ALL COLONISATIONS ARE NOT EQUAL

And why the facts of the matter are critical.

Photo: Conflating the situation in Palestine with Australia’s colonial past is dishonest. There is no comparison between descendants of those colonised in Australia who are full, free and equal citizens and have been for centuries, and the Palestinians who remain crushed under a bestial and sadistic military colonial occupation rule with no rights and no freedom.

The meaning of words can change, and they do. Take for example the origin of the word awful, which now means terrible, but originally meant full of awe and wonder.

In these times the word colonisation which was once seen as bringing enlightenment and the modern world to the less developed, and of course satisfying curiosity and hopefully making money, is now a word universally applied as evil with the view that all colonisations were the same, and all were bad. Nothing is ever all bad and there is no one size fits all to any human endeavour. No-one disputes being colonised is challenging but we are all, each one of us, descended from the coloniser and the colonised.

I am not suggesting that colonisation in its nature was necessarily altruistic, nor that there were not negative or evil aspects to such a process. I am saying that not all colonisations were the same and not all were bad or as bad as some could be.  Without understanding the culture of the times in which such things happened, there is no context and it is wrong to retrofit modern values to the past from our lofty if flimsy perch. More so because the only colonisations done in centuries past, which are condemned are those done by Anglo-Europeans. We are selective on the topic which is why, no doubt, some of those raging about British colonisations, are supporting the Zionist Israeli colonisation in Palestine which is far more cruel and evil in general and particularly in the modern age.

Ignorance has always been a part of human nature and society and a disregard for inconvenient facts common practice. The best of our academic achievements has sought to ensure that opinion rests securely on demonstrable facts. Not so much anymore as even universities have taken the view that opinion equates with fact when it helps further a cause. That is dangerous ground.

We have seen in recent times some Australian protesters, and I fully support protest and the right to speak freely, even if I disagree with what is said, equating Israeli occupation and colonisation of Palestine with our history in Australia when the British colonised this land. Palestinians are not free and they are denied justice, freedom and human and civil rights under a brutal military colonial occupastion rule. Australians with aboriginal ancestry are free and have justice, freedom and human and civil rights and are equal citizens in our democracy.

 Beyond the fact that more than 150 years separated the two events, and some six generations, along with radically different social and belief systems, it is a mighty stretch to try to compare the experiences of aboriginal peoples in Australia with the experiences of the native people of the land of Palestine since 1947. If not earlier since the Zionists were seeding Palestine with Jewish colonists from 1897 with the goal of taking the land for themselves. In fact Jewish terrorist gangs, Irgun, Stern, Hagannah were on a bloody rampage in Palestine from 1920. And the Palestinians had long been a target with proto-Zionist groups planning to colonise from 1830. This is a colonial war which has been waged against Palestine for nearly two hundred years, testifying to the resilience, strength, courage and determination of the Palestinian people. None of that bears any similarity to our Australian colonial history.

We cannot retrofit modern values to the past and actions from the 18^th and 19^th centuries cannot be compared with those from the 20^th and 21^st centuries. Neither is there a one-size fits all approach to anything, let alone colonisation which must have been a necessary and critical part of human evolution. All humans have been colonisers and all have been colonised. The British were colonised violently a dozen times, but, as the Monty Python spoof, What Have The Romans Ever Done For Us, makes clear, there are positives in being colonised along with the negatives. And the British did manage to get over it and make something of themselves.

And while it was often a struggle, with most colonisations there were opportunities for the native people to become a part of the broader community in ways which the Zionists, Israelis and Jews have never allowed for Palestinians because their remit, created in centuries past and sourced in levels of European racism toward Arabs in particular and Jewish racism toward non-Jews, did not allow it.

But to return to Australia’s colonial history and the erroneous comparisons with the Zionist Israelis. For one thing, despite unsubstantiated claims, the British did not have a policy of exterminating or expelling the native people as the Zionists did when they invaded and as the Israelis have maintained since they invented themselves in Palestine. Zionist and Israeli histories are littered with statements demanding the native Palestinians, referred to dismissively as Arabs, had to be exterminated or expelled, except perhaps for a few compliant slaves.

The Zionist movement wanted the maximum amount of land and the minimum number of Arabs. This was to be achieved through land purchases and immigration. But many also talked of the need to ‘transfer’ the Palestinians – a euphemism for ethnic cleansing – as a prerequisite for building a Jewish majority homeland. The Zionist leader Leo Motzkin spelled this out:

‘Our thought is that the colonisation of Palestine has to go in two directions: Jewish settlement in Eretz Israel and the resettlement of the Arabs of Eretz Israel in areas outside the country.’

They could never be full citizens and most of them could never be allowed citizenship or rights because Israel was founded on a demand that Jews remain a majority and in total control.  In truth, the issue was never about Arabs, a culture, or even Palestinians, a people, but simply a religious discrimination against non-Jews. We know that because in 1948 when Israel declared it was a State, it gave immediate citizenship to all Palestinian Arab Jews, thereby making it clear, the only problem they had with Palestinian Arabs was the fact they were Muslims and Christians. And because of its demand that Jews had to be a majority and in control, the Zionist Israeli State opened its doors to Arab Jews wherever they could be found and enticed as colonists.  

This was never the case in Australia. The nation was not founded as a religious State and the goal was always assimilation of the native peoples. The British gave citizenship quickly to the peoples they first called Indians, then Natives and finally Aborigines and the Israelis have never given full citizenship rights to any of the native people whose land they colonised. As the Israeli human rights group, B’Tselem, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have stated, Israel is an apartheid State. Australia is not and has never been an apartheid State.

The British also set up systems in their colonies to support and help aborigines join the then modern world. This approach was continued by Australian Governments from 1901. The Israelis on the other hand set up systems designed to make life so unbearable for Palestinians that they would leave or die.

In Australia the goal was assimilation and a united community of aborigines and settlers. In Palestine the goal was extermination or expulsion. There was and is no common ground.

Australia has also had high rates of intermarriage across two centuries while even in what is called Israel today, intermarriage between Israelis and Palestinians, which is intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews, is difficult and discouraged. In Australia today most with Aboriginal ancestry are in mixed marriages, something which remains very rare in Zionist Israel.

The orders for the First Fleet in 1788 was to befriend, learn from and assist the peoples living here. The instructions for the Zionist forces in 1947/48 was to rid the land of as many Palestinian Christians and Muslims as possible.

Both British and later Australian Governments worked to support and preserve the native peoples, despite unfounded claims made in more recent times. By the early 19^th century, the colonies were establishing Aboriginal Protectors to protect aboriginal peoples. Zionist Israel has never sought to protect the Palestinians, in fact, quite the opposite.

We have said SORRY at a Government level to any wrongs done since colonisation. Zionist Israel has never acknowledged or apologised for the horrific genocidal ethnic cleansing of Palestine which took place in 1947/48. Nearly a million Palestinians were expelled with many thousands murdered and 530 towns and villages wiped from the face of the earth. Israel has built and planted over the rubble of those ancient towns and villages and worked to eradicate Palestinian culture, history, and people. It has also worked to destroy Palestinian agriculture, uprooting ancient olive groves and vineyards which were centuries old.

Australia has worked to preserve and honour, perhaps too much at times, its Aboriginal stone-age histories and culture, while Israel has worked to expunge the Palestinians as a people, nation, and country.

Israel was founded on a belief that Jews were superior humans and the Palestinian Christians and Muslims were not just inferior humans but subhuman and they could never be allowed to form a part of the Zionist Israeli Jewish State. Indeed in 2018 the Israelis passed a law saying only Jews could have nationality and self-determination, completely ignoring the reality that Jews are a religion and no religion gets self-determination and no such state could ever be a democracy.

Australia was founded on a belief that aborigines were less developed as stone-age hunter-gatherers but equal as human beings and capable of integrating, assimilating and being a part of the modern world as Australians. The goal was education and assimilation and while assimilation also suffers from modern definitions which cast it in a bad light, the reality is that assimilation is a positive approach which recognises the humanity and equality of the other and wishes to fully integrate them into the broader community. When we marry, we expect both partners to assimilate into their respective new families. When we adopt a child, we expect the child to assimilate into the family. When we migrate to another country, if we are wise and sensible, we expect to assimilate into the broader community.

Photo: This image seeks to conflate Occupied Palestine with Vietnam, East Timor, West Papua, Iraq and Australia’s colonial history. The term frontier wars is newly invented as is the concept that the British fought colonial wars in Australia. They did not. There is no comparison between Vietnam and Iraq, which were wars waged by the US and allies. There is a link between East Timor and West Papua, both colonised by the Indonesians and treated brutally, but East Timor was liberated and in both cases the Indonesians while not benign colonial rulers, did give citizenship to the Timorese and West Papuans. And it must be noted the Indonesians, unlike Israel, do not claim to be Western democracies.

Assimilation simply means becoming united as a society which, in the union, is renewed, transformed and in a constant process of creation and recreation. As human beings we are constantly assimilating our experiences and become the sum of all that we are. The same applies to nations. Australia in 1900 was not was it was in 1800, nor what it was in 2000, after waves of migration and the blending and melding together of different peoples.

Assimilation is not a dirty word. Humans have migrated, invaded, colonised, and assimilated throughout all their history and the end result is beneficial. We can see that today by returning to our Australian/Israeli comparisons.

Australia has a robust society with one of the fastest and highest rates of immigrant intermarriage and an even higher rate of Aboriginal intermarriage of any nation.

Israel is a society debased by racism, bigotry, and intolerance toward the native people whose land it has taken and threatened by ever increasing violence from the Palestinians who are denied justice, freedom, and human and civil rights. If we had done the same sorts of things to Aborigines as Israelis have done to the Palestinians then I have no doubt our lives would be as violent and debased as that of Israel.

If as Australians we are encouraged to rake over our colonial past, preferably dealing in facts and not opinions and agendas, then why shouldn’t the Israelis do the same given the bestial and sadistic horrors they have inflicted and continue to inflict on the Palestinians? The facts are a matter of record as even some Israeli historians have stated.

The Australian colonial experience has nothing in common with Israel and it is dishonest and destructive to suggest that it could. In fact, no Western nation does to the native people of the land it colonised what Israel, which claims to be a Western democracy, does to the Palestinians. To claim that our colonial history can be linked to the horrors of Palestine and the Israeli colonial history is a betrayal of our nation and of the Palestinians.