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The Forum > Article Comments > An Australia Day reflection > Comments

An Australia Day reflection : Comments

By Sarah Russell, published 30/1/2017

Guilt doesn't create the basis for reframing our relationships or enabling us to see new alterative futures together.

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The 79% of blackfellas who live and work like whitefellas should be (and probably are) happy about British settlement and the fact that they don't have to live the cruel and primitive lives their ancestors did. They could also, along with us whitefellas, show the bush blackfellas that living remotely, without education, jobs, health care and facilities is no sort of life at all.
Posted by ttbn, Monday, 30 January 2017 9:05:31 AM
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I think this is were the problem is,
Guilt why on earth should any none Aboriginal person in Australia feel guilt?

I was born here should i feel guilty about what my great great, great grand father may have done?
Should a Greek person who moved to Australia 50 years feel guilty?
What about a boat person who came as a refugee 5 years ago?

Should a five year old Japanese person feel guilty about the second world war? About about the great grand child of a Nazy?

We should acknowledged but we should not feel guilty.

In the end all of that is symbolism, now of it will actual help the situation. Those marching in the invasion day marches have no interest at all in ensuring that aboriginals have to same opportunities and obligations as the rest of Australians citizens.
These marches where populated by four types of people.

Urban aboriginals who have no culture and no real connection with their heritage, they are after hand outs.
Middle class art students with no hope of ever paying back their Unis fees with paid work.
Middle class skivvy wear exe arts students.

and journalist.

Ie people we should ignore.
Posted by Cobber the hound, Monday, 30 January 2017 9:29:23 AM
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The following link sums things up rather well:

http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/changing-the-date-of-australia-day-wont-change-our-past-says-joe-hilderbrand/news-story/d9a6ecdffoc2a85a77d227dcc6f79ce8
Posted by Foxy, Monday, 30 January 2017 9:53:45 AM
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cont'd ...

Oh dear I'm again having problems with my computer.

I won't try again this time.

All I can suggest is that you Google -
"Joe Hilderbrand - changing the date of Australia Day
wont change our past." The link should come up and it's
worth a read.
Posted by Foxy, Monday, 30 January 2017 9:56:31 AM
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There is a guilt industry going. Everyone has to feel guilty because somewhere sometime some person acted in some way that someone else doesn't like.
The ABC has been sucked into this and falls over itself apologising for everything. It's usually the fault of some white man somewhere.The 730 program is packed with it, likewise ABC TV "news". It's the Culture of Complaint all over again.

I would be more inclined to read this article sympathetically if the author corrected her own faults in logic, grammar and punctuation
Posted by Waverley, Monday, 30 January 2017 9:58:07 AM
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Those who live in the past have no future! With the anglicisation of Ireland, many celts were dispossessed and again as the consequence of the great famine! The highland clearances dispossessed most highlanders, some of who responded with armed rebellion! And as a consequence, many swelled the ranks of the, bound down in iron chains, transportees!

One of my forebears came with the second fleet in such a manner. And when he and fellow prisoners escaped from notorious Sarah Island, he added his genes to the native tasmanian gene pool. It all occurred a very long time ago and before I was even a gleam in my father's eye and he a gleam in his etc/etc!

Others followed as indentured servants, (slaves) due to the Great potato famine. Others came as free settlers, doctors, when Adelaide was being developed as our first planned city.

It remains of little consequence when some flamin flag was raised! But particularly for the hundreds of thousands of dispossessed who arrived here as the consequence of world wars! Or the thousands of Aussies, who lay moldering in some distant war graves.

Paying the ultimate sacrifice, just so those that want to bellyache about a date, retain the right to do so, ad infinitum, ad nauseum!

It happened and no amount of bellyaching by folks not there won't/can't change that! Therefore it is time to bury the past along with the participants and refocus on what is of real and actual importance and threatened by mindless, pointless activism!

And that is recognition, reconciliation, unity, the referendum and the best possible future we can create for succeeding generations!

All anyone can ever own is their own behavior and consensus ought to decide if we want to change our day! Not those with the loudest voices or most antisocial, aggressive, pernicious personalities!

And how about a DNA test to separate out the real original Australians/claimants for native title benefits, and the pretenders, some of whom may be more dyak than Aborigine? And their clear if unstated goal/aim/purpose is division and anything that prospers that!?
Alan B.
Posted by Alan B., Monday, 30 January 2017 11:21:36 AM
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ttbn Quote "that living remotely, without education, jobs, health care and facilities is no sort of life at all."

What you have described translates in probably a very large proportion of the population to a slave to the bankers you have to work to get things then virtually for lifer you are a slave to repay the house, car and credit card debts.

Loose your job and can't repay they take it away and in some cases put you in jail and take it away.
Posted by Philip S, Monday, 30 January 2017 11:28:14 AM
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I loose sympathy for protesters when they burn the Australian flag....they should be shot!
Posted by diver dan, Monday, 30 January 2017 4:11:42 PM
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The author seems to assume all guilt is European in origin. I don't.
Noting that most Aborigines have European ancestors, that implies both guilty ancestors and victim ancestors.
How do we sort that out for the poor petals forever denigrating the origins of this great nation, and probably with their hands out for the dole or grants from productive people? My view is to simply acknowledge the past but look to the future. I won't be apologising or compensating anyone for anything any ancestor did, and neither should anybody else.
On language, since when did "indigenous" become a proper noun and hence require the upper case I as in "Indigenous" used exclusively in this piece? Have we invented a new word? It's not in my dictionary. What was wrong with the all-inclusive "Aborigine" which encompassed all people native to Australia?
And finally, God how I wish we could lose forever the necessity to have a "conversation" every time something needs to be agreed. It's such a weaselly weak word and incessantly used by lefties who have forgotten, it seems, how to debate, or even just talk. Instead they think they are having a conversation when they are talking, but that doesn't apply to any need to listen.
Posted by Captain Col, Monday, 30 January 2017 5:47:44 PM
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In my opinion t's a genuine issue, and we don't have the luxury of being complacent if we value national unity and reconciliation.
We could just ignore it, but the issue isn't going to go away.
We'll be having these same discussions every year.

Whilst no individual is responsible for anything that happened before they were born, period; the society we celebrate today was originally built upon the indigenous' subjagation and displacement.

Whilst none of us are personally responsible for what happened to them we enjoy the benefits of it and we can't have our cake and eat it too.

I'm going to reiterate a few things I recently said on another thread:

Every year to those who identify as indigenous, we're essentially celebrating the invasion of their homeland; their peoples subjugation and their cultures demise.
And whether we actually see it that way ourselves doesn't really matter, because that's obviously how they see it.
I guess it'd be like continually ripping open a semi-healed wound... (whilst talking about reconciliation and equality is like lecturing people on proper healthcare when you hypocritically keep ripping open your own wounds...)

To end Australia Day, for many of us would also be like wiping out our own heritage and identity in this country, just as was done to them, is it not?
If we keep Australia Day and simply change the day, is it not just celebrating the same 'invasion' thing just on a different day?

Alan B,
"Those who live in the past have no future!"
I'm sure you'd also agree that 'those who fail to learn from the past are destined to make the same mistakes'.
Posted by Armchair Critic, Tuesday, 31 January 2017 7:20:22 AM
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What other date in the last 100,000 years is as significant on this Island continent ?
Posted by Bazz, Monday, 6 February 2017 3:55:49 PM
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Captain Col, the use of the capital 'I' when using the term Indigenous denotes that the person using it is referring specifically to Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. It is a 'catch all' and the capital is used in the same manner as the capitalisation of Aboriginal or Aborigine, which again shows the usage is referring to Australian Aboriginal people. Using lower case letters in both instances is disrespectful and also regarded as an insult. Also, Torres Strait Islanders are not referred to as Aborigines or Aboriginal people...they are a completely different group of people...hence the use if Indigenous when including both.

Bazz, if you want a couple of dates with more appropriate and inclusive significance than the 26th of January then I suggest January 1st, when Australia became a united nation of federated states in 1901; or 3rd of March when in 1986 Australia finally became an independent nation.
Posted by minotaur, Tuesday, 7 February 2017 3:04:08 PM
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