| I acknowledge the traditional
owners of the land on which we meet today.
- Popular expression in Australia
You cannot do good things to Aboriginal people. You can only
do good things with Aboriginal people.
- Australia
Says Sorry to Stolen Generation
If we don't all prosper together, then nothing will have been
achieved.
- Eels,
Stone Houses and National Heritage
The measure by which we should test our laws and our institutions
is to ask how they work for the poor, the marginalized and the
culturally distinct. It's never enough that they work well for
the rich, well educated members of the dominant culture.
Larissa Behrendt, Perils,
Real or Imagined (2005)
Building genuine partnerships with Aboriginal people isn't just
about benefiting indigenous Australians. Perhaps non-Aboriginal
Australia can learn from a people who have survived 60,000 years
on this harsh continent. We will then be on the way to developing
an equal partnership that makes Aboriginal health 'everyone's
business'. Don't be put off if you are unsure how to proceed.
Those ten women showed me, in a way I'll never forget, that
you don't have to know the answers. You don't even have to know
the questions. What you need to do for successful consultation
is to know how to build trust, show respect, listen and not
be hurried.
- Anthony Hillin, Walking
the path together
It seems to me that if we can imagine the injustice then we
can imagine its opposite.
- Paul Keating, (sampled in From
little things big things grow)
To learn about the world through first-hand, one-on-one meetings
with people from around the world is a valuable human experience.
We discover universal themes of human culture. We become more
aware that no matter where we live we are all confronting similar
situations as we ultimately become a global community.
- Deborah McLaren, Rethinking
Tourism and Ecotravel: The Paving of Paradise and How You Can
Stop It
The buses pull up and out they all get, wander around for five
minutes, and then off they go again. How can you show someone
thousands of years of history and culture in five minutes?
- Jonathan
Nadji, Kakadu National Park
You can't grow wealthy if you have treated your relatives right.
- Navajo saying
By sharing our cultures with each other we will learn. And
once we learn we will know. And when we know we will understand.
And when we understand we can appreciate each other. This is
our vision for our people from the past, to the present and
into the future.
- Aroha Crowchild, quoted online World
Tourism Directory
I had many times paused at trade shows, poolsides and hotel
lobbies and watched, from a safe distance, various ethnic spectacles
and performances, almost choking on the Post-it Note mysticism.
I couldn't help but feel that deep, rich cultures and traditions
were too often reduced to dinner shows for the mobile rich ...
In these brief, one-sided encounters, there is no chance to
understand the people behind the dances and battle cries, no
real celebration of a vibrant, living culture.
- Richard Bangs, The
Quest for Kaitiakitanga: The Ancient Maori Secret from New Zealand
We cannot imagine that the descendants of people whose genius
and resilience maintained a culture here through 50,000 years
or more, through cataclysmic changes to the climate and environment,
and who then survived two centuries of dispossession and abuse,
will be denied their place in the modern Australian nation.
- Paul Keating, Redfern
Aboriginal Australia Speech
Queen Isabella did not send Christopher Columbus on a voyage
of discovery, she gave him a franchise that demanded that he
exploit what he discovered for the mercantile gain of the franchise
owner. In the new world, God would reward wealth, not understanding.
It was exploited without ever being explored.
- Brian Fawcett, Cambodia:
A Book for People Who Find Television Too Slow
A young crew of Spanish adventurers were dispatched into the
heart of the North American continent to locate the mythical
Seven Cities of Cíbola. They penetrated the continent
to what is now Central Kansas. The trek of these conquerors
amounted to the establishment of a line that would divide history
and prehistory.
- Wes Jackson, Becoming
Native to This Place
We are still more the cultural descenants of Columbus and Coronado
than we are of the natives we replaced.
- Wes Jackson, Becoming
Native to This Place
I came away from the WES gathering excited by the positive
energy and the passion and commitment of countless people. However,
I also came away with the realization that there is a tremendous
'divide' between the international agencies and the indigenous
leadership. The buzzword in the research and at the conferences
is that 'local people' need 'capacity building.' With all due
sincere respect, I would like to suggest that there is also
a need for 'capacity building' within the international agencies
themselves.
- Consultant quoted in Reflections
on the International Year of Ecotourism
Manaki Whenua, Manaki Tangata, Haere whakamua' (Care for the
land, Care for people, Go forward)
- Maori proverb and the title of a 2007 photo exhibit
Hay que ganar la confianza de las indigenas.
- Conversation
In this cold commodity culture
Where you lay your money down
It's hard enough to notice
That all this world is holy ground
-
Bruce Cockburn, The Gift
Many indigenous communities are based on a complex hierarchy
of familial ties, which for many tourists from Western cultures
where extended family ties are diminishing is a fascinating
concept that they wish to view, experience and understand.
- Sue Beeton, Community
Development for Tourism
|
