Woo...

Hi all!

It's AUSTRALIA DAY!

I do not believe this to be a particularly cheerful holiday, providing you know the full story.

When the white people came from England to dump all their crooks on our shores, they landed and decided since there were no fences, buildings or anything else to signal "civilisation" they were free to take this land that was supposedly not owned by anyone. Then they noticed the natives, although at first some didn't believe them to be people. Either way the settlers for some weird reason saw fit to, that's right, slaughter the hell out of them. And they kept trying to eliminate them for several years, using several different methods eg downright slaughter and breeding them out, either way, not something they talk about in Australia day speeches.

And we still haven't quite got the message of how to actually respect them, we have governments throwing money at them that many communities of aboriginals have said they do not want it. And we pushed them to let tourists walk on Uluru, only to have said tourists cover it in a fine layer of rubbish, but hey, as long as we refer to stuff in the aboriginal language, we're being respectful, right?

So although this is a day to celebrate, I think we should also remember all the aboriginals that died and still feel lost and trapped in this 'free' country.

Ciao,

Shigure