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G4EBT > STOLEN 15.03.08 15:00l 149 Lines 5837 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : F58242G4EBT
Read: GUEST
Subj: Re: Stolen kids/herding cats 'HUD
Path: DB0FHN<DB0RGB<DB0MRW<DB0ERF<DB0FBB<DB0IUZ<DB0OVN<DB0GOS<ON0AR<ON4HU<
ON0BEL<GB7FCR
Sent: 080315/1145Z @:GB7FCR.#16.GBR.EU #:64855 [Blackpool] FBB-7.03a $:F58242G4
From: G4EBT@GB7FCR.#16.GBR.EU
To : STOLEN@WW
Andy, GM7HUD wrote:-
> G4EBT wrote:-
> > It's like trying to herd cats.
Andy, reproachfully remonstrated:
> Oi! That's my phrase. You can use for a small fee.
Sorry - I thought it was in the public domain, but I shamelessly
plagiarise anyone and everyone. Don't forget that my number one fan calls
me the "6k cut 'n paste man"!
> The fee is.... some more interesting bulls on how the government
> of Oz is coping with the awful legacy we British saddled it with.
Yes, if I haven't made it clear already, I'd like to apologise to all
Aussies who've been indoctrinated with racist attitudes firmly embedded
in the minds of many as a legacy of British racist colonialism and passed
down the generations.
We've seen the evidence on packet.
People who hold strong views on this should at least take time and trouble
to objectively research this issue and not simply make hastily penned ill
considered lip-jerk comments.
Comments on packet and newspaper forums (both in Oz and the UK),
show widespread ignorance of the issues. Typically:
"Why should we apologise for something that wasn't of our doing?"
No-one's being asked to apologise. The apology isn't on behalf of the
Australian people, but by the government for the now discredited policies
of former governments.
Those who were behind these policies were the British, as I'll explain.
It was a Labor government that introduced the policies, and the appalling
acts against the Aboriginal people of Australia were carried out by the
state.
It is therefore fitting that a Labor government should tender that
apology, just as it was appropriate for a Labor Prime Minister - Paul
Keating, to make his groundbreaking Redfern Park Statement in the year of
Indigenous People - 1992.
It's just a pity that for a decade or so, John Howard gummed up the works.
All State government apologised many years ago - WA the day after the
publication of the Stolen Generations Report became public. The apology
is not the be all and end all - it's just a first step which shows good
intent.
Only when significant improvements have been made - which will take at
least a generation to show, in closing the life expectancy gap, health,
education, housing, employment, and a real understanding by Australian
citizens, will the apology mean anything.
Australia is a wealthy country, thanks in large measure to China's
insatiable demand for minerals. It's vastness and abundance of minerals
only has to support a tiny population - just 21 million.
Of those 21 million, just 2% are indigenous people.
In 1992 Australia ranked 15th in the world in terms of GDP per capita, now
it ranks seventh. During that time the UK has moved up from 17th place to
take Australia's 1992 slot at 15th.
Unemployment in Oz is at 4.1% - a 34 year low.
As planned, over the next three years there is to be A$34 billion tax
cuts.
Frankly, if it is a case of money being needed, it is ludicrous for
Australians to say that the 98% can't afford to dip into their coffers
to give a helping hand to improve the lives of the other 2% - few of
whom share in this success.
How a country looks after its most vulnerable people - children, the
elderly, the sick and infirm, the socially disadvantaged, is a measure
of how civilised it is.
If the much needed improvements and commitment to improving the lives of
indigenous people is not forthcoming over time, the apology will be seen
as a cynical empty gesture.
Britain's role and why the British Government should make its own apology:
The apology tended by Kevin Rudd on behalf of the Australian government
does not in any way absolve Britain of its role in the ghastly degradation
of the Aboriginal race.
Geoffrey Robertson QC - author of Crimes Against Humanity - The Struggle
for Global Justice, writing in The Guardian, Feb 14 2008, stressed that
the historic apology offered by prime minister Kevin Rudd to the "stolen
generations" was a crucial step for Australia but doesn't in any way make
amends for the role played by the British in the destruction and
degradation of the Aboriginal race.
Initially British soldiers, convicts and settlers killed Aborigines almost
for sport, as if they were wild animals threatening the crops.
Later, in the 20th century, Fabian socialists provided the intellectual
justification for the eugenics policy that led to the stolen generations
scandal.
The British exterminated the entire tribe of Tasmanian aborigines, leaving
only 40 survivors who were herded off their land and placed on an offshore
island gulag. The governor's wife - a "pillar of society" led the hunt for
their skulls to decorate London mantelpieces.
A parliamentary inquiry which reported in 1836 stated:
"Not a single native now remains upon Van Dieman's land...the adoption of
any conduct, having for its avowed or secret object the extermination of
the native race, could not fail to leave an indelible stain upon the
British government".
Note: "Upon the British Government".
That "indelible stain" was - a century later, termed "genocide".
We British castigate the Turks for pretending the Armenian genocide never
took place (one of the reasons for opposing Turkey's entry into the EU)
yet we conveniently forget the Tasmanian genocide.
Last year the National History Museum in London had to be taken to court
to stop it experimenting on the skulls of victims. An absolute disgrace.
Next, for anyone who's interested, an explanation of British eugenics
theory which underpinned the planned intention to eliminate the Aboriginal
people over time.
Sorry doesn't go anywhere near far enough to make amends.
Best wishes
David, G4EBT @ GB7FCR
Cottingham, East Yorkshire.
Message timed: 11:00 on 2008-Mar-15
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