Firewater No Good for Natives

The Australian prime minister, John Howard, has announced a ban on alcohol and pornography to Aborigines in the Northern Territory. The "sale, possession and transportation of alcohol" will be banned for six months on "Aboriginal-owned land"; it appears that Aboriginal land ownership does not extend to doing as the white man does on his land. Howard, of course, is thinking of the children: "We're dealing with a group of young Australians for whom the concept of childhood innocence has never been present." His excuse is a report with the charming title Little Children Are Sacred, which calls up delightful Victorian visions of sailor suits and pinafores and subject races who knew their place; and which found that "drinking was a key contributor to the collapse of Aboriginal culture and neglect of children". In the white population, of course, drinking is a valuable social activity and a key contributor to the supremacy of white culture and nurturing of children. "There is a strong association between alcohol abuse, violence and sexual abuse of children," claimed one of the inquiry's co-chairs; but only among the Aborigines. "They are consistently the nation's most disadvantaged group, with far higher rates of unemployment, alcohol and drug abuse, and domestic violence." Of course there are underlying causes for this situation. The underlying causes are that Aborigines are disadvantaged, unemployed, alcoholic, drug addicted and violent.