Comment on Question about Australian towns
guismo@aussie.zone 3 months agoTo me, that part, just like the war, should be learned about, its consequences dealt with, and forgotten about and just shamed. This happened before anyone I know was born. We will live with the consequences but it’s not their fault.
But unlike the wars, I don’t see monuments for aboriginal genocide. Oddly enough, I don’t see monuments remembering the murdered aboriginals either. Even though most of the small towns I’ve been to had a rich history of aboriginal massacres.
eureka@aussie.zone 3 months ago
As some other mentioned, the monuments were often built soon after the war by people who had recently lost their relatives. When there were massacres of Aboriginal peoples, they obviously didn’t have the authority and resources to build similar memorials in towns, and to be blunt, the towns probably had few people who cared enough to build anything on their behalf, even now there are few public memorials (and often small ones) of massacres and Aboriginal loss. And that difference you pointed out reveals a lot about we see the historical effects of who has power and who writes history.
guismo@aussie.zone 3 months ago
Another user mentioned his town have monuments built in 80s. I believe a number of them built monuments just because there is a consensus that you have to do it. It became like an unwritten law (I think it’s actually a law). You have to build monuments, you have to keep remembering, you can’t question it. If you do you are a traitor and deserve consequences. The usual issue with patriotism of any kind. If you are not with us, you are with them.
And yes, the specific things that need to be remembered and all the rest that can be forgotten. It is the base of my problem with the memorials. “Remember this, don’t mind the rest” Police, doctors, every day people who give their lives for something don’t get monuments and the rules that defines what does troubles me.