Aboriginal pride

Tragically, many also lost the plot.

A human community's pride and spirit rests on many things. Sadly, these include fighting effectively. It is hugely dispiriting to be easily defeated by invading forces.

Another source of pride is tool making, and this continent's inhabitants paid dearly for their millennia of isolation. Woomeras and boomerangs remain brilliant innovations but the guns and metal of the invaders must surely have severely shaken the locals' confidence in their abilities.

But, as previously noted, I'm not making a call to arms. That's an ugly horse to back and, anyway, it bolted a couple of centuries ago.

Mahatma Gandhi, who admittedly had numbers on his side, demonstrated that there are more elegant ways to accrue power. The gains made by Aboriginal people - for instance recognition in the 1967 referendum and certain land rights - have not been through violence but through endurance and appeals to the rationality of powerful whites.

Unfortunately, rationality is not a strong point of our nation's current leaders. The chances of significantly improving Aboriginal health are remote when many politicians are, in my opinion, too intellectually and morally bankrupt to even admit the blindingly obvious - no community willingly gives away its land and homes.

The pitifully inadequate funding of Indigenous health programs needs to be fixed but this underfunding is just a symptom of the cause of poor Aboriginal health. A recent study in Arnhem Land pointed towards the underlying cause, when it demonstrated that Aboriginal communities that are connected with, and care for, their ancestral homelands have better health.

Indigenous Australians need to be accorded, and treated with, a respect that has been sadly lacking. Severely fractured human relationships can take years to repair but simply saying "sorry" is always a nice way to start.