Reply #51: Oh, Down Under has a horrible history when it comes to

[gubbi]

This is a response to the Post by liberalhistorian.
Firstly there is a danger in commenting on other country's issues without being informed properly. Secondly, and I realise this might be hard for Americans, but movies do not always depict correct and true history.

Here is a brief summarised timeline.
1788 - BRITISH arrive and declare the country free of civilisations. This leads to the idea of Terra nullius. Therefore the British declare the country free of people and native Australians have no right to own land.
1901 - Australia becomes a federation of colonies, Queensland is one (the state where the rape case occurred).We still are a federation of colonies, each with their own parliament and governor and links to the Queen. A republic will come soon but will surely not be based on the American model as this simply promotes a president based on financial backing alone.
1946 - or there abouts, Australians actually get their own passport - but all decisions of law until then are actually British.
Between 1992 and 1996 (I think), Australian law finally overturns the disgraceful British decision of terra nullius, thereby opening the way for Indigenous land rights.

The picture I am painting here is one of Australians overturning unjust British rulings. This should make a point with Americans. Difference is we didn't use war to achieve this. But it took time and the original inhabitants suffered in the meantime.

Now to the rape case.
From the early 1900s (as depicted in Rabbit Proof Fence) aboriginals, who had European and Aboriginal blood were often rejected by their own people. To solve this they were often sent to white Australian families. Later, in say, the 1950s another generation of Aboriginal children were removed from their families. The reasoning - the same as before,also due to abuse. The way this was handled was insensitive but the people responsible had good intentions when considering the era (1950s - remember US hysteria over communism around the same time).

In recent decades a report was released by an academic researching the impacts of children being removed from their aboriginal parents. It was labelled "the stolen generation". What this report led to was a condemning of the practice of removing indigenous children from their families, no matter what abuse they suffered.

Now to the lack of a sentence in the recent rape case. Aboriginal deaths in custody. An unusual proportion of Aboriginal men were committing suicide if incarcerated in white-man's prisons. In many communities this lead to a change of practice away from white law to a more traditional aboriginal law. For example - for rape - a spear in the leg. But what it also meant that arresting and sentencing Aborigines was often seen as a racist act. Not always, but it many cases.

And now today, what we have is no justice and a community (the aboriginal community) as been exposed as abusing their children. This must change but once again white law will have to intervene. A sad situation to be sure, but to blatantly attack all Australians as racist is stupid and ill-informed to say the least.It insults all of us who have been brought up in this country often with close aboriginal friends such as I have.

I suggest you look at your own country first, the way it blatantly celebrates native American destruction, before insulting our nation.Australia has a long way to go to repair British mistakes, but virtually all of the country (as shown in the recent elections) wants something to be done, now. What we don't need now is ill-informed people looking for any opportunity to introduce the racism card.