Posted by Sigismund on August 14, 2007, at 16:04:32
In reply to Look on the bright side » caraher, posted by Sigismund on August 14, 2007, at 14:30:06
In 1992, the PM of Australia, Paul Keating said this in his Redfern Speech....
'And, as I say, the starting point might be to recognise that the problem starts with us non-Aboriginal Australians.
It begins, I think, with the act of recognition. Recognition that it was we who did the dispossessing. We took the traditional lands and smashed the traditional way of life. We brought the disasters. The alcohol. We committed the murders. We took the children from their mothers. We practised discrimination and exclusion.
It was our ignorance and our prejudice. And our failure to imagine these things being done to us. With some noble exceptions, we failed to make the most basic human response and enter into their hearts and minds. We failed to ask - how would I feel if this were done to me?
As a consequence, we failed to see that what we were doing degraded all of us.'It really is worth a read. Once, not often but sometimes, we have been blessed with a leadership deserving of respect.
Here is a link for the full text....
poster:Sigismund
thread:774784
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/poli/20070708/msgs/776251.html