Tag: Killing For Country
What is described was what made Australia, a British Colony, unique among all of Britain’s colonies. Why we criminally ignored British Law that demanded that natives be acknowledged, treated with respect, and allowed to share the land as they traditionally had. The squatters simply ignored the crown and the governors were too afraid or complicit to act. Greed was the order of the day and “might was right”. Nothing much has changed when one hears Peter Dutton speak for the LNP.
This is the bedrock of Australian secrecy. Thousands of little stories that never made the newspapers or official reports. The First Peoples of this continent have, despite the catastrophic ruptures of forced relocation and child removal, nurtured their ancient and family storytelling; those who came later failed to even tell their stories to their children. This fostered a century of silence that made it possible for myths to flourish unchallenged, as the referendum “debate” has demonstrated in recent months.
. With the core records now gone we cannot be sure how many died at the hands of the Native Police. Marr writes that cautious interpretation of the remaining documentary fragments has seen estimates rise from 10,000 to 20,000 to more than 40,000, a figure which is “neither precise nor final”.
And what of guilt or shame that this was partly the work of Marr’s distant relatives? “I feel no guilt for what Reg did,” Marr writes, adding, however, “I can’t argue away the shame that overcame me when I first saw that photograph of Sub-Inspector Uhr in his pompous uniform. I was also intrigued by the shadowy forms of today’s politics emerging from the frontier wars—particularly the still potent belief in many quarters that the Aboriginal people deserve nothing for the continent they lost. Despising those we have wronged is another way we humans have of dealing with our shame … when the fighting was over, we forget about how Australia was won.”
Source: Killing for Country: Another plank in truth-telling – Pearls and Irritations
olddogthoughts 
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