Sorry Australia
February 13, 2008
Kevin Rudd apologised today to the Aborigines of Australia, I thought he didn’t go far enough. He should have apologised on behalf of the British Crown for invading this country in the first place and taking it from the Aborigines by force and guile. He should have apologised for one of the world’s only completely successful genocide’s of Tasmanian aborigines.
He could have then apologised for building cities and penal colonies and establishing western culture here in the South perhaps. Why not apologise also for the poetry of Henry Lawson or Banjo Paterson that came from this? Or Waltzing Matilda, the Eureka Stockade or Ned Kelly? He could have probably apologised for the British Empire itself. He could have also by default apologised for the middle ages and the Roman Empire for founding Britain and instilling it with its character, virtues, vices and culture. Hell, why not apologise for the entire course of Western History? Or the invention of Science and its theories of Evolution and Progress or for Western Culture itself?
Why not? For it will mean as much as his apology today. Nothing. Tokenistic bullshit to make idiots grin.
As a Transcendental Fascist, I would act more decisively and actually give the Aborigines back part of their land. Say the Northern Territory? To be ruled as a Sovereign Aboriginal State. Until the Aboriginals have at least part of their own country returned to them as a Sovereign entity under their own rule, this is just window dressing. The maintenance of an originary population’s relationship with its land is an important facet of Transcendental Fascism. While Australia, America and other colonial countries can’t turn back the pages of History and should not, they can in the present restore at least partly some of the original Volk’s relationship with its Soil. The same can be said in many other similar colonial situations that cause discord around the globe.
But I’m afraid these few words are all our Aboriginal comrades are going to get. A Flowery speech of less than two minutes in Parliament and then back to business as usual.
Sorry for fucking up your entire world. Here’s some words, a little cash for some who deserve it and some more for people who pay lip service to our bullshit, forget about what you had. Forget about your primary relationship with the Being of this land. We are the good Cop, to Howard’s bad cop. We are Sorry. Western History has run over you, we are so deeply Sorry about it, but lets face facts, it has. It has consumed you, as it has so many cultures, hey, as it is consuming them now! Really… we truly are very, very sorry about it all. Now go away,we have a mining deal to organise…
Idea Fix - The Blog 
The Australian government has made a formal apology for the past wrongs caused by successive governments on the indigenous Aboriginal population. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, apologised to all Aborigines for laws and policies that “inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss”. But the Aborigines want more. They want money and are calling the apology a ‘cut-price sorry’.
Back in 1998, in a meeting with Tony Blair, the Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto offered “an expression of deep remorse and heartfelt apology to the people who suffered in the Second World War”. But Britain’s war veterans wanted more. They had been hoping for an apology from the entire government as well as further compensation on top of that received in 50 years ago.
Two years ago Tony Blair expressed his “deep sorrow” for Britain’s role in the slave trade. But representitives of those with ancestors victimised by the slavery wanted a formal apology (which Blair ruled out) and, of course, financial compensation.
So what’s the point? Most country’s governments have been violent and oppressive at some time in their history. Where does the guilt stop?
In fact, all of these apologies are meaningless. The groups are obviously resigned to their martyrdom, and nothing short of a financial pay-out will really satisfy them. And no modern day leader has the right to apologise for wrongs committed by previous generations anyway, however horrific.
My suggestion is that these powerful governments concentrate on dealing with the poverty and oppression happening around the world this very minute, rather than worrying about past misdemeanours that are cemented into history, and impossible to correct.
http://www.charlesletterman.com
All the rhetoric aside aboriginal people are still facing a policy of white integration.
Well we all feel justice is served when the average aboriginal has a mortgage and a new car – when they joint the consumer treadmill?
When the CSIRO are saying that the way we are consuming is so dangerous that Australia could well be uninhabitable for people within this century you’ve got to ask the question – is their way of life in terrible strife or is ours?
Perhaps when we figure out that we have at least as much to learn as teach true reconciliation will have a chance. Surely it will be this that will restore aboriginal pride and culture.
The maintenance of an originary population’s relationship with its land is an important facet of Transcendental Fascism. While Australia, America and other colonial countries can’t turn back the pages of History and should not, they can in the present restore at least partly some of the original Volk’s relationship with its Soil.
So, you’ve got no truck with Nazism at all then? No nationalism to see here, volks, move along, move along.
Dear Anonymous,
My thoughts on the Nazi version of fascism are complex and I’m not going into them here. But to put it simply I am no supporter of the movement, though they are historically fascinating as many testify too.
Though I will say this, I am interested in what Martin Heidegger thought the National Socialist revolution might have become and definitely did not. That I could support tentatively as a complex issue of political theory. I wrote a thesis on this issue and again no space here to discuss at present.
RE:Nationalism. I am no mad Nationalist. Finding any one Nation as good as the next. But we are all born, thrown into different countries at birth by Being and I believe not at random. I guess I do prefer countries that make up what is known as the West to live in. To visit and think in, I’m happy with any country… as long as the bullets aren’t flying too close.
The country one is thrown into at birth naturally has a certain romantic, spatial and organic attachments. I feel as a citizen of any regional entity you have the rights to discuss its polity, sovereignty and defend its authenticity.
I for one as a citizen of Australia would like to see an Aboriginal state in some part of this nation, away from our paternalistic European grumblings. The whole “Sorry” issue to me seems tokenistic and an unauthentic confrontation with the real problems facing the originary Australian’s. As stated mere words do not interest me, action does.
Apropos, my own theory of Transcendental Fascism is a deliberate non racist, non nationalist and non destructive regeneration of fascist political theory. I guess you will get clues to its nature here in my writings on Idea Fix. But it is turning traditional Fascism on its head in many ways, so please, allow me your indulgence to explicate and elucidate it here sometimes on my own blog.
As to the Volk. It’s German for People I’m sure you know and I like to use it to describe, jokingly sometimes, any community of people whether national or international. It shits some people, I know. But, I like that.
PS. In future I will only post comments from people who do not use the anonymous name. If you want to say something here, please do, but have the guts to say who you are, with a link to your own site if you like and I’ll happily publish it here on Idea Fix. I like debate. Comment and find out.