Off Topic It’s Australia Day

Or Invasion Day, whatever way you want to look at it.
I’ve spent the day at work. Now back home watching the BBL. crack open a beer in a few mins.
What’s all the other Ozzie expatriates doing?

 

I worked.

I'm now going to crack a couple of cans and have a bottle of wine while my wife watches in anger and curses our unborn child.

I'm not a big fan of the day.

I wrote a novel about the stolen generation ago five years ago, about half way through a second that features a sizeable section around the months and years after the first penal colony was formed at Warrane.

You can't go to heavy into research of either of those two things without feeling more could be done to respect the first nations.

People can have a barbecue in their bikinis or wrapped in a flag, on the river or the beach, any day of the year.

But I'm a guest here, I won't be applying for citizenship, so I wouldn't voice my opinion too loudly.

 

What do you make of it EJK?

 

"Sovereignty was never ceded"
Only we could transport a load of hardened criminals to a land rich in gold and opal.
Happy Australia Day

 

I’m not a fan of the day either and I’m certain it’s a fairly new concept.
I don’t know anywhere near enough about what’s gone on with First Nations to be able to give a reasoned reply.
I am a citizen but only through economic necessity. I actually didn’t want to do it.
It’s a very complex subject to even begin to understand. Bad things were done to Aboriginal peoples by European settlers without a doubt.
My only hope is that Australia as a nation can move onwards together and whilst its history should always be remembered it should also be learned from, which is something that has only recently started to happen.

 

Its funny how we hear very little of the treatment of the Aborigines, yet the American Indian ones are well known stories, mainly thanks to Hollywood. Mind Aborigines were settlers from another continent too. Its just they were there 10s of thousands of years before anyone else
I know in the USA, the Indian Territories have their own tribal police force, do they have the same sort of things for Australian indigenous people? i.e do they have the equivalent of territories/reservations which they can enforce themselves. May sound naïve and probably is to you, but like I say we learn very little of the Aborigines

 

Afraid we must have learned lessons from America. We didn't leave all that many Indigenous hanging around in Australia.

I was shocked when I moved here. It took about six months before I saw an indigenous person on the street. Admittedly Melbourne has a lower population than elsewhere.

There's way less than a million left as far as I know, and many of them had "the black bred out of them" by being taken from their lands and brought up anglicised in the institution.

The Arnhem Land in the north-east is protected as far as I know but it has a tiny population.

The saddest thing about it all is we reduce them to a mystical race of didgeridoo playing, dot painting primitives.

They were accomplished builders, engineers, mapmaker, navigators etc.

We don't talk about that though, as it makes what we did even less palatable.

There are more and more accomplished individuals coming through as politicians, writers and media professionals etc. But very much on a subcultural level sadly.

Many of them live in rural areas and don't have access to much education. There's huge problems with alcohol abuse and domestic violence. It creates a horrendous over representation of them in Australia's prisons.

There's deeply embedded problems in their culture now which need fixing post haste. The government tend to just throw benefits at them which just keeps many in drink and drugs etc.

I know a half Antiguan/half English lad who in his youthful stupidity ticked a box on a form saying he was indigeous and he still gets money thrown at him.

I'd imagine a lot of people lie about it, sadly taking money from initiatives that could do some good.

I'm sure it varies from state to state, and I am in no way an expert. At all.

Essay over.

Conclusion. Massive clusterfuck.

 

Good detailed info, cheers

 

Aboriginal culture has the story of the seven sisters, the constellation known as the Pleiades, same as the ancient Greeks do. Yet when you look at those stars you can only see six and both stories explain the disappearance of the seventh sister by saying she was taken or hidden. If you go back about 100,000 years you would have seen seven stars and in the intervening time two haved moved closer to each other so now they look like one point of light. Article here saying this could well be the oldest story we have access to.

https://singularityhub.com/2021/01/...en-sisters-stars-may-reach-back-100000-years/

 

we stopped for a beer at 'the first and last pub in NT' on our way to the rock...we decided to get a couple to take with us and drink on the journey and we got about a 15 minute lecture during which we had to promise we were not buying for or had intentions of giving any to the indigenous peoples, apparently 'the grog' has a very strange effect on them and they are banned from buying it.

the next time i met any was in coober pedy, they saw my safc shirt and started calling it a 'soccer shirt' which obviously meant i had to put him right and we managed about a minutes chat before his mates came out of the store with something under their jackets (whether it was stolen or purchased i have no clue) and they raced down the street and behind some billboards, turns out it was booze...unfortunately the indigenous peoples tend to cause a lot of bad feeling themselves, everywhere that people might like to visit seemingly becomes a 'sacred area' and a charge is slapped on it (at the time $15 each to drive to the rock, although to be fair it did cover you for three days).

there was a mass push for their culture as well, almost every stopping place had at least a 'mini shrine' of paintings, carvings etc for sale, most were very good value while some were just bits of wood in various shapes with lots of coloured dots painted on it, did not take much working out which were originals and which were 'tourist specials' thrown in for some hopefully fast cash.

i like them, their history goes way back with 'dreamtime', i think they got a horrific raw deal from us invaders and while plenty of land (which is not much use to most people) is alloted as 'territories' and there are a fair few areas where you need to apply to the indigenous peoples for a pass, they still do...although very highly regarded amongst the ranchers as excellent cattle men, they seem to really have to earn any credit they get.

 

I worked because unfortunately being self employed i had to.

Re Australia day...

I think that a lot of people try to find reasons to be offended in life and this occassion is no different. I prefer to think of it as a way to celebrate all the things that being Australian means and to be thankful for how lucky we are as a country overall.

I'll be honest, i don't get the "traditional owners of the land" stuff that's sprouted as these so called traditional owners emigrated themselves albeit thousands of years ago. Who owned it before them? Is it that people that we should be paying respect to?

Every country in the world has been "invaded/settled" by persons of a different nationality. Should St Georges day be cancelled because he was rumoured to be a Roman soldier of Greek origin? St Patrick was British, better can St Patricks day as well whilst we're at it.

Every country in the world has a national holiday that i'm aware of and i'm sorry if my simplistic views offend others but to me it's about celebrating being Australian, not about what may or may not have happened humdreds of years ago

 

Are you aware of any books on this Topic? I have just bought "Bury my heart at wounded knee" to get a grasp of what happened in America, havnt started it as I have an operation coming up so collecting some books to read during my recovery

 

Highly, highly reccomended
John Pilger
‘’A Secret Country’’

 

I read Terra Nullius: a Journey through No One's land, by Sven Lindqvist.

That was pretty enlightening.

 

Sat with a couple of beers and worried about our game at Ipswich
Today? Immense relief, perhaps we have turned the corner.

 

I get this as well and this is one of my arguments. Should the British start sueing the French for invading in 1066? Or what about Norway and Sweden for the Viking incursions?
My simplistic view is that people should start to take responsibility for themselves rather than allowing others to do it for them all the time. And that’s not just aboriginal peoples that’s everyone on planet earth.

 

I blame the Vikings.

 

Nah, should have just let genghis conquer the world than everyones national dish would be Mongolian Beef

 

What have you got against pickled herring and gruel?

 

Nothing that a good mongolian sauce won't fix