The Sydney Morning Herald
Letters: Aborigines need self-sufficiency, not welfare
Date: 21/08/2000
Although I strongly support any measures, whether symbolic or practical,
that help us to come to terms with the terrible injustices
inflicted on indigenous people in the past, I have to agree with Noel
Pearson that welfare dependency has been a disaster for Aboriginal
and Islander people.
Over 40 years' experience in delivering overseas aid has convinced me
that the only way communities can rise from acute deprivation is
by tackling their limitations themselves.
There is nothing quite so heart-warming as seeing the pride of people
who have achieved self-sufficiency and are able to say "We did it
ourselves."
Outside agencies can help with ideas, motivation and just enough money
to kick-start the process but they must not do it for those
communities. This is the flaw in providing white-administered services
and that applies to the Army as much as to any other agency.
What the communities desperately need are successful models that use
indigenous change agents. For all their problems, the experience
of the Pintupi of Kintore ("The Art of Living", Herald, August 17) is an
example. I am sure there are plenty of others.
Agencies like ours can and do provide ideas drawn from overseas
experience but the best models are home-grown. I trust and pray that
Noel Pearson has enough influence to get the process of self-empowerment
going in his own community.
Andrew Macintosh, Australian Baptist World Aid, Sydney, August 17.
G. O'Gorman (Letters, August 18) asks if Noel Pearson and Geoff Clark
are representatives of the same people. Obviously they are, but
one is a leader and the other is a politician.
Gary Stowe, Faulconbridge, August 18.
I find it amusing that now an Aboriginal activist has noticed that the
Aboriginal industry is doing more harm to its constituents than good,
you are happy to agree with his prognosis in an editorial.
Unfortunately, in the last paragraph of your leader you diminish what
went before it by failing to draw the logical conclusion. The real
apology we need to hear is from the liberal/left for the evils they
committed in the 20th century. First they inflicted us with socialism
and
all its attendant well-meaning idiocies. Then they cranked up the victim
culture with all its horrible divisiveness. It is these things which
have caused so much harm to the social fabric, and to the most
vulnerable in our society, in particular.
It is clear that the welfare system is going some way to killing many of
our countrymen and women while the left worries about
affirmative action, secondary discrimination and other silly,
vainglorious little crusades for "equality". And they have the gall to
expect us
to apologise? As the Roman satirist Juvenal would have said: "O tempora,
O mores!"
Peter Laverick, Sydney, August 17.
Paddy McGuinness argues that the failure of the Cubillo and Gunner cases
"... undermined much of the basis of all the stolen
generations" because the authorities were motivated by humanitarian
intentions, not feelings of racial superiority (Herald, August 17).
However, sadly, this misses the whole point.
The stolen generations issue is not about a crime in the legal sense.
The primary wrong done to these people is cultural, through
separation from language, family and identity. The motives of those
involved are irrelevant.
And it is because it is a special injustice we as a society must take
responsibility. It is also why our government must take action.
Anand Ganesan, Gordon, August 17.
At the risk of betraying my fellow females, let me reveal some secret
women's business.
Mothers in every level of society have secret ways of getting baby to
sleep when they're desperately exhausted. Hands up those who
have used the North Shore nightcap (an extra dose of sedative cough
syrup). The few sips of Dad's middy? The touch of gin in baby's
bottle (traditional white culture, this one)?
Most women with difficult or multiple children have been there at some
stage.
To "beat up" the revelation that some Aboriginal mothers use petrol for
the same purpose is either very naive or totally hypocritical.
The Aborigines learnt substance abuse from us. We are not so superior.
Fair go!
C.A. Lawrence, Mangrove Mountain, August 18.
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