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I have been feeling sad and confused about the happenings in Canberra since Australia Day. On Saturday I got on my bike and went down to the lawn of Old Parliament House. I passed a sign: 'You are now entering or leaving the Australian Aboriginal Tent Embassy ... Abusive behaviour will not be tolerated.'
Too often I've opened my front door and found myself tempted by some sales pitch. So today I'd answered warily, spoke through the screen door and tried to keep the encounter brief. 'I'm sorry, but we're not interested.' The salesman knew better: 'It's because of the colour of my skin,' he replied.
Those who have been aware of racism in the Constitution and prepared to tolerate it, have effectively blessed the attitude that it's acceptable to regard Indigenous Australians as second class citizens in theory as long as we treat them as equals in practice.
Protocol dictated that he could not wear Aboriginal colours. But local custom won out when he donned a black, red and yellow stole given to him on the track. His speech put strong challenges to the Church, but offered too optimistic a reading of the prospects of Aboriginal Australians taking their rightful place in it.
Dhurga is a dead language. At my school however it is taught to every student, Indigenous and non-Indigenous. A subject like this is quite radical in an education system that is heavily focused on churning out workers rather than thinkers.
On his return to Europe after many years absence, Raimon Panikkar said: ‘I left as a Christian, I found myself a Hindu, and I return a Buddhist, without having ceased to be a Christian.' This statement of his own multiple religious belonging is just one of many challenging insights and ideas that he wrote about with passion and eloquence.
The full text of Frank Brennan's January 2010 address to the Australian Association of Catholic Bioethicists, 'Toothless, Trojan or True to Trinitarian Anthropology? Reflecting on the 2009 National Human Rights Consultation'.
In Mt Druitt lives one of the largest groups of Aboriginal people in Australia. Gillian Cowlishaw shows the hope and despair, the visions and realities, of life in this youthful, growing, struggling and fascinating part of Australia.
Even if all our recommendations were implemented tomorrow, there would still be vulnerable Australians missing out on essential economic and social rights. Responsibility for meeting these needs cannot rest solely with government. We need to take responsibility for each other.
Some Aboriginal languages do not distinguish the unvoiced and voiced consonants 'b' and 'p', 'd' and 't', and 'g' and 'k'. Julia Gillard's push to provide 'English as a second language' training to teachers in remote communities can address such language obstacles and help lift levels of Indigenous education.
Like many Aboriginal communities, the Western Desert communities of WA's Pilabara are dealing with many pressing local issues. If plans for a national representative body can address some of these without introducing cumbersome structures that will inevitably fail, it will have achieved much.
49-60 out of 73 results.