Breaking the Australian Silence

[Oscar]

Breaking 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”.

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http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php? ... &aid=15970

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[Oscar]

Comment: Rempel - Breaking the Australian Silence

From: Jacob Rempel

Sent: Friday, January 01, 2010 1:46 AM

RE: Breaking the Australian Silence
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php? ... &aid=15970

Friends:

John Pilger here speaks to Australians. However, almost every paragraph has parallel resonance in Canada with our compliance in, and with our complicity in the hegemonic international violence of the American empire; also in our domestic relationship with our First Nations.

It is urgent for Canadians to face this reality and return to the better values and principles that we were developing in all parties until a few decades ago. It is urgent for progressives in all opposition parties to join forces to defeat the neo-con government, to restore our people's will for domestic well-being, sovereignty, and a peaceful foreign policy.
--- Jacob Rempel, Jacob.Rempel@gmail.com

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" I make no pretension to patriotism. So long as my voice can be heard on this or the other side of the Atlantic, I will hold up America to the lightning scorn of moral indignation. In doing this, I shall feel myself discharging the duty of a true patriot; for he is a lover of his country who rebukes and does not excuse its sins. It is righteousness that exalteth a nation while sin is a reproach to any people" - Frederick Douglass - From his Speech "Love of God, Love of Man, Love the Country" Syracuse -New York
http://www.teachingamericanhistory.org/ ... cument=535