How do we remember our colonial past?

Tony Birch - Koorie writer and historian - talks about the ways in which Australia, as a 'post'-colonial society, deals (/fails to deal) with memories of its colonial past.

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• Tony
• Birch
• Koorie
• Australia
• colonialism
• colonial
• postcolonial
• memory
• imagination
• history
• wars
• Indigenous
• Aboriginal
• Walter
• Mosley

[cosmos278]

Bearhuntaa you are acting out one of the forms Tony describes of abdicating responsibility and derailing the whole argument. This isn't about you, mate! it is about accepting that shit has happened, and continues to happen, and we all have a role to play in today and tomorrow's society. Each one of us who is non-Aboriginal has a responsibility to the Original Custodians of this land, white, Brown, yellow or speckled. It is through Aboriginal blood, sweat and tears that we are advantaged.

[casting4325]

@MarmaladeINFP Your dealing with an individual who is being defensive and will not open their mind as the man in this video says.I believe that bearhuntaa fits into the categories mentioned in the video -bearhuntaa believes your views are "fictional,supect and has no validity in either memory or imagination" and bearhuntaa is "hostile when provoked with the potential" you put forward.Totally agree with what you say but bearhuntaa needs to be more open minded & less defensive of the indefensible

[gunailad]

@randomOmoniker

All Australians benefit from Aboriginal disposession, we are rich from mining, all land had defined boundarys for 50,000 years, laws from the other side of the world doesnt change the fact its the Aboriginals rightful inheritence

[gunailad]

@rokket

In Australia any Aboriginal side of the story must have physical documents to support it, once you gain an overview history is not good, anyway I want to see the physical documents that make forced settlement in Australia legal?

[Rokket]

....similar to if you verbally tell a story, over time it changes. What may have been a minor event involving 5 people, lasting 30 minutes, 100 years later, can be a major event involving 50 lasting half the day. As time goes on, the way a story is told changes, people add to it, and in time, it's a very different story.

[curaezipirid]

When I studied history of this land, taught by white men, I began to accept my responsibility for inheriting what my white forebears did to indigenous families with darker skin than our own; and in the long run, I also got taught by indigenous families, to remember that my white ancestors intermarried with black ancestors, and so it became the story, that by owning and accepting responsibility for colonists among my ancestry, I found my way into becoming reclaimed by my indigenous ancestry.

[random0moniker]

@myoclonicjerkz

we were more raidingy than colonialismy but my predecessors were very good at killing people and making others lives miserable.

but why the fuck should i need to appologie for something that i couldent affect? our current culture and those physically located within our borders do not endorse any of that shit.

[myoclonicjerkz]

@random0moniker I would pose to you the question of what they were they good at in the colonial past? Is this a romantic vision of migration and settlement within the context of a centralized power structure seeking resources to maintain its own cultural validity within a competitive region of shifting power dynamics? And if you claim to be Swedish aren't you taking responsibility for your ancestry by aligning yourself with spatial and cultural heritage definitions of societal values?

[Gunnabee]

Good one Tony my bro, too solid!

[thabetalqasir]

I totally agree with all of what he said, it is rare to find a western that has such a clear vision and are not lying to them self

[lesleyblood1]

Jungism

[random0moniker]

what i remember about colonial past is that they were damn good at it. however i refuse to take responsibility for shit my ancestors did before i was born. im fucking swedish, do you have any idea how much shit we pulled per capita!? id spen the rest of my life saying sorry. what we SHOULD remember about colonialism is: dont. fucking. do it. again.

so its not something you appologize for but rather something you keep in mind when you meet the na'vi