x11, he's just shit stirring, don't take him seriously.
Also re: Australia, no i'm Scottish, but i reckon that everybody is entitled to their opinion, however the aboriginal issue in Australia is a lot more complicated than i understand myself. Sadly most Australians don't actually understand it either. This is probably not due to any lack of intelligence, but due to a lack of education or information being given to people.
A lot of aboriginals seem to me to be racist, no wonder when you think about it, but on the other hand racists are not to be tolerated, so who's fault is it? who should fix it and how? complicated. The same with what you are talking about.
Before the whites (or anybody else not indigenous) came to Australia the aboriginals had a whole bunch of interconnected legal/social/economical societies and intersociety relationships going on. It seems to be popular to imagine them all as spear throwing imbeciles who were waiting for a decent society to show up (not because of racism or anything, but poor education). not so.
Actually the aboriginal cultures got pretty much eradicated by the whites who set up a totally different society and class structure where all the things the aboriginals held in regard or were trading in were nearly worthless. Due to (real at the time) racism many were hunted and slaughtered.
What i'm saying is, this was only a couple of hundred years ago, not so many generations, and we expect people of these races, who have grown up feeling excluded from a society they are forced into but that is not their own to adapt perfectly! some do. most won't.
Again, it's about choice. Like the M$ ethic, the white societies tend to say "do it our way or not at all". Wouldn't it be better to live and let live? there's a lot of space in Australia, and the two sets of cultures could have got on fine, except they (both) often wanted to fight. it's kind of too late now, as most of the people who were in those cultures are dead, and their descendants have lost that culture and not gained anything to replace it. No wonder they have no motivation and are a lot of them on the dole!
I don't think the indian reservations of the states were very helpful at keeping the native americans' cultures alive, and i don't think the apartheid of south africa helped any at all either, obviously many in the world disagree with me or those things would never have happened.
Basically i think Australia needs a lot of reconciliation, and it will take a lot of people and time to make it happen. It is up to aboriginal people to motivate themselves and each other mostly, until that reconciliation has taken place, and similarly the incomers should be doing the same thing for themselves and each other instead of acting as if they are waiting for the aboriginals to catch up.
John Howard refusing to apologise for the stolen generation doesn't help, neither does the screaming nutcase party's "get the abos out of my backyard" stance. Or the popular "send the boat people back where they came from" thing. Let me ask you, who were the first boat people? these are all very negative attitudes and instead of focusing on past hurts, we should be looking forward to making a society where there's no more racial tension.
Obviously a lot of white Australians will balk at the idea of reconciliation with aboriginals, not because there is anything wrong with it but because they like how it is now, and don't want to share the pie that they already have the biggest piece of.
I'm sure you know yr own history better than i do, and i'm not telling you what to think, just giving you my opinions to chew over. What worries me most is not that there's a lot of racism or apathy in Australia (because actually there's probably not a great deal more of either than in many other countries) but i'm worried that the situation might be getting slowly worse. I couldn't believe it when Howard got in again, even though Beasley was the only real alternative. And i was surprised at how popular One Nation turned out to be again. it worries me, that's all.
After two hundred years of prejudice, there will be a lot of 'biting the hand that feeds you' going on, but i hope people from all cultures can be positive enough to work through the difficult parts of reconciliation and reap the benefits.
