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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

#171

Post by dendrite9 »

spritefs wrote: post #159
ostenning wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I would say its quite a big problem, lots of people have derogatory views about first nations peoples. Government basically uses marketing tactics to portray us all as a big inclusive happy family, but that couldn't be further from the truth.

> Government basically uses marketing tactics to portray us all as a big inclusive happy family, but that couldn't be further from the truth. It's the same way in the US with native Americans. They teach you about the genocide committed. What they don't teach you is that the government aggression towards natives didn't actually "stop" until Kennedy (and even then I'm still in doubt) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indi…

I have a note to look for a good book about the American Indian Movement, it isn't something we were taught in school.

Earlier today I was looking for some information about geology in British Columbia and clicked a link about an abandoned town. The last line of the wikipedia entry was enough to give me a pause and look up more. The entire entry is:

> Kimsquit is a former village of the Nuxalk[1] at the mouth of the Dean River on the northeast side of Dean Channel in the Central Coast region of British Columbia, Canada.[2] Kemsquit Indian Reserve No. 1 is nearby at 52°49′00″N 126°58′00″W,[3] which is on Kimsquit Bay; Kimsquit Mountain is nearby.

> The village was shelled by the Royal Navy in 1877.[4]

The BC Geographical Names site includes a little more information:

> Kimsquit was the site of one of the last gunboat actions on the BC coast when, in 1877, HMS Rocket, under Lt Cdr Charles Harris, shelled and burned the Nut’l village. Several of its residents had allegedly murdered the survivors of the wreck of the George S Wright in Queen Charlotte Sound in 1873 – though his charge was never proven.

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

#172

Post by musk_micropenis »

cjbgkagh wrote: post #107
brutusborn wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect it’s meant to be a “don’t look behind you”, but done by foolish children so they managed to screw it up.

It’s a weird Australian idiom; “don’t look now, but there is a spider crawling up your leg”, I think from the ‘made you look’ game. Australia is full of weird idioms one of my favorite “yeah, nah” and “nah, yeah”

[dead]

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

#173

Post by FatActor »

fastball wrote: post #170
kaesar14 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Implying what’s existed in Australia for thousands of years doesn’t constitute ‘civilization’ :)

Depending on your definition of "civilization", indeed what existed in Australia for thousands of years probably does not qualify.

Can you explain why thousands of years of aboriginal society doesn't qualify as a civilization?

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

#174

Post by [deleted] »

remote_phone wrote: post #72
katzgrau wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, maybe that's taking it all a little too seriously. For all we know, the original art was the work of some ancient hooligans.

We don’t have very much evidence of ancient human art work around the world. Each one of them is precious. To make it morally equivalent to graffiti is ridiculous.

[deleted]

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

#175

Post by Xc43 »

Dalewyn wrote: post #161
Xc43 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your understanding of modern Mormon culture and their modern ethical inclinations does not change history. Any religion such as hinduism with their caste-based discrimination and mormonism with their skin-color-based discrimination is in their correct place when found in disrepute. Please inform yourself before standing for such shameful and unethical/immoral belief system.

If you are going to accuse someone of certain acts, it is only proper to have evidence to support your claims. Otherwise, it is simply slander. The Mormons could indeed be or have engaged in disagreeable acts (I wouldn't know myself, nor do I care), but claiming so while skirting your own duty to be truthful is not okay. "Apparently" and "second hand" don't fly with accusations.

Ah, I thought it was common knowledge; You don't, yet... Thank you for holding me to a higher standard.

I wrote not from second hand knowledge. Nor, is it apparently apparent.

Here is one source: (1).

If it this is insufficient for you, for it seems you do not trust me as a source on the subject, here is a quote from the Book of Mormon:

"And he had caused the cursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity. For behold, they had hardened their hearts against him, that they had become like unto a flint; wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them." (2 Nephi 5:21) (2)

I will not belabor the content of this quote, for it is, hopefully, now clearly racist.

(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_people_and_Mor...

(2) https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/bofm/2-...

[Addendum: I re-read the thread and it seems to me now you were answering to me who was answering to a bifurcation of the original comment. I agree the original commenter would ideally have substantiated his claims. So would have the answer, (to which I answered) which claimed that because they are Mormon then they should be spared of judgement or scrutiny. I disagree (but that is something else).

This whole thread could have been avoided if the term Mormon would have been omitted. Which, I believe would have been fine, since whether those communities were LDS or not, it would have been the same.]

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

#176

Post by defrost »

FatActor wrote: post #173
fastball wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depending on your definition of "civilization", indeed what existed in Australia for thousands of years probably does not qualify.

Can you explain why thousands of years of aboriginal society doesn't qualify as a civilization?

That pretty much boils down to Euro-centric judgement, early British, Dutch, and French reporting, different ideals of what constitutes "culture", destruction of effective but hard to see artifacts (wells, river and ocean fish traps, degradable townsites), etc.

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

#177

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

xyzwave wrote: post #162
kevinkeller wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The US also has significant protections around the Native American rock art at California’s Lava Beds National Monument. https://www.nps.gov/labe/learn/historyculture/rockart.htm

I think National parks and monuments get better funding.

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

#178

Post by jpgvm »

nJRQERlHm wrote: post #158
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…

Throwaway, because this is unfortunately a contentious issue. You shouldn't get a pass for treating people like shit regardless of what your ancestors did or did not do, so it pains me to hear your story. I never had much trouble at school with anyone except for poor or 'cashed-up' bogans, and yes it was damn traumatising. I can see a lot of personal bias in the comments here - whether that's warranted or not I don't…

My personal opinion is that we should acknowledge what was done wrong unto them and do our best to support those that are disadvantaged through no fault of their own.

However I draw the line at ignoring or being more lenient when it comes to crime, poor behavior in schools, vandalism etc. Yes, bad stuff happened in the past but it shouldn't create license to be poor members of society forever.

There have been periods where we have seen this from different socioeconomic/racial groups and usually they moved past it. I remember when I was studying in Sydney there was a lot of angst about Vietnamese gangs in the South-West, over time that gave way to Vietnamese being welcomed and considered some of the most friendly communities in our society.

I hope we are to see similar take place with the Sudanese in Melbourne, currently characterized similarly to what the Vietnamese gangs were and still undergoing difficult integration into Australian society.

At it's core Australia is a multi-cultural nation, almost entirely composed of immigrants from all around the world. It's unfortunate that it came at the cost of the traditional lands of the indigenous Australians but they really should be able to see at this point that it's not race that holds them back, otherwise other disadvantaged and displaced would similarly have the same issues.

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

#179

Post by asddubs »

cjbgkagh wrote: post #107
brutusborn wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect it’s meant to be a “don’t look behind you”, but done by foolish children so they managed to screw it up.

It’s a weird Australian idiom; “don’t look now, but there is a spider crawling up your leg”, I think from the ‘made you look’ game. Australia is full of weird idioms one of my favorite “yeah, nah” and “nah, yeah”

i think it comes from talking about someone whom you don't want to notice you. "don't look now, but my ex just entered the restaurant"

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

#180

Post by mannerheim »

RobotToaster wrote: post #94
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Compare it to European attitudes Yeah... Can we swap? Or like find a middle ground? Here in slovenia, we have socialist buildings from 1970s that someone decided to culturally protect, and the owners cannot renew the leaking facade and add insulation, because the outside has to stay the same, and puting insulation on the inside would reduce the inside space and make walkways and doors too narrow to pass (or carry a…

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.

If you want to preserve it, buy it yourself and keep it that way. Don't force others to live in depressing brutalist blocks if they don't want to.
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