Bob PS - QUESTION OF CONTEXT - END Of AN ERA I should add, by way of providing some context to my position, that it is my assessment that the monolithic Anglo-Australian state is a failed experiment. It is the local dimension of a wider Western allaince, with local managers etc. Anglo-Australia Inc. It has demonstrated repeatedly that it cannot ensure the well-being of Australia's First Peoples. Why subject the surviving First Peoples to yet another round of mistreatment? A change of government is not the answer, with yet another Minister of Aboriginal Affairs sweeping into office with promises of how they will get it right this time. Sorry, time is up on that one. A change to the system of governance is required. One which stops spending scarce resources on propping up pretences, at the expense of the survival of First Peoples both as living people and in terms of their cultures and languages. Of course, those who have invested heavily in this type of European state arrangement will be very slow to change from their positions of privilege. But life has a logic and rhythm of its own. Hey, there is a peoples movement happening in Australia and elsewhere. People are moving - sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly. Those who feel compelled to spend their energies defending the existing arrangements make their choice and have virtually all the support in the world - both in terms of resources and the dominant cultural paradigms developed during the last two centuries (or so). My energies - like those of a growing number of others - are directed towards a new type of arrangment which attempts to better accommodate lifes realities. Historically this may come to be seen as a loosening of the grip the historically peculiar Western Way has had on life in many parts of the world. In Australia, the need for an arrangement which opens up a space for the original peoples and their Way(s) to live full lives is an obvious problem to tackle. Band aid solutions abound trying to patch things up. But an open wound in life requires far more than a bit of tape for good healing Since we are mobilising our collective energies (as is happening in an unprecedented way across the country) it is vitally important that we do not waste this opportunity by being bought off by politically inspired fixes to the proven failures. Our imaginations need to be brought to this task, or else the movement will be blind, captured and defeated by people who long for the old pretences which made terra nullius possible. One of the dangers of using a monocultural notion of equality is that it leads straight into a trap prepared in advance by the same Western forces (intellectual craftspeople, politicians, media barrons) that require us to see the world entirely in their terms for them to flourish and dominate our lives. Hey, that's the problem we're trying to overcome. Hence the importance of a notion of deep equality which builds on the original good human impulse (equality) but which won't let it be captured (monoculturally normalised) by the opposing forces. Some of these matters have been touch on in the native title debate as i recall - the difference between a superficial equality of one right and the equality between two bundles of rights. Not sure if i've got that exactly correct but it was along those lines - so i am not a lone voice. I think it was discussed in the suppressed submision of the Australian Law Reform Commission on the amendments to the Native Title Act. Suppressed - gee, the old regime is getting desperate in its attempts to hold the collapsing edifice together. I'd slap a condemned notice on it on the interest of public good. But politicians everywhere, once elected, are always happy to promote pretence rather than tell us what their experts are already telling them. Stand back, folks. There goes the western economy. There may well be no recovery this time so don't sit on your bums waiting for your local member to fix it up. This is a time for movement. Bruce 2 March 99 ------------------------------------------------------- RecOzNet2 has a page @ http://www.green.net.au/recoznet2 To unsubscribe from this list, mail [EMAIL PROTECTED], and in the body of the message, include the words: unsubscribe announce or click here mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20announce This posting is provided to the individual members of this group without permission from the copyright owner for purposes of criticism, comment, scholarship and research under the "fair use" provisions of the Federal copyright laws and it may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner, except for "fair use."
