Australian History X

[Pies4shaw]

Ah, what rascally hijinx! It’s hard not to feel a certain affection for the pass-times of our forbears, isn’t it?

[thesoretoothsayer]

^ Your forebears.

[Pies4shaw]

“Our” was a figure of speech. I don’t know, though, that it’s very useful for any of us to special plead on behalf of our ancestors. FWIW, mine were in Ireland until the potato famine.

[thesoretoothsayer]

Fair enough.
I'm probably a touch sensitive about how the many, and varied, european ethnicities get lumped in with the Western European colonial project.
There's a tendency in some circles to attribute all the crimes of colonialisation, here and on other continents, to "us white people".
I'm not sure how many Balts, Fins, Romanians, Hungarians etc. etc. were involved in frontier massacres but I wouldn't think too many.

[David]

[stui magpie]

Anything that happened prior to federation should be blamed on England

[Pies4shaw]

It’s not about blame, though - it’s mostly acknowledgement and regret. I would have thought that (whatever exculpatory narrative we adopt) we could all agree that the sorts of pointless massacres of defenceless people that went on here were tragic and awful. I’m in favour of apologising. To me, it’s no different to when the a Government compensates someone for, say wrongful imprisonment: I didn’t do it and I have no personal responsibility for it but I don’t object to the apology and the compensation. That which was done to our indigenous people should never have happened, irrespective of the how and the why.

[stui magpie]

^

Valid points, no disagreement from me.

I just generally like blaming England.

[Pies4shaw]

We retained the Ashes.

[watt price tully]