OnDusk

Home Truths by Siv Parker It splatters across every community.  It congeals around every decision.  It is the stench that clouds every fresh idea.  It stains every wasted opportunity. The Aboriginal community is awash with violence.   And then it slunk into social media like a mangy dog, and then the outside world started to get a look at what had afflicted Indigenous families – the families that hadn’t found ways to prosper and nurture their own. Violence that has gotten under the skin and into the blood. Violence that stuns, maims and kills. It is part of how we talk, meet, live and love.   Either we are avoiding it, rebuilding after suffering it or reprogramming after being decimated by it. The prevailing tendency within Aboriginal politics is not to debate, it is to groom. Strong opinions attract sanctions on one hand, or flowery approvals on the other. Hostility and swift condemnation keep gates tightly shut. Tactics designed to maint...

BLOG ANNOUNCEMENT: OnDusk  was selected for preservation by the  National Library of Australia . This title is scheduled to be re-archived regularly.   PANDORA  is a digital  archive  – set up by the National Library of Australia and now in collaboration with nine other libraries and collection agencies - dedicated to the preservation of and long term access to Australian online electronic publications of national significance. Why did I start writing? Because I looked around at what had been said about Aboriginal people and the picture of Aboriginal Australians was missing pieces.    There was a little bit of the background – a generic landscape, where no one lived.    Modern day myths were in the foreground, a fresh coating regularly applied. All I could see were holes. Where is the bone breaking, teeth shattering violence of men against their women and their children? Where is the clawing, grasping, snarling, sp...

PANDORA'S BOX By Siv Parker 3 November 2015 BLOG ANNOUNCEMENT: OnDusk was selected for preservation by the National Library of Australia . This title is scheduled to be re-archived regularly.   PANDORA is a digital archive – set up by the National Library of Australia and now in collaboration with nine other libraries and collection agencies - dedicated to the preservation of and long term access to Australian online electronic publications of national significance. In the early days, to my mind, my blog - my tiny online space on the internet - was a small café off the main street.    My cafe was an old building, faded paint and weathered wood, but the window panes were intact and clean, and the large wooden door swung easily on its hinges.  From the very first, I swept the worn stone steps everyday and tweaked dead leaves from the potted shrubs that sat either side of the wide doorway.  Inside, nests of...