Alcoholic parents force children to suckle dogs

Telegraph.co.uk ^ | 27/02/2008 | Nick Squires

[forkinsocket]

Aboriginal children in Outback Australia are so neglected by their alcoholic parents that some have suckled from dogs' teats in a desperate search for food, it has been reported.

The shocking revelation came from a coroner investigating the appalling rates of suicide among Aborigines living in the remote and beautiful Kimberley region of Western Australia.

Earlier this month the prime minister, Kevin Rudd, delivered a much-publicised apology to Aborigines for past injustices, but critics questioned whether his words would lead to any practical improvement in the wretched lives of indigenous people.

"The plight of the little children was especially pathetic and, for many of these, the future is bleak," said coroner Alastair Hope.

He was presenting a 122 page report into the deaths of 22 men and women in the region since 2000, some by suicide but all linked to alcohol and drugs.

During his research, he heard evidence that malnourished children had been sucking the teats of dogs for food and that young men had attempted suicide after being refused a can of beer.

Aborigines in isolated towns like Fitzroy Crossing lived in overcrowded, ramshackle houses surrounded by rubbish and with little furniture. People slept on filthy foam mattresses beside diseased dogs in temperatures which reach 40C or more in summer.

"In these communities there is nothing to do for most of the inhabitants for most of the time. Alcohol and drugs provide an escape," Mr Hope said.

There was "little refinement" about the binge drinking, with Aborigines becoming stone drunk on warm beer and wine mixed together. Some died after wandering onto roads and being hit by cars.

The welfare of Aboriginal people was nothing less than "a disaster", Mr Hope said, in a report which highlighted how little Aborigines have benefited from Australia’s 17-year run of economic prosperity.

"These are horrific findings from the coronial inquiry," said indigenous affairs minister Jenny Macklin.

"Findings that I'm sorry to say are repeated in many parts of remote Australia." Alcohol abuse was so entrenched among Aborigines in the Kimberley that foetal alcohol syndrome was 21.5 times higher compared with the rest of Western Australia.

Mr Hope said that widespread alcohol abuse and extreme negligence left Aboriginal children vulnerable to sexual abuse. Despite spending GBP 565 million a year on tackling Aboriginal disadvantage, the Western Australian government's approach was "seriously flawed" because funds were allocated to 22 different agencies with little coordination.

The coroner called for restrictions on the availability of full-strength alcohol and the linking of welfare payments with adults’ caring adequately for their children.

"Even if we did everything right as from today, we are still heading into hell. We have a huge problem from the legacy of the past," said a local MP, Tom Stephens.

"Even just tackling everything right from now, we've got a descent into chaos and crisis like you would never believe possible."

[forkinsocket]

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[Twinkie]

Prayers up for this situation to be corrected. It looks like prayer is the only real roadway to an answer here.

[ecomcon]

Welfare kills the spirit.

[LaineyDee]

It looks like prayer is the only real roadway to an answer here.

You're right. A gov't program isn't the answer......for it can't change the heart.

[Cronos]

This is what happens when an advanced culture meets a less advanced one -- the Brits were industrial age while the Aborigines were stone-age: they hadn't even smelted bronze yet. It was inevitable that the more primitive one died one, and that the people themselve died out -- imagine if tomorrow aliens with the technology of Star Wars came to earth: humanity would atrophy very quickly. Ditto for colonisation in sub-saharan Africa: the local culture was in the bronze age, but no real nation states, just tribes (as even england was until Alfred the Great in the 9th century), so they were about 900 years behind (unlike the poor Aborigines who didn't stand a chance as they were millenia behind

Then, you look at the colonisation of the Americas: most Southern and Central American societies were about 500 years behind the Europeans, so they suffered lesser than the Africans.

Then, finally, colonisation in Asia: until the mid-1700s, Asia was actually culturally and civilisationally more advanced than Europe, but when Europe entered the industrial age (and Britain industrialised extremely rapidly), they got left behind: until 1815, India and China accounted for about 50% of the world's GDP. In 1900, those two nations accounted for barely 2% of the world's GDP.

The entire turmoil we are having now with these two giants slowly waking up is no more than them reclaiming their earlier position in the world economy

[mamelukesabre]

They just need something to do. As for the children suckling dogs, that’s no big deal. This is traditional aboriginal practice.

They need jobs.

[mamelukesabre]

Theres’ no reason why a conquering culture can’t assimilate the conquered, rather than let them rot.

How do you know humanity would atrophy very quickly? It might instead progress very quickly.

[r9etb]

How do you know humanity would atrophy very quickly? It might instead progress very quickly.

History strongly suggests otherwise. For example, look at the American Indians, or even black people in America. I think it's probably a culture thing, more than anything else. The conquered people want to maintain their culture, and the conquerors have no time or respect for the culture they've conquered. The result is that those who practice the old culture are marginalized or worse.

On the other hand, there are those cultures who have been treated as "dependents," and given their means of survival without having to work for it ... and those folks very often have high rates of alcoholism, suicide, and various other societal ills.

[giobruno]

The lives these people lead is actually much worse that the article can hope to describe. A dead-end, stone age culture is allowed to stay afloat through welfare payments that are, in turn, applied to anesthetize themselves from their circumstance, and all of this is kept running through white guilt and an unwillingness to compel this “culture” to step out of their said circumstances. If you want to have any hope of putting a stop to any of this, the children must be taken from their “homes” and educated in western schools, and according to western cultural principles. Oh, I seem to recall that we’ve been here before. The great lie of multiculturalism is you cannot look at a dead-end culture and pronounce it as such; you have to stand around and watch it destroy generation after generation while the artists make movies telling you they lead noble lives in opposition to the cruelty of the dominant culture.

[mamelukesabre]

Native americans did progress rapidly in terms of warfare. THey adopted the enemy’s weapons. They learned to counter the enemy’s tactics and machines. There is IMMENSE respect for native american culture on the part of the conquering white anglos...well, parts of it that is.

[Eska]

The conquerers don't want to assimiliate the conquered; they just want them to go away. American Indian is perfect example. We live a mile from a traditional Indian Village and have lived as the only white boy in other villages. 85% of the members have alcohol or drug problems, 80% of the kids are FAS, massive suicide, spousal, child abuse & related probs caused by the alcohol. It's the modern day method of genocide; and it works; they are going extinct fast. There were 400 Indians here 100 years back, now 28 remain.

All the govt has to do is allow the village leadership to close down the white bootleggers & white owned package stores, but that's the last thing that will ever happen. Heck, I remember hearing the one liquor store owner brag how he was killing them off, one at a time. The local chief went to state liquor board begging them to shut these booze stores down and they refused. Said being 18 miles away, the booze store had no effect on the Indians. Two weeks prior, one of the local Indians froze to death in snowbank walking the 18 miles home from store. Right here in America, they freeze to death, burn up drunk in cabins, lose all their kids, kill each other all drunked up, kill themselves, and continue to disappear as a people; as our govt turns a blind eye.

Once they are all dead, it will stop; probably the same down in Australia.

[mamelukesabre]

The ones with casinos seem to being doing ok.

[Eska]

Maybe you’ve never been around any real Indians who actually live off what the land provides; you know, were stoneage 50 years back.

If your conception of Native Americans is that of half breeds who are mostly white and don’t know anymore about their real cultural heritage or living the native way; having been raised for many generations in the our dominent Amer culture; well you are way off track.

LOwer 48 Casino Indians are often no more native than I am Scottish (where my people came from in 1698). No casions in ALaska. Once a few years back, my native neighbor invited me to a meeting concerning village support to change state law that forbids casinos in AK. ONe of the old grandmas (who hold the real power in our villages) got up and said that casinos & gambling hurt Natives & Whites alike and as long as she was in charge; there would be no more gambling talk around here.

Your Natives & or half breed Indians down there must have learn’t all too well from us greedy gusach whites.

Ya know another reason why Indians up here drink themselves away. Because they have seen everything they started with lost over the last hundred years and they don’t see it changing.

[Twinkie]

When alcohol is dropped into native cultures that haven’t developed the hereditary means of assimilation of alcohol due to gradual introduction of strong liquor into the gene pool, then the abrupt introduction into a gene pool seems to be starkly tragic. - People need to be able to be themselves without too much interference from government.

[Eska]

I live in an unorganized borough. THat mean no prop taxes to fund more govt and we have very poor dirt roads & none of the services you take for granted and I like it that way. No organized govt means more freedom. Also AK is a very antitax state; no state income or sales taxes. The people believe the govt can live on what the oil wealth produces and no more, not as much as you would think but without growth in tax revenue; you have less govt, more freedom.

I agree that Indians are predisposed genetically to have alcohol problems, I see it everyday, I see the ghouls walking around the village between govt checks. That is what funds the genocide, the govt checks & coupons; all goes for booze. BUT, the end result is death of entire villages all across Ak. Maybe the govt should revoke all heroin laws, not interfere with people being themsleves you know. It’s kinda the same with Indians & booze; and the govt is looking the otherway for one basic reason. The govt wants the Indian problem to go away and once they all go extinct, the govt will get their land anyway; if they haven’t already traded it to whites for cases of whiskey.

[BfloGuy]

Rudd’s apology should take care of this mess.

[Swiss]

I got the following off an Aussie web site.

**AUSTRALIAN APOLOGY TO THE ABORIGINAL POPULATION
This must have come to me at least 100 times in the last week and although I’m pretty sure I’ve posted it before, there are a few compelling points. Decide for yourself...

We apologise for giving you doctors and free medical care, which allows you to survive and multiply so that you can demand apologies.

We apologise for helping you to read and teaching you the English language and thus we opened up to you the entire European civilisation, thought and enterprise.

We feel that we must apologise for building hundreds of homes for you, which you have vandalised and destroyed.

We apologise for giving you law and order which has helped prevent you from slaughtering one another and using the unfortunate for food purposes.

We apologise for developing large farms and properties, which today feed you people, where before, you had the benefits of living off the land and starving during droughts.

We apologise for providing you with warm clothing made of fabric to replace that animal skins/dogs you used before.

We apologise for building roads and railway tracks between cities and building cars so that you no longer have to walk over harsh terrain.

We apologise for paying off your vehicle when you fail to pay the instalments.

We apologise for giving you free travel anywhere, whenever.

We apologise for giving each and every member of your family $100.00 and free travel to attend an aboriginal funeral.

We apologise for not charging you rent on any lands when white people have to pay.

We apologise for giving you interest free loans.

We apologise for developing oil wells and minerals, including gold and diamonds which you never used and had no idea of their value.

We apologise for developing Ayers Rock and Kakadu, and handing them over to you so that you get all the money.

We apologise for allowing taxpayers money paid towards daughters’ wedding ($8,000.00 each daughter)

We apologise for giving you $1.7 billion per year for your 250,000 people, which is $48,000.00 per aboriginal man, woman and child.

We apologise for working hard to pay taxes that finance your welfare, medical care, education, etc to the tune of $1.2 billion each year.

We apologise for you having to approach the aboriginal affairs department to verify the above figures, for the trouble you will have identifying the “uncle toms” in your own community who are getting richer and leaving some of you living in squalor and poverty.

We do apologise. We really do. We humbly beg your forgiveness for all the above sins.

We are only too happy to take back all the above and return you to the paradise of the “outback”, whenever you are ready!**

[FrdmLvr]

Western civilization certainly can learn much from the wealth of values from these diverse cultures.