> a nation armed to the teeth with a central government intent on pushing
> the mytho-philosophies of the state doesn't equate to aboriginal
> australia. no matter how tangential.
Heavens John, I wouldn't want to and hope I didn't impute this in my
comments, which aren't of course about the aboriginal struggle for land at
all. A movement I would of course support. I'd give it all back. I'm still
wondering though about the reliance on one's oppressors for sharing out the
cake that was once all yours. My question to myself is: would I seek to do
this through non-violent means? I begin to suspect I wouldn't.
I do wonder whether violent struggle is legitimate in extreme conditions.
Though I'd fight under a black flag. I'm a coward though, but I have some
sympathies with armed struggle: I would fight the fascists and the
Christians if I had to. For my children's sake.
Land and territories in general are so densely patterned in Europe that one
cannot fail to be dislocated, dispossessed. I was in Oz whilst the
referendum was being carried out and I was really astonished about the
question. If you'd had the referendum in Britain, we would have cut all
ties. Oz is an independent nation state. In fighting for an Oz republic
though I could only imagine this as an "aboriginal" state. Of course this is
both simplistic and true. The rest is a colony. Abandoning the hereditary
causes for modern Australia doesn't change it's history. Things are
inevitably more complex in Europe.
This also reminds me of the movements of African Americans to set up a
separate black nation within the US.
It's the idea that integration doesn't work that I find both repelling and
fascinating. As a white liberal I always support integration and tolerance,
its sobering when those one wishes to live beside don't believe the model.
Again I recognise that this is not the model (as I understand it) in Oz.
Closer to home, there seems little doubt that armed struggle in Ireland has
generated a climate where the British have had to consider new structures to
deliver Ireland to the Irish. Whether this agenda would have arisen without
armed struggle is very interesting. My own city, Manchester, was virtually
destroyed by IRA bombing a few years back. A bizarre turn of events as
Manchester is built upon and still sustains an enormous Irish immigrant
population, of which I am a descendent.
Scottish independence will happen in my lifetime, although this agenda has
(in complete opposition to violence) been largely determined by devolution,
political imperatives and weak central government.
Do please accept my apologies for confusing the struggles for independence
in Europe with Oz.
All best
C
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