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How to learn from history while letting go of the past

James Arvanitakis

by James Arvanitakis

09 Jul 05:44am

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Filed under: Europe, Germany, History, Society, Travel, Wwii

38 comments

Travelling in northern Europe, ‘the War’ is never far away: from the way that people feel about Germany’s performance in the World Cup, to the bullet scares on churches and town halls, the designs of cities such as Rotterdam that where flattened in air raids, to more in-depth conversations about identity and nationalism.

Reminders are everywhere in Europe of it's bloody past. Picture: AFP

As an Australian who has not spent much time in this part of Europe until recently, this is quite surprising. Like most Australians, World War II feels to me in the distant past and rarely thought about, whereas here, its memory is alive and present.

A friend of mine highlighted an example of just how nearby the War is for many Europeans even of more recent generations.

She explained that if you ever visit a German military facility, all symbols of the country’s fascist past have been removed.

Despite best efforts, however, you can still make out where they once existed. Buildings still bear the marks of the once intimidating symbols that celebrated the rise and power of the Third Reich even though they were violently removed some 65 years ago.

It must raise conflicting emotions for a member of the German Military Police Force I met as he prepared to undertake his next tour of Afghanistan: a proud soldier from a military family who have served the German army for generations.

His personality wonderful, his politics progressive, his service record impeccable. The emotions of his country past, however, uncomfortable.

It is not just Germany that has a past whose symbols of brutality have been removed. In Holland, for example, the history taught at high school until relatively recently revolved around their Golden Age of world dominance – while the brutal reality of the slave trade in the colonies that where managed by the Dutch West India Company is glossed over.

Such symbols act as an interesting metaphor for memory: both personal and national. When past events that we are ashamed exist, we often do our best to erase them.

Both nations and people, however, are often confronted by moments where this memory returns – and it is something that makes us uncomfortable. It is something that we can never truly erase no matter how hard we try.

Renowned sociologist, Kelly Oliver , describes how all nations like to imagine a smooth history. Each one only looks smooth because we work so hard at covering up the cracks.  Like a cheap renovation, however, the cracks will always become visible.

In conversations about the history and memory of our various nations, both the Germans and the Dutch I was keeping company with stated that at least as an Australian I did not have to deal with such an uncomfortable history.

To their surprise I rattled off a number of difficult aspects of Australia’s history: our betrayal of East Timor in the 1970s, the appalling role we played in the Bougainville conflict, the illegal invasion of Iraq, the ‘children overboard’ fiasco, the refusal to accept the genuine refugees picked up by the MV Tampa and of course, and the clincher, the long history of mistreatment of Australia’s Aboriginal population.

Such a discussion of any country’s chequered history raises two invariable questions: why should I feel any responsibility of a past that had nothing to do with me? And, are not the recounting of such details disrespectful to a nation that has served you well?

As a nation that still has much to do to reconcile our past and our relationship with Indigenous Australians, both these questions miss the point.

More appropriate questions that we should approach are: how can we deal and resolve a past that includes many injustices? Secondly, how do we learn from the mistakes we have made?

The thing here is, there is no reason why you cannot express a sense of patriotic pride while still acknowledging dark parts of your history. It also does not make those historical figures involved in these incidents automatically evil.

For example, as a fan of Gough Whitlam, I still am dismayed by his stance on East Timor, but remain impressed with his other achievements. Likewise, I remain a strong critic of the Howard Government, but this does not make John Howard a bad guy (even though he can neither bowl or bat).

No single Australian is personally liable for the massive death and displacement of the Aboriginal population: but as citizens of this nation, we bear both rights and responsibilities, including that of a shared past.

As a second-generation migrant Australian, I have benefited from Australia’s history, enjoy the rights granted, but should also carry some of the responsibility. After all, if we are all encouraged to celebrate the nation’s achievements, should we not be responsible for its failings?

In Germany, each school student is made aware of the Holocaust; Germany’s role in World War II and the impacts this has on Europe. While there are also attempts to ensure proud moments of Germany’s history are celebrated, there remains a nervousness that this pride should remain in-check.

It is quite a mature position for a country with so much history: a position that Australia should learn from. There are few monuments to mark the death of so many Australian Aborigines or the loss of their culture that existed for 40,000 years. However, we are quick to celebrate and mark a national achievement.

Rather than covering the cracks of our history with cheap jingoism, we should acknowledge them right along those parts of history we rightly commemorate. If not, the memory will continue to haunt us and much will remain undone.

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38 comments

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    • Eric says:

      05:54am | 09/07/10

      Some of those “cracks in our history” that you cite are merely cheap political slurs. The war in Iraq was not illegal, children really were overboard, tha handling of the Tampa was correct, and many of the claims about Aborigines, such as the “stolen generation”, were simply made up.

      Of course we shouldn’t airbrush history - but fabricating sins where there are none is just as bad.

      Reply

    • Mark says:

      09:52am | 09/07/10

      The stolen generation is made up? I’d say this suggestion is an act of airbrushing history.  C’mon Eric, isn’t the forced removal of newborn children from their mothers just a tinsy winsy “crack in our history”? You don’t need to commit mass murder to be an a hole.

    • DD Ball says:

      10:27am | 09/07/10

      Well said Eric. There is legitimacy to the issues in Europe. I have collaborated with a world class artist who is German, his mother survived the allied fire bombing of Dresden .. people have forgotten that civilians were hit by allies in order to impress Stalin and Democrat USA. I get the need to end the war quickly. I object to using civilians to do it. I have Aboriginal ancestry (according to family legend) and can assure you that the stolen generation was not an issue in my family. I am also unaware of any other who matches the description of having been stolen so as to strip their Aboriginal identity. I am aware of Bolt’s challenge for ten, which has not been met. I believe the claims of there being a generation of such people a myth.

    • NEFFA says:

      11:49am | 09/07/10

      hahahaha - there are people out there who said the holocaust never happened too.
      sorry boys, but just because you weren’t there doesnt mean it didn’t happen. deal with it.

    • WayneT says:

      12:51pm | 09/07/10

      The most offensive assertion is that the removal of Aboriginal children was on a scale large enough to be genocidal, is not just wrong but embarrassingly wrong. In the first half of the twentieth century, when university historians and ‘Bringing Them Home’ report assured us governments were doing their best to eliminate the Aboriginal race, its
      population grew substantially. In the period nominated by the Human Rights Commission as the worst affected, 1910 to 1970, the Aboriginal population of Australia grew by 68 per cent from 83,588 to 139,456. Growth was particularly strong in those regions where governments were purportedly determined to absorb half-caste and other part-Aboriginal people into the white population. In New South Wales, the Aboriginal population grew by 65 per cent from 1915 to 1940. In
      Western Australia, the supposedly “doomed race” of full-descent people in the north of the state did not decline at all, while in the southern half of the state, where part-Aboriginal people predominated, their numbers were up no less than 120 per cent between 1900 and 1935. In both cases, their populations grew at a faster rate than that of white people.  If the Stolen Generations thesis is true then the Australian Aborigines are the only people in world history to have suffered genocide in the midst of a boom in their population.

    • JC says:

      03:14pm | 09/07/10

      ok Wayne T, what are the statistic on Tasmanias Aboriginal population?

    • Eric says:

      03:16pm | 09/07/10

      Many, if not most, of the so-called “stolen” children were half-white. They were rescued from parents or communities who didn’t want them.

      One of the first court cases claiming compensation involved a half-caste baby who was abandoned in a rabbit hole to die. The baby was saved. Years later, he claimed he had been stolen. Stolen from whom? Rabbits?

      No claim of Aborigines being “stolen” has ever stood up in a real court of law, where the rules of evidence apply. The whole thing is a fabrication.

    • NEFFA says:

      04:04pm | 09/07/10

      eric - lets think about this.
      A white person raised in a white family believing he has god on his side walks into an Aboriginal camp , a nomadic people who have no knowledge of the white mans ways. are for the most part illiterate and struggle to speak english. They have their babies taken from them and sent to white schools to work as maids in white homes.
      Most of these babies are born in the bush, so who do you think is writing the birth certificate? what proof can these people possible come up with when its the whites that are in control of the writing?

    • DJ says:

      04:07pm | 09/07/10

      it wasn’t just the Aboriginies that had stolen children, ‘white’ teenagers who got pregnant had their children taken from them and put up for adoption

    • WayneT says:

      04:13pm | 09/07/10

      @ JC - You trying to compare apples to oranges.  Of the estimated 2000 - 8000 Palawa inhabitants, introduced disease was the major cause of loss of life, along with warfare and private violence. There were about 200 members left in the end.  There is no record that there numbers were reduced in any capacity by removing their children given the time period the incidents took place.  So I don’t get your point , you can’t compare the Tasmanian experience to mainland Australia.

    • Eric says:

      05:19pm | 09/07/10

      Neffa, your comment makes no sense.

      A white person - or indeed a person of any colour at all - can tell that a baby who has been left in a rabbit hole to die, needs help.

      There is no evidence for a “stolen” generation. If anything, it’s a Rescued Generation.

    • Christian Real says:

      05:27pm | 09/07/10

      Eric, you whole diatribe is fabrication,the stolen generation was not a myth, or made up like tyou and others ignorant imbeciles would like to believe.
      Liberals always peddle lies, even Tony Abbott was caught of for being loose with the truth on a 7.30 Report.

    • joe says:

      12:12am | 10/07/10

      You are spot on Eric. Things like Tampa can not be used in the page as WWII. Tampa was an important decision which resulted in a reduction of people risking their lives on dodgy boats to get to Australia. What is the current tally under Gillard’s policy of boat people deaths? 170+?

    • Darryl Price says:

      07:38am | 09/07/10

      O yeah. The difficult aspects you mention parallel the deliberate atrocities visited on others by the Third Reich. I’m suprised that you traveling companions didn’t laugh at your half baked me-tooism.

      Reply

    • James Arvanitakis says:

      09:25pm | 11/07/10

      Hey Darryl, thanks for your comment but not sure exactly what you mean: I find few people laugh when the story of Tasmanian Aboriginals is discussed…

      These were not discussions about which country has the worst record but about understanding the complex nature of history: if we are encouraged to celebrate the past, then why do we not also mourn events?

    • Reg says:

      09:29am | 09/07/10

      Learning that critical lesson from history is the important core of the matter and if anyone has analyzed the best way of using this dreadful experience, it is the Germans.

      The Russians don’t seem to have realized the awful part they played in activating Hitler’s plans nor have they addressed the experience of having an even worse dictator in charge. For Stalin to have slain 35,000 of his officer faction between 1937 and 1938 should have been quite sufficient by itself to warn the Russian military that there was a serious imbalance afoot. Meanwhile the Western factions sat quietly gloating at the time that Communism was proving to the world how dismal its philosophy. A sacrifice no doubt, that religions saw as necessary to prove how un-Godly communism was while tacitly supporting Hitler for his efforts in slaying even more Russians. 

      One can never forget the dreadful cruelty that Hitler implored his soldiers to adopt and that they did so willingly. The supposedly noble Wehrmacht was the only branch Hitler feared may oust him, but even they were so damp eyed about the rearmament and the prestige it offered them, that they too became his devout followers. Yet STILL Hitler needed his even more viscous SS to guard him against the potentiality of a Wehrmacht revolt.

      I’m sure there is another lesson to be learned from the Allied side as well. The interaction of the various nationalities in time of war, particularly as the Germans were defeated but still unwilling to yield. The manipulation of giant bands of men for the glorification of individuals such as Patton and de Gaulle. I often wonder what they teach them in military officer training. It seems to be that war is glorious and the cream of the crop are soldiers. So what does that make Hitler? I do hope not!

      Rotterdam was flattened by the Germans as punishment for disobedience and for no other reason. To display of the extend to which the German regime was prepare to go.

      Don’t bother mentioning destruction of Dresden or Berlin, they were the results of unfortunate German choices.

      Reply

    • Jon says:

      10:31am | 09/07/10

      The Germans tried many times to kill Hitler. The 20 July plot of 1944 was the closest but failed. The failure of both the assassination and the military coup d’état which was planned to follow it led to the arrest of at least 7,000 people by the Gestapo. According to records of the Führer Conferences on Naval Affairs, 4,980 people were executed, resulting in the destruction of the resistance movement in Germany.

      Many other Germans payed a heavy price for the insanity of the Hitler. Towards the of the war least two million German women are thought to have been raped by the Red Army, and a substantial minority, if not a majority, appear to have suffered multiple rape. They ranged from 8 to 80 years old.

    • Sherekahn says:

      09:30am | 09/07/10

      Let’s face it, WE people are trash.  We can be indoctrinated out of sanity.
      There are very few, if any, countries in the world that have not vile events in their history, conveniently glossed over by recent nationalism.
      Germany’s unfortunate period is not so easily glossed over.  Not least because part of its 20th century history is still being perpetrated albeit in the country of Israel.  Only now the BOOT is on another’s foot.  The Palestinians are the unfortunate inheritors of their 20th century behaviour.

      Reply

    • iansand says:

      10:59am | 09/07/10

      A few years ago I went to a Sydney Festival performance called Kinderspiele - Children’s Play.  It was a collaboration between German and Australian teenagers, where they each performed a play about their lives and concerns.  It was breathtaking, not because of the quality of the performance or the writing (although they were good) but because of the vast gulf between the concerns of each set of teenagers.

      The Australians were concerned about acne and teachers and playground loves and bitchiness.  It was a sunny, carefree life.

      The Germans were concerned about their country’s legacy and the integration of the Ostis and Westis - the East and West Germans - into each other’s societies and overcoming the prejudice and suspicion inherent to that process.  An entirely darker perspective.

      There was no suggestion that the Australians were any less capable or introspective.  It was simply that Australia does not have the sort of history that is a substratum of every European’s life.

      Reply

    • Rob says:

      11:04am | 09/07/10

      I was in Richmond, Virginia earlier this year and was stunned by how “alive” the Civil War remains there as an issue - I also thought that the passage of almost 150 years would have taken the edge off the personal acrimony. But no!
      Fresh flowers and “Stars & Bars” flags on graves of ordinary Confederate soldiers and “Heroes of the South” give an uncomfortable feeling that the surrender in 1865 was only a ceasefire, and temporary setback. The huge statues on Monument Ave continue to evidence a great civic pride in the Confederacy.
      Revisionist groups (and even formal history texts - most notably in Texas) gloss over slavery as a cause of the War between the States, with the Governor of Virginia recently declaring Confederate History Month, without mentioning the evils of slavery until to subjected to a wide, public outcry.

      The whole issue is made more complicated by the fact that many of the revered heroes of the Independence movement and war had prominent decsendents who aligned themselves with the South, and their descendents remain significant in social, business and political arenas today.

      Whilst we, in Australia, have “unfinished business” that we need to address (and this is not meant as an excuse to put it off), we are certainly not alone in this regard.

      Reply

    • Jenni from the Shire says:

      11:09am | 09/07/10

      This is a wonderful piece James - measured, sobering and true. I have printed it to keep as an eloquent example of what I can only ever haltingly express. Thanks.

      Reply

    • James Arvanitakis says:

      07:48pm | 10/07/10

      Hey Jenni

      Thanks for your wonderful feedback - it means a lot. And thanks for understanding the sentiments I have attempted to raise

      james

    • Liz says:

      11:21am | 09/07/10

      Hopeful a new PM will address that unfinished business, some of it the brutal treatment of mothers forced to relinquish their babies between 1940 and 1980.
      Hopefully a new PM will look to Ted Egan’s ideas on how we might put things right for first Australians.
      I see no-one has mentioned the brutality of the British in their conquering and colonising for hundreds of years.

      Reply

    • Jude the Obscure says:

      11:40am | 09/07/10

      When visiting France recently for the first time we were at first judged by our appearance - blond, blue-eyed Celts - to be German and thus treated with suspicion. On stating that we were Australians we were shown wonderful kindness and hospitality especially in northern France.
      In Liguria in Italy there is a church which has a painting of a large knife and fork on a wall constantly renewed by locals for 60 years who have not forgotten that the priest in the war was a collaborator with the fascist government and so well fed while all around him were going hungry.
      Nothing ultimately gets forgotten in our collective memory bank. Whatever anyone may think about what happened in Australia between settlers and the indigenous population, what actually happened hasn’t gone away - its still there and can be felt even in some places still.
      In Rome there are always fresh red roses on the spot where Julius Caesar was assassinated in the forum

      Reply

    • A-Bomb says:

      12:20pm | 09/07/10

      I was in Germany for the World Cup in 2006 and was told the the whole event (and the fact that Germany finished 3rd) was somewhat of a watershed for the German people. German patriotism and flying the flag had always been associated with right wing extremists since the war, or was only used for official political business. Despite the Socceroos admirable performance in ‘06, for me the “Weltmeisterschaft” only switched into full gear once the Germans started loudly and proudly celebrating the success of their team and their nation over the past 55 years, rather than being on a constant guilt trip about what had been done between 1933-45. I was really happy for them.

      Reply

    • Kate says:

      07:37pm | 09/07/10

      Yes, I found the same thing when I visited Germany, but I was there two years before the World Cup. There were certainly none of the outrageous displays of patriotism you see in the United States, and none even comparable to what you’d see in Australia.

    • stephen says:

      01:44pm | 09/07/10

      Your picture invokes the Holocaust, and it is very difficult for the Jews to forget anything. Not so much to ignore physical pain or even memory, but the spirit is hurt. (A comment the Pianist Simon Tedeschi made in the Weekend Oz alerted me to this fact.)
      How ignorant are we, because we haven’t suffered ?

      Reply

    • James1 says:

      02:16pm | 09/07/10

      I find it a little scary that current generations of Japanese students have no idea of their role in the Second World War, apart from the fact that there was some “unpleasantness” in China, and that the US dropped some nuclear bombs on Japan.  I have had Japanese students in tutorials argue with me about the campaign in Papua and New Guinea, because they were of the opinion that if Japan had indeed fought Australia there, they would have heard about it at school.

      Reply

    • The Cricket says:

      03:11pm | 09/07/10

      Indeed. Germany has an impressive track-record of facing up to its war-time history.
      There’s a great deal to admire about modern Germany, including their soccer team.
      A German mate of mine was complaining once that many people didn’t have a very good impression of Germans.
      I said, “Well Carsten, you did try to take over the world. Twice!”

    • Hona says:

      02:36pm | 09/07/10

      You have to remember that what started the war was a shift in human reason beginning with the German’s compliments of Immanuel Kant and Georg Frederick Hegel. These men lived just after the German reformation where German’s mostly reasoned upon the biblical propositions. Kant and Hegel changed all that by introducing humanity to a new way of reasoning just after the close of the 18 th century. By the time we arrive at Nietzsche humanity is beginning to feel the full force of this new shift in integration point in humanity, particularly in Germany and surrounding countries. By the time we arrive at Hitler, many German’s have a science view of human beings rather than the biblical idea. This means that Hitler like Stalin and Mao and Pol Pot were not killing human’s after the biblical tradition but after a humanist based ideology. By the time we arrive at our current day, we have a monolithic context we call postmodernism or reason in the area of non-reason; existentialism and a priori application. Nietzsche called our day, ‘perspectivism’ because he realised that this new context involved the death of absolutes and therefore a concept of truth. So in the postmodern context we generate truth and knowledge about all things via our thought processes rather than observing the cosmos before us before arriving at a conclusion about something. If truth is dead as Nietzsche said, then everything is dead, something he also said to those who criticised the Christian faith without looking in to the alternatives. So we arrive at the scariest time in the history of humanity, where truth is relative to the individual with absolute autonomy. Europe like the USA, the UK and NZ have been functioning on this new method since Kant died in 1805 and finally Australia has caught up. However this mean’s that the selective regime that represents Australia is under a real threat from the postmodernist as they assemble under their symbol in Sydney, the Opera House. War is closer to Australia than we actually know because our cultural authority is a mostly selective one and in a postmodern world, that is unacceptable as America and NZ have shown us. In NZ everyone speaks the Maori tongue. Here, not even the indigenous speak their language because they have vanished.

      Reply

    • Craigles says:

      03:03pm | 09/07/10

      Hona, the actions of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot were based on different ideologies, so it is disingenuous to lump them together, particularly when Hitler and Stalin were raised religiously and continued to believe and act as they believed (eg Stalin during Petersburg blockade); and Pol Pot had a strict Catholic education and has been described as thinking he was a religious leader.

    • xyz says:

      12:18am | 11/07/10

      Hona, you couldn’t be more wrong about Kiwi’s.  My pakeha in-laws would know as many Maori words as I do aboriginal ones (i.e. not much) .  I have a close Maori friend here in Aus (where most of them seem to end up) who is also not fluent in her supposed mother tongue!  I think you’ll fnd that, although NZ would like to think it is a bi-lingual country, the truth is it isn’t!  Also, there is only one Maori language but there are many (up to 150) Australian aboriginal lanuages… which one should we learn?

    • Shane says:

      02:45pm | 09/07/10

      You poor thing, being born to a peaceful nation, having to compare the Tampa episode with the destruction of the European Jewry.  That is so pathetic and doubtless the Europeans who know anythign about our history find you foolish and sad, as do I.

      Reply

    • James Arvanitakis says:

      09:39pm | 11/07/10

      Hey Shane - to employ a sporting analogy on the eve of the world cup, you are playing the man not the ball…

      We were not comparing events - there is no political economy in historical events.

      What my (well informed) companions recognised about this event was that we refused the entry of a vessel carrying some of the world`s most vulnerable. The refusal to accept this vessel and `turn back the boats` echoes of a dark passed…

      I have worked in various conflict zones and understand what I would do to save those I love - so no need to feel pity for my lack of understanding.

      But imagine a nation that is actually bombing your homeland to keep the world safe from terrorists telling you that there is nothing to fear and go back…

      No comparisons

      Cheers, james

    • Gregg says:

      03:34pm | 09/07/10

      It would be fine if we could learn from history and it will be forever difficult to know if we do for what has occurred in the past has been at a different time,  and with different situations even if we can align traits and leaders as similar.
      Afghanistan for instance has been referred to in the past as Moscows Vietnam and now some would say the US is doing a Vietnam all over again.
      They did however go to Afghanistan for a different reason to Vietnam.

      Conflicts are at times addressed by the UN and then there can be those such as Indonesia/East Timor where they have not but that does not necessarily mean Australia alone should have intervened. Invading Iraq was done under the UN flag, even if orchestrated primarily by the US abetted by Australia and other nations and though the outcome is what it is and lies have been told, the first casualties and probably most lasting casualty in any conflict zone is going to be the impact on civillians and the loss of truth.

      Learning from history should however also teach us to look further back than just when events occurred.
      Vietnam for instance was a result of opposing communism and one may well wonder what kind of planet we might have if the US had withdrawn to it’s borders and there had been no Berlin airlift, no Korea and no Vietnam.
      Would there be many more people without the freedom they have?

      I imagine there are many Indonesians who still see that the whole of Timor and PNG should be part of their islands nation and if it wasn’t for the Dutch and Portugese then there would be much more indigenous homogenity.
      Would we say the Chinese had similar views on Tibet?

      Iraq and the middle east have a history far back beyond Saddam and I suppose the question with history is just how far back can you go.
      For those of us that have a fine life here and now, it is easier to ignore it.

      Of more recent history, of course the various situations of indigenous people and what has occurred comes to the fore.
      ” Such a discussion of any country’s chequered history raises two invariable questions: why should I feel any responsibility of a past that had nothing to do with me? And, are not the recounting of such details disrespectful to a nation that has served you well? “
      Is it not that you cannot be held to be accountable for the past but that does not mean you should not acknowledge what has occurred and to not acknowledge it would be disrespectful to the truth that a nation should hold dear and more so disrespectful to people who have suffered.
      So the questions are not so off target.
      ” More appropriate questions that we should approach are: how can we deal and resolve a past that includes many injustices? Secondly, how do we learn from the mistakes we have made? “
      I do not know that we can resolve the past othr than acknowledging what occurred and also openly addressing it.
      Sure, there were many attrocities and even Tasmanian genocide you could say occurred and have we learnt from that?
      I would say yes, as long as we would not stand back and let the same happen again.
      The stolen generation! and have we learnt from that? and you could say perhaps not too well for we probably do not even really look too closely at the reasons why it occurred, outcomes and what potential outcome may have been for many without it.
      For amidst the stolen generation you will find much pain no doubt but you also will find many who have recognised there were benefits of a healthier life and education.
      Against that you have a the mistreatment of indigenous children that was being reported on for so long and a decision taken for intervention in the NT.

      There are still many scars and issues that not just non-indigenous people need to deal with but more so indigenous people also need to address how they want their future to be.
      Most unfortunately, like many from troubled environments it is also a case of learning from not the past but that is a much better life to be had from what the present offers and it is not just opportunities that are needed but also the past lingers for indigenous people and not just in having bad examples about.
      The culture of indigenous people will have some vastly different aspects to what we have or have not in the non-indigenous world.

      Is it not for the indigenous people to choose how they wish to live more so than for others to impose on them what we feel is best?
      And then the question could become as it was with the stolen generation
      ” If we feel the children are not receiving the best life possible, what is our responsibility to intervene? ”

      For many aspects of life, history does have a habit of repeating!

      Reply

    • sonya says:

      04:54pm | 09/07/10

      “The culture of indigenous people will have some vastly different aspects to what we have or have not in the non-indigenous world.”
      People are people.
      Culture differs everywhere.
      if things are to change in oz there needs to be more equality, ie, not having separate welfare requirements for white and black.

      Reply

    • Chris says:

      06:25pm | 11/07/10

      You are really standing on shaky ground in claiming that a few minor incidents in our region and the plight of Indigenous Australians are ANYTHING LIKE the mass slaughter of 6 million Jews or the inciting of world war. I mean, come on. By comparison, Australia is a shining model of peace and tolerance. Yes, there have been mistakes and deaths. There are always deaths and mistakes when cultures clash and a dominant culture prevails. Tough luck. I am sick of being made to feel guilty for being a white citizen of a western nation. None of it—NONE of it is my fault or my problem. Let the bleeding hearts fix the “problems” as they see them; let the rest of us get on with living, working and trying to be happy.

      Reply

    • Dark Blue Sea says:

      06:48pm | 15/07/10

      James. Your eloquency and diplomacy re: these comments makes me smile. Thanks for contributing and for being and for breathing deeply in the face of dickheads.

      Reply
 
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by The Punch Team

385

The Punch is moving house

Good morning Punchers. After four years of excellent fun and great conversation, this is the final post…

Will Pope Francis have the vision to tackle this?

by Hannah Harborow

122

Will Pope Francis have the vision to tackle this?

I have had some close calls, one that involved what looked to me like an AK47 pointed my way, followed…

Advocating risk management is not “victim blaming”

by Sarrah Le Marquand

251

Advocating risk management is not “victim blaming”

In a world in which there are still people who subscribe to the vile notion that certain victims of sexual…

Nosebleed Section

choice ringside rantings

From: Hasbro, go straight to gaol, do not pass go

Tim says:

They should update other things in the game too. Instead of a get out of jail free card, they should have a Dodgy Lawyer card that not only gets you out of jail straight away but also gives you a fat payout in compensation for daring to arrest you in the first place. Instead of getting a hotel when you… [read more]

From: A guide to summer festivals especially if you wouldn’t go

Kel says:

If you want a festival for older people or for families alike, get amongst the respectable punters at Bluesfest. A truly amazing festival experience to be had of ALL AGES. And all the young "festivalgoers" usually write themselves off on the first night, only to never hear from them again the rest of… [read more]

Light weight

Gentle jabs to the ribs

Superman needs saving

Superman needs saving

Can somebody please save Superman? He seems to be going through a bit of a crisis. Eighteen months ago,… Read more

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