Australian of the year

[BernieP]

Isn't that a contradiction in terms?

G'Day Woodwould

I don't consider it a contradiction in terms at all, however I know you don't understand what you think I wrote, but I'm not sure you realize that what you just read is what I meant.

Cheers
Bernie

[Woodwould]

G'Day Woodwould

I don't consider it a contradiction in terms at all, however I know you don't understand what you think I wrote, but I'm not sure you realize that what you just read is what I meant.

Cheers
Bernie

You may not consider it a contradiction in terms, but it is nonetheless.

Does history relate what your ancestors were convicted of? They may not have been very bad people (stealing a loaf of bread to keep your family alive isn't really bad in my books).

[MICKYG]

If we could shrink the worlds poulation to a village of precisely 100 people,with all the existing human ratios remaining the same,it would look something like this.


There would be 57 Asians 21 Europeans 14 from the Western hemisphere,
both north and south 8 Africans. 52 would be female and 48 would be male.
70 would be non white and 30 would be white.70 would be non Christian and 30 would be Christian. 89 would be hetrosexual and 11 would be homosexual
6 people would pocess59% of the entire world's wealth and all 6 would be from the USA. 80 Would be living in substandard housing. 70 would be unable to read.


50 would suffer from malnutition. 1 would be near death and 1 would be near birth.
1(yes only 1) would have a college education 1 would own a computer.


When one considers our world from such a compressed perspective the
need for acceptance,understanding and education becomes glaringly
apparent. The following is also something to ponder.....


if you woke one up this morning with more health than illness......you
are more blessed than 1 million who will not survive the week. If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment,the agony of torture,or the pangs of starvation...you are ahead of 500 million people in the world.


if you can attend a Church meeting without fear of harassment,arrest,torture or death........you are more blessed than three billion people in the world.


If you have food in the refrigerator,clothes on your back,a roof over your head and a place to sleep.......you are richer than 75% of this world.


If you have money in the bank, in your wallet and spare change in a dish some where........you are amoung the top 8% of the worlds wealthy.


If your parents are still alive and still married you are very rare even
in the USA and Canada.


If you can read this message,you just received a double blessing in that
someone was thinking of you and furthermore you are more blessed than
over two billion people in the world that cannot read at all.
Someone once said :


"What goes around comes around"
Work like you don't need the money.
Love like you have never been hurt.
Dance like nobody's watching.
Sing like nobody's listening.
Live like it's Heaven on earth.
One can never be sure of the hard numbers one thing is for sure we all
very lucky to be where we are and who we are!

[damian]

So what's your point ?

[BernieP]

You may not consider it a contradiction in terms, but it is nonetheless.

Does history relate what your ancestors were convicted of? They may not have been very bad people (stealing a loaf of bread to keep your family alive isn't really bad in my books).

G'Day WW

No he was an awful man pinched a watch, but she was worse she was Irish, oh and she also pinched a pair of shoes in Dublin. Well documented OK so it wasn't good white stock, but certainly good enough for me and mine.

Cheers
Bernie

[dazzler]

Try getting over someone murdering one of your children in the name of religion/politics.

Seriously, is there someone alive today that can remember a massacre. The last one I was aware of 1928 when a WW1 veteran shot 32 aborigines after they had attacked a station owner and dingo trapper. Horrible thing to happen but hardly something anyone here should feel ashamed of, nor something an entire race can hold against todays people.

The truth is that no one alive today in our country should have any feelings of shame or guilt over how we all got here or what has happened in the past. Lets look at my family tree - my great, great, great, grandfather arrived here in the 1840's as a refugee. Its interesting to note that in 1789 his father was rounded up off his farm and had to decide whether to be guilletioned or go into exile. From all accounts he was an okay kind of bloke, but hell, even if he was out shooting innocent people I think its a long bow to draw that I should think anything of it other than as history. If my father did it perhaps I would feel a some shame.

What is irrational is to place our belief systems of today on the decisions made 221 years ago. Lets take a snapshot of the period;

Slavery in America. 1619 to 1860. Enlightened Canada didnt abolish it till 1830.
Witches were still being killed in England as late as 1894
Women would wait another 150 years to vote.
In England you could be "indentured" at the age of 10 until you were 21 to a master against your will.
Two loaves of bread could get you exiled for life.
225 female convicts were packed into a brig and sent to the colony in a floating brothel as breeding stock for the colony.

So who were these people that whose behalf we should be ashamed. 1418 people who none of us knew, (700 of which had no choice as prisoners, the rest ordered by the govt) were shipped to a place and dumped. Only 15 of these had an education of any value.

By the values of the times, they did about the same as everyone else on the planet. They looked after themselves, behaved in a bigoted and racist way, killed people who they thought wronged them or they percieved as valueless.

Wouldnt it have been lovely if they had the values we have today. Sadly they didnt. Thats nothing we need to be ashamed about.

cheers

[MICKYG]

You may correct me if i am wrong but its not very long ago that the illustrious Mr Dodson was bagging white Australians and the Australian Goverment of the day in America which really does make one wonder how these awards are distributed and what the criteria is.

Regards mike

[corbs]

I know it was played down as insignificant but there was the expression of regret from Howard too. I am not sorry for anything I have done to the Aboriginal people, however I am regretful of how our history has played out and things that have happened in the past.

Too many ????? stirrers in the pot to let it all get sorted out in an orderly manner. Lets just see who can yell the loudest

[Woodwould]

G'Day WW

No he was an awful man pinched a watch, but she was worse she was Irish, oh and she also pinched a pair of shoes in Dublin. Well documented OK so it wasn't good white stock, but certainly good enough for me and mine.

Cheers
Bernie

Better than one of my step-inlaws!

[Woodwould]

Seriously, is there someone alive today that can remember a massacre. The last one I was aware of 1928 when a WW1 veteran shot 32 aborigines after they had attacked a station owner and dingo trapper. Horrible thing to happen but hardly something anyone here should feel ashamed of, nor something an entire race can hold against todays people.

My comment that you've quoted, was in answer to Gra's remark about Middle Eastern and Yugoslavian atrocities of relatively recent times which would still be vividly remembered by many of those country's peoples. I personally witnessed many acts of terrorism and lost many friends and acquaintances as a result.

However, to respond to your post, past Aboriginal massacres obviously aren't the issue in question (in so much as there are no living Aborigines who could remember the events), but it's the Australian Government's (the Australian voting public's) on-going maltreatment/mishandling of indigenous peoples which is so appalling. There are Aborigines of virtually all ages alive today who could recall incidences of inhumanity levied against them by the whites – they don't need to rely on elders or lore to be reminded.

[dazzler]

However, to respond to your post, past Aboriginal massacres obviously aren't the issue in question (in so much as there are no living Aborigines who could remember the events), but it's the Australian Government's (the Australian voting public's) on-going maltreatment/mishandling of indigenous peoples which is so appalling. There are Aborigines of virtually all ages alive today who could recall incidences of inhumanity levied against them by the whitefella – they don't need to rely on elders or lore to be reminded.

Name away, I would be interested in these inhumanities, remembering we have apologised for the so called stolen generations...........

[Perkz]

Professor Mick Dodson (Australian of the year) has called for the date of Australia Day to be changed. This cr@p really really makes me mad. Can they change their minds and take it off him now?

I must admit that I tend to agree. The award is something that should be accepted with humility, dignity and grace and I have not seen that from the humble Professor so far. Leave the activist stuff for other forums.

As a Kiwi who has lived in Australia since 75 ( naturalised) I have watched this whole "sorry" debate with detached interest and must admit to not being a supporter for the big political apology.

I take a very simple view that the people who were invloved were doing their level best to find a way to improve the lives of the people involved and that their intent was genuine and honest. Surely know one believes that there was a deliberate plot to "steal" children. I think the truth has been lost in media and political play making and sensationalism.....

If the indigeneous people were looking after their children properly in the first place then there would not have been a need to do anything...????

I am rather surprised that no-one has called for the Indigenous people to aplogise to the rest of Australia for being such a drain on the social structure both in financial and racist terms for so many years. The reverse racism in this country ( and New Zealand) is just a joke..Sadly as I have travelled around outback Australia I see many instances of abuse of the support the community gives the indigeneous people.

What impresses and pleases me is seeing so many of the younger indigeneous people doing so well in society by using their skills and knowledge and growing within the community like everybody else and in the process NOT relying on race and history to make themselves heard in the community. Well done to them I say.....maybe the last 200 years of joint community growth with so many people from so many lands making up this wonderfull community is starting to pay dividends !!???

Cheers

[WillBrook]

The whole sorry thing is out of whack. Our head of state is and has been the royal family. That's where the buck stops. If any one should apoligise it's Old Lizzie, not the representative of a generation that had nothing to do with it.



Oh and personally, I reckon Glen McGrath should have got it.

[RETIRED]

Keep it on topic and be nice to each other.

[WillBrook]

Keep it on topic and be nice to each other.

Here here