Breaking the Australian Silence
Posted: Fri Jan 01, 2010 10:15 amBreaking the Australian Silence
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php? ... &aid=15970
by John Pilger November 8, 2009
In a speech at the Sydney Opera House to mark his award of Australia's human rights prize, the Sydney Peace Prize, John Pilger describes the "unique features" of a political silence in Australia: how it affects the national life of his homeland and the way Australians see the world and are manipulated by great power "which speaks through an invisible government of propaganda that subdues and limits our political imagination and ensures we are always at war -- against our own first people and those seeking refuge, or in someone else's country".
By John Pilger
November 06, 2009 ""Information Clearing House" -- -Thank you all for coming tonight, and my thanks to the City of Sydney and especially to the Sydney Peace Foundation for awarding me the Peace Prize. It’s an honour I cherish, because it comes from where I come from.
I am a seventh generation Australian. My great-great grandfather landed not far from here, on November 8th, 1821. He wore leg irons, each weighing four pounds. His name was Francis McCarty. He was an Irishman, convicted of the crime of insurrection and “uttering unlawful oaths”. In October of the same year, an 18 year old girl called Mary Palmer stood in the dock at Middlesex Gaol and was sentenced to be transported to New South Wales for the term of her natural life. Her crime was stealing in order to live. Only the fact that she was pregnant saved her from the gallows. She was my great-great grandmother. She was sent from the ship to the Female Factory at Parramatta, a notorious prison where every third Monday, male convicts were brought for a “courting day” -- a rather desperate measure of social engineering. Mary and Francis met that way and were married on October 21st, 1823.
Growing up in Sydney, I knew nothing about this. My mother’s eight siblings used the word “stock” a great deal. You either came from “good stock” or “bad stock”. It was unmentionable that we came from bad stock – that we had what was called “the stain”.
MORE:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php? ... &aid=15970
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http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php? ... &aid=15970
by John Pilger November 8, 2009
In a speech at the Sydney Opera House to mark his award of Australia's human rights prize, the Sydney Peace Prize, John Pilger describes the "unique features" of a political silence in Australia: how it affects the national life of his homeland and the way Australians see the world and are manipulated by great power "which speaks through an invisible government of propaganda that subdues and limits our political imagination and ensures we are always at war -- against our own first people and those seeking refuge, or in someone else's country".
By John Pilger
November 06, 2009 ""Information Clearing House" -- -Thank you all for coming tonight, and my thanks to the City of Sydney and especially to the Sydney Peace Foundation for awarding me the Peace Prize. It’s an honour I cherish, because it comes from where I come from.
I am a seventh generation Australian. My great-great grandfather landed not far from here, on November 8th, 1821. He wore leg irons, each weighing four pounds. His name was Francis McCarty. He was an Irishman, convicted of the crime of insurrection and “uttering unlawful oaths”. In October of the same year, an 18 year old girl called Mary Palmer stood in the dock at Middlesex Gaol and was sentenced to be transported to New South Wales for the term of her natural life. Her crime was stealing in order to live. Only the fact that she was pregnant saved her from the gallows. She was my great-great grandmother. She was sent from the ship to the Female Factory at Parramatta, a notorious prison where every third Monday, male convicts were brought for a “courting day” -- a rather desperate measure of social engineering. Mary and Francis met that way and were married on October 21st, 1823.
Growing up in Sydney, I knew nothing about this. My mother’s eight siblings used the word “stock” a great deal. You either came from “good stock” or “bad stock”. It was unmentionable that we came from bad stock – that we had what was called “the stain”.
MORE:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php? ... &aid=15970
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