Aboriginal child abuse and the NT Intervention

Children were going to school and simulating sex acts in classrooms, that they saw in porno movies they would be made or allowed to watch with their parents.

Apart from the porn movies, it doesn't sound very different from Mead's description of sexuality in Samoan culture.
And so, as Mead herself described the goal of her research: "I have tried to answer the question which sent me to Samoa: Are the disturbances which vex our adolescents due to the nature of adolescence itself or to the civilization? Under different conditions does adolescence present a different picture?" To answer this question, she conducted her study among a small group of Samoans — a village of 600 people on the island of Ta‘ū — in which she got to know, lived with, observed, and interviewed (through an interpreter) 68 young women between the ages of 9 and 20. She concluded that the passage from childhood to adulthood (adolescence) in Samoa was a smooth transition and not marked by the emotional or psychological distress, anxiety, or confusion seen in the United States.
Satellite image of the island of Ta‘ū

Mead concluded that this was due to the Samoan girl's belonging to a stable, monocultural society, surrounded by role models, and where nothing concerning the basic human facts of copulation, birth, bodily functions, or death, was hidden. The Samoan girl was not pressured to choose from among a variety of conflicting values, as was the American girl. Mead commented, somewhat satirically:

... a[n American] girl's father may be a Presbyterian, an imperialist, a vegetarian, a teetotaller, with a strong literary preference for Edmund Burke, a believer in the open shop and a high tariff, who believes that women's place is in the home, that young girls should wear corsets, not roll their stockings, not smoke, nor go riding with young men in the evening. But her mother's father may be a Low Episcopalian, a believer in high living, a strong advocate of States' Rights and the Monroe Doctrine, who reads Rabelais, likes to go to musical shows and horse races. Her aunt is an agnostic, an ardent advocate of women's rights, an internationalist who rests all her hopes on Esperanto, is devoted to Bernard Shaw, and spends her spare time in campaigns of anti-vivisection. Her elder brother, whom she admires exceedingly, has just spent two years at Oxford. He is an Anglo-Catholic, an enthusiast concerning all things medieval, writes mystical poetry, reads Chesterton, and means to devote his life to seeking for the lost secret of medieval stained glass. Her mother's younger brother is an engineer, a strict materialist, who never recovered from reading Haeckel in his youth; he scorns art, believes that science will save the world, scoffs at everything that was said and thought before the nineteenth century, and ruins his health by experiments in the scientific elimination of sleep. Her mother is of a quietistic frame of mind, very much interested in Indian philosophy, a pacifist, a strict non-participator in life, who in spite of her daughter's devotion to her will not make any move to enlist her enthusiasms. And this may be within the girl's own household. Add to it the groups represented, defended, advocated by her friends, her teachers, and the books which she reads by accident, and the list of possible enthusiasms, of suggested allegiances, incompatible with one another, becomes appalling.

So basically, the NT intervention is an attempt to westernise the sexuality of aboriginal children?

However, many field and comparative studies by anthropologists have since found that adolescence is not experienced in the same way in all societies. Systematic cross-cultural study of adolescence by Schlegel and Barry , for example, concluded that adolescents experience harmonious relations with their families in most non-industrialized societies around the world [7]. They find that, when family members need each other throughout their lives, independence, as expressed in adolescent rebelliousness, is minimal and counterproductive. Adolescents are likely to be rebellious only in industrialized societies practicing neolocal residence patterns (in which young adults must move their residence away from their parents). Neolocal residence patterns result from young adults living in industrial societies who move to take new jobs or in similar geographically mobile populations. Thus, although Freeman's specific critiques have some merit, Mead's analysis of adolescent conflict is upheld in the comparative literature on societies worldwide
 
Westenize? HA of all the States and territories the NT has the most backwards sex laws. In the NT everyone is a manditory reporter and there are no exceptions made for the age of the people involved. Therefore in the NT if a 16 year old asks for the pill from her doctor or buys condoms they have to be reported to DOCS. If mum or your little brother walks in on you as a 16 year old having sex with your 15 year old BF they are required by law to turn you into the police. Its a joke and this is the same for Aboriginals and non Aboriginals
 
Westenize? HA of all the States and territories the NT has the most backwards sex laws. In the NT everyone is a manditory reporter and there are no exceptions made for the age of the people involved. Therefore in the NT if a 16 year old asks for the pill from her doctor or buys condoms they have to be reported to DOCS. If mum or your little brother walks in on you as a 16 year old having sex with your 15 year old BF they are required by law to turn you into the police. Its a joke and this is the same for Aboriginals and non Aboriginals

Attempting to direct the sexuality of children and adolescents is a common feature of most modern societies. Apparently, the aboriginals do not find it incongruous to expose their children to porn because their attitudes towards sex are not like westerners who maintain separate rooms from their children from a very early age. Exposure to sex is a common feature of childhood in non-industrialised societies. And children do imitate the adults.

Out of curiosity, is this abroriginal porn they are watching and emulating?
 
I would love to see your evidence of that, sure the other states have age of consent laws to protect children from exploitation but there are exceptions in the laws for people who are close together in age. There is also no requirement for a doctor to report a girl just because she does the right thing and asks for the pill. So which is the more "advanced" laws? Its also laughable for you to say only westen sociaty has an interest in the sexuality of children. I will give you a specific example which is indicitive of the wider attitudes

My sister had 3 friends at school, an Australians, a Hindu and a non palistinian Muslim. My sister and her Australian friend were free to get bf's whenever they wanted. The Muslim girl and the Hindu both were given aranged betrothals and the muslim girl's parents went nuts when they found out she was secretly dating a paliatinian boy.
 
I would love to see your evidence of that, sure the other states have age of consent laws to protect children from exploitation but there are exceptions in the laws for people who are close together in age.

Of course. Hence my statement "Attempting to direct the sexuality of children and adolescents is a common feature of most modern societies"

There is also no requirement for a doctor to report a girl just because she does the right thing and asks for the pill. So which is the more "advanced" laws? Its also laughable for you to say only westen sociaty has an interest in the sexuality of children. I will give you a specific example which is indicitive of the wider attitudes

My sister had 3 friends at school, an Australians, a Hindu and a non palistinian Muslim. My sister and her Australian friend were free to get bf's whenever they wanted. The Muslim girl and the Hindu both were given aranged betrothals and the muslim girl's parents went nuts when they found out she was secretly dating a paliatinian boy.

I bet they all live in western societies.
 
So there is no history of honor killings in Muslim or Hindu countries? Say. .... India for example?
 
So there is no history of honor killings in Muslim or Hindu countries? Say. .... India for example?

Only since post-colonial times. Pre-industrial Indian society was also sexually permissive. See Khajuraho

Khajuraho1.jpg
 
Strange that there is no history of honor killings in western sociaty no matter how far back you go. Only in Muslim, Hindu and possably fundementilist Jewish culture.
 
Strange that there is no history of honor killings in western sociaty no matter how far back you go. Only in Muslim, Hindu and possably fundementilist Jewish culture.

Just call it domestic violence and it will magically appear:rolleyes:

Ever wonder why domestic violence is "honor killings" and rebels are "insurgents" in some societies. Just look at the pedophilic aboriginals for an epiphany
 
Nup doesn't work, very few if any cases of "domestic vilonce" where brothers and uncles kill a sister and her partner of HER CHOICE. Domestic viloence is almost always sexual partner v sexual partner, less often vs there own children and even more rarly but increasing children atacking there parents. Try again sam
 
Nup doesn't work, very few if any cases of "domestic vilonce" where brothers and uncles kill a sister and her partner of HER CHOICE. Domestic viloence is almost always sexual partner v sexual partner, less often vs there own children and even more rarly but increasing children atacking there parents. Try again sam

Again, all post colonial introductions to these societies. Like pedophilia in Aboriginals and homophobia in Iranians, the introduction of western mores into other societies has disastrous consequences on their social stability. Tell me, why do you think, in the country of Jodha Akbar, do people kill their children for marrying out of caste or for marrying out of religion?
 
Sam you constantly remind me of the Monty python sketch " what have to Romans ever done for us"
 
Sam you constantly remind me of the Monty python sketch " what have to Romans ever done for us"

I'm not sure why you're arguing with me. Don't you have similar opinions on the effect of Christianity on sexuality? What is the likelihood that Australians will consider it "normal" to have sex in the presence of their children?
 
Apart from the porn movies, it doesn't sound very different from Mead's description of sexuality in Samoan culture.
But this was outside of Aboriginal culture, in that this kind of thing never existed in Aboriginal culture itself until Western intervention and the introduction of pornography and alcohol.


So basically, the NT intervention is an attempt to westernise the sexuality of aboriginal children?
I'd say it is the opposite. The report cites that Elders and community members commenting that making sex before marriage acceptable is a Western construct and intervention, and pornography a part of that.

It had never been a part of their culture in the past. 3 year old children were not sexually active. 7 year olds weren't having sex. Now they are. Why is that? It's not a sign of the times. This did not exist in their culture. But it did with white intervention. Research found that pornography is a direct cause. For example:

A senior Aboriginal woman told the inquiry that children frequently watched pornography in houses at night, and "next day they have to act it out".

(Source)

This is not normal. It is also not cultural. But the culture is developing in this vein. Is it acceptable? No. It is not. Reason is because of the harm it causes. In many instances, the police are denied the right to act or ordered or even threatened not to act. Another example:

In another case, a nine-year-old girl made lewd thrusting actions in class, telling her teacher she had learnt the moves from "blue movies".

The girl's parents were in a violent relationship, and the child had been physically assaulted.

Mr Mullighan was told the police were to be informed of the case, but the community had "made it clear" that any action would "inflame the problem".
So where do you strike a balance?

The report comments about Aboriginal children's views of sex and how it does not fit into Aboriginal culture or even that of white Australian culture. A friend of mine has worked in a remote community as a teacher for many years. She is married to an Aboriginal and she has spent many years in this particular community. As she says, it is not normal for a 5 year old girl (her student) to masturbate with a pen behind the toilet block at lunch time while 5 -6 year old boys egged her on. That isn't normal and it isn't cultural for Aboriginals or for white Australians. So where does it come from? The article I linked made a very good comment at the end:

Mr Mullighan has recommended that government agencies and elders meet "without delay" with men and boys from communities regarding male sexual conduct with children.

"There are, quite likely I think, a lot of young people who were not brought up as strictly in the old ways as the older men," Mr Mullighan said.

He suggested the meetings instruct men that sexual conduct with children was contrary to traditional and white law. as well as harmful to the children, their families and communities.
 
Gustav:

You still haven't caught up on statistics 101.

in all but two of the states, the non-indigent children suffered from higher incidences of csa than the natives

Your tables don't even address the incidence of abuse. Can't you see that?

I can explain it to you in more detail if you ask nicely and you need more help.

Or you can read SAM's post, where she explained it for you.


SAM:

Based on these figures, it would appear that apart from neglect, the kind of abuse is equivalent across both indigenous and non-indigenous peoples in NT

It says nothing however about the rate of abuse, ie the proportion of abused children to the total number of children in NT.

Correct.

Apart from the porn movies, it doesn't sound very different from Mead's description of sexuality in Samoan culture.

Now you need to search "Derek Freeman" on google. Off you go.

And, even if Mead's description of Samoa was correct, Australia is not Samoa.

Apparently, the aboriginals do not find it incongruous to expose their children to porn because their attitudes towards sex are not like westerners who maintain separate rooms from their children from a very early age.

Is that why? Have you read the report and its findings on this? I don't think you have.
 
But this was outside of Aboriginal culture, in that this kind of thing never existed in Aboriginal culture itself until Western intervention and the introduction of pornography and alcohol.

Yes if traditional aboriginal society conceals sex from their children then having sex before them is an anomaly



I'd say it is the opposite. The report cites that Elders and community members commenting that making sex before marriage acceptable is a Western construct and intervention, and pornography a part of that.

I'd have to look up traditional sexual practices of aboriginal Australians to comment on that.

It had never been a part of their culture in the past. 3 year old children were not sexually active. 7 year olds weren't having sex. Now they are. Why is that? It's not a sign of the times. This did not exist in their culture. But it did with white intervention. Research found that pornography is a direct cause. For example:

Actually this is "normal" - children generally imitate any adult behaviour they observe

This is not normal. It is also not cultural. But the culture is developing in this vein. Is it acceptable? No. It is not. Reason is because of the harm it causes. In many instances, the police are denied the right to act or ordered or even threatened not to act. Another example:

This reminds me of the case where a man was acquitted of rape [in Australia?] because the 10 year old was "sexually precocious". Have you seen children imitating Michael Jackson?
So where do you strike a balance?

In my opinion, this should be up to the aboriginals, whether they wish to move forward as a traditional community or an assimilated one. You can't really determine sexual mores for any community through external force. You can only educate about the health and psychological benefits or adverse effects of various choices.

The report comments about Aboriginal children's views of sex and how it does not fit into Aboriginal culture or even that of white Australian culture. A friend of mine has worked in a remote community as a teacher for many years. She is married to an Aboriginal and she has spent many years in this particular community. As she says, it is not normal for a 5 year old girl (her student) to masturbate with a pen behind the toilet block at lunch time while 5 -6 year old boys egged her on. That isn't normal and it isn't cultural for Aboriginals or for white Australians. So where does it come from? The article I linked made a very good comment at the end:

Usually when any society is in transition, the major effects of the transition are absorbed by the children. In the last 100 years, the cycle of transition has been so rapid for aboriginals that it is possible there is not a single individual who has been brought up in the traditional ways. As an aside, I have had 5 year old boys expose their erections to me and a three year old who had the unfortunate habit of grabbing the breasts of women and saying
"Pom Pom" - while they are too young to comprehend sexuality, it is not true that they do not explore it. Its one of the issues of child psychology which is governed more by social taboo than by academic rigor - for obvious reasons.

I see very difficult times ahead for the community
 
quadraphonics:

Looking for content in your post...

looking.... looking...

No, nothing there. Bye!
 
It's quite clear that SAM does not have any experience with the difference in military attitudes around the world. The Australian army has been used in a minor way while the intervention was going on; however, she seems to equate that with jackbooted soldiers breaking into hovels and stealing children. In the end, I suppose it all comes down to ones internal imaginings when picturing the actual goings on in a land one is far away from.
The Australian army, internally at least, is far more likely to build a home than to break one down.

I'm rather surprised that SAM does not see it herself; after all, she is constantly on the attack about foreigners who have no real understanding of a situation in a country they've never set foot in.

I believe her entire attitude towards this subject is summed up in her response to Asguard, here:
The army was never used in any sort of enforcement roll, that's a misunderstanding of what happens here. The army is used a lot in emergency situations acting under direction of state authorities for the most part, for instance cleaning up after cyclones Tracy and the one in Queensland and cutting fire breaks in Vic. In the intervention defense was there to Assist with logistics, admin, building houses ect. Any enforcement will be undertaken by sworn NT police (there were Police borowed from the other states and the feds but they were all sworn in as NT police)

Why ever not? If they can liberate women in Afghanistan and whoever in Somalia, why not liberate the sexually abused children from pedophilic aboriginals?

The point is clear; SAM does wish to understand what was actually going on during the intervention, any more than far too many Aboriginals or other Australians were.
This is a knee jerk reaction from someone who has no desire to truly understand, but rather a soapbox to hold forth from. In this, she displays much of the same psyche as those she supposedly hates most, all the while apparently demanding change. Perhaps she thinks if she uses the words "military intervention" often and loudly enough, she can convince even Australians that this is indeed what it was. Other people do that too. Words like "Muslim", Terrorist"... all designed to incite a reaction. Fear, in most cases.

Ah, humanity.

Here's another one:
According to James, one does not use the army for work that should be done by police, social welfare organisations or schools.

Clearly, SAM does not believe that the army was used in such a fashion.
It was, SAM. Not for much else. Take it or leave it, but crying to the world that it isn't so doesn't change the facts. Trying to understand the role of the Australian army in internal matters in the context of the Indian or American one is an exercise in foolishness. That in itself is a mistake; what makes it worse, is that when the actual role of the army is explained to you you immediately retreat into preconception rather than accept facts.

Funny, that. I've seen you devote whole threads to decrying that very behaviour. You appear to think you are the voice of reason, the sound of fairness, the mouthpiece for the exposure of hypocracy; but when push comes to shove you're the same thing you hate - from a different perspective.

I almost pity you, SAM, for the world you live in, a world that teaches you you to see things in such a way. Do you want so badly to believe that the grass isn't greener on the other side? Is it your safety blanket?

We're a huge, wide open country with a population of around 26 million, mostly centred around 8 capitals. To make the point even further, the Northern Territory has a population of around 250000, around 200,000 of which are in Darwin itself - the "capital". I live in Darwin. It's a glorified country town. On the world stage, it doesn't even rate.

Now go look at a map. Compare India and the Northern Territory side by side.
Try to picture our police force trying to carry out such an intervention - whether or not you consider that intervention to be the right course of action.

This is the thing, SAM. Australians are not afraid of their own army. Not even the Aboriginals. Australians feel quite safe using them in domestic situations like this, and know they're only there to do a job no one is logistically able to do.
If you live in a world where you are, then perhaps it is your own situation you should be looking to.

The actions of some Australians in Afghanistan are reported here and widely condemned because they weren't normal. Not because anyone was trying to expose some greater consiracy of widespread wrongdoing.
Because our media found out about it, reported it, and people were shocked that some of our soldiers could make those mistakes.

Even though the circumstances those soldiers were in were not as simple as you attempt to make them out to be. I wonder if you have the kind of mind to imagine yourself in that situation, and could blithely ignore the circumstances and fear of war which can sometimes circumvent training. Apparently, you do not. For one who takes such pride in her own humanity, you seem to lack an understanding of it.

Can you even conceive the differences between Australia and the middle east? India? America? Not many foreigners can. For you, I suppose trying to understand Australia is a little like trying to contain the idea of an infinite universe in your mind. The idea is there... but not quite.

We're a unique lot, in Australia. We have logistical problems you can't even imagine, and yet we've somehow managed to overcome most of them - which is why your mob are arriving here by the planeload. Funny, that - all these indians in India crying about Australians and how terrible we all are, and yet they'll break their backs trying to get here when the reality of Australia actually makes itself clear to them. That reality is that it isn't a bad place to live. We have our problem children, sure - those who see the Indian or the Asian as a foreigner stealing their jobs. In the same way, you have those in who'll read a paper and think all Australians are racist warmongers.
The majority are none too bright, SAM. Doesn't matter where you were born or raised.

Your students over here don't want to go home, SAM. It's not as bad as our media likes to portray in the name of sensationalism, nor that which yours picks up and runs with because they like to think ours is telling the truth rather than trying to sell papers.
Key words, there; like to think. Mull that over for a while. Let's see what you come up with.

Our overseas student numbers are dropping, that much is true. But the ones already here aren't going home all that often. They seek citizenship instead. They know that there is little similarity between what the media portrays as opposed to reality - and you don't.

All these years decrying the western media, and yet when you choose to, you're as capable of taking it as gospel as anyone else.

This is one of the better places to live - for Indians, and especially for Aboriginals - on the face of the planet. I know, I've been around. It's hard for me to feel a pride in my own country - I'm rather against anything that smacks of organisation, or tries to impose limits upon me. Yet I do, for this place I was born in. Because I've seen the alternatives - including yours.
One day, you're going to have to take off the blinkers and deal with that.

Still, I'm digressing a little.


The Aboriginals.

You, like so many others, are quite prepared to step back and let people suffer as long as it coincides with your own idealism. In the view of the Howard government, intervention was necessary. I'm not going to go into the right or wrong of it, nor offer an alternative to how it was carried out. That much has been covered.

Most Australians not only agreed with that view, they didn't need any reports to enable them to see it - particularly not the ones living here in the NT or northern Queensland. Most people had seen it long ago, grown up with it, and been able to do nothing. We're dealing, here, with a government run department (DOCS), so hampered by laws and regulations born of guilt and fear, memories of the stolen generations, that they often did nothing when action was clearly necessary. The girl in the case Bells mentioned is a example of that. The unnofficial line is, basically, don't interfere - you'll end up being accused. They chose to send her back rather than make a stand.
I suggest you read about that case - it is not, as so many of these reports are, an exaggeration of an isolated event. It has become commonplace.

Fear. Guilt.

You don't understand that, either. You think Australians are like Americans - we're not. No more than Saudis are like Iranians. We share some common ground, of course - we are allies for a reason. But don't make the mistake of believing we're all the same. I thought you hated that? Does it gall you, sometimes, knowing you are just like those you rant on about?

Australians, by and large, feel rather guilty about events from times past. The latter generations had nothing to do with it, of course - and in fact it is the attitude of those generations that led to the Aboriginals being recognised in the first place. That is why DOCS won't intervene in Aboriginal cases, and why these reports - true, by the way - were ignored for so long that child abuse became almost the culture in some remote communties. Actually, those reports weren't ignored. They were read. They were read again. They were passed around. Finally, they were put aside.
Few knew what to do. Those who did know were too afraid to do it.
Ghosts from the past.

That the Howard government was well-intentioned seems to have escaped you. That they didn't really approach the problem in a suitable manner at least partially because of uncertainty and the spectre of times past also seems to have escaped you. Fear and guilt, SAM, are tools only used by the foolish.

This is not some conflict on the other side of the world reported on TV for those who live here, SAM. It's just there... down the road a little.
Are you adept at reading people's demeanour? Try observing Aboriginals here in the NT sometime. They can be brash, brazen like the stereotypical black Americans we see on TV. They can be shy. Drunk. Angry. They can be anything on the surface; But in far too many, you'll see the one thing underneath it all they nearly all have and go to varying lengths trying to hide:
Hopelessness.

The answer is not to give them their own country. Forget the boat people - Australia, or what was left of it, would be faced with a rather sudden case of dark skinned illegals jumping the border.

The old ways aren't as romantic as you seem to believe, SAM. 40,000 years in harmony with nature? Of course. Much like those entranced with the American Indians, seeing only a noble savage with the ten Aboriginal commandments, a poster on the wall. A vision of beauty and harmony - forget the raids, the intertribal wars, the damage to native animal species, everything else. Just concentrate on the poster.

With all the programmes, the intiatives, the incentives to help them make their own way - the vast majority do nothing. It is no longer the white man who is keeping the Aboriginal down, SAM. It is the Aboriginal himself who is just as much to blame. He is far too entrenched in his own hopelessness to see that it isn't real anymore. He's no longer an object of oppression, but of pity... and that particular posion, he's bought into of his own free will.
Know something else? Many of them know it. I work with a few. They know who the real enemy is, now. It's just a terribly difficult thing to admit - particularly when you have the odd Indian up on a soapbox handing out free hugs and the dream of having their own land.
Oh yes, regarding that - go have a look at a map sometime of the portion of Australia which is under Aborigina control. Approximately 50% of the Northern Territory alone is under the control of Aboriginal groups by law. This was granted in 1976, long before the feted Mabo case. It is, by and large, up to the Aborginals now on how they choose to use it. So far, they don't appear to be using it wisely.

One is left to wonder how many other countries have done as much.

Guilt achieves nothing, SAM. You achieve much, here, in making fools see things from your perspective. I wish, sometimes, that you were here to see the results of the very thing you seem intent on pushing. In clearer times, of course, common sense prevails, and it's obvious that the less of the likes of you here, the better off everyone - including the Aboriginals - will be.

And that, to make an extraordinarily long post compared to my usual even longer, is the crux of the matter.

You, and everyone like you, are not helping them.
Your kind haven't for a very long time, and it's quite conceivable that without those like you the Aboriginal would be further along in his road to recovery.

What makes you worse, though, is that I don't believe you really care much at all. You have an axe to grind, and you're using a people you know nothing of, a situation you have only read about, to make a tired and belaboured point... probably because you're tired of being accused of being myopic regarding Americans and are trying to pick on someone else for a change to regain your credibility.

Rather false of you. Rather unsympathetic. Trying to pretend you care about something you don't, in order to make others care about your political agenda - or religious. Not quite sure if there's a difference yet, for those like you.

But still, these preceeding pages should have shown you the result by now.
Fuck off, you fake.
 
Regardless of all the justifications excuses and blandishments, the proof of the pie is in the eating.

Show me where the Australian intervention has in the last three years, led to a positive change in the social indicators of the aboriginals.
 
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