#childrenlearningfromparents — Public Fediverse posts

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#Australia #SocialHistory #Sectarianism #ChildrenLearningFromParents
those of us who had access to television saw footage of the civil rights movement in the USA, and we saw the troubles erupt (again) in Ireland

wikipedia tells us
The Troubles (Irish: Na Trioblóidí) were an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted for about 30 years from the late 1960s to 1998. Also known internationally as the Northern Ireland conflict, it began in the late 1960s and is usually deemed to have ended with the Good Friday Agreement of 1998.
Although the Troubles mostly took place in Northern Ireland, at times violence spilled over into parts of the Republic of Ireland, England, and mainland Europe.

anyway, having provided all that background, i now wish to resurrect the old school-children’s taunts that were around back then.

something like “catholic dogs, stink like frogs”… yada yada
to which the response might be “state, state, sitting on a gate”…

(if kids at catholic schools were catholics, it followed kids at state schools were states, right? )
okay… there was not a lot of intellectual depth to all this.
how did this rubbish even survive long enough for us to hear it?
whose parents were providing the words or encouragement (not mine)

if i just wonder if trans generational bullshit takes on a life of its own, or is actively encouraged /discouraged by parent generations?

end

#Australia #SocialHistory #Sectarianism #ChildrenLearningFromParents

have been sharing a collection of family stories with a niece, and for context, adding bits of social history.

i was 5th generation born in australia, 1/16th irish dna, yet ironically raised as “irish catholic”.
— anyone who conflates dna with culture is seriously wrong

australia in the 1950s and 1960s was still predominantly white and christian, but divided into two main groups — anglican and catholic

Daniel Mannix, Irish born catholic archbishop of melbourne, was a focal point for australian sectarianism, having opposed conscription for world war I, and still archbishop during the great labor party split of 1955

[wikipedia says: The Australian Labor Party split of 1955 was a split within the Australian Labor Party along ethnocultural lines and about the position towards communism. Key players in the split were the federal opposition leader H. V. "Doc" Evatt and B. A. Santamaria, the dominant force behind the "Catholic Social Studies Movement" or "the Movement".]

australia had an interesting relationship with communism through all these years (PM Menzies sought desperately to ban communism, and failed)

The breakaway DLP (democratic labor party) was “nourished” by anti-communist sentiment among post-war immigrants. (santamaria is now described by some writers as a fascist)

meanwhile, the rest of us “micks” (catholics of irish variety) were seen as “other” — at the very least, our loyalty to the british crown was questionable.

in the 1960s there was a movement determined to prevent governments from supporting private schools. (today we might reasonable question whether we should subsidise extremely wealthy and privileged schools to the tune of billions, but in the 1960s it was all about not giving one penny to even the most impoverished catholic schools.

wikipedia, for example, tells us The Goulburn School Strike was a protest action in July 1962 in Goulburn, New South Wales, Australia.
The protesters were families of students attending St Brigid's Primary School - as a school run by the local Catholic church. Children enrolled at the school were all withdrawn and enrolled at local state schools in the town, placing pressure on the resources available at those schools. The immediate aim of the protest was to secure government assistance to construct a new toilet block at St Brigid's to meet government health requirements. The protests arose in a background of heated political debate about "state aid" to Catholic schools and accusations of sectarianism. The strike, in effect a lockout, generated hostility in Goulburn and across Australia.
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