“In the lucky country of Australia apartheid is alive and kicking”: John Pilger

This badge from 1906 shows the use of the expression “White Australia” at that time (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In the lucky country of Australia apartheid is alive and kicking

The richest land on Earth writes Aboriginal people out of history and pushes them to the margins. Like South Africa 30 years ago

•        
  • John Pilger
  • The Guardian,              Tuesday 5 November 2013 19.40 GMT

Aboriginal elders playing cards in their camp near Alice Springs. ‘A typical, dilapidated house in an outback Indigenous community must accommodate as many as 25 people. Families, the elderly and disabled people wait years for sanitation that works.’ Photograph: Anoek De Groot/AFP/Getty Images

The corridors of the Australian parliament are so white you squint. The sound is hushed; the smell is floor polish. The wooden floors shine so virtuously they reflect the cartoon portraits of prime ministers and rows of Aboriginal paintings, suspended on white walls, their blood and tears invisible.

The parliament stands in Barton, a suburb of Canberra named after the first prime minister of Australia, Edmund Barton, who drew up the White Australia Policy in 1901. “The doctrine of the equality of man,” said Barton, “was never intended to apply” to those not British and white-skinned. …

PLEASE, READ WHOLE ARTICLE HERE:  http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/05/australia-apartheid-alive-aboriginal-history?

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