How dare they

[fragger]

make trouble on my birthday! I'm talking about a certain element among the Aboriginal community here. My birthday today (Jan 26th) coincides with Australia Day, which marks the date when in 1788, eleven shiploads of convicts first arrived here from Britain, thus heralding the influx of whites to this continent.

I've covered all that before, but what I saw on TV this morning got my blood up. In Melbourne, a large Aboriginal-driven protest of sorts is being staged in the CBD to protest this day, when they claim that the country was invaded by whites (and I agree totally, that is in fact exactly what happened). However, that's not what angered me. What irked me was, well, several things.

Firstly, this crowd, in all seriousness, are demanding that the day be re-named "Invasion Day". Yes, by all means, let's make ourselves an international laughing stock. They claim that celebrations are inappropriate and insensitive to their "plight" (and as I'll explain, that "plight" is hardly a plight anymore).

Secondly, a spokesman for the group who was being interviewed on TV was about as Aboriginal as I am - fair hair, pale skin and blue eyes. Didn't stop him smearing white tribal paint on his face like a pretentious wanker and spewing out the same tired old hyperbole. If he's Aboriginal, then I'm the king of bloody Siam.

Thirdly, I'm sick of not knowing what these people want from the rest of us. About 10 years ago, our then Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, delivered an official government apology to thousands of Aboriginal people on the lawn of Parliament House for the injustices of the past, in a beautiful, moving and truly heartfelt address that, at the time, was deemed by those present as "healing" and going a long way towards reconciliation.

So here we are, ten years later, and they're all out bitching and making nuisances of themselves again. So what, exactly, do they want? I would so love to have a one-on-one with one of the leaders of this movement and ask them. No carping on about the injustices of the past, we've been down that road umpteen times already. I want to know what they want NOW. I want to ask them, "Okay, what can we do to make you all happy?" Do they want all non-Aboriginal people in the country to pack up and leave, so they can go back to living in the Stone Age? Do they want an apology from every white person every single year forever? Do they want the working, tax-paying people of this country to pay their way for them in perpetuity?

They need to suck it up and get over it. They've had their freaking official apology. We can't change the past, it's done. And I will be damned if I'm going to apologize on a yearly basis for something I didn't do. I wasn't there and I didn't choose to be born in this country, any more than they did. They need to wake the hell up and realize that they're living in a lucky, strife-free country amid economic prosperity, good health care (especially if you're Aboriginal) and a top-ten world standard of living. They need to pull their collective head in and count their blessings.

There is an Aboriginal community just outside the large nearby main town, about twelve kays up the road from my place. Over the years, the gov has provided them with free housing (as in, free - no rent, no bond, no nothing) and a greater level of financial assistance then anybody of any other nationality in this country gets, including White Aussies. Aboriginal welfare groups have bent over backwards to help these people, and all they've received in return is bitterness and resentment. Today, that community is a disgusting, rundown mess. The houses have been trashed, the yards are full of garbage and the local bus service is seriously considering cancelling their services to the area because the drivers are sick of rocks being thrown through their windows.

I'm sick of feeling sorry for them. Time and again, efforts of reconciliation have been met with anger and resentment. We've done as much as we can. If they won't pull themselves up out of the gutter, then as far as I'm concerned, they can stay there and rot. Many would call me a racist. I would contend that the racism is coming from the other side of the fence (what's left of the fence that hasn't been torn down and burned just for the hell of it by toxic Abo teenagers). Seriously, if you could see what they have done to that community, all the while knowing that taxpayer dollars were spent to build it with nothing asked in return except an effort to try to make better lives for themselves, you too would be disgusted. No other group of people in this country receives such levels of community aid. I certainly can't expect to ever be provided with rent-free housing based solely on my ethnicity.

I reckon we should send them all to some terrible, war-torn, third-world country for a month or two where people are REALLY oppressed, to knock some perspective into their cranky heads and make them realize just how good they could have it here if they put in a bit of effort, just like anybody else, instead of listening to them whining and griping like entitled, hardly-done-by victims who feel that the country owes them a free ride forever. It's been well over 200 years, they need to get the hell over it. Nobody is holding them back anymore these days. If they're too lazy to try to make something of themselves, if they believe they have the right to just be layabouts while everybody else does the w0#k and provides them with all the mod-cons they take for granted - and then trash -  then that's their own bloody funeral. I'm not going to be made to feel guilty anymore. If they want to shed their victimhood status, it's up to them to do it. We've done our bit, and if they squander the chances they've been given, and continue to be given, then they didn't deserve them in the first place.

I've worked with Aboriginals who are living proof that nobody is holding them back. I've worked alongside one in IT, I've met one or two in the professions, and I've worked alongside them in a few other jobs. They have access to all kinds of monetary and educational benefits that nobody else is entitled to. If they won't take advantage of it to better their lot and prefer instead to wallow in squalor and hatred, then too fucking bad for them.

If everybody who isn't Aboriginal did depart and leave the country to them, I'd give it two to three weeks before these whingers would be begging everyone to come back, once the power and plumbing goes off and nobody is manning the shops - or pumping the booze. They could no more adapt to a primitive, stone-age existence then anybody else living here these days. They need to put up or shut up. I've had a gutful of these entitled whingers.

/rant

[Art Blade]

Happy birthday, fragger

Sounds reasonable what you wrote, at least I can see it the way you do. Doesn't sound racist to me, it sounds like a reality check they've been avoiding. Official apology, welfare, free housing, access to education.. I didn't know they had that much support. Pity that for whatever reasons it doesn't w0#k for them.

[fragger]

No person with more than a skerrick of compassion can read through the litany of past injustices committed against Aborigines by whites without being appalled. But I guess what I'm saying is that we can't change the past, and true reconciliation will never be a thing until we can put the past behind us. That might be an easy thing for a white guy to say, but it's true nonetheless. The past shouldn't be forgotten, but it also shouldn't be used as a weapon of guilt against those who are not personally guilty.

A doctor can treat a wound, but ultimately it's the body that has to heal itself. Wounds that are continually reopened by the patient will never heal.

[nex]

You and I are in the same boat fragger.
A few years ago our President Jacob Zuma was blaming Jan van Riebeeck
for his (Zuma's) Minister of Education's stuff up with an order of educational school books,
the poor bastard landed at Table Bay (Cape Town) in April 1652 for crying out load   

More than 70% of black people have 2-3 bedroom houses in their "homeland"
which they only occupy during the festive season, but all of them insist in getting
free housing, free water/electricity here in the "Townships".
Then after getting these free houses they allow others to erect shacks of
about 2m X 2m on these same properties and
charge them rent and for water and electricity.
 

[BinnZ]

Happy Birthday Fragger 

[PZ]

Good rant fragger, and happy B-day, my friend 

As most of you already know, we have similar experiences here in the U.S.. Evidently this is a recurring cycle when people move from one part of the world to another.

Our government has given the native Americans many of the same "benefits" you mention fragger, and some of them have become alcoholics dependent on government handouts. They are reaping benefits that are given because the government is trying to make reparations for past bad behavior on the part of white people. However, that does not stop the government from cheating native Americans should their needs arise as is evidenced by the latest Trump administration approval of an oil pipeline through their lands. I do not know what the solution is, or should have been, but simply throwing a bit of money at a "problem" is not the answer.

Speaking of celebrations days, Columbus Day is similar a way to your Australia Day.  Columbus Day celebrates the fact that Christopher Columbus found the Americas. Firstly, Columbus did not discover the Americas - evidence has shown that other Europeans found this land well before Columbus, and that the Asians crossed over into north America before that.  Secondly, Columbus did not think he had found a new land, he thought he found a new way to India, hence the calling of native Americans "Indians".

I guess the native Americans are just lucky that Columbus didn't think that north America was Iraq, else they'd be called a name that would cause the Trump administration to deport the lot of them.

[Art Blade]

I shouldn't laugh but that was a funny joke.

[fragger]

Thanks for the birthday wishes, chaps

Affecting a reconciliation between native races with more recent arrivals seems to be a universal problem, with national variations on the theme. Reparations and welfare can only go so far. In order for reconciliation to be fully realised, BOTH sides have to come to the table. The situation here has become too one-sided - whites pay, Aboriginals get. That's unsustainable and it is isn't ever going to solve anything, in fact it's just going to prolong the pain.

I don't know what the answer is. It's ludicrous to expect over 25 million people to pack up and leave a country to the natives, and no matter how terribly they may have been treated in the past, the natives can't reasonably expect the rest of the nation to pay their way through life forever.

You're right PZ, just throwing money at the issue isn't the answer. That won't solve anything by itself. We (the rest of the country) have given the Abos plenty of material and medical aid, at least as much as anyone else in the country gets. They have heard an official admission of guilt for crimes committed against them by past governments, and have been issued a formal Prime Ministerial apology for those crimes, yet it seems that's not enough for some of them. What else we can do, I don't know. And I suspect there were many at that rally in Melbourne who themselves don't know what they want.

I just got cranky when I saw all those people on TV that morning protesting on what should be a celebration of our country, for better or worse. This is a wonderful country to live in, all things considered. It regularly makes it onto any international "top-ten" list for standards of living, in all indexes - standard of health care, standard of education, standard of economic stability, standard of general happiness. There is no war, no ethnic cleansing, no mass-persecution, no enslavement, no mass-starvation, no brutal authoritarianism. People overall are friendly and happy. Aboriginal people could make good lives for themselves here, but they must start by coming to terms with what has happened in the past, however painful that may be, and move past it. They don't have to love the rest of us, but for their own sake, they have to stop hating. Unfortunately, some of these bitter adults will pass their bitterness on to their children, and the cycle will continue.

On the plus side, the situation does appear to be improving, but at a glacial pace. If we could just convince the older ones to stop steeping their children in hatred and get them to consider their kids' future instead, and do what they can to provide that future, it would go a long way. There is plenty of support available for that.

I get the anger, I really do, but remaining angry forever and biting the hands that attempt to feed them is never going to improve their lot.

I think this fellow, a Native American Lakota named Albert White Hat, puts things very well (from an episode of Ken Burns' documentary series, The West):

[nex]

I guess the native Americans are just lucky that Columbus didn't think that north America was Iraq, else they'd be called a name that would cause the Trump administration to deport the lot of them.

Brilliant PZ   

Oh yes forgot, Happy Birthday fragger  +1

[mandru]

Happy belated B-Day fragger. 

[fragger]

Thanks mandru