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joffa corfe
PREMIERS 2010
Joined: 13 Nov 2003
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| Post subject: The Tibby Briar Story AGE insight feb 2 2008 |  |
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Confirms my belief that when Rudd apologises to the indigenous people of Australia it will probably be the most significant day in Australian History and Politics.
Sweet darling Tibby Briar wont be around to see it, but her story must be read to try and understand the hurt that was caused to our indigenous people.
It will be a day in my life i will treasure greatly and i'll be sure to give a thought to Tibby.
Good onya Tibby
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Football is Greatness
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Proud Pies 
Joined: 22 Feb 2003
Location: Knox-ish
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here'e the link
http://www.theage.com.au/news/in-depth/saying-sorry/2008/02/01/1201801033457.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
| Quote: | One of the key commissioners responsible for Bringing Them Home, Mick Dodson — now Professor Dodson, director of the National Centre for Indigenous Studies at the Australian National University — will mention no one by name, but says that "some people deliberately misrepresented what the report was about".
"It isn't about individuals today being responsible for what happened," he says.
"It's about gaining a level of maturity in a nation that leads us to understand that what was done in our nation's name is something that still needs to be dealt with, also in that nation's name.
"I don't think any member of the current board of Hardies, for instance, was personally responsible for people like Bernie Banton contracting asbestosis. But that company is responsible for what happened, just as a government is responsible for what happened in the time of previous governments. It's not about individuals." |
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Jacqui © Proud Pies 2003 and beyond |
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Alec. J. Hidell
Joined: 12 May 2007
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It amazes me that after all the debate and rational explanations people still don't get it. That is truly something to be sorry about
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The one man in the world, who never believes he is mad, is the madman. |
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David 
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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| Barnaby Joyce wrote: | | "This sorry thing is just a bit of theatre for Canberra," Joyce says. "Who is saying sorry for what and who are they saying it to? If you told me this was going to lead to a long-range series of decisions that are going to improve economic benefits for Aboriginal people, then I'm all for it. But I don't think that's it. It's just something for the inner-city luminatee to get them from one coffee to the next." |
It's a sad story, and yes you can make a lot of arguments that the forced removal policy was wrong. But, what would have happened to the kids if they had been left with their parents, who according to the article, died two years later (of a broken heart? Far more likely from disease)... who would have cared for them? Would she even have still been alive to tell this tale?
Still, I have changed my views slightly, I'll admit. Barnaby's spot on, of course - that's the only reason this apology is happening, and this is all it is for. However, maybe we do need recognition that there were flaws in previous governments' policies on this issue, that may have had quite negative consequences on the lives of many aboriginal families. And, yes, maybe an apology from this government will be some small recompense to today's Aborigines who were taken away as children.
However:
It's all very well to apologise for actions that had negative consequences, but in the end, who gets to apologise for inaction? What if there was a genuine sense at the time that this was the right thing to do, and that if it wasn't done, many lives may have been lost as a consequence? Would today's government be organizing a day to say sorry that these policies weren't enacted when they should have been?
I'll repeat what I said in another thread. It's all very well for Rudd and the Australian government to apologise for past government's negative actions - but the fact is, there are still very major problems with Australia's indigenous communities that need to be fixed. Will there be another Prime Minister to apologise in the future for Howard, Rudd, et al, turning a blind eye to these issues and instead focussing on little populist speeches and ideological squabbles?
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All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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sherrife 
Victorian Socialists - people before profit
Joined: 18 Apr 2003
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Good to see the change of heart, but I think your a bit confused RE the apology. Politicians DO make mistakes every day, in fact, almost nothing they do is good for the people it's supposed to be good for.
But.
You're talking like a philosopher, and losing touch with reality. Nobody is expecting an apology for every little thing they do wrong (it's capitalism, they wouldn't apologise to us anyway), but genocide is on a whole different level. To conflate ethnic cleansing with day to day ideological squabbles (not that they exist any more, ALP = Coalition) is insulting.
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I would be ashamed to admit that I had risen from the ranks. When I rise it will be with the ranks... - Eugene Debs |
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Zakal
One Game, One Club, One Jumper
Joined: 04 Nov 2005
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We never really had a sustained period in this country of conscripts fighting on foreign soil, but for a time we did, and many countries had it much longer...
.... but I wonder how many people if offered the choice, would choose being removed from their parents as children over being forcibly removed in similar fashion to fight in the various conflicts of World War 1 and 2. Or Vietnam for that matter.
I mean there was supposedly knee-deep mud in those trenches, despite it not raining for days and weeks. That amount of liquid had only one other source, and it wasnt a backyard sprinkler. |
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HAL
Please don't shout at me - I can't help it.
Joined: 17 Mar 2003
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| I lost my train of thought. |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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| sherrife wrote: | | You're talking like a philosopher, and losing touch with reality. Nobody is expecting an apology for every little thing they do wrong (it's capitalism, they wouldn't apologise to us anyway), but genocide is on a whole different level. To conflate ethnic cleansing with day to day ideological squabbles (not that they exist any more, ALP = Coalition) is insulting. |
Maybe we both need a reality check.
There is a big difference between KILLING everyone who belongs to a certain race (that's my general understanding of genocide/ethnic cleansing) and what happened with the stolen generations. Even taking the extreme view (of which I am still quite skeptical, I believe that at least a big part of it was simply an attempt at charity) you are talking about taking as many Aboriginal kids away from their families as possible and raising them according to a different culture. I mean, there is a difference, right?
And, let me ask you this hypothetical. Is it better for a child to die of starvation/disease, or to be forcibly removed from their family and brought up according to a different culture? If that was the choice the authorities faced in EVEN ONE CASE, do you really think that picking the latter would have been more heinous than not doing anything?
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All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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sherrife
Victorian Socialists - people before profit
Joined: 18 Apr 2003
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You think the stolen generation was something to do with charity?
Dear god.
I really can't handle this argument right now. Someone else take it up, please.
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I would be ashamed to admit that I had risen from the ranks. When I rise it will be with the ranks... - Eugene Debs |
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HAL
Please don't shout at me - I can't help it.
Joined: 17 Mar 2003
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| Well, it's not as terrible as all that. |
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Morrigu 
Joined: 11 Aug 2001
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http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23146298-661,00.html
He was 13 months old when on Christmas Day, 1957, he was driven from his Coorong home southeast of Adelaide to Adelaide's Children's Hospital with stomach pains.
Two weeks later, under the authority of the Aborigines Protection Board, he was given to a woman who became his foster parent, without the permission of his parents. About six months later, Mr Trevorrow's mother wrote to the board asking when she could have her son back.
"I am writing to ask if you would let me know how baby Bruce is and how long before I can have him home?" she wrote in July 1958.
"I have not forgot I have a son in there."
The court heard the hospital lied, telling her the baby was making good progress and needed to stay for treatment.
Mr Trevorrow never again saw his father, who died eight years later.
His foster family told him he was white, even as children taunted him with slurs such as "boong" and "darkie".
Sounds stolen to me! |
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Zakal
One Game, One Club, One Jumper
Joined: 04 Nov 2005
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| sherrife wrote: | You think the stolen generation was something to do with charity?
Dear god.
I really can't handle this argument right now. Someone else take it up, please. |
There is a difference between evil and ignorance, and im not for a minute suggesting that this was all one big act of charity...not for a second. And i honestly believe that at the highest level, it was a racist policy designed to further separate "whites" from "blacks."...but im also not so confident in my ability to read the thoughts and feelings of people long dead whom ive never met to declare categorically and with such conviction that there was no element of compassion, however ignorant or misguided, amongst ANYONE involved in these events.
Dont forget that during the same time period, separating children from their parents wasnt exactly unheard of. Many English sent their children here almost en masse to escape the war, and many of them were never reunited with them. No they wernt stolen, but explain that to a 6yr old who never saw their real parents again.
Speaking of ridiculous moronic or barbaric practices that people thought were a great idea at the time, how about smoking for weight loss? lobotomies for the mentally ill? fixing cataracts by swishing a metal spike around in an eye? Thalidomide? Mercury to prolong your life?
Again, its not the same thing, the stolen generation was worse...but it does potentially shed a little bit of light on some of the thought processes prevalent of the time. |
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Dr Pie
Dr Pie
Joined: 08 Nov 2007
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There is a mountain of written evidence (see for example some research done by Robert Manne) that it was Government Policy to remove "part aboriginal" children from their mothers and bring them up as "poor whites" - domestic and rural workers. It was Government policy in several states that "full bloods" would die out and "halfcastes" would be hidden in the white population. This was genocide every bit as much as the mass murder in Germany or Rwanda. It was the intention of the State Governments to "breed out" the Aborigines. This is elimination of a race, i.e. Genocide.
The writings and speeches of Commissioner A O Neville of Western Australia (pre WWII) make it quite clear that child removal was a racist policy based on social engineering not child welfare. There may well have been Aboriginal children whose parents were neglecting them, but that was not the primary reason for their removal!
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Born and raised in Black and White |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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| Dr Pie wrote: | | This was genocide every bit as much as the mass murder in Germany or Rwanda. It was the intention of the State Governments to "breed out" the Aborigines. This is elimination of a race, i.e. Genocide. |
What a terrible insult to the victims of these slaughters.
How can you ever compare the 'breeding out' of a race with the murder of thousands of people?
Even the wildest, most paranoid conspiracy theories about what the government of the time were thinking could never come close to the mass murders you refer to.
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All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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sherrife
Victorian Socialists - people before profit
Joined: 18 Apr 2003
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There's more than one way to make a holocaust.
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I would be ashamed to admit that I had risen from the ranks. When I rise it will be with the ranks... - Eugene Debs |
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