I went to the UK for a six month holiday waaayy back in 1980, but didn’t make it back to Oz for another twenty three years.
And changes happened.
When I got back I started to see the weirdest thing at talks and presentations. Someone would stand up and in the most solemn tones address an all European audience with the following:
Our meeting/conference/workshop is being held on the traditional lands [or country] of the [Traditional Owner group’s name] people and I wish to acknowledge them as Traditional Owners.
I would also like to pay my respects to their Elders, past and present, and the Elders from other communities who may be here today.
Seriously. And this in areas where there have been no ‘traditional owners’ for a hundred and fifty years.
There are even standard protocols defined for where, when and how it is said.
Of course, these things are treated with great reverence and solemnity by progressives, and are either ignored by the sane or treated as an opportunity to take the piss by the truly honest.
A leading Sydney barrister and senior counsel at the trouble-plagued St John’s College has sparked outrage after mocking the Aboriginal community at an official dinner at the University of Sydney.
Jeffrey Phillips, SC, stood in the college’s 150-year-old Great Hall and, in front of more than 250 staff, students and guests, paid tribute to the ”traditional custodians of this place” whom he identified as being the ”Benedictines who came from the great English nation”.
The comment was made in the presence of several indigenous students, one of whom has lodged a formal complaint and, according to senior staff, remains ”deeply traumatised”.
Traumatised? Really?
Poor petal.
Mark Spinks, a respected member of Sydney’s Aboriginal community and chairman of the Aboriginal men’s group Babana, said: ”How disgusting, how disgraceful, how disrespectful are those comments. I am outraged and I am disturbed. For that to have been said at the university, in a room full of students, I am almost speechless.”
Almost, but not completely, more’s the pity.
Look, if people want to have these ceremonies, then great, fine by me. But for God’s sake lighten up people.
More po faced outrage here. If these self righteous loons didn’t take themselves so seriously I might be inclined to offer a little more respect…..
It sounds “paranoid” but it is a cold hard fact.
“Political Correctness” was invented by the Frankfurt School of “cultural” Marxism as a weapon against “capitalism” (i.e. against the West). It spread via the New York School of Social Research and out into academia and the wider world (over many decades).
The problem is not “political correctness gone mad” it is political correctness period.
When when comes upon this doctrine one must clearly say ” I reject the doctrines of the Frankfurt School of Marxism - I stand with freedom of speech”.
‘Lighten up people” will not do.
This link, from 2011, suggests that Victoria has scrapped the practice.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-05-19/victoria-dumps-nod-to-traditional-owners/2719734
Lurching off topic, but in terms of finding un-PC candidates for office, here in Leicestershire we have an election for Police and Crime Commissioner this week, with an alternative vote. By a random twist of fate, there is a white woman Labour candidate; Conservative retired Air Chief Marshal (Falklands vet); and an independent candidate who is an ‘Asian’ male who has somehow managed to become a Magistrate despite his past service in the Rhodesian Army, no less!
http://www.nagdi.co.uk/profile/#.UJ_4xmtYCK0
Yeah, made a requirement by Labor for Labor Ministers, but an optional extra for Conservative Ministers. Loadsa people still do it across the country still do it tho.
Mr Ed - good news about Victoria, but note that the ABC report was dominated by hostile sources.
The bias of the Australian Broadcasting Company was blatant and extreme - that is the power of P.C. (invented by the Frankfurt School of Marxism and spread via the universities and schools).
The candidates in Leicestershire are clearly more interesting than in Northamptonshire - I have had nothing to do with the whole business (being a thousand miles away).
Well the BBC is busy sniffing its own rectum today, preparing to lick it clean, and they gave mention to Ms Gillard’s enquiry into child care and anyone who might distract from her own issues (omitted for brevity by the BBC).
The curious thing about PC is how it becomes almost ‘fashion’ with spontaneous outbursts and people who cannot have known the source picking up the essentials and replicating them, all over the world.
All this deference to Aboriginal culture is a classic example of the Australian ‘cultural cringe’. We are told that Australia was settled by its original inhabitants some 40,000 - 70,000 years ago, which is a remarkable palaeological and anthropological fact. But since then, they have done fuck-all with the place. The way in which they were treated by the European settlers was barbaric, but after a period in which there is any more than nominal equality of treatment under the law, the failure of one sub-group to thrive cannot be laid at the feet of the dominant culture. If your group is mired in poverty, alcoholism and crime while the rest of society is getting on just fine, then it is your fault. Make different decisions, see what the successful ones are doing and emulate them, and then shut the fuck up.