Laurel,
thanks for the link, I read the article and enjoyed the writing, Chris has a good measure of the dry Australian humour in her perspective.
My only issue with the article is that Chris refutes/asserts many cultural aspects of Aboriginal customary practices, (tools, dress and crafts etc) and she is not really the appropriate person to do that.
I have observed that Murri and Koori people in Australia have consolidated their own powerful voice of self-representation, they have developed a very strong, multi-tribal system of regulated protocols with a highly-structured system of government consulted administration. Of course there are ongoing struggles, but our Indigenous people have fought so long and hard for self-determination and self-representation, I must support their sovereign right to speak with their own cultural authority about these sorts of sacred cultural matters.
I don't know when the article was written (I couldn't see a date), and I do realise it was deeply considered by the author, she obviously is deeply involved in community work, and she displays a strong sense of care and protection against the cultural misrepresentations contained in the 'Mutant' book. It's all such a prickly business! Maybe one day we'll get it all sorted.
I was recently taught
"Nothing about us... without us"
and I reckon it's a beautifully simple guide to collaboration and reconciliation.
