HOWARD GOVT REWRITES HISTORY The following article was published in "The Guardian", newspaper of the Communist Party of Australia in its issue of Wednesday, April 12, 2000. Contact address: 65 Campbell Street, Surry Hills. Sydney. 2010 Australia. Phone: (612) 9212 6855 Fax: (612) 9281 5795. Email: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Webpage: http://www.cpa.org.au Subscription rates on request. ****************************** Howard Govt rewrites history The interpretation and recording of history on the surface of it may appear academic and neutral, but it is in reality an ongoing contest which takes place on an ideological and political battlefield, a central part of the class struggle. This is the motive force behind the Howard Government's attempt to deny that there ever were Stolen Generations of Indigenous people. By Marcus Browning Doomed by history as they are, the ruling elite is constantly having to claw back lost ground and rewrite history to favour and glorify their own class. Its class allegiance - to the big pastoralists and transnational mining corporations - makes the Government's strident racism inevitable. It is also why Howard tried to formerly dispossess Indigenous Australians in the draft preamble to the the constitution he wrote with redneck poet Les Murray, and why he dragged out the "black armband of history" line penned by noted history professor to the ruling class, Geoffery Blainy. The Government denial came from the Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, John Herron, in a submission to the Government's response to the Stolen Generations. His submission said that there "never was a generation of stolen children". Whipping up racism also serves the Government's immediate political aims. As ATSIC Chairman Geoff Clark pointed out, "It's obvious there's going to be an election soon ... there's obviously a bigger agenda and I believe that's probably an election agenda." The Government is striving to pick up the race vote in rural Australia that has been going to the One Nation party, and is hoping to bury the GST as an issue leading up to its imposition on July 1. Opposition Strong protests against the Government's position have been voiced from many quarters. The NSW Aboriginal Land Council has called for Herron's resignation, saying his words fly in the face of all documented evidence. "What the Government is doing is distorting known facts", said Land Council Chairman Rod Towney. The Land Council says that while it can longer accept Howard's empty pledges of heartfelt regret it will accept an apology from him for Senator Herron's appalling track record in Aboriginal affairs. "Senator Herron's work in the Aboriginal community is so paltry that he is known as `Mr Nowhere Man'. He should resign in shame and Howard should apologise to the community for his actions whilst in office." ATSIC issued a statement last week briefly summing up the plight of the Stolen Generations: "The laws resulted in many Aboriginal children being removed from their families, traumatising many generations. "The children were not only isolated from their families and their country but were forbidden to speak their language or practice their culture. "Education was very basic. "Excessive physical punishments were common. "Children were often sexually abused. "Many never received wages. "Authorities failed to care for and protect the children. "The Stolen Generations resulted in devastation for the community, families, parents and children. Its effects have been felt by many generations and are still impacting on the community today." The statement calls on the Australian Parliament to formerly apologise to Indigenous Australians for the devastating consequences of the laws and policies which led to the separation of Aboriginal and Torres State Islander children from the their families. The ACTU also condemned the Government's act of denial. "The policy of removing Aboriginal children from their families is a dark part of our history", said ACTU Secretary Greg Combet. "It is widely accepted that the family losses have effected all generations since, not just one generation. "How can we achieve reconciliation when our elected leaders deny that history?" A letter obviously written with a controlled fury by Aboriginal AFL footballer Michael Long, appeared in "The Age" newspaper. It pins the issues, and the Howard Government's history rewrite, to the wall: "How do I tell my mother that Mr Howard said the stolen generation never took place? How does he explain to me why none of my grandparents are alive? "How do I explain to my mother, who was the most loved, trusting mother figure to all who knew her that Mr Howard is just the same as the people who were in power back then, cold-hearted pricks. "How do I tell my mother that her grandchildren were never affected by the stolen generation, that they don't know their aunties and uncles, their people? "Does Mr Howard understand how much trauma my grandmother suffered? It ripped her heart out, what she went through. Even when she died her baby was never returned home. "If you put yourself in their shoes - I have three children - and people come knocking at my door, grabbing my children, putting them in the back of a truck, yelling and screaming. Over my dead body, Mr Howard. "Back then my mother had no choice but to go. It was wrong. It did happen. It was government policy. "My mother was taken when she was a baby, taken to Darwin and put on a boat - she had never seen the sea before - screaming and yelling, not knowing what was happening and then crying herself to sleep. I call that trauma and abuse. I am so angry that anyone could do this to a child just because their skin was a different colour. "Mr Howard, I can't tell my mother because she has been dead for 17 years. Who is going to tell her story, the trauma and lies associated with her people and their families? "Mr Howard, if you just walked in their shoes you would understand. "I am all for reconciliation. "Mr Howard, I am part of the stolen generation. It's like dropping a rock in a pool of water and it has a rippling effect, so don't tell me it effects only 10 percent. No amount of money can replace what your Government has done to my family." END -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.alexia.net.au/~www/mhutton/index.html Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
