in the most horrific circumstances but I am almost certain her death will not bring about the changes which are needed.
I am writing of course about the death of the very attractive little aboriginal girl who lived in one of the "camps" outside Alice Springs. It is not the sort of place anyone should be living in this country, let alone a child. She did not have a bedroom, or even a bed. She slept on a mattress on a floor in a room where whisky bottles were lined up along the windowsill. The house is apparently strewn with rubbish.
To me it all sounds all too common in that part of the world. I have talked with aboriginal women who are even more worried than I am. They are among the seeming few who really do want the best for their children, who insist on them going to school. They make sure their children are fed and clothed to the best of their ability. They try to keep their boys from running in the streets at night. So far those I know are winning the battle - but at a huge cost.
The way we handle "indigenous" affairs in this country has to change. It is not working. It will never work.
Over and over again there have been "councils" and "organisations" and "groups" and this or that body which have failed. They have all failed because they have the same philosophy. They say "indigenous people have the right to self-determination". They say they have "the right to retain their language and culture".
Consider this though and see if it works. You speak a language which has a relationship with another language spoken before white settlement. Yes, it has changed and evolved over the years. It is incomprehensible to all but, at most, a few thousand people. You send your children off to the school where they are taught in that language. You know your children are supposed to go to school but you are not really interested because you may not be able to read and write at all. If you can it is probably only in a very limited way. There are no books in your house. Nobody reads bedtime stories.
The school does not have the resources other schools have because the wide ranging resources available in English are not available in your language. Still the cost of running your school is still higher. Absenteeism is high. The students are restless. They have not had enough to eat and there was some serious fighting in the camp last night. The fighting was almost certainly alcohol induced.
I could go on but it does not take imagination to realise that this does not work. Children need to be educated in English if they are ever to have any chance of breaking free of a cycle of dependence. They need to be in a situation where their parents or guardians can only spend their government handout on specific items. Their parents and guardians, particularly their male parents and guardians, need to be gainfully occupied. They may not be "employable" as such but they need to be required to "work" in some manner or other.
Yes, I know that idea goes against everything we have been told we "know" and "believe" about the importance of retaining language and culture. The reality however is that language and culture are not being retained. They have never been retained. The claim we are doing that is false. It has always been false. Chaining people to some sort of mythical past culture does not work. Real aboriginal culture was brutal and violent. It left any of the weak behind. This is rarely acknowledged. To actually say this is to leave one open to claims of "racist". We seem to believe it is better to rely on "traditional" ideas like "welcome to country" and "dot art" even when the first idea had an entirely different purpose in the past and the second idea is a mid-twentieth century introduced by a white man.
There is an "indigenous industry" out there with people who are making money through the philosophy of "retention". Until that stops then there will be more deaths, deaths of innocent and very attractive children. Is that what we want? It seems it is what some people do want.
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