JUDGE RULES THAT ABORIGINAL RAPE OF A MINOR TRADITIONAL, OK

Edgarblythe- Got to the "Beyond Mainstream" site, but link did not work properly. Could not get into article!

I fixed it. Please try again.

Whew! I have to think about this. I am not surprised, especially since western people have been exposed to the mores of the Taliban regime, and its implications to women. I will be back!

I think that's outrageous. It's aboriginal custom to marry off your child to some old man, but that doesn not a liscense for rape make.

That is what happens when the White people try to be extremely politically correct. Even the defended minorities suffer from this. What will be the next politically correct move: legalizing cannibalism?

No way - unless it's tribal tradition.

That is horrible, just horrible. Can it really be true?

It seems another way of separating the aborigines from the rest of Australia and officially showing that they are lesser beings. What does the Australian contingent of a2k think of this?

<not trying to put anyone on the spot, just wondering>

Piffka.

Recognition, in some circumstances, of tribal law has been fiercely fought for by Aboriginal people. It is NOT "another way of separating the aborigines from the rest of Australia and officially showing that they are lesser beings."

Many Aboriginal people, in the Northern Territory especially, are living semi-tribal lives - and wanting to do so - as a means of re-establishing their culture and regaining control of their lives and destinies.

The whole question of recognition of tribal law has been long discussed and experimented with - there is a 50,000 year tradition of such in Australia. Some Aboriginal people are not, as you might imagine, very impressed with a history of jurisprudence stretching back a mere couple of thousand years.

Please do not judge on the basis of a newspaper story. These are very complicated issues and ones which have occupied very fine minds for some time now.

My PERSONAL beliefs are that, in reaction to 200 years of dispossession and destruction, we - decent whites and Aboriginal people both - ARE valuing traditional Aboriginal culture and law too much - what we know of it. As a feminist and human I believe that many of the cultural practices I know about (though it is difficult to know how many of these are really traditional - in some senses Aboriginal people are trying to piece their culture together, through the memories of elders - in some places the traditions are very strong and seemingly intact, in others not) are oppressive - these include the marrying of young women to "old" men.

I am by no means convinced that traditional Aboriginal culture was the bucolic, environmentally pristine, loving and wise thing that it is being revered as - I have no doubt that Aboriginal people had their own demons and injustices, as all cultures do, especially given their often harsh living conditions. I can also see the reasons for going through a period where it is highly revered - as a corrective means.

The legal system in the Northern Territory, with a high Aboriginal population - some urban, some traditional, some a mixture - struggles at the pointy end of a complex and devilish series of dilemmas.

No matter what they do, they are going to make mistakes in someone's view. I looked at this story - and, knowing the legal system as I do - and having had some fairly intimate knowledge at one point of the details of the working out of the western/traditional law dilemma - and also knowing only too bitterly the appallingly shallow and often misleading nature of reporting - I looked at that story and thought "I wonder what the REAL story is?" Courts seldom reveal anything like truth.

Certainly that judgement has been ridiculed and heavily criticised here. I am unsure whether it is being appealed. However, to see it as a white plot is ridiculous!!!!

I disapprove heartily of the verdict - but Iknow enough not to fly off the handle and make all sorts of assumptions based on the story as it appeared.

If an injustice was committed in Aboriginal eyes, it will certainly be taken care of when the man returns home.

Sigh - i wish I had the benefit of omniscience - I would know exactly what to do if I did.

I certainly believe that some laws must be universal. It is a bit like the attempt of certain African communities here to plead that cultural reasons ought to make the practice of female genital mutilation legal here. It isn't.

It is a not uncommon practice here for Aboriginal men who kill their partners in fits of drunken rage to claim that it was a ritual killing because the woman "Overheard secret men's business" - even their lawyers knew that was crap. However, is it so different from the provocation arguments made by men in western cultures?

However, in many ways traditional law allows for wise punishment of wrongdoers, and full reintegration back into the community. In 50, 000 years you will find that people get some things very right.

I think the man should be punished.

He probably will be - by western law if the matter is appealed - by the woman's relatives if it isn't.

If he does get off, he will certainly be no orphan in ANY culture that I know of in getting away with sexual assault.

Sigh.

I find I'm getting grumpier and grumpier about sound-bite reporting.

Thanks for the informative post, dlowan.

If the aboriginal culture counts tens thousand years, how did it happen that by the time the Whites colonized Australia, the highest technological achievement of the aborigines was a boomerang? Maybe, submission to the "White man's law" would be in favor of aborigins, and this may lead them to the better life?

Actually, that article was MUCH better than I expected! I assumed it was the usual crap - but 'tis well researched, and I agree with most of it.

So, Steissd, is your sole measure of the worth of a culture its weapons technology?

Not only weapons. I mean general technologic level: they did not have machinery, alphabet, scientific medicine and many other things either.

No - they did not have so many of those things, in the western sense.

They DID have, and are struggling to recover, a richness of spirituality, a culture in harmony with and intimately connected to the land, a glorious body of myth and legend, a religion that sustained and enhanced their hard lives. Every rock, valley, hill, plain, cave, stream and so of this land breathes meaning and connection to Aboriginal people in touch with their traditional culture.

Their technology was not limited to the boomerang, Steissd - if you do come to Oz, you may wish to visit the South Australian Museum in Adelaide, which has the greatest collection of Aboriginal objects in the world - you may find a technology which worked - and worked well - for its creators.

You might then wish to take a short stroll to Tandanya, the Cultural Centre for Aboriginal art and cultural artifacts.

Perhaps, like me, and people the world over, you may be awed by the richness and mystery and meaning of Aboriginal traditional art, and delighted by its flow into new and modern forms.

I do not think in either/ors - this or thats. I do not think that it is necessary to consider that Aboriginal people must choose between western culture or their traditional culture. At present, for some, especially the most fractured and damaged people, it may be that way - however, I would hope that Aboriginal people will be able to synthesise where they wish to - or choose where they wish to - and be able to move freely and take the best of both.

Certainly Aboriginal beliefs are fascinating and enriching for many non-Aboriginal Australians - certainly the European conquest of this land has NOT been good for Aboriginal people. This is not to say that they would have been better never knowing our culture. However, conquest is not good for anyone.

As for science and medicine - yes, western science and medicine has a lot to offer. So does Aboriginal traditional "Bush" medicine - as Australian scientists are discovering, once they take the time to look. Aboriginal people are generous with their culture and knowledge - more and more people are taking the time to learn.

Once again, I do not believe that is is Aboriginal good/whites bad. This is stupid and futile thinking, and an insult to my own rich traditions - however, I think your view very limited, Steissd.

"Songlines" by Bruce Chatwin and "Guns, Germs, and Steel" by Jared Diamond might shed some light on this tangent.

And technological advances magnify both the good and the bad that humans can do. A culture might not be able to cure disease. It might not also have the means to methodically murder millions of people, as at least three technologically advanced civilizations in the 20th century did.


Gotta go enjoy the weekend (and the broken furnace). Cheers.

Byee!

I still wonder, how did it happen that the aborigines that were independent for tens thousand of years failed to develop anything that Europeans or Chinese developed in 1,500-2,000 years. What made them being stuck in the Stone Age for such a long time?

Sounds vaguely racist to me.

I have no idea Steissd - what are you suggesting?

Isolation is one possibility - there was trading with Indonesian people
in the north - but little or no contact with external cultures except for that.