Green Mtn
location: Observing the Progressive madness with considerably less amusement.
listening to: Grandchildren, the best reason for saving the future.
registered: 2004.04.03
posts: 2617
[view all posts]
[view all posts]
There's damned Europeans in the US too, sounds awful familar.
White Australia has a Black History': Sources for Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander Studies in the National Library of AustraliaWritten and presented by John Thompson at the Indigenous
Research Ethics Conference, 27-29 September 1995, organised by
the Centre for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Participation,
Research and Development, James Cook University of North
Queensland.I remember during the bicentennial year of 1988 seeing the slogan
'White Australia has a Black History' spray-painted in large letters
onto the concrete walls which surround the base of the new
Australian Parliament building in Canberra. It appealed to me
greatly as one of the most effective protests by indigenous
Australians during that flawed year of celebration, a year which
most Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, (and probably more
European Australians than we might guess), viewed more
accurately and appropriately as a year of loss and mourning,
recognising the terrible damage done to Australia's indigenous
peoples by the historic act of European settlement. In Judith
Wright's powerful phrase, this slogan and the protest it represented
was 'a cry for the dead'. Its neat ambiguity summed up two
important issues central to any understanding of this country. In
the first place, it was an affirmation by indigenous Australians that
their long history in this country had primacy, legitimacy and a rich
and positive integrity of its own. Secondly, it was an accusation, a
reminder to those celebrating a mere two hundred years of
European settlement, that this celebration was based on a false
premise. The slogan was a reminder to the country that a dark pall
of shame lay over the history of European settlement in Australia
and that until this was recognised and acknowledged the prospects
for reconciliation were bleak. It was an unpalatable message and it
was one delivered with a kind of 'up your nose' assertiveness which
expressed a new confidence and self-assurance by Australia's First
Nation peoples.... there's more here:
http://www.nla.gov.au/nla/staffpaper/thomp.html
–--
“Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions.” Wm O. Douglas
“Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions.” Wm O. Douglas
G
Green Mtn
(view)
There's damned Europeans in the US too, sounds awful familar.
White Australia has a Black History': Sources for Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander Studies in the National Library of AustraliaWritten and presented by John Thompson at the Indigenous
Research Ethics Conference, 27-29 September 1995, organised by
the Centre for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Participation,
Research and Development, James Cook University of North
Queensland.I remember during the bicentennial year of 1988 seeing the slogan
'White Australia has a Black History' spray-painted in large letters
onto the concrete walls which surround the base of the new
Australian Parliament building in Canberra. It appealed to me
greatly as one of the most effective protests by indigenous
Australians during that flawed year of celebration, a year which
most Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, (and probably more
European Australians than we might guess), viewed more
accurately and appropriately as a year of loss and mourning,
recognising the terrible damage done to Australia's indigenous
peoples by the historic act of European settlement. In Judith
Wright's powerful phrase, this slogan and the protest it represented
was 'a cry for the dead'. Its neat ambiguity summed up two
important issues central to any understanding of this country. In
the first place, it was an affirmation by indigenous Australians that
their long history in this country had primacy, legitimacy and a rich
and positive integrity of its own. Secondly, it was an accusation, a
reminder to those celebrating a mere two hundred years of
European settlement, that this celebration was based on a false
premise. The slogan was a reminder to the country that a dark pall
of shame lay over the history of European settlement in Australia
and that until this was recognised and acknowledged the prospects
for reconciliation were bleak. It was an unpalatable message and it
was one delivered with a kind of 'up your nose' assertiveness which
expressed a new confidence and self-assurance by Australia's First
Nation peoples.... there's more here:
http://www.nla.gov.au/nla/staffpaper/thomp.html
–--
“Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions.” Wm O. Douglas
“Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions.” Wm O. Douglas
