Thread: Australia's shameful past

Originally Posted by HuangLao

Originally Posted by AntRobertson

No shit.

*sigh*

Yeah, just had to edit my filofax of poster profiles there.

Jee...zuuuuzzz

Originally Posted by Looper

Nobody mentions the fact that child abuse (physical and sexual) is rampant in aboriginal communities today.

what age group should have presented that issue in the play ?

^Aboriginal race politics are not a suitable subject for school plays IMHO.

Originally Posted by Looper

Originally Posted by Maanaam

It's not a political issue. It's history. Maybe it's the history of something political, but nonetheless, it's history.

History is always open to interpretation and political spin in the way it is recounted. It is not the simple objective reality you are trying to paint.

I think there is an unhealthy political desire behind the motives for getting children to dramatise these particluar events.

The desire is to foster in the hearts of white Australians a sense of guilt at the success story that is modern Australia.

Modern Australia is a huge success story. A gigantic patch of dirt at the arse-end of the world has been turned into what is indisputably the most desirable country in the world to live in and the whole thing has been done in the blink of a eye. 2 short centuries.

The child fostering programme was well intentioned. It caused some emotional pain but it probably also saved a huge amount of anguish from kids who would have otherwise suffered the kind of child abuse that is rampant in aboriginal communities.

You're reaching new heights of cvntishness with every post. Congratulations.

On the plus side, Australia remains at the arse-end of the world so the unrelenting awfulness of the place and its inhabitants can largely be ignored.

^Look what you started MissKit.

I hope you are pleased with yourself....

I'm fairly sure that it's not Miss K's fault that you're such an atrocious twat.

like Australia's the only cuntry with a shameful past ?
what about south Africa ? new Zealand ? Cambodia ? china ? THE USA.

anyway the dutch were in OZ long before the British, they just realised Western Australia is shite and buggered off to somewhere nice !

Originally Posted by moose65

the dutch were in OZ long before the British, they just realised Western Australia is shite and buggered off to somewhere nice !

Mmmmm

Indonesia...

nice!

Originally Posted by moose65

like Australia's the only cuntry with a shameful past ? what about south Africa ? new Zealand ? Cambodia ? china ? THE USA.

Ah, that makes it alright then, everybody off to look at those other countries, pronto.

Originally Posted by moose65

what about south Africa ? new Zealand ? Cambodia ? china ? THE USA.

You forgot the world's best protector of minorities..ze Chermans.

Originally Posted by stroller

Originally Posted by moose65

like Australia's the only cuntry with a shameful past ? what about south Africa ? new Zealand ? Cambodia ? china ? THE USA.

Ah, that makes it alright then, everybody off to look at those other countries, pronto.

Why bother.
Same blithering results, as nearly all haven't a clue about their history or any other, for that fact.

Quite pathetic.

Statues of ‘blackbirders’ in Mackay and Townsville targeted by Islanders keen to correct history



THE statue of a perceived slave trader in a Townsville park, is being targeted by the Islander community, after statues of Confederates who defended slavery were destroyed in the US.

Australian South Sea islanders (Port Jackson) president Emelda Davis, said Queensland needed to confront the reality of its past, which included the veneration of Robert Towns, who gave his name to Townsville.

John Mackay, who pioneered European settlement of Mackay in the 1860s, is also a target because of his involvement, along with Towns, in “blackbirding” — the kidnapping of islanders to work in the sugar cane fields of north Queensland.

“Both were blackbirders,’’ said Ms Davis, whose grandfather was taken from a beach at Vanuatu when he was 12. “We have to start telling the truth about our past.’’

South Sea islanders who have been protesting the Towns statue for years, want the site redeveloped and the wording rewritten to better reflect Queensland history.

“We want a cane cutter there right opposite Towns, and we want the cane cutter’s family depicted,” she said. “We would like to see wording on the statue changed to reflect the fact that thousands of islanders were forcibly taken from their homes to create the Queensland sugar industry.”

Former federal member for Hinkler, Brian Courtice, who has researched the South Sea islander labour trade for decades, said there were indisputable acts of enslavement in the 19th century to meet the state’s insatiable demand for canefield labourers.

“And we, as Queenslanders, have never properly acknowledged that,’’ said Courtice, whose Bundaberg property has been formally identified as having more than two dozen unmarked graves of South Sea Islander labourers.

Professor Clive Moore, one of Australia’s most respected authors and academics on South Sea Islander history, said the Towns statue should reflect a more accurate record of the past, but

urged caution when interpreting history.

“Communities in the north appear to have learned it is important not to offend the sensibilities of Aborigines, but have yet to learn about offending the sensibilities of South Sea Islanders,’’ he said.

There were up to 700 voyages to the South Seas to collect labourers, and between 50,000 and 60,000 people were brought into Australia. Thousands died and then, at the dawn of Federation in 1901, there were moves to expel them under the White Australia policy.

Prof Moore said this was historical fact.

“But Towns’ involvement in blackbirding appears to have been limited to contracting out his fleet of ships to bring in labourers after he learned of the labour potential of the South Seas while investigating the sandalwood trade,” he said.

Prof Moore, from the University of Queensland’s School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, said John Mackay unquestionably played a role in blackbirding, but the city did not appear to have any statue of him.

He said both Mackay and Towns were essentially the “capitalists of the day’’, dedicated to making money in a number of avenues beyond the labour trade.

Prof Moore said there were clear examples of some South Sea islanders coming to work in Queensland, returning home, then coming back to work in Queensland.

“Those cases suggest it was not all about slavery,’’ he said.

For more than a decade, a life-size statue of Towns sculpted by Jane Hawkins, has stood in the Townsville CBD near the Ogden St entrance to Victoria Bridge.

Captain John Mackay’s exploration of the Mackay district in 1860 is marked at several points, including a monument where his party camped by the Pioneer River just west of the city.

No Cookies | Townsville Bulletin

Originally Posted by Seekingasylum

Fuckers should have had their membership of the Commonwealth suspended.

That, ain't gonna happin!

Originally Posted by Looper
Nobody mentions the fact that child abuse (physical and sexual) is rampant in aboriginal communities today.

Was that abuse present before the first settlers arrived? Was it learned behaviour?
Just asking for a friend.

Originally Posted by Maanaam

It's not a political issue. It's history. Maybe it's the history of something political, but nonetheless, it's history.
Just as "Remember, remember the 5th of November". Guy Fawkes day. A political event remembered and celebrated by burning the guy on a bonfire....I'm sure you did that, as did I as a nipper in Sydney. History. No kid feels any political pressure from it.
Should US kids not learn about, and therefore do drama about, Martin Luther King? Keep that out of the school auditorium?

You guys are being silly to think that this school play is foisting politics on kids. It's not. It's history.

Yup, totally agree. It is about time a school actually faced up to the truth and taught children the real history. Children in Canada aren't really told about the abuses that happened with Native Americans in residential schools in Canada. This is history, where aboriginals were forced to strip away their culture and assimilate. Same same as Australian history.

Originally Posted by chassamui

Originally Posted by Looper
Nobody mentions the fact that child abuse (physical and sexual) is rampant in aboriginal communities today.

Was that abuse present before the first settlers arrived? Was it learned behaviour?
Just asking for a friend.

Whether it was or not how does it justify or excuse earlier child abuse among the white community? Looper, care to explain?

Originally Posted by chassamui

The only problems for the indigenous people of that country are rooted in colonial interference.

PC noble savage myth garbage. Primitive people are not morally superior to modern people. They are almost always morally inferior.

Originally Posted by chassamui

They managed to get there thousands of years before Cook

But Cook managed to get there in a few months. It took the aboriginals thousands of years to get there as they did not have a blue-water navy. One of the many many things they never invented.

Originally Posted by chassamui

White christians arrive and dismantle a successful, but primitive culture.

The emphasis being more on the primitive (i.e. pre-stone-age) than successful.

What have the Romans ever done for aboriginals since the 'invasion' eh? Well there is agriculture and farming with stable food sources. medicine, dentistry, motorised transport, telecommunications, roads, education, air travel, social welfare, housing, native title land rights.... yeah but, you know, I mean apart from that....!

Originally Posted by chassamui

Was that abuse present before the first settlers arrived? Was it learned behaviour?

I imagine child sex abuse has being going on since sex has been going on. Not just in aboriginal communities but everywhere.

There is this notion that child sex abuse is some evil manifestation of modern society but that is probably cobblers. We just vilify it now whereas before it was simply ignored.

But of course we don't want to say too much about the rampant sex abuse in aboriginal communities because that would be 'racist'....!

Originally Posted by Looper

Originally Posted by chassamui

The only problems for the indigenous people of that country are rooted in colonial interference.

PC noble savage myth garbage. Primitive people are not morally superior to modern people. They are almost always morally inferior. No suggestion of inferiority, moral or otherwise. All are pink on the inside.

Originally Posted by chassamui

They managed to get there thousands of years before Cook

But Cook managed to get there in a few months. It took the aboriginals thousands of years to get there as they did not have a blue-water navy. One of the many many things they never invented. And yet these 'primitives still crossed oceans thousands of years before any blue water navy was spunked up.

Originally Posted by chassamui

White christians arrive and dismantle a successful, but primitive culture.

The emphasis being more on the primitive (i.e. pre-stone-age) than successful. Who is to say that primitive is not the better, more sustainable option?

What have the Romans ever done for aboriginals since the 'invasion' eh? Well there is agriculture and farming with stable food sources. medicine, dentistry, motorised transport, telecommunications, roads, education, air travel, social welfare, housing, native title land rights.... yeah but, you know, I mean apart from that....! Did anyone ask the indigenous population if that is what they wanted? I think not.

Originally Posted by chassamui

Was that abuse present before the first settlers arrived? Was it learned behaviour?

I imagine child sex abuse has being going on since sex has been going on. Not just in aboriginal communities but everywhere.

There is this notion that child sex abuse is some evil manifestation of modern society but that is probably cobblers. We just vilify it now whereas before it was simply ignored.

But of course we don't want to say too much about the rampant sex abuse in aboriginal communities because that would be 'racist'....!

A huge leap and a massive assumption. Are there any cave drawings of the young being assaulted by adults? Truth is, no one actually knows. They were taken out of their primitive, often nomadic lifestyle and obliged to fit in with what the colonists thought best for them. Whatever the rights and wrong of the colonists/settlers, they changed the aboriginal lifestyle by coercion.[/COLOR]

You've listed all the 'positive' influences on the society, but what about the extinctions, pollution an the introduction of non native species, and the havoc they are still causing?

The influence of Victorian puritans was not especially good for those back home, but it was infinitely worse for the Aussie incumbents.
You do realize that the reason Australia had so many unique indigenous species, was because they were left unmolested by human influence for millennia?

Originally Posted by Looper

The emphasis being more on the primitive (i.e. pre-stone-age) than successful.

A culture that survived for 40,000 years is pretty damn successful by any standards. What's your criteria for success, iphones and HIV?

Originally Posted by David48atTD

You just need to be, by definition ... 'a person who identifies as...' (and accepted by your Bros)

Hmm, just like becoming a Bangkok motocy taxi driver. Need an orange jerkin with a number as well.

this is a really funny thread, reading the opinions and varied viewpoints from people who supposedly live in Thailand and would not recognise an Australian aboriginal if they stood up in their soup.
a lot of what i am reading here is unsubstantiated propaganda, like aboriginals have been in Australia for 40 000 years, this figure is severely questioned and the Australian geographic magazine, no longer in print i believe, raised some serious questions regarding this number.
as for another posters idea of them crossing oceans to get to Australia, well there used to be a land bridge !
and if you ever go tho the Torres straits you will see travel by canoe is certainly possible.
as for their wonderful culture, try some of their cooking sometime, and i don't mean the good stuff that you get served in a 5 star restaurant in Cairns, i mean some 4 day dead kangaroo that has been dragged through the fire enough to snag the fur off it.

like every nation and race, there are good and bad things and good and bad people , it is just a sad statement of affairs that the politically correct do-gooders are running the world while the silent majority just sit back and watch it go down the toilet.

( these opinions do not necessarily represent the opinions of my management)

Originally Posted by moose65

a lot of what i am reading here is unsubstantiated propaganda, like aboriginals have been in Australia for 40 000 years, this figure is severely questioned and the Australian geographic magazine, no longer in print i believe, raised some serious questions regarding this number.

From what I've read, I believe they are now widely recognized as having been here for 60,000 years, or perhaps a tad under.

This is a good article on the subject.
https://pastparallelpaths.com/2013/0...ive-americans/

The Aborigines were the first to discover North America and Australia and were treated as second class citizens by the white people. These Aboriginals (more accurately seen as savages beasts) were treated as needing to be civilized. There is history, but they continually are trying to gain their own independence and rights.

I've worked as a social worker with abused women on the Native Indian reserves in Canada, and know that there are a lot of problems.