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Post by ringdove on Feb 14, 2008 4:06:22 GMT 12
I watched the Australian Parliamentary Apology on Australia Network TV.
Parts of it, including the reactions of the people on the greens, were moving.
It's good of Rudd to have gone through with this.
Yet I think the question of compensation should not appear to have been foreclosed. That issue wont go away.
It would be shortsighted to ignore it. Apart from the principle involved, the First Nation is now only about 2 per cent of the total population of Australia (that was the figure mentioned on TV). I suppose the total compensation burden would not be very high. It would have been farsighted to provide for it.
All this of course does not take away from the big step Rudd has taken. I dont think Australia will be the same again. It IS a new
beginning which, moreover, opens up so many reconciliation issues around the world.
Ringdove
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Post by kokonutwoman on Feb 14, 2008 17:24:47 GMT 12
Watched it too it was very emotional for the First Nation. But trust the opposition to dampen it.
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Post by ringdove on Feb 15, 2008 14:48:46 GMT 12
I suppose they think it might open up other prior issues as well. That's inevitable and can't be helped I suppose.
Ringdove
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Post by kokonutwoman on Feb 15, 2008 19:13:04 GMT 12
And that's it in a nutshell. This is why First Nation people wait so long for apologies because of the implications. An apologise is an admission of guilt and therefore compensation is due.
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Post by ringdove on Feb 16, 2008 3:47:29 GMT 12
There's the other thing that went unnoticed by the commentators on TV.
An apology for the smaller thing ('stolen generations') begs the larger question (of conquest and killed generations). When the smaller thing is made a subject of controversy, the expectation is that people may not talk of the larger thing ( or so the wishful may hope).
But that's the academic in me speaking.
Another part of me says that one must be thankful for each small mercy! One can make oneself miserable with too much of historical accounting.... Given a choice one should go for substantive justice, rather than exact justice, is a lesson I learnt for myself as a lawyer.
Ringdove
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Post by kokonutwoman on Feb 16, 2008 18:03:51 GMT 12
In saying that, historical events tends to leave too many scares in its wake and the scare are worn through the generations. I liken it to the Labour Party's apologise to Samoa for the atrocity in the Spanish Influenza debacle. This was a badge I wore and was sickened with but I suppose that's history for you. Nice chatting with you Ringdove
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Post by ringdove on Feb 17, 2008 4:34:13 GMT 12
It's just amazing how many ramifications these issues can have and how much difference they make.
Nice chatting with you too Kokonutwoman.
Ringdove
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Post by Lux on Feb 23, 2008 9:03:22 GMT 12
Also brings out the nay sayers, didn't happen according to some Australian Historians. I think because a lot of atrocities happen in a cloak of secrecy and no-body talks about it for for decades sometimes centuries, some people think its safely dead and buried. Indigenous cultures have preferred to orate history rather than write it. Colonisers are big on written evidence, Ha! Wonder why?
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Post by kokonutwoman on Feb 23, 2008 11:31:03 GMT 12
Sugar coated history have been taught for years until the 1960s and 1970s and the emerging international redress of indigenous injustices being dragged out of the cardboard. Some of their written evidence definitely came back to bite them in the bum lol
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Post by bingbong on Feb 24, 2008 18:58:02 GMT 12
There is a very good book I got some years ago when I was in Australia some Aboriginal friends recommended it is is call Blood On the Wattle it is salient, I cant think of the author.
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