Knowledge Systems - Question Time

I'd just like to say something. I guess in relation to what I said earlier and it relates somewhat to ownership of land. I didn't come here to make a political statement but I really come here to teach culture without prejudice. But it's always been a problem teaching Aboriginal culture or people understanding culture because of this being so, what people would say, primitive. But when you look at Aboriginal culture, and we know it, just like the lady was talking about her culture, so advanced. We were so advanced too in a lot of ways and this young bloke here, John is showing you faces and images of where man has come from and where mans is going to go. I don't know where we're going to go but we're all on this continent, or this Earth and if we don't look after it and if all the Science in the World can't help us it's going to come back to the basics again. That man or woman will have to start from scratch. You've all seen Mad Max, have you? Well that's where we might be going with nuclear weapons and poor old Afghanistan is coping it. Hiroshima has coped it. Maralinga have coped it. We've got to stop all of those kinds of things happening because all that radiation and all those things in the food chain will come down to us. And whether we have genetics that can handle those kind of situations or if they send us off to Mars, if they recon water and life is up there before. But we need to think about that very very seriously. So what I'd like to say is don't underestimate any indigenous people from around the world with their knowledge, intimate knowledge of ones own country. Because Captain Cooks was wrong in his images of us and our knowledges. We had it all and we've still got it but it was once said that we'd lost our culture. But the culture was always there. And I read yesterday's papers today about Australian culture. A funny thing, I never see Australians getting out on the street dancing in their costumes with whatever they come with. It's only indigenous people dancing with their costumes. I'd like to see how Australians come and dance in their costumes. Have we got a costume in Australia? I'm not being sarcastic here I'm just trying to make a point that you've got to look at one another where we can understand one another. And it's not having a go at anyone it's just that. Is it meet pies, and Kangaroos? Is that Australian culture? Australia don't seem to be too patriotic about flying the flag on Australia Day like the Americans on the fourth of July and stuff like that. I'd just like to say that our flag, the Nunga flag is not a flag of war, it's not a flag with blood on it. It may be a flag of protest but it's a protest flag if you like to call it that for justices for Aboriginal people. We've got to be recognised in our own country. We can't be the paupers in this country, which we are in most cases. In all cases I guess. There are people of disadvantage, Aboriginal people and Non Aboriginal people but Australia is made up on a fair go and all this sort of get up, the Lucky Country. I think some Aboriginal people live in an unlucky country and that's a fact. But when you read in the papers that Aboriginal people are getting all this money from ATSIC and Government, that's not true. I wish I'd had it. I would have been living on a mansion. But I haven't got it. It's all been paid out on administration and so forth. And if we looked at the justice, when Aboriginal people put in for a house and land, most Aboriginal people say look I don't mind buying the house but I can't buy the land, and you see land for sale everywhere. Toop and Toop, Barry Bouroughs and all those names put up land for sale. Lands going for twenty eight thousand dollars for a quarter acre block. And yet the Government don't want to give any Indigenous people down in this part of the country their rights back, their inheritance. And the British law say, and this is what I found out other day from someone, that if you build on another mans land that person owns that house, owns the land. But we can't even claim that under our law. And Aboriginal fellow whether he gets up and speaks in forums like this or even in a school, all those issues all have to be tried and answered in the right and proper manner without prejudice. Whether we like it or not as Aboriginal people we're all going to be politically. The community out there is always going to say that we get all this money. And a lot of people tend to forget that Australian troops in all the wars that Australia has ever been involved in, Aboriginal people have been fighting for this country as well. Come back from the First World War and the Second World War and were denied rights. So in the sixty seven referendum when the Australian people got those rights. And a lot of people have died, old people who were soldiers, military medals, and I think there's a couple of VC winners and all sorts, who have died as paupers in this so called lucky country. But those are the things you never hear and that's not to put guilt on Australia. But Australia's got to look at issues like that which effect the next generation of Aboriginal people. If you really believe in reconciliation, that's what reconciliation is really about. Not word of mouth, not giving something back. No one's going to take your land that you probably own. Cause if we look at it from a legal point of view with British law, the land wasn't sold in the first place. And even if we did sell it we would be doing an injustice to ourselves because we would be trying to sell something which was not to be sold. So I'd like you to think about issues like that when Aboriginal people get up and talk about a range of issues. It's not about, I don't really like talking about this. I don't like being reminded that I'm an Aboriginal person. I would like to be a universal person but in this day and age in Australia you can't be what you want to be. It's underlined that's it's a political thing. And Science can't help us. It is only the Human Beings and how you think and behave towards one another. And then you'll have social justice for. Like we always say that Australia is a multicultural country, and we'd like to be part of that country, we always have been. And the Australian flag is probably a contentious issue because that Australian flag's got blood on it. But we understand that the flag is a tradition of the Anzacs and Aboriginal people are Anzacs too. Canada got a new flag, and I don't know what the flag was before that but those are things we need to look at if we are all going to unite and be one Australia. You recon or what?

Yes

I just want to share that coming from India to attend the Festival. And I just wanted to share that in India recently there has been a movement to recognise the peoples traditional knowledge systems. The tribal people and the indigenous community there which we call the tribal people have had for generations. Which, you know, was getting it ordered. And so because of that we are going back into organic farming, looking for the type of grains that we have lost. Because now in India we only eat wheat and rice and nothing else and traditionally our people would be eating so many different varieties of grains. And it was the women who knew how to separate the good seeds from the bad seeds. And so there's been a real revival in the non governmental sector for this kind of traditional knowledge system. Really when the women were losing out. So there's a whole gender dimension to this question of knowledge system as well. And recently there was one state where the people had made a rain water harvesting system which the Government was trying to take away saying that its theirs, it's on their land that this water harvesting system had been built. But then the person who had been instrumental in doing this got an award which is a very international award for this achievement. And that was when the Government backed off and decided that its what people needed. So there is a conflict but there is an increasing recognition of the traditional knowledge system. Thank you.

It's an area which we can definitely identify with in aspects of Aboriginal society. Particularly, and I'll just mention one area , but particularly in development of drugs and other forms of medical products from materials that Aboriginal people have knowledge of. They're used for medicinal purposes for many thousands of years. Particularly products I know that might have antiseptic qualities about them. Again it brings to the fore the issue that I mentioned about major corporate bodies being driven by the desire to maximise the profit on the one hand versus the Aboriginal knowledge they want retained and kept. And also for them to derive the right to make profit out of that knowledge as well. It would be interesting to share some of these thoughts from across the world, your and our situation . We are just about at the end folks. We might just have the chance for one more person who would like to ask a question or make a statement. If there are not any then I would like to thank you all very much for coming and again hopefully the session was a good moving session for all of us and perhaps finally thank the organisers and the panellists again.