Print

[Scorched Eartha]

I think you also need to understand that land for most indigenous peoples doesn't have the kind of monetary or commercial value it holds for Europeans. It's far more valuable than that. "Ownership" is a white man's word for what the people's relationship to the land is. In indigenous cultures, custodianship of the land is a sacred duty. A connection to and an occupation of the land is central to the spiritual life of both the individual and the community.

To say "oh the govt has to help them get back their art and culture and shit but they can't have the land -  its worth too much to us" shows a deep seated ignorance of the role which the land plays in all of these things.

You know, if my grandfather stole your grandfather's diamonds and gold and you managed to track me down and I still had them - I am pretty sure that the laws (here at least) would state that they had to be returned to you.

Land was stolen from the native peoples. That it was stolen at gunpoint and several hundred years ago doesn't make that any less of a theft.

[Firesong]

I think you also need to understand that land for most indigenous peoples doesn't have the kind of monetary or commercial value it holds for Europeans. It's far more valuable than that. "Ownership" is a white man's word for what the people's relationship to the land is. In indigenous cultures, custodianship of the land is a sacred duty. A connection to and an occupation of the land is central to the spiritual life of both the individual and the community.

To say "oh the govt has to help them get back their art and culture and shit but they can't have the land -  its worth too much to us" shows a deep seated ignorance of the role which the land plays in all of these things.

You know, if my grandfather stole your grandfather's diamonds and gold and you managed to track me down and I still had them - I am pretty sure that the laws (here at least) would state that they had to be returned to you.

Land was stolen from the native peoples. That it was stolen at gunpoint and several hundred years ago doesn't make that any less of a theft.

It's also important to understand that the People don't really believe they owned the land but that they are the caretakers of the land.  Land "ownership" is really a European concept, or at least a post Christian European concept. Many if not most pre-Christian Pagan societies believed in stewardship as opposed to "ownership" of land...

[Scorched Eartha]

Yeah precisely. This notion of land as a commercial unit - it's a very Judeo Christian view of the thing. A corruption to my mind. How can we "own" any segment of the mother earth? How can she be ours to plunder at will? That's abhorrent.

I don't know what NA cultures believe in detail but I knew it was very much akin to the Aboroginal way of looking at the thing. Here the  people do not own the land. The land owns them. They belong to it. In fact my middle name, Myee means just that in Waradjuri - "I belong to this place".

So when you take a person from their land, you have taken them from the place that gives them their very existence. Here, to be buried out of country means that you can never make it back to your dreaming. Families will pauper themselves to transport a dead loved one back to their tribal lands for burial. It's that important. In past times, if a person died while they were following the dreaming tracks or songlines, their bodies would be burned and the bones lovingly carried, for months until they got back to country and could be laid there.

"We are all visitors to this time, this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love... and then we return home."

But the songline to your Dreaming is on your land - the place you come from. You can't make it back there from a strange place.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaqLw1CvPMk


"When we paint, whether it is on our bodies for ceremony or on bark or canvas for the market, we're not just painting for fun or profit, we're painting as we always have done to demonstrate our continuing link with our country and the rights and responsibilities we have to it."
GALARRWUY YUNUPINGU

[dark magus]

Well then...you Americans should be love'n Obama.......
http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2012/04/11/obama-moves-to-settle-41-tribal-trust-cases-for-1-billion-107735

[Scorched Eartha]

The depth of the white man's disrespect for this attachment to the land can be demonstrated by one simple fact. It was 2008 before any Australian Federal Parliament did the traditional owners of the land in the ACT the courtesy of allowing them to perform a Welcome to Country.

This is a formal ceremony, inviting strangers to come and sit with the people who hold the custodianship of an area.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1JwyxNh3Ak

Why ought we be surprised by that. It was 1967 before Aboriginals were made citizens of their own nation.

[Khara]

Well then...you Americans should be love'n Obama.......
http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2012/04/11/obama-moves-to-settle-41-tribal-trust-cases-for-1-billion-107735

Interesting list of tribes there.  Mainly western  and northern tribes other than the Chippewa who had a few eastern locations.  All in all the Sioux are racking up.  How nice for them.  I guess those who are holding out for a return of tribal lands aren't being offered shut the fvck up money.

[Serpentium]

The depth of the white man's disrespect for this attachment to the land can be demonstrated by one simple fact. It was 2008 before any Australian Federal Parliament did the traditional owners of the land in the ACT the courtesy of allowing them to perform a Welcome to Country.

This is a formal ceremony, inviting strangers to come and sit with the people who hold the custodianship of an area.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1JwyxNh3Ak

Why ought we be surprised by that. It was 1967 before Aboriginals were made citizens of their own nation.

That's not typical ''Whitey'  though, not anymore. I think it's more of an Australian thing. You lot seem to hanging on rather too hard to some of the worst ideals The Empire exported. (Along with some of the best, too) But it's 2112, not 1840, and in the outside, right way up world, things have moved on considerably.


As recently as this week, The Queen was rubbing shoulders with the  upper echelons of what used to be the Provisional IRA, (quite possibly the very man who ordered the hit on her Uncle, Louis Mountbatten)


If we still had the same nostalgic colonial mindset, he'd have been transported (along with all his Papist Rebel friends) long ago to some gods-forsaken sunbaked hellhole corner of The Empire, like Aust . . . . . . . . . ahh, right OK Skippy, point conceded.

(Need anymore "Ten Pound  Taffs" to help make Vaginika Gizzard feel at home?)   






 

[Scorched Eartha]

That's not typical ''Whitey'  though, not anymore. I think it's more of an Australian thing. You lot seem to hanging on rather too hard to some of the worst ideals The Empire exported. (Along with some of the best, too) But it's 2112, not 1840, and in the outside, right way up world, things have moved on considerably.


As recently as this week, The Queen was rubbing shoulders with the  upper echelons of what used to be the Provisional IRA, (quite possibly the very man who ordered the hit on her Uncle, Louis Mountbatten)


If we still had the same nostalgic colonial mindset, he'd have been transported (along with all his Papist Rebel friends) long ago to some gods-forsaken sunbaked hellhole corner of The Empire, like Aust . . . . . . . . . ahh, right OK Skippy, point conceded.

(Need anymore "Ten Pound  Taffs" to help make Vaginika Gizzard feel at home?)

 

Yes I know. I was making specific reference to the white man's attitude here.

I  keep telling you what an appalling place this is.

You are the one who seems to have trouble believing the depth of the racism which operates here. I am under no illusions whatsoever.

[oldghost]

You want to see a big joke , you should read our Equal Right Amendment . It should be the Unequal Right Amendments.

[Khara]

You want to see a big joke , you should read our Equal Right Amendment . It should be the Unequal Right Amendments How can we fvck you over today......

fixed that for ya! 

[oldghost]

Thanks for the fix .

[marisol]

I was hoping more for SE tribes.

[oldghost]

Lets give her all our support , I have a friend on the National Indian Council ; I'll see if she'll write a nasty letter to the Aussie government on the deplorable way the original peoples of the land are being treated.

[Scorched Eartha]

Please do. And if she agrees ask her to make special mention of the appalling situation which has been developing for the past 10 years which the government euphemistically refers to as "The Intervention" Whereby the welfare payments of all indigenous peoples in the Northern territory remote communities are garnishiered, based on the assumption that without this being done they will not feed their children - and where families are financially penalised for children not attending school. When in many cases the "schools" they are supposed to be attending have neither teachers, books nor chairs enough to accommodate the number of kids in the catchment area - nor available transport to them.

http://stoptheintervention.org/

[oldghost]

Emailed Simone , well let you know what she says . I'll sent a nice letter to the Austrian Embassy protesting their abhorred treatment of your people .
If that doesn't work how about a revolution?.