Well known Aboriginal actor and television host Ernie Dingo explains how ‘welcome to country’ came to be.
The skit is just 50 years old and has no bearing on ancient Aboriginal culture. Listen to Ernie.
By cairnsnews
From the land of Australians
This BS about sharing culture, and the rest of it, is not in evidence with the local Wathaurong Aboriginal Co-Op here in Geelong.
My experience has been that near all of the people there, dressed in their expensive-looking bomber jackets and the rest of it, have a belligerent and disdainful attitude to us white buggers.
One lass I saw in a local supermarket aisle, as white as and blonde-haired, actually looked at me and sneered at me before she moved down the aisle.
So much for sharing culture with us uncultured white rubes.
It looks like the mobile phone is an intrinsic part of their “culture” as they are seen outside the co=op building-which could house probably every genuine Wathaurong in the region: I am told there are only a few real ones-goofing off on their mobile phones.
They have a number of vehicles of various makes and models-not fleet vehicles-and a little campervan, which I have dubbed, to myself, as the Walkabout On Wheels vehicle.
A disdainful attitude, but no more disdainful than the attitude of than theirs, given that billions of mostly, Whitefella money has gone into “the industry.”
Never in the history of mankind has so much been done for so few by so many with zero result.
My take on the subject. to the local Geelong Advertiser rag, which did not publish it:
With the RSL reviewing its Welcome To Country policy post ANZAC Day, I have no hesitation in saying that anyone at all is within their rights to be unhappy with the WTC.
People like me realise that inordinate amounts of government-read: Our-money-billions-has been thrown at the aboriginal problem, yet aboriginal people country wide are still suffering adverse health and wellbeing issues that should no longer exist given, all those billions expended.
Reconciliation is a major catch cry, however, as I have written previously, the real reconciliation needs to be between the aboriginal people and their organisations that took the money.
With the billions of largely, if not exclusively, Whitefella money paid out, many of the latter might think that no more should go there before a reconciliation, which mans a squaring of the books aka: a full audit, is conducted.
WTC is not a tradition but was allegedly introduced by Ernie Dingo at the behest of a touring sporting group.
In any event, I-and anyone else-do not have to like it or approve of it.