Somehow I think the above arguments might just go unnoticed in central Oz; where the rights of security, and to youthful imagination and,dare I say it' childhood Dreaming will be impinged upon by adult concerns tonight.

Whether or not Her Maj. apologizes will not make an ounce of difference on the ground.

What will count is education of the children, AND their parents generation.

R0bert
You put a good question.
"If wealth was aquired by an earlier generation by doing harm to others is it then OK for the current generation to live off the benefits of that earlier wrongdoing or is there a responsibility to try and put right what you can?"
Is it enough to put questions? Do not you know what happened? Do not you know the answer from your question?
WHILE WE DO NOT HAVE RESPONSIBILITIES FOR THE ACTS OF OUR ANCESTORS WE HAVE RESPONSIBILITIES TO THE VICTIMS FROM OUR ANCESTORS BECAUSE WE BENEFIT FROM THEIR VICTIMIZATION.
WHILE THE ACTS FROM OUR ANCESTORS STOPPED, THE RESULTS FROM THEIR ACTS TO US AND ABORIGINES CONTINUE TO EXIST, ALIKE CONTINUE OUR RESPONSIBILITIES TO ABORIGINES UNTIL TO FIND A MUTUALLY ACCEPTED SOLUTION.
Regards
Antonios Symeonakis
Adelaide

Foxy and Runner,

I lost a longer reply and now becoming tired. So, please the brevity:

Aplogising for the [orginal] sins of her ancestors fits in with the Queens Coronation oath to uphold the Thiry-Nine [oginally 42] articles of the Church of England, including orginal sin for which she should demonstrate contrition for the "sins of her fathers". She shpu;d show contrition to be constant with her beliefs [nor necessarily ours]. Even way before the split the Western Church, William the Conqueror when into seclusion for a year as pentance.

Actually, I feel Queen should not apologise just drop the title Defender of the Faith, having separation between Church, State and Monarchy.

Foxy, I admire Willian Wilberforce too.

Runner, my little post-research project has demonstated that posters identify with victims [aborigines] not personalities. Yes, we should he aware of the wealth and power of the West, but, as Toynbee notes 23 civilizations have come and gone;

Ozymandias:

I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed.

And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

(Shelley, 1818)

What we hold dear is tenuous.

[Ozymandias was Rameses II]

"If wealth was aquired by an earlier generation by doing harm to others is it then OK for the current generation to live off the benefits of that earlier wrongdoing or is there a responsibility to try and put right what you can?"

If I steal your car and give it a relative, who gives it his daughter? Who owns the Car?

How did the Kennedy's make their Money?

What if the tobacco industry diversifies into ethical drugs? Are they still murders?

Dear Oliver,

I'm not disagreeing with what you're saying ... you're raising so many questions that it's hard to keep up. (Where do we start with the answers?). The bottom line is - its a moral choice isn't it?
Countries and their leaders have to decide for themselves where they stand. Of course pressure can be applied through 'collective action' as I've argued on another post. And it all depends on how people feel about matters. My personal feelings concerning the British Establishment, and especially the Monarch, is that it's not going to happen. I'm not saying that it's right or wrong, I'm just stating the facts as I see them.

Take care.

Hello Foxy,

My Headliner was meant to bring out issues and not at first state my point-of-view at first. It containes Ingenious vs. Crown apologies.Also, the status of Defender of the State.

I think the Queen did the right thing apologizing to the little girl, some both will surely remember. Had she not the press might have erupted like Quackatoa.

Seriously, the Queen is a wonderful person but her relavance to us is vague for me. I would vote for a Rebuplic but like the Union Jack on the flag issue can wait for the older generation to die out before change. Were I to meet Her Majesty I would extent every courtesy, as she does towards her subjects.

The UK dropped us in WWII, left us for the Common Market in 1957, and, now is making visas harder for Australians. Most worl PMs visit Australia but when did an English PM lasr give his respects in Canberra. Yet, they wanted us to ptotect them in WWI & WWII and help build the atomc bomb when the US would not [they were out favour because of the Suez crisis].

WE want Britian. So, why have its monarch, unless she moves here. English military failures cost millions of lives and it is a poor creditors, borrowing billions from the US and vnver paying its bills [e.g., war debt].

When Britian entered WWII it was because Gremany invaded Poland. WE are saving the Poles. What happened immediately after WWII, Russia quarantined Poland, millions dies. Britain sat on its a*! Why not attack Stalin?