Archive for August, 2007
Wednesday, August 29th, 2007
Stuart Highway Robbery
Joe2 alerted me to an article in Crikey, which, if true, tells of a completely contemptible practice on behalf of the Howard government. The article, appropriately slugged¹ Stuart Highway robbery, is based on “a document that has come into the hands of Crikey”, which they claim suggests that the government plans to seize assets from indigenous communities, only to [...]
1 Comment » - Posted in Indigenous,Politics,The Intervention by jangari
Sunday, August 26th, 2007
More on Squandered Funds
Last Tuesday I wrote about a “Herald Investigation” into the government’s creative book-keeping on funding of indigenous affairs. To sum up the story, their accounting gives the impression that the commonwealth has for years been throwing billions at aboriginal Australia. Such funding has frequently and dysphemistically been termed ‘sit down money’. That, in contrast with [...]
19 Comments » - Posted in Indigenous,Politics by jangari
Sunday, August 26th, 2007
Wurrurrumi Kun-Borrk
I’ve just heard over email from Linda Barwick, that the CD by Kevin Djimirr, Wurrurruni Kun-Borrk: Songs from Western Arnhem Land, with extensive notes by Murray Garde, has just won, jointly with the Kembi dance group, the Northern Land Council’s 2007 Traditional Music Award. I heard the CD when I got back to Sydney and [...]
3 Comments » - Posted in Culture,Indigenous,Linguistics by jangari
Wednesday, August 22nd, 2007
Truth in Numbers
Apparently pre-colonial New South Wales had 200 languages, that is, according to NSW Aboriginal Affairs Minister, Paul Lynch. It seems a few too many to me, given that best estimates (from linguists and anthropologists, not politicians) count somewhere between about 250 and 400¹ languages for the entire country, mostly concentrated in the north. I’m all [...]
3 Comments » - Posted in Culture,Indigenous,Languages,Linguistics by jangari
Tuesday, August 21st, 2007
Squandered Funding (updated)
Today’s Sydney Morning Herald, which, for the first time in a couple of months, I am reading from paper rather than a computer screen, owing to the fact that I returned from my field trip last night, has on the front page a “Herald Investigation” into the dodgy book-keeping of the commonwealth and how it [...]
2 Comments » - Posted in Indigenous,Politics,The Intervention by jangari
Saturday, August 18th, 2007
Postmortem of Democracy
It looks as though, mercifully, the scrutiny and media coverage of the NT intervention isn’t going to stop just because the House of Review Rubber-Stamp senate has passed the suite of five bills. This morning, groups such as the NT government and the Combined Aboriginal Organisations of the Northern Territory continued to attack the laws and [...]
2 Comments » - Posted in Indigenous,Philosophy,Politics,The Intervention by jangari
Friday, August 17th, 2007
Talking Norfolk
I’ve just read that the UN has just listed the creole spoken on Norfolk Island as an endangered language. The language, known locally as ‘talking Norfolk’, is a mixture of Olde English¹ and Tahitian and can be traced back to the Bounty mutineers. A quick look at Ethnologue leads me to Pitcairn-Norfolk as the language [...]
2 Comments » - Posted in History,Linguistics by jangari
Friday, August 17th, 2007
A Shakespearean change in the weather
I awoke this morning to the unusual sound of rain, something I hadn’t expected up this way until later in the year. If I were more of a literary person, I’d draw a Shakespearean connection between the inauspicious ‘worsening’ of the weather and the Senate’s rubber-stamping of the NT intervention legislation earlier today. But I’m not enough [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Indigenous,Philosophy,Politics,The Intervention by jangari
Thursday, August 16th, 2007
Land rights before breakfast
Mal Brough gave an address at the National Press Club yesterday in which he claimed that land rights have actually impoverished indigenous people in this country and that ‘communism’ – though certainly not in the political sense of the word – doesn’t work. You can read all about it here. He is in effect blaming the [...]
2 Comments » - Posted in Indigenous,Politics,The Intervention by jangari
Tuesday, August 7th, 2007
“Grog on the river” – Quote of the (indefinite period of time)
I have been successful thus far in refraining from entering into ‘quotes of the week’, but after reading this one on Australian Democrats Senator Andrew Bartlett’s blog, I couldn’t resist. However, as I’m not likely to post another quote of the week next week, nor the week after, it’ll simply remain the ‘Quote of the indefinite [...]
