On Wed, 21 Nov 2012, luber@alphalink.com.au wrote:
Who was there before the aborigines? Maybe they were harvested by aliens. Did one tribe settle Australia, followed by more boat people? Did it all happen when the continents were joined? How did a thousand different tribes/clans come about? Also this business about 'invasion of an already settled land' I find is purely emotive. Is there some date when this became unethical? If it has always been unethical, winding back and seeking reparation is going to interesting everywhere else in the world let alone the current invasions.
In recent centuries there have been a series of agreements banning genocide, guaranteeing decent treatment of prisoners of war, etc. The standards that the British government had agreed to prior to colonising Australia prohibited treating people the way they treated Aboriginies, they just didn't regard Aboriginies as people. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_generation Read about the Stolen Generations. That sort of thing is unethical by any set of ethical standards apart from those which are actively racist.
The statement 'Australia is geographically part of Asia, not Europe' I regard as nonsense, if you follow that line of reasoning, you would argue that China is on the same continent as Europe so if you follow the geographical links we're all Europeans. In these days of fast transport and communications, I really can't see the usefulness of 'geographic' links. I don't see African countries saying they're a part of Arab or European regions and they're joined by land.
In fact the EU has existed for a long time and there are a variety of trade organisations linking Arabian countries. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/