A New Apartheid !

There is a shocking similarity emerging from the Royal Commission in the Northern Territory that must remind some people of South Africa and its policy of "Apartheid " !   We Australians are not tropical people.    We have chosen to populate the southern and cooler regions of this huge continent and in our far north white rule and white law predominates.

The original settlement was planned for Botany Bay but Port Jackson had better facilities and from there the expansion of the new colony moved south.   The next settlement was in Hobart and later John Batman crossed Bass Strait to establish Melbourne.   Darwin came a long time later, and by world standards it remains a very small city.

By contrast, our Indigenous people favour the tropics.   Their hunter/gatherer lifestyle and tribalism imposed no boundaries and their greater numbers are to be found to our north.  It seems inevitable that there must be a clash between those who live by tribal law and the statutes and limitations that rule from afar in Canberra impose on all who live in this land.

For the first hundred years of European settlement the Indigenous people were either basically ignored, or ruthlessly exploited.   We didn't know what to make of them and many unfortunate interventions had unpleasant results.   They are now equal citizens, but this equality is limited because the Indigenous and the white lifestyles have little common interaction.

What started this Royal Commission was a horror news story that broke on television and showed Aboriginal youths stripped, bound and gagged in Northern Territory prisons.   They were subjected to cruel punishment that would never be inflicted on white offenders and once again the authorities are clueless on how to manage the vast majority of people under their control.

Aboriginal people have a far shorter life expectancy than the white population and their general health is poor.   One of the revelations coming out of this enquiry is the fact that 94% of Indigenous prisoners have impaired hearing and this relates to hearing loss of 45% in the general Indigenous community.   Some experts relate this to the use of split handcuffs and the type of hoods forced on prisoners in our northern prison system.   In particular, the use of this restraint on boys and youths for very long periods.

No doubt at the end of this Royal Commission there will be impassioned pleas for improved medical services and the end of repressive imprisonment.   Once again, what will not be addressed is the one factor that is the most divisive between the white and black cultures - lifestyle change.
The white lifestyle of Australia is fairly simple.   Get an education - and get a job.    That has little bearing in the Indigenous mind.   The tribal life involved living off the land and home ownership is not important.   We face a clash of cultures that seem insurmountable.

In some quarters the white answer is to force Indigenous kids to attend school and be educated - and then integrate into what they term " the normal " Australian lifestyle by getting a paid job.   Perhaps that is not high on the aspirations of many tribal people - and it raises the question of whether they should be left alone to live as they please.

There is no universal answer to that question.    Many of our Indigenous people have already merged with the white population - and more will do so in the future, but the urge to live a tribal lifestyle is still strong.   What sort of accommodation will emerge in the distant future will come by evolution - and not from the policies that emerge from Canberra and Darwin !