Indigenous peoples and cultures and their importance

Yesterday I attended a gathering of women in Paraparap. At this meeting we listened to guest speakers, one woman was a traditional land owner and lived locally, the other woman had an amazing story to tell about learning her mother was a stolen generation child and recognising her grandmother in the local community. We asked lots of questions and learn all sorts of amazing things. We then watched an amazing film called “For the next 7 generations” following the journey of 13 indigenous grandmothers from all over the world, travelling to each other’s home countries. This gathering created energy, enthusiasm, and a need to help change our children’s lives. We pondered questions such as “why is it that my child, or our children, do not learn the local aboriginal history relevant to their home town such as Torquay, or Grovedale, or Central Geelong even?”Why is it that we all assume that the aboriginals just lay down and allowed the first fleet of whites to simply join the land peacefully? It is not so. This is not the truth. The aboriginals fought to their death, so many of them, all slaughtered by gunfire. When you hear stories of white politicians going out hunting aboriginals for sport, when you know that the aboriginals were part of the Flora and Fauna act for (ie classed as animals) for a shamefully long time. We talk about the awful stories of white people going in and systematically taking apart families and the social structure, literally taking away the future generations, allowing so much of the culture that is the oldest surviving culture in the world, to be forgotten, and we say “oh that wasn’t us, that’s not now, we’re not like that”. Just take one look at the “intervention” in the Northern Territory. They suspended the Racial Discrimination Act to be able to do the intervention in the first place, and what they’re doing is saying to the aboriginal people there “we’re taking all your money and giving you coupons to get food with” the result no one can share a taxi into town to Get the flipping food in the first place, because there’s no cash. So essentially the aboriginal people are saying we want to live on our land, we want to live off our land like we used to, the governments reaction is to take away all their money, give them coupons instead, effectively starving them until they are forced into the town-camps and have nothing to do all day. And do you want to know why they force them into the towns? Because of course their traditional land is full of minerals to be mined, and if they’re not there living on the land, well so much easier and faster for the miners to get their money. So this intervention is pretty close to the “stolen generation”, except the type of death is less violent, starvation. Therefore it goes unnoticed.
Anyway I have written before about ancient wisdoms, I have written before to explore your origins, to remember the wise words spoken to you as a child. I have written before about the wisdoms of the ways of the people living on islands, and in the mountains, those who have retained their ancient culture, and live their lives true to this culture. When I think of the education I had as a child in Australia Victoria growing up, the only Australian history I learnt was the stupid Gold Rush over and over. The southern cross flag, the rebellion, and so on. But what about all of the wisdom held by the aboriginal peoples of my country? There is so much to learn, the dreaming stories, the respect for the land, the connection to ones people, and one’s culture. Aboriginals are similar to Jews in this aspect, they are all connected, they are all part of this big circle, and they are all family to each other. And it is this connection, this respect that is the strongest protection for oneself as an individual. To have that kind of support is essential, and the result of the erosion of these connections is our generation today.  The statistics for mental illness in our generations today are as follows: men aged 16-34 years (23%) and women aged 16-24 years (30%). That’s massive, one in three for women, and one in four for men!! And why is this do u think, because we are losing our culture, losing our sense of community, slowly, slowly. It is eroded by technology, sms messaging, facebooking, twittering, email, and all the other types of communication that takes place over the internet has changed the way our young generation connect to each other. Of course it has not eroded completely, many people still have a sense of community through sport which is very popular in Australia, in Victoria especially aussie rules is a very family orientated thing to do, and so connects people to each other. We do still have face to face communication and face to face friendships, and student teacher relationships, and so on, but the way kids understand communication these days is vastly different from 50 years ago. Kids often thing internet communication is suitable for serious conversations between individuals, such as the ending of a relationship, or the discussion of sensitive topics such as gender preference or sexuality, or the death of a loved one, or if you’ve had a fight with someone an apology through text or through the internet is just not the same. But kids these days hardly differentiate between the two vastly different types of communication. They don’t appreciate the importance of face to face feedback, such as body language, facial expressions, and the different types of sounds that indicate emotions and feelings, or even crying, over the internet there’s no direct consequence for your words, but face to face you see those consequences directly, and you are forced to take responsibility for them.
Anyway I have previously suggested a world education, combining all cultures, all of the sciences together.  Now I wish to add something to that suggestion, what if we added to this education, the specific local history, culture, wisdom, religion, of whatever area you live in, then our future generations would have more of an understanding of mother earth, a wider knowledge of the people in their country, and knowledge leads to acceptance and peace rather than scared, aggressive, and racist. I know that in Ireland in some places the children are taught Gaelic. That’s exactly the kind of thing I’m talking about. Teaching some of the basics of the ancient language, the ancient culture, the basic principles and beliefs of those cultures, allowing those people in our society room to grow and continue living life the way they’re elders did. This kind of relationship would be hugely beneficial to both sides! So if you agree with my suggestions, why don’t you go to your local school, your local principal, or even your local political leader and suggest some changes? You can even create an online petition with Get Up or Avaaz, simply tell Get Up the issue you are passionate about and they will help you create this online petition that you can then take to your local political leaders to help make a change!
So, good luck with your mission, I hope it goes well
And All the best in every way
: ) Britta Vandenberg