12th January 2008, 11:20 PM
This one should have been put on the other one 'LOTS OF WORK DOWN UNDER SO I'LL PUT IT THERE AS WELL"
I will be watching this thread more closely â
Me too.
Iâve left it a while, given myself a cooling off period. However, I am afraid I have just got more angry.
Yes, I do have a thing about Rottnest Island. Itâs because it WAS a concentration camp used to execute and detain Aboriginal prisoners and this fact is covered up in order to ensure the continual profits from the people who visit this beautiful place.
Concentration camp as with the British in South Africa or when John Howard locked up five year old unaccompanied refugees in desert concentration camps.
This reminds me of the history wars, next we will be arguing if genocide occurred.
I wonât bother, just look up the UN definition.
I think tourists should be told about the real history of Rottnest.
Having extensively travelled around Australia I suspect that many of the tourists who flock to the genuine sellers of Aboriginal art, the Aboriginal owned art galleries. Which in the âniceâ towns are on the high street and in the ânon-niceâ [non-nice ok? Not too shocking in language?] they find by following the lonely planet guide they find the people, down a dusty track and these people at least might like to know the facts.
Now Iâm an Aussie, I am a citizen, of course when I got my passport at the ârocksâ in Sydney, I had only to agree that I knew that compulsory voting ($20 fine if you donât) was the rule. I mean I didnât have to take the new citizen test and name the first Prime minister of Australia or even repeat the government slogan on the celebration of federation, âa country born with a vote and no a warâ.
Nice, except of course if you look at the alliance of Labor and Capital which introduced the White Australia policy and ensured that even if a none White migrant could speak English they could always be tested in Serbian. And that in the 1950s, the government policy was to ensure no Jews or undesirables got in (Asians) got in (could be seen as emotive language I suppose, but look it up).
Thatâs all in the past I suppose. Actually only a few years ago when my friend was harried (racial abuse) on the streets âto get back to his own countryâ whilst me and my partner who at the time were migrants were not. Of course, the fact that Daves father was a Chinese who had managed to live in NSW countryside because of the support of the local community in the 1950s and was more Aussie than us was not considered by the racists (sorry too strong, lets think, I know, miss guided individuals who because of their upbringing feared the people from China).
But the point is in Randwick we collected over 40000 signatures against Pauline and the vast majority from old white Australians some of whom who had fought the fascists in Sydney in the 1930s (New Guard).
So lets explain the words âracist holeâ, silly words.
I mean itâs a direct quote from another of my Aboriginal friends, but what would he know. Let us rephrase, not a âracist holeâ but a lovely place like anywhere else.
Like everywhere else, like Northern Ireland with interment, Birmingham after the IRA (*Note the large number of British agents on the army council) pub bombs when Irish shop stewards were smashed to a pulp. I mean the fact that my Irish friends who were not interested in politics were continually picked up in the 1980s, that wasnât racism I suppose?
My name is Stephen Arthur (just in case its not clear) and on my first sale of Socialist Worker I was head banged by a member of the NF, later that year my cousins husband was bashed by the police and when charged with damaging a police cell because he was black they read out what he was meant to have said in pigeon English. The fact that he taught English in Westminster Private School didnât make a difference. Plead guilty he would have got a ten pound fine, but my family fought it all the way, barristers the lot. He lost.
And when was it he was refused entry to Spain 1987 I think.
Whatâs the point of all this you ask? Whats it got to do with archaeology? Iâll get there.
What I am suggesting is that ethno centralism is common to all human societies (including hunter-gatherers), the belief that your family/society are normal and others odd is age old. But since the beginning of time people have rebelled, perhaps when they decided the Vikings/Saxons/whatever might be ok and quite interesting.
Racism is maladaptive and white supremism ends up like pedigree dogs or horses or a group of twelve families on an Island. Or the Royal family with their attempt at new blood (Norman) ends up with Diannaâ¦
It is early in the morning.
But all (most) politicians are psychopaths (sorry Iâll use less emotive, âborderline personality disordersâ) and all over the world, racism exists all over the world.
The proportion of racists is probably the same everywhere.
But, I live here, in Perth.
I joined the Anti-Nazi League in 1980, I would have no hesitation of calling most places I lived as âracist holesâ, but racist holes full of anti-racists fighting against the racists
Like Leeds, Bradford, Belfast, Paris (pick a city, country⦠which one is worse? Well of course, there are differences).
But I reckon that the better places occur because people who hate racism use emotive language, probably silly leftists who just canât shut about it have caused change.
Bit like those moaning people who went on about slavery, I mean how could they, look at all those lovely buildings in Bristol and Liverpool. I mean who wants to know about shackles under the Liver building?
And of course, fighting against people who poured petrol into the letter boxes of African Asians forced to flee from the racist Idi Amin were just creating a fuss.
Or going to France to fight the FN, or living in Japan and fighting the Uroku (Fascist who stabbed the major or Nagasaki for suggesting that the Emperor was guilty) all a waist of time.
I mean nothing has changed has it, I expect everyday you see signs up in the UK saying âfor sale to white family onlyâ donât you.
And of course any changes that did occur were not to do with âthose extremistsâ (just as bad as the others they always said) who fought at Lewisham.
By the way, I knew Blair Peaches widow.
No nothing to do with do gooding anti-racists all the changes came about by quiet people who âwent through the right channels, nothing to do with the Indian workers movement and the young Asians who fought the NF off the streets in the 70âs.
And as for the young non-Jewish communists who defied their leaders and joined with the Jews from Brick Lane and smashed Mosley in the 1930s, they should have listened to the respectable people and stoped using emotive language.
So, why the reaction? Perhaps because I was not Aussie born?
Or well let these people talk to my Aussie born Australian Aboriginal friends.
Let them see the people I meet daily in my job as a community psychiatric nurse.
Let them talk to the Aboriginal people I work with in archaeology.
So letâs be clear every country is full of racism and every one is nice too.
I remember that when Yugoslavia exploded, nice people practising genocide.
Bit like Neville really, nice man just doing his job removing light skinned Aboriginal kids.
So to get to the point finally.
I am Australian until I start talking like this and then at the BBQ, Iâm not Iâm a Pom, the fact that in health and archaeology I have spent my whole time friends with Aboriginal people and that the person Iâm arguing with has never left Subiaco and has never met an Aboriginal person doesnât matter.
So everywhere is racist but WA and Perth has a real problem with âInstitutional Racismâ.
And my evidence:
During the last two years, Perth has become full of those quaint bronze statues of people standing on the street. And who are they, white colonialists â everywhere (and if anyone can assist me in drilling a hole into one or two so we can affix a spear let me know).
The streets have plaques on the pavement to every manner of white heroâs and occasional heroines.
For example Daisy Bates is there and called âa friend of the aboriginesâ [sic], no mention of her boast that she never tolerated a half-caste [sic] baby in her camp and her approval of light skinned babies being thrown down rabbit holes.
I know of one Aboriginal statue, Yagan on Herrison Island , but then about once a year the bronze statue has its head cut off.
And we have the Graham Farmer Highway (famous footy player) but then as his daughter and brother told me he was left destitute at the time of its building.
Aboriginal custodians of Kings Park have told me they donât mind all the war memorials (although no one ever asked), it is after all a sacred site but they would like a statue for the Aboriginal fallen but its been consistently refused (lets hope the snake wakes up).
Old Swan Brewery, urban land claim refused, for years the bench nearby painted in Aboriginal colours, for years painted over, well done the emotive emotional man who kept repainting.
Now at the moment another urban land claim won in the courts but the good old Labor Party fighting it.
The exclusion zone for kids (90% Aboriginal) going to Northbridge extended.
Two years ago the specialist mental health services for Aboriginal people abolished.
My orientation at RPH included not one mention of Aboriginality and this much worse than NSW.
And Iâm afraid I have met racist archaeologists they do in fact exist and I have even met them in the UK (shock horror).
And if there is any doubt that even archaeologists can be racist note Kossinna, Kenwick man and how the BJP fooled many (including a Lord) when WAC was in India.
Yes, even archaeologists can have human flaws.
But perhaps archaeologist should study a history which is ever present.
But from the first there were white people who supported Aboriginal people, the man no one would talk to in about 1832 because he let Aboriginal people into his house, the Catholic Bishop who objected to leg and neck irons (Used in Cue until 1950), he ended up with only two people in his congregation, the communist Party in the 1930s, the Communist white soldier who fought with his Aboriginal mates on the Kokoda trail and then was arrested over and over again for drinking with his Aboriginal mates throughout the 1950s and 60s.
Catherine and Ronald Berndt, Bob Tonkinson in anthropology and Balme and Bowdler in archaeology in recent times.
There have always been anti-racists fighting in Perth.
So I will leave it there.
But what I would like to see is one of the outraged Aussie archaeologists comment.
And if they live in Perth tell me (Stephen Arthur).
Tell me if you donât agree, why you donât agree.
Challenge the facts and get over the moaning pom stuff.
For starters, IS IT OK THAT THE TRUE HISTORY OF PERTH IS HIDDEN?
And if you agree what should we do?
I mean apart from writing to UK sites and it filtering back to Australia (yes Iâve seen Ausarch)â¦
Lets stire it up
Arthus
I will be watching this thread more closely â
Me too.
Iâve left it a while, given myself a cooling off period. However, I am afraid I have just got more angry.
Yes, I do have a thing about Rottnest Island. Itâs because it WAS a concentration camp used to execute and detain Aboriginal prisoners and this fact is covered up in order to ensure the continual profits from the people who visit this beautiful place.
Concentration camp as with the British in South Africa or when John Howard locked up five year old unaccompanied refugees in desert concentration camps.
This reminds me of the history wars, next we will be arguing if genocide occurred.
I wonât bother, just look up the UN definition.
I think tourists should be told about the real history of Rottnest.
Having extensively travelled around Australia I suspect that many of the tourists who flock to the genuine sellers of Aboriginal art, the Aboriginal owned art galleries. Which in the âniceâ towns are on the high street and in the ânon-niceâ [non-nice ok? Not too shocking in language?] they find by following the lonely planet guide they find the people, down a dusty track and these people at least might like to know the facts.
Now Iâm an Aussie, I am a citizen, of course when I got my passport at the ârocksâ in Sydney, I had only to agree that I knew that compulsory voting ($20 fine if you donât) was the rule. I mean I didnât have to take the new citizen test and name the first Prime minister of Australia or even repeat the government slogan on the celebration of federation, âa country born with a vote and no a warâ.
Nice, except of course if you look at the alliance of Labor and Capital which introduced the White Australia policy and ensured that even if a none White migrant could speak English they could always be tested in Serbian. And that in the 1950s, the government policy was to ensure no Jews or undesirables got in (Asians) got in (could be seen as emotive language I suppose, but look it up).
Thatâs all in the past I suppose. Actually only a few years ago when my friend was harried (racial abuse) on the streets âto get back to his own countryâ whilst me and my partner who at the time were migrants were not. Of course, the fact that Daves father was a Chinese who had managed to live in NSW countryside because of the support of the local community in the 1950s and was more Aussie than us was not considered by the racists (sorry too strong, lets think, I know, miss guided individuals who because of their upbringing feared the people from China).
But the point is in Randwick we collected over 40000 signatures against Pauline and the vast majority from old white Australians some of whom who had fought the fascists in Sydney in the 1930s (New Guard).
So lets explain the words âracist holeâ, silly words.
I mean itâs a direct quote from another of my Aboriginal friends, but what would he know. Let us rephrase, not a âracist holeâ but a lovely place like anywhere else.
Like everywhere else, like Northern Ireland with interment, Birmingham after the IRA (*Note the large number of British agents on the army council) pub bombs when Irish shop stewards were smashed to a pulp. I mean the fact that my Irish friends who were not interested in politics were continually picked up in the 1980s, that wasnât racism I suppose?
My name is Stephen Arthur (just in case its not clear) and on my first sale of Socialist Worker I was head banged by a member of the NF, later that year my cousins husband was bashed by the police and when charged with damaging a police cell because he was black they read out what he was meant to have said in pigeon English. The fact that he taught English in Westminster Private School didnât make a difference. Plead guilty he would have got a ten pound fine, but my family fought it all the way, barristers the lot. He lost.
And when was it he was refused entry to Spain 1987 I think.
Whatâs the point of all this you ask? Whats it got to do with archaeology? Iâll get there.
What I am suggesting is that ethno centralism is common to all human societies (including hunter-gatherers), the belief that your family/society are normal and others odd is age old. But since the beginning of time people have rebelled, perhaps when they decided the Vikings/Saxons/whatever might be ok and quite interesting.
Racism is maladaptive and white supremism ends up like pedigree dogs or horses or a group of twelve families on an Island. Or the Royal family with their attempt at new blood (Norman) ends up with Diannaâ¦
It is early in the morning.
But all (most) politicians are psychopaths (sorry Iâll use less emotive, âborderline personality disordersâ) and all over the world, racism exists all over the world.
The proportion of racists is probably the same everywhere.
But, I live here, in Perth.
I joined the Anti-Nazi League in 1980, I would have no hesitation of calling most places I lived as âracist holesâ, but racist holes full of anti-racists fighting against the racists
Like Leeds, Bradford, Belfast, Paris (pick a city, country⦠which one is worse? Well of course, there are differences).
But I reckon that the better places occur because people who hate racism use emotive language, probably silly leftists who just canât shut about it have caused change.
Bit like those moaning people who went on about slavery, I mean how could they, look at all those lovely buildings in Bristol and Liverpool. I mean who wants to know about shackles under the Liver building?
And of course, fighting against people who poured petrol into the letter boxes of African Asians forced to flee from the racist Idi Amin were just creating a fuss.
Or going to France to fight the FN, or living in Japan and fighting the Uroku (Fascist who stabbed the major or Nagasaki for suggesting that the Emperor was guilty) all a waist of time.
I mean nothing has changed has it, I expect everyday you see signs up in the UK saying âfor sale to white family onlyâ donât you.
And of course any changes that did occur were not to do with âthose extremistsâ (just as bad as the others they always said) who fought at Lewisham.
By the way, I knew Blair Peaches widow.
No nothing to do with do gooding anti-racists all the changes came about by quiet people who âwent through the right channels, nothing to do with the Indian workers movement and the young Asians who fought the NF off the streets in the 70âs.
And as for the young non-Jewish communists who defied their leaders and joined with the Jews from Brick Lane and smashed Mosley in the 1930s, they should have listened to the respectable people and stoped using emotive language.
So, why the reaction? Perhaps because I was not Aussie born?
Or well let these people talk to my Aussie born Australian Aboriginal friends.
Let them see the people I meet daily in my job as a community psychiatric nurse.
Let them talk to the Aboriginal people I work with in archaeology.
So letâs be clear every country is full of racism and every one is nice too.
I remember that when Yugoslavia exploded, nice people practising genocide.
Bit like Neville really, nice man just doing his job removing light skinned Aboriginal kids.
So to get to the point finally.
I am Australian until I start talking like this and then at the BBQ, Iâm not Iâm a Pom, the fact that in health and archaeology I have spent my whole time friends with Aboriginal people and that the person Iâm arguing with has never left Subiaco and has never met an Aboriginal person doesnât matter.
So everywhere is racist but WA and Perth has a real problem with âInstitutional Racismâ.
And my evidence:
During the last two years, Perth has become full of those quaint bronze statues of people standing on the street. And who are they, white colonialists â everywhere (and if anyone can assist me in drilling a hole into one or two so we can affix a spear let me know).
The streets have plaques on the pavement to every manner of white heroâs and occasional heroines.
For example Daisy Bates is there and called âa friend of the aboriginesâ [sic], no mention of her boast that she never tolerated a half-caste [sic] baby in her camp and her approval of light skinned babies being thrown down rabbit holes.
I know of one Aboriginal statue, Yagan on Herrison Island , but then about once a year the bronze statue has its head cut off.
And we have the Graham Farmer Highway (famous footy player) but then as his daughter and brother told me he was left destitute at the time of its building.
Aboriginal custodians of Kings Park have told me they donât mind all the war memorials (although no one ever asked), it is after all a sacred site but they would like a statue for the Aboriginal fallen but its been consistently refused (lets hope the snake wakes up).
Old Swan Brewery, urban land claim refused, for years the bench nearby painted in Aboriginal colours, for years painted over, well done the emotive emotional man who kept repainting.
Now at the moment another urban land claim won in the courts but the good old Labor Party fighting it.
The exclusion zone for kids (90% Aboriginal) going to Northbridge extended.
Two years ago the specialist mental health services for Aboriginal people abolished.
My orientation at RPH included not one mention of Aboriginality and this much worse than NSW.
And Iâm afraid I have met racist archaeologists they do in fact exist and I have even met them in the UK (shock horror).
And if there is any doubt that even archaeologists can be racist note Kossinna, Kenwick man and how the BJP fooled many (including a Lord) when WAC was in India.
Yes, even archaeologists can have human flaws.
But perhaps archaeologist should study a history which is ever present.
But from the first there were white people who supported Aboriginal people, the man no one would talk to in about 1832 because he let Aboriginal people into his house, the Catholic Bishop who objected to leg and neck irons (Used in Cue until 1950), he ended up with only two people in his congregation, the communist Party in the 1930s, the Communist white soldier who fought with his Aboriginal mates on the Kokoda trail and then was arrested over and over again for drinking with his Aboriginal mates throughout the 1950s and 60s.
Catherine and Ronald Berndt, Bob Tonkinson in anthropology and Balme and Bowdler in archaeology in recent times.
There have always been anti-racists fighting in Perth.
So I will leave it there.
But what I would like to see is one of the outraged Aussie archaeologists comment.
And if they live in Perth tell me (Stephen Arthur).
Tell me if you donât agree, why you donât agree.
Challenge the facts and get over the moaning pom stuff.
For starters, IS IT OK THAT THE TRUE HISTORY OF PERTH IS HIDDEN?
And if you agree what should we do?
I mean apart from writing to UK sites and it filtering back to Australia (yes Iâve seen Ausarch)â¦
Lets stire it up
Arthus