Walk around the sprawling community of Wadeye and you will be assailed by children, quick to spot a stranger in town. They crowd around curiously and talk to you in broken English but chatter among themselves in Murrinh-patha, the indigenous language of this former Catholic mission. Six other languages are spoken here, all of them endangered, making Wadeye a laboratory for linguists.
"Language is our identity and if we forget our identity, we are nothing," says Patrick Nudjulu, sheltering from the sun on the veranda of his house.
A patriarchal figure, with white beard and a leg withered by leprosy, he points to his grandchildren playing nearby.
Speaking in their mother tongue will keep them connected to their culture, says this old man. But he encourages the children to go to school to do their sums and to learn how to speak in English.
"You need to be able to talk to the white fella," he says.
Wadeye, pronounced Wad-air, sits on the edge of the Daly River Reserve, 280km southwest of Darwin in Australia's Northern Territory. The country's largest indigenous community, it has a population of 2,700, comprising 24 clans, seven tribes and three ceremonial groups. The ethnic mix is a throwback to the 1930s when missionaries persuaded indigenous groups to live together.
Cut off by road for up to five months of the rainy season, any visitors come in by air. The flight is over forests and woodlands, towering cliffs, vast wetlands, paperbark and mangrove swamps. It is wild and beautiful country. The few outsiders permitted to come here arrive at the airstrip on the edge of the township and find a settlement resembling a shantytown. At first glance, it seems a picture of dysfunction.
There is litter everywhere and none of the niceties of life that white people in suburbs of Sydney or Canberra take for granted, such as shops and cafes.
Many of the buildings are boarded up and covered in graffiti. A glance inside reveals that most are largely unfurnished, apart from cookers, a few chairs and mattresses, televisions and stereos, many of which blast out music at all hours.
There are no well-tended gardens and people can't help but bring in mud and dirt, especially in the wet season. Overcrowding is rife and an average of 17 people live in each house, following the Aboriginal tradition of living in family groups.
squalor
Some of the tenants, who are clearly depressed and lethargic, do not seem to notice the squalor that they are living in or the smells around them.
There is high unemployment in Wadeye. Most people exist on welfare payments. There are also endemic health problems associated with overcrowding, poor hygiene and a lack of education.
Pat Rebgetz, the only doctor serving this community of 2,700 people, says health care has been under-funded for decades and there is only so much he and his team of community nurses can do in their "crummy" health care center. Residents suffer high rates of heart disease, rheumatic fever, skin sepsis and nephritis. Some 20 to 30 percent of children have perforated ear drums due to chronic infection. Some children are malnourished. There are 80 births a year, some to 13- and 14-year-olds.
"This is happening because of decades of neglect," Rebgetz said. "I feel the politicians think these people are not worth it."
"They largely believe the Aboriginal people have brought all this on themselves. There are a lot of gentle, good people here who have just been beaten down by their living conditions," he said. "The grandmothers are the backbone of this community. I am in awe of how they can survive among all this dysfunction."
"Everyone knows what the problem is. It's not rocket science. If you want to improve the health of people here, you have to improve their living conditions. The basic problem is overcrowding and the lack of hygiene. We all knew it 100 years ago when we were living in slums, but it's still happening now," he said.
Wadeye is an alcohol-restricted community.
"There are a lot more Aboriginal non-drinkers than there are drinkers," Rebgetz said. "But all Aborigines get tarred with the same brush."
He says that because alcohol is proscribed, a lot of young men spend their dole money on marijuana.
"There are a lot of young men here in their twenties and thirties who haven't had an education. They don't have anything to do. They don't have any responsibilities," he said. "It's hard to apply Western values but there's an Aboriginal style of child rearing that lets kids do what they want. There's a lot of cultural stuff about kinship that means you are obliged to feed a family member if he comes in and says he's hungry or give him somewhere to stay but now that's been turned into kids hassling their grandmothers for money. It's hard for people to stand up to that."
"I see 18-year-olds and if they're sent into Darwin it's like going to the moon. They need an older person who has English to go with them and to be their interpreter. What chance do these kids have? I don't understand it," Rebgetz said.
"The government has a A$13 billion [US$11 billion] surplus this year but there's a A$2 billion to A$3 billion deficit around Aboriginal communities for housing and infrastructure. Why aren't they spending it on these people? They're citizens of this country too," he said.
He said Wadeye waited two years for a donga, a portable building, to use as a men's clinic and it has only just arrived. But when the police asked for a similar building, it arrived in three weeks.
"I'm a total cynic but I'm not cynical about these people," he said.
The people of Wadeye are wary of journalists because most of the headlines about the town have been about riots that broke out in 2005 -- between two gangs called Judas Priest and Evil Warriors. Walking around town it seems most young people belong to gangs of some kind, seemingly harmless. A group of giggling girls say they belong to the Tina Turner gang, and apparently there is one named after Celine Dion. At the dongas where visitors stay, food that I had bought at Wadeye's only general store was stolen a few hours after I arrived. Children of 12 or 13 had been hanging around but they took crisps and biscuits, leaving a gold chain and a computer. With so few resources here, it does not seem surprising bored young people form gangs and that violence inevitably erupts every now and then.
Local people play down the riots of 2005, but they gave Wadeye a reputation as a lawless place. The town now has strong leadership in the form of Thamarrurr Council, made up of representatives from each of the clans. It is working hard for the common good, developing ways to bring employment such as a commercial fishing scheme and training young men to be bush mechanics. Other projects include building houses -- more than 200 are needed urgently -- developing recreation grounds, improving roads, and installing street lighting -- 95 percent of the town is in darkness at night.
"We're trying to normalize the town," spokesman John Bertos said. "I think this community is doing fantastically well. It's only 80 years since they had contact with the white man. Of course there are a lot of problems here but there are also good things, the culture and the language, the closeness of families, the strength of leadership in men and women."
A massive task is ahead of those who want to improve Wadeye but after a few days visitors begin to look past the distressing living conditions and discover the people of Wadeye are sustained by their culture, which is kept alive through songs, legends and stories. Retaining their traditional language is part of that. Murrinh-patha, the language of the Kardu Diminin clan that owns the land on which Wadeye stands, is spoken by everyone while the other languages, spoken by only a handful of elders, are in danger of becoming extinct.
At Our Lady of the Sacred Heart School in Wadeye, children are taught in Murrinh-patha and in English.
"Language is strong here and people want to hold on to it," said Tobias Nganbe, co-principal. "But we also want our children to be proficient in English so that they will be strong people on their own lands, have similar employment opportunities to white kids and be able to move between their own culture and mainstream Australian culture."
The teaching staff have an uphill struggle. According to activists, one of the reasons so many Aborigine children do not speak English competently is a shameful lack of resources and a shortage of teachers qualified to teach English as a second language.
Another reason is the dismal school attendance figures among Aborigine students. At Wadeye, 600 children are enrolled at school but only 300 attend regularly. The picture is the same at other Aborigine schools and this has prompted Prime Minister John Howard's government to float the idea of diverting welfare payments from parents whose children do not attend.
The reasons for non-attendance are many. Some Aboriginal parents did not have happy experiences at school and do not believe it is important to send their children. In many communities, including Wadeye, schools have been so under-funded that there are not enough classrooms or teachers. Inevitably, children and their parents become disillusioned.
discrimination
Last month, Wadeye lodged a landmark complaint in the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission alleging that for three decades local and federal governments deliberately discriminated against the community by under-funding the school. The class action case, prepared by pro bono lawyers, includes every resident of school age in Wadeye since 1979. It is based on a study that found that for every A$1 spent educating the average child in the Northern Territory only A$0.48 was spent on a child in Wadeye. The figures were said to have been calculated by a funding formula that gauges attendance instead of enrollment.
The same study also found that local and national governments overspent on "negative" areas in Wadeye such as policing and criminal justice and under-spent on "positive" areas such as education and job creation. Wadeye is the first Aboriginal community in Australia to launch such an action and, if it wins, it wants compensation in the form of vocational and remedial education for people now unemployed and on welfare.
On my last day in Wadeye, the Nudjulu family took me to their outstation at Kuy, 40km away. Patrick rested in the shade while his wife Mona and grandchildren went hunting for mud-crabs in the mangrove swamp for eating later.
Patrick, who speaks several Aboriginal languages, as well as English, told me he was educated at Wadeye in the early mission days and put up in dormitories with other children.
"I was born here, in the bush," he said. "I used to run away and walk back here."
He laughs heartily: "I'm happy to be here still."
Speaking at the Copenhagen Democracy Summit on May 13, former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said that democracies must remain united and that “Taiwan’s security is essential to regional stability and to defending democratic values amid mounting authoritarianism.” Earlier that day, Tsai had met with a group of Danish parliamentarians led by Danish Parliament Speaker Pia Kjaersgaard, who has visited Taiwan many times, most recently in November last year, when she met with President William Lai (賴清德) at the Presidential Office. Kjaersgaard had told Lai: “I can assure you that ... you can count on us. You can count on our support
Denmark has consistently defended Greenland in light of US President Donald Trump’s interests and has provided unwavering support to Ukraine during its war with Russia. Denmark can be proud of its clear support for peoples’ democratic right to determine their own future. However, this democratic ideal completely falls apart when it comes to Taiwan — and it raises important questions about Denmark’s commitment to supporting democracies. Taiwan lives under daily military threats from China, which seeks to take over Taiwan, by force if necessary — an annexation that only a very small minority in Taiwan supports. Denmark has given China a
Many local news media over the past week have reported on Internet personality Holger Chen’s (陳之漢) first visit to China between Tuesday last week and yesterday, as remarks he made during a live stream have sparked wide discussions and strong criticism across the Taiwan Strait. Chen, better known as Kuan Chang (館長), is a former gang member turned fitness celebrity and businessman. He is known for his live streams, which are full of foul-mouthed and hypermasculine commentary. He had previously spoken out against the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and criticized Taiwanese who “enjoy the freedom in Taiwan, but want China’s money”
A high-school student surnamed Yang (楊) gained admissions to several prestigious medical schools recently. However, when Yang shared his “learning portfolio” on social media, he was caught exaggerating and even falsifying content, and his admissions were revoked. Now he has to take the “advanced subjects test” scheduled for next month. With his outstanding performance in the general scholastic ability test (GSAT), Yang successfully gained admissions to five prestigious medical schools. However, his university dreams have now been frustrated by the “flaws” in his learning portfolio. This is a wake-up call not only for students, but also teachers. Yang did make a big
RSS