Australian stolen generation...

[tri boy]

Subject........................................... .................................................. ....
.................................................. .................................................. .......
.................................................. .................................................. ........
.................................................. .................................................. ........
.................................................. .................................................. ........
........................ me and a bargepole.
Thats how close I will get to this.

[jrandom]

Many things are dumbed down over there, quite brash & seemingly uneducated, I can only put it down to stemming from their convict roots.

Au contraire; having observed the same, I put it down to Australia being the fifty-second State of the Union.

(Britain, of course, being the fifty-first.)

I suspect you'd find that the Australia of a hundred years ago was much culturally closer to the New Zealand of a hundred years ago, with subsequent sociopolitical trends causing the divergence.

Of course, there's absolutely no point talking to an Australian about it. They're all dumbed-down, brash and uneducated.

[Big Dave]

I suspect you'd find that the Australia of a hundred years ago was much culturally closer to the New Zealand of a hundred years ago, with subsequent sociopolitical trends causing the divergence.

They are closer now that ever socially.
E media etc How many elite sporting competitions with Kiwi Teams eg.
How many Kiwis in Aus and then return?
To the point where the moan I get is about Kiwi kultcha being subverted. 53rd statewise.

[terbang]

Thats a tough one. I lived there for a while too (1 year in Darwin and 2 in Sydney) I also found most Australians very intolerant and derogatory towards the aboriginal people. It is racism and they really just don't want to know about them and seem to be quite happy to keep them up north, pissed and out of sight. Most Aussies that I knew down south had never really even seen a real (fair dinkum) aborigine and didn't really want to know either. The more educated ones made weak excuses, citing one or two success stories but had little contact apart from the buskers down Circular Quay.
Any comparison between NZ and Aussie regarding race issues would be flawed as we have a signed treaty that has at least forced the parties to talk, the Aussies don't and the Maori people and the Aborigine people are worlds apart. The only thing they have in common is that whiteys came!
NZ is light years ahead of Australia with indigenous people as they (the Aussies) have only just started to scratch the surface of a complete shambles that has been boiling away just over the horizon for a long time. From what I have seen, I would have no idea where they could start as its seems such a mess. Perhaps changing a few (white fella) attitudes is a good start, which is maybe what Rudd is trying to do. Though he's a politician so therefore can't really be trusted, but I do believe it is a step in the right direction. But it needs to be seen as one step to be followed by many more. As for compensation, if there were acts against aboriginal people that led to their demise (I hear horror stories about Tasmania), then an apology and compensation is morally in order. Just like we are doing here in NZ. However I also do tend to think that there has to be a cut off point because if you continually compensate for past mistakes as well (Marshall Islands being another example) then you will only produce a welfare dependant society. A dumbed down and unproductive welfare dependant society, going nowhere.

[McDuck]

Bump......

[Trudes]

We can't even sort out the Waitangi Treaty claims BS so what right do we have to comment on the Australian situation which is probably just as messy!

Agree

A fair comment perhaps but at least New Zealand is working through the issue. Relations between Maori and our Government aren't nearly as f^&ked up as between Aboriginals and your average Aussie.

Exactly

I've taught this as a film study unit at Yr12 level. If you need a film resource to contribute to your questions "Rabbit Proof Fence" is a compelling visual text.

Is a portrayal of a true story, which saw the children torn away from their tribes and parents and put into institutions. Sounds like quite an interesting assignment you have been given!

OMG yes, a very sad movie, but also very true.

[fire eyes]

The Public Apology was a momentous leap forward. It was a global acknowledgement of the governments participation of what happened. It was a responsibility and legacy incurred by the government regardless of how many years ago it seemingly took place. For those who were not directly affected by this experience of course it would seem like an issue that was prolonged in excess, however, for those whos families were ripped apart this goes a long way to restoring thier spirit.

If any of you know anything about Indigenous people you will also know the fundamentals of thier spirituality and the importance of spiritual healing in situations such as this. Money does not restore broken spirits. It is only a tool to reinstate confidence, re-educate and provide opportunities. Acknowledgment, ownership & acccountability ensures the healing process.

[Forest]

Sorry Charlotte - I'm not going to do your homework for you.

[McDuck]

Sorry Charlotte - I'm not going to do your homework for you.

A section of it is in regard to outsiders opinion.

[Hitcher]

Dear Kevin Rudd

Build a bridge.

[Lias]

Dear kid,

Sorry was too much, he should never have apologised in the first place. Then again its just another in a long line of cockups by the aussie government, if they'd done what they should have and exterminated every single last abo when they arrived in australia none of this would be happening. Please advise anyone who supports the apology to HTFU.

Yours,
Uncle Chopper

[nodrog:Me]

who the fuck would want to steal an Abo in the first place?

[Dilligaf]

You know this subject pushes a number of buttons here. I’ll try and explain.
I was born and grew up in Australia. I was the last of the siblings and the only person in my family to in fact be born in Australia. Yet we did see ourselves as Australian.
I lived in Thailand for a number of years and we were friends with a German guy. I remember "doing a Hitcher" to him because rather than advertise his water on his menu as “still or sparkling” he had called it with gas or without gas. He made a joke about the water with gas being for the Jews. As you can imagine I was horrified that a German of all people would make a comment like that and I questioned him on it. He replied that all through his life at school etc, he was constantly told as a German, what happened in the war was all his fault. Obviously, being born a good 20 years after the end of the war, he took exception to the idea that he was somehow to blame.
Now going through the school system, we were constantly bombarded with the message that we as the “whiteys” were to blame for all the ills that the Aborigines suffer. And you know what? I reckon the reason why most of you kiwis think that we Aussies are racist (three words people – pot kettle black), is that you will find that many of us having only recently been in the country somewhat resent the implication that we are to blame.
You’ve got to remember as well like Terbang said, city slickers very rarely saw any Aborigines and therefore it’s not like here where you get to know Maori and see beyond the stereotypes. All we ever saw on the news was the houses that were built for them, and how they were trashed.
Now what pushes my buttons the most is the luxury of hindsight. I think that the whole idea of the “stolen generation” (emotive words much?) was good intentioned. Yeah yeah, the road to hell and all that. But apart from trying to remove the ‘weaker’ members of a group to protect them, how else do you change behaviour? (That’s a serious question, not a justification).
Quite frankly it’s a case of damned if you intervene, damned if you leave them to sort it out themselves.
There are also factors in how the Aborigines organised their communities. It took a long time for them to even get a voice as traditionally in their culture, there was never one leader in a tribe – they worked on an eldership rule – all community based. This of course meant that dialogue was hard to initiate as one person could not become ‘the voice’ of a tribe.


Functioning Aboriginal communities practice a complex system of community justice, with women as law-keepers and men as law-enforcers, enjoined to protect the young, anthropologists say. But today, many Aboriginal people "feel powerless to intervene in their own communities," says Atkinson. At the same time, "there is enormous pressure on Aboriginal women and children not to go to the police, not to report to the authorities," says Dr. Harry Blagg, an expert on Aborigines.
And official neglect apparently continues because of the sense, validated yet again in the Pascoe case, that Aboriginal men's rapes and beatings of Aboriginal women and girls are "traditional culture" that whites do well to ignore. Survivors' accounts of law enforcement officials laughing off reports of violent Aboriginal homes abound. In one community, police officers openly told Atkinson that they would do nothing about the rape of a 5-year-old Aboriginal girl.

(Oh and lastly, aborigine is the noun, aboriginal is the adjective).

[ManDownUnder]

No - it's not enough... but I think it's a damned good start. Nothing could replace those memories and that heritage those people missed out on but the state should provide them the help they reasonably deserve.

It needs to be active help - to show them how their ancestors lived, to give them the opportunity and choice to learn about those things they could never learn in non aboriginal households.

Nothing needs to be forced down anyone's throat, and the possibility of setting up an ongoing industry to resolve past grievances is not going to actually resolve anything. It's a no win situation so I suggest staying away from it.

It's not a monetary fix... it's a societal one.

I'd encourage those Australians so inclined to turn this on it's head as well. This could be a chance to deliver reasonable help to the Aboriginal community, to reinstate or educate the general Aussie population in those ancient ways and let everyone derive what benefit they want from it.

That's going to have implications in a lot of areas - from reinduction of the Stolen generation into the tribal ways, to bringing a greater general understyanding in the Aussie population to increased openness and resources for spin off industries (tourism comes to mind).

Short of going back in time there is no way of undoing the past, so clean up what's here and now, and look forward

[tri boy]

Okay, I'll make a comment or two.
First : as Dilligaf stated, the removal of children at that time was carried out using that era's approach to social engineering, and I'm picking it was done with good intentions. (argue this point as much as you like, what is done, is done).

Second: I can not think of two lifestyles more separated than modern Aussie lifestyle (whitey's), and the principle life style of pre European Aboriginal nomadic society.
I have moved in both communities, so feel that I can say this honestly.
The Australian people DO give a damn about the outback, and the native people.
It will take more than a couple of decades for this to get worked out.
Progress has been continuing for twenty odd years, (not that media will pick up on it).
I'm surprised the NZ education system has this on their curriculum.