Almost as often as we’re bludgeoned with the insulting virtue-signalling of “Welcome to Country”, Australians are also plastered with fatuous platitudes about the supposed “world’s oldest living culture”.
This is a load of patronising bollocks, of course. If the claim is that it’s a continuation of a culture from 60,000 years ago, so are all living cultures. The claim to uniqueness is therefore meaningless.
If, on the other hand, it’s supposed to mean that Aboriginal culture today is the same as 60,000 years ago, well — what, exactly, is there to celebrate about a literal Stone Age culture?
Of course, Aboriginal Australian culture is undeniably different to 60,000 years ago, or even 250 years ago. From cars, rifles, mobile phones and television, to even food and clothes, not one Aboriginal Australian today lives an authentically pre-1788 lifestyle.
Unfortunately, though, too many hangovers of that “oldest culture” persist — and they’re hardly much to celebrate. There’s the deplorably persistent and high rates of violence against women and children, for instance. First remarked on by aghast British arrivals in 1788 and too often continuing. There are also the violently-enforced rules of a tribal society which surely have no place in the modern world
A missing Indigenous man involved in a forbidden relationship could have fallen victim to traditional tribal punishment, an inquest has been told.
The pair were not so much star-crossed, as skin-crossed lovers.
Richard Milgin, 24, and Julie Buck, 23, disappeared in Western Australia’s Kimberley region almost three decades ago amid community tension over their “wrong skin group” union.
Such rules may have been necessary, vital even, in a precarious desert tribal society, where in-breeding was an existential threat to a low-population society. In modern Australia, though, they’re even more anachronistic than the deadly vendetta rules of 15th-century Verona. Or arranged marriage.
“According to traditional lore and cultural practices, Richard and Ms Buck’s relationship was forbidden because they were from the wrong skin groups,” counsel assisting Will Stops told the coroner during his opening address on Tuesday.
“Ms Buck had also been ‘promised’ to another man three times her age, community elder Mr Jimmy Nerrimah.”
Still infatuated with that “world’s oldest living culture”, city-based lefties?
And, as these things tend to do, a pall of silence descends.
The first investigation to find Mr Milgin started after Ms Buck’s partially clothed skeletal remains were found near the Aboriginal community of Looma.
Officers spoke with community members but they could not account for his movements before he disappeared.
Investigators were also unable to identify a crime scene and there was no physical material for forensic examination.
Mr Milgin’s family officially reported him as missing in February 1995 […]
“There was however a common belief that Richard was subject to traditional tribal punishment for continuing his relationship with Ms Buck,” Mr Stops said.
“A number of (Looma) community members were not forthcoming due to cultural beliefs or fear of reprisal.”
MSN
I guess that’s what they mean by “paying respects to elders, past, present and emerging”.
But, sure, let’s “celebrate” it — it’s their culture, after all.