Aboriginal child abuse and the NT Intervention

[Mrs.Lucysnow]

Actually, it's also a question of political ability, Sam: Afghanistan in particular I believe would be able to deal with internal matters as they see fit, but for the efforts of the Taliban to interrupt those efforts. They don't seem to think that Afghanis can decide these matters on their own, free from an extremist religious outlook. This is a problem. On the one hand, you have frightened people - Afghanis - who just want to improve their lives. On the other - the Taliban - you have Pat Robertson with RPGs and knives. Contrary to popular belief, it really only takes one side to make a war.

Its 'Afghans'. Afghani is their unit of currency.

But anywho isn't it interesting that a thread designed to look at the handling of child abuse in the Northern Territories and the use of troops to handle internal affairs has turned into a sound box for foreign troops in Afghanistan.

No need to answer that, I already know that the child abuse angle is only a ruse to :itold:

 

[Bells]

Sure, everyone except the aboriginals [and Afghans and Iraqis and Somalians] should deal with internal matters as they see fit. Some people just aren't viable enough for self determination.

Right?

As an uppercrust Indian, that is something you have a great understanding of, isn't it? What was it you said to me once? You tell the lower caste that they need to be educated and that is how you'd value them? Wasn't it along those lines?

Tell me, how viable are the lower caste in India Sam? Viable enough that you shove them behind fences to block their slums from public view during the Commonwealth Games? Destroy their homes so the likes of yourself don't have to see it from your high rises and hotels? How many hundreds of people did your Government dispossess of their homes for the Games?

You have little to no understanding of the plight of the Indigenous communities in outback regions. You are picking mere talking points because you're pissed about the boil in your backside that is Afghanistan.

You know nothing about their legal or justice system or how their communities are based. You have in the past belittled them and called them "Abos" and belittled their connection to the actual land. So you'll excuse me if I laugh at your utter hypocrisy.

You do not know or understand the violence that exists in some Aboriginal communities, nor do you understand or realise the terror that some Aboriginal women and children suffer in such communities. Was the intervention by the Howard Government heavy handed and reactionary? Yes. No one, not even them, deny that. Was it necessary? In some instances yes, it was. Is it proper to control people's welfare payments to the point where money is deducted to pay for their rent and buy their food to make sure their children actually get to eat? Yes. In some instances it is. The Government controls a lot of people's payments (the maternity payment of over $5000 is controlled for everyone based on their age and their situation in life - it is termed here as the Plasma TV payment, due to the influx of big screen TV's that were sold to very young girls who suddenly became pregnant when it was introduced - and that is a very good example of Government control over people's welfare payments).

A lot of Aboriginal elders in a variety of communties around the NT and around Australia applauded the efforts to force people to stop drinking and sniffing substances and to get back to the core values that governed Indigenous communities - that of family. Do I approve of it? In some instances, yes. In communities where young teenage boys were holding the whole town to ransom every night because they'd be drunk and burning anything and everything in site, something needed to be done. Rape figures were high and these boys and young men had nowhere to go. I have dealt directly with some of these families and I can assure you, their plight is great and your reducing it to mere talking points because you've got a boil in your fucking backside about the war in Afghanistan is offensive.

When you have a mother sobbing to you because her son has raped her and beaten her every night of the week, and stolen all her welfare money for booze and spray paint and she has no money left to feed her other children, then you might gain some understanding of what their actual plight is. She is one of those people whose welfare payments are controlled. Do you know why? So her son cannot steal it anymore and her other children get fed 3 times a day. That is the kind of thing we see. That is just a mere portion of their plight. So how do you think this should be dealt with Sam? You know, in your wise ways.. how should it be dealt with? How can this woman be protected from the men in her community? It's not just her son who has raped her - her male family members have also abused and raped her consistently for most of her life. Should she and her children be moved elsewhere? No. She still needs the support and closeness to her "aunties" in said communities who do offer her support. Her "uncles" are now offering her protection and tribal laws have taken hold (the males involved have been speared and beaten as punishment). That was her choice.

Now, one day, you'll get off your fucking high horse that your luck of birth in your country has placed you and see how the other half lives. Until you do, stop reducing their plight to talking points because your pet issue annoys you.

 

[Gustav]

well we have similar problems in the states

“The country’s 2.1 million Indians, about 400,000 of whom live on reservations, have the highest rates of poverty, unemployment, and disease of any ethnic group in America” Native Americans remain at the bottom in almost every measurable economic category. Indians earn only a little more than half as much money as the average American-less money per capita than whites, blacks, Asian Americans, and Hispanics. Nearly one-third of Native Americans live in poverty, which is more than twice the rate for Americans in general. American Indian couples earn $71 for every $100 earned by all United States married couples.(wiki)

alcohol, drugs and sexual abuse are also at horrendous levels. its also kind of strange how two societies separated by vast ocean spaces are struggling thru similar plights

so what do we and the oz natives have in common? can we identify a causative factor(s) that could be assigned as an explanation of our shared experiences?

hmm
you anglos came in, devastated our communities and stole our lands. you took our children, raped our women, killed our menfolk and herded us into reservations

i mean
wtf?
wtgoddamnf?

So how do you think this should be dealt with

leave
take a hike
go back to europe
and take your shit with you

 

[GeoffP]

You're native, Gustav? What nation?

 

[Asguard]

Does that mean its reserved aboriginal land? If the aboriginals are transferred from there, will it still be a territory? Are the laws slightly different there? Is that why they could suspend the racial discrimination act?

I was leaving this piece of stupidity and bias for bells as she is the lawyer but I guess she missed it. This post just shows the lack of anything regarding understanding of Australia and its consitution. Aborigionals weren't even governed by the federal government when the states and territories were formed, they were confided to be fauna and therefor subject to the states. It was only the 66 referndum which made aborigionals subject to the same federal laws and privileges as anyother citizen. As for what it means to be a territory no it has nothing to do with aboriginals, it has to do with total population, state government Beck. When the Commonwealth was formed the NT was subject to the SA government rather than being a self govering colloney, there for they weren't granted "states rights" under the consitution, the same way that the ACT doesn't have states rights.

 

[S.A.M.]

I was leaving this piece of stupidity and bias for bells as she is the lawyer but I guess she missed it. This post just shows the lack of anything regarding understanding of Australia and its consitution. Aborigionals weren't even governed by the federal government when the states and territories were formed, they were confided to be fauna and therefor subject to the states. It was only the 66 referndum which made aborigionals subject to the same federal laws and privileges as anyother citizen. As for what it means to be a territory no it has nothing to do with aboriginals, it has to do with total population, state government Beck. When the Commonwealth was formed the NT was subject to the SA government rather than being a self govering colloney, there for they weren't granted "states rights" under the consitution, the same way that the ACT doesn't have states rights.

Well you brought it up that its a territory - what is the relevance of that status? How does it affect the ability of aboriginals to administer themselves?

As for aboriginals being treated like fauna - well I guess thats why they are being transferred to more "viable" communities of Australia like an endangered species which cannot think for itself.

A lot of Aboriginal elders in a variety of communties around the NT and around Australia applauded the efforts to force people to stop drinking and sniffing substances and to get back to the core values that governed Indigenous communities - that of family. Do I approve of it? In some instances, yes. In communities where young teenage boys were holding the whole town to ransom every night because they'd be drunk and burning anything and everything in site, something needed to be done. Rape figures were high and these boys and young men had nowhere to go. I have dealt directly with some of these families and I can assure you, their plight is great and your reducing it to mere talking points because you've got a boil in your fucking backside about the war in Afghanistan is offensive.

And a lot of warlords in Afghanistan applaud the efforts of foreign troops who help them to maintain their status quo as well. So whats new?

The problem is that in the aboriginals the alcoholism is a symptom not a cause of what is wrong with these communities. The problem is that Australians are so used to treating aboriginals like cattle, they cannot seem to comprehend how self determination works. And that is why they feel mo compunction in [once again] deciding what is "best" for the indigenous people - none of which includes the ability to resolve their own issues. Where in the world do you see alcoholism being treated as a racial disease? Where else have communities been treated as though they were under occupation because of high alcohol consumption in some of their members? Is it any wonder that the aboriginals are becoming worse in their substance abuse? Do Australians believe that aboriginals are nothing more than alcoholic pedophiles who need to be transferred where they can be watched over? What effect will it have on those communities when they are once more dispossessed from their lands and carted around to some other place? Is it the standard ROE in Australia to transfer entire communities based on their alcohol and porn consumption levels by race? How utterly racist is that?

As for the lower castes in India, whatever else the government has done - much of which can be questioned in terms of efficacy - what they never did was treat them like animals and demonstrate on a national level that they are incapable of making their own decisions.

 

[Mrs.Lucysnow]

As for the lower castes in India, whatever else the government has done - much of which can be questioned in terms of efficacy - what they never did was treat them like animals and demonstrate on a national level that they are incapable of making their own decisions.

Maybe but it seems it was the British who were keen on bringing equality among Hindus:


In past decades, Dalits in certain areas (especially in parts of the south) had to display extreme deference to high-status people, physically keeping their distance--lest their touch or even their shadow pollute others--wearing neither shoes nor any upper body covering (even for women) in the presence of the upper castes. The lowest-ranking had to jingle a little bell in warning of their polluting approach. In much of India, Dalits were prohibited from entering temples, using wells from which the "clean" castes drew their water, or even attending schools. In past centuries, dire punishments were prescribed for Dalits who read or even heard sacred texts.

Such degrading discrimination was made illegal under legislation passed during British rule and was protested against by preindependence reform movements led by Mahatma Gandhi and Bhimrao Ramji (B.R.) Ambedkar, a Dalit leader. Dalits agitated for the right to enter Hindu temples and to use village wells and effectively pressed for the enactment of stronger laws opposing disabilities imposed on them. After independence, Ambedkar almost singlehandedly wrote India's constitution, including key provisions barring caste-based discrimination. Nonetheless, discriminatory treatment of Dalits remains a factor in daily life, especially in villages, as the end of the twentieth century approaches.

http://www.indianchild.com/caste_system_india.htm

Sounds like cattle treatment to me:shrug:

And there are also incidents of this:

In the vast Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, several months in 1998, a period of transition to a new regional government, had been marred by the murder, rape, and/or expropriation of dozens of innocents, the majority of them Dalits (“the oppressed,” the name untouchables have designated themselves with in order to flaunt the scars of victimization) (Rettie 1). Within that same state, a single case of a man who had slapped a higher-caste member for having stolen peas from his field, illustrates the perversities of today’s caste discrimination. The man’s mother was “stripped and paraded through the village at gunpoint for an hour,” without any attempt by the villagers to halt the violation and abuse of an innocent woman even whose son had not committed any crime, merely having retaliated against a coercive deprivation of his property (Rettie 1).

http://rationalargumentator.com/issue14/caste.html

It would seem as if they are treated like animals.

 

[S.A.M.]

Maybe but it seems it was the British who were keen on bringing equality among Hindus

Which certainly explains why all the politicians under them were from the upper caste and why education levels in the country were at less than 12% when they left. Not to mention the fact that they created "Hinduism" by lumping everyone together in one basket because well, our entire literary tradition was not equivalent to one shelf in their libraries. They created the coolie class, exploited the labour, starved the poor to stuff their armies. And yes, they did bring about equality among the Indians, everyone was equally desirous of seeing their backs as they left the country.


We are very closely, very personally familiar with how much colonial powers wish to carry the burden of enlightening the native backward classes and how they use violence and dissent to force us into their way of thinking. It was not until after independence - and not so much by the efforts of the elite politicians but rather by the efforts of grassroots workers - that we were able to get beyond the separatist culture of the British in terms of both education and employment of the lower castes. We have yet to recover from the effects of the Hindu Muslim divide they fermented in the society. If not for the fact that we were already a stratified society when they came in, we may never have recovered from the effects of their divide and rule on our social classes. I thank the British more for English than for any of their policies wrt the lower castes. I don't have to look very far, I come from such a backward class myself on one side of the family.

In the vast Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, several months in 1998, a period of transition to a new regional government, had been marred by the murder, rape, and/or expropriation of dozens of innocents, the majority of them Dalits (“the oppressed,” the name untouchables have designated themselves with in order to flaunt the scars of victimization) (Rettie 1)

Since the majority of people in UP are Dalits and the majority of the poor in the country are also Dalits its hardly surprising that the majority of victims are Dalits. UP is now divided into Uttaranchal [renamed Uttarkhand] and UP

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uttaranchal

 

[Mrs.Lucysnow]

Which certainly explains why all the politicians under them were from the upper caste and why education levels in the country were at less than 12% when they left. Not to mention the fact that they created "Hinduism" by lumping everyone together in one basket because well, our entire literary tradition was not equivalent to one shelf in their libraries. They created the coolie class, exploited the labour, starved the poor to stuff their armies. And yes, they did bring about equality among the Indians, everyone was equally desirous of seeing their backs as they left the country.


We are very closely, very personally familiar with how much colonial powers wish to carry the burden of enlightening the native backward classes and how they use violence and dissent to force us into their way of thinking. It was not until after independence - and not so much by the efforts of the elite politicians but rather by the efforts of grassroots workers - that we were able to get beyond the separatist culture of the British in terms of both education and employment of the lower castes. We have yet to recover from the effects of the Hindu Muslim divide they fermented in the society. If not for the fact that we were already a stratified society when they came in, we may never have recovered from the effects of their divide and rule on our social classes. I thank the British more for English than for any of their policies wrt the lower castes. I don't have to look very far, I come from such a backward class myself on one side of the family.

But Sam what does this have to do with children being abused by their families in the Northern Territory of Australia? Is this just a pissing contest between India and Aussies? I mean whatever you want to say at least the British attempted to bring equality when its obvious that society had problems treating their lower casts like human beings.

I mean I'm just saying.

 

[S.A.M.]

But Sam what does this have to do with children being abused by their families in the Northern Territory of Australia?

I mean I'm just saying.

I would say as much as the Northern Territory intervention has to do with saving the women and children of aboriginal communities.

If you want to know why this topic was started try looking here here here and here.

Apparently if one is politically opposed to military intervention as a tactic of peacekeeping, one is a supporter of pedophilia, homophobia, violence against women and well, any social ills in communities which are not white, because such interventions are only deemed necessary for those poor black/coloured bastards who are incapable of governing themselves and need a firm white hand to direct their social development along acceptable routes.

 

[Mrs.Lucysnow]

But the use of the military was used for practical logistical purposes as the NT are not easily accessible. Just read Asguard and Bells posts, they're trying to explain the reasons why the military were used. Its not as if they invaded the NT and were keeping the people under house arrest or anything.

Have you heard of any abuses against the native population by soldiers in the NT?s

As a side note I find the attempt to slap Arundhati Roy with sedition to be very disturbing. Hadn't heard about that one.

 

[S.A.M.]

But the use of the military was used for practical logistical purposes as the NT are not easily accessible.

Which is the same reason why the military is used against the native people of Afghanistan, isn't it?

Have you heard of any abuses against the native population by soldiers in the NT?s

You mean apart from the fact that they have been deposited in these inaccessible regions where they are treated like fauna?

What more do you need to hear?

Is there an aboriginal army?

As a side note I find the attempt to slap Arundhati Roy with sedition to be very disturbing. Hadn't heard about that one.

Like Assange she has the tendency to bring to a global platform, matters which politicians would prefer to keep in-house. Nothing she is saying has not been said before, in much more extreme terms, by others. But she is a visible personality. However, nothing could aid the cause of the Kashmir issue more than publicly crucifying a human rights worker over it. Whatever else the right wingers in India are, they are not that stupid.

edit:

a little bit more on the issue of the NT intervention

Any hopes that this attitude might have changed were dashed two weeks ago, when Prime Minister John Howard announced a new crusade. Following a report calling for action on child abuse in Aboriginal communities, he announced a six-month ban on alcohol and pornography within the homelands, compulsory medical checks for indigenous children and restrictions on welfare payments. As commander-in-chief of an army of police, the Australian Defence Force and hordes of doctors and nurses, he will storm the 70 or so autonomous Aboriginal settlements in the Northern Territory. He can do this because the Northern Territory, having failed in a recent, rather half-hearted bid for statehood, is directly administered by the Australian government. For Aboriginal people, Howard's edict is just another sudden and draconian shift in the law as it relates to them; just another pillar in a lifetime of being shoved from pillar to post.

It is hard not to view this as yet another attack on native title by the white establishment. No sooner had Aboriginal peoples achieved, after a tremendous expenditure of time, effort, expertise and money, freehold title to bits and pieces of country under the 1976 Aboriginal Land Rights Act, than there was an attempt to redefine freehold as it applied to Aboriginal areas, so that they could be reclaimed if there should be a need - for minerals, fossil fuels, foreign bases, tracking stations, whatever. New laws in 1993 and 1998 sealed this flagrant violation. Now, having had such resounding success in rescuing Iraq from tyranny, fanaticism and madness, Howard claims to be riding to the rescue of Aboriginal children in distress.

But what really drives in the point:

The prime minister of Australia should know, however, that most of the areas under Aboriginal control in the Northern Territory are already dry. The elders would have greater success in keeping them that way if Howard and his Myrmidons would do the job they have been elected to do. Rather than wresting nominal control of Aboriginal homelands to himself and so undermining the authority of the elders still further, Howard could bring the full force of the law to bear on the white bootleggers who bring grog into dry Aboriginal communities by night and sell it at exorbitant prices. Even in apparently successful communities such as Utopia, homeland of the great painter Emily Kngwarreye, the bootleggers turn up almost every night. I was staying there in 2000 when drunken hoodlums smashed up the health centre in the small hours. The next day the senior law women sent the offenders into the bush to live off the land for six months, as punishment. My car had been searched when I arrived to make sure that I had brought no alcohol with me; but next morning all the men I saw were either staggering drunk or lying unconscious in the scrub.

Though the bootleggers drive unmistakable four-wheel-drive trucks with giant balloon tyres that carry them over the roadless expanse, leaving a mile-long dust plume easily visible from the sky, the federal authorities remain curiously unable to intercept the traffic, even though the government is missing out on significant revenue. Anyone who really cared about what alcohol was doing to Aboriginal communities would surely have done something to curb the illicit trade. Perhaps they would also have done something about the fact that, in Alice Springs, as in most other frontier towns, there are dozens of liquor outlets and hardly any shops selling fresh foodstuffs, which, if you can find them, are crushingly expensive. If your feet are bare, you are not allowed in the Alice Springs food mall at all.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/jul/03/australia

 

[superstring01]

you anglos came in, devastated our communities and stole our lands. you took our children, raped our women, killed our menfolk and herded us into reservations

None of us "Anglos" did that. Our ancestors did. Your ancestors did the same thing to eachother. Show me any person, and I'll show you a person who's descended from murderous, ravenous, invading hoards of rapists, thieves and scoundrels. You are alive today because somewhere in your past some woman was raped and impregnated. You are alive today because some tribe won a battle against another tribe, wiped them out, took their daughters as sex toys and passed on their genes. Each of our nations, present and past, exists on the bones of thousands--if not millions--of dead people from the past million-or-so years of human existence.

Native Americans were no strangers to all the grotesqueries of human existence. What European colonizers did was terrible, but not all that strange or extraordinary at all, except that they were able and willing to write down the history of their deeds so that we can sit here nonplussed at their callous behavior. No such luck for the Aboriginals and American Indians.

~String

 

[Mrs.Lucysnow]

@Sam

Ah no Sam the military is actually fighting a war in Afghanistan so the two are not comparable. I mean the national guard didn't go into New Orleans during Katrina because they wanted to engage in combat they were there to restore order and to help in relief efforts.

I ask if you had heard of any abuses by soldiers only because you are concerned with their presence there. i cannot assume that their mere presence translates into de facto abuses, all depends on what role they are ordered to play. I do know that they have had a lot of problems with child abuse within the aboriginal population and alcoholism of course. They are similar to the inuits and american indians who do not have the enzymes to metabolize alcohol and fall prey to drunkenness more than the average. The NT has the largest aboriginal population and so I doubt they were dragged and dumped there, from what I understand indigenous populations migrated to that sparsely populated part of the world some 40,000 years ago. Now I don't know to what degree outside aid is welcome or not but I would imagine it would bode badly for the Australian government to allow children to be abused.

Did you ever think that maybe the indigenous population didn't have the resources to handle the situation? Its possible. All I'm saying is that maybe intervention was a mistake or handled badly or perhaps it was only a a partial mistake and they needed more coordination with the elders but there doesn't seem to be a lot of evidence that the troops themselves, or their presence in itself has caused undue harm.

 

[S.A.M.]

@Sam

Ah no Sam the military is actually fighting a war in Afghanistan so the two are not comparable. I mean the national guard didn't go into New Orleans during Katrina because they wanted to engage in combat they were there to restore order and to help in relief efforts.

I ask if you had heard of any abuses by soldiers only because you are concerned with their presence there. i cannot assume that their mere presence means de facto abuses, all depends on what role they are ordered to play. I do know that they have had a lot of problems with child abuse within the aboriginal population and alcoholism of course. They are similar to the inuits and american indians who do not have the enzymes to metabolize alcohol and fall prey to alcoholism and drunkenness more than the average. The NT has the largest aboriginal population and so I doubt they were dragged and dumped there, from what I understand indigenous populations migrated to that sparsely populated part of the world some 40,000 years ago. Now I don't know to what degree outside aid is welcome or not but I would imagine it would bode badly for the Australian government to allow children to be abused.

Did you ever think that maybe the indigenous population didn't have the resources to handle the situation? Its possible. All I'm saying is that maybe intervention was a mistake or handled badly or perhaps it was only a a partial mistake and they needed more coordination with the elders but there doesn't seem to be a lot of evidence that the troops themselves, or their presence in itself has caused undue harm.

The situation with the aborigines is similar to the situation with the Afghans, in both cases the pretence is one of peacekeeping, which is easily negated by the fact that the obvious solutions derived from their own societies are easily set aside in lieu of force or coercion. The disregard, on the one hand for Afghan opinion and on the other, for aboriginal opinion and in both cases, the fact that there is continued investment in failed policies shows that failure is the only option.

Like the Afghan women, the aboriginal children are simply too good a red herring to pass up in the pursuit of land or resources. Consider the situation if white bootleggers are transferred to dry communities and kept under military supervision. In fact, take it one step further and consider the entire community from which these bootleggers originate being transferred to other places which are dry of both porn and alcohol and kept under military supervision.

 

[S.A.M.]

Some history of the discrimination against aboriginal women:

The frontier has had a special legacy in the way in which prostitution is treated by sections of Australian society into the present. There is still a certain 'out of sight out of mind' mentality regarding sexual relations between women of Aboriginal descent and non-Aboriginal men which extends to commercial sex, especially in rural areas. For most of the twentieth century Aboriginal women were controlled by the various state 'protection Acts' rather than the civil and criminal laws which were used to police non-Aboriginal prostitution. They were thus put in a separate category to other prostitutes. In some ways this had negative consequences for the women concerned, since the powers of the Chief Protectors of Aborigines were far more far-reaching than those of the police in relation to non- Aboriginal prostitutes (Huggins and Blake, 1992). In other ways their separateness was more positive. The fact that Aboriginal women usually traded sex in fringe-camps or on isolated stations rather than city streets meant that they escaped many of the moves by police and criminal organisations to control their activities and earnings. The balance of these factors must have varied considerably with the experience of individual women.

The frontier years also had ramifications for non-Aboriginal sex workers. The legacy is clearly evident in mining towns such as Kalgoorlie, where prostitution is openly carried on under the virtual supervision of the police. As in colonial days, the police (and apparently the majority of the local community) consider the brothels a necessary part of life in a mining town where men still outnumber women. This acceptance and semi-official control has been a mixed blessing for the women concerned. The vigilance of the police ensures that criminal elements are kept away from the brothels and their inmates, making sex work in Kalgoorlie much safer than probably anywhere else in Australia. However, this security comes at the price of excessive intrusion into the personal relationships and movements of sex workers. As one former Kalgoorlie prostitute recalled of her years in a Hay Street brothel in the 1970s, after fleeing Sydney because of violence from the 'big fellas': 'Oh no, you weren't allowed to have boyfriends. Not in Kalgoorlie... The police won't let you... I tell you what, I couldn't cop that, not being free' (Frances, 1993, p.14). In addition to having their personal relationships vetted, sex workers were forbidden to shop in the town after midday and were not allowed to use the local restaurants, hotels, swimming pool or cinemas or to go to the racecourse. This situation persists to the present day (Cohen, 1994).

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/24/230.html

See comparable situations in other such societies:

Sexual abuse of First Nations [Canadian indigenous] children is at crisis proportions. This form of violence is a legacy of colonialism. As previously mentioned, residential schools held First Nations children captives. These children were terrorized sexually with no avenues of escape. When they were allowed to visit their families during holidays, these children often felt increasing loneliness and despair due to a widening sense of cultural estrangement, and abandonment.

From: Lynne, Jackie 1998 "Colonialism and the Sexual Exploitation of Canada's First Nations women," paper presented at the American Psychological Association 106th Annual Convention, San Francisco, California, August 17, 1998. Jackie Lynne is a social worker based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

 

[Mrs.Lucysnow]

@Sam

I don't know when you ever got the impression that troops in Afghanistan were there on a peacekeeping mission. Troops in South Korea are on a peacekeeping mission as well as troops that were sent to Rwanda or Kosovo for example but never Iraq and Afghanistan. The troops sent there were being deployed to fight insurgents and support the ad hoc government troops. They are there as a fighting force not a peacekeeping force. So the situation in the NT is entirely different. I'm not sure but its my understanding that the military in the NT are not there as peacekeepers but employed for their logistics capabilities.

As for the mistreatment of aboriginal women that's old hat. Even Pakistani peacekeepers in the Congo and peacekeepers at many other locations have used local prostitutes etc. Poor women everywhere take advantage of troops coming in with money or resources. It happened all over Europe during the second world war so its not a race issue as much as its a money issue.

 

[S.A.M.]

@Sam

I don't know when you ever got the impression that troops in Afghanistan were there on a peacekeeping mission.

From the Australians here! Don't worry I don't believe it anymore than you do!

Troops in South Korea are on a peacekeeping mission as well as troops that were sent to Rwanda or Kosovo for example but never Iraq and Afghanistan. The troops sent there were being deployed to fight insurgents the local rebels and support the ad hoc government troops. They are there as a fighting force not a peacekeeping force.

Agreed.

So the situation in the NT is entirely different. I'm not sure but its my understanding that the military in the NT are not there as peacekeepers but employed for their logistics capabilities.

According to some Australians:

I don't think you understand what the military is for. You don't use an army to do the job of a police force, social services and schools.

Regardless, I think using the army to solve social issues in the aboriginals is like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

 

[Asguard]

The situation with the aborigines is similar to the situation with the Afghans, in both cases the pretence is one of peacekeeping, which is easily negated by the fact that the obvious solutions derived from their own societies are easily set aside in lieu of force or coercion. The disregard, on the one hand for Afghan opinion and on the other, for aboriginal opinion and in both cases, the fact that there is continued investment in failed policies shows that failure is the only option.

Like the Afghan women, the aboriginal children are simply too good a red herring to pass up in the pursuit of land or resources. Consider the situation if white bootleggers are transferred to dry communities and kept under military supervision. In fact, take it one step further and consider the entire community from which these bootleggers originate being transferred to other places which are dry of both porn and alcohol and kept under military supervision.

Its nothing alike but you don't want to here that so I won't bother pointing it out again that the army isn't involved in enforcement. Of corse you know that but that fact doesn't surport your political adjender.

Lucy's the army's use in Australia is nothing like the national guard after Katrina because they left there guns at home. Its more like the US Army engineers maintaing the levies

 

[S.A.M.]

Its nothing alike but you don't want to here that so I won't bother pointing it out again that the army isn't involved in enforcement. Of corse you know that but that fact doesn't surport your political adjender.

Lucy's the army's use in Australia is nothing like the national guard after Katrina because they left there guns at home. Its more like the US Army engineers maintaing the levies

What about the extra police sent to these aboriginal communities? Did they leave their guns at home as well?