Australia to issue apology to Aborigines

[Zzarchov]

Zzarchov:

Normally you are an island of good sense and clear writing, something I admire and look forward to finding. On this issue however, you appear to have tipped off the rails.

At the risk of repeating my earlier post, of course you are right that the sins of the parent cannot be visited upon the children - unless there is an ongoing injury to the victim or benefit to the descendants of the wrongdoer.

My grandfather stole your grandfathers' farm - you are landless and I am rich. Rightly, I should turn over everything I have to you. There are endless variants of this scenario - from Jewish slave labour (hello, Siemens!) to refusing to admit to past misdeeds (Armenian/Kurdish genocides, the British starving the Indians, etc).

This ethic translates quite easily to institutions and governments.

Yeah, it's expensive and painful and embarrassing - it should be. If apologies were easy and painless there would be no value to them.

Pangloss

The problem comes in with WHO is responsible. Is everyone who is currently an australian citizen responsible?

Keeping in mind Aboriginals are themselves australian citizens. So that seems off, so who is responsible? Who got the land? How did the Aboriginals get the land? Did they have due right to claim it all?

It also gets into the problem of change of ownership. If I stole your farm, then died, and my kids sold it to an immigrant (Whom my government practically blackmailed and held hostage with serfdom to come over here), who just paid if off after 40 years of working for it...

Do you have a right to strip that immigrant of his lifes work? Perhaps, perhaps tell him to go after my kids. But perhaps they have fallen into ruin, or they too have since died...do you then go after their kids?

What If I sold my land to you and died broke and penniless..do you go after my kids even If I was a deadbeat dad?

Some people are born poor, some people are born rich. Im a firm believer you have no right to dig into the "past wrongs" even if they can be shown to have a net effect on you.

If two children are born poor, does one deserve to be born poor more than the other one? Did one do something extra wrong by choosing to be born to a drunken gambler instead of a wrongfully cheated native?

It is hard for me to explain (coherently) after a long day (I hate this time of year), But I'll try and edit this post when I get free time to do just that, since I feel you deserve a better written response.

 

[Pangloss]

You know, Zzarchov - we're both right.

When there's no pie to divide, there's nothing to make reparations with. When there are ill-gotten gains, neither one of us would advocate withholding from the rightful owners.

Maybe it is a question of rationally deciding what is the right thing to do. The impossible thing, it seems, is keeping emotion and the politics of identity out of the equation. . .

Pangloss

 

[Stretch]

>>Keeping in mind Aboriginals are themselves australian citizens. So that seems off, so who is responsible? Who got the land? How did the Aboriginals get the land? Did they have due right to claim it all?<<

It has been proven that the Aussie native werent the 1st ones in Aus. There are instances where they have painted over other civilsations cave paintings etc, same with the NZ maori....it was proven that there was a celtic race in Nz b4 maori...but due to pressure being bought to bare on the gov by maori, there will be no more archeological digs done in NZ.