h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"to accept guilt over Homo Erectus superceding Neanderthal or the Huns conquering the Roman Empire"
Ok, I know that was a funny, but it isn't necessarily about accepting guilt for something, but accepting that it happened. I in no way accept any guilt for what the BE1 or BE2 did during the times before I had any influence on it.

I think the article itself has worthy roots, but it falls into the trap of generalisation as does much of this discussion.

And it should know better as well. I know for a fact that the anti war demonstrations in the England (and some of the outposts ) were viewed with astonishment by many in the Arabic world. They had made the mistake of assuming that the government = the people (which is a fair assumption when you consider the propoganda put about on Democracy and related systems).

I would contend that there are, in fact, a very large numbe r of English, Scots, Welsh, French, Dutch, Spanish, Portugese etc etc people who are aware of their countries past and the impact it has had on the world and how it is now.

I would no necessarily go to the lengths of totally condeming those involved, or villifying the countries involved (which seems to be a particularly fun pasttime these days) since I can;t guaruntee that if I had grown up in that time that I would have definitly not been involved in it or would have actively campaigned against it.

Some time ago I posted a little parable to my journal: Once upon a time a society quietly decided to take a family business away from a certain individual simply because of the way certain genes were expressed. The business was given by the government to another member of the society whose genes were expressed differently. The dispossessed family went off to live on the other side of the tracks where they lived a very hard life, looking across the tracks, knowing that they weren't allowed to enjoy what was right there for them to see. They grubbed through garbage cans trying to survive. Back at the family business, the new owner walked into a going concern. He worked long hours behind the counter (which he got for free) in the building (which he got for free) and he sold the goods (which he got for free) and when those goods were gone, he used part of the revenue to pay for more goods. In time this member of society passed the business (which he got for free) on to his son (as his daughters had all married [as, of course, had his son]). The son now had a thriving business which he recieved for free, merely because of the expression of certain genes. He continued the tradition of his father. After he passed the business on to his son, society had a realization. The family society had dispossesed really had no particular moral failing that meritted their dispossession. Society felt its conscience. Society wanted to make amends some how. Society realized that it would not be progress to merely disposses the grandson of the first member to have th business in order to restore the business to the grandson of the family that had been dispossessed. Instead, society decided that since certain members of society had benefited for generations from the original crime, society as a whole should make some sort of reparation to the dispossessed family. As well, it was decided that for a few generations, society would level the playing field for the decendents of the victims in order to bring equity to society for the future and for the benefit of all of society. The family on the other side of the tracks was grateful, of course, but they still were looked down upon by the members of the family who had been given their business, as though it were somehow a moral failing that had caused the removal of their business. The members of the family who were given the business complained that the people on the other side of the tracks were getting "special rights", that it was "reverse descrimination". These members did not appreciate that they had been given a gift by society at the expense of others. They refused to acknowledge the debt they owed to others for the high place they had been given in society. The people on the other side of the tracks could not find a way to get back across. Despite what were being described as "special rights" they still found themselves going through the garbage to make a living. If any of the daughters of the family actually managed to struggle across the tracks to try to make a better life for themselves and a better society for all, too often they were chased back, or beaten, or even killed for their trouble. The member of society who stood behind the counter shook his head when he read of these incidents and said "act of a madman" "Those people on the other side of the tracks should be satisfied with their special rights" or "I work hard for what I've got; you don't here me bleating about inequality." http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/F110768?thread=415983 In post number three of the above thread I posted this: 'I've probably told this story before but I'll do it again anyway. I've got a friend whose grandparents were given a quarter section of Pappaschase land by the Canadian government on which to homestead (it was irrelevant at the time, apparently, that the Pappaschase were still trying to get compensation for their land.) This friend's grandparents and parents worked hard on that land and made a productive farm of it. My friend's parents retired quite well after the land wa

"Are you suggesting that, say, the Native people demanding what was taken illegally by the Crown (in the case of Canada) is somehow "racist"."
No Mudhooks. You've done what people do around here far too often - made an assumption about what another Researcher said and then based an entirely spurious argument based on it instead of finding out what the person who posted the comment *really* meant. I say Ben criticise cl zoomer a day or two back for doing exactly the same thing. Wish I could remember which thread it was in.

If you want to find out what I meant, I'll be at my PS.

Ah, here we are F135418?thread=608209&skip=40&show=20#p6833461

"Don't extrapolate opinions I do not hold from remarks that I make, though."

What did the native Australians call Australia before the English took it?, Answer OURS the same goes for the rest of the commenwealth

I think that we, as a society, need to acknowladge what has been done to get us where we are. If we find someting we dislike we should try our damndest to make sure it doesn't happen again.

However it is not possible to undo the mistakes of the past. They happened, it is not possible to go around trying to put everything right. You could try to take some of my possesions and give some to the descendant of a Pict (Who my scottish ancestors kicked out of scottland when they came over from irland) and some more to the descendant of a Roman (Or at least a romanised-britain, who my angle ancestors kicked out of england when they came over from Germany) Of course then you'd have to take that back off him, since the Romans were invaders too...

You have to set a limit on how far back it is possible to make repairations for. In an ideal world you could give everyone their fair due, but in this one you can only do whats practical. I belive that we'll reach a society thats fair to everyone (or as close as we're going to get) fastest by avoiding future mistakes and by evening up peoples treatment in society now (regardless of why it was uneven in the first place) rather than by trying to undo everything we've ever done.

I'd say the only way to solve the problem would be to end the current situation where for most people the situation they're born into defines the range they'll achieve in for the rest of their lives.

But that's a huge problem in itself.

What's the general opinion here of reparations then? It was a generally acknowledged poor system for post WWI but a fairly good one for post WWII. As far as righted wrongs go, what's the general consensus with things like the acre of land and donkey promise to the slaves during the US Civil War or the Japanese cash settlement from the Canadian government to Japanese descendents?

Before someone jumps on me for being less than absolutely precise, it was in fact 40 acres and a mule. Far be it from me to make generalisations...um...today.

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I tend to agree about that, Oojakapiv. It's an issue in New Zealand, but the truth of the situation is, that although many Maori are disadvantaged, they are no more so than many white people, so that Analiese's stricture doesn't apply to most non-Maori people here. (Though some have benefitted by the actions of their ancestors and continue to do so, they are a minority.)

Acknowledging the past is something we all should do
Reparations is something harder
Take the British in India
Britain stole a vast amount of wealth from India during its conquest and profited greatly from its ownership until independence
No doubt some of that wealth trickled down into British society as a whole but most went to a narrow elite
Since any exact accounting of who profited is impossible I'd say society as a whole should pay any reparations deemed appropriate, but inevitably many not particularly well-off people in Britain, or France or the US (when it is their former colonies or aboriginal populations being considered) will resent this
As for a statute of limitations well theres someamount of people around where I live would like the English to go back to Germany where they came from

>>As for a statute of limitations well theres someamount of people around where I live would like the English to go back to Germany where they came from<<



That's it! And send them so-called "Native" Americans back across the Bering Strait, to where they came form!

although as far as I'm aware the native Americans weren't displacing an earlier population whereas the Anglo-Saxons were (as the Celts had themselves done a while earlier)

In the interest of historical accuracy, the Anglo-Saxons didn't actually invade Britain - they came by invitation.

With the demise of the Roman Empire the Celtic Britons where worried about the activities of the Vikings. Having spent so long under the protection of the Roman Empire, the Celts where not capable of defending themselves. The Anglo-Saxons being more resilient and forceful considered the Celts to be a weak race and soon began to dominate the country.

Therefore, should the Celts, which are mostly the Welsh and Cornish, withdraw the invitation and seek reparation from Norway and Denmark?

Who did the Celts displace?

Donald

I just wrote a long reply but it wouldn't post
nethermind, I'll write it again but possibly a little more concisely

AFAIK, there were two waves of Celtic immigration to the UK, from Switzerland, one in about 1000 BC and the other about 100 BC. (I learned this from a book about the Celts by a German guy, a book recommended to me by a Dutch-German friend of mine, who insisted that the Celts were Germanic. According to Herr Herm, she wasn't far wrong!)

I wish I could remember the title of the book, the author is Gerhard Herm.

So, the second wave displaced the first wave, without knowing they'd come from the same place.

(I may have the dates wrong.)

Gee... sorry I misinterpreted. However, I came to the conclusion from what you wrote.... If you want to fill it out to correct the impression, why do I have to go to your personal space?

"You don't blame someone for being black or for having some sort of birth defect or for not having a perfect hourglass shape, so why blame them for being born where their parents and grandparents and great grandparents live?"

I could only conclude that you meant that Aboriginal people demanding reparations from the decendants of people who stole land, upon which those decendants now live and have earned a livelihood, is an act of bias not unlike a racist or baised act based on someone's color or because of a physical defect.

I don't think that I am at fault because you perhaps badly phrased a comment.

If you meant it differently, please feel free to explain what you did mean.

I wrote a long reply a little while ago and my bloody computer crashed just as I was about to send.

Basically it was something like:

Is it worthwhile considering the two distinctly different present contexts which arise out of the same history of colonization? The Americas, New Zealand, and Australia, for example all are presently societies either numerically or politically (or both) dominated by descendents of European colonists. In these parts of the world, the nasty remnants of colonialism are a daily presence, either overtly or as a subtext, in the social discourse. In Europe, in contrast, the colonial legacy has been largely spent, principally, perhaps, on the European wars of the Twentieth century. The plundered gold of the Incas and the Mexica are not clearly visible in Seville or Madrid today, but the destruction of the Indies slaps you in the face in Cuzco, or San Cristobal, in Wounded Knee or Saskatoon.


I then was in the process of describing the different responses to the post-colonial situation in Mexico, the U.S. and Canada, but I'm not going to push my wireless luck with this post.

Considering the various concurrent drifts the thread is in the midst of, I feel I should mention that my last post was not in reply to anyone specific.

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That is certainly true here...