It’s important to point out the differences as you do, but I think it is truly necessary to at least acknowledge the racism that aborigines have endured and the pervasive damage it has done and continues to do to individuals and to Australian society. I would love to hear an aboriginal perspective on this post.
All I can say is that racists do not intermarry. Australia has had the highest immigrant intermarriage rate of any nation and an even higher rate of Aboriginal intermarriage.
Aboriginal peoples and others have been intermarrying in Australia for more than two centuries. Mostly this was European men and Aboriginal women, who frequently stated, they stayed with the European man because he fed and did not beat her. Life was awful for Aboriginal women in Aboriginal cultures. And there were some, not many, but some European women who married aboriginal men - we have photos from the 19th century.
Today, MOST AUSTRALIANS WITH ABORIGINAL ANCESTRY ARE IN MIXED MARRIAGES.
I repeat, racists do not intermarry so perhaps can you clarify what racism you are talking about and what damage it does to individuals and society.
I would also point out, most Australians with aboriginal ancestry are part of the general community and live the same sorts of lives as anyone else, with the same outcomes.
The tiny minority of this roughly 3% of Australians who do struggle, do so because they are not assimilated into the modern world but remain trapped in violent, dysfunctional tribal communities torn apart by tribal/clan/family divisions and prejudice. The only way they can be helped is to close down the communities and integrate them into the modern world and the broader community.
As to hearing an aboriginal perspective on that, what do you mean? There was no united Aboriginal perspective in 1788 and there certainly is not now. From the 350-500 different tribal/clan groups here in 1788 we have today the vast majority of mixed ancestry, more anglo-european than aboriginal, with ancestors from three, four, five of the aboriginal clan groups.
Even in the aboriginal communities there is no aboriginal perspective because their tribal/clan divisions keep them separated and often violently opposed.
Someone half aboriginal in such a community has nothing in common with someone living and working in Sydney or Perth who has 40% or 10% aboriginal ancestry of some kind. In fact an aboriginal community in WA has nothing in common with one in NT and likewise with those in Queensland because they are descended from different tribal clan groups.
Australians with aboriginal ancestry are represented in State and Federal Parliaments at around 12%. Not bad since the overall figure in the population is around 3%. So what do you mean by pervasive damage done to those with aboriginal ancestry?
Registering aboriginal ancestry means people get a heap of extra benefits on top of the equal rights on every count they have as Australians. I have friends with aboriginal ancestry who told their kids, who would have been 1/8th aboriginal in ancestry, not to tick the indigenous box because it would trap them forever in a benefit mindset and do the same with any employer who saw the tick.
In any discussion of a group by a non-member, I would wish to hear a member’s input. There are some fine feminist writers who happen to be men, but I would always expect them to quote or provide references to at least one woman. I don’t think that’s controversial; it’s pretty standard.
Living there, you obviously know more about Australia than I do, but I have two personal sources, very good friends and very good people, whose observations and judgments I trust totally. One is an Australian man and his African-American wife and children who tried to live in Australia for several years but left because they said they could not tolerate the racism they encountered and especially wanted to save their children from it. The other is an Australian woman who married an Asian man and found that her family had harbored more racism than she realized; again, they tried, hoping they would be accepted, but gave up and left the country, mostly for the sake of her children. If these two educated, personable, easy-going, and very attractive non-whites had such a hard time (admittedly with only a minority of Australians they encountered, but that can be soul-destroying), I have to believe it’s at least as bad for Aboriginals.
I have read and studied the Bringing Them Home Report which is deeply flawed and was not objective. Same for the Uluru Statement which was put together by a totally unrepresentative group sourced in the Aboriginal Industry, a profit and power driven group. There were numerous complaints from Aboriginal communities that it was not representative of them.
Unless you have a particular interest in this I would suggest it is far too complex for a thread discussion like this.
What even most Australians do not understand is that there is no unified Aboriginal voice or entity. Most who register Aboriginality are more anglo-european, in some parts of the country, Asian, than they are aboriginal.
There are many Australians with Aboriginal ancestry, usually minimal, a few like Senator Jacinta Price who have 50% aboriginal ancestry, who have been elected to State and Federal Parliaments. They are not united.
The few who remain 100% aboriginal in ancestry are largely in tribal communities of mixed clans and families, torn apart by these divisions and they are also not united. In fact an aboriginal community in WA has nothing in common with one in Queensland or The Northern Territory, which we call the Top End, because they are descended from different, tribal/clan groups.
The Uluru Statement was a power play by the Aboriginal industry and the Bringing Them Home Report was the same, put together by selected people with vested agendas.
The British made aborigines citizens, then called subjects as everyone was, in the late 18th century. When Australians got universal suffrage, that included aborigines. Some may not have known about it in remote areas but as citizens they got the same voting rights. South Australia was one of the first places on the planet to give voting rights to women, in the late 19th century and when they did, that applied to aboriginal women as well, of course.
There are photos of aborigines at polling stations from the 1890's and the missionaries worked particularly hard to let them know their rights and use their rights.
Every Australian has the same rights, but if you tick a box to register aboriginal ancestry, even if it is less than 1% you have access to more benefits. I happen to think that is racist and patronising. Benefits should be needs-based not race-based. Not that aborigines are or ever were, a race.
And many Australians with aboriginal ancestry think the same as I do.
Perhaps the Aboriginal peoples of all their different nations, having been dispossessed of their land and culture, perhaps these people are deserving of some compassion and a few extra benefits in recognition of all that was forcibly taken from them?
There were no aboriginal nations. You need to look up the definition of nation and you will know that. A nation requires a common language and a certain size, neither of which applied to the aboriginal peoples in Australia in 1788. The only nation to ever exist on this land is the Australian nation.
Also worth bearing in mind that the concept of nation is historically recent and was first mooted in the 18th century only become a reality in the 19th century as nation states. Neither Italy or Germany were nation states until the late 19th century but each had been a country for thousands of years.
As to being forcibly taken from them, you also fail to understand human nature. Yes, just as the Romans and a dozen later colonisers, forcibly took some things from the Britons, as happened with some Aborigines, so too, both Britons and aborigines wanted what the then modern world had and actively sought to get it.
As the records show, aborigines quickly accepted or stole that which was clearly of value from the then modern world - iron axes, blankets, cooking pots to name just some. And as the records also show, many aboriginal groups followed settlers, some of the weaker ones camping next to them for protection, but many simply wanting to join the then modern world and to take advantage of what the settlers brought with them.
Why would they not? That is human nature.
Turning people into victims because they were colonised is neither compassionate nor helping them. The British were colonised a dozen times and managed to make something of themselves as indeed did most aborigines.
As to extra benefits, Australians with aboriginal ancestry do get extra benefits and it hurts not helps. In the TOTALLY subsidised tribal communities it simply destroys them and in those living as part of the modern world, it just harms them. I have friends with aboriginal ancestry who instructed their children to never tick the box if they wanted to achieve something and retain independence.
ALL BENEFITS SHOULD BE NEEDS BASED NOT CULTURE OR 'RACE'BASED. tHAT IS RACIST.
The Bringing Them Home Report was also sourced in the Stolen Generation theory invented by a Brisbane academic, non-aboriginal, Peter Read. His material, which he compiled as a historian was first called The Lost Generation.
His wife suggested that Stolen was more powerful and it is, but Lost and Stolen mean two entirely different things.
This concept was quickly taken up by the Aboriginal Industry as leverage to increase profit and power. Sadly it has ruined many lives because it has turned some of those taken into care because they were at risk, to believe they were victims and compensation is deserved. No compensation case has ever made it through a court of law because there is only evidence of children Saved and none of children Stolen.
One case which some put into the SG category but should not is Bruce Trevorrow, a sad case of a baby very sick, hospitalised with no parents around, later fostered, because no parents were around and adopted without parental permission. He received compensation because the adoption was done illegally and unprofessionally. But, since relatives/friends took him to hospital in the first place, to save his life, in other words, put him into care because his parents were not around, he could hardly be called stolen. You can read the details of his case and that of his siblings.
The Bringing Them Home Report was not objective and neither was it rigorous. Anecdotal evidence was accepted from selected individuals. This is why no case for compensation has ever made it through a court of law, because, when the case records are accessed it is clear the child was taken into care because they were at risk and for no other reason, and the mother signed the child into care in most cases.
Only part aboriginal children were taken into care if at risk and fully aboriginal kids left in situ out of a policy of preserving culture. I think that was wrong. Risk is risk.
Like most less developed societies, children of mixed ancestry were often killed at birth and if allowed to live neglected and abused, particularly girls, sexually. Women in aboriginal societies were/are virtual slaves with no power to protect their children which is why no doubt, most signed their kids into care.
None of the realities of aboriginal cultures were included in the Bringing them Home Report. There were many legal discrepancies in how information was gathered which made the report flawed. I can look up the notes I have filed because the propaganda on this issue is now so great that finding it online is almost impossible.
RACE is no longer considered by scientists and geneticists to be as absolute as it once was. They may of course be wrong because science is also deeply influenced by agendas. But, with a trivial difference between what was once called races it is now believed that there is only one race, the human race.
Aboriginal peoples in 1788 comprised between 350-500 different groups, many no more than family clans, without a common language and as the British noted and recorded, often with very different physiognomy. They identified Negroid, Asian, Polynesian characteristics in different groups and in some on the coast of WA, European features which they surmised came from shipwrecked sailors, of which there were many. Aborigines had a practice, as no doubt all stone-age peoples did, of bartering their females for sex to different tribes and of course Europeans and others.
So, even in terms of racial definition as once held, there was no aboriginal race. The many different waves of migration and colonisation came from Africa, New Guinea, Polynesia, Asia and one of the latest, about 4000 years ago, Dravidians from southern India.
The aboriginal industry is a reference to the movement which is comprised of Australians with minimal aboriginal ancestry seeking to gain power and to profit from aboriginality. The industry exploits aboriginality in the name of money and power.
This group has no relevance to the few who are 100% or 50% aboriginal, from different clans, living still in tribal communities and no relevance to the vast majority who are also minimally aboriginal in ancestry and who are fully assimilated into the modern world and have been for generations, are in mixed marriages and living the same sorts of lives with the same sorts of outcomes as Australians in general.
There is only one race, the human race yes, but your comment seemed to single out and totally denigrate and dismiss the Aboriginal peoples as having no race
When you say, in any discussion of a group by a non-member, I would just clarify, there is no aboriginal group and you have no idea if I have any aboriginal ancestry either.
I do have aboriginal peoples in my family ancestry for what it is worth but I would no more encourage my kids to tick the box of indigenous than I would encourage them to call themselves Greek because their great-great grandfather was Greek. Nor to identify with any of the dozen other ancestries in the families of both parents.
As to the analogy of feminism, that is a belief system to which either males or females can choose to belong. Having a particular ancestry is a fact, but perhaps you are right in that the belief system dictates whether or not the individual chooses that one part of their ancestry, regardless how small, by which to identify.
It is very hard to migrate to another country and settle down and some cannot do it. There are British migrants who leave because it does not suit them and I don't think that is racism.
Your two anecdotes are not representative of the migrant experience in Australia and certainly cannot be projected onto Australians with Aboriginal ancestry.
I repeat again, racists do not intermarry and most with aboriginal ancestry are in mixed marriages.
In my family alone I have cousins married to Chinese, Arab, Thai, African, Indians and all are settled. I have a good friend whose son married an Indonesian Muslim girl and still happily married after 20 years. Like your story those are anecdotes but I repeat, look at the stats for intermarriage and that dispels the claims of racism.
I will look at the links and reply separately. I know the Uluru Statement and it is deeply flawed and was never representative.
I am very interested in your comment 'Racists do not intermarry' particularly as it applies to European men marrying Aboriginal women in 19th century Australia, I feel this comment needs further scrutiny, it seems such a sweeping statement.
'Life was awful for women in Aboriginal cultures' quite an extraordinary statement, I would like to see some sources for this? And white women of the time were not beaten at that time by their husbands?
Read the original records, journals, reports, studies. Aboriginal women were virtually slaves. They carried everything when the group moved and they sat behind the men and ate scraps thrown to them and the dogs at mealtimes.
Females were bartered for sex to other tribes and then to the Europeans. They were commodities. I am sure that happened in all primitive stone-age cultures but by the 18th century the Europeans were not still doing it and aborigines were.
Aboriginal women were beaten horrifically as a norm. Yes, some European women were no doubt beaten in the times but not as a norm as happened in aboriginal cultures.
“The treatment which women experience must be taken into account in considering the causes which lead to the extinction of the native tribes. Amongst them the woman is an absolute slave. She is treated with the greatest cruelty and indignity, has to do all laborious work, and to carry all the burthens [sic]. For the slightest offence or dereliction of duty, she is beaten with a waddyu or yam stick and not infrequently speared. The records of the Supreme Court in Adelaide furnish numberless instances of blacks being tried for murdering lubras. The woman’s life is of no account if her husband chooses to destroy it, and no one ever attempts to protect or take her part under any circumstances. In times of scarcity of food, she is the last to be fed, and the last considered in any way. That many die in consequence cannot be a matter of wonder …”
— George Taplin, The Native Tribes of South Australia, 1878
“After marriage, the women are compelled to do all the hard work of erecting habitations, collecting fuel and water, carrying burdens, procuring roots and delicacies of various kinds, making baskets for cooking roots and other purposes, preparing food, and attending to the children. The only work men do, in times of peace, is to hunt for opossums and large animals of various kinds, and to make rugs and weapons.”
–James Dawson, Australian Aborigines: The Language and Customs of Several Tribes of Aborigines in the Western District of Victoria, 1881
“A great man, or ‘turrwan’, might have two or three or even four wives … They were useful in carrying burdens from one place to another. A woman, because she was a woman, always carried the heaviest load. A man took his tomahawk, his spear, and waddy, and that sort of thing; a woman humped along with the weighty kangaroo and ’possum skin coverings, the dillies with eatables, and sometimes also a heavy little piece of goods in the form of a child. At times, too, she would carry tea-tree bark on her back for the humpies [makeshift tents], while ever and anon as they travelled along the men enjoyed themselves hunting and looking for ‘sugar bags’ (native bees nests), etc.”
— Tom Petrie’s Reminiscences of Early Queensland, 1904
“In 1849 I saw a battle where about 500 of the Narrinyeri met some 800 of the Wakanuwan, and it was very evident that if the conflict had not been stopped by the colonial authorities the Narrinyeri would have been signally defeated by their opponents. They bore a special enmity to [their opponents] because these latter had a propensity for stealing fat people and eating them. If a man had a fat wife, he was always particularly careful not to leave her unprotected, lest she might be seized by prowling cannibals.”
— George Taplin, The Narrinyeri: An Account of the Tribes of South Australian Aborigines
“The natives told me that some twenty years before I came to Port Macleay they first saw white men on horseback, and thought that the horses were their visitors’ mothers, because they carry them on their back! I have also heard that another tribe regarded the first pack-bullocks they saw as whitefellows’ wives, because they carried the luggage!” — Taplin, ibid., p. 68, footnote
“If a man has several girls at his disposal he speedily obtains several wives who, however, very seldom agree well with each other, but are continually quarrelling, each endeavouring to be the favourite. The man, regarding them as mere slaves than in any other light, employs them in every possible way to his own advantage. They are obliged to get shellfish, roots, and eatable plants. If one [man] from another tribe should arrive having anything he desires to purchase, he perhaps makes a bargain to pay by letting him have one of his wives for a longer or shorter period.” — H.E.A. Meyer, Manners and Customs of the Aborigines of the Encounter Bay Tribe, South Australia, in Taplin, ibid., p. 191.)
Your argument wins. Unfortunately, as a white person in South Africa who believes in human rights, I will still be branded as a colonialist for using 'our' 7% minority population to control black people i.e. politicians suck!
Just before reading you, I coincidentally sent a message to someone recommending the best colonialism movie I've seen, so I double that here - 'Embrace of the Serpent'.
South Africa and Australia were very different. The native people were not stone-age and there were a lot more of them. And you had the Afrikaner influence which played a major role in the apartheid system. Also, the Dutch arrived 150 years before the British got to Australia. Different times, cultures, beliefs and systems.
The British did want aboriginal peoples to assimilate although they did not force it despite modern myths. And aborigines mostly would not work in ways the Africans did and usefully so.
And everyone forgets that when Africans and Aborigines colonised they just murdered everyone they found in their way. The Maoris and other Polynesian tribes were the same.
One tribe, which still controls my birth province of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), migrated, killed and subdued local tribes, and established Zululand. In effect, colonialism.
KZN remains the most violent, where the majority of assassinations occur, and where other provinces hire assassins from. But these deaths include Zulu on Zulu.
The King still controls Zululand, a major part of the province that is a bit smaller than Kuwait. And every year, thousands of young women dance topless for him so he can choose a bride.
Tribes still have an affect on voting for a President of the country.
However, a comparison doesn't negate Apartheid because what is fresh in the memory, and still affects our politics through white neoliberalism and black racism misuse, is pertinent to survival. No black man or woman should forget how they grew up during Apartheid, and by its name had nothing to do with assimilation, and is thus the best comparison to Israel's subjugation of Palestinians.
In one more generation, the use of Apartheid in South Africa will be all political as few will have experienced it. In Palestine, it may continue.
After this slaughter the Palestinians understand that Israel wants to exterminate them all and they must fight Israel to its knees. And they will.
I don't propose negating wrongs, but holding them in context. I have a problem with the modern Western fad, another form of elitism and racism, where wrongs done by anglo-europeans are significant and the same wrongs done by non anglo-europeans are not.
I think, as any court of law would attempt to do, it is important to understand the circumstances of those who commit the act. Condemn the act, not the individual.
I live in North America, and the brutal way that indigenous tribes, pre-European colonization, indulged in warring with, and enslaving one another is on the historical record. You don’t need anyone to give you sources; it’s easily researched yourself.
You just don’t hear about it, because the truth is too outrageous in a time when European abuse of indigenous peoples is the focus. That Indigenous folks indulged in the same behaviour on a less industrial scale is not to be spoken of. The present fashion is to regard them as noble savages, which is the line you appear to be treading at the moment.
I live in a neighbourhood with a fairly high density of indigenous people. For me, as a white person, to mention out loud the truth of the widespread historical enslavement of indigenous tribes, of one another, would be physically dangerous for me.
Yes, I did read a lot of American history in the past including that of the native Indians and am well aware of what you are saying. While the Europeans in centuries past can appear barbaric to us today, although given our capacity for barbarism I wonder, there is no doubt that less developed societies like the North American Indians were often more barbaric.
I agree with you that there is discrimination toward wrongs, real and imagined, done by anglo-europeans, code-name whites, while other atrocities and wrongs, often worse, done by non-anglo europeans are ignored if not denied. I find the practice patronising and racist because it denies the raw and often cruel reality of those now called indigenous and separates them from the rest of humanity.
The contrast between Israel and almost any other colonizing power in history is so stark, that only the lazy-minded will conflate all of them with the Israeli supremacist ethnoreligious state!
And don't you know, Jews never apologize for anything - because it's the world that oppresses them with its rampant antisemitism. A win-win for them!
Yes, I thought it was reposting. I have long been troubled by the position which too many take, including those who should have done their research or paid someone to do it like Chris Hedges, Caitlin Johnstone and too many high profile others, that Israel's colonisation of Palestine can be compared to the colonisations of Australia, America, Canada, in centuries past.
It smacks of hating the West and using anything as a weapon to bash the West when all they are doing is playing into the hands of the Zioraelis who, I am sure, want nothing more than having their colonisation compared to a bunch of others long ago. The old, see it wasn't just us, moan as they exterminate more Palestinians.
I do not know as much about Canada or the US as I do about Australia and NZ but I do know in the latter two there is no comparison with the evil that is Israel. And I know enough about history to know that the US and Canada did not set sail with a policy of genocidal extermination from the English Crown and Government.
And I dislike intensely this modern habit of retrofitting modern values and attitudes to the past and totally ignoring the context and realities of past centuries.
Hi Roslyn, I'm here because of our chat on a different Stack and was curious as to why my comments triggered such eloquent responses, I felt I’d touched a nerve.
I thought I’d offer some feedback, in good faith as a random punter.
Because of the vibe I was getting I'd guessed you were an Aussie (of Judaeo-Christian beliefs perhaps?) One who obviously has done much thinking and writing on the subject of the history of Australia. I get that these can be sensitive issues within the context of Indigenous rights, reconciliation, and the country’s identity. You like debunking myths and challenging dogma and you’re good at it, but maybe a little too good.
To an outsider (me) you come across as having a bias. You circumvent the racial element that enabled 17th and 18th century colonisation. Highlighting how somehow White Europeans were doing ‘primitive Stone Age’ people a big favour is kind of how it comes across. Also in your writing, there seems to be a lack of agency afforded to aboriginal people in Australia. I’m never going to enter into a debate with you ‘cos you’d wipe the floor with me and my lack of historical facts but some of your statements did have me reaching for Perplexity™️.
You write well but for me your stance would be possibly more engaging to random readers if there was maybe a little more empathy for the victims of the British ‘invasion’ of the land they treated as terra nullius.
You said: Because of the vibe I was getting I'd guessed you were an Aussie (of Judaeo-Christian beliefs perhaps?)
Since I state on my substack I am Australian and have declared it in many posts it was an easy guess. And no, not a follower of any religion. I have studied many including various forms of Christianity, new and ancient like Gnostic; Judaism including Kabbalah; Hinduism, Jainism, Islam, Buddhism in various forms and value the wisdom kernels in all of them but follow none.
You said: One who obviously has done much thinking and writing on the subject of the history of Australia. I get that these can be sensitive issues within the context of Indigenous rights, reconciliation, and the country’s identity.
The only sensitivity is toward misinformation, ignorance and people presenting views when they know next to nothing about the issue.
You said: You like debunking myths and challenging dogma and you’re good at it, but maybe a little too good.
Can one be too good?
You said: To an outsider (me) you come across as having a bias.
My only bias is toward historical facts and realities. In the past 50 years too many in academia and elsewhere have taken up the delusion that opinion is the equal of facts. it is not. Good historians in the past would take the facts and come up with different interpretations which is fair enough and interesting, but they would provide the FACTS to support their position. That no longer happens. People take opinions, often called oral histories and call them facts when they are not.
You said: You circumvent the racial element that enabled 17th and 18th century colonisation. Highlighting how somehow White Europeans were doing ‘primitive Stone Age’ people a big favour is kind of how it comes across.
Yes, I can see how from a position of bias and ignorance one could take that view. But it is not my view. I am simply being a practical realist.
All humans colonised and all have been colonised. I am sure that was a necessary part of human evolution or Africa would have been very crowded. So, colonisation was something all humans did and had to do. We may take issue with the level of violence used but in our assessment we must take context into account.
I do not believe we can condemn Maoris for eating the natives they found in New Zealand when they colonised the place around 500 years before the British did. That was what they did and that was how they did it and that was relevant for their times and level of development. I suspect most humans if not all have been cannibals in their time.
Neither do I think we can hold later colonisations by anglo-europeans who had more developed societies to higher standards, far above those of more primitive peoples. That would be racist. By our lofty modern standards 18th and 19th century Europeans and British were often primitive. That is how it works. When they began to experience how stone-age aborigines lived they understandably considered many of their practices savage, primitive and unacceptable to the then modern world, i.e. infanticide and cannibalism. Although as a digression it is indeed ironic that in our modern world we still practise high levels of infanticide which we convince ourselves is acceptable, i.e. abortion. NB: My view on abortion is that there should be as little of it as possible and each woman should have the right to decide and have access to a safe termination.
You said: Also in your writing, there seems to be a lack of agency afforded to aboriginal people in Australia.
I do not know what you mean by agency. Aborigines were made citizens and British and later Australian Governments worked to keep them alive and to join the then modern world. Developed countries today spend billions doing that with people in less developed countries so I am not sure why the British doing it centuries ago was wrong and yet doing it today is right. Those with aboriginal ancestry have the same rights and more benefits than other Australians. I think more benefits is wrong and racist and all benefits should be needs based.
You said: I’m never going to enter into a debate with you ‘cos you’d wipe the floor with me and my lack of historical facts but some of your statements did have me reaching for Perplexity™️.
But you have entered into a debate by writing this post in the first place. Thanks for admitting a lack of historical facts. It is brave to enter a topic without them. Or foolish.
You said: You write well but for me your stance would be possibly more engaging to random readers if there was maybe a little more empathy for the victims of the British ‘invasion’ of the land they treated as terra nullius.
I do not write to be engaging. I write to provide factual information, reason, logic and common sense as applied to any issue. Terra Nullius was not applicable to the British colonisation of Australia and is a digression.
The British colonised Australia as they themselves had been colonised a dozen times and as Aborigines had colonised before them. That was the way of it in the world for millions of years no doubt. The British were more humane than aboriginal colonists but they were more developed as societies and we would expect that. By modern standards however the British were often primitive and uncivilized, indeed barbaric but that applied to many in their own societies and was not particular to the natives of the lands they colonised.
As to empathy, perhaps you can give me a sentence which you consider demonstrates empathy as you believe it is needed.
I have great empathy and compassion for all humans and truly believe that inherent in every one of us is a nobility of spirit which is to be admired. I think that aboriginal peoples given their lack of development demonstrated an impressive capacity to adapt to the shock of the modern world which arrived on their shores. Well, some did, I think many, but not all.
But one could say the same of other primitive peoples who confronted a vastly more developed coloniser. Indeed, one could say exactly that about the Britons when they were colonised by the Romans. We admire the English for getting over that and making something of themselves without condemning the Romans so why not do the same for Australian aborigines or other native peoples?
You said: Oh and you seem a little grumpy.
Well, the medium is cryptic and its nature is that misunderstandings are common and I think inevitable because readers project themselves and their beliefs onto the words.
I am certainly sometimes frustrated by the level of ignorance on this and many other issues, but particularly when historical facts are available to reduce or remove the level of ignorance. You may call that grumpy if you wish.
You do not know me in any real sense and in this medium there is artificiality because we are denied facial expression, tone of voice, physical posture and any real knowledge of the individual behind the words.
I will say that I speak directly and frankly and I write in the same way. Some people consider that grumpy, others rude, others lacking empathy, and some just get pissed off because I can present the facts in a reasoned and sensible argument which they cannot counter. I find that men are more likely to do that because for some men, a woman sounding informed and intelligent and making more sense than they do on a topic, really annoys the hell out of them. I am not saying that is you because I have no idea if you are male.
And they are all reasons why only facts matter and why disseminating the facts of a situation is so important. Thanks for taking the time to provide feedback.
You said: You circumvent the racial element that enabled 17th and 18th century colonisation.
I presume by this you mean that Europeans, code name white even though many were dark-skinned, like Spaniards, Italians and Greeks, were racists? Please correct me if I am wrong.
And I presume you mean those racist whites thought they could take anything they liked from blacks or those of colour?
That ignores the reality of the many truly violent colonisations of England, and indeed throughout Europe, by white-skinned peoples. That was whites doing to whites what you now condemn whites doing to blacks. Did they do that out of racism? If not, why not?
It was not colour that enabled colonisation by the Europeans but the fact they had developed the most advanced societies, particularly militarily. Everybody colonised but Australian aborigines had spears and waddies and the Europeans had guns.
Did you know that the British gave guns to the Aborigines? They did so to help them hunt more effectively. Why would they do that if they wanted them all dead?
Yes in those times some people certainly did have views regarding others of different culture and colour but for example, the English did that with themselves. Take a look at attitudes in the English toward the Welsh, Scots and mostly the Irish in centuries past.
So, while not condoning such discrimination, I would merely make the point it was not specifically colour-coded. And I would also make the point that in the times, there was plenty of what you call the racial element in dark-skinned peoples, India and Africa.
I have lived in four African countries and India and if you want to experience modern racism of the most appalling levels then go and live in those places. For orthodox Hindus the whites, or anglo-Europeans were and are untouchables. Those racial elements remain powerful in such societies. Indeed one of the biggest problems for South Africa is the racial element which prevents tribal groups from uniting as one and which encourages true hatred of Africans from other parts of the continent with a special kind of hatred for Europeans and Indians. I should not forget the Chinese who consider blacks to be truly inferior and in return the blacks consider the Chinese to be inferior.
Racism exists in all cultures and it always has done. But, it is less powerful in the developed world than those in the undeveloped countries. There is good reason for that. The more of a struggle life is and the less security people have, the more they will target others to blame and anyone different will be the automatic target.
Racism like cannibalism disappears when it no longer serves a purpose.
Again, the point needed to be dealt with in detail. There seems to be a view with many people that there was something different or exceptional about Aborigines or American Indians being colonised by Europeans. I do not believe there is within the context of the times and have made a case for that.
By all means prove me wrong.
On a lighter note, if the Europeans had not colonised the world the Indians would not have Chilli, the Irish would not have Potatoes, the Italians would not have tomatoes and none of us would have coffee or chocolate.
And neither would Europe have suffered 500 plus years of the scourge of Syphilis.
It’s important to point out the differences as you do, but I think it is truly necessary to at least acknowledge the racism that aborigines have endured and the pervasive damage it has done and continues to do to individuals and to Australian society. I would love to hear an aboriginal perspective on this post.
All I can say is that racists do not intermarry. Australia has had the highest immigrant intermarriage rate of any nation and an even higher rate of Aboriginal intermarriage.
Aboriginal peoples and others have been intermarrying in Australia for more than two centuries. Mostly this was European men and Aboriginal women, who frequently stated, they stayed with the European man because he fed and did not beat her. Life was awful for Aboriginal women in Aboriginal cultures. And there were some, not many, but some European women who married aboriginal men - we have photos from the 19th century.
Today, MOST AUSTRALIANS WITH ABORIGINAL ANCESTRY ARE IN MIXED MARRIAGES.
I repeat, racists do not intermarry so perhaps can you clarify what racism you are talking about and what damage it does to individuals and society.
I would also point out, most Australians with aboriginal ancestry are part of the general community and live the same sorts of lives as anyone else, with the same outcomes.
The tiny minority of this roughly 3% of Australians who do struggle, do so because they are not assimilated into the modern world but remain trapped in violent, dysfunctional tribal communities torn apart by tribal/clan/family divisions and prejudice. The only way they can be helped is to close down the communities and integrate them into the modern world and the broader community.
As to hearing an aboriginal perspective on that, what do you mean? There was no united Aboriginal perspective in 1788 and there certainly is not now. From the 350-500 different tribal/clan groups here in 1788 we have today the vast majority of mixed ancestry, more anglo-european than aboriginal, with ancestors from three, four, five of the aboriginal clan groups.
Even in the aboriginal communities there is no aboriginal perspective because their tribal/clan divisions keep them separated and often violently opposed.
Someone half aboriginal in such a community has nothing in common with someone living and working in Sydney or Perth who has 40% or 10% aboriginal ancestry of some kind. In fact an aboriginal community in WA has nothing in common with one in NT and likewise with those in Queensland because they are descended from different tribal clan groups.
Australians with aboriginal ancestry are represented in State and Federal Parliaments at around 12%. Not bad since the overall figure in the population is around 3%. So what do you mean by pervasive damage done to those with aboriginal ancestry?
Registering aboriginal ancestry means people get a heap of extra benefits on top of the equal rights on every count they have as Australians. I have friends with aboriginal ancestry who told their kids, who would have been 1/8th aboriginal in ancestry, not to tick the indigenous box because it would trap them forever in a benefit mindset and do the same with any employer who saw the tick.
In any discussion of a group by a non-member, I would wish to hear a member’s input. There are some fine feminist writers who happen to be men, but I would always expect them to quote or provide references to at least one woman. I don’t think that’s controversial; it’s pretty standard.
Living there, you obviously know more about Australia than I do, but I have two personal sources, very good friends and very good people, whose observations and judgments I trust totally. One is an Australian man and his African-American wife and children who tried to live in Australia for several years but left because they said they could not tolerate the racism they encountered and especially wanted to save their children from it. The other is an Australian woman who married an Asian man and found that her family had harbored more racism than she realized; again, they tried, hoping they would be accepted, but gave up and left the country, mostly for the sake of her children. If these two educated, personable, easy-going, and very attractive non-whites had such a hard time (admittedly with only a minority of Australians they encountered, but that can be soul-destroying), I have to believe it’s at least as bad for Aboriginals.
I just found this extraordinary site and read a few chapters; I intend to read all of it and hope you’ll consider perusing it: https://humanrights.gov.au/our-work/projects/bringing-them-home-report-1997
And this group looks wonderful:
https://ulurustatement.org/
I have read and studied the Bringing Them Home Report which is deeply flawed and was not objective. Same for the Uluru Statement which was put together by a totally unrepresentative group sourced in the Aboriginal Industry, a profit and power driven group. There were numerous complaints from Aboriginal communities that it was not representative of them.
Unless you have a particular interest in this I would suggest it is far too complex for a thread discussion like this.
What even most Australians do not understand is that there is no unified Aboriginal voice or entity. Most who register Aboriginality are more anglo-european, in some parts of the country, Asian, than they are aboriginal.
There are many Australians with Aboriginal ancestry, usually minimal, a few like Senator Jacinta Price who have 50% aboriginal ancestry, who have been elected to State and Federal Parliaments. They are not united.
The few who remain 100% aboriginal in ancestry are largely in tribal communities of mixed clans and families, torn apart by these divisions and they are also not united. In fact an aboriginal community in WA has nothing in common with one in Queensland or The Northern Territory, which we call the Top End, because they are descended from different, tribal/clan groups.
The Uluru Statement was a power play by the Aboriginal industry and the Bringing Them Home Report was the same, put together by selected people with vested agendas.
The British made aborigines citizens, then called subjects as everyone was, in the late 18th century. When Australians got universal suffrage, that included aborigines. Some may not have known about it in remote areas but as citizens they got the same voting rights. South Australia was one of the first places on the planet to give voting rights to women, in the late 19th century and when they did, that applied to aboriginal women as well, of course.
There are photos of aborigines at polling stations from the 1890's and the missionaries worked particularly hard to let them know their rights and use their rights.
Every Australian has the same rights, but if you tick a box to register aboriginal ancestry, even if it is less than 1% you have access to more benefits. I happen to think that is racist and patronising. Benefits should be needs-based not race-based. Not that aborigines are or ever were, a race.
And many Australians with aboriginal ancestry think the same as I do.
Perhaps the Aboriginal peoples of all their different nations, having been dispossessed of their land and culture, perhaps these people are deserving of some compassion and a few extra benefits in recognition of all that was forcibly taken from them?
There were no aboriginal nations. You need to look up the definition of nation and you will know that. A nation requires a common language and a certain size, neither of which applied to the aboriginal peoples in Australia in 1788. The only nation to ever exist on this land is the Australian nation.
Also worth bearing in mind that the concept of nation is historically recent and was first mooted in the 18th century only become a reality in the 19th century as nation states. Neither Italy or Germany were nation states until the late 19th century but each had been a country for thousands of years.
As to being forcibly taken from them, you also fail to understand human nature. Yes, just as the Romans and a dozen later colonisers, forcibly took some things from the Britons, as happened with some Aborigines, so too, both Britons and aborigines wanted what the then modern world had and actively sought to get it.
As the records show, aborigines quickly accepted or stole that which was clearly of value from the then modern world - iron axes, blankets, cooking pots to name just some. And as the records also show, many aboriginal groups followed settlers, some of the weaker ones camping next to them for protection, but many simply wanting to join the then modern world and to take advantage of what the settlers brought with them.
Why would they not? That is human nature.
Turning people into victims because they were colonised is neither compassionate nor helping them. The British were colonised a dozen times and managed to make something of themselves as indeed did most aborigines.
As to extra benefits, Australians with aboriginal ancestry do get extra benefits and it hurts not helps. In the TOTALLY subsidised tribal communities it simply destroys them and in those living as part of the modern world, it just harms them. I have friends with aboriginal ancestry who instructed their children to never tick the box if they wanted to achieve something and retain independence.
ALL BENEFITS SHOULD BE NEEDS BASED NOT CULTURE OR 'RACE'BASED. tHAT IS RACIST.
Yes of course I know what a 'nation' is, however, it is an accepted term in Australia to refer to Aboriginal groups
'Stone age is also a derogatory term that has not been applied by archaeologists to the Aboriginal peoples for decades now
I agree that handouts can be problematic and harmful, and that some people will take advantage
Again, do you have no room in your heart to acknowledge the suffering of Aboriginal people as a result of British settlement ?
Such hostility towards the Aboriginal peoples, curious.
Do you have anything positive at all to say about Aboriginal people?
Mobs, tribes whatever, you are ( deliberately?) missing the point
How was the Bringing them Home Report 'deeply flawed?'
Aboriginal people are not a race? How so?
Can you explain to me what the 'Aboriginal Industry' is?
The Bringing Them Home Report was also sourced in the Stolen Generation theory invented by a Brisbane academic, non-aboriginal, Peter Read. His material, which he compiled as a historian was first called The Lost Generation.
His wife suggested that Stolen was more powerful and it is, but Lost and Stolen mean two entirely different things.
This concept was quickly taken up by the Aboriginal Industry as leverage to increase profit and power. Sadly it has ruined many lives because it has turned some of those taken into care because they were at risk, to believe they were victims and compensation is deserved. No compensation case has ever made it through a court of law because there is only evidence of children Saved and none of children Stolen.
One case which some put into the SG category but should not is Bruce Trevorrow, a sad case of a baby very sick, hospitalised with no parents around, later fostered, because no parents were around and adopted without parental permission. He received compensation because the adoption was done illegally and unprofessionally. But, since relatives/friends took him to hospital in the first place, to save his life, in other words, put him into care because his parents were not around, he could hardly be called stolen. You can read the details of his case and that of his siblings.
Aboriginal children were also removed without the state having to prove they were neglected
The Bringing Them Home Report was not objective and neither was it rigorous. Anecdotal evidence was accepted from selected individuals. This is why no case for compensation has ever made it through a court of law, because, when the case records are accessed it is clear the child was taken into care because they were at risk and for no other reason, and the mother signed the child into care in most cases.
Only part aboriginal children were taken into care if at risk and fully aboriginal kids left in situ out of a policy of preserving culture. I think that was wrong. Risk is risk.
Like most less developed societies, children of mixed ancestry were often killed at birth and if allowed to live neglected and abused, particularly girls, sexually. Women in aboriginal societies were/are virtual slaves with no power to protect their children which is why no doubt, most signed their kids into care.
None of the realities of aboriginal cultures were included in the Bringing them Home Report. There were many legal discrepancies in how information was gathered which made the report flawed. I can look up the notes I have filed because the propaganda on this issue is now so great that finding it online is almost impossible.
RACE is no longer considered by scientists and geneticists to be as absolute as it once was. They may of course be wrong because science is also deeply influenced by agendas. But, with a trivial difference between what was once called races it is now believed that there is only one race, the human race.
Aboriginal peoples in 1788 comprised between 350-500 different groups, many no more than family clans, without a common language and as the British noted and recorded, often with very different physiognomy. They identified Negroid, Asian, Polynesian characteristics in different groups and in some on the coast of WA, European features which they surmised came from shipwrecked sailors, of which there were many. Aborigines had a practice, as no doubt all stone-age peoples did, of bartering their females for sex to different tribes and of course Europeans and others.
So, even in terms of racial definition as once held, there was no aboriginal race. The many different waves of migration and colonisation came from Africa, New Guinea, Polynesia, Asia and one of the latest, about 4000 years ago, Dravidians from southern India.
The aboriginal industry is a reference to the movement which is comprised of Australians with minimal aboriginal ancestry seeking to gain power and to profit from aboriginality. The industry exploits aboriginality in the name of money and power.
This group has no relevance to the few who are 100% or 50% aboriginal, from different clans, living still in tribal communities and no relevance to the vast majority who are also minimally aboriginal in ancestry and who are fully assimilated into the modern world and have been for generations, are in mixed marriages and living the same sorts of lives with the same sorts of outcomes as Australians in general.
There is only one race, the human race yes, but your comment seemed to single out and totally denigrate and dismiss the Aboriginal peoples as having no race
When you say, in any discussion of a group by a non-member, I would just clarify, there is no aboriginal group and you have no idea if I have any aboriginal ancestry either.
I do have aboriginal peoples in my family ancestry for what it is worth but I would no more encourage my kids to tick the box of indigenous than I would encourage them to call themselves Greek because their great-great grandfather was Greek. Nor to identify with any of the dozen other ancestries in the families of both parents.
As to the analogy of feminism, that is a belief system to which either males or females can choose to belong. Having a particular ancestry is a fact, but perhaps you are right in that the belief system dictates whether or not the individual chooses that one part of their ancestry, regardless how small, by which to identify.
It is very hard to migrate to another country and settle down and some cannot do it. There are British migrants who leave because it does not suit them and I don't think that is racism.
Your two anecdotes are not representative of the migrant experience in Australia and certainly cannot be projected onto Australians with Aboriginal ancestry.
I repeat again, racists do not intermarry and most with aboriginal ancestry are in mixed marriages.
In my family alone I have cousins married to Chinese, Arab, Thai, African, Indians and all are settled. I have a good friend whose son married an Indonesian Muslim girl and still happily married after 20 years. Like your story those are anecdotes but I repeat, look at the stats for intermarriage and that dispels the claims of racism.
I will look at the links and reply separately. I know the Uluru Statement and it is deeply flawed and was never representative.
Great that you care.
I’m sorry, Roslyn, but your arguments are the tropes of racism. I have to unsubscribe.
I did not present arguments, I presented facts and you said you were not Australian and did not know much about the topic.
By all means I fully respect it is the right of individuals to make choices about what they will read.
I would have been interested however if you had managed to make a case about even one thing I said as being racist.
I repeat, racists do not intermarry and you have not made a case to prove that statement wrong.
Take care, I really am not fussed if people unsubscribe. I have only one goal and that is presenting facts on any issue.
I am very interested in your comment 'Racists do not intermarry' particularly as it applies to European men marrying Aboriginal women in 19th century Australia, I feel this comment needs further scrutiny, it seems such a sweeping statement.
'Life was awful for women in Aboriginal cultures' quite an extraordinary statement, I would like to see some sources for this? And white women of the time were not beaten at that time by their husbands?
Quote: At Mapoon the missionaries could not believe that Aborigines could illtreat their women so badly and stated:
“The cruelty displayed towards women was at times almost fiendish.
One man in a fit of rage seized his ‘Gin’by the head and poked a red hot fire brand in her eye.
If the mother tried to punish the children for anything, the men beat the mother and let the children abuse them.
Telford speared Toby’s dog. Therefore Toby speared Telford’s sister.
Source: The Miracle of Mapoon. Page 96. A.Ward.
Read the original records, journals, reports, studies. Aboriginal women were virtually slaves. They carried everything when the group moved and they sat behind the men and ate scraps thrown to them and the dogs at mealtimes.
Females were bartered for sex to other tribes and then to the Europeans. They were commodities. I am sure that happened in all primitive stone-age cultures but by the 18th century the Europeans were not still doing it and aborigines were.
Aboriginal women were beaten horrifically as a norm. Yes, some European women were no doubt beaten in the times but not as a norm as happened in aboriginal cultures.
“The treatment which women experience must be taken into account in considering the causes which lead to the extinction of the native tribes. Amongst them the woman is an absolute slave. She is treated with the greatest cruelty and indignity, has to do all laborious work, and to carry all the burthens [sic]. For the slightest offence or dereliction of duty, she is beaten with a waddyu or yam stick and not infrequently speared. The records of the Supreme Court in Adelaide furnish numberless instances of blacks being tried for murdering lubras. The woman’s life is of no account if her husband chooses to destroy it, and no one ever attempts to protect or take her part under any circumstances. In times of scarcity of food, she is the last to be fed, and the last considered in any way. That many die in consequence cannot be a matter of wonder …”
— George Taplin, The Native Tribes of South Australia, 1878
“After marriage, the women are compelled to do all the hard work of erecting habitations, collecting fuel and water, carrying burdens, procuring roots and delicacies of various kinds, making baskets for cooking roots and other purposes, preparing food, and attending to the children. The only work men do, in times of peace, is to hunt for opossums and large animals of various kinds, and to make rugs and weapons.”
–James Dawson, Australian Aborigines: The Language and Customs of Several Tribes of Aborigines in the Western District of Victoria, 1881
“A great man, or ‘turrwan’, might have two or three or even four wives … They were useful in carrying burdens from one place to another. A woman, because she was a woman, always carried the heaviest load. A man took his tomahawk, his spear, and waddy, and that sort of thing; a woman humped along with the weighty kangaroo and ’possum skin coverings, the dillies with eatables, and sometimes also a heavy little piece of goods in the form of a child. At times, too, she would carry tea-tree bark on her back for the humpies [makeshift tents], while ever and anon as they travelled along the men enjoyed themselves hunting and looking for ‘sugar bags’ (native bees nests), etc.”
— Tom Petrie’s Reminiscences of Early Queensland, 1904
“In 1849 I saw a battle where about 500 of the Narrinyeri met some 800 of the Wakanuwan, and it was very evident that if the conflict had not been stopped by the colonial authorities the Narrinyeri would have been signally defeated by their opponents. They bore a special enmity to [their opponents] because these latter had a propensity for stealing fat people and eating them. If a man had a fat wife, he was always particularly careful not to leave her unprotected, lest she might be seized by prowling cannibals.”
— George Taplin, The Narrinyeri: An Account of the Tribes of South Australian Aborigines
“The natives told me that some twenty years before I came to Port Macleay they first saw white men on horseback, and thought that the horses were their visitors’ mothers, because they carry them on their back! I have also heard that another tribe regarded the first pack-bullocks they saw as whitefellows’ wives, because they carried the luggage!” — Taplin, ibid., p. 68, footnote
“If a man has several girls at his disposal he speedily obtains several wives who, however, very seldom agree well with each other, but are continually quarrelling, each endeavouring to be the favourite. The man, regarding them as mere slaves than in any other light, employs them in every possible way to his own advantage. They are obliged to get shellfish, roots, and eatable plants. If one [man] from another tribe should arrive having anything he desires to purchase, he perhaps makes a bargain to pay by letting him have one of his wives for a longer or shorter period.” — H.E.A. Meyer, Manners and Customs of the Aborigines of the Encounter Bay Tribe, South Australia, in Taplin, ibid., p. 191.)
Your argument wins. Unfortunately, as a white person in South Africa who believes in human rights, I will still be branded as a colonialist for using 'our' 7% minority population to control black people i.e. politicians suck!
Just before reading you, I coincidentally sent a message to someone recommending the best colonialism movie I've seen, so I double that here - 'Embrace of the Serpent'.
South Africa and Australia were very different. The native people were not stone-age and there were a lot more of them. And you had the Afrikaner influence which played a major role in the apartheid system. Also, the Dutch arrived 150 years before the British got to Australia. Different times, cultures, beliefs and systems.
The British did want aboriginal peoples to assimilate although they did not force it despite modern myths. And aborigines mostly would not work in ways the Africans did and usefully so.
And everyone forgets that when Africans and Aborigines colonised they just murdered everyone they found in their way. The Maoris and other Polynesian tribes were the same.
One tribe, which still controls my birth province of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), migrated, killed and subdued local tribes, and established Zululand. In effect, colonialism.
KZN remains the most violent, where the majority of assassinations occur, and where other provinces hire assassins from. But these deaths include Zulu on Zulu.
The King still controls Zululand, a major part of the province that is a bit smaller than Kuwait. And every year, thousands of young women dance topless for him so he can choose a bride.
Tribes still have an affect on voting for a President of the country.
However, a comparison doesn't negate Apartheid because what is fresh in the memory, and still affects our politics through white neoliberalism and black racism misuse, is pertinent to survival. No black man or woman should forget how they grew up during Apartheid, and by its name had nothing to do with assimilation, and is thus the best comparison to Israel's subjugation of Palestinians.
In one more generation, the use of Apartheid in South Africa will be all political as few will have experienced it. In Palestine, it may continue.
After this slaughter the Palestinians understand that Israel wants to exterminate them all and they must fight Israel to its knees. And they will.
I don't propose negating wrongs, but holding them in context. I have a problem with the modern Western fad, another form of elitism and racism, where wrongs done by anglo-europeans are significant and the same wrongs done by non anglo-europeans are not.
I'm all for equal condemnation or applaud.
I think, as any court of law would attempt to do, it is important to understand the circumstances of those who commit the act. Condemn the act, not the individual.
Can you point me in the direction of examples of Aboriginal people colonizing others?
Many thanks
I live in North America, and the brutal way that indigenous tribes, pre-European colonization, indulged in warring with, and enslaving one another is on the historical record. You don’t need anyone to give you sources; it’s easily researched yourself.
You just don’t hear about it, because the truth is too outrageous in a time when European abuse of indigenous peoples is the focus. That Indigenous folks indulged in the same behaviour on a less industrial scale is not to be spoken of. The present fashion is to regard them as noble savages, which is the line you appear to be treading at the moment.
I live in a neighbourhood with a fairly high density of indigenous people. For me, as a white person, to mention out loud the truth of the widespread historical enslavement of indigenous tribes, of one another, would be physically dangerous for me.
Yes, I did read a lot of American history in the past including that of the native Indians and am well aware of what you are saying. While the Europeans in centuries past can appear barbaric to us today, although given our capacity for barbarism I wonder, there is no doubt that less developed societies like the North American Indians were often more barbaric.
I agree with you that there is discrimination toward wrongs, real and imagined, done by anglo-europeans, code-name whites, while other atrocities and wrongs, often worse, done by non-anglo europeans are ignored if not denied. I find the practice patronising and racist because it denies the raw and often cruel reality of those now called indigenous and separates them from the rest of humanity.
Thank you for this.
The contrast between Israel and almost any other colonizing power in history is so stark, that only the lazy-minded will conflate all of them with the Israeli supremacist ethnoreligious state!
And don't you know, Jews never apologize for anything - because it's the world that oppresses them with its rampant antisemitism. A win-win for them!
Yes, I thought it was reposting. I have long been troubled by the position which too many take, including those who should have done their research or paid someone to do it like Chris Hedges, Caitlin Johnstone and too many high profile others, that Israel's colonisation of Palestine can be compared to the colonisations of Australia, America, Canada, in centuries past.
It smacks of hating the West and using anything as a weapon to bash the West when all they are doing is playing into the hands of the Zioraelis who, I am sure, want nothing more than having their colonisation compared to a bunch of others long ago. The old, see it wasn't just us, moan as they exterminate more Palestinians.
I do not know as much about Canada or the US as I do about Australia and NZ but I do know in the latter two there is no comparison with the evil that is Israel. And I know enough about history to know that the US and Canada did not set sail with a policy of genocidal extermination from the English Crown and Government.
And I dislike intensely this modern habit of retrofitting modern values and attitudes to the past and totally ignoring the context and realities of past centuries.
https://scontent.fadl4-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/476558570_23889083164025337_2045356976270823932_n.jpg?_nc_cat=111&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=bd9a62&_nc_ohc=mmffIzbFji0Q7kNvgGFhNlM&_nc_oc=AdgTK2ohXQcvoIK_hshnHItdNQKEUavw3v5U1N37oRz78SQXVNTzFhpZFoDmKb5Dn4ZqnwUEbgKVLx04cehPdK27&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent.fadl4-1.fna&_nc_gid=AHwKuFEa6xdppye5dBS7PoC&oh=00_AYB-7Bk6d09hoMimse74X9dwHXcBeQL8VWERpTA_tEIvyw&oe=67ADBE38
Hi Roslyn, I'm here because of our chat on a different Stack and was curious as to why my comments triggered such eloquent responses, I felt I’d touched a nerve.
I thought I’d offer some feedback, in good faith as a random punter.
Because of the vibe I was getting I'd guessed you were an Aussie (of Judaeo-Christian beliefs perhaps?) One who obviously has done much thinking and writing on the subject of the history of Australia. I get that these can be sensitive issues within the context of Indigenous rights, reconciliation, and the country’s identity. You like debunking myths and challenging dogma and you’re good at it, but maybe a little too good.
To an outsider (me) you come across as having a bias. You circumvent the racial element that enabled 17th and 18th century colonisation. Highlighting how somehow White Europeans were doing ‘primitive Stone Age’ people a big favour is kind of how it comes across. Also in your writing, there seems to be a lack of agency afforded to aboriginal people in Australia. I’m never going to enter into a debate with you ‘cos you’d wipe the floor with me and my lack of historical facts but some of your statements did have me reaching for Perplexity™️.
You write well but for me your stance would be possibly more engaging to random readers if there was maybe a little more empathy for the victims of the British ‘invasion’ of the land they treated as terra nullius.
Oh and you seem a little grumpy.
Always happy to have feedback.
You said: Because of the vibe I was getting I'd guessed you were an Aussie (of Judaeo-Christian beliefs perhaps?)
Since I state on my substack I am Australian and have declared it in many posts it was an easy guess. And no, not a follower of any religion. I have studied many including various forms of Christianity, new and ancient like Gnostic; Judaism including Kabbalah; Hinduism, Jainism, Islam, Buddhism in various forms and value the wisdom kernels in all of them but follow none.
You said: One who obviously has done much thinking and writing on the subject of the history of Australia. I get that these can be sensitive issues within the context of Indigenous rights, reconciliation, and the country’s identity.
The only sensitivity is toward misinformation, ignorance and people presenting views when they know next to nothing about the issue.
You said: You like debunking myths and challenging dogma and you’re good at it, but maybe a little too good.
Can one be too good?
You said: To an outsider (me) you come across as having a bias.
My only bias is toward historical facts and realities. In the past 50 years too many in academia and elsewhere have taken up the delusion that opinion is the equal of facts. it is not. Good historians in the past would take the facts and come up with different interpretations which is fair enough and interesting, but they would provide the FACTS to support their position. That no longer happens. People take opinions, often called oral histories and call them facts when they are not.
You said: You circumvent the racial element that enabled 17th and 18th century colonisation. Highlighting how somehow White Europeans were doing ‘primitive Stone Age’ people a big favour is kind of how it comes across.
Yes, I can see how from a position of bias and ignorance one could take that view. But it is not my view. I am simply being a practical realist.
All humans colonised and all have been colonised. I am sure that was a necessary part of human evolution or Africa would have been very crowded. So, colonisation was something all humans did and had to do. We may take issue with the level of violence used but in our assessment we must take context into account.
I do not believe we can condemn Maoris for eating the natives they found in New Zealand when they colonised the place around 500 years before the British did. That was what they did and that was how they did it and that was relevant for their times and level of development. I suspect most humans if not all have been cannibals in their time.
Neither do I think we can hold later colonisations by anglo-europeans who had more developed societies to higher standards, far above those of more primitive peoples. That would be racist. By our lofty modern standards 18th and 19th century Europeans and British were often primitive. That is how it works. When they began to experience how stone-age aborigines lived they understandably considered many of their practices savage, primitive and unacceptable to the then modern world, i.e. infanticide and cannibalism. Although as a digression it is indeed ironic that in our modern world we still practise high levels of infanticide which we convince ourselves is acceptable, i.e. abortion. NB: My view on abortion is that there should be as little of it as possible and each woman should have the right to decide and have access to a safe termination.
You said: Also in your writing, there seems to be a lack of agency afforded to aboriginal people in Australia.
I do not know what you mean by agency. Aborigines were made citizens and British and later Australian Governments worked to keep them alive and to join the then modern world. Developed countries today spend billions doing that with people in less developed countries so I am not sure why the British doing it centuries ago was wrong and yet doing it today is right. Those with aboriginal ancestry have the same rights and more benefits than other Australians. I think more benefits is wrong and racist and all benefits should be needs based.
You said: I’m never going to enter into a debate with you ‘cos you’d wipe the floor with me and my lack of historical facts but some of your statements did have me reaching for Perplexity™️.
But you have entered into a debate by writing this post in the first place. Thanks for admitting a lack of historical facts. It is brave to enter a topic without them. Or foolish.
You said: You write well but for me your stance would be possibly more engaging to random readers if there was maybe a little more empathy for the victims of the British ‘invasion’ of the land they treated as terra nullius.
I do not write to be engaging. I write to provide factual information, reason, logic and common sense as applied to any issue. Terra Nullius was not applicable to the British colonisation of Australia and is a digression.
The British colonised Australia as they themselves had been colonised a dozen times and as Aborigines had colonised before them. That was the way of it in the world for millions of years no doubt. The British were more humane than aboriginal colonists but they were more developed as societies and we would expect that. By modern standards however the British were often primitive and uncivilized, indeed barbaric but that applied to many in their own societies and was not particular to the natives of the lands they colonised.
As to empathy, perhaps you can give me a sentence which you consider demonstrates empathy as you believe it is needed.
I have great empathy and compassion for all humans and truly believe that inherent in every one of us is a nobility of spirit which is to be admired. I think that aboriginal peoples given their lack of development demonstrated an impressive capacity to adapt to the shock of the modern world which arrived on their shores. Well, some did, I think many, but not all.
But one could say the same of other primitive peoples who confronted a vastly more developed coloniser. Indeed, one could say exactly that about the Britons when they were colonised by the Romans. We admire the English for getting over that and making something of themselves without condemning the Romans so why not do the same for Australian aborigines or other native peoples?
You said: Oh and you seem a little grumpy.
Well, the medium is cryptic and its nature is that misunderstandings are common and I think inevitable because readers project themselves and their beliefs onto the words.
I am certainly sometimes frustrated by the level of ignorance on this and many other issues, but particularly when historical facts are available to reduce or remove the level of ignorance. You may call that grumpy if you wish.
You do not know me in any real sense and in this medium there is artificiality because we are denied facial expression, tone of voice, physical posture and any real knowledge of the individual behind the words.
I will say that I speak directly and frankly and I write in the same way. Some people consider that grumpy, others rude, others lacking empathy, and some just get pissed off because I can present the facts in a reasoned and sensible argument which they cannot counter. I find that men are more likely to do that because for some men, a woman sounding informed and intelligent and making more sense than they do on a topic, really annoys the hell out of them. I am not saying that is you because I have no idea if you are male.
And they are all reasons why only facts matter and why disseminating the facts of a situation is so important. Thanks for taking the time to provide feedback.
That’s a long reply - thanks
I wanted to deal with your points in detail.
I will just elaborate on this comment.
You said: You circumvent the racial element that enabled 17th and 18th century colonisation.
I presume by this you mean that Europeans, code name white even though many were dark-skinned, like Spaniards, Italians and Greeks, were racists? Please correct me if I am wrong.
And I presume you mean those racist whites thought they could take anything they liked from blacks or those of colour?
That ignores the reality of the many truly violent colonisations of England, and indeed throughout Europe, by white-skinned peoples. That was whites doing to whites what you now condemn whites doing to blacks. Did they do that out of racism? If not, why not?
It was not colour that enabled colonisation by the Europeans but the fact they had developed the most advanced societies, particularly militarily. Everybody colonised but Australian aborigines had spears and waddies and the Europeans had guns.
Did you know that the British gave guns to the Aborigines? They did so to help them hunt more effectively. Why would they do that if they wanted them all dead?
Yes in those times some people certainly did have views regarding others of different culture and colour but for example, the English did that with themselves. Take a look at attitudes in the English toward the Welsh, Scots and mostly the Irish in centuries past.
So, while not condoning such discrimination, I would merely make the point it was not specifically colour-coded. And I would also make the point that in the times, there was plenty of what you call the racial element in dark-skinned peoples, India and Africa.
I have lived in four African countries and India and if you want to experience modern racism of the most appalling levels then go and live in those places. For orthodox Hindus the whites, or anglo-Europeans were and are untouchables. Those racial elements remain powerful in such societies. Indeed one of the biggest problems for South Africa is the racial element which prevents tribal groups from uniting as one and which encourages true hatred of Africans from other parts of the continent with a special kind of hatred for Europeans and Indians. I should not forget the Chinese who consider blacks to be truly inferior and in return the blacks consider the Chinese to be inferior.
Racism exists in all cultures and it always has done. But, it is less powerful in the developed world than those in the undeveloped countries. There is good reason for that. The more of a struggle life is and the less security people have, the more they will target others to blame and anyone different will be the automatic target.
Racism like cannibalism disappears when it no longer serves a purpose.
That’s even longer.
Again, the point needed to be dealt with in detail. There seems to be a view with many people that there was something different or exceptional about Aborigines or American Indians being colonised by Europeans. I do not believe there is within the context of the times and have made a case for that.
By all means prove me wrong.
On a lighter note, if the Europeans had not colonised the world the Indians would not have Chilli, the Irish would not have Potatoes, the Italians would not have tomatoes and none of us would have coffee or chocolate.
And neither would Europe have suffered 500 plus years of the scourge of Syphilis.