Every time I hear the phrase ‘closing the gap’ I chuckle. The arrogance of the idea, that original…
Every time I hear the phrase ‘closing the gap’ I chuckle. The arrogance of the idea, that original Australians need to somehow catch up with we advanced other Australians. The gap is in the other direction. The continent is broken, and we did it. /1
https://t.co/Wb9N6BaxRY
Much of the usable topsoil has been blown into the ‘ditch’ between here and NZ. The rivers run dry even when they never have before. Over 100 species have been wiped out in the past 2 centuries. We think none of this matters, because we’re ‘advanced’. /2
https://t.co/Wb9N6BaxRY
We have technology! Like aeroplanes, where you can fly to Bali to get off your tits and run over people on a scooter. I’m an engineer, and technology is great. But the way we use it to portray Aboriginal Australians as somehow primitive is ridiculous. /3
It’s infinitely harder to maintain river systems and other ecosystems, than it is to build any of our beloved technologies. Orders of magnitude harder. We paint that work as some earlier evolutionary phase of humanity. Bullshit, it’s far harder than anything we know how to do. /4
Look at the state of the continent, it’s a disaster. And we did it in just over 200 years. Aboriginal Australians kept it all prodigiously healthy for tens of thousands of years. It’s the greatest wonder of all human history. None of us ’advanced’ Australians would even know…/5
…where or how to start doing it. Tens of thousands of years before every other culture on Earth is even known to have existed, they were doing this. It’s the most astonishing achievement in all human history, every nation on Earth needed to know how it was done. /6
Look at what’s left of the landscape. None of us has a clue where to start to fix any of it. It’s not just an ecology thing, it’s an entire culture thing, the genius is knowing how to make the ‘landscape’ (we have no word that captures it) a full part of your culture. /7
We’re all mostly huddled on the coast, European tourists in our own land. What is the actual point of ‘modern’ Australia? Being a giant quarry for the rest of the world? Travelling? Do we build anything? We don’t even live in most of our own land.
Closing the gap. Ffs. /end