017 [4 favorites]
And if they're not, they fucking well should be.
posted by flabdablet at 4:17 AM on May 27, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by flabdablet at 4:17 AM on May 27, 2017 [4 favorites]
There can be no way forward without recognising our history.
And our history is of agressive, exploitative colonialism and immigration.
I think at this point most Australians are relatively aware of the history -- it just doesn't automatically translate into a program of action today.
The difficulty I have with the Uluru "Statement from the Heart" is its unrelenting conservatist traditionalism. That initial section reads like some Edmund Burkean anti-democratic justification for divine monarchy. "time immemorial" and all that crap. That's exactly what the counter-revolutionarys said in France!
I am all for ending structural discrimination and racism but I find the claims for "sovereignty" to be total nonsense - what kind of "sovereignty" can you have when you are 3% of the population, have no military, no police, no power whatsoever..? Their sovereignty was never extinguished? in what sense exactly? They have not had political power for 200 years. I think that is pretty much "extinguished".
posted by mary8nne at 1:19 PM on May 27, 2017
And our history is of agressive, exploitative colonialism and immigration.
I think at this point most Australians are relatively aware of the history -- it just doesn't automatically translate into a program of action today.
The difficulty I have with the Uluru "Statement from the Heart" is its unrelenting conservatist traditionalism. That initial section reads like some Edmund Burkean anti-democratic justification for divine monarchy. "time immemorial" and all that crap. That's exactly what the counter-revolutionarys said in France!
I am all for ending structural discrimination and racism but I find the claims for "sovereignty" to be total nonsense - what kind of "sovereignty" can you have when you are 3% of the population, have no military, no police, no power whatsoever..? Their sovereignty was never extinguished? in what sense exactly? They have not had political power for 200 years. I think that is pretty much "extinguished".
posted by mary8nne at 1:19 PM on May 27, 2017
It's called a condominium.
But that means joint "ownership" in the sense of con-"dominium" (dominium i believe refered to a relationship modelled on the lord of a household who literally was seen to "own" all the people and things in the household).
It is not the same concept as Sovereignty, and based on the wikipedia condominum is usually an agreement between two separate sovereign states regarding a minor third party territory rather than a shared primary territory and even then they have been rather unstable.
posted by mary8nne at 1:28 PM on May 27, 2017
But that means joint "ownership" in the sense of con-"dominium" (dominium i believe refered to a relationship modelled on the lord of a household who literally was seen to "own" all the people and things in the household).
It is not the same concept as Sovereignty, and based on the wikipedia condominum is usually an agreement between two separate sovereign states regarding a minor third party territory rather than a shared primary territory and even then they have been rather unstable.
posted by mary8nne at 1:28 PM on May 27, 2017
Second, the Lore is different from the Law. Both can coexist in many parts of the country because both adopt responsibility for different aspects.
but what happens when they come into conflict? And who is held to "Lore" ?
As a white Australian I have no interest in being held to some responsibility to country based on some religious tradition."
All these speeches about ownership are just window dressing. Sovereignty is based in power and authority to enforce law -- without the power to uphold adherence to law, it is just some museum relic.
posted by mary8nne at 1:43 PM on May 27, 2017
but what happens when they come into conflict? And who is held to "Lore" ?
As a white Australian I have no interest in being held to some responsibility to country based on some religious tradition."
All these speeches about ownership are just window dressing. Sovereignty is based in power and authority to enforce law -- without the power to uphold adherence to law, it is just some museum relic.
posted by mary8nne at 1:43 PM on May 27, 2017
They have not had political power for 200 years. I think that is pretty much "extinguished".
Wow.
I do not have a horse in this race, but, mary8anne, the permanence of the Aboriginal civilisation in the land you inhabit throughout fifty millennia previous to these last 200 years holds no significance, carries no weight, in terms of authority, in your opinion?
As tobascodagama noted, how often is the typical reaction on the part of the voices that do hold current power (by self-defined authority, of course) to the expressed basic request "to be heard" swiftly and fatally silenced ("window-dressing", "total nonsense", "anti-democratci", "all that crap")?
You reduce to "museum relic" a people that have painfully stated their case. I'm atheist mysef, but to ridicule the most ancient and successful civilisation on this planet of "unrelenting conservatist traditionalism" beholden to "some responsibility to country based on some religious tradition"... Just. Wow.
most Australians are relatively aware of the history
Yes, "relatively" is at the very least the word you were looking for, there.
posted by progosk at 2:13 AM on May 28, 2017
Wow.
I do not have a horse in this race, but, mary8anne, the permanence of the Aboriginal civilisation in the land you inhabit throughout fifty millennia previous to these last 200 years holds no significance, carries no weight, in terms of authority, in your opinion?
As tobascodagama noted, how often is the typical reaction on the part of the voices that do hold current power (by self-defined authority, of course) to the expressed basic request "to be heard" swiftly and fatally silenced ("window-dressing", "total nonsense", "anti-democratci", "all that crap")?
You reduce to "museum relic" a people that have painfully stated their case. I'm atheist mysef, but to ridicule the most ancient and successful civilisation on this planet of "unrelenting conservatist traditionalism" beholden to "some responsibility to country based on some religious tradition"... Just. Wow.
most Australians are relatively aware of the history
Yes, "relatively" is at the very least the word you were looking for, there.
posted by progosk at 2:13 AM on May 28, 2017
As a white Australian I have no interest in being held to some responsibility to country based on some religious tradition.
As another white Australian who has been watching in dismay for the last 40 years at the way our present culture has systematically gone about exploiting every natural resource in this place to the point of degradation and ruin before moving on to the next one, I would encourage you to ponder the consequences of failing to learn from the customs and traditions of peoples who have spent the last fifty thousand years working out how to make a living off this most arid of continents without fucking it up.
Humanity undoubtedly did fuck it up on first arrival: devastated the megafauna, replaced vast amounts of astonishingly biodiverse rainforest with simpler and more fire-prone sclerophyll, and so on and so forth; pretty much what you'd expect, ecologically speaking, from the arrival of an adaptable new top predator. But the archaeological and palaeological evidence suggests that most of that change happened at least fifty thousand years ago.
For more than ten times the number of years since the "ancient" Egyptians started building pyramids - for more than five times the number of years since the advent of agriculture in the Middle East - the locals here have been making a living off this land.
The idea that we Johnny-come-lately immigrants have nothing to learn from hundreds of centuries of practical experience and the consequent deep relationships to country is ludicrous on its face, and dismissing all of that as "some religious tradition" displays simply astonishing levels of blinkered hubris.
posted by flabdablet at 6:44 AM on May 28, 2017 [8 favorites]
As another white Australian who has been watching in dismay for the last 40 years at the way our present culture has systematically gone about exploiting every natural resource in this place to the point of degradation and ruin before moving on to the next one, I would encourage you to ponder the consequences of failing to learn from the customs and traditions of peoples who have spent the last fifty thousand years working out how to make a living off this most arid of continents without fucking it up.
Humanity undoubtedly did fuck it up on first arrival: devastated the megafauna, replaced vast amounts of astonishingly biodiverse rainforest with simpler and more fire-prone sclerophyll, and so on and so forth; pretty much what you'd expect, ecologically speaking, from the arrival of an adaptable new top predator. But the archaeological and palaeological evidence suggests that most of that change happened at least fifty thousand years ago.
For more than ten times the number of years since the "ancient" Egyptians started building pyramids - for more than five times the number of years since the advent of agriculture in the Middle East - the locals here have been making a living off this land.
The idea that we Johnny-come-lately immigrants have nothing to learn from hundreds of centuries of practical experience and the consequent deep relationships to country is ludicrous on its face, and dismissing all of that as "some religious tradition" displays simply astonishing levels of blinkered hubris.
posted by flabdablet at 6:44 AM on May 28, 2017 [8 favorites]
most Australians are relatively aware of the history
Most Australians think 200 years is a long time.
posted by flabdablet at 7:03 AM on May 28, 2017
Most Australians think 200 years is a long time.
posted by flabdablet at 7:03 AM on May 28, 2017
There is a western political concept "sovereignty". The meaning of this concept in political discourse is largely still consonant with the intrinsic connection with power suggested by Bodin and Hobbes. When using the word "sovereignty" you are implicitly tied to the history of its use in that discourse.
Although, sovereignty is loosely connected with natural law ideas about rights, and morality, and means of legitimation, I think it is necessary to admit that without power it is simply a fact that you are not sovereign.
To claim to be "sovereign" is to claim to have the power to enforce law. I think its simply a straightforward fact that the indigenous population of Australia currently has no such power and hence cannot be sovereign.
I think ownership is pretty much the same -- it is only a meaningful concept within a legal system. Since the indigenous "lore" has had no de facto legitimation for 97% of the population in 200 years any ownership supported by that regime is simply meaningless.
posted by mary8nne at 7:21 AM on May 28, 2017
Although, sovereignty is loosely connected with natural law ideas about rights, and morality, and means of legitimation, I think it is necessary to admit that without power it is simply a fact that you are not sovereign.
To claim to be "sovereign" is to claim to have the power to enforce law. I think its simply a straightforward fact that the indigenous population of Australia currently has no such power and hence cannot be sovereign.
I think ownership is pretty much the same -- it is only a meaningful concept within a legal system. Since the indigenous "lore" has had no de facto legitimation for 97% of the population in 200 years any ownership supported by that regime is simply meaningless.
posted by mary8nne at 7:21 AM on May 28, 2017
So you're saying that the High Court got it wrong on Mabo and native title isn't actually a thing?
posted by flabdablet at 7:24 AM on May 28, 2017
posted by flabdablet at 7:24 AM on May 28, 2017
I think the ongoing controversy over mining rights and native title illustrate that it is more of a pseudo-"ownership" compared to the sovereign / crown ownership based in power.
posted by mary8nne at 7:33 AM on May 28, 2017
posted by mary8nne at 7:33 AM on May 28, 2017
I think it's hilarious that an apparently unashamed supporter of the anachronistic right of conquest takes it upon himself to complain about somebody else's "unrelenting conservatist traditionalism".
posted by flabdablet at 7:38 AM on May 28, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by flabdablet at 7:38 AM on May 28, 2017 [1 favorite]
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