Fragony on 13/2/2008 at 13:37
Quote Posted by Muzman
Gestures of regret are very important in aboriginal culture here, that's really the point.
(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0382765/) Jindabyne was an interesting look at it.
Regret is good but saying sorry wouldn't come from my mouth. Different times. If they want to settle for a political and thus completily unsincere apoligy for what happened a long time ago, what is it what they really want then. Best not to want anything at all and just let it rest, all that took part of it have been dead for quite some time and it has gotten a whole lot better since we started apoligising for everything everybody did.
Scots Taffer on 13/2/2008 at 13:38
Quote Posted by Thirith
Say your parents stole a lot of money from another family and now the children of that family come to you who has done pretty well from your parents' stolen riches, and they ask for an apology and reparations. Will you tell them, "Fuck off, guys, I didn't do anything"?
Also, national politicians represent their country - and that country, in most if not all cases, has committed a number of wrongs in the past. Those wrongs tend to have some sort of effect on the present, whether you like it or not, even the ones going back centuries (although the effects may be smaller in those cases).
The notion that a nation can sincerely bear the guilt and solemnly swear to be different than their forefathers is nonsense, the entire concept of national identity is bullshit for one and as for your loaded examples, they scream of one-sidedness.
Just to put a different light on things and just put on the perspective that you've thus far ignored, say those people you stole from then went on to become a gang of thieves, murderers and rapists, affecting many lives (some of whom you know through relations or otherwise) - would you still ask the guy whose parents stole their money to apologise with the same po-faced indignity?
edit: Let me be clear that I am not against the Australian goverment paying lip service or indeed attempting to implant the seed of intergenerational empathy and guilt, but it has to be backed up with actions, not just words.
Muzman on 13/2/2008 at 13:47
Quote Posted by Fragony
Regret is good but saying sorry wouldn't come from my mouth. Different times. If they want to settle for a political and thus completily unsincere apoligy for what happened a long time ago, what is it what they really want then. Best not to want anything at all and just let it rest, all that took part of it have been dead for quite some time and it has gotten a whole lot better since we started apoligising for everything everybody did.
Then your conception of language and culture and symolism is basically hamstrung. I doubt it really is and you're being selectively literal like most people who are against this sort of thing. But it's likley you haven't had to share a land with its original owners, whose view of the universe is vastly different from your own. That introduces some complexities. How it plays out remains to be seen.
And anyway, the people are far from long dead. The policies in question were only abandoned in the early seventies.
Thirith on 13/2/2008 at 14:02
Quote Posted by Scots Taffer
The notion that a nation can sincerely bear the guilt and solemnly swear to be different than their forefathers is nonsense, the entire concept of national identity is bullshit for one and as for your loaded examples, they scream of one-sidedness.
Can a nation sincerely bear the guilt? No, not 100%. Can it guarantee to be different from its past selves? Nope. Is national identity a fiction? Absolutely.
This doesn't change that it's nevertheless important for a country to take some amount of responsibility for the past if it wants to move beyond it. It doesn't change that people who say that apologies are nonsensical usually also forgo action, e.g. reparations, even though in many cases the countries still benefit from their earlier acts. And it definitely doesn't change the fact that national identity is one of the most powerful fictions there is. Countries act according to it. Politicians get elected because they appeal to it. As long as you have nationalism, you'll have the dangerous fiction of national identity - act accordingly and don't just uphold some phony nostalgic ideal of what your nation is.
Quote:
Just to put a different light on things and just put on the perspective that you've thus far ignored, say those people you stole from then went on to become a gang of thieves, murderers and rapists, affecting many lives (some of whom you know through relations or otherwise) - would you still ask the guy whose parents stole their money to apologise with the same po-faced indignity?
Nope, but then, I didn't ask for that. I simply asked for a different reaction than, "Fuck it, guys, I didn't do it." I'm asking for a more *mature*, more *adequate* reaction. Why the fuck does internet discussion often reduce even intelligent people to simplistic black/white positions? There's a lot in between saying "It wasn't me, now fuck off" and "We are humbly apologetic, now take all our money and go forth and rape, murder and pillage".
Quote:
edit: Let me be clear that I am not against the Australian goverment paying lip service or indeed attempting to implant the seed of intergenerational empathy and guilt, but it has to be backed up with actions, not just words.
Yes, absolutely. But as I said above: those who think that words are unnecessary usually don't even make it far enough to contemplate action.
Fragony on 13/2/2008 at 14:03
There is the idea of law and how it is applied, these policy's were abandoned long before that. It has happened, germans been a major pain here in WW2 here so what, and many of these people are still alive, I couldn't care less really has nothing to do with current germany, and I didn't get to see the atrocities in the first place. All good with the Teutons. Just let it rest it's gone.
Muzman on 13/2/2008 at 14:10
From memory aboriginal children were being removed right up to 1968/69, making the people affected in their forties, their parents in their sixties and seventies.
Scots Taffer on 13/2/2008 at 14:13
Quote Posted by Thirith
Why the fuck does internet discussion often reduce even intelligent people to simplistic black/white positions?
...
Yes, absolutely. But as I said above: those who think that words are unnecessary usually don't even make it far enough to contemplate action.
On the first point, my counter-example was because I was worried you were simplifying to that reductivist position, and I agree absolutely with the second.
Thirith on 13/2/2008 at 14:18
Quote Posted by Fragony
I didn't get to see the atrocities in the first place.
And you don't see how this is basically advocating total ahistoricity along the lines of "Anything that's more than, say, 50 years in the past is over. Let's forget all about it"?
I didn't live during WW2. I have no Jewish family. The closest I come to some involvement in it is a German great-granduncle (I think) who died in Stalingrad and an English grandfather who was injured during a campaign in Italy. I think it was a swimming accident. Nevertheless (and not only because of doing an MA in History) I think it's right that Germany still acknowledges the nation's responsibility for the Holocaust.
I do not think, however, that this means the Germans should walk around in sackcloth and strew ashes on their heads forever and ever. I do not think that this automatically means they should pay reparations to every country that comes along demanding it. Acknowledging responsibility != eternal guilt trip.
Fragony on 13/2/2008 at 14:26
Quote Posted by Thirith
And you don't see how this is basically advocating total ahistoricity along the lines of "Anything that's more than, say, 50 years in the past is over. Let's forget all about it"?
No it's basicly a complete depoliticisation of history, different times. Now is now, I am not the one using this, it's gone what more do you need. If you want to say you regret what our ancestors did that is fine because it wasn't a very nice thing to do, but if you are speaking for me, and that is what a politician saying sorry does, then no, wasn't me.
Thirith on 13/2/2008 at 14:37
So again: if your country still has some sort of profit from something it did in the past at the cost of some other country, would you say that your country has no responsibility to acknowledge this and act on it whatsoever? (How exactly it should act is a different question.)
As far as your notion of a "complete depoliticisastion of history" is concerned: perhaps we don't mean the same by politics, but I don't think there is such a thing as "depoliticised history". History, its representation, and present attitudes towards it are *always* political to some extent.
