![indig squalor](https://quadrant.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/indig-squalor.png)
The Needed and Overdue Farewell to Alms
Why are Aboriginal remote communities so often cesspits of dysfunction? It cannot be blamed on a lack of money, attention or time invested in solving their problems. So, what is going wrong? Why are the vast majority of Australians with Aboriginal ancestry doing fine while those in these afflicted communities endure lives of such misery and violence that it is culpably negligent to persist with the approach and polices that have not merely allowed by encouraged it to continue?
The claim is that the experience of colonisation has caused these problems when the reality is that all humans are descended from the colonised and most do just fine. This suggests by default that it is the lack of assimilation which is the cause of the dysfunction. We know as much because the vast majority of those with Aboriginal ancestry are fully assimilated into the modern world and have been for generations. They are doing as well and have the same sorts of outcomes as other Australians. This is why…
Madam: Archbishop Fisher (July-August 2024) does not resist the attacks on his church by the political, social or scientific atheists and those who insist on not being told what to do.
Aug 29 2024
6 mins
To claim Aborigines have the world's oldest continuous culture is to misunderstand the meaning of culture, which continuously changes over time and location. For a culture not to change over time would be a reproach and certainly not a cause for celebration, for it would indicate that there had been no capacity to adapt. Clearly this has not been the case
Aug 20 2024
23 mins
A friend and longtime supporter of Quadrant, Clive James sent us a poem in 2010, which we published in our December issue. Like the Taronga Park Aquarium he recalls in its 'mocked-up sandstone cave' it's not to be forgotten
Aug 16 2024
2 mins