Sorry. Not that hard at all really

One of the people I work with has sent this little gem (below) around. I’m slightly ashamed of myself that I haven’t fronted him on it (nor will I – I do have to work with him) and glad I don’t have too much to do with him directly as it will be difficult to be civil.

Since it’s “in vogue” at the moment – here it is…..the APOLOGY Kevin Rudd should be giving to the aboriginals!!

We apologise for giving you free doctors and free medical care and medications, which allows you to survive and multiply so that you can demand apologies.

We apologise for helping you to read and teaching you the English language and thus we opened up to you the entire European civilisation, thought and enterprise.

We feel that we must apologise for building hundreds of homes for you, which you have vandalised and destroyed.

We apologise for giving you law and order which has helped prevent you from slaughtering one another and using the unfortunate for food purposes.

We apologise for developing large farms and properties, which today feed you people, where before, you had the benefits of living off the land and starving during droughts.

We apologise for providing you with warm clothing made of fabric to replace that animal skins you used before.

We apologise for building roads and railway tracks between cities and building cars so that you no longer have to walk over harsh terrain.

We apologise for paying off your vehicle when you fail to pay the installments.

We apologise for giving you free vehicles, petrol, boats, firearms, fishing gear and other non traditional methods that you now use to carry out your traditional ways of hunting.

We apologise for giving you free travel anywhere, whenever. We apologise for giving each and every member of your family $100.00 and free travel to attend an aboriginal funeral.

We apologise for not charging you rent on any lands when white people have to pay.

We apologise for giving you interest free loans.

We apologise for developing oil wells and minerals, including gold and diamonds which you never used and had no idea of their value.

We apologise for developing Ayers rock and Kakadu, and then handing them over to you so that you get all the money.

We apologise for allowing taxpayers money paid towards daughters wedding ($8,000.00 each daughter)

We apologise for giving you $1.7 billion per year for your people, which is $48,000.00 per aboriginal man, woman and child.

We apologise for working hard to pay taxes that finance your welfare, medical care, education, etc to the tune of $1.2 billion each year.

We apologise for having to approach your taxpayer funded aboriginal affairs department to verify the above figures.

For the trouble you will have identifying the uncle toms in your own community who are getting richer and leaving some of you living in squalor and poverty. We do apologise. We really do. We humbly beg your forgiveness for all the above sins.

We are only too happy to take back all the above and return you to the paradise of the outback, whenever you are ready

There’s going to be a lot of this about for the next few weeks.

David that’s really fucking appalling.

And who does the parliament represent? The people. That’s you and me and God knows who else? Its twisted logic to say it is only on behalf of parliament or solely the members of the government.

That aside, just like the Howard government, it’ll go ahead whether we like it or not.

I feel chastened. I didn’t realize that particular piece of nastiness had been around for so long, or spread so widely, as I haven’t seen it before. I must lead a sheltered life. I just thought it was something lurking in a dark corner that needed a bright light shone on it. It’s disturbing that, 40 years after the referendum that recognized the first Australians as fully human, so many people still don’t seem to accept it.

The holocaust denier is no relation, btw.

Hope the apology will include one about the disgusting treatment of young aboriginal boys by one of yours…I mean Bob Collins.

Does jinmaro? Does wolfe? Do I?

you wouldnt believe the subterfuge that goes on, on the net.

You wouldn’t, would you.

Does Jc?

I didn’t until recently, but I have become quite Ok with it as my wife did a good job of explaining it to me in human terms (she a lefty). She believes that they deserve and aplology as bad things have happened to these people. If it manages to help them and reconcile the relationship and making them feel good about themselves it is a worthwhile thing. she also argued that the state though it’s institutions did wrong so the state has a responsiblity to apologise even if these people are not alive. Hey. I’m fine with that.

I am really pleased the Apology is the first point of business of the first Parliament on a new government, and shall be in Martin Place to watch it live. It seems Rudd has consulted a great cross-section of Stolen Generations groups. Let’s hope he gets the wording correct and a huge cloud of sadness and resentment is lifted from our society.

Jc, so its necessary to be a lefty to explain things in human terms?

Dude, I was asked a question and tried to answer it in terms of how I arrived at my decision. Don’t think too hard.

I wonder what correlation there is between people who don’t think ‘we’ should say sorry because ‘they’ didn’t personally do it, but are still proud of ‘our’ diggers in France, Gallipoli, Iraq and East Timor, and talk about ‘us’ losing the cricket last night.

yeah I’m bloody sorry about the fucked up plight of aborigines in Australia, today and ever since my ancestors and my ancestors compatriots came and dispossessed them. Much of what was done was done with the best of intentions, or at least according to the standards of the times, but it still wasn’t and isn’t right.

Still, at least Australia wasn’t colonised by the spanish, dutch, belgians, portuguese, the english were as benign as you’d get in those days.