>Bill's last post is so misleading that I'm going to break my rule about not
>responding. It is a classic example of the inadvertent arrogance, contempt
>and dehumanising attitudes so often expressed by disappointed
>romantics/idealists in regard to real, living indigenous peoples who do not
>meet expectations of what they "should" be like. Sadly ironic and all too
>common in discussions about Aboriginal history unfortunately.
Again, you are dishonestly making things up. I haven't expressed any value judgements, romantic or otherwise, about aboriginal culture. I merely expressed the opinion that the attempt to eliminate it amounted to genocide. I do have contempt for dishonesty though and admit a weakness for honestly expressing that contempt.
> > You are deliberately asserting a falsehood. Again. Deliberate elimination
>of a people's entire cultural
>> heritage is not at all the same thing as natural social change.
>
>So there are peoples in the world who have experienced "social change" --
>horrible euphemism that -- without the intervention of state or capital?
>Remarkable. Where and when?
Obviously there has been social change without outside intervention, otherwise capitalism and the political state would not have come into existence. Unless you believe these social institutions were imposed by aliens from another planet? However there are many more instances of social change resulting from interactions with other societies. But intervention is not necessarily the same as elimination of a culture.
> >The latter of course usually involves
>> incorporation and adaption of pre-existing knowledge and social customs.
>Which is quite a different
>> matter from simply trashing them without leaving a trace.
>
>Remarkably stupid comments. So living human beings don't even amount to a
>"trace"?
Individual human beings don't live forever. Deliberately preventing parents from passing their traditions and values to the next generation is genocide, because the parents will eventually die. Their culture is retained so long as they live of course, but it has been sterilised. Can it be possible that you really haven't grasped this?
> > Both definitions of genocide are about purposeful destruction of
>particular groups, by whatever means.
>
>And this, in the case of the Stolen Generations, could be achieved by
>stealing "half caste" children? You don't seem to have much faith in the
>resilience of the families and the individual human beings concerned. I'm
>glad I know otherwise.
The express purpose was to prevent the parents passing on to these children their aboriginal culture. To do this systematically amounts to genocide.
>If you really believe that the "dictionary definition" is the same as the UN
>definition, I feel sorry for you. All the dictionaries I've looked at talk
>about "race", which is a much steeper category than "culture" and such
>definitions would therefore be restricted to the Nazi Holocaust and a few
>other cases.
The Jews are not a "race", or genetically distinct group. So the Nazi holocaust doesn't fit into your new, even narrower, definition of "genocide".
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas