I agree that its not really an apology Sandy, but I worry that continuing
to argue about the matter might not be particularly astute tactics. It was
interesting listening to the Parliamentary debate . Apart from the
contributions from Beasley and Snowdon, both of which were very good, I
thought the Labor party wanted to have a bob each way. One ALP contributor
(I've forgotten who) was very big on the line that "saying sorry doesn't
mean that you accept personal responsibility" (or something very similar).
This seemed to me to reduce the value of an apology quite dramatically.
Yes, its a motherhood staement, but it will never be anything more than
this anyway. Won't the statement itself never be anything more than
"completely useless in coming to grips with the concerns" regardless of
whether it contains the word "sorry" or not. What counts is whether it can
be used to pressure the government to do something genuinely useful.
Nobody should be patting Johnny over the back about this stuff, but I'm
inclined to the view expressed by Pat Dodson and others in recent weeks.
The "sorry" debate is diverting us all from the underlying issues. OK, say
you ultimately win. Johnny says "sorry". So what. Unless he is prepared to
actually DO something any victory compared to the current situation will be
a pyric one. He will have "given ground" and Indigenous people will have
to accept less becaiuse of it. All that will have been achieved is an
improved motherhood statement! Ultimately, by NOT saying sorry he simply
keeps another opportunity to "give" without doing anything up his sleeve.
Hit him with the real issues. Land, Stolen Generation, Health, Equity.
At 03:21 PM 26/8/99, Sandy Sanders wrote:
>No, no, no. There's a huge gap between clause (f) and clause (g)
>in Howard's parliamentary motion. That's where the apology has
>to go. Regret is not apology. Even remorse, which would be a far
>better word than "regret", is not apology. This motion is just a
>shallow motherhood statement intended to get Howard and his
>government off the hook with the majority of Australians. It's
>completely useless in coming to grips with the concerns of
>indigenous Australians and non-indigenous Australians who care
>about these issues.
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>Sandy Sanders
Rod Hagen
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Hurstbridge, Victoria, Australia
WWW http://www.netspace.net.au/~rodhagen
-------------------------------------------------------
RecOzNet2 has a page @ http://www.green.net.au/recoznet2 and is archived at
http://www.mail-archive.com/
To unsubscribe from this list, mail [EMAIL PROTECTED], and in the body
of the message, include the words: unsubscribe announce or click here
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20announce
This posting is provided to the individual members of this group without permission
from the
copyright owner for purposes of criticism, comment, scholarship and research under
the "fair
use" provisions of the Federal copyright laws and it may not be distributed further
without
permission of the copyright owner, except for "fair use."
RecOzNet2 is archived for members @ http://www.mail-archive.com/
