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Vandals destroy 30k-year-old indigenous cave drawings in Australia

smithsonianmag.com

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Re: Vandals destroy 30k-year-old indigenous cave drawings in Australia

#121

Post by MonkeyClub »

_-____-_ wrote: post #112
RobotToaster wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's important to preserve modernist and brutalist architecture, so I can sort of see their point. I'm surprised there isn't another option in that specific case though (Can they not just add doors to the stairwell? Or do they oppose that too?) Too much brutalist architecture is being covered in tacky "neo-classical" plaster facades.

> It's important to preserve modernist and brutalist architecture Why?

> Why?

Because history is as valuable to humanity as memory to the human.

Re: Vandals destroy 30k-year-old indigenous cave drawings in Australia

#122

Post by rippercushions »

_-____-_ wrote: post #112
RobotToaster wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's important to preserve modernist and brutalist architecture, so I can sort of see their point. I'm surprised there isn't another option in that specific case though (Can they not just add doors to the stairwell? Or do they oppose that too?) Too much brutalist architecture is being covered in tacky "neo-classical" plaster facades.

> It's important to preserve modernist and brutalist architecture Why?

A lot of people thought that we should not preserve pre-war architecture, and that's why we now have a lot of modernist and brutalist architecture in its place.

I do agree that aesthetics and fitting into the neighborhood should come into the equation somewhere: the Barbican is probably worthy of preservation, some random shitty shoebox municipal library or housing estate probably isn't.

Re: Vandals destroy 30k-year-old indigenous cave drawings in Australia

#123

Post by kevinkeller »

AnotherGoodName wrote: post #12

I have a friend on a property with cave art here in the hunter valley of Australia. We really don't do enough to preserve it at all. He's responsible and ensures no harm but it's still weird to own private land with 10k+ year old art and have no one really give a damn about it. Compare it to European attitudes, eg. Lascaux where they closed off the cave completely and only allow tourists near the modern reconstructio…

I think it's because of a sense of ownership and belonging (or lack thereof). People who made the art in Lascaux are, in a distant sense, ancestors of the present-day French. Most of Australia is of British ancestry, transplanted in the past few hundred years. The majority of them, including their government, obviously don't consider the Aboriginal heritage as their own.

Re: Vandals destroy 30k-year-old indigenous cave drawings in Australia

#124

Post by lukeholder »

barbariangrunge wrote: post #106

Near where we live, apparently the Mormon community keeps going out and doing this. It’s becoming a major problem and is apparently leading to a lot of drama between the two communities. (My information is secondhand, but came from a national parks interpreter)

I highly doubt this is true due my deep understanding of Mormon culture and their ethical inclinations. You are spreading second hand gossip and casting an entire religion into disrepute.

Please share facts or reliable reporting if you have such.

Re: Vandals destroy 30k-year-old indigenous cave drawings in Australia

#125

Post by belfalas »

quadhome wrote: post #120
belfalas wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not an Australian but I've been to Australia and have Australian friends and colleagues. "Racism" is not quite the right word for what's been done to the aboriginals, it's more like the genocide committed against indigenous people in the Americas. Aboriginals are "Black" but that's beside the point - the British did a very thorough job trying to wipe them off the face of the planet. Think Trail of Tears level ho…

I was shocked to find out that Aboriginals in Australia were enslaved as recently as the 1970s: https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/archived/busht...

Yeah, in the United States as well pretty horrific things were happening right up to the 1970s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Syphilis_Study

(I'm of course not saying that bad things stopped happening after the 1970s)

Re: Vandals destroy 30k-year-old indigenous cave drawings in Australia

#126

Post by henriquemaia »

I know this is the article's title, and that this may sound as a tangent, but whoever destroyed the cave drawings were definitely not Vandals:

> The Vandals were a Germanic people who first inhabited what is now southern Poland. They established Vandal kingdoms on the Iberian Peninsula, Mediterranean islands, and North Africa in the fifth century.

Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vandals

Re: Vandals destroy 30k-year-old indigenous cave drawings in Australia

#127

Post by Xc43 »

MonkeyClub wrote: post #121
_-____-_ wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's important to preserve modernist and brutalist architecture Why?

> Why? Because history is as valuable to humanity as memory to the human.

History, yes. The actual obsolete building housing humans, no.

Re: Vandals destroy 30k-year-old indigenous cave drawings in Australia

#128

Post by rippercushions »

belfalas wrote: post #98
oluwie wrote: post #8

I know this is going to be an unpopular opinion but I don't really think this is THAT big of a deal. Yea, I know the art is old and all that and it really is unfortunate but its also the nature for all things to change. Maybe in another 30k years, we'll be looking at the defacement as an amazing piece of art that tells the story of the current social climate at this point in time, or something along those lines.

If someone bombed the Vatican or the Kaaba would you consider that a very big deal?

We're not exactly talking Michelangelo here. Here's what the art looks like, and there's thousands of square meters of the stuff:

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Finger-flutings-in-Koona...

Re: Vandals destroy 30k-year-old indigenous cave drawings in Australia

#129

Post by defrost »

jpgvm wrote: post #97
discordance wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the indigenous Australians I interacted with didn't do themselves any favors Aboriginal and Torres Straight islanders have experienced systemic, soul crushing racism for 300 years. It seems unfair to expect them to be cordial and have a nice discussion about it all.

I'm not talking about having a discussion with them. I'm talking about attending highschool in a country town with 30% indigenous population. Also I'm acutely aware of what their people have endured. I personally don't feel like it justifies the behavior that I encountered in my schooling years.

As someone keenly aware of the history of Australian country towns I have to ask .. when you talk to the old people in town that were born in the 1920s and 1930s did any of them talk about going out and beating up or shooting "trouble making" fringe dwellers?

That was pretty commonplace right across Australia and leaves attitudes that persist for decades, not to mention the rounding up and confining by law to reservations, denial of access to employment, treatment as "welfare leeches" despite being denied access to trad. land, employment, and preyed upon by grog dealers that see aboriginal welfare checks the way a meth dealer sees marks.

This is how we arrive at Brigg's Bad Apples [3] .. and then we have the locals going out and running aboriginal kids over (2016) [1] or beating them to death (2022) [2] on suspicion of theft.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Elijah_Doughty

[2] https://nit.com.au/25-10-2022/4163/shocking-attack-on-indige...

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MVsBS7OZvo

Re: Vandals destroy 30k-year-old indigenous cave drawings in Australia

#130

Post by noobermin »

wiseelder932 wrote: post #51
jpgvm wrote: post #47

Pretty unfortunate and disrespectful. Sort of emblematic of Australian bogan culture however. For some reason Australian teenagers are among the worst in this regard. As someone that grew up in country Australia this really doesn't surprise me at all. Contributing factor is that racism against indigenous Australians is somewhat fueled by the same sort of rhetoric that became popular in the Trump election campaign. No…

[flagged]

The assertion (one I personally believe) is it isn't really overt racism as much as it is one of dismissal and treatment of their concerns as less valid, for example, people in other comments saying "they just look like lines," which itself is dismissive of the fact that the indigenous people there found these markings as sacred themselves. The original sin lies with the government just not treating it as important as it should be, which comes down to them not seeing the markings as being as precious and worthy of protection as say a historic building that they'd likely protect to some degree. That dismissive attitude toward one piece of cultural heritage isn't overt racism (like hurling slurs, being disciminatory, etc) but it is treatment of serious concerns without the weight they deserve.
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