I think there is a political agenda to move us away from using the term “Aboriginal”.

The reason is, it’s too powerful. The three part criteria of Aboriginal person under Commonwealth law;

1. Descent
2. Self-identification
3. Community identification

This corresponds with UN General Assembly Resolution 2625 in terms of ‘the people of the colony’ where it states;

The territory of a colony or other Non-Self-Governing Territory has, under the Charter, a status separate and distinct from the territory of the State administering it; and such separate and distinct status under the Charter shall exist until the people of the colony or Non-Self-Governing Territory have exercised their right of self-determination in accordance with the Charter, and particularly its purposes and principles.

We are not part of the administering State. We are attached to the land, and we can speak for the land; they can not. That’s the whole reason why they want to recognise us in the Constitution – to formally take away this distinct status and assimilate a ‘Voice to Parliament’ or; the voice to speak for country.

The three part criteria for Aboriginality is clearly not a racial definition – otherwise we would be having our skulls measured or our blood quantum determined to get Abstudy. It is a political definition. Australia is very inappropriately using the “races” power on this political community, and they have been using this for some time. It’s actually pretty amazing how this fact goes unremarked.

It is the people who are under colonial subjugation that have the right to independence. The definition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are almost* exactly the people who hold that right. Now – these peoples are also under their own laws, and that will affect how they go about making choices. It includes full blood people in the desert and light-skinned Aboriginal people in the city. It includes law holders and newly identified but accepted people. But the way that wider body of people make decisions is a separate, internal issue. That’s why the original law is so important – as it will give a foundation of strength to bring the people together as a whole. Without it, we will be divided and conquered. Fealty to the true original law is everything here – even if you a not a law holder, you need to work to uphold the law.

*I say ‘almost’ – because the definition denies us to right to include people without descent in our community. But we don’t generally do that anyway – except perhaps with Torres Strait adoption practices (which the government only recently decided to recognise! Now you know why)

Getting rid of ‘Aboriginal’

Once we are assimilated into the constitution, we will no longer have a separate and distinct status. The term will no longer be needed. “Aboriginal” needs to be redefined, or discarded and replaced. Replacement is cleaner because the term Aboriginal has been recycled enough already.

So there is a project underway to replace Aboriginal with “Indigenous”. This has happened like the frog boiling water metaphor – nice and slow, so no one notices what’s going on.

The term “indigenous” first started being used by academics. Then it spread to wider uses from there.

Academics then started insisting that ‘indigenous’ should be capitalised out of “respect”. But this is not appropriate as the term has no clear definition, and it is an adjective with no noun coming after it. Indigenous what? Indigenous peoples? Indigenous flora and fauna? Indigenous Aborigines?

Well, now we know – the end goal has been revealed. It’s “Indigenous Australians”. Which – if we had known that was the goal from the start, we would jumped strait out of that pot of boiling water.

The international concept of being “Indigenous” can be traced back to the Working Group For Indigenous Populations. That working group was one of the UN’s Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights’ 8 working groups studying minority rights. Indigenous rights are MINORITY rights, not SOVEREIGN rights. If indigenous means a special minority – that implies that it’s part of a larger whole. The larger whole – being the colonial state itself.

“Indigenous” is a politically assimilationist concept. By design.

So of course – they want us to stop describing ourselves as “Aboriginal” (with the right to independence and sovereignty) and start describing ourselves as “Indigenous” (assimilated minority rights).

This is probably why there is this (colonially planted) rumour going around that Aboriginal really means “not original”, in the same way as abnormal means “not normal”. But abnormal means – a deviation FROM normal. The preposition ab- means “from”, or “out of”.

I live in Germany and speak German. There are many, many words in German that use the preposition ab-. I can vouch that – at least in German – it means ‘from’, or ‘out of’. I don’t know any German word where it means “not”. And German is fairly closely related to English.

Aboriginal. “It’s too strong for you, Karen”