ercles on 13/2/2008 at 08:34
I'm not sure how many of youse outside of Australia would have heard about this but this morning our Prime Minister officially apologised to our Aborigional people for basically fucking up their lives royally by trying to steal their kids and train them to be whiter a few generations back.
It has been quite a controvesial issue for a while down here as our last Prime Minister refused to say sorry, and there are still plenty of people who agree with him. Regardless, it was a terrific speech, and quite a moving moment. I went to a local park where they were had a big screen t.v. up. Unfortunately the opposition minister completely botched his speech.
Check out the speech (
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7241965.stm) here...
Anyway I know we have a few Aussies here who also probably watched it live, but it is a fairly significant page in our history in my opinion, and one well worth noting
SD on 13/2/2008 at 09:21
Generally I don't approve of states apologising for historical wrongs, such as slavery, because there are more than enough contemporaneous wrongs for us to be worrying ourselves with.
But this is a whole different kettle of fish - it's well within living memory and many of the victims of this terrible treatment are still alive.
Now all we need is for the Germans to apologise for World War II! :laff:
ercles on 13/2/2008 at 09:39
Didn't the Krauts apoligise for the holocaust?
SD on 13/2/2008 at 09:45
Holocaust, yes. Everything else, not so much.
Thirith on 13/2/2008 at 09:54
Quote Posted by SD
Generally I don't approve of states apologising for historical wrongs, such as slavery, because there are more than enough contemporaneous wrongs for us to be worrying ourselves with.
I honestly think that the two are connected. Quite often it's countries that hanker for some nostalgic national past and ignore or deny their own mistakes (even if they're hundreds of years in the past) that have a very similar attitude towards their present wrongs.
In that respect, I actually think that Germany's done a pretty good job of facing up to its horrendous past. It's clearly far from a perfect job, but they've fared better at acknowledging their responsibility than most western countries I could think of.
Scots Taffer on 13/2/2008 at 10:36
Well said, plus fuck WWII to a certain extent, as alluded to in your post there are far greater atrocities that have occurred in the distant past and in recent history that go unpunished and without accusation. The Holocaust is the only part of WWII that can be wholly blamed upon Germany to a certain extent and that's the part they've admitted culpability for, let's move on shall we. And even Japan owned up to a lot of shit over POWs etc. WWII is far behind us, culturally; people (and video game developers) need to stop acting like it's the only fucking war that matters.
I'll caveat all that by saying that I know Stronts may have been more or less joking with his original comment, but you never can tell.
EvaUnit02 on 13/2/2008 at 11:21
This appeasement for the "stolen generation" thing is stupid. Like the recent enough story of an aboriginal girl living a happy life with a white foster family, social welfare then "returned her to her people" ... where she was ganged raped and murdered.
SD on 13/2/2008 at 11:47
Quote Posted by EvaUnit02
This appeasement for the "stolen generation" thing is stupid. Like the recent enough story of an aboriginal girl living a happy life with a white foster family, social welfare then "returned her to her people" ... where she was ganged raped and murdered.
What's with the inverted commas around "stolen generation" and "returned her to her people"? Are you implying these children weren't stolen and that they don't belong with their people?
Still, bearing in mind that you apparently think the Australian government has nothing to apologise for and that it's okay to forcibly remove children from their families if you then place them with richer folk, it's fair to say I won't give a tupenny shit about your response either way.
Thirith on 13/2/2008 at 11:47
Quote:
This appeasement for the "stolen generation" thing is stupid.
It's not stupid as such - Australia needs to face up to its racist history - but it may be handled stupidly.
That's often a problem with these things: the idea is a good and important one, but the execution is badly fucked up due to several factors, not least the inability of some organisations that purport to speak for the victims and their descendants to enter into a real dialogue. However, bad execution doesn't invalidate the concept itself - just like shoddy application of the law by law enforcement and courts and the public doesn't invalidate law itself.
Muzman on 13/2/2008 at 12:33
Quote Posted by EvaUnit02
Like the recent enough story of an aboriginal girl living a happy life with a white foster family, social welfare then "returned her to her people" ... where she was ganged raped and murdered.
[citation needed]
The whole thing kinda snuck up on me. I havent been following the press much lately. I heard this was going on but I'd kind of resigned myself to the point of view of the last government, reluctantly; that this was an insurmountable culture clash. Our law and the words they want to hear are incompatible.
But here it is and it's not wishy washy or couched in defensive legalese. Rudd's government are shaping up to be hard charging reformers (yeah, in like two months). I'm impressed anyway. It's good to get it out of the way, what happens next is the real stuff. I haven't read what happening with the aftermath of Howard's basic revokation-of-Aboriginal-homelands land grab in the name of protecting people from poverty and child abuse. That will be the real test.
