Senator Price Rejects What She Calls the “Romanticised 'Noble Savage' View of Aboriginal Culture” By James Reed
Senator Price, who did a tremendous job in opposing the Voice referendum, still keeps hitting the Left, hard. She has recently come out and attacked the noble savage romantic primitivism that lies behind much of the philosophy of the Yes side of the Voice. Indeed, this is seen in the very concept of "First Nations," where a diverse set of tribes, who were often a war with each other are regarded as a nation. There is no common heritage, law or language uniting such a diverse group of people, which is the very essence of a nation, a concept which is anyway a product of modernity.
This is an idealised view of pre-modern Aboriginal life which ignores its hardships and constant battles. And indeed, as she says, indigenous people have been lifted from hardship by embracing modernity: "For those people of Indigenous heritage in this country who live successful lives it is because they have absolutely embraced modern Australian culture that comes from western culture."
"Our most marginalised and most dysfunctional are told to remain in a culture and a way of life that no longer serves them in a modern western society."
If Australia needs "reconciliation, then how about having Senator Price as Australia's first Aboriginal prime minister? Put that suggestion to the Left and watch their reaction!
"Shadow Indigenous Affairs spokesperson Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has hit out at what she calls a romanticised 'noble savage' view of Aboriginal culture that traps Indigenous people 'in abject poverty' and cycles of violence and abuse.
In a wide-ranging interview with Daily Mail Australia on Wednesday, Senator Price said the Voice referendum changed Australia, gave her message for 'Yes' voters and revealed how a run-in with high-profile columnist Peter FitzSimons led to taking precautions with the media.
Senator Price, who along with Warren Mundine led last year's successful campaign against the Indigenous Voice to Parliament, said embracing mainstream values was the only way forward for Indigenous people.
'For those people of Indigenous heritage in this country who live successful lives it is because they have absolutely embraced modern Australian culture that comes from western culture,' she said.
'Our most marginalised and most dysfunctional are told to remain in a culture and a way of life that no longer serves them in a modern western society.'
She argued 'an activist class' put 'an ideological framework over everything' that suggested Aboriginal people needed to be treated differently through a 'lens of Indigenous culture'.
'Absolutely it's the myth of the noble savage,' she said.
'We see it over and again, especially when you have academics and those who worship traditional culture desperately wanting to believe in the writings of people like Bruce Pascoe, who would prefer to liken Indigenous Australians to Europeans.'
Prof Pascoe's best known book Dark Emu, which is taught in high schools, argues Indigenous Australians had much more advanced farming, housing and cooking techniques at the time of European settlement than previously admitted.
The best-selling work, which was the basis for an ABC documentary, is controversial with some leading anthropologists and archaeologists saying the evidence it presents is weak and selective.
Senator Price believes a mythologised past is hampering the future of Indigenous people.
'It's really a romanticised version of what the academics and those who live in big major cities think that what culture is,' she said.
'Everything gets completely and utterly romanticised and when that occurs those who are suffering the most continued to be ignored.
'The reason we are not getting ahead is because many of those who have a bit of power continue along that narrative without treating Indigenous Australians as Australians.
'It's the easy way to shift blame and therefore agency and responsibility from the lives of our vulnerable. We have to stop doing that which is why I argue that we have to serve Australians on the basis of need rather than race.'
Senator Price believed October's Voice referendum, which saw over 60 per cent of voters reject the constitutionally enshrined advisory body, demonstrated that average Australians 'understand what is actually going on'."
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