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A review by midlifehedgewitch
The Politics of Suffering: Indigenous Australia and the End of the Liberal Consensus by Peter Sutton
5.0
This is a book that anyone interested in understanding the dysfunction in remote Aboriginal communities in Australia should read. Peter Sutton is an anthropologist, linguist and pre-eminent expert on native title rights and law in Australia. He has lived and worked with Aboriginal communities for nearly 40 years.
In this book, Sutton argues that the 'liberal' solutions to Aboriginal issues, such as heavy investments in land rights law and the white bureaucracies supporting such structures, has come as at the expense of basic human rights for Aboriginal people -such as the right to not be sexually assaulted as a child or a woman. He also argues that cultural relativism, i.e. the argument that traditional culture is always best, that every element of culture is valid even if it causes pain and suffering to individuals and therefore must be kept- has been used by some sections of the Left to turn a blind eye to the appalling conditions in which some Aboriginal people find themselves.
This is not a book for the faint-hearted. Nor is it a book for closed-minded people. It is a book for those with genuine compassion and a progressive attitude towards entrenched poverty and dysfunction in Indigenous cultures.
In this book, Sutton argues that the 'liberal' solutions to Aboriginal issues, such as heavy investments in land rights law and the white bureaucracies supporting such structures, has come as at the expense of basic human rights for Aboriginal people -such as the right to not be sexually assaulted as a child or a woman. He also argues that cultural relativism, i.e. the argument that traditional culture is always best, that every element of culture is valid even if it causes pain and suffering to individuals and therefore must be kept- has been used by some sections of the Left to turn a blind eye to the appalling conditions in which some Aboriginal people find themselves.
This is not a book for the faint-hearted. Nor is it a book for closed-minded people. It is a book for those with genuine compassion and a progressive attitude towards entrenched poverty and dysfunction in Indigenous cultures.