Dear Ranier
you should know better by now mate...Barns and company latch onto 'issues' like 'Sorry' and like the political parasites they come across as, suck every bit of political life blood and points scoring out of the issue, with who knows how much real care for the people at either end of the issue itself.

Jesus said:
25"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.

I think so much of the political points scoring on the Indigenous issues kinda falls into that category. Perhaps a modern version of the above would include 'Political Opportunists'. ?

The "Sorry" thing has been politicized beyond redemption. Now, if those against cave in, they look weak, and the other mob will claim 'Victory'. "Triumphalism will triumph", and we will be no better off than before.

There is a far better way of saying sorry, -its an 'action'.

But what action ? will it be the same for each aboriginal tribe ? They don't all share the same specific history in relation to the whites.

I have little sympathy for the :

-Better health care
-Better and more Housing
-More funding
-Better education

mob.. because thats a 'white' and a 'political' solution to a cultural problem.

Better to build relationships with traditional elders, and through friendship build as far as possible strategies to restore dignity and self worth.

Perhaps then, the other things might have some meaning and impact

Hi Ranier

Nice to see you contributing again.

I don’t think these blokes quite understand your annoyance.

But I don't quite see eye to eye with this

‘…it is virtually impossible to select a point from which progressive discussion and synthesis can occur’

There's an obvious starting point. Barnes and Glenn stated it but I don’t think they quite understood it.

It was this

…’that improving the well-being of Aboriginal Australians required symbolic redress, as well as practical measures.’

I know both you and I agree that a symbolic redress is essential. Where we probably and understandably might not quite see eye to eye is on the matter of an apology. I know I’m slanted in my view just as you probably are in yours on this particular matter. I think we both understand why we’ve arrived at a different conclusion. You know I think an apology inappropriate for most Australians. But I think the apology issue should be moved on from, simply because it hasn’t worked as it was intended, (Ahhh my bloody pragmatic mind again) and a quite different symbolic redress be fostered. One which I think that with adequate discussion and reasoned debate will become acceptable to all Australians. Even to those who hold unfortunately entrenched and out grown ideas. As you know, I think the vast majority don’t share a particular racist foible but are open to an idea that will engender a self respect and self-belief in indigenous people and their communities.

We do that all the time in our own communities.

Regards Keith

ps mate I’ve come to realise just how little I know. I’m finding my reading extensive and interesting.

Wobbles! Quite a few of those Australians of Japanese, German, Italian and Turkish descent and maybe even a few of Muslim belief, might have a reasonable problem. Not mentioning those of us whose forefathers opposed joining that war on the basis of their belief it was an English and European War.
I have never 'puffed up' on ANZAC day but I have always felt bound to honour the sacriface of those who suffered.

Sorry is always right. You have also taken a position based on justice and kindness not law and balanced accounts and fear.
Your point on distrust is so alarming and yet the PM would expect the Germans to apologize to the Jews. But why can't this distrust and feelings of constant inbred inferiority in our indigenous brothers and sisters be seen by the PM and other conservatives? Is there a kind of new wind of change and courage in the press and politics and business, or are we still, as Robert Manne suggested on ABC radio with Fran Kelly last week, still dead and powerless with a cancer drip fed by the master of the immoral distraction?

Robert Mann also said, in response to a Fran Kelly susggestion that practical reconciliation is what we need, that pracitcal solutions for reconciliation are never all that is needed as reconciliation and rebuilding is a spiritual issue that must have symbol. The humility required to say sorry is made light of by more than one writer here on the subject. Distant from the situation, isolated in their towers of comfort, smug in their dismissiveness and unable to enact empathy with anybody, they remain the beneficiaries of a history of prosperity that has no interest in anything but their own egos and material acquisition.

Hatch and Wobbles great posts! What I find striking is that people who tend to oppose saying sorry to Aboriginal Australian also tend to be proud patiots and rightly delight in Australian achievments.

But to be proud of one's nation necessarely implies taking pride in things done by past generations, being proud of a culture and values which have developed over generations. You cannot imagine a nation redifined anew with every new generation!

So why then all of a sudden when it is not about feeling good about actions performed by people dead ages ago but rather about taking responsibility for crimes committed by our ancestors we would to disown our past?

This is not about political correctedness, it is about proving we are a strong, mature nation which takes pride in its achievments but admits its crimes and remedies them to its best abilities

keith's hit on the head re anzac day and honoring past acts.

the lack of will to be sorry is a sublime honoring of past atrocious acts.

the seeking of sorry is to honor the dead and victimised of those past atrocious acts.

rainer, deadly one!