The book is 'Why Warriors lie down and die' by Richard Trudgen. It may be different viewed from your, mine or other viewpoints, but it definately gives some understanding. It is about invasion, about no

respect, no cultural understanding and the most important - about having just 'one right way'.

Yolŋu are an Indigenous Australian people inhabiting north-eastern Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory of Australia. Yolŋu means 'person' in the Yolŋu languages. Their word for

 European, Balanda, is derived from "Hollaender" (Dutch person). 

'For thousands of years the clans had respected each others's estates. So when these Yolŋu saw the white man's animals eating their grass, they saw the animals as theirs. They started killing some of the cattle to feed their clan. They didn't know that this white man tought he had the legal right to the land.' p.19

'According to Yolŋu thinking, anyone who would kill woman and children in cold blood had no right to exist. Their reasoning was that no human being who had a spirit and any sense of law, order and justice could do such a thing.' p.25

Yolŋu has/d different law system, they have been living in the different way of respecting and appreciating nature, property, responsibility. They lived the way that worked for them for centuries until white man came and wanted to make his European law and way of living. 

'If any Yolŋu are cought killing cattle of stealing from Balanda they will be arrested and put in jail. The also started to call themselves 'native police'  amd they had to arrest anyone who broke white man's law. 'What law?' Yolŋu thought.. These white people know nothing of law when they march into someone else's estate and treat it as though the own it' p.20

This passage gives a view how 'development' has been made, how people dealt with each other using power, guns and word 'law' as a protector for all crimes commited. 

'All the people with whom Yolŋu have battked since 1900 have had one thing in common: the desire to exercise control over Yolŋu and their resources and exert authority over them.' p. 53

I will came back to this topic and book as I find it interesting to find reasons why development as in European or West meaning in not succesfull. I can see a pattern out of 60 pages I have read, but I would like to ask you to think about ways development have been empowered and carried out. 

Photo: Gawaratj Munungurr becoming his 'shark dreaming' totem during the traditional Yolngu judicial trial known as a Makarrata. His sentence will be a spearing in the leg. Yilpara beach.
Date: Unknown
Photographer: Tom Murray