THE MEANING OF OZ - All you need to know!

No, the apology in the clip pasted above was explicitly directed to "the world" and not to the aboriginal people of Australia. I will agree that the latter would make more sense, but that was not the fact.

The apology was directed to the aboriginal people of Australia, George.

In terms of what it might mean to "the world", it was saying that we acknowledge the hardship that past policies caused for the aboriginal people of this country. Whether the authorities who were responsible for the hardship were fully aware of the impact their policies & actions at the time, or not.

I can't see why you have a problem with that.
Surely each nation is responsible for righting its own wrongs? For making peace with its own people.
In any case, what do you see as wrong by acknowledging the pain & hardship which indigenous Australian people have experienced, to this day?
What is your problem with that?

I honestly don't understand what you believe your point is.
Should we be celebrating might, the subjugation of weaker parties in past struggles, instead?
Celebrating past competitive struggles which have led to winners & losers in our society, to this very day?
What sort of a society do you think is desirable?
One in which there are permanent differences & grievances, or one which strives to accommodate all members of that society? As difficult a goal as that is to achieve.

No, the apology in the clip pasted above was explicitly directed to "the world" and not to the aboriginal people of Australia. I will agree that the latter would make more sense, but that was not the fact.

You understand that that was a (fictional) TV series, yes?

Though it definitely appealed to many Australians at the time. If only our prime minister was like that other John Howard!

But I'd still be interested in your responses to some of the questions I asked you.
In my post, directly above.

You are being silly George.

The real apology was to the aboriginal people.

The apology taken from the sit-com was to appease people around the world who felt it was Australia's obligation to issue an apology for it's treatment of it's indigenous population. Did you get that bolding? Sit-Com. It's fiction - why not argue with the plot line for MacBeth? - but it had an extremely strong resonance at the time, and even now, because the then Prime Minister categorically disavowed that there was anything to apologise for - and the sit-com showed that an apology did not mean losing dignity or face - it actually made the apologisers stronger and more human and offered a tacit commitment to do better. And it opened eyes, much of white Australia has no concept of what we did and do to our indigenous citizens.

I have no idea where you are from - but you are clearly not from Oz because you just don't get it.

I was responding to the clip you posted, and, yes I did understand that it was a thing created by someone and delivered by an actor. I will respond to "the real apology" if you will specify exactly what it is - evidently you didn't post that. As I noted above, one offered to the aboriginal people might make some sense, but what was in the clip did not do that ... it was an absurdity.

I'm from the USA, not an Australian, and make no judgments about the early history of your country, something I didn't experience and don't know enough about. I do know that, relative to most places in the world, Australia is and long has been a place where people enjoyed individual freedom and did so without preying on their neighbors. Certainly not perfect, but a record that few can match. In most of the rest of the world the coexistence of peoples as culturally and economically different as the settlers and the aboriginal peoples wouldn't have lasted long ... one or the other would have been wiped out. That too is a perspective that is worth considering.

Oh for heaven's sake, George!

That is very easily found by a simple Google search.

Well that's not quite true - the 'made for tv speech' lists a bunch of other 'new world' countries with fairly appalling records regards their indigenous populations (including your own) - none of those were completely wiped out either.

The apology was driven by the report of a royal commission into the 'stolen generation' - where for about four decades straddling the middle of the 20th century it was government policy to remove half caste children from their indigenous parents and treat them as orphans to be trained as domestic servants or adopted into white families. Many of those children still live as adults bereft of family ties (or slowly recovering them) - we're not talking some historic invasion crimes from centuries ago.

I guess I'm not getting your point, you seem to be saying 'things could have been a lot worse so why try and make them better?'

David Koch doesn't quite get the tone right in What I hate about Australia Day, although surprisingly putting his neck out there. I think describing racists by certain racial characteristics (blonde haired blue eyed) was probably an avoidable mistake.

Some thought on Australia Day, 2011:

Well, hinge, as a child of a refugee family who came to this country with my family at a very young age, with naught possessions to show for ourselves, there's much that I feel less than hateful for.

It was drummed into me as a child, by my father:

You are living in a country with is not a constant war zone. (said he, who'd been dragged off to Germany (with the rest of us) to work as an enforced labourer in a munitions factory for the duration of ww2. And could not return home after the war because it was too dangerous.) We became "displaced people", who had to find a new home. We could have done a damn sight worse than Australia. Though it was considered the end of the world, an absolutely unknown quantity. (The rumour was that you could not buy butter there!)

I received a free education, courtesy of Gough Whitlam. Not a cent to pay for my tertiary education. (Can you imagine that now? Bright children had a chance in life, if not much family income to support them.)

My father told me, at a very young age: You are free to publicly say what you think. Respect that privilege. Many people don't have that luxury. You have no idea how fortunate you are to be able to exercise that right.

He also said: this country gave us a chance, a lifeline. Be grateful. Become part of this community you live in. Get involved with the community.

And lots more.

My father was a real "integrator". Rather out of fashion now, but this served us very well at the time.

It took me quite a number of years to fully appreciate just how fortunate we were to have landed where we did. A bit of travel, lots of reading & I understood a whole lot better. We were indeed very fortunate to have found our way here, by total accident, almost.

I just wish that more of our newer, most recent refugees & migrants could have access to the the same opportunities that were open to me.
It worked. Give people a chance, no matter what their background, & they will flourish if they have the capability to flourish... they will become an asset to the community.

I will never, ever, be one of those "my country, right or wrong" people, but I will be forever grateful to Australia & the opportunities it gave me, & so many other people.
I'm proud to be Australian. It took me a while to reach this point, but I'm genuinely proud ... & ready& willing & to tackle the many challenges ahead! (of which there are many.)

Well said msolga, my roots came from the same continent where you came from. When landing in this great Country we were given opportunities that did not exist in our homeland at the time. We availed ourselves of these opportunities, made this our homeland and never looked back. Australia has been good to us and today especially we're proud to be Australian. My son and grand children are aware the great sacrifice my parents made to enable us to built up a future in the lucky Country.

Yes.
You know, as I teach students from any number of different countries & cultures, Dutchy, I almost wish there was more of an "integration" mentality, & less of a feeling of cultural "separateness" encouraged.
I know this sounds rather old fashioned (& I do support the sentiments of multiculturalism, respect & tolerance of cultural differences, etc..), but I also see lots of resistance to accepting the new culture that the students of these families have chosen to become part of.
It worries me sometimes. This need for whole ethnic communities to separate themselves from the wider community they exist in.
I've seen quite a bit of this & not just from first generations migrants & refugees.

Amen to that, msolga.

Discrete and separate ethnic groups in the host country are not a good thing.

No-one objects to Ukranian folk-dance societies, Welsh choirs, Polish ex-servicemen's clubs, St Andrew's Societies. These enrich the social scene.
But we've got large Urdu-speaking areas with their own laws and language, people who never have to learn English and many of them who don't want to learn it, and don't want (for whatever reason) to integrate with the rest of the population.
You could say the same for Kurdish, Somali, and quite a few others.

In my view, it's bad. It's gone too far, and the solution is not obvious at the moment.

My mother came from a German refugee camp age 9 with her mother and her newly acquired Hungarian husband. She married a 5th generation Aussie. I grew up in the western suburbs of Sydney where chocos and wogs were disparaged - which seemed odd to me because most had names that were clearly not anglo-saxon. Even our parks were called Amalfi and Pacullio.

A Darwinian evolutionist certainly should.

Our News is completely obsessed with Egypt and I was wondering about the "catastrophic storm" hitting Queensland which the Gov warned of yesterday.

What's happening?

It starts here and goes for about 5 pages:

http://able2know.org/topic/103751-11#post-4494618

I think I bought a bloody car.

Wasn't going to...was gonna try and do without until my finances are better...but, to be honest, one cannot manage an elderly cat and a very busy life etc. without...or only with great difficulty.

Had to go to manual which is a pain for my knees (and I have to recall how to drive one after 12 years!!!)

A brand new one, Deb?

I know your old one was a constant source of grief.

Sounds like you didn't have all that much choice in the matter.

Here's hoping your driving life is now considerably less stressful!

(& you'll adapt in no time to manual.)