May 4, 2008
…but here is an equally improbable sentence that my housemate uttered this morning.
April 28, 2008
I’ve been at Sydney University now for over six years, including five years as a full-time student, with full voting rights whenever any elections were held. So I’m not exactly new to the phenomenon that is the stupid election slogan, but I can’t help but wince any time I see fresh paint in the graffiti tunnel, advertising the newest slew of pseudo-political hopefuls.
April 13, 2008
Health and Houses
Posted by jangari under Health, Housing, Indigenous, Politics, The InterventionComments Off
Over the past 10 months or so, I’ve made it clear that housing, in my opinion, is one of the most important factors of indigenous affairs right now. The state of the vast majority of dwellings in most aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory and probably elsewhere is quite honestly despicable.
Despite this raw fact, and despite all relevant research pointing to poverty and poor housing as key risk factors for the neglect and abuse of children as well as a direct cause of most juvenile medical problems in indigenous children, the Howard/Brough intervention plan failed to address housing, and seemingly didn’t even consider it as an important issue. There was talk during the earlier days of the intervention that the military presence, under the banner of ‘Norforce’, would quickly build 500 or so dwellings in a blitz to address the problem of chronic overcrowding, which, by the way, sees up to 10 people sharing a single room in the worst cases, but this never seemed to eventuate.
March 31, 2008
A sorry day
Posted by jangari under Endangered Languages, Indigenous, Languages, Linguistics, WagimanComments Off
Not long ago, I received a call from a friend in Kybrook Farm. She informed me that an old lady, one of the last remaining Wagiman speakers, had died a little while earlier.
March 15, 2008
Museum-pieces
Posted by jangari under Anthropology, Culture, Indigenous, Law, Media, Reconciliation, The Intervention, WritingComments Off
Last weekend, a group of 16 Warlpiri women, including one three-month-old infant, travelled the 300 kilometres from Yuendumu to Alice Springs, to receive training in swimming skills and first aid, as they are about to become Yuendumu’s first life guards, ready for when the community’s new pool arrives in July.
However, the manager of the establishment that they had booked, the Haven Backpackers’ Resort, asked them to leave. The reason she gave, when challenged, was that since they were aboriginal, other guests had complained of being frightened by them.
March 11, 2008
Ceased to be
Posted by jangari under Anthropology, Culture, History, Indigenous, Kaurna, Languages, Lexicography, Linguistics, TechnologyComments Off
I’ve been a bit neglectful of this blog lately, and yes, I know I say that at the beginning of just about every post these days, but unfortunately it’s even more true now than ever.
The main reason I’m so busy is that I’ve been helping out in massaging and sanitising data for an electronic dictionary of Kaurna, the language traditionally associated with Tandanya and much of the surrounding region. The language officially became ‘extinct’ almost a hundred years ago, but on the basis of two dictionaries written in the mid 19th century, linguistic revival efforts are having some huge success. Places in and around Tandanya have taken on alternative Kaurna names, you can learn Kaurna through all levels of education and you can even study Kaurna linguistics at a tertiary level. Not bad for a ‘dead’ language.
February 28, 2008
Geolinguistics
Posted by jangari under Anthropology, Culture, Endangered Languages, Google, Indigenous, Land, Languages, Linguistics, TechnologyComments Off
Long term readers of this blog would probably know that I occasionally like to mess around with Google Earth and to try out new things to do with languages and so forth. It began with an exercise in mapping some known and established place names in the Sydney Metropolitan Area, mostly concentrated in and around the Harbour, and then it moved on to a small project of mine to map the region of the Northern Territory with which Wagiman is traditionally associated.
February 13, 2008
Sorry Business
Posted by jangari under History, Indigenous, Land, Politics, Reconciliation, Stolen GenerationComments Off
On my way to work late this morning, I took note of how many Aboriginal and Torres Straight flags there were flying prominently around Sydney Harbour. They flew above the bridge, the Museum of Contemporary Art, and notably, above Kirribilli House. I don’t know if they’ve been there any longer than just today - the day of the formal Parliamentary Apology to the stolen generations - or if they’d been there for a while, but certainly, and fittingly, today is the first time I’d noticed.
The apology itself was of course only one part of this morning’s proceedings, and a short part too. And since the text of Kevin Rudd’s first parliamentary act as Prime Minister had already been made public, the more interesting part of the session occurred after the reading of the motion. Both Rudd and opposition leader Brendan Nelson delivered very deliberated, considered speeches, each of which took more than twenty minutes, while the motion, at 361 words, was finished in under three.
February 12, 2008
The Prime Minister Who Apologised
Posted by jangari under Indigenous, Land, Politics, Reconciliation, Stolen GenerationComments Off
It’s been almost eleven years since the tabling of the Bringing them Home report, and tomorrow, the Australian Federal Parliament will formally apologise to the stolen generations.
This afternoon, Rudd made the full text of the apology available for the first time and, despite some earlier whining from some members of the coalition, specifically over the use of the word stolen, Brendan Nelson has signalled that he will support it as it stands.
February 7, 2008
Eleven years in the making
Posted by jangari under Culture, History, Indigenous, Land, Politics, Reconciliation, Stolen Generation, The InterventionComments Off
In less than a week, the federal Australian Government will catch up to the eight states and territories, and only a decade behind them.
The Bringing Them Home report was tabled in Parliament on May 26, 1997. Within two days, Western Australia and South Australia, both Coalition-governed states at the time, had issued unreserved apologies¹. By the end of the year, only Queensland and the Northern Territory had yet to apologise. Queensland issued their apology in 1999, a little under a year after Peter Beattie was elected, and the NT issued theirs only six weeks after Clare Martin was elected in 2001.
