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© Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Climbers rush to beat ban on Australia's iconic rock Uluru
ULURU, Australia©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.
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JeffLee
@starpunk
No, i didn't say that. What's your point?
starpunk
I don't think that the Aborigines would mind if you took a picture of Uluru. It is an Aussie landmark just like the US Grand Canyon. But what would climbing this thing mean, anyway? Some things, esp. natural should just be left alone.
Are you saying that rock paintings and pictographs make a people inferior or stupid? Many other languages use pictographic writing, Chinese certainly uses ideograms and nobody says that the Chinese are 'primitive' or 'uneducated'. The Chinese language is extremely complicated.
browny1
mmwkdwToday 01:08 am JST
Are the indigenous Australians allowed to climb it ? If so, that somewhat sets a precedent over who can go where depending upon a racial identity...
Are you serious or just truly don't know?
No Anangu man, woman or child would ever conceive of the notion to try to climb to the top.
Fox Sora Winters
I agree with the ban on this one. It is a sacred site. Climbing all over Uluru would be like climbing the Vatican. If anything I would have thought that the Japanese would be most sympathetic. I recall reading that one of Japan's most famous Torii gates has been getting damaged over the years due to tourists jamming coins into its cracks, allowing seawater in which causes rotting. Surely climbers, with their climbing gear, is also doing damage to Uluru. It might not seem like much damage, but it builds up over time. If a ban on climbing Uluru isn't implemented, then Uluru won't be around forever. There'll be nothing left but dust and rubble where it used to be.
I don't see that the ban should affect tourism all that much. With the right exhibists and promotions, Uluru will still be able to draw in a vast crowd from all around the world. It's one of the things that Australia is most famous for, after all.
Chip Star
You seem to be saying it is the natives' fault they used the land differently and were educated differently. You also seem to be saying white people's use of the land and education were superior. You then seem to be combining all of this into justification for not using the correct names of places.
JeffLee
Well, what do you expect: the people who make and publish the maps are most often the ones who choose the names of places and things. The natives didn't make maps or publish them, as they lacked the technology and were illiterate. Few people, especially the SJWs, understand the historic and social background to these controversies.
Chip Star
Many people in the US are ignorant simpletons.
mmwkdw
Are the indigenous Australians allowed to climb it ? If so, that somewhat sets a precedent over who can go where depending upon a racial identity...
mmwkdw
No point going there now.
starpunk
Australian Aborigines have been trampled on and their cultures and traditions destroyed and desecrated. And then their children got 'educated' to be part of a newer Australia that really didn't want them in the first place. It's the same all over the world, from North + South America, the NZ Maoris, the Igorot of the Philippines and even Japan's Ainu.
Many people in the US made a stink when Mt. McKinley (named after a POTUS who never visited Alaska) was reverted back to its original Alaska Native name of Denali. This is not a case of PC, it's a case of respect for the original native people there.
'The time has come to say fair's fair
To pay the rent, to pay our share
The time has come, a fact's a fact
It belongs to them, let's give it back' - MIDNIGHT OIL
We can't change the past but we can stop repeating the same stupid mistakes. Climbers cause wear and tear on the Rock's face anyway. The needs of the Aborigines should be honored, this is their reservation. If tourists want to take pics of this natural beauty fine but don't trample on the locals' traditions. Leave the Uluru rock alone.
serendipitous1
Could think of nothing worse than climbing any rock or mountain along with an endless stream of other people.
M3M3M3
@BigYen
Would you admit that you're supporting an ethnically based public policy? It's hard to deny that you're effectively privileging the cultural and religious preferences of one particular ethnic group solely on the basis that they've been there far longer than other groups. It seems impossible to reconcile this with any notion of democracy or equality given that aboriginal numbers pale in comparison to the 'new' Australians who seem to prefer climbing the mountain. Do immigrants to Australia have less of a valid claim on Uluru than the Anangu people? Do immigrants, in general, have a lesser claim on the amenities of the countries they live in?
Would you say the same to women who want to ascend Mount Athos? The indigenous people and traditional owners there have a cultural and religious preference that women don't climb their mountain.
I think this is actually a complex issue because many people who subscribe to a more left-leaning political view tend to instinctively support anything and everything that indigenous peoples ask for, but when you stop to examine what these demands actually entail and what the wider implications are, the demands actually run completely counter to the left-leaning values that these same people claim to champion.
Serrano
Prominent indigenous academic Marcia Langton reacted to the stream of climbers converging on Uluru with a tweet: "A curse will fall on all of them."
I doubt it.
academic
Some academics are really educated idiots.
ClippetyClop
Yes, I was. First time I ever drank Coors. And I was just getting used to Uluru when some bloke who'd never visited it changed its name. Had to go through all my botanical tomes and cross stuff out. Ye Olde PC gone mad it was.
juminRhee
Zichi:
Those mentioned are constructed. No one (except gods or nature) built it. Shouldn't the state or federal govt have some say over this? Imagine mt Fuji or mt Everest being banned because a group considers them sacred. They are not temples of man but of nature...For all.
WilliB
I was not around in 1873. Were you?
ClippetyClop
It's a shame they didn't take your (and your chums) rock-naming sensitivities into account.
You and your mates must have been really furious when they changed it the first time then. All that money wasted on new parchment.
Stop using the proper name for things when they aren't in English already!
Chip Star
Yes, let's all live in ignorance because 1873 was a "heck of a long time" ago.
WilliB
Known to who? Not to me or anybody I know. Ayers Rock has been in world maps, books, brochures, whatever for as long as I know.
Do you seriously want to reprint heaps of existing literature every time some group decides it wants show power by insisting on a name change? Like the Korean kids pasting "East Sea" stickers over "Sea of Japan" in American maps?
That is heck of a long time. And I doubt many people heard of the of Ururu before that. Stop this PC already.
ClippetyClop
I can see how it is confusing for you. It was called Uluru for millenia. It was renamed to Ayers Rock a hundred odd years ago. It is in fact the same place. Hope this helps.
WilliB
I know this thing as Ayers Rock. When did it become Ulurur? This PC renaming of everything makes communication unnecessary complicated.
Kestrel
I support the Anangus wishes regarding this.
browny1
Have been to Uluru 4 times and climbed it on that first visit 36 years ago.
The next time I went the local aboriginal cultural facility had been built and was a place with a wealth of information. I decided then that the value of climbing the "rock" was limited in comparison to having a guided walk about / around it.
A few years ago I took a groiup of Japanese folks there (12) and no one climbed it because it was on "wind-hold" for 3 days. Everyone had a great time without climbing it and really enjoyed hearing the stories of the Anangu's culture and relation with Uluru. Especially they all loved viewing the rock from a distance from morning to evening and witnessing the amazing colour changes.
In addition the nearby Olgas (Kata Tjuta) are as equally breathtaking in their beauty and are fascinating to walk around.
In recent years the number of climbers has dwindled to 12% of visitors, offering proof that by far, most people don't feel the necessity to climb it.
And re the curse - one persons opinion (& curse) does not amount to much. I think you'll find the majority of the indigenous folk wish no ill-will towards and harm upon anyone. That's just a media beat up.
Alex Einz
prominent academic.... ? more like prominent joke
in any case, make it legal but charge a proper bundle to enter the grounds... ,it will reduce the flow and give you budget for higher fences.
As sentimental the whole aborigine culture is, the fact is they lost their land to the colonizers , just like some other tribes that were there before them and so on..
Attilathehungry
I agree. Seems the local people want to have their cake and eat it too. It's OK for tourists to come and gawk at the rock, walk/bike around it, but somehow climbing is sacreligious. I always thought that Australia was a secular society anyway...
wtfjapan
Prominent indigenous academic Marcia Langton reacted to the stream of climbers converging on Uluru with a tweet: "A curse will fall on all of them."
so let put a curse on people because they dont believe in something you do.
Uluru was around millions of years before humans were walking on all fours. To say one group of people own Uluru because their ancestors saw it first is just wrong in my opinion