‘You are not my king,’ Indigenous Australian senator yells at visiting King Charles
‘You are not my king,’ Indigenous Australian senator yells at visiting King Charles
Indigenous independent Senator Lidia Thorpe was escorted out of a parliamentary reception for the royal couple after shouting that British colonizers have taken Indigenous land and bones.
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Lidia Thorpe is not wrong when Briitish colonialism fucked the world. The British should be held accountable for that. However, this arguement can be made to absolve the Australian government of their fuckery with indigenous people.
Sure, Australia didn't become federate until the early 1900s. However, I would imagine sometime prior to that Australia was acting more or less as an independent country.
What do you mean by "The British should be held accountable"?
Who, exactly? And how, exactly?
The monarch, the government, the entire population?
Reparations? If you sell everything - crown estates, crown jewels, all the art, everything - are you going to deliver $7.28 to every single person in a former colony?
How about we look forwards, instead? There's little to be gained in trying to make current-day nations pay reparations for things that their ancestors did.
Interesting take. Let's not hold anybody to account by that logic. So what if the car I drive is stolen, I didn't steal it. So what if the lady that I paid to have sex with was coerced, I didn't force her. So what if the wealth that I stole from others is used to persecute the rest of the world...
So in your two hypothetical situation, what benefit does punishing you provide to any of the victims?
There’s little to be gained in trying to make current-day nations pay reparations for things that their ancestors did.
"We will not blame [King George] for the crimes of his ancestors if he relinquishes the royal rights of his ancestors; but as long as he claims their rights, by virtue of descent, then, by virtue of descent, he must shoulder the responsibility for their crimes.".
-James ConnollyHow about we look forwards, instead?
How about we look at the present? Because colonialism isn't over. People are still suffering from it right now. The global south is still actively being colonized and exploited right now.
You can't drive a knife into someone's ribs then say "what's in the past is in the past, we need to look forward instead" when your hand is still holding the blade. How can you hope to start the process of healing if you haven't even taken the knife out all the way?
Now, I don't have all the answers for how that healing process is going to work for the world, but I'm pretty sure a billionaire dancing around in a golden hat and velvet robes with a title that says "God made my bloodline special so I can stab whoever I want" isn't a part of it.
Lidia Thorpe is not wrong when Briitish colonialism fucked the world.
Utter bollocks. French colonial rule destroyed countries, British colonial rule has left the majority of their empire in far, far better states than when they found them.
Australia is one of the richest countries on the globe, that's because not despite of British colonial rule.
Better for whom exactly?
This is why we need a proper, fact based education about empire and the damage it caused the world, even if it gets dismissed as "woke" by ignorant flag shaggers.
Sure that's true for half of Africa /s
Colonization is never good.
I don't think any colonised people were uplifted by the process. To think that colonisation was a good process is to literally whitewash history