In echoes of the unhinged fury that greeted Sir Bob Jones’ “Maori Gratitude Day” column, a whole lot of suspiciously pasty-faced “Aborigines” are getting their undies in a bunch over the suggestion that they ought to show a bit of thanks for the manifest benefits of colonisation.
Ironic, really, given that without colonisation, they’d neither exist, nor even have undies to get twisted into knots.
Marcus Stewart, a co-chair of Victoria’s First Peoples’ Assembly has criticised state Liberal MP Bev McArthur, after she appeared to suggest Indigenous people should be grateful for the “wonderful things that have been enabled via colonisation” such as hospitals, running water and electricity.
This is Marcus Stewart.
It might not have escaped your notice that lil’ ol’ Marcus isn’t exactly a walking poster-child for authentic, pre-1788 Aboriginal-dom. Or that he clearly owes almost his entire ancestry to colonisation.
But, in yet another proof that the whiter the “Aborigine”, the bigger the chip on their shoulder, Marcus is clearly very upset that most of his ancestors ever set foot on this land.
Stewart, a Nira illim bulluk man, rebuked McArthur’s comments and described her as “another unknown politician saying something offensive at our expense as they try to make a name for themselves”.
“Should Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people be saying thanks for the invasion of our lands and massacre of our people? Should we be grateful that we’re the most locked up people in the country and that our kids are still being torn away from our families?” he said.
In fact, it might behoove them to apologise for committing so many crimes that you’re being locked up in such numbers. And being such abusive parents that your own kids have to be saved from them.
McArthur, an upper house MP representing the western Victoria region who opposes a federal Indigenous voice to parliament, issued the statement last Wednesday, a day after the Geelong city council voted to stop recognising 26 January as Australia Day.
She also wrote an opinion piece for Spectator Australia on the same topic, which was published on Monday and titled: “Cancelling our crucible day”.
In the statement, which was not distributed by the Coalition’s media team, McArthur accused the Geelong council of “effectively saying we are not a good nation – and we should remain in a state of eternal apology” […]
“Should we also say sorry for hospitals, roads, mobile phones, ready food at supermarkets, homes, running water, electricity for light and warmth, indigenous-only medical centres, aged care and court processes?”
Instead of us apologising, maybe the Marcus Stewarts of Australia might express some gratitude that 1/64th or so of his ancestors were teleported from the Stone Age to the Industrial Age.
“There is one word that is rarely heard in this discussion, and it is a simple word. Thank you,” she wrote.
And why would they? I mean, apart from the modern medicine, modern agriculture, modern communications, clothes, sanitation… what did the British ever do for them?
“Maybe that word should be heard loudly on Australia Day – a day to give thanks for everything that makes us one of the best nations in the world – not a perfect nation – but an extraordinary one.”
McArthur said there were “wonderful things that have been enabled via colonisation by a democratic country”, including the form of government itself.
A form of government which has personally enriched Marcus Stewart beyond anything his speck of distant Aboriginal ancestors could have ever imagined.
Earlier this year Stewart announced he would not stand for re-election for the assembly – the body democratically elected to develop Victoria’s treaty framework – in order to join the campaign for an Indigenous voice to federal parliament.
The Guardian
Plunging his snout from one taxpayer-funded trough to another, even bigger, one.
And even troughs were unknown in Australia before the wicked “colonists” arrived.
