The problem is not too much welfare without a corresponding effort on the part of Aborigines, it is that whatever support or opportunities are presented, nothing can overcome the feeling of rejection that is felt when Indigenous people step out into the wider Australian community and are slammed in the face with the overt and covert racism of most Australians. This is why, in the United States, even though wealth flowed into Indigenous communities through oil and mining rights, excessive drinking and drug taking continued to be a way of life. While the rest of the Australian community continues to benefit from the dispossession of Aboriginal people and uses racism to isolate them , improvement will be at a snail's pace. What must not be allowed to happen is for speeches such as Pearson's to be used to absolve the wider community of responsibility for the plight of indigenous people, which to my mind is what articles like the following attempt to do. It is very interesting that all these writers are dismissive of the importance of a Treaty in improving the conditions of Aborigines, when almost all Indigenous leaders have emphasised the importance of a Treaty. It looks to me as though there is an agenda on to move the debate into an area where all attention is focused on how much Business in lieu of Government should become involved with Aborigines, and whether or not that will be the answer. Once again we are being told not to listen to discordant Aboriginal voices. Hugh Morgan replaces John Dunmore Lang---here we go again. Laurie Laurie and Desley Forde Email. [EMAIL PROTECTED] Without a treaty, which spells out the obligations and rights of both parties, there can be no Reconciliation in Australia----Geoff Clark. -------- ----- Original Message ----- From: "Trudy Bray" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "news-clip" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: "news-clip" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, August 25, 2000 11:12 AM Subject: SMH - Politics of the warm inner glow will not end Aboriginal despair > The Sydney Morning Herald > Politics of the warm inner glow will not end Aboriginal despair > > Date: 25/08/2000 > > John Howard certainly couldn't say it. Neither would Kim Beazley. Noel Pearson could say it because he's Aboriginal and it is therefore > much harder to accuse him of either racism or hypocrisy. > > But his assault on the welfare dependency of Aboriginal communities and his comments about their "outrageous grog addiction" and the > drug problems of their kids may make it possible for a taboo subject to be openly addressed by all Australians. > > Unlike reconciliation marches or national apologies or expensive Aboriginal art, these issues are not comfortable topics for dinner parties. > Nor do they make for convenient finger-pointing at John Howard or his Government, inviting targets though they may be. > > The more awkward reality is that modern Australia has failed the test of how to even talk about these problems honestly, let alone to try > to fix them. That inability to step outside the cliches doesn't come from bad motives. Drinking too much is endemic - indeed constantly > celebrated - in this culture and there are plenty of drug addicts at Sydney's most elite private schools. Welfare traps are hardly confined > to black communities. > > Why then pick on Aborigines for behaviour that is ubiquitous? Why risk social death by being branded racist or no better than Pauline > Hanson? > > But as Pearson points out, the scale of a problem is very different when it comes to the disintegration of whole communities and when > what may pass for progressive policy can actually be shown to be extremely destructive in practice. Just as it made no sense years ago > for complacent, white Australians to blame Aborigines as a race for most of their social problems, it makes no sense now to blame > inadequate government funding or even historic injustices as the only causes for a still unfolding disaster. > > Perhaps it's too much to expect that we can step outside the narrow boundaries of accepted debate even as we desperately try to flaunt > the uniqueness of Aboriginal culture in the effort to make Australian society more interesting to Olympic visitors. > > But it's not as if the deteriorating trends in Aboriginal communities are surprising. Children of alcoholics are more like to abuse alcohol or > drugs. Illiteracy is an extra. Petrol sniffing is just another step down a very brutal, violent road. Combine it with no jobs and no hope and > the dead-end destination is clear enough. > > Forget, though, the lure of political rhetoric or even the emotional appeal of national reconciliation, necessary and inevitable as that may > be. > > Indigenous people around the world have always been trampled in the rush to progress. Protection will be limited at best. > > In the United States the presence of reservations and self-government and treaties and mining rights and special government payments > and Indian-run schools and colleges has not stopped the descent of many Indian communities into devastating alcoholism and violence. > Nothing seems to turn around the statistics. Instead, the problems among the Indian kids on many of the larger reservations are only > getting worse no matter what their elders try to do. > > In Australia, it's also evident that little of the daily catastrophe facing Aboriginal communities would be fixed by treaties, self-government > or formal apologies. Nor will more government money or even improved health and education facilities be enough. > > Yes, it is always better to build good schools and hospitals, particularly in remote communities. But the outback is also littered with > examples of facilities that have been allowed to waste away through lack of interest and commitment as much as through lack of funding. > > Like the welfare dependence that Pearson describes as crippling Aboriginal communities over the past three decades, money doesn't > easily remove a social problem and often only compounds it. As he put it in his now famous speech, welfare should be based on the > principle that dependence and passivity kill people and are the surest road to social decline. > > Jobs and alternative forms of entertainment and the restoration of some form of social order are basic to changing that fatal equation, of > course. But they cannot be simply imported and developing the home-grown variety is always difficult, frustrating and slow. > > What Pearson is suggesting, however, is that we've been going in the wrong direction for so long, we've forgotten how to read the > signposts. > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > This material is subject to copyright and any unauthorised use, copying or mirroring is prohibited. > > > > ************************************************************************* > This posting is provided to the individual members of this group without > permission from the copyright owner for purposes of criticism, comment, > scholarship and research under the "fair use" provisions of the Federal > copyright laws and it may not be distributed further without permission of > the copyright owner, except for "fair use." > > > ------------------------------------------------------ RecOzNet2 has a page @ http://www.green.net.au/recoznet2 and is archived at http://www.mail-archive.com/ To unsubscribe from this list, mail [EMAIL PROTECTED], and in the body of the message, include the words: unsubscribe announce or click here mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20announce This posting is provided to the individual members of this group without permission from the copyright owner for purposes of criticism, comment, scholarship and research under the "fair use" provisions of the Federal copyright laws and it may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner, except for "fair use." 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