Post by Flash on Dec 7, 2007 10:52:25 GMT -5
For the life of me, I cannot understand why there is so much angst over saying sorry to indigenous Australians.
John Howard made it plain he would rather lose several limbs than utter the word. Now Brendan Nelson is taking the same obstinate tack, which is one of the reasons he was handed the Liberals' poisoned leadership chalice. Malcolm Turnbull had indicated he was OK with the S-word.
The self-styled culture warriors of the right would have us believe that an apology is out of the question because it would mean today's Anglo-Celtic Australians accept guilt for the actions of our forebears.
And way out on the rabid right there is a cottage industry furiously windschuttling the notion that Aborigines were not ill-treated by our colonial ancestors and that, despite all the evidence, there was no such thing as a stolen generation.
This is offensive nonsense. It is cover for a not-so-subtle dog-whistle racism of the Hansonite variety. Them Abos get enough already, that sort of thing.
The facts are indisputable. Indigenous tribes were dispossessed of their land and the living it gave them. Some Aborigines were massacred. Aboriginal children were taken without their parents' consent, sometimes with good intentions but mostly not.
The only civilised position, therefore, is to be sorry that these things happened and to say so. The alternatives are to be indifferent to Aboriginal suffering, which is insupportable, or to be actively glad about it, which is madness.
When Kevin Rudd says sorry, as I profoundly hope he will, it would not imply that today's white Australians bear the guilt for the wrongs of our history.
The example for us is Germany. Modern Germans are sorry for the horrors of Nazism but, clearly, they are not to blame for them. Nobody seriously argues that some 20-year-old living today in Munich or Hamburg carries responsibility for Adolf Hitler.
So let it be with us. And before the ratbag right jumps in, boots and all, to accuse me of equating our colonial past with Nazism, I make it plain that I do not. I merely suggest that the German view of German history offers a model for an Australian view of Australian history.
It's not that difficult. We are sorry that bad things were done. We say so. Then we get on with righting the wrongs that still afflict the first Australians.
NOT long before the election, I asked a two-star officer in the Australian Defence Force - no names, no pack drill - what he thought of Brendan Nelson as defence minister.
The reply was illuminating. "Brendan can get hold of a brief and repeat it word for word," he said. "But he doesn't have a clue what any of it means."
This seems about right. Nelson appears to be an amiable if doggedly earnest man - although, like Paul Keating, I liked him better when he had the earring - but his entire public career leaves the impression that he believes the last person who spoke to him.
"I've never voted Liberal in my life!" he shouted angrily to a crowd of Labor true believers just days before the 1993 election which returned Keating.
Whooshka. Not a year later, along came the Liberal Party with an offer too good to refuse.
Before you could say "Bob Menzies", Nelson had wormed his way into preselection for the true-blue seat of Bradfield in the heart of Sydney's high Tory North Shore.
It turned out that the never-voted-Liberal outburst had been a lie to save him, as he put it, from "being physically jostled, abused and at one stage spat upon". He had actually voted Liberal in every election since 1987, he assured the blue-rinsed ladies of leafy Lindfield. Even when he had been a paid-up member of the ALP.
To save space, we shall bypass his bungled handling of the shooting death of Private Jake Kovco in Baghdad. And we shall step lightly around his barmy decision - evidently against the advice of the RAAF - to throw $6 billion at buying 24 underperforming Super Hornet jet fighters as a stopgap replacement for the ageing F-111s.
Consider instead his flip-flop on the Kyoto Protocol. Just months before the last election, he could say that the Howard government had "rightly refused to sign".
Whooshka again. After the election, Kyoto suddenly became a good thing. Ratification was "symbolically important", he announced solemnly.
Skating across the Liberal landscape from wet to dry and back to wet again, Brendan Nelson has the courage of his convictions, whatever they might be from day to day.
As someone unkindly said, he reminds you of Andrew Peacock without the gravitas.
THE good news this week is that the combined wisdom of the US intelligence community now has it that Iran is not building a nuclear bomb.
The bad news is that the spooks of Washington are quite possibly wrong about this, as with almost everything else.
I have not been entirely comfortable with the CIA since the plan to get rid of Fidel Castro with an exploding cigar.
A ripper of a lunch - and year
LUNCH with John Laws is never dull. Last Wednesday's was a ripper. You will have seen, I suppose, the lurid accounts of his thunderous, post-prandial descent upon a nearby table shared by two old radio foes, Derryn "the Human Headline" Hinch and Bob Rogers.
Lurid but accurate. Drinks had been taken against the heat of the day. The air was blue with obscenity and insult. For a moment, it looked as if fists might fly. We, the four of us, enjoyed it enormously. The reaction of other lunchers was mixed, I think you could say. Some were understandably outraged. Others thought it more fun than Disneyland.
It is not the done thing to admit this, but I can't help liking John Laws. The old bugger is a bundle of contradictions but, at bottom, there is an intelligent, engaging and humorous man. And, although almost nobody will believe this, a shy one as well, often plagued by doubt. For for all his faults, he was a brilliant broadcaster, and the airwaves seem oddly quiet without him.
Which brings me to say that this is my last column for 2007. I have enjoyed the bouquets you have sent and reeled beneath the brickbats. And, truly, I have done my best to reply.
A merry Christmas to you, and a happy New Year.
smhcarlton@hotmail.com
John Howard made it plain he would rather lose several limbs than utter the word. Now Brendan Nelson is taking the same obstinate tack, which is one of the reasons he was handed the Liberals' poisoned leadership chalice. Malcolm Turnbull had indicated he was OK with the S-word.
The self-styled culture warriors of the right would have us believe that an apology is out of the question because it would mean today's Anglo-Celtic Australians accept guilt for the actions of our forebears.
And way out on the rabid right there is a cottage industry furiously windschuttling the notion that Aborigines were not ill-treated by our colonial ancestors and that, despite all the evidence, there was no such thing as a stolen generation.
This is offensive nonsense. It is cover for a not-so-subtle dog-whistle racism of the Hansonite variety. Them Abos get enough already, that sort of thing.
The facts are indisputable. Indigenous tribes were dispossessed of their land and the living it gave them. Some Aborigines were massacred. Aboriginal children were taken without their parents' consent, sometimes with good intentions but mostly not.
The only civilised position, therefore, is to be sorry that these things happened and to say so. The alternatives are to be indifferent to Aboriginal suffering, which is insupportable, or to be actively glad about it, which is madness.
When Kevin Rudd says sorry, as I profoundly hope he will, it would not imply that today's white Australians bear the guilt for the wrongs of our history.
The example for us is Germany. Modern Germans are sorry for the horrors of Nazism but, clearly, they are not to blame for them. Nobody seriously argues that some 20-year-old living today in Munich or Hamburg carries responsibility for Adolf Hitler.
So let it be with us. And before the ratbag right jumps in, boots and all, to accuse me of equating our colonial past with Nazism, I make it plain that I do not. I merely suggest that the German view of German history offers a model for an Australian view of Australian history.
It's not that difficult. We are sorry that bad things were done. We say so. Then we get on with righting the wrongs that still afflict the first Australians.
NOT long before the election, I asked a two-star officer in the Australian Defence Force - no names, no pack drill - what he thought of Brendan Nelson as defence minister.
The reply was illuminating. "Brendan can get hold of a brief and repeat it word for word," he said. "But he doesn't have a clue what any of it means."
This seems about right. Nelson appears to be an amiable if doggedly earnest man - although, like Paul Keating, I liked him better when he had the earring - but his entire public career leaves the impression that he believes the last person who spoke to him.
"I've never voted Liberal in my life!" he shouted angrily to a crowd of Labor true believers just days before the 1993 election which returned Keating.
Whooshka. Not a year later, along came the Liberal Party with an offer too good to refuse.
Before you could say "Bob Menzies", Nelson had wormed his way into preselection for the true-blue seat of Bradfield in the heart of Sydney's high Tory North Shore.
It turned out that the never-voted-Liberal outburst had been a lie to save him, as he put it, from "being physically jostled, abused and at one stage spat upon". He had actually voted Liberal in every election since 1987, he assured the blue-rinsed ladies of leafy Lindfield. Even when he had been a paid-up member of the ALP.
To save space, we shall bypass his bungled handling of the shooting death of Private Jake Kovco in Baghdad. And we shall step lightly around his barmy decision - evidently against the advice of the RAAF - to throw $6 billion at buying 24 underperforming Super Hornet jet fighters as a stopgap replacement for the ageing F-111s.
Consider instead his flip-flop on the Kyoto Protocol. Just months before the last election, he could say that the Howard government had "rightly refused to sign".
Whooshka again. After the election, Kyoto suddenly became a good thing. Ratification was "symbolically important", he announced solemnly.
Skating across the Liberal landscape from wet to dry and back to wet again, Brendan Nelson has the courage of his convictions, whatever they might be from day to day.
As someone unkindly said, he reminds you of Andrew Peacock without the gravitas.
THE good news this week is that the combined wisdom of the US intelligence community now has it that Iran is not building a nuclear bomb.
The bad news is that the spooks of Washington are quite possibly wrong about this, as with almost everything else.
I have not been entirely comfortable with the CIA since the plan to get rid of Fidel Castro with an exploding cigar.
A ripper of a lunch - and year
LUNCH with John Laws is never dull. Last Wednesday's was a ripper. You will have seen, I suppose, the lurid accounts of his thunderous, post-prandial descent upon a nearby table shared by two old radio foes, Derryn "the Human Headline" Hinch and Bob Rogers.
Lurid but accurate. Drinks had been taken against the heat of the day. The air was blue with obscenity and insult. For a moment, it looked as if fists might fly. We, the four of us, enjoyed it enormously. The reaction of other lunchers was mixed, I think you could say. Some were understandably outraged. Others thought it more fun than Disneyland.
It is not the done thing to admit this, but I can't help liking John Laws. The old bugger is a bundle of contradictions but, at bottom, there is an intelligent, engaging and humorous man. And, although almost nobody will believe this, a shy one as well, often plagued by doubt. For for all his faults, he was a brilliant broadcaster, and the airwaves seem oddly quiet without him.
Which brings me to say that this is my last column for 2007. I have enjoyed the bouquets you have sent and reeled beneath the brickbats. And, truly, I have done my best to reply.
A merry Christmas to you, and a happy New Year.
smhcarlton@hotmail.com