Has anything changed?

Today I watched an Australian Press Club address and heard the horrific stories about domestic violence amongst my indigenous brothers and sisters.  I hasten to add there is much domestic violence in non-indigenous communities.  However my concern in this blog is for the First Australians.  A view was put forward by three significant Aboriginal women of male indigenous persons wanting to maintain a sort of secretive indigenous world that either does not want to or can't cope with other cultures in Australia. It was stated that being a part of this secretive world allowed the males to perpetrate violence against their womenfolk and children.  These perpetrators hide behind this culture which requires cover up for such acts of violence.  I had never thought of it this way and was so impressed with the outspoken Aboriginal woman who put forward this view.

Lo and behold the next day in my local paper The West Australian (18 November, 2016, p12), appeared an article "Violent indigenous men 'play the cultural card'". It was a detailed report of the Press Club address.  It is worth a read.

This sits in a context of the recent pressures on a well known cartoonist for indicating in his sketch that an Aboriginal father was too intoxicated to know his own son.  I can understand the hurt this created for those Aboriginal dads who love and nurture their families in a safe and happy environment.  However some recent figures reported in my daily newspaper supported the view that it was often difficult to find a responsible parent to take in hand a child who was off the rails or just not cared for in the way one would expect.

Adjacent to this article on p12 was another "Reports on Aboriginals lambasted' which basically indicated that the reports in the last 15 years were just dust gatherers. It was indicated that a weakness in implementing these reports (42 in number) was the lack of consultation with Aboriginal people and/or that it had not been done with cultural sensitivity.

One has to despair that there are still negative outcomes from 1788 and the following years of Aboriginal dispossession. Of course Aboriginals want to be immersed in their culture as well as embracing other 21st century cultures, managing say a tricky bi-cultural existence.  I take my hat off to Aboriginals who can do this.  This does not excuse the violence of some Aboriginal men, too many it seems, against their womenfolk and children.  Here and now the 21st century tells us that we have a United Nations Declaration of Basic Human rights that transcends all cultures. Maybe there is a way to bring possible violence perpetrators to understand and want to live by this Declaration.


Enough already!


GD