Towns settlements have natural closed or been closed down in the past for a number of reasons.

The problem here is where dealing with what we affectionately call "Koala bears". The last I heard is they are looking at it anyway, not doing it. Once they come to a decision, then they will have to work out a plan.

In the end, like council amalgamations, it will probably get canned due to a few self interested selfish minorities, and be classed as to hard.

Some of these places are absolute sh!t holes, that cost a fortune to support and have nothing to do with aboriginal culture what so ever.

Rh200 you appear to view "culture" through the prism of your European bias. This is understandable yet incorrect. To get a true understanding read the writings of Daisy Bates and others from that era.

Actually I view a culture though the eyes of an atheist scientist, not emotive [email protected] Religion is a culture, various local and social convolutions of behaviors are a culture. Boganisim is a culture. There's no rocket science in culture, human nature is well understood.

As we understand more of it we are able change things with less of a broadsword approach, but where not at the scalpel stage yet. The whole situation is exasperated by huggy fluffys and guilt over perceived sins of the past.

The whole feel sorry for ourselves because (insert past grevience here) and thats why we are down trodden and (insert result here) is another culture. We like to pick and choose the warm and fuzzy things to throw out as culture, to try and reinfoce the lefts view of multiculturism. But at the end of the day its just ignoring the facts and trying to redefine something to whats convenient.

Rh200, your European bias won't let you see culture unless it comforms to your ethic. Inclusive or exclusive? Which school of thought on group values do you subscribe?

Edit: atheist scientist is a European construct��

Define, give a list if you like and I will deconvolve it myself.

At the end of the day I believe in trying to build a stable society where the standard deviation across the population in wealth is small. In essence that means the standard deviation of values should also be small.

Which is generally what most people want. The two big problems with that is, every one has a different idea on what those values should be:p, the other being how to get there.

The big issue with the left is, one half of them continue with this :"we are all wonderful beings" [email protected], and all we need is some sort of social justice. Nature does not subscribe to that. The other half know better and just want it to continue so they can maintain the rage.

It's a straight forward question usually covered in most philosophy courses in where we establish our bias in ethics. Some believe ethics are inclusive of all populations(cultures) and some believe they can be exclusive and mono cultural in construct.
To wit: in western culture it is wrong to kill anyone, in some tribal culture it is wrong only to kill inside the tribe. Killing someone outside the group is of no consequence

Eddie, in the early 70s I spent some time in a pretty remote part of PNG doing some work for the local administration in that sort of 'half way time' with the locals sort of half running the country under supervision just before Gough handed it over officially in '75. (Translation: [which, although true, will doubtlessly offend some here] - in the last years when the place more less still worked.)

We had a house boi who did what house bois do - kept the place clean, did our washing etc. He was a great young bloke - about 18, I think - and very likeable with half way decent English. He was the son of the headman in his village, which wasn't a long way from the airfield we were working from.

He went home every weekend (the villagers were all good Catholics, so he'd tell us about going to Mass before setting out to get back to work Sunday night).

One Monday afternoon, the police arrived and took our House boi away to the kalaboose, telling us he'd murdered a young man from the neighbouring village on the Sunday before (or it might have been after) going to Mass and then returning to work for us.

When we heard the whole tale, the story went like this: someone from the neighbouring village had killed a villager from our house boi's village. As the eldest son of the headman, it was his duty under the payback rule - (the universal law of Highlands) - to redress that wrong by doing the same to someone from that village.

He would have seen himself as a good Catholic, but his culture - that went far deeper than any religion introduced by missionaries - dictated that, as the future headman, he redress a wrong that had been done to the people of his village.

My guess would be that when he came out of the kalaboose, he would have been welcomed back to the village as a man deserving great respect and would have almost certainly become its headman when his father died. He would also have come back to the village far better equipped to be headman because of all the things he would have learned about the outside world while serving his time as a prisoner.

In our Western culture, he was a common murderer. In his culture, a man who had earned great respect for doing exactly what caused our culture to label him a common murderer.

It might offend some here, but there's almost as wide a gulf between our Western democratic culture and the root culture of many of the asylum seekers we have welcomed here over the last few years. And who live among us, many of them openly despising what they see as the weakness we display by adhering to the mores of our Western culture, particularly in our NOT stamping them down - and stamping them down hard - when they show how much they despise us.

AS they would do if the boot was on the other foot. And as they will do when the boot is eventually on the other foot, as they see as an inevitability.

The same applies to some second generation 'Australians', born here, but who have never surrendered their home culture.

MTOW Exactly the point of bias in culture. Now if some can apply that to the aboriginal tradition the discussion could develop into an exchange of ideas

Which "aboriginal tradition"?

Aboriginal culture is tribal based, with significant differences between even neighbouring tribal groups. Look at the stories of Warrabri/Ali Curung and Port Keats/Wadeye for examples of the problem.

MTOW,
Observation, analysis, tempered with wisdom.
Thanks for that. :ok:

Coodashooda sees the world through Balanda eyes. Clans fight continuously it strengthens the tribe. Telegraph camp is a long way from Port Keats

Sorry.Eddie
Just conveying the views passed to me by old cricketing team mates like Charlie King (ABC) and Norm Fry (ex NLC) and supported in discussion with a range of desert and salt water community leaders in the 90's.

There is no "one" aboriginal tradition and consequently no "one size fits all" solution to whichever "problem" is under consideration.

Which is why it is a joke that the argument has been allowed to encompass terms such as "Aboriginal Nation", which it has never been.

The touchy feelies won't like you saying that. Don't you know we 'invaded' and dispossessed a viable, working civilisation with all the trimmings of a modern day society? It was all there, but those ignorant Poms, and us, with guilt by association, just couldn't see what a vibrant, successful civilisation it was. /Sarc

Saltie with the name of the strongest Yolgnu moiety makes the most puerile contribution in the discussion. Irony somewhat or is it a paradox?

Anthropologists have found Dreamlines and evidence of contact from the Tanami Desert to the eastern seaboard and places in between.

Indeed Cooda! On the wall of a corridor of a Hospital here in the Riverland district of South Australia there is a poster of a map of the various Aboriginal Tribes known to exist just prior to White settlement.

From memory there were/are around 50 different tribes, just in what is now SA alone.

I find it somewhat bemusing to be told that each and every tribe had both 'Welcome to Country' and 'Traditional Smoking Ceremonies." :hmm:

A former workmate of mine who is part Aboriginal has definite views on such subjects. They are not suitable for posting here!!

Intellectual [email protected] from the huggy fluffy side university to try and make themselves believe they are intellectuals. Its nothing but another term to encompass frames of reference. Fairly well everyone with half a brain knowns they see things from their own frame of reference and makes appropriate allowances for it.

In this case its irrelevant to the problem.

Beliefs are just that, not fact. What is a fact is we are animals, and even in the animal kingdom there is social order amongst groups. There is also consequences if there is non compliance.

Maybe your right, maybe we need to encompass some aboriginal values, like the ones metered out to members of groups who don't comply:E

Well blatantly wrong, it depends on what part of western culture, what temporal period and the circumstances.

Again wrong, depends on what tribes and when.

Actually half true, but add in that, which one? The reality is, for the majority of the Australian aboriginies their culture is for all intents and purposes long gone and buried. In some cases a certain unamed University has actually had to train some tribes in their own culture to give "Aboriginal awarness" courses. This is of course after the culture has been appropriately sanitized to get rid of some of the more unsavory aspects to our western bias, that even the huggy fluffys can't accept.

No need, we know, or knew how to assimilate other cultures, mankind has been doing it for thousands of years successfully, though sometimes a bit harshly. Along with the modern method of bringing up children and all the other huggy fluffy things we seem to be doing, we are failing. Like every thing else its about balance, stick and carrot.

At the end of the day, they are no different to any other human being, and the same laws of nature govern them as us.

Rh200 cultural practices such as FGM, child brides or slavery, I make no allowance for. This means my ethical viewpoint is exclusive.

Which western culture condones murder?

Some tribes means the same as depends on which tribe and when. Refer to MTOW's post

Your lfinal paragraphs show both contempt for others and a breathtaking close mindedness that can never be breached

No culture I know of condones murder. Murder is purely the illegal killing. legal killing is not murder. Hence any culture can kill if its legal to do in regards to their cultural circumstances, hence its not murder.

For example honor killings are not murder in some countries, they are just killings.

Actually my contempt is for towards closed minded people who hypocritically make judgments based on pseudo science, then in the other breadth condemn other peoples beliefs. If your going to pretend to make judgents and solutions on science, then do it properly and unemotionally.

As for closed mindedness, a bit rich considering I'm the one who says there needs to be a stick and carrot approach, not just an extreme approach.

You win Rh200 my head is about to explode following the twists and turn backs of your thoughts. You have turned my viewpoint into yours and expect me to argue it.