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Aborigines Can Learn from Jews How to Preserve Culture and Prosper
(The Australian) Noel Pearson - I sometimes ponder the peoples of the world, their relative qualities, their contribution to the contemporary world and their role in history. I sometimes ask myself which peoples I most admire. At the top of my list are the Jewish people. No people have contributed more to civilization than the Jews. They have led or played decisive roles in developing or powering philosophical movements at all points of the spectrum. Beleaguered peoples such as my own could do worse than draw upon the example of the Jews. They offer some lessons about how a culturally distinct people might hold their own and succeed in a world that is often without pity. They have never forgotten history and fight staunchly in defense of the truths of history, but they never make their history a burden for the future. They have worked out how to deal with the past without cultivating and nurturing victimhood among themselves. Too many peoples turn victimization in history into the victimhood of the present. They have maintained an identity as a community and a sense of peoplehood, religion, tradition, culture and history while at the same time engaging at the cutting edge of whatever the world has to offer. This is a vision for an Aboriginal future in my part of the country. The writer, an Aboriginal leader and activist, is director of the Cape York Institute for Policy and Leadership.