Home Australia Pat Rafter’s shocking six-word statement about Indigenous Aussies should make us furious on Australia Day, writes SHAYNE BUGDEN

Pat Rafter’s shocking six-word statement about Indigenous Aussies should make us furious on Australia Day, writes SHAYNE BUGDEN

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Pat Rafter (in the photo playing in Brisbane last month) went far beyond using pink glasses when he expressed his opinion on Australia's relationship with his indigenous peoples.

There was much to agree on Pat Rafter’s opinion about what makes our country great when he expressed his opinion about why he is proud to be Australian in the period prior to January 26.

The legend of tennis said that “humility is a large part of who we are” while criticizing the Australians who develop “a large head” and “get an ego” while they think they are “better than others” in an article written for News Corporation January 24.

But then Rafter illustrated his point about the changes in the national character talking about his experiences with the indigenous Australians, and could not believe what he was reading.

‘I grew up in an Australian city quite bloody, Mt Isa, in a large loving family, with white and aboriginal colleagues with whom I played tennis and with whom it passed. It was not white or black; We were only friends, ”he wrote, referring to his childhood inside Queensland.

So far, so good. But then he continues: ‘When you were a child, you really don’t know much about aboriginal history, but when you grow a little more about what Australia is and what it was.

“That transition has been a bit difficult sometimes, but I think it’s much better.”

Pat Rafter (in the photo playing in Brisbane last month) went far beyond using pink glasses when he expressed his opinion on Australia’s relationship with his indigenous peoples.

The two -time Grand Slam winner dates back to an Australia where

The two -time Grand Slam winner goes back to an Australia where “we treated everyone equally” and, in doing so, he ignored the most shameful facets in the country’s history.

Think of those six words for a minute: “A little difficult sometimes.”

I am not accusing Pat of being ignorant or false in any way, but that is an absurd and disconcerting way of describing what is rightly considered the most shameful part of the history of our nation.

The term “overlook” does not even begin to scratch the surface here.

I will not enter into the attempt to illustrate the indescribable horrors that the first Australians have suffered from the white settlement (or invasion, as the country’s European colonization is often called now).

My colleague Candace Sutton did a much better job than me in an article than the Daily Mail Australia published just after Australia’s dawn this year.

In it he begins by writing about the Lawn Hill station in the northwest end of Queensland, not far from Rafter’s childhood house, where 40 pairs of human ears stuck on the walls were found. Those ears did not belong to the whites.

The owner of the house, Frank Hann, was known for collecting heads of Australian indigenous people. He and the manager of his station, Jack Watson, cut them as souvenirs or as a form of reward, according to journalistic reports of the late nineteenth century.

The story is illustrated with photographs of large groups of aboriginal prisoners tied with each other with chains around the neck.

Reading and will face disgusting details about the decapitation of children in the Myall Creek massacre, which charged at least 28 lives.

According to the legend of tennis, images such as indigenous men chained by the neck in Wyndham, Western Australia, represent a relationship with the nation that has been

According to the legend of tennis, images such as indigenous men chained by the neck in Wyndham, Western Australia, represent a relationship with the nation that has been “a bit difficult sometimes.”

Rafter said he believes that the life of Australian indigenous people is

Rafter said he believes that the life of Australian indigenous the photo).

Continue and reach two cases of settlers who donated flour bags to Australian indigenous people after spraying them with strict poison. Each of these inhuman acts charged approximately 70 lives.

These are not chosen, isolated and out of the common incidents. Any interpretation without limits of our history will be plagued with horrors like these.

When Rafter says that he believes that Australia’s relationship with his first inhabitants is “much better now”, that cannot be discussed, not so much for the progress that has undoubtedly achieved, but because when the bar is worked from such It is terribly low, any example of treating aborigines with the most basic levels of respect as human beings would represent an immense improvement.

The two -time Grand Slam winner also says that he was proud of the way the Australians were very dear abroad in the 1990s because “we knew how to have a good time, but we also treated everyone equally.”

Well, that is the ideal in which we like to believe. But it was not the reality then and it is not the reality now.

Just six months ago, the clossing the GAP report of the federal government highlighted disturbing facts on how indigenous Australians go far behind the rest of the country in regard to life expectancy, health, education, housing, suicide statistics and rates of imprisonment.

A little difficult, Pat?

For many Australians, Rafter (in the photo on the way to winning the 1997 US Open) was a street and speaker of the best parts of our national character.

For many Australians, Rafter (in the photo on the way to winning the 1997 US Open) was a street and speaker of the best parts of our national character.

Opinions such as yours, which frivolously ignore the stains of our history, oppose the honest and painful conversations we need to continue having to live up to the description of Rafter of Australia as a place where all are treated equally.

Once again, I try to point out that I don’t think Rafter has made his statement with any malice.

Millions of Australians loved to see him play not only because it was excellent in tennis, but because he embodied many of the ideals he speaks in in his article.

He was an adorable Larrikin, a great guy who was, self -critical despite his immense talent and fame, the type of person who passes one of the greatest tests of character in Australian life: you would love to have a beer with him. .

Pat also seemed to live up to that other characteristic that Australians value both in themselves: being frank, people who are not afraid of saying things as they see them.

But in this case, your vision has seriously failed.

The facts that omit with those six words are no longer hidden. Finally, it is difficult to remain blind to them in Australian life, as it should be.

(Tagstotranslate) Dailymail

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