Get Out If You Can

Image: Unsplash

Australians have to stop interfering in Indigenous communities. It needs to stop. 

"The end of a 'race-based policy' which saw alcohol banned in indigenous communities for 15 years has resulted in an immediate spike in violence and booze related injuries. 

In the first 48 hours after the Albanese Government lifted the ban on July 17, Alice Springs Police recorded 54 domestic-violence incidents with Aboriginal health advocates claiming 'things have not settled' in the three weeks since the restrictions were lifted. 

The Northern Territory's Associations and Liquor Amendment Bill 2022 passed in May gave Indigenous communities the choice to 'opt-in' to a two-year extension of their alcohol-free status."

For qualification, I'm not saying lifting the ban on alcohol is interference. I am talking about the paternal approach Australian governments take to Indigenous communities in general. 

If I were one of the people in these communities I would find a way to get out. I think such communities have a right to exist, and a right to self-determination, and a right to have alcohol sold in their towns if they want it. They should be free to make their own decisions, in fact they should be free from outside interference as much as they desire. But I can't see any advantage to yourself, or your family, to continue to live in a dysfunctional community.

Note: I know that not all these communities are dysfunctional, praise God, and the one's that aren't, I have heard, are incredible places to visit. Also note: I know how deeply many indigenous Aussies are connected to their land. I know it is a powerful and spiritual element of their identity. It's not one that most white fellas understand, but that doesn't make it any less significant. Note: I also sympathize with indigenous people for having lost sovereignty over their lands, and being conquered (however slowly and peacefully it happened, it is still conquest when you no longer get to rule yourselves) by another people. Before you get all annoyed at me agreeing with a "leftist" talking point note this: Anglo-Saxon Aussies are slowly losing the land, now, just as our indigenous Aussie brothers did. Things come around. Defensively denying them doesn't change reality.

But all that being said, I genuinely believe if you can get out of a dysfunctional community, then you should, and all our efforts should be put towards making that goal possible for those that want to.  Because then they have a chance of leaving behind an old way, for potentially a better way. Anglo-Saxon society improved when our ancestors rejected their pagan ways and moved towards a Christian way of seeing the world. This cycle has been true of many peoples.

But that is all we should do. We should not be seeking to parent the struggling communities. Because in doing so we impose a form of cultural limbo that keeps these communities in a deplorable state. 

These are just my thoughts. They could be applied to many non-indigenous communities as well.