Presentation time:
40 min
Discussion time:
5 min
Lead author:
Amanda Dowd (ANZSJA)
In have been deeply moved, as have many, by the unthinkable loss of so many babies, children and young people in the current iteration of conflict in the Middle East. The numbers defy comprehension. From my perspective in the Southern hemisphere, Australia, I am sitting with this recognition in the context of a post-colonial country which has yet to come to terms with either its genocidal history or its policies of indigenous infant and child removal, the fracturing of family and clan structures and the forced removal of whole groups of people from their homelands. The ongoing intergenerational trauma consequent on this continues to have devastating consequences. This is the familiar story of colonisation.