
- Posts: 2356
- Joined: Mon Oct 11, 2010 3:10 pm
- Location: East Coast, USA
earlytalkiebuffRob wrote:Donald Binks wrote:
I think that indigenous folk were treated in much the same way throughout the Empire. Right up until the 1970's Aboriginal children in Australia were separated from their families and fostered by whites in order to better assimilate them.
The nation has formally apologised in the last few years.
You might get some idea of what it was all about from the film "The Rabbit Proof Fence" which came out a few years back.
(At the moment the national day - "Australia Day" on 26th January is being lambasted because it is seen as "Invasion Day". Recently statues of Captain Cook have been defaced. Whilst we can acknowledge now in hindsight that evils and wrongs were done in the past, I believe we all just have to now muck in and get on with things the best way we can. )
We had some of this nonsense over here in England with regard to a statue or bust of Cecil Rhodes, which had started to 'cause offence' after umpteen years in situ. Of course all that was needed was for those offended to either avoid the thing, or to break wind (not easy to do on cue), cock a snook or to deliver a hearty Bronx Cheer when passing it...
to some Rhodes stands for taking the wealth(diamonds) out of S. Africa without much benefit to the South Africans. Wasn't the ??Kapoor Diamond taken from India during the Raj colonial regime to be placed in Queen Victoria's tiara, and was later recently returned to India? As for Captain Cook, some now refer to him as Captain Crook, but Mutiny on the Bounty is still a good film, I watched it a couple of years ago. History isn't always pretty, but we should learn from it.
Those who forget the past, are condemned to repeat it. .....Santayana
