As the term First Nations comes to be more commonly used, amongst certain vested agendas, to refer to Australians with Aboriginal ancestry we need to think about what this label means.
It refers to a tiny group of Australians. I have no doubt those who use it think it is a positive reference but the reality is that it it a distorted concept of respect which in truth is patronising racism toward those who have some Aboriginal ancestry - whether a lot or a little.
This practice, habit, fad, pick a word, has become common in many countries where an obsession with those descended from earlier groups of colonists are deemed to have some sort of superior rights to the land and the modern nation State which has been created by more recent colonists. This apologist position operates on the basis that migration, invasion, colonisation by primitive groups in centuries past, indeed, regardless of how violent it may have been, is to be applauded, while migration, invasion, colonisations by anglo-europeans in more recent times, are to be condemned, regardless of how enlightened and, by comparison, non-violent they may have been.
It is also not hard to perceive that the colour of skin in the colonists, in a generic sense, plays a huge part in whether or not their colonisation is deemed to be a crime. The paler the skin, it seems, the greater the crime. This is a highly racist position which holds anglo-europeans to higher standards of behaviour, on the assumption suggested, that they are more advanced and therefore more responsible. Ironically the worst kind of racism.
Perhaps such investment in a colonial past is worthwhile because it forces people to look more closely at our history and our nature as evolving humans even though for some, it moves them to fabricate a history they wish were true and so claim that it is. Whatever is at work, the obsession with those now called indigenous, is common in the Western world. We seem to have a knack for self-hate which most other humans on the planet find ridiculous.
One assumes that those who use the term, First Nations, mean well, or believe their use of it is positive but the term is divisive and insulting to the vast majority of Australians. These labels are all about differentiating, separating, dividing, singling out, a tiny group of Australians as something special because of some of their ancestry.
We frequently see someone applauded for achieving something that other Australians do all of the time and yet it becomes exceptional because they have some Aboriginal ancestry. There may be no trace of that small bit of Aboriginal ancestry remaining physically and one can be a blue-eyed blonde and claim Aboriginality, but, because of that ancestral drop, any achievement is miraculous and in need of recognition.
To my mind that is terribly racist, patronising and insulting to those with Aboriginal ancestry. The argument would be that kids in remote communities, the few who are still struggling in our modern world because they are the least assimilated, can benefit from seeing what others with Aboriginal ancestry achieve. But that ignores the reality of tribal affiliations and the fact that most of the achievers are patently more Anglo-European than they are Aboriginal and this sort of information doesn't get to kids in communities and, even if it did, is meaningless unless they are being trained to believe that achieving anything when you have some Aboriginal ancestry is nothing short of miraculous.
This dividing into First and Second Australians does not make a nation, that destroys a nation. The group in question were once called Indigenous, or even more radical, Aboriginal, but now they are called First Nations. Why the change?
I doubt the change is because everyone born in Australia is Indigenous and most of those who register Aboriginal ancestry have such minimal ancestry they are not in the least Aboriginal, so First Nations covers all bases and elevates them above everyone else.
What's in a name you might say? Quite a lot actually and the pen is mightier than the sword and the word has powers beyond its meaning.
First Nations means some Australians because of some of their ancestry are superior to all of the rest - they are first. Everyone else is second. The Canadians appear to take this approach to an even greater extreme. I remember a group in Canada, most of whom it seems had majority Scottish ancestry, but enough Eskimo/ Inuit/ Indigenous to be glorified as superior, and who suffered similar dysfunction and problems as Australians with aboriginal ancestry experienced when they remained in communities and did not assimilate into the broader community.
In Australia, this is a group where the range is from 100% Aboriginal ancestry, descended from from one or a couple of the hundreds of different tribal/clan groups here in 1788 and not many of those, to less than 1%, lots of those.
We are talking about TEN generations since the British arrived with so much intermarrying and mixing and with most of those who register Aboriginal ancestry in mixed marriages today and fully assimilated into the broader community for generations. And yet for some strange reason they need to be singled out, to be made other, to be deemed above all else.
The majority of the roughly 700,000 who register their Aboriginality are so minimally Aboriginal in ancestry they could not register as such in any other country in the world. But strangely some like to define themselves by this little bit of their ancestry and some do it even while denying they are doing it, but have long boarded the Aboriginal industry gravy train.
Needless to say, those who have assimilated into the broader community and have done for generations are doing very well with lives and outcomes no different to other Australians. Those who have remained in tribal/clan communities are doing very badly indeed and remain trapped in cultures riven apart by familial and tribal/clan divisions. They are violent, desperate, filthy communities despite the billions poured into trying to solve their problems by the Australian Government.
Photo: Aboriginal communities are violent, squalid places.
Dividing people only conquers cohesion, assimilation and democracy. It does not help those who are struggling. The drivers of the First Nation fantasy are not those in aboriginal communities, but those who are successfully assimilated and making the most of our first world democracy.
To see themselves as FIRST amongst all Australians, as exceptional, as special, as superior increases their opportunities for profit and power. I have no doubt that most would not see it that way but instead see it as establishing their Aboriginal validity and opening doors to the opportunities such identification brings, but that is not what the term means. First is First. Second is Second. And nation, a modern European term, applied to stone-age hunter-gatherer tribal groups, is just a modern projection onto a mythical past.
But, here they are under the dubious label of First Nations. So, what does that term mean?
There were no nations in Australia when the British arrived, just 350 or so tribal groups, many no more than family clans, without a common language which is part of the definition of nation, and generally at war with each other.
Nation is a historically recent concept and even Italy and Germany were not nations until the middle of the 19th century so it is patently clear Aboriginal tribal/clan groups were definitely not nations in 1788.
The first and only nation to ever exist on this land was and is the Australian nation.
The term, First Nations is American in origin and was applied in past centuries to a Confederation of Indian tribes. It has no relevance to Australia and has no relevance to Aboriginal peoples in the past and no relevance to their descendants today.
But the use of the term First Nations for those with Aboriginal ancestry, just a smidge would do, relegates other Australians, those devoid of such a 'precious' ancestral quality, to Second Place.
If First Nations means those with Aboriginal ancestry then everyone without it and the Australian nation are Second. That does not sound very democratic or fair since more than 25 million Australians don't have or don't register Aboriginal ancestry.
And in a modern democracy why divide ourselves along such backward primitive lines which reflect tribalism? Time to stop using the First Nations label and to make it known that such a divisive term has no place in modern, democratic Australia, or in any Western democracy.
Indeed, the key factor in the democratic system is that everyone is equal as a citizen and no-one can claim superior status for any reason. In a democracy you are not singled out on the basis of race, colour, creed or gender and rightly so. To do so is to betray democracy and the rights of other citizens.