Aborigines ‘Don’t Know Rape Is Illegal’
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Tara Ravens. AAP, May 28, 2008
MORE than 90 per cent of people in Arnhem Land do not understand basic legal concepts, with many Aborigines under the impression that white society is “lawless”, a report has found.
This has resulted in wrongful imprisonment and “massive confusion”, with some communities still unaware that rape is considered illegal, says Richard Trudgen, CEO of the Aboriginal Resource and Development Services (ARDS).
In a report titled An Absence of Mutual Respect, researchers spoke to Yolngu people from a cross-section of the community, including interpreters, locals and community leaders.
They were quizzed on the 30 most commonly used English legal words such as bail, commit, arrest, charge and guilty.
The ARDS report found 95 per cent of Yolngu people were unable to correctly identify their meaning.
Only 17 per cent of responses from language professionals were correct while 90 per cent of community leaders, such as ATSIC members, school teachers and council representatives, had no understanding of the terms at all.
Ninety-seven per cent of Yolngu people born after 1967 fell into the lowest category of understanding.
“This research found that many Aboriginal people from Arnhem Land had little comprehension of what was happening in the legal system,” Mr Trudgen said.
“This still leads to many outcomes that are unjust and can also be a factor in some people getting into further trouble.
“Many elders also believe it is one of the main reasons for increased crime on Aboriginal communities.”
Mr Trudgen said the results explained the stark over-representation of Aborigines in territory prisons—currently over 80 per cent—and why increasing numbers of young males were falling foul of the law after moving to large urban centres.
“People thought that pleading guilty actually got them through the court quickly and they didn’t go to jail,” he said.
“There is massive confusion out there about white fella law point blank.”
In conclusion, the report found many Aborigines were disempowered when it came to dealing with the legal system, and it recommended communication programs to bridge the gap.
It said Aboriginal people often thought they were functioning within a lawless society because “they don’t understand it so they see it as lawless”.
This can lead to “quite devastating consequences”, said Mr Trudgen, who referred to the case of an elder who had asked him if rape was illegal.
“When I said yes, he told me ‘none of our young people know that’.
“This is 2008. When are we going to have an emergency response into communication in these communities?”
Researchers also interviewed some people in prison.
“When they realised what the term guilty meant they were able to identify some of the things that they were convicted of that they never had anything to do with,” Mr Trudgen said.
(Posted on June 9, 2008)
Comments
In other words, they’re too stupid to know right from wrong. No wonder they still live like animals.
Posted by N. J. MOE at 6:47 PM on June 9
One of the cornerstones of Anglo-Saxon law is that ignorance of the law is no excuse whatever, even for white people, in an era when the US Congress passes thousands of pages of new laws every year.
There is a difference, though, between Mala in Se (bad in and of itself) and Mala Prohibita (bad only because it has been prohibited). We’ll use the example of rape, because it was mentioned in a particularly gruesome article elsewhere here today: when a young lady is crying, any man with more empathy than a garden snail knows what he is doing to her is morally wrong, and thus Mala in Se.
It is quite interesting that young Aboriginal women have a clear enough understanding of the distinction between consensual sex and rape to complain to authorities about the latter, while the young men pretend not to know the difference. I suspect they know it is wrong, but do not know just how much trouble they can get into for doing it. I also suspect drink has quite a lot to do with this, since Arnhem Land Aboriginees tend to be purebloods, and alcohol is pure poison for them.
Posted by Michael C. Scott at 7:19 PM on June 9
Rest assured that leftists will scream “racist!!!” at the top of their lungs if any large-scale effort is made to educate aborigines about rape being illegal.
Posted by at 7:58 PM on June 9
My first question is would a village leader think it was o.k. for a young aboriginal to rape his daughter? I think not. No one is going to tell me that the father of the girl would not be outraged and seek revenge in one fashion or another. If what I am saying is true, why do these people have such a hard time understanding the white man’s concept of rape which is exactly the same? The same can be said for a whole host of other questions of law. The concepts are exactly the same. It is abundantly obvious that these people should be eternally seperated from the white race as all the failed attempts at education and integration have proved. The lowest common denominator is a cosmic law. You will never succeed in bring them up but they most assuredly will succeed in bring you down.
Posted by at 8:26 PM on June 9
This is a group which in tens of thousands of years never grasped the connection between sexual intercourse and reproduction. Who never invented or adopted the bow and arrow. Whose Tasmanian branch stranded themselves on the island by losing the technology of a simple canoe, as well as how to make a fishhook, and even the secret of fire, which Homo Erectus had.
Recall that wolves, foxes, coyotes, and dogs can interbreed and produce fertile offspring. Lions, tigers, and leopards can interbreed and produce fertile offspring.
Maybe we need to re-define who is in our species and who is not.
Posted by Irish at 9:15 PM on June 9
This is further validation of the tests which show that they are dumber than Africans if that is possible, somewhere in the 60 to 70IQ range. They have the smallest cranial capacity of any race adjusted to body size. Kow Swamp archeological site in Australia found skulls of Aborigines only 10,000 years old that were easily mistaken for Homo Erectus. Needless to say the news played this non PC news down.
Posted by John at 9:28 PM on June 9
“There is massive confusion out there about white fella law point blank.”
Much as I love that phrase “white fella law,” this article is deeply disturbing — even by AmRen standards. If the Abo’s are indeed intellectually incapable of even comprehending Anglo-Australian standards, then then the inescapable conclusion is that these non-white fellas will NEVER conform to white-fella law.
But then, I’m sure I won’t be the only poster to point out that Abo’s score the lowest of any group on IQ tests — not only below African blacks, but even below what whites consider mentally retarded.
In other words, utterly hopeless and beyond redemption.
Posted by at 9:48 PM on June 9
Let’s face it compared to Australia, Africa was high tech. At least the blacks had iron-working , a crude agriculture, some form of tribal states and trading network. The Abos were still in stone age tribes (literally) when we found them.
Posted by dav at 2:51 AM on June 10
One of the most intelligent men I’ve ever met was Scottish, Russian and Australian Aboriginee Homo Erectus. He has the red hair and freckles from his Scottish and Russian ancestry. We met in a computer room at UNSW Sydney, and we both liked shooting.
When I was living in Sydney, I noticed most of the “Aboriginees” demonstrating for special priveleges looked white by any useful yardstick.
Posted by Michael C. Scott at 8:43 AM on June 10
Aboriginees may not be the brightest bulbs on the planet but they are not so stupid that they don’t understand the concept of rape. As a matter of fact, they may be smarter then people on here think, pretending to be stupid in order to get away with something ie. people on death row here claiming to be “retarded.”
Posted by at 9:47 AM on June 10
To be fair to the abos some aspects of their culture are admirable, like the digereedo, bommarang, art paintings and form of communicating over long distances using a whip.
There have low IQ’s but the idea of treating women as the personal property of men is not unique to their society only!
Posted by AF at 9:59 AM on June 10
This is actually rather common in sub-Saharan Africa, not just among the aborigines who have the lowest IQ. The mean IQ for sub-Saharan blacks is 70. Zulu has no words for: the future, the past, obligation, morality, empathy, etc. So it is not just the aborigines who lack a moral sense. The same applies to the vast majority of sub-Saharan blacks and to a large extent to their relatives in the US. Think about it for a moment and you may see that it explains a great deal of what we see around us.
Posted by at 11:03 AM on June 10
>>>This has resulted in wrongful imprisonment and “massive confusion”, with some communities still unaware that rape is considered illegal
Had to (chuckle) read the title TWICE… because at first I thought they were talking about MEXICANS! Seems like Australia’s abos have a lot in common with Mexicans. Mexcans having a notoriously hard time understanding that when a woman says, NO!, she means it. I suppose that Latino macho hombre mentality is to blame, given the disproportionate number of Hispanic rapists surface in our news — wanted for rapes of women, even children. No, I am not making it up. Try viewing Fox News in Houston on a regular basis. Listen to the CRIMESTOPPER MOST WANTED segments; look up CRIMESTOPPER websites and see/read for yourself. Or to avoid that line: “Believed to have fled to Mexico” when describing the rapist or child-abuser’s probable location.
I won’t argue the poster’s rationale, implying the abos are really smarter than believed. Their professed claim of not undderstanding rape is a crime can also be compared to the GUARANTEED CERTAINY of our Afro-Americans playing the race card whenever charged with any kind of crime. Anyone hear of Congressman Jeffords of Louisiana, for example. Caught with a freezer full of “cold” cash, earned by selling his influence.
Posted by Fed Up at 1:37 PM on June 10
I’m not quite understanding something - is it a LANGUAGE gap (they don’t know these particular English words) or do they have no CONCEPT of rape even when it’s explained to them? Because it just sounds like they don’t know what the words mean. If I’m wrong, please do explain, as this is very interesting.
Posted by Ginny at 6:57 PM on June 10
There is a profound flaw in the “logic” of this article.
Most people do not commit socially unacceptable acts refrain from the same, not because these acts are illegal, but because their conscience would not let them do so.
For instance, imagine someone torturing a human being and finding a pleasure in causing that person’s suffering. Whether the perpetrator thought it was legal or not, it doesn’t change the fact that he was a monster who should be removed from the society.
Those who rape deserve the same fate, and whether they thought it’s legal to do so or not is totally irrelevant here. We just don’t want such naturally born barbarians among us, period.
Posted by A Reader at 8:55 PM on June 10
To everyone reading this post, are you familiar with a tabloid publication called “The National Enquirer”?
I read an article in the National Enquirer about reincarnation a long time ago, that I do not remember the specific date. This article claimed Australian Aborigines believe that after they die they will reincarnate as white men, which they believe will be a better life. This article then went about an Aborigine who was convicted of murder and given the death penalty. His reaction was a joyful one of “Me jump up white fella!”
A cousin of mine, who married a white Australian man, told me when white people first arrived in Australia, the Aborigines, at that time, believed it meant the end of their people. She told me the reaction of the Aborigines back then was not to fight back, or try to adjust to the new arrivals, but to accept their end and do nothing.
I know a lot more about American Indian cultures, than I do about Australian Aborigine cultures. So to everyone reading this post, if you know more about Australian Aborigine anthropology, I will greatly appreciate knowing if I what I have posted is true, or inaccurate.
Posted by Ross at 1:10 AM on June 11
When the Portugese first arrived in S. Africa 550 years ago, they discovered that the natives did have fire. But the natives had not yet discovered cooking, and thus ate all thier food, including meat raw.
Posted by at 3:24 PM on June 11
Dear Posted by at 3:24 PM on June 11,
The natives of South Africa, before they discovered cooking, must have had a high rate of infestation by parasitic worms, and must have been hungry all the time.
I don’t know about you, but whenever I have tried living on raw foods, I would be hungry no matter how much I ate, and would have to give in to eating cooked foods after a few days.
Although, I do know that Iniut{Eskimos) lived on raw meat and raw blubber before contact with white civilization, and may still be eating raw meat and raw blubber today. But at least in pre-contact times and today, the Inuit can kill parasites by freezing the meat and blubber.
The Iniut, in pre-contact times, were a more intelligent primitive people than pre-contact African natives. But this is because the Arctic is a much more harsh environment than warmer climates. So a foolish Iniut(Eskimo) would not survive.
Posted by Ross at 12:52 AM on June 12
The Abos are a mystery to science…how did they originate? Australia separated from the mainland over a hundred million years ago, which means that the Abos either had the technology to build ships or rafts 40,000 years ago, which seems highly unlikely given their primitive, stone-age intellect, or they descended from a primate form unique to Australia which is unknown in the fossil record. Australia has no native primates. So where did they come from? UFOs? Can genetics or their DNA tell us anything? Can their origins be traced back to Africa and Lucy? I need something more scientific than “dream time” to account for their presence in Australia.
Posted by AussieBob at 2:40 PM on June 15
Although I was aware of their low IQ levels I had always regarded them as much more laid back and less violent then the African blacks and they don’t seem to be closely genetically related - some articles suggest a closer relation to the Dravidian tribes from South India.
I was also aware of the alcoholism and child abuse problems in their villages. But it came as a surprise to discover that there is considerable racial tension and violence directed towards the white population from gangs of Aboriginal males who are very much over-represented in Australian prisons.
http://australian-news.com.au/abocrime.htm
Posted by An interested observer at 1:37 PM on June 16