![indigene flag II](https://quadrant.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/indigene-flag-II.png)
Australians all let us rejoice. Repeat, ‘all’
I wonder if privileged Indigenous figures, such as Gold Coast Titan’s captain Ryan James, realize the extent to which their narcissistic insistence on victimhood is alienating mainstream Australians. I have only goodwill for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and hope with all my heart that genuine inequality – appalling child abuse, drug and alcohol abuse, less than Third World academic attainment and a grim list of other dysfunctions – can all be overcome.
However, I find myself increasingly intolerant of “indigeneity” as a political movement and have to guard against a tendency to project my antipathy for these activists onto Aboriginal people in general.
Order Peter O’Brien’s Bitter Harvest here
Let’s look at one of Ryan James’ claims, as quoted in The Australian:
Some of the lyrics [of the National Anthem] are references to ‘the free’ and you only have to look back to when my mum was born. She was born indigenous to this land and she wasn’t…
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