The social issue no one in Australia wants to talk about

Originally posted by Dock9
As recently as the 1960s, Sydney university taught that the more white blood an Aborigine had, the more easily he could be educated, the more willing he would be to work

The Australian Aborigine atrophied after departing southern India and arriving in Australia. Atrophied. His skills and culture atrophied and this is known to anthropologists, Yet there's this popular myth that Aborigines 'lived in harmony with Nature and trod gently on the land'.

No, they did not. They were regressing

In any event, back when the truth was able to be told, i.e. before false histories replaced the facts, the Australian Aborigine was regarded by anthropologists as the most backward people on the planet and was estimated by the experts to be a minimum of 250,000 years behind even the African Bushmen

The only thing that separates your comments from basic racism would be a current citation from anthropologists stating that the aborigines are, indeed, less than human.

Otherwise you are simply laying out for us what the exact nature of the problem really is.

Originally posted by pieman

Originally posted by Retrovertigo
So champ *pats you on the head*, whats your suggestion ? How would you help indigenous Australians given you seem to know it all ?

eh, how the hell do i know, i'm not an australian aboriginal, maybe you could start by asking them what they want instead of whining that they don't respect the western way of life the government provides.

then you should probably stop letting newspapers and general a=holes spout racist bull***t about them.

the bulk of my answer revolves around treating people with respect and allowing them their dignity, so it probably won't suffice.

Neither am I, yet I managed to come up with a couple of things that could help right off the top of my head...Point being, you'd rather talk # about what happened eleventeen hundred years ago which nobody can change...

I haven't whined about anything in this thread...Throughout I have argued we should support and help indigenous Australians to live how they wish...

Newspapers rarely sprout "racist bull#", and yes, general arseholes do...absolutely...I'm afraid I personally can't do a lot about them, opinions being like arseholes and all...

Why wouldn't it suffice if it revolves around respect and dignity ? Pssst...In case you haven't noticed, I've been arguing pretty much that the whole time...

I wouldn't have asked for your ideas unless I genuinely wanted to hear them...So, out with it....

But please, keep it relevant and realistic...That is, how you'd help indigenous Australians live they way they wish, not all the other tripe you've been waffling on about in this thread...

reply to post by JohnnyCanuck


I never fell for the 'racism/racist' trend

Truth is good enough for me

Originally posted by Dock9
reply to post by JohnnyCanuckmore]
I never fell for the 'racism/racist' trend
Truth is good enough for me

That's good to hear. I'm assuming that you aren't lying to us, so I am asking you to cite your sources. Surely, you can do better than anecdotal evidence of sixty year-old 'facts'.

reply to post by Retrovertigo


Hey, thanks for your kind thoughts over my reply. I am deeply honoured.

However, I have just one point to share with you, and it may offend you, which do allow me to sincerly apologise first. And that point is for the aborogines to live the 'traditional' way.

I wish it was possible, I truly do. I envy my jungle ancestors eons ago, for they are indeed a priviledged class. But unfortunately or fortunately, in order to grow and evolved, they had to move out from jungles, armed with knowledge on how a society can function, and build cities - the trappings of civilisation that we know today.

They did so because their wise shamans and leaders knew it would be unstaniable for growth to happen, or mercy killings will have to continue to keep the numbers down.

The jungles and animals could only provide so much. They need agriculture, husbandry and trade to survive as a nation, to grow and to protect that growth. Utimately, we became the dominant species. Even the wild beasts could no longer survive our encrouchment into their territories today.

So too will the aborigines if we as a humanity allow them the 'traditional' way. They will not be able to survive, nor even be allowed to survive as mankinds need becomes more vulnerable than theirs over land and water resources.

Rather than to kill, we share our resources and knowledge with them, intergrate, so that they may find and agree that sharing and evolution is a better choice than to persists in old and unproductive ways. The aborigine is no different from anyone of us inside, and have the capability to excel if given the opportunity.

We are afterall, one race and our destiny lays in the stars one day. Perhaps one tribe of 100,000 occupying a fruitful and abundant planet each....

reply to post by JohnnyCanuck


My sources are my education. Which took place when such facts as I've stated were part of the curriculum.

Not everyone who posts in ATS was born within the past 30 years. Not all of us have been dumbed down to accept History Chan as the authority

But if you're as interested in getting to the truth as you profess, then do the work. And you won't find it on the continually purged internet. Instead, you'll have to dig deep or advertise on Ebay's Wanted section for Australian history books pre the mid-1970s

In the meantime, you as a claimed Canadian, who presumably has never lived in Australia or even met an Australian Aborigine, let alone lived amongst them, are free to flap your mouth and make accusations because (a) you either cannot for some unfathomable reason bear to hear the truth or (b) you're a paid shill who's employed to trawl the net, suppressing truth whenever you encounter it. Which is it ?

And while you're here, there are a few more truths to send you into another blind rage:

Aborigines raped, murdered, robbed and ate whites

They were particularly fond of Chinese flesh, according to the old-time gold prospectors up in Far North Queensland, who used the Aborigines to cull their competitors, the Chinese prospectors

Then maybe you can graduate to the ship wrecks in the vicinty of Fraser Island and elsewhere. Until a year or so ago, it was still possible to gain the details online, re: the survivors who were eaten by the Aborigines

The reason Aboriginal skulls were shipped to Britain all those years ago was in order those very unusual skulls could be studied, after which they were placed in museums until being returned quite recently to Australia at the request of Aboriginal groups. Personally, I think the claims were originallly launched by the same people who've been rewriting Australian history as swiftly and determinedly as they've been burning books and purging the Net. Big bucks to be made off the backs of Aborigines and many ways to do it. The usual suspects have been doing the same job on New Zealand's history, Canada's, and more

Now off you go and do your homework

reply to post by Chadwickus


So have you seen poverty worldwide? Do you think the slums in India are any different?

It's poverty dude, plain and simple. Your making the mistaking of attaching a face to it.

reply to post by SeekerofTruth101


NP

No, I'm not in the least offended, promise...

I agree...I am all for indigenous Australians living in a "traditional way", if that's what they want to do and believe they should be supported to do so in that case...

Whether that's living off the land, but in a somewhat "modern" way, say by setting up a tourism business in the outback, or a business based on "bush foods"....

Or whether that involves living off the land in the manner of their ancestors, in a truly "traditional" way, I'm all for it...

I am also all for supporting indigenous Australians who wish to live a "modern" way of life with all its trappings such as tertiary education and so forth...Ultimately, that should be up to the individuals involved...

And I also understand many indigenous Australians require a little or a lot more support in different ways compared to non-indigenous Australians regardless of what kind of life they choose to live...And again, I'm all for providing that support...

As long as we don't make past mistakes of merely throwing billions of dollars at the problem in a non-focused way, which has also been recognised as a mistake by many indigenous Australian leaders...

What I don't accept is current non-indigenous Australians being continually made to feel like we're forever responsible for what our forebears did to indigenous Australians in the past...

Ultimately, that benefits no Australian...

Edit to add - Thanks again for your contribution to the thread, Seeker Your thoughts have been honest and considered, unlike some...Not mentioning names, of course

[edit on 24-3-2010 by Retrovertigo]

reply to post by Maxmars


Each tribe or group of aborigines have elders who the rest look to as a leader.

There are also people like Mick Dodson, as Retrovertigo mentioned who is very prominent in indigenous affairs.

He was also voted Australian of the year last year, pretty mean feat considering that according to some, the government is keeping them drunk and downtrodden...

The fact is, the opportunities to get an education are there, schooling is free for all aboriginal and Torres Strait islanders, some communities even tried to pay the kids to come to school.

Again, this comes back onto the parents, their selfishness is ruining the chances of their children to be what they want to be.



[edit on 24/3/10 by Chadwickus]

reply to post by pieman

okay tonto, do us all a favor, step away from the keyboard and go play with the traffic, darwin has a special place in history for you.

Not only that, he says it will happen...

From a site which basically demonises white Australians and very much favours Aborigines, we find a snippit of what Johnny Canuck has claimed is 'a lie'

Some Aboriginals did murder other people and then they took the dead body and ate the meat. The one action is no better than the other. But it is a fact that cannibals never murdered more people than they could eat on this day

Some Aboriginal tribes used poisonous plants as weapons against their enemies.
One of the reasons why the Aboriginal culture is often judged as rather cruel is the cannibalism of some tribes. It is true that some Aborigines used to eat their victims

At least for Aborigines a dead human has no soul so it doesn't need to be protected.

www.noen.at...



Here's a story about the Chinese gold prospectors becoming meals
www.abc.net.au...

It's been treated to the usual 'racist slurs' angle with threats of legal action

However, those of us who were taught in school, in Australia, that the Chinese prospertors suffered this fate would of course cite the curriculum of the day, the information (anecdotal and other) etc. which was published at that time

The problem with rewriting history and declaring everything which does not conform with that newly-written history to be 'racism', fails to take into account those who fall into the gap between the history that was taught and the rewritten history of today. In order to erase history and replace it with rewritten history requires not only book burning, rewriting of text and other books ... but also requires for the rewriters of history to wait until those who learned a different history to die ... and for all their books and records to be seized and destroyed. In the meantime, the history rewriters, those generators of invented history, rely on slandering those who dare to remember the original history



[edit on 24-3-2010 by Dock9]

Good to see that its not only the Canadian government, thats stupid enough to pay for an archaic people, unwilling to accept personal accoutability for there own actions.

Our reserves are the same up here high crime rate, high brith rate, run down housing (bought and paid for by the canadian taxpayer) due to lack of upkeep. Rampant drug and alcohol abuse. And as with down there no accountability because its someone elses fault.

Americans complain when they bailed out the Banks and Car companies, at least there's a possibility of a return on those investments. Just surprised that Austrailians and Canadians don't complian about the biggest ongoing bailouts in history, OUR ABORIGINAL populations. For which it is obvious we see no return at all.

reply to post by Dock9

But if you're as interested in getting to the truth as you profess, then do the work. And you won't find it on the continually purged internet. Instead, you'll have to dig deep or advertise on Ebay's Wanted section for Australian history books pre the mid-1970s

Oh goodness, so we get to the heart of the matter. I've got some american textbooks that are pre70s too, interesting how issues of "race" and "equality" were discussed.

Originally posted by Retrovertigo
Why wouldn't it suffice if it revolves around respect and dignity ? Pssst...In case you haven't noticed, I've been arguing pretty much that the whole time...

and i think you'll find i didn't take issue with what you said except to point out, rightly i feel, that the government of australia has an interest in oppressing australia's indigenous population.

But please, keep it relevant and realistic...That is, how you'd help indigenous Australians live they way they wish, not all the other tripe you've been waffling on about in this thread...

you want to know what i believe is the answer? right, scrap the current government, set up a system of governance based on either the traditional governance methods of the indigenous population or another system chosen by the indigenous population. then have every single non-indigenous person apply for residency and citizenship in the same way that any other illegal immigrant would have to.

of course, that isn't going to happen, that would mean giving back all the stuff that was stolen, impossible, right?

how many non-aboriginals do you think might be allowed to stay if that were to happen?

a lot of people around the world seem to think they have "rights" to a country because they were born there, it isn't true, the fact is, if my father stole something and gave it to me, i might not be arrested for the theft but i would be held accountable for handling and receiving stolen goods.

you don't have a "right" to a country your ancestors stole, you have a debt of guilt. man up and take responsibility or you just pass that debt on to your children, it will eventually be put right, by hook or by crook.


[edit on 24/3/10 by pieman]

reply to post by pieman


I asked you to make it realistic...You didn't...

Epic fail on your part...

If you honestly believe such a thing would change the plight of indigenous Australians:-

1) You have absolutely no idea of who indigenous Australians are, what they want, and how they think...

2) You need to stop doing this

And if you think #2 is low brow, thats because I've made every effort to have an intelligent discourse about this subject with you and I've given up.

You've either talked rubbish about something you know nothing about or you've come up with an idea that would not work in any modern country on the planet, for either indigenous or non-indigenous people...

Originally posted by Dock9
reply to post by JohnnyCanuck

 

My sources are my education. Which took place when such facts as I've stated were part of the curriculum. Now off you go and do your homework

Cannibalism has nothing to do with race, it has to do with society. You are making it sound as if your indigenous people are inferior due to their race, and whose human potential restricted due to their race...less than human, which I suggested, and you didn't argue. Am I mistaken?

I don't care if they ate each other, Whites, Chinese, or Soul Food. That is not the issue. The issue is where to go from here, because what you/we are doing doesn't work.

In the meantime, you as a claimed Canadian, who presumably has never lived in Australia or even met an Australian Aborigine, let alone lived amongst them, are free to flap your mouth and make accusations because (a) you either cannot for some unfathomable reason bear to hear the truth or (b) you're a paid shill who's employed to trawl the net, suppressing truth whenever you encounter it. Which is it ?

The OP was looking for a discussion, I spoke my opinion on the topic within the context of our own indigenous people. The problems sound very similar, the causal factors are comparable, and I think the solutions are the same.

As to the choices you offered me, can I add third? That I'm in a discussion group and trying to throw a little common sense into an ugly line of discourse. You are free to make up your own mind...I'm just calling you on the Bravo Sierra.

Interesting aside here:

After years of research, Windschuttle found that only 118 Tasmanian Aborigines had actually been killed in the whole period between 1803, when white settlement began, and 1847, when the frontier nature of Tasmanian society ended.

Many of the 118 Tasmanian Aborigines who were killed, were killed in self-defence, while many alleged massacres of Aborigines by whites were simply mythical, among them alleged massacres which have been supposedly recounted in published works by recent historians.

Most Tasmanian Aboriginal deaths were the result of virulent diseases to which the natives had no immunity (including syphilis) and alcoholism. Windschuttle's book became arguably the most widely-discussed Australian historical work of recent decades.

Particularly interesting, yes, considering the 'new' historians (those required to write what they're TOLD is 'history') are claiming that 'whites murdered over 15,000 Tasmanian Aborigines. Yet the truth .. and it caused a hell of a controvery from those pushing the 'new history' ... is that only 118 Tasmanian Aborigines were killed by whites ... and many of those Aborigines were killed in SELF DEFENCE



Interstingly, the same sorts of fiction have been peddled about Native Americans:

The actual killings of Indians by whites thus accounted for no more than 3.7 per cent of the estimated decline in Indian deaths in this period (and an even lower percentage if much higher Indian population figures are accepted).

The others died through rampant epidemics caused by the introduction of virulent diseases to which the Indians had no immunity, by the forced migration of Indians to uninhabited regions in the West, by the depletion of livestock such as buffalos, by alcoholism, and by the psychological effects of white settlement on Indian society.

Gee, the bleeding-heart white-haters aren't going to like these truths


And there's more:

Unlike in Australia, in the United States Indians were hated, feared, and deliberately moved to frontier regions, with, certainly, far higher rates of mutual violence than in Australia

And the white-haters are going to hate this next paragraph:

In America, certainly with far more justification, radical historians have furiously criticised the policies of European settlers towards the Indians, while missing the actual causes and without praising the positive benefits they brought in both the short and long term, from an end to intertribal conflict to Western medicine and literacy.

Hope you're still reading, Johnny Canuck. Apologise when you are able, please. No hurry

Australian radicals (and, indeed, the mass media) have also created an entirely imaginary world in which a benign and admirable Aboriginal society was destroyed by European settlement. The notion that pre-1788 Aboriginal society was benign is a myth.

Living in very small tribes of no more than 500 - 1,000 people, Aborigines were a typical, albeit very primitive hunter-gatherer people who did not cultivate food plants or grow livestock (ubiquitous in much of Eurasia and Latin America for thousands of years), and could not readily store what food they had, on a continent with probably the lowest supply of protein in the world.

Aboriginal tribes were nomadic, engaged in a continuing, ceaseless hunt for food. Because of this, there was at all times an absolute premium on keeping the number of mouths to feed as low as possible consistent with the survival of the tribe, to which the individual was always sacrificed. As a result, infanticide and other murderous practices were ubiquitous. About 30 per cent of Aboriginal infants were deliberately killed at birth. Deformed children were always killed at birth as, in the case of twins, were one or both of the twins.

The cannibalism of a murdered baby was apparently a common practice among Aborigines.

Some observers "report the neonate being killed and fed to an older child who is weak or sickly".

If the Aboriginal population of Australia was 300,000 in 1788, and if the Aboriginal birth rate was four per cent per annum, and if only about 20 per cent of Aboriginal infants were killed, this suggests that about 2,500 infants were killed every year, or 250,000 per century, or 100 million (sic) in the 40,000 years of Aboriginal habitation of the continent.

www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk...


Now, I hadn't read this report until a moment ago. Yet it conforms with what I was taught at school and with publications and text books available to me over 40 years ago. Proving not only that my memory isn't too bad, also that I did not lie and told the truth as it was presented to me by historians, academics and educators in my youth. The same is true for many Australians of my era, in fact many worldworde in the era prior to the rewriting of history by those who are still engaged in rewriting the history of the US, the UK, of New Zealand, or Canada and in fact of any nation which has a predominantly white, Christia population

It is the rewriters of history, who have and are peddling it to a generation which obtains most of its 'information' via television and internet, who are the liars. And of course, we should ask ourselves WHY they lie ... and who gains from the lies ?

So let's look at these figures and facts again:

Aboriginal tribes were nomadic, engaged in a continuing, ceaseless hunt for food. Because of this, there was at all times an absolute premium on keeping the number of mouths to feed as low as possible consistent with the survival of the tribe, to which the individual was always sacrificed.

As a result, infanticide and other murderous practices were ubiquitous. About 30 per cent of Aboriginal infants were deliberately killed at birth. Deformed children were always killed at birth as, in the case of twins, were one or both of the twins.

The cannibalism of a murdered baby was apparently a common practice among Aborigines.

Some observers "report the neonate being killed and fed to an older child who is weak or sickly".

If the Aboriginal population of Australia was 300,000 in 1788, and if the Aboriginal birth rate was four per cent per annum, and if only about 20 per cent of Aboriginal infants were killed, this suggests that about 2,500 infants were killed every year, or 250,000 per century, or 100 million (sic) in the 40,000 years of Aboriginal habitation of the continent

Then perhaps the following might be considered in true context:

Tribal wars also often ended in massacres. It would also appear that Aborigines exterminated a race of native Pygmies who once lived in Australia.

As elsewhere in the Third World, women could be killed for almost no reason at all.

One wonders if the anti-Windschuttle brigade seriously believes that European settlers should not have stopped these horrors, or whether they should be tolerated today if Aborigines decided to revive them. Similar monstrous practices existed throughout most other indigenous societies.

This unvarnished picture of Aboriginal life would have been self-evident to any nineteenth-century white Australian, so why is it so little known today? First and foremost, the left has done its best to censor it, using the alleged ill treatment of Aborigines by whites as a major stick with which to attack Western, European society in Australia.

But there are other reasons. Roger Sandall, an Australian anthropologist, shrewdly pointed out that 99 per cent of anthropological expeditions and surveys have been carried out after - usually long after - the most horrifying features of indigenous society had already been suppressed and "defanged" (as he put it) by colonial administrators and missionaries.

In other words, those 'brutal, horrible Whites deliberately covered-up and concealed the ghastly truth about many Aboriginal practices in order those 'poor savages' could be painted in better light


The result of course is a character calling himself 'Johnny Canuck' --- who doesn't live in Australia and has no personal experience of Australian Aborigines --- accusing an Australian who HAS lived for years amongst Aborigines and who was educated before Johnny Canuck was even born --- 'a liar'