The Author – Bart Busschots
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Feb
13
Australia Apologises to the Aboriginals – More of this Kind of Thing Please
Filed Under Polemics & Politics on February 13, 2008 at 6:56 pm
It actually brightened my day a bit to see that the Australian PM has apologised to the Aboriginal people for their abuse at the hands of previous governments. Here’s the money quote:
“We apologize for the laws and policies of successive parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians.”
I really hope we see more of this kind of thing. I really wish the British royal family and government would do the same with regard to Ireland. Particularly for the penal laws and the famine they caused by taking all the grain grown in Ireland while the Irish people starved due to the failure of potatoes. There is still a lot of resentment of the English bubbling away under the surface here in Ireland. As an immigrant I didn’t understand this at first but each time I ask why I get the same answer, that the English did terrible things here for which they have never apologised. My argument would have been that no one alive today actually did any of these terrible things. However, the institutions that did are still with us, and the leaders of those institutions need to apologise for the past sins of the institution they represent. This is particularly true in the case of the monarchy which is a hereditary system. Within an aristocratic system the great deeds of ancestors entitle you to privilage, so, if you inherit the glory you should also inherit the sins.
I very much doubt I’ll live to see the English apologise, but it would be nice.
Can’t say I ever saw the point of this kind of thing myself, but if it makes people happy, no harm in it I suppose.
It would be crazy for the British to apologise at this juncture. A statement of that sort would do nothing for Ireland. It would increase bombastic rhetoric from Nationalists and rile up Unionists – neither of which we really need.
I think the interactions between our two states and the positive comments which have been made about Ireland by the British government should serve as a strong enough gesture that the terrible chapter of our history is finished.
I disagree. It has been well over a hundred years since the famine and the penal laws are not exactly yesterday either. Also, the black-and-tans are probably well worth apologising for. I don’t see the harm in apologising for a clear wrong. It’s the mature and progressive way to move forward.
What’s the point in apologising for something you didn’t do and weren’t responsible for? Chances are someone in my family tree over the past couple of centuries did some very bad stuff to someone. Should I find their descendants and apologise on bended knee? I mean, I may have had zero involvement in, control over, or responsibility for what happened (on account of not being alive at the time), but it’s the same family, right?
Institutions and particularly aristocratic systems are different. The Australian government did some terrible stuff, the Australian still exists so the Australian government should apologise. As I said in the post, Aristocracies are based on the concept that the off-spring inherit the honours of their fore-bearers. So, it’s not acceptable to take the good and refuse to responsibility for the bad.
Individuals should not be held accountable for the actions of their parents, but institutions are different.
Bart.
I’d rather get money than an apology. Since you’re not getting an apology from the culprits you might aswell make some gains from it.
What can you buy with forgiveness? Jackshit!
will
The two are not mutually exclusive in fairness.
Research has shown that most of us don’t want money when the Government/Doctor/School/Mechanic/Shopkeeper etc screw up. Most of us just want some-one to acknowledge our pain. Some-one in authority to say “I’m very sorry that happened” Aborigine children were torn from their families , put in foster homes and made to assimilate – that’s a very short version . A lot of the white people had the best of intentions but it was wrong and a lot of white Australians are very glad Kevin Rudd made that speech. I never thought I’d see it but it happened so ya never know Bart maybe Lizzie will apologise one day
We have a huge council house in our street.
The extended family is run by a grumpy old woman with a pack of fierce dogs.
Her car isn’t taxed or insured, and doesn’t even have a number plate, but
the police still do nothing.
Her bad tempered old man is well-known for upsetting foreigners with racist
comments.
A shopkeeper blames him for ordering the murder of his son and his son’s
girlfriend, but nothing has been proved yet.
All their kids have broken marriages except the youngest, who everyone
thought was gay.
Two grandsons are meant to be in the Army but are always out in
nightclubs.
The family’s antics are always in the papers. They are out of control…
Honestly – who’d live near Windsor Castle?
The point of the apology is to express genuine regret or an appeal for forgiveness which didn’t exist with the Monarchy or the absentee landlords who profited from that famine ‘holocaust’ at the time and doesn’t appear to exist with its decsendants who ultimately benefitted from it.
It just makes you wonder if the demonic ethnic bias that instituted penal laws to prevent Catholics from owning or inheriting land to support themselves, and then exported massive amounts of food from Ireland in the worst years of the ‘famine’, the same Imperialist who let this type of holocaust all happen again in India a few years later, remains to this day.
Not to worry about stirring things up now because most people affected are gone and any surviving descendants (like me) know that there is a special place in hell for those people that did it or somehow condoned it. The funny thing would have been if everyone else took their laissez-faire approach back when Hitler was bombing England – or was that some kind of karma payback?
Lesson learned I would hope.