Hi Liam That was the "apology" which was broadcast by a commercial radio station in Rockhampton in April last year as a "joke". It's a damn shame to see it still being passed around. I've also seen a hard copy of it on the window of the Laura Cafe, north of Lakelands/Mareeba on Cape York ... Below is the response written by Jason at the time - hope he doesn't mind it doing the rounds again =) cheers ... Christine ABORIGINAL APOLOGY TO ALL SETTLER AUSTRALIANS We feel we must apologise to you for being black becaue you are white and that must be better. We apologise for being on this land before you and not just disappearing when you arrived. We apologise for not dying quickly enough or completely enough and we apologise for our continued existence, our memory and our voice. We apologise for forcing you, by our existence, to TAKE this land so that you can survive and multiply and FEED YOUR PEOPLE and so that you can remind us of how INCONVENIENT we are. We apologise for trying to KEEP our children when you BENIGNLY wanted to take them away and so get rid of US. We apologise for giving you an INDIGENOUS CULTURE that you can claim as your own on the sides of aeroplanes, on pamphlets promoting the OLYMPICS, and in the centres of high culture in the Europe from which you came. We apologise for placing our sacred sites on top of your MINERAL desposits. We apoligise for demanding the rights and amenities of health, HAPPINESS, culture and self-determination that you take FOR GRANTED. We apologise for providing you with the sports stars - Freeman, Long, Rose, Beetson ad infinitum - who you can claim as your own and who enable you to BOAST of your sporting prowess to the rest of the world. We apologise for the Dodson Brothers, Lowitja O'Donahue, Aden Ridgeway and all those other individuals of INTELLIGENCE and compassion who have shown you the meaning of DIGNITY and the true heart of the democratic way of life you claim to have invented. In short, we apologise for breathing YOUR air and taking up your space and your time, forcing you to worry about our problems. WE HUMBLY BEG FORGIVENESS FOR ALL THESE SINS AND ARE MORE THAN HAPPY TO RETURN EVERYTHING YOU HAVE GIVEN US IF YOU WILL JUST GO BACK FROM WHERE CAME WHENEVER YOU ARE READY??.. ------------------------------------------------------ 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/recoznet2%40paradigm4.com.au/
