If our understanding is wrong, all the money and goodwill in the world will not solve the problem. The conventional wisdom places most of the blame on dispossession, racism and the non-recognition of Aboriginal rights and culture. Even if this were true, it does not follow that the solutions which are widely promoted are going to be effective. Indeed, the thrust of many well-meaning contemporary enthusiasms may help perpetuate the very conditions that we condemn. For instance, I do not think that native title is going to be the panacea that many people believe.
Native title is a racist title.
Native title involves the paternalistic and discriminatory assumption that Aborigines should not have the same ability to deal with their property that other Australian citizens take for granted. Finally, it has to be recognised that 'reconciliation starts with the truth'. One positive aspect of the past few decades has been the end to what the anthropologist Bill Stanner called 'the great Australian silence' about Aborigines and what had happened to them in the course of Australia's development. This is most evident in the willingness of most prominent Aborigines and a great many non-Aborigines to support the fraudulent claims about Hindmarsh Island. Or in the credulous reception the media, academics and the churches gave Bringing Them Home , the shoddy report about the 'stolen generations', which treated a truly serious issue in a deceitful and morally frivolous manner.