Should we be proud of our history? (1 Viewer)

onebytwo

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I was thinking of a debate we had back in year 7, and it was something along the lines of whether Australians should take pride in their country's history, and despite being an Australian myself, I thought not, particularly in relation to the whole aboriginal debate and its "founding".

Anyway, what do you people think?
 

banco55

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Yes we should: we've been one of the richest, democracies since our founding. There's Australia's performance in two wars. Of course there are black spots like every other country. I think it was machiavelli who said something like all nations are founded on a crime.

Leaving aside all that it's not healthy to have a country that isn't proud of its history.
 

Ennaybur

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i think, that we just need to be friensd tbh

i mean theres all this hate, where is the love?

no one is superior to anyone else, i mean i am sometiems. but that;s because other pepke don't know that they are. so i think we should just beb thankful for what god has given us.
 

jb_nc

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f3nr15 said:
captain cook shoulda negotiated with the aborigines instead of declaring australia as terra nullius but then paved the way for contemporary australia
yes, speaking that magical moon language that everyone, including every single aboriginal tribe, spoke during 1788
 

Iron

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jb_nc said:
yes, speaking that magical moon language that everyone, including every single aboriginal tribe, spoke during 1788
apparently they translated the Aboriginal shouts to Cook's approaching boat as the equivalent of "piss off"
 

Snaykew

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Why do we need to be proud of history? Why not be proud of being Australian today?
 

wuddie

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onebytwo said:
and despite being an Australian myself, I thought not, particularly in relation to the whole aboriginal debate and its "founding".
i think the correct grammar is 'i didn't think so'.

why shouldn't we be proud of our history? despite being a relatively young nation with only 200 odd years of history, we have achieved a lot. no matter where you look, australia has made a stand in the world stage. politically we are strong allies with the british and US, strong trade links with asia and deplomatic relations with almost every country in the globe. sporting wise, well, we just rule. we are the only few countries in the world happened to have hosted 2 olympics.

the only shame in aust history is the stolen generation, and maybe the pauline hanson saga. but one can argue that the stolen generation, as well as the white australian policy and all the racist policies before the 70s, are due to the conservative ways of an anglo-saxon dominated nation, who adopted the thinkings of 'mother britain' and was way too dependent of the british.

other than that, i am all for australia's history. i mean, if you're going to scrutinise the wrongs in a nation's history, than no country in the world is perfect. in the end, it is the wrongs that allow a country to develop and move forward.
 

umop 3pisdn

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Even if our history was completely spotless and awesome, would there be any need to be proud of it?
 

Iron

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I think there can be pride in our luck. We're an accident of history. I mean, our prosperity is a pretty huge fluke; we've been on the anglo-american winning side of recent history, and the agriculture and minerals of the land have been in high global demand just when we needed them to be. The result is a first world country capable of offering opportunity to anyone who wants it. THe best part is that it all comes without responsibility: we have no empire to maintain or real enemies who want us annihilated. It's a nice story of egalitarianism, where citizens have been safe and free to pursue their concept of the good life.

The shame is that we've usually churned out second rate men, whos greatest crimes have been omissions; failure to reform when reform was due. But that's to be expected. Prosperity breeds our laid-back complacency. This conservatism was perfectly summed up by the monarchist slogan 'if it aint broke, dont fix it'. It's unfortunate because AUstralians who've made a go of it and grapsed our fortune/potential have gone on to conquor the world - Murdoch, Keating, Doc Evatt, Peter Weir... Stever Erwin to name a few.

Other than that, I think we came into nationhood too late and in such a way as to make us miss the boat on old-fashioned patriotism. We're too mature for that, and see it as largely irrelevant and counter-productive in a globalized world. The greatest guilt Australians have is the fact that we are prosperous where others, disturbingly close, are not. THe problem of global poverty, and how best to deal with it, is a tough problem which we havent really worked out a workable solution to.
 

jimmayyy

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banco55 said:
Yes we should: we've been one of the richest, democracies since our founding. There's Australia's performance in two wars. Of course there are black spots like every other country. I think it was machiavelli who said something like all nations are founded on a crime.

Leaving aside all that it's not healthy to have a country that isn't proud of its history.
qft
 

Serius

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I dont know if we should be proud of our history as such. Be proud of what our country has accomplished, sure but its kind of hard to be proud of something that you havent contributed to.

Also, if you are going to be proud, then you should also realise things arent peachy and we shouldnt be proud of everything in our history. Racism in particular.

So i guess it goes like: be proud of the things we have accomplished, but at the same time recognise that theres things you shouldnt be proud of. Feel sorry for those who have suffered and still havent caught up to the rest of the country because of the mistakes of the past.
 

Triangulum

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Serius said:
So i guess it goes like: be proud of the things we have accomplished, but at the same time recognise that theres things you shouldnt be proud of. Feel sorry for those who have suffered and still havent caught up to the rest of the country because of the mistakes of the past.
Agree. I can't stand people who go "We shouldn't be teaching our children about the stolen generation or about how aborigines were killed because WE'RE TEACHING THEM TO HATE THEIR COUNTRY". It's not teaching them to hate their country, it's teaching them that their country's history isn't all great, and that there are things that we should regret. Just ignoring it because it's 'Australia-hating' is a whitewashing of history.
 

Drunkass86

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In terms of military history, we should hold our heads up high. In terms of human rights, we should look upon our history as one that started off particularly bad with whites v Aboriginals, but got better as the years progressed. I agree with some people - history should be told from both sides - especially ours.

Going back to our military history, I am appalled at how little people know of the Kokoda track, the efforts of the valiant men who defended this nation - if I remember correctly, PNG as it is now known was an Autralian territory during that time period...so we did actually get invaded, just not our mainland. History should never be forgotten, especially the small parts that no-one seems to notice very much.

We are a young country who should remember its roots in the hope of become better for the future.

Pride in ones history should be an acknowledgement of the rights and wrongs of our past
 

banco55

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Triangulum said:
Agree. I can't stand people who go "We shouldn't be teaching our children about the stolen generation or about how aborigines were killed because WE'RE TEACHING THEM TO HATE THEIR COUNTRY". It's not teaching them to hate their country, it's teaching them that their country's history isn't all great, and that there are things that we should regret. Just ignoring it because it's 'Australia-hating' is a whitewashing of history.
Depends what you think the purpose of history teaching should be.
 

Screwball116

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Pride in our accomplishments, honestly our country is still racist in several ways, we've come a long way but we aren't there yet. Remember every bit of our history, and make up for the wrongs that were done by righting them now.
 

Josie

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I would call pride the wrong word- I don't feel pride for a history of which I have had no part. I acknowledge our history, and the importance of learning about it (and as a history student, prefer to study anything BUT Australian history), but in no way shape or form do I find it inspiring.
 

Iron

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I don’t view my history as beginning in 1788. It's a complex tapestry of British and Western European achievement, which Australia is an extension of.
We can have pride in achievement, but not really on political decisions based on contentious ideology.
 

Snaykew

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Schroedinger said:
In less than two centuries we've become a first world country with a decent GDP. I think that's something to be proud of.
Yeh we did it by ourselves without European technology or western ideals. Man imagine if we had their help, we would've had cyborg soldiers by now!
 

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