Army in Aboriginal communities

Discussion in 'The big picture' started by Tamara, Jul 4, 2007.

  1. Tamara

    Tamara Junior Member

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    I am extremely concerned about recent events in NT Aboriginal communities. Perticularly the army being "sent in" for 6 months...

    In the 80's Bill worked in Aboriginal communities, and I'm sure many of us have or are working in Aboriginal communities.

    Peter Beattie has expressed the desire that the federal govt fund cottage industries in Aboriginal communities in QLD. Surely - if this is welcomed by the Aboriginal people - this is a permaculture project. How do we tell the premiers this? And the federal govt?

    Am I out of line?

    much love,
    Tamara
     
  2. Jez

    Jez Junior Member

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    The Australian army is generally pretty good at this sort of mission Tamara - how it sounds is way more dramatic than the on the ground reality of their presence. They've done a lot of good humanitarian work in Timor and various places in the Pacific...more than any other troops in Iraq they've been able to relate well with the local people.

    Many Aboriginal communities have been in crisis for decades and a lot of well meaning people (including Permaculturalists) have tried their hardest to alleviate the situation throughout that time.

    Invariably, those communities with strong leadership (from within the community) fare the best in implementing positive changes. Many others are still ravaged by the legacy of The Stolen Generation and the social breakdown it caused - exacerbated, obviously, by substance abuse and other social problems (which often stem from the former). Many are in the situation where the older members of the community are largely disfunctional and there is nobody, or few capable of taking on the role of leadership. The fact that Aboriginal life expectancy is around 20yrs less than average Australian life expectancy certainly doesn't help matters.

    In the end, the most difficult aspect of introducing positive changes into Aboriginal communities is the tyranny of distance which all remote communities face. Numerous good ideas and systems designed to help introduce businesses which employ Aboriginal people in remote communities have failed - they struggle to compete because of high freight costs to reach a market of sustainable size...in the far north this is further compounded by the wet season.

    CDP programs designed to provide work for the dole type schemes have done little to help - some elders like Noel Pearson have made very forceful, soundly reasoned arguments that they hurt communities far more than they help (I tend to agree).

    Perhaps most worrying of all, two of the success stories for providing employment in remote communties - Aboriginal art and tourism - look destined to fade away rather than grow over the next couple of decades as transport costs rise dramatically and people/organisations have much less expendable income.

    Any moves to introduce non-traditional oriented cottage industries into Aboriginal communities needs to take full account of the impact rising fuel and freight costs will have in the future.

    One thing I am working on ATM is trying to establish diverse agroforestry systems on both non-Aboriginal pastoral properties and also on Aboriginal land. Part of these systems (coupled with sustainable food, timber, construction materials and other things) will go towards establishing perennial bio-fuel reserves and also develop wood gasification based transport which can help ensure that remote community economies will still be vaguely viable in the future.

    Other than a largely impractical return to complete self-sufficiency and almost no interaction with the outside world, I really can't see any other way remote communities can survive in the future other than to control and own the energy reserves they need to maintain economic stability and maintain links to the outside world. The challenge will be to do it (diverse multi-usage agroforestry) well and do it sustainably, but with an abundance of natural resources and a low population density, perversely, at least in the north of Australia, if we can pull it off, IMO our remote communties stand a much better chance than the average Australian community of maintaining a viable, sustainable economy.

    IMO, to make truly sustainable changes which will remain viable in coming decades, we must view the future through the lens of energy scarcity and its implications - even more so with remote communties who ATM are utterly reliant on cheap, abundant oil and all that goes along with it.

    Any cottage industries for remote communities (Aboriginal, mixed or otherwise) would have to be firmly linked to this mindset or they will fail not too far into the future. Failure has already happened more often than not in our past era of cheap oil and transport...in the future it will only get harder.
     
  3. ho-hum

    ho-hum New Member

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    Tamara,


    No, not at all.

    Are your concerns groundless? ... Not at all.

    Having said that, Jez is on the right track. The army has spent many years building close relationships across the Top of Australia and is a regular and welcome visitor to the communities. The Aussie army also has a policy of compensating land owners for use, either in cash or kind, and this reinforces the relationship.

    Norforce has also trained people from so many remote communities over many many years, there is real history. Maybe Howard could have used better language than 'send the army in'. We did that to iraq and afghanistand, didnt we?

    So this type of activity is not new to the communities and probably a clever and reasonable use of assets by Howard.

    floot
     
  4. richard in manoa

    richard in manoa Junior Member

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    I don't want to divert attention in this thread from the main vein of discussion, about which I know little, but want to comment on Jez's comments on the Australian Army in places like Esat Timor.

    Again, I am not terribly well informed on these matters at all, but have this to offer. I am taking a couple of summer classes at the University of Hawaii at the moment and in each of these classes I have met two young men from East Timor. In casual conversation they have both expressed very positive feelings towards Australia, but when I ask them (very neutrally) about the Australian army's work in their country and the perception of it by the East Timorese people, both quite resoundingly answered that the Australian Army is not welcomed by the people in East Timor. One said something like, "There has been no transparency in their actions". I got the impression that the Australian army is not the force for democracy in Timor that is represented to the Australian people in our media.

    This perhaps isn't a very representative sample, but perhaps it is... it definitely seems contrary to the general Australian perception of their Armed forces being welcomed in such places as the good guys. I believe that a similar dynamic exists in the Solomon Islands, and so wonder why it would be much different in Aboriginal country...

    So, what is Howard doing with the miltary in Aboriginal communites?
     
  5. ho-hum

    ho-hum New Member

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    Richard,

    The army, specifically NORFORCE [the reservists] are being used for their logistic ability. They have the local knowledge, 4wds, trucks, tents, power and water supplies to support extra people in the communities.

    Aboriginal communities dont have hotels or any spare offices, phones or houses to support the extra police and medical staff that Howard is putting in place. So Norforce is doing that for them.

    One of the issues with servicing remote communities is that the 'service windows' were very small. For example, you spend 4 hours driving to a community and arrive say at 11.00am to get back home by 5 pm you have to leave at 1pm, in the interim, lunch happens.

    Or you fly in which gives you a bigger window but then how do you get around the community, especially if the people you need to see 'have gone up the road'.

    I have been on communities and seen 3 dozen people jam into 3 toyotas and disappear in a cloud of dust - why? They have seen the Police plane arriving so they shoot thru for a couple of hours, it will take the police that long to realise that most of the people they needed to see have disappeared.

    Same thing happens when a dentist arrives to see the kids, they just do a runner for a few hours.

    Toss into this mix things like annual cyclones, frequent funerals, family feuds and poor leadership and you can see why service delivery to remote communities can be very very expensive, unsuccessful and disheartening.

    For Howard's plan to work it had to be self-sufficient and not use Territory or Community resources.

    floot

    I will do an 'Australia in East Timor' thread.
     
  6. frosty

    frosty Junior Member

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    probably no one will be surprised to know that I think having the army come in stinks

    and though the various anti military networks there is a lot of anger at how Howard is using this issue as a "trojan horse" to grab aboriginal land for the mining companies ( certainly makes sense to me particularly for uranium mining or nuclear waste dumps )

    this is an interesting article

     
  7. Tamara

    Tamara Junior Member

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    I have some friends who have their children in Norforce and I think it is not the worst thing on the planet.

    I have worked in Aboriginal communities and the starkest observation is that these people live in 3rd world conditions, with life spans WELL below white Australia. I have lost good friends, in their 60's.

    My problem is 11 years of neglect and now the army gets sent in. And what do Aboriginal people think about this.When i was in the Kimberley, people were begging for help, and the govt threw a little bit of money their way - not enough to effect real change, just enough to make it look like they were doing something. And deaths in custody continue, child abuse continues, grog makes the pub owners rich with the real consequences being visited on the aboriginal people.

    And how about the army work with permaculture - perhaps we should ask their community development people to do PDCs.

    And 6 months of army and police occupation is not going to stop the grinding poverty and the things that go with it in 7 months.

    Thanks enough from me...
    T
     
  8. Terra

    Terra Moderator

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    There will be plenty that wont support this action , yes Howards timing could be seen as a grab for votes but i dont think that was the motivation . SOMETHING had to be done right NOW its already decades late . The distances involved and problems that have already been covered in this thread make a simple solution impossible , the states and territory govt. will moan and carryon but they really needed a good boot up the rear and i hope they get it . they would have just kept haveing summits ect and not much would have changed .
    I hope the army and follow up crews can stabilise the situation and enforce the state govt. to maintain it as they are required , its thier responsibility and they have been nothing short of negligent .
    These people need something to keep them busy they have been dragged from stoneage to spaceage in a very short time , all this mineing on thier land should provide all the work they ever need , but it doesnt seem to happen . Thier culture was hunter / gatherer , travel light and only take what they need not farmers and empire builders it must be truly had for them to adjust and there wont be any easy answers .
    Terra
     
  9. richard in manoa

    richard in manoa Junior Member

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    I'm sorry... what is the army going to do? Shoot people who abuse their kids? Force people to eat wholewheat instead of white bread?
    Am I missing something?
     
  10. ho-hum

    ho-hum New Member

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    frosty,

    Any evidence to support notion?

    I wouldnt ask about mitchell's article other than to put it in the 'beautifully written scare-mongering' bin.

    On the issue of ATSIC... ask traditional aboriginal people what they thought of their money being spent in massive amounts to defend sugar ray and geoff clarke on rape charges. These men maintain they were only charged because they had leadership positions in ATSIC... in fact they were charged a number of WOMEN came forward.

    ATSIC was in fact closed down because their activities were in breach of the Australian Constitution and clearly illegal. ATSIC were warned on a number of occasions to cease and desist.

    Where is the anger over state and territory governments failure to protect the women and children in indigenous communities.

    For those who dont know. this issue blew up 1 year ago because a Crown Prosecutor in the NT could no longer keep quiet about what was happening. This immediately put the lady at odds with a Territory Government that has been strangled by political correctness.

    https://sunday.ninemsn.com.au/sunday/cover_stories/article_1988.asp?s=1

    https://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2006/s1639133.htm

    Ask any Territorian - we dont know if this will be successful, we also do not know how long it will take - but things could not continue. Sadly it has been left up to the Commonwealth to take action on this.

    floot
     
  11. Jez

    Jez Junior Member

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    East Timor is a very polarised place Richard...asking someone supporting the non-governmental side of thought what they think of the army who flies in from a foreign land then backs and protects the democratically elected government is probably not going to get a favourable reaction.

    I'm not idealistic enough to think an army (or any large organisation) can walk in and do everything perfectly by all concerned, but I do think their presence brings and brought more good than harm - which for armies is very rare.

    What other organisation can intervene positively?


    No doubt the fact they'll go where they're sent has a fair bit to do with it - it's very hard getting any other public servants to do the same...police at the head of the list.

    I'm not about to defend Howard - questionable, directionless 'positive action' this close to an election with bugger all else done in his other terms of office smacks of his usual opportunistic, moral-free grandstanding, and he may well be using the whole thing as a potential future way around Native Title, I just wanted to point out that I think some people are overreacting a bit about the army's presence - they are the only organisation equipped to do the job they've been called upon to do. I think overall they'll do more harm than good - as they usually do.
     
  12. The army is only being sent in for logistical reasons, not military force.
     

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