Friday 29th of March 2024

when noel is too close to murdoch's the australian and the CONservatives...

noel and jim

Noel Pearson has told The Australian he thinks Aboriginal people are more degraded by alcohol abuse than by historical wrongs. Indigenous leader Jim Morrison and non-Indigenous chair of the National Stolen Generations Alliance John Dommett say this is nonsense.

IT WAS DISHEARTENING to read yet another denial of the underlying links between the past traumas suffered by Aboriginal people to the social, emotional and economic disadvantages impacting on us today ('Get over historical indigenous wrongs: Noel Pearson', The Australian,May 07, 2015).

It was even sadder that this apparent lack of understanding of the deeply entrenched and, we thought, well appreciated causes of contemporary Aboriginal disadvantage was voiced by an Aboriginal man integrated with white policy makers.

Additionally, we were disappointed that a biased and perhaps self-interested viewpoint went to press in The Australian without the newspaper having the journalistic grace and professionalism to invite others from the Aboriginal – and probably the Jewish community as well – to provide alternative views to Mr Pearson’s opinions, at the same time.

So, Noel Pearson has the opinion Aboriginal people are more degraded by rampant alcohol abuse than they are by historical wrongs does he?

 

If there had been a complementary spokesperson for alcohol and other drug workers, the counter response may have been that the wrongs inflicted on Aboriginality over the last two centuries and today, are the root causes of any disproportionate problems with substance abuse. Alcohol and drug dependency and the closely associated rising incarceration rates of Aboriginal people can only be reduced where the causes are dealt with through improving the social and emotional wellbeing of our communities.

Furthermore, there are many, many people in our community who identify as being disadvantaged, but don’t have direct or even indirect substance abuse problems impacting on their lives. The sweeping connections made in the article therefore were broadly insulting in the same way that the Intervention assumes Aboriginal men are predominantly violent drunks, child abusers and wife beaters.

The article couldn’t and didn’t flatly deny the too well studied effects of the transgenerational traumas suffered by Aboriginal peoples after European colonisation here and internationally. Neither did it deny the actuality of theStolen Generations, given the masses of evidence in the Bringing Them Homereport (1997) and subsequent studies. However, it downplays the influence of these effects to near impotency. It implied that past traumas were less significant than we who work daily and live within impacted communities, connect with the contemporary disadvantage of Aboriginal men, women and children today.

We are not sure why the article didn’t consider the related work of Aboriginal community organisations working together with families currently lacking the level of social and emotional wellbeing allowing them to even contemplate – let alone elevate to mainstream – social and economic participation. Maybe this could have been debated in the article if the National Stolen Generations Alliance and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Healing Foundation or any of their member organisations had an opportunity to comment?

 

The Australian also reported that the 'noted academic' used a speech in Brisbane to urge Aboriginal people to 'rise above historic trauma' — likening that process to the way in which Jewish people have endured after the Holocaust. The comparison between the Holocaust and the attempted genocide of Aboriginal people was an uninformed one, but very brave considering there was no attempt to gain a Jewish counter-response and there are many ways that Jewish people might take offence at that.

Said Mr Pearson:

“I have to push back against too much attribution to past, to people’s present troubles. Whatever the scars and the burdens that people coming out of the Holocaust suffered, they nevertheless endured, and they laid foundations for their families.” 

To equate the Jewish genocide with the Aboriginal situation is, in itself, an acknowledgement that there has been a state condoned and coordinated attempt at an Aboriginal genocide — something Andrew Bolt may not agree with.

We apologise that there has not been the time to get expert Jewish commentary and we would greatly appreciate it, however some differences between the Jewish experience and the Aboriginal experience appears (to us) to be that seven consecutive generations have been impacted in Australia since the European Invasion. Over this time, our land, waters, livelihood, cultures, spiritual beliefs, laws, civil rights, languages, racial identity, self esteem, wages, health and children have been irretrievably stolen, fractured or lost entirely, and whole communities forced into concentration camps, where they have been starved and sometimes treated as slaves. All of the measures necessary to get us off our sovereign lands and not to have to compensate for them. There has been a blatant resistance from governments in assuming culpability and providing redress other than some insulting tokenism. There has been no international punishment for those governments that allowed this to happen generation after generation. How on earth can there be a valid comparison in either the cause and nature of the injuries suffered and methods of healing?

We now deeply distrust the right wing interests of the editors of The Australianwhen presenting viewpoints on Aboriginal affairs from similarly interested sources and doubt their integrity in providing the opportunities for balanced debates on Aboriginal affairs. We have asked for this for both more intelligent reading and in the true spirit of reconciliation between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians.

Read also the stories by Kamileroi citizen Natalie Cromb on IA.

https://independentaustralia.net/australia/australia-display/noel-pearson-and-the-australian-are-aboriginal-people-really-jewish,7697

Now, is the destruction of Aboriginal settlements by the Western Australian government under the guidance of Turdy Abbott, going to improve the situation? No. It will increase the number of desperate, displaced people, increase the number of drunks and lead to the slow destruction of the Aboriginal culture... That is the DEEP desire of Turdy and his minions in the CONservative party, AS I HAVE WITNESSED MANY TIMES when in company of Australian Liberals (CONservatives). They want the Aboriginal people to disappear by whatever means, from "assimilation" to "disappearance" by attrition. It is a ruthless view to which it appears that Noel is subscribing to, either by desperation or by being conned by his "mate" Tony Turdy...

 

 

 

the guilt industry...

 

The Indigenous incarceration rate is a matter of shame for the criminal justice system, South Australia's Chief Justice says.

Chris Kourakis told the Press Club in Adelaide that Indigenous people made up 26 per cent of those on remand in SA and one-in-five sentenced prisoners.

He said that was in stark contrast to the 3 per cent Indigenous population overall in SA.

Justice Kourakis said it was no longer an option to do nothing about the disparity.

"The failure to bring the Aboriginal incarceration rate to anywhere near proportionate levels represents a continuing institutional degradation of Australia's Indigenous people," he said.

read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-05-14/indigenous-jail-rate-failure-chief-justice-kourakis/6471210

 

Gus: I can understand where Noel Pearson is coming from (see article at top). He is trying to stop alcoholism destroying "his" people. In all this, there is a complex mixture of guilt and duty. Guilt is a bastard of a thing and at this level it is infringing on the ability of everyone to see one of the most complex human conflict. 

 


It has been said that the "white fella" throwing cash at the "Aboriginal problem" has often been done by guilt after years of abuse directed towards Aboriginal People. Of course this "guilt" money creates more problem as it interferes with the ability for the Aboriginal people to "decide" on the value of their own existence.
Guilt is mostly, if not entirely, ingrained in religious framework. Noel is a believer, I think. From what I understand he was raised in a mission, in which duty and guilt were powerful ingredients of learned behaviour. This is mostly white man's set of values brought upon a poor but "surviving people", then "defeated".
Not that Aboriginal people shun work. Work is part of Aboriginal heritage, but this heritage has been distorted by the white invasion. This distortion is undeniable on many levels, including genetical. For example, most the Aboriginal diet was carbohydrate and sugar poor for thousands of years. The Aboriginal diet was mostly protein based. 
Old images tell a story of Aboriginal people being mostly thin and taut. Since the invasion, the genetic make up of Aboriginal people has been under assault from sugar, flour and other carbs, including alcohol. The result is not pretty.
More Aboriginal people that non-Aboriginal suffer from diabetes. Even, the mixing of white and Aboriginal has not stopped the "degradation" of survival. Due to poor diet, many Aboriginal people end up "obese" in a larger proportion to the general population. 
And amongst all this, there is guilt. latent guilt, religious guilt and failures of the past. Guilt of taking money for nothing.
There is a solution of course but it's not that of the white people, especially not that of the CONservatives who would like the Aboriginal people to disappear... 
Most Liberals (CONservatives) do not have guilt. Or if they have, it's hypocritical guilt. I will explain one day.
And they are destroying the ability of Aboriginal people to survive. As simple as this. Tiny Abbott included.

 

 

noel could do with some kangaroo tails...

At her heaviest, Bubsy, as she is affectionately known around her hometown of Quilpie in south-west Queensland, weighed in at 136 kilograms.

"It was just exhausting to go anywhere because I was fat and my enlarged heart and my lungs ... it was a real effort to walk around," she said.

"There were many fences I used to lean on, on the way downtown and back."

The 71-year-old great grandmother says alcohol and junk food were her biggest weaknesses.

"I used to hook into the booze a bit, being an alcoholic I'd get the munchies," she said.

"I'd come home and cook up a storm, eat up big and not do exercise but ... I realised what I was doing to me own life.

"[So instead of] thinking 'why me lord?' I got off me backside to do something about it."

Several years ago a friend advised Bubsy that if she wanted to lose weight she should try cooked kangaroo tail and emu meat.

Bubsy says she quickly developed a taste for the traditional Aboriginal food and before too long her weight began to reduce.

While previously she fit into size 26 clothes, she can now fit into size 18 and 20 clothes.

"Now I can walk downtown no problem," she said.

read more: http://www.abc.net.au/local/photos/2015/05/18/4237619.htm

and that’s why remembering matters...

Unfortunately, plenty of Australians might prefer to advocate moving on from the past.

Noel Pearson, prime minister Tony Abbott’s foremost seer on most Indigenous matters, recently challenged Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians to get over their traumatic history much, as he claimed, that Holocaust survivors had. Reactionaries, predictably, applauded. 

Pearson’s critics – and I’m happy to back them on this – naturally stress that commemorations and apologies for the great crime of the Holocaust are, appropriately, perpetual. There have been legal reparations, insufficient of course, but symbolically incisive.

John Maynard, an Indigenous history professor who is currently researching Aboriginal servicemen, will give a guest speech at Sunday’s Myall Creek commemoration.

I asked Maynard, grandson of the early Indigenous activist Fred Maynard, what importance he attached to commemorating events like Myall Creek.

He says: “It seems a strange and hypocritical contradiction that some black and white politicians tell us we need to ‘move on’ and not dwell upon the frontier wars of the past whilst at the same time we are saturated with ‘Lest We Forget’ Gallipoli – a failed (allied, including Australian) invasion of another peoples’ country. Myall Creek and Coniston are two of the more prominent Aboriginal massacre sites and as such stand as markers not just for the horrific crimes that took place at these locations but reflect additionally the multitude of silences that remain across the wider continent.

“I think for me having the honour to speak at the Myall Creek Memorial this year I will certainly reflect not just on those who lost their lives at that site but use the location and day to remember all of those who lost their lives in places forgotten, missed and purposefully erased from both memory and the record.”

And that’s why remembering matters.

http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/postcolonial-blog/2015/jun/05/myall-creek-here-in-1838-a-that-would-not-be-forgotten-took-place

 

And Myall Creek Massacre was not unique, but the one of the most "documented". See story at top...

you cannot trust your friend turdy...

 

Influential Cape York Indigenous representative Noel Pearson has warned that development of the north must not be used as a "Trojan Horse" to undermine Indigenous land rights.

The Federal Government has unveiled the northern Australia white paper, a blueprint for policy ideas to develop the sparsely populated region and capitalise on lucrative resources.

The white paper included a section on simplifying land arrangements and a commitment that Indigenous Australians should have the "same opportunities as other Australians to leverage their land assets and generate wealth".

It also said the Federal Government aimed to have all current native title claims finalised within a decade.

Mr Pearson — who attended the Cairns launch of the policy — said the white paper's reference to expediting native title claims was "certainly welcome".

"They're good words," he said.

read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-06-19/noel-pearson-northern-development-indigenous-land-rights/6558842

-------------------------------

I'll be short and blunt. I have studied cape York in great details since 1995... I also know a few North Queensland bushies who recently said with great confidence that Tony's White Paper is crap... Actually they did not use the word crap but they said it was based on "fairy tales"... 

You've heard or seen news items about people signing the deed of their house to a clever con man... I rest my case.

 

doomed to fail once more...

Aboriginal leaders are calling for a new compact with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull amid warnings the Government's signature Closing the Gap policy has slipped seriously off track.

Key points:
  • Activist Patrick Dodson says it is probably time to scrap the Closing the Gap policy
  • He says it will not work unless Indigenous groups have more involvement
  • The eighth Closing the Gap report comes out on Wednesday

Yawuru leader Patrick Dodson has questioned whether the policy aimed at dispelling Indigenous disadvantage should continue, a day ahead of the release of the Prime Minister's eighth report on progress under Closing the Gap.

"Closing the Gap hasn't got a buy-in from Indigenous communities," Mr Dodson said.

"There's a lot of aspiration and maybe good intention, but unless you get participation from Indigenous entities at a local level and community level, it's not going to work.

"Without Indigenous participation it's going to be doomed to fail and all we'll see is another record of some achievements in some minor areas, but we're basically just changing the tablecloth on a table without really realising that the white ants are eating the legs out of the table, and we have to restructure the whole nature of our relationship."

Asked whether it was time to scrap the policy, Mr Dodson said: "I think it probably is."

The Yawuru leader said Aboriginal people wanted substantive recognition as part of a settlement process or treaty, rather than a government accounting exercise on reducing disadvantage

read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-09/closing-the-gap-doomed-to-fail-without-more-indigenous-input/7149442