It’s very easy to say “yes that ‘happened’, but we’ve moved on”, when you are on the perpetrating, winning or ‘privileged’ side of that ‘thing’ which ‘happened’.
I see it all the time in White Australia.
As a white kid growing up that was the attitude I was taught toward history, that history was just a bunch of interesting stories that happened in the past. Stories we should enjoy and remember, but barely any different from fiction.
Who knows what is and isn’t true about history I was told. History is written by the victor, I was told. History is mostly about wars and how they were won, I was told.
In White Australia, we do not pay much attention to history as a general social rule and where we do our inability to do so respectfully is infamous.
Tony Abbott’s latest declaration is absolutely indicative of that:
“The arrival of the first fleet was the defining moment in the history of this continent. Let me repeat that: it was the defining moment in the history of this continent,” (emphasis added).
I disagree. Certainly that was a defining moment in the history of this continent, but this continent’s history is MUCH longer than the history of this ‘country’. Continue reading Stop ‘moving on’ – a message to White Australia.
Today’s posts title pretty much sums it up. At last years election the LNP were promising a to contribute $500 toward installing solar at 1,000,000 Australian homes.