[Linux-aus] Acknowledgement of country

[David Lloyd]

Hi There,

As an off-topic note, Outlook has managed to format this message such that I
can reply inline - I should file a "progression bug" against it :)

> -----Original Message-----
> > Do you  mean:
> >
> > 1.       Acknowledgement of a country's indigenous people?
> 
> Of course I meant that.  It is the one that fills all the first page of
google
> responses for the topic.

It's what I'd assumed - but we both know assumptions can trip everyone up
all at once.

> > I believe there is a place for (1) in some circumstances. In my
> > limited experience, events run by progressive, left leaning
> > organisations, those affiliated with the ALP (1) or those closely
> > associated with relevant environmental protection tend to run with
> > these types of openings. Within a
> 
> The Linux/FOSS community is generally left leaning.

I would tend to agree with that statement.

> > what could be argued one or more displaced peoples. However, having
> > only the opening, with no substance would have made little sense - an
> > empty gesture to say, "we acknowledge you but allowing you to welcome
> > us at our [insert event here]" is all we'll do. In that experience,
> > though, I did
> 
> It's still much better than nothing, and there's still a lot of white
people who
> want to give absolutely nothing to indiginous people.

Empty words are worse than nothing and worse they can lull otherwise
well-meaning people into thinking that something is actually happening when
they are not; perhaps that really was my point.

> LCA 2008 had an Acknowledgement of Country.  Donna says that she wasn't
> the first LCA organiser to do this.  I recall that there was no
controversy at all
> when Donna did it (regardless of whether she was first or not).

I would expect an LCA in South Australia would focus sharply on social
issues, remembering that our mistreatment of Australia's first people is not
the only injustice Australians entertain.
 
> > Is that culture sustained by an acknowledgement to country or welcome
> > to all?
> 
> I don't think that we need white people to provide answers to such
> questions.
> I think that decent white people will take note of the recommendations by
> organisations such as Murrup Barak.  Aboriginals really don't need more
> white people telling them what's best for them.

Don't assume I'm a white person. Remember, I was talking only for myself...
 
> > In this case, a welcome to all to Australia could sound a little,
> > well, odd.
> 
> Your argument that we should refrain from doing anything to address racism
> because Australia has too many racists is bizarre.

My argument, probably not well put, was that if you had meant something more
akin to a nationalistic welcome (to say refugees, recent new comers and
such) might sound a tad bizarre considering how we treat refugees
especially, but many newcomers suffer racism as well. The Indians seem to
get a lot of it at the moment, but one day when we meet (or catch up again -
we probably have met briefly in some conference somewhere), let me tell you
what it's been like growing up as a non-white looking person in Australia
over the past 40 or so years.

> One way of recognising when white people get wildly off track when talking
> about race is when they need to use made-up races.  But if you really want
to
> explore that sort of thing then you could start by reading pages such as
the
> above where non-white people write about their D&D experiences.

I actually used the example of Saruman and Gandalf, not because of their
race, but because of the attributes Tolkien attributed to them.

Incidentally, I've played D&D, AD&D and onine text MUDs for most of my life;
I'm also not white :)

DSL