You know, this whole “world’s oldest living culture” thing strikes me as a pretty weird flex.
Firstly, it isn’t even really true: not one Aboriginal Australian alive today lives a wholly traditional, pre-1788 lifestyle. Even the Pintupi Nine — the celebrated last group to make contact with the outside world, in 1984 — and their descendants live in settled communities, wear Western clothes, and succumb to “whitefella diseases” like obesity and diabetes.
So, like all living cultures, Aboriginal Australian culture is a product of cultural evolution. In that sense, then, it’s no older or younger than any other.
Even if it was genuinely the same culture as 50,000 years ago, being a literal Stone Age culture seems a pretty odd boast.
Worse, though, is when “culture” is exploited as a catch-all excuse for some very bad behaviours.
A senior Northern Territory policeman has admitted that while it “did not sit well” with him, he made the “painstaking” decision to elevate “cultural sensitivities” above the safety of Kumanjayi Walker’s girlfriend by allowing the Indigenous teenager to remain free for days to attend a funeral.
Some brave Aboriginal women are speaking out, saying that “culture” is being used too often to explain away the very bad behaviour of some Aboriginal men.
The first month of the coronial inquest into Walker’s death has frequently heard the premise that Walker fled custody in late 2019 to attend his great uncle’s funeral at remote Yuendumu and that he had a significant role to play there […]
“There was important sorry business being scheduled in Yuendumu.”
In fact, the most important thing on Walker’s mind was not his deceased great uncle, but scoring drugs.
However, Walker’s girlfriend Rickisha Robertson has previously told The Australian that she and Walker did not attend the funeral on November 9, 2019. “We went for a walk,” she said.
“Only thing, he was crying out for gunja. He was going to his family to ask them (for gunja).”
He didn’t bother turning up to the funeral at all.
Senior Aboriginal community policeman Derek Williams and Walker’s cousin Samara Fernandez-Brown have both told the inquest they did not see Walker at the burial.
It doesn’t help that some Aboriginal women are still defending their violent men. Walker’s crimes against Robertson included “face-biting, bashing her head with a rock, punching, kicking, pinching her cheeks and choking”. Yet Robertson is still insisting, against all evidence including police body cameras, that Walker did not stab police before he was shot.
None of it would have happened, though, if authorities had not been forced to be so subservient to “culture”.
“We reached a consensus that we would place greater weight on the cultural sensitivities and the impending funeral,” [Superintendent Jody Nobbs] told the court […]
Superintendent Nobbs said police were duty-bound to detain Walker as soon as possible but were also trying to be “culturally respectful”.
The Australian
Perhaps it’s long past time to stop respecting barbarity in the name of “culture”.