Australia Day

Yesterday, 26th January, Australians celebrated Australia Day.

Celebrated annually on 26 January, the date commemorates the arrival of the First Fleet at Sydney Cove in 1788 and the proclamation at that time of British sovereignty over the eastern seaboard of New Holland.


So if you are American or Canadian or Russian or whatever, you now know.


Here is a brief list of what some people think of Australia Day


1.An insult and ongoing festering sore for aboriginal (indigenous) people who would rather not call themselves Australians. (see pic above)


2. The former county court judge Peter Gebhardt  says, 

Australia Day is, of course, an artificial fabrication designed by governments, the corporate world, media, Australia Day Councils and smug Anglo-Saxons to ensure that we forget real history. 

That Anglo-Saxon smugness is a resilient child of hypocrisy and racism. The mawkish jingoism, the noisy triumphalism and trumped-up nationalism lead to the xenophobia that treats our humanity as something special and beyond the humanity of others who are not of these shores or of those, the original owners, who live within our shores but have been relegated as relics of history, beyond imagination.

3.Professor Fozdar
 "And an overwhelming 91 per cent of people with car flags agreed that people who move to Australia should adopt Australian values, compared with 76 per cent of non-flaggers," Professor Fozdar said.

The suggestion is that flying the Australian flag predisposes us to harboring racist beliefs.


So in a fit of rage I ask myself, 


Q.What other country allows such scouring self criticism as illustrated above?
Q.What other country bends over backwards to accommodate every cultural and religious diverse group who emigrates there? 

Q.What other countries' citizens continue to stew in their own collective guilt for events concerning indigenous peoples  over which they had no control?

Q.What other country harbours such feelings of self loathing when it considers the failure in public policy to integrate stone age primitives into mainstream society? 
Q.What other country constantly examines their own navel for signs of racism?


I always thought Australia Day was a day to be proud to be Australian. I'm proud to be Australian, I was born here.
My wife is proud to be Australian, being immigrant and political refugee from a communist country, she values the freedom to think and do what she likes without having the police state look over her shoulder constantly. 
As Australians we value the freedom to express opinions no matter how naive, stupid, biased, ignorant, those opinions may be. 
At least let's be proud of that.

Aboriginals and Evolution

I've been thinking for a very long time about the persistent failure of attempts to bring the Australian aborigines into the modern world. Disregarding the fact that there have been numerous instances of individuals who have reached high levels of education and career success. The reason I disregard this fact is that any aboriginal individual who would be put up as an example of this is without doubt someone who has part aboriginal blood and isn't 100% pure aboriginal. By this I mean they have aboriginal/western blood.

So I did a Google search to test a theory that claims aborigines are not as evolved as their European based cousins. I couldn't find any explicit expression of this concept but I did find many references to the idea that aborigines have evolved differently but are not less evolved. This thinking is so dangerously close to racist ideas that nobody wants to be associated with such.
And of course I'm not going to put myself up as a target by stating anything like that.
But....
consider this quote from a professor who has just been awarded an Queen's Birthday honor,

 Professor Brand-Miller ...

Her interest in the Glycaemic Index -- a nutrition concept devised by University of Toronto experts David Jenkins and Thomas Wolever -- goes back to 1981, when she was studying Aboriginal diets. She concluded that indigenous people so easily became obese and developed diabetes because, unlike Europeans, their bodies had not evolved the ability to manage the high levels of glucose, sugars that accompanied the development of agriculture.

And you might well miss the critical phrase which I have highlighted.

So it's ok to mention that aboriginal bodies are not (as) evolved as Europeans, is it too much of a stretch to say that maybe their brains are not similarly evolved as well? 

Sorry to the "Stolen Generation"

Let's not hesitate to apologize finally to the aboriginal "stolen generation".

Sorry for taking you away from a remote community where alcoholism is rife.
Sorry for taking you away from a destitute life where the average life expectancy is 17 years less than in the white community.
Sorry for putting you into a society where which has a work ethic and material wealth is a measure of success.
Sorry for depriving you of the opportunity to develop blindness from trachoma eye disease.
Sorry for depriving you of a 75% chance to die before the age of 65
Sorry for removing you from a community that is plagued by child abuse and rape.
Sorry for depriving you of the joys of petrol sniffing.

Aboriginal problems

Since my last post generated a lot of comments, read these links to see the extent of the problem.
Territory crusade.

Alcohol crusade.

Indigenous leaders divided.

Venereal disease common in children.

Compassion keeping people dirt poor.

Indigenous Aborigines and the myths of Culture

The news in Australia is relentlessly about the poor state of aboriginal communities.
Somebody with an acute observation is pointing out the root cause of this never ending problem.

It is obvious to me as it is obvious to Michael Myers that there is need for assimilation and letting go of the culture, beliefs and views of a stone age nomadic people. It's time we stopped glamorizing the idea of a "noble savage" and started a program of assimilation.

Every policy up till now has been a dismal failure. Why? Because of the assumption that aboriginal culture is sacred. This is what aborigines are telling us all the time, they don't want to lose their culture. Their culture is their identity, the land is their identity.

Nobody seems to see the problem. How can a nomadic culture be confined within a permanent settlement?
How can a culture survive if there is no need to live as a nomad and welfare payments take care of financial needs?

It's time the do gooders, the bleeding hearts, the romantics who have dominated aboriginal policy stepped aside.
It's time to abandon the false belief that there is a place for a separate culture with separate laws and separate values to the mainstream that can exist and thrive in a settlement in the desert.

Aborigines

Noel Pearson's reflections on his home town are depressing. Noel is an aboriginal leader with a University degree. He is articulate and intelligent. Mostly his articles are incomprehensible to understand. He is usually critical of government policy towards the aborigines.
Jim Belshaw is trying to get a grip on the problem(s) that must be addressed to help the Aborigines (notice I don't refer to them as a community, because as Jim says, they are not one homogeneous mass, but a very diverse group of cultures).

There are similarities to the plight of the American Indians. I wonder if we can learn anything by comparing the problems with Australian aborigines to those of the American Indians?

And then, in contrast there is the New Zealand Maori. It's hard to pinpoint what it is that makes the Maori different but I guess it's the fact that they don't have a history of discrimination to deal with. The Maori's have always had the Treaty of Waitangi.
Maybe it's the fact that the Maori had a concept of ownership of the land whereas the aborigines have no such concept.
Maybe it's because the Maori weren't treated like vermin, a pest to be exterminated like the aborigines.
Maybe it's because the Maori had the right to vote.

Whatever the reason, the Maori in New Zealand are part of the country and never feel that sense of separateness that the aborigines exhibit. There is no sense of discrimination in New Zealand as there is in Australia.

Indigenous Aborigines

This article by Janet Albrechtsen, pretty much sums up my opinion of the problem with Aborigines of Australia. (The fact that Janet Albrechtsen leans to the far right on political opinions shouldn't detract from what she has to say about Aborigines)
The persistence in clinging to a culture that is at odds with a western lifestyle is the core of the problem. Idealists are blinded by the notion that all cultures are equal, and all cultures are good. Therefore, the Aboriginal culture must be preserved. Fine, but it is a nomadic lifestyle, it is a stone age culture, and it is totally, absolutely incompatible with western values. There is tribal law for example. Do Aborigines live and let themselves be governed by tribal law or civil law. In tribal law, murder is punished by spearing. In tribal law, the community elders assign punishment to offenders. In traditional tribal culture, there is no notion of "here and now" as separate from the notion of "yesterday". To the traditionalist, 2ooo years ago is today, and 200 years ago is today. The tribal values have no concept of ownership either for material goods or for land. The people "belong" to the land.
Aborigines may cling to their traditional values but they are just kidding themselves. Nobody lives by hunting game anymore. Nobody lives the life of the nomad anymore. Which aspects of the culture do they preserve and which aspects do they discard? Whatever suits them it appears. That's what they have against integration. Let's not forget, those who are spokesman for their fellow Aborigines, those who condemn integration are the very same people who have benefitted from a western education, who have in fact integrated into western society. Who are they speaking for?

Aborigines in the news.

There's definitely something in the air. I have noticed an increasing number of articles in the daily newspapers about our "Indiginous People". There must be some new agenda amongst journalists.
There is a new movie about aborigines called "Ten Canoes".
Even when I turn to the business section of the paper there is a photo story concerning aborigines.
Stay tuned for more updates.