Aboriginal Australians

Just read this. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/05/australia-apartheid-alive-aboriginal-history

Is it really as bad as apartheid?

Aboriginal Australians were classified under the Constitution along with flora and fauna...they were not counted in the national Census, nor encourage/obliged to vote..

This changed as recently as the 1967 Refendum which endorsed changes to the Constitution effectively conferring citizenship to the First Australians. There was strong bipartisan support for the changes at that time...the tragedy here is that if the Referendum were held today I expect the changes would not have been endorsed.

The Howard legacy has left its white stain...the country has become wealthy but in inverse proportion we have become meaner...

Most white Australians do not give a rats about Aboriginal Australians and the fact their life expectancy rates are 10 years lower than for other Oz folk...in Qld where I lived for over a decade there was open racism and hostility (inc through public policy) to Aboriginals and TSIslanders..

Victoria is a bit less so on the racism front but it continues to deteriorate...

in the 19th century debate raged in Britain about the deserving and undeserving poor and eventually a welfare state emerged which recognised the folly of such a position...Australia under the ALP and now the mad monk's tories are winding that all back...meanwhile middle class Australia worries about the size of its plasma tv's, whether their fridge's produce ice blocks, and how to evade tax

Lara Lara Laughs wrote:Just read this. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/05/australia-apartheid-alive-aboriginal-history

Is it really as bad as apartheid?

Pilger is a mega lefty whose previous work has been widely criticised for presenting a very onesided viewpoint. I suspect Horrie genuflects at the very mention of his name though.  

There are of course many problems associated with the indigenous population but they are far more complex than (wrongly) comparing them with apartheid.

aye...but I do not rate Pilger...equally he does raise some important points- tho not re apartheid...have a look at the Australian today for details on how we are struggling as a country in closing the gaps

Test caps: 0.



http://www.couriermail.com.au/sport/no-aboriginal-players/story-e6frepmo-1111115545001

aye...a terrible story

Big Dog wrote:

Lara Lara Laughs wrote:Just read this. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/05/australia-apartheid-alive-aboriginal-history

Is it really as bad as apartheid?

Pilger is a mega lefty whose previous work has been widely criticised for presenting a very onesided viewpoint. I suspect Horrie genuflects at the very mention of his name though.  

There are of course many problems associated with the indigenous population but they are far more complex than (wrongly) comparing them with apartheid.

But is there is reality much difference to apartheid?

Lara Lara Laughs wrote:Just read this. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/05/australia-apartheid-alive-aboriginal-history

Is it really as bad as apartheid?

Quite simply, no. Pilger does himself and his argument a disservice (as usual) by over-egging his point.

It's hard to take the article seriously actually. Which isn't to say the country still doesn't have big problems when it comes to improving the lot of Aboriginal Australians. But comparing the divide that exists between black and white Australians in remote areas to the institutionalised apartheid that tainted South Africa is ridiculous and insulting.

Hass wrote:

Lara Lara Laughs wrote:Just read this. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/05/australia-apartheid-alive-aboriginal-history

Is it really as bad as apartheid?

Quite simply, no. Pilger does himself and his argument a disservice (as usual) by over-egging his point.

It's hard to take the article seriously actually. Which isn't to say the country still doesn't have big problems when it comes to improving the lot of Aboriginal Australians. But comparing the divide that exists between black and white Australians in remote areas to the institutionalised apartheid that tainted South Africa is ridiculous and insulting.

Well Steve Biko's brother once described an Alice Springs town camp as "making Soweto look like Paris (or Stellenbosch, I can't be bothered searching for the xact quote).

But legally, since the sixties, he's(Pilger) drawing a long bow. Constitutional reform to amend part of said referendum would help, but along with everything else regarding Aboriginal affairs in this country has been put in the too hard basket. As previously noted, in the current atmosphere it would probably fail for any number of reasons, though Abbott to his credit is apparently trying.

Hass wrote:

Lara Lara Laughs wrote:Just read this. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/05/australia-apartheid-alive-aboriginal-history

Is it really as bad as apartheid?

Quite simply, no. Pilger does himself and his argument a disservice (as usual) by over-egging his point.

It's hard to take the article seriously actually. Which isn't to say the country still doesn't have big problems when it comes to improving the lot of Aboriginal Australians. But comparing the divide that exists between black and white Australians in remote areas to the institutionalised apartheid that tainted South Africa is ridiculous and insulting.

Institutionalised or not, there are parallels that can be drawn. And yes, I know Pilger is a bit of a prat.

insomnia last night and ended up watching an old '79 film - The Human Factor - based on a Green novel and with a screenplay written by Tom Stoppard...not a bad film - part of the film is set in SA and one of the heroes was a white commie lawyer (dies in prison from 'pneumonia')

Well of course you can draw parallels, but as Bradman points out it's a long bow to draw.

Governments in this country have been working for decades now - however ineptly - to close the gap and try to make a difference. This is very to different to a country where the government (with all the powers of the state at its disposal) is working against a people keeping them subjugated.

Unlike apartheid Aborigines are welcome in the mainstream, even if many of them still run into a lot of prejudice. Aborigines who grow up in comfortable circumstances or overcome the disadvantages of their upbringing can and do fit into the wider society.

Aborigines who grow up in slums or dysfunctional remote communities (not all of them are dysfunctional) will have huge problems overcoming the systemic problems. They will often be shunned by other parts of society (especially in places like Alice), but this is very much a cultural shunning rather than a racial shunning - although to many Aborigines that distinction may feel meaningless. Aborigines in this situation will often self-segregate despite the efforts of well-meaning whities (do-gooders for want of a better word) to try to break down the barriers.  

Unfortunately there's no easy solution, so it looks like we're all just going to have to muddle through for the meantime. It's one of the most serious problems in Australia, but apartheid it ain't.

I think the key words Bradman said are "legally, since the sixties"

So the fact that Australia repealed certain laws then allows it to take the moral highground?

Apartheid was effectively dead and buried in the eighties before the white population dealt the final blow in the 1992 referendum.

taipan wrote:I think the key words Bradman said are "legally, since the sixties"

So the fact that Australia repealed certain laws then allows it to take the moral highground?

Apartheid was effectively dead and buried in the eighties before the white population dealt the final blow in the 1992 referendum.

Australia has few claims to moral ground let alone highground

The country is galloping backwards

So if I called some Sri Lankans 'black qunts' I'd be culturally shunning them, rather than racially so - cool.

aussies being ex-convicts et al don't know how to hide their rascism well enough unlike the confederates or the stiffs. It's an art .. and they don't seem keen to pick it up.

It's also sad that the only other community you got to share space with is being treated such. People throw stones at India then, when hey you can't get along with a bunch of aborigines without .

I freaking love this guy - he's not even trying to makes sense anymore.

Wibble dibble. Woozy wuzzy.

Is it Zim?

I'm not Hercule Poirot. My little grey cells scream at each other. And they killed Harry Houdini.

Brass Monkey wrote:I freaking love this guy - he's not even trying to makes sense anymore.

Wibble dibble. Woozy wuzzy.

darling, should everything make sense to 'you' inorder for it to be right.

think over it.

No, sweetness, I don't think everything should make sense to me. I just think that it should make sense to someone.

horrie understands bucky

Do dribbling f*cktards count as someone?

Racism, sexism, ageism, ...

This place is a sexpot.

I mean cesspit.