Strangers in their own country
DAY ONE: We are expecting Charlotte and Margaret to begin a ten week educational marathon. To what extent can they catch up? I met Charlotte’s mother, three years ago, when she was making a rare visit to Sydney from a very remote community –let us call it Wangupeni – that is on a beautiful stretch of the East Arnhem Land coast, but 200 kilometres from the nearest Woolworths supermarket, hospital, police station and high school. Last year Charlotte’s parents sent her to an Indigenous boarding school in Melbourne. She had been attending the Wangupeni school for nine years – whenever it was open –but in Melbourne she was unable to keep up in class. Teased by the other girls she became so miserable that she had to return home.
Now Charlotte’s mother and father were very worried about her future. Photographs showed a smiling, pretty, well developed girl of 16. Could I help? My European cousin’s 15-year-old twins had come to us when they had barely been able to speak a word of English….
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