When Tucker was here, he expressed concern that every building had a "We honour the traditional owners" plaque, and that every TV program, every sign - all of this recognition of a people long gone. He didn't exactly nod to the WEF like you did - but he clearly stated: they are getting you used to the fact that it's not yours because they want to take it away.
it's become like a cult. And yes - the messaging is all about 'you will own nothing' - and it's not Aboriginal people's fault, their cause just being used to push this agenda. Once we own nothing, they're not going to own anything either. We'll all be in the same stew together.
Just think how ironic it is, that these people in Australian councils and government making the decisions to not celebrate our true colonisation heritage wouldn’t actually even be here, living their comfortable lives in their cushy jobs, if it wasn’t for the convicts of England.
There is actually a silver mirror-like sculpture (artwork) in the NSW Art Gallery of Captain Cook, however he is isn’t standing upright and proud, instead he sits forlorn on a table, feet not touching the ground, pensively reflecting on his legacy. This is what is now being taught to our children….. be ashamed of your white heritage.
Whether you descended from a first settler or later came from Europe or the many other countries from around the world in the last 300 years, our relatives made this amazing place what it is today. Let’s celebrate that.
yes they are telling us to be ashamed of the colonial heritage by picking out every bad thing and magnifying it, while picking out only the good parts of Aboriginal heritage, then pitting us against each other. They want us to constantly be ashamed and hating each other instead of getting on together and making a bright future. You don't build up one people by tearing down another. This is just a very destructive agenda which we should throw out.
Laura, It’s definitely a unique perspective! Australia’s history is complex and layered, and it’s fascinating how art, like that sculpture of Captain Cook, can provoke such deep reflection on our heritage. While it’s essential to acknowledge our past — both the triumphs and the struggles — it’s also crucial to celebrate how far we’ve come and the diverse tapestry of cultures that make Australia home today.
So, cheers to our ancestors, from the First Nations people to the convicts and all those who followed! Let’s honor their stories and recognize the resilience and spirit that have shaped this beautiful land. And who knows, perhaps Captain Cook would have a chuckle at his current portrayal — after all, even legends can have a bit of fun with their legacy! 🇦🇺✨
Colonialism can be good or bad...BAL we have been VERY good to people who have come here from all over the world. And I personally think regardless of what might or might not have happened in the past I wonder how many Aboriginals would swap what they have now to the past?
An open insult to our forebears & all they have done for us! Orchestrated division & attack on our historical identity to weaken & destroy Anglos?...the very folks that built this land & gave so much to all here...& built its imperfect but still unsurpassed political system?....done by undemocratic Big Bro bureaucratic autocrats & corruption?...same trick as trans or anything sexual in kindergartens activities et al?....classic Cultural Marxism trick or what? Divide & conquer ...don't fall for it!
This article indicates no comprehension of what colonialism is. Just about every part is oblivious, and seems like a demented attempt to turn positivity about Chinese celebrations with no connection to colonial dispossession, into something bad.
And as far as "incomprehensible squabbles" go, well when you don't understand Indigenous peoples' languages or social systems and are too busy oppressing them to learn, then you tend not to get what's going on.
Thanks for your opinion. I don't share it. I support the great Chinese celebrations. My point is that the Council should ALSO be celebrating the Colonial founders of Sydney on January 26.
And quite frankly I've had enough hearing about colonial dispossession. There were roughly 1 million Aboriginal people living in Australia at colonisation, living a very tough stone-age tribal life. Some preferred the old ways, as is evidenced by the last of the Pintupi - when they walked out of the Western Desert in the 1980s, some of them were very grateful for the comforts of modern living, but some returned to the desert (from memory 3 of them walked back). It's not for everyone. Ask around those "colonially dispossessed" people who lost all that land and see if they want to return to a stone-age life. No? Well there's your answer. Colonialism wasn't all bad.
secondly where I said the indigenous people's spearings in the centre of town were "incomprehensible squabbles" that is factually correct. To the British settlers, the squabbles were incomprehensible. They tried to understand them. They were very curious about the habits and cultural beliefs of the indigenous people, and you can read about that journey of discovery in the Sydney Gazettes from 1805 onwards. It makes for interesting reading.
I recall one of them involved the fact that some innocent lad had to be speared because of a superstition that he had somehow caused the death of some other tribal member, who had simply died of old age or disease. Witchcraft. They believed in all sorts of magic. Do you think that's good? Would you like your child to grow up in that system? Who was really oppressed?
I love this article - thank you, Alison. In the late 1800s my great grandparents settled in a rural area and raised cattle. Life was hard, made harder by visiting tribes expecting a handout of flour and other supplies. I don’t know the details, but they adopted a half-caste child, who had what we now call Asperger’s Syndrome. They raised her lovingly and educated her extremely well (she was brilliant at maths). That was my Dad’s Mum. I wouldn’t be here if not for the kindness and compassion of ‘white settlers’.
Hmm.... some interesting commentary and comments. Whatever one's views, the bottom line is the Aboriginal inhabitants of Australia were defeated by the more advanced weaponry the British had. I'm sure there were many brave Aboriginal warriors who valiantly fought for their land. From the Mongols, the Ottoman empire to the British Empire it's what happens. And,as mentioned, the Muslims co-opting the Aboriginals without anyone mentioning the ultimate goal of all Islamists is a global Caliphate.
Yes, this is true - there was a technological imbalance. And yes, the WEF globalists are co-opting Aboriginal people and so are the Muslims both for their own purposes. It's like another colonisation!
However the British colonisation was not all fighting as we are now being told. The British settled, grew crops and raised livestock. They negotiated a lot, and interacted. There were fights usually over theft or women. There were killings and reprisal killings despite the efforts of the British at the start not to have it that way. Proclamation after proclamation is in that Gazette exhorting the settlers not to do harm to the natives.
There was also co-operation, and mission schools etc. The British colonisation was nothing like the Mongols who really did come to pillage, rape and plunder so much so that today there are estimated to be 16 million men descended from Genghis Khan. The British were not like that at all.
I paid for my Twitter blue tick when Elon bought it and seemed to be going all in for free speech. I haven't thought about continuing to pay it going forward. I liked to support free speech.
While it's true that the division of the population in general serves the interests of the ruling class, you can't blame them for our failure to learn and gain a deeper understanding of the issues.
The British (as every other coloniser) decimated the indigenous populations everywhere they colonised, including Australia, where they went amok. They even used them to practice shooting, and up to the 60s they weren't even recognised as "humans", they were classified as "fauna" and it took massive protests to change the official definition.
It's a miracle any aboriginal survived the onslaught, which continues to this day with the degradation and dispossession of their remaining population. Not too long ago they allowed Rio Tinto to blow up one of the oldest sites with cave drawings in the world, they gave some land back that they thought was useless only to take it back by force once they discovered minerals, the aboriginals are still incarcerated and dying in custody at a far higher rate, recently they voted in NT to bring the age of imprisonment down to 10 years of age, etc.
That's how colonisation works: send your criminals to kill them, take their lands, flood them with drugs and alcohol so they're sure to never rise up, deprive them of opportunity and push them to crime, and then slander them forever after.
An horrific story, that modern Australia should amend for, instead of the token apologies and land ownership plaques, and pointless divisive referendums.
But they'll never give back what they've taken, they'll never pay for their crimes, they'll celebrate them instead, and guess what,.....when it suits them they'll come for YOU! COVID taught you as much, I hope.
And you can be sure that your skin colour won't even register, neither will the fact that you've supported them all along.
It's always been a class war, and you're standing on the wrong side (assuming you're not a member of the ruling class)
There are bad apples in every barrel, and when you have a situation so wild and with so many communication and cultural barriers, conflict is inevitable.
But I do not at all think the British ran amok. Nor do I think that the British classified Aboriginal people as "fauna" this is a myth.
They referred to Aboriginal people as "natives" as in "native people" not fauna. And they strictly forbid their killing. This is clear. It is in so many of the Gazettes. Settlers were hung for shooting Aboriginal people.
I would want to see hard evidence of the claim that settlers used Aboriginal people for shooting practice and went unpunished. The rules strictly forbid that - 1805, the colony was only 17 years old and the proclamation was in there - Natives and Islanders were considered Subjects of the Crown and entitled to the protection of their lives and property. It's written right there in 1805 - I copied the actual document (microfilm from State Library). You can read that paragraph above.
They also forbade snatching Islanders to use as labor or to take back to England to show them as a curiosity. They were against this exploitation as it would mean hostile relations - and they wanted good relations with the lands around, if only for the self-interest of making their trade easier.
The third Aboriginal person to go to England, Moowattye, wasn't even allowed to go as an assistant to a botanist until Joseph Banks lobbied for him to be allowed. That's how much they wanted to prevent that sort of thing taking hold.
And when he went to England, age 21, they gave him accommodation in the West End and he held court in the local coffee houses, dressed in the finest clothes and attended the theatre. They gave him presents and tried to convince him to encourage his fellow tribesmen to join the colony instead of living wild. He preferred the tribal life, and when he got back he sold the gun they had given him (a fowling piece) and went back to live in the bush. A sad end to that tale is he became the first Aborigine executed - but he wasn't executed for nothing. He was executed because he later accosted a 15-year-old girl, a settler's daughter, on the road to Parramatta. He dashed her head against a tree, beat her brutally and raped her. That's why he was executed. And having been to England he knew that this was wrong.
It's absolute bollocks that it's a "miracle any Aborigines survived the slaughter" - they are MANY examples of quite peaceful co-operation all over the nation. The last of the Pintupi walked in from the Western Desert in 1984. In NSW the Missionaries almost immediately set up schools to teach Aboriginal people who wanted it.
Many didn't want it and went back to their tribes. But some did. In Queensland cattle farmers started providing housing and food for Aborigines who were living wild, and they came in and worked in return as drovers.
So it's absolutely a more complicated and nuanced history. We are being brainwashed into thinking British colonialism was a non-stop genocide, which is nothing short of a blood libel. It's totally false.
I empathise with the pre-european people who lived in Australia. I would have loved to have seen the country in its condition before it was cleared in places and other species introduced. I also feel for the people who were displaced as they like thousands of other groups of people around the world would be greatly saddened by having their way of life irrevocably changed by the displacing force. However your version of what happened is quite biased. There was a great effort made to protect the native people from the colonialists. Many decrees were made to treat them fairly and people were punished for not doing so. In many place the settlers and native people lived and worked together on farms and had good relationships. Of course it wasn't all good and there were cases of mistreatment, but there was not genocide.
that is a well-considered comment. Yes I agree with you Danielle. Yes Aboriginal people were displaced but there are trade-offs. Everything has good and bad in it. Yes, they had all the land before but living a stone-age tribal life, which is very hard. They had a survival culture. It was tough and they did well to survive in such a harsh land. The trade-off was easier living.
My version is the "Fatal Shore" version by Robert Hughes, an acclaimed, fair account of the history of Australia, that everyone should read IMO. The rosy instances of peaceful collaboration were rare and far apart, the abuse was more commonplace, "fauna" you see doesn't deserve empathy in the colonial mindset. They wiped out whole tribes, like in Tasmania. In the process, they wiped out thousands of their own poor people, who were sent here on fabricated crimes to slave labor "for the term of their natural lives", a lot of them children still.
If you empathise, I hope you agree that we should change the date already since it's so emotionally charged. The least we can do to show respect for their pain.
Changing the date does not show respect at all, in fact it shows disrespect.
History is history and needs to be truthfully remembered, without the negatives being distorted as they are now.
January 26 is the day two worlds collided: Settlers and Aborigines. They did their best to navigate a really difficult situation. The good and the bad is our history. To change the date is to lie about the fact that it is that date that is the origin of our modern country.
Rosy instances of collaboration I think happened far more often than we have been led to believe. The Gazettes are full of them. Like the time a soldier was bitten by a snake, and an 'old native' staying at the barracks rushed out, bound his leg with a ligature, cut around the puncture wounds, sucked the coagulation from that wound, and sent him to lie down and stay quiet. The man lived. There are loads of stories like that - half the time the Aboriginal people helping the settlers, sometimes getting into fights, sometimes fighting with each other and dobbing each other in to the settlers. Sometimes collaborating with settlers to commit crimes, like robbing melons from Garden Island.
They weren't considered "fauna" they were considered "natives" which is "native people".
Tasmania was a different colony and they had a whole different story down there - they got off on the wrong foot from the start. There's an account of the first meeting with Aboriginal people in the Gazette, the very first time they set foot on the land and explored was written up and printed.
But that's Tasmania, not NSW. NSW was very different. NT was different again as was Queensland.
It's a lot more complicated, nuanced than what is now being taught to people. It's a blood libel, we're being lied to.
You are right about the "fauna" claim, it is indeed a widespread myth that I have fallen for, it has been fact checked and I was not aware of.
Still, I can't understand why they won't change the date to May the 9th that Australia became a country and the flag to include the indigenous flags, and end the controversy.
The pain that was caused was enormous, it's a small compensation to make.
Thanks for your thoughtful replies, but some of your readers are sadly just bigots
very good point. The white settlers were simply one more tribe moving in. The same inter-tribal complexities applied, only the British had superior weaponry, and brought new food sources which were highly interesting to Aboriginal people who had never seen these things before
That's their business to decide, and a lame counter argument.
How would you like say China for example to invade, kill everyone, take everything, and turn whoever is left of us into third class citizens, and then say "they were divided, they all came from different parts of the world, they hated and would have killed each other, and they're ratbags anyway"?
I've lost track of this thread so I'm unsure of the analogy here - the British colonists did not invade, they settled. They did not kill everyone or there would be no Aboriginal people left, and they didn't take everything they fenced off land, but in return they gave housing and food, education and opportunities. Aboriginal people are not third class citizens, they are equal citizens with you and me. They have equal rights under the law, plus some extra legal carve-outs.
Don't put words in my mouth, and keep your assumptions to yourself. Whatever the aboriginals did for 40.000 years was their own business, it's not mine or yours to judge. I can only judge my own, and this is what I'm doing here.
Btw, where exactly are you going with this line of argument, and what does it prove to you?
correct. We often don't see the similarities in what we do. For example, the settlers looked at the tribal practice of knocking a front tooth out for initiation of young men as barbaric. But then look at the abrahamic religions alternately doing circumcision and clitoridectomy - also mutilations for tribal identity.
It claims that colonisation was the result of British enlightenment, ignoring the fact that what pushed them to colonise Australia was their overflowing prisons and Americans who revolted and refused to accept any more of the British inmates. After they degraded their own population, they sent them off to degrade others in faraway lands, in typical colonial fashion.
Enlightenment culture is not the same as saying people are "more or less enlightened" (a value judgement).
Enlightenment culture was a specific set of cultural values brought by the British which gave us individual rights protected by law, private property rights and freedom of speech.
That's not the same as saying a person is more or less "enlightened".
Also no value judgement is there - cultures aren't better or worse than each other. Just different. And produce different outcomes over time.
Tribal culture produces static tribal culture - as you can see 40,000 years of tribal culture did not produce the City of Sydney.
That's not to say it's "worse" or "better" - just different. It had positives as well. You can say that city living and its stressors do not necessarily produce a better life than a tribal life.
Some people preferred the tribal life, like Moowattye who was given the best of the British life on his trip to England but preferred to return to his tribe.
Choices have trade-offs.
We have plenty to learn from Aboriginal people just as they had plenty to learn from us.
If Trump continues as he started, getting rid of the dead end of globalism, and trying to re-invigorate a healthy nationalism (not a racist nationalism, not an extreme nationalism just a healthy nationalism) then he will be a great leader, restoring the democracy to the people.
Trump just threw out the corporatist globalist warmongering scum from America who have been trying to undermine and destroy that country, too.
But they are here - we have the statue destroyers here as well. It may be that like cancer, they metastasized here and will reinfect the US once he is gone
I agree with you on Trump's apparrent intent , but I will reserve judgement on the outcomes of his actions ....I'm not so sure he's not being allowed to move the dial " so far " , but will the forces at play here continue to mislead him ....he's yet to understand the full position in relation to Russia and Ukrain .....and his support for Israel given the New Russia Iranian ties could well set the world alight .....American sanctions and war have been one of the key drivers of global politics since the second world war .....America is no longer the only kid with muscle , and you can't bully the rest of the world into submission ......Trump needs to understand this , If he really wants to shift the dial and make America great again.....!🤷🏻♂️
When Tucker was here, he expressed concern that every building had a "We honour the traditional owners" plaque, and that every TV program, every sign - all of this recognition of a people long gone. He didn't exactly nod to the WEF like you did - but he clearly stated: they are getting you used to the fact that it's not yours because they want to take it away.
it's become like a cult. And yes - the messaging is all about 'you will own nothing' - and it's not Aboriginal people's fault, their cause just being used to push this agenda. Once we own nothing, they're not going to own anything either. We'll all be in the same stew together.
First they came for the Natives, because they were easy targets.
Then they practiced on targeted individuals to hone their skills.
Now we are all "fair game."
Just think how ironic it is, that these people in Australian councils and government making the decisions to not celebrate our true colonisation heritage wouldn’t actually even be here, living their comfortable lives in their cushy jobs, if it wasn’t for the convicts of England.
There is actually a silver mirror-like sculpture (artwork) in the NSW Art Gallery of Captain Cook, however he is isn’t standing upright and proud, instead he sits forlorn on a table, feet not touching the ground, pensively reflecting on his legacy. This is what is now being taught to our children….. be ashamed of your white heritage.
Whether you descended from a first settler or later came from Europe or the many other countries from around the world in the last 300 years, our relatives made this amazing place what it is today. Let’s celebrate that.
yes they are telling us to be ashamed of the colonial heritage by picking out every bad thing and magnifying it, while picking out only the good parts of Aboriginal heritage, then pitting us against each other. They want us to constantly be ashamed and hating each other instead of getting on together and making a bright future. You don't build up one people by tearing down another. This is just a very destructive agenda which we should throw out.
Laura, It’s definitely a unique perspective! Australia’s history is complex and layered, and it’s fascinating how art, like that sculpture of Captain Cook, can provoke such deep reflection on our heritage. While it’s essential to acknowledge our past — both the triumphs and the struggles — it’s also crucial to celebrate how far we’ve come and the diverse tapestry of cultures that make Australia home today.
So, cheers to our ancestors, from the First Nations people to the convicts and all those who followed! Let’s honor their stories and recognize the resilience and spirit that have shaped this beautiful land. And who knows, perhaps Captain Cook would have a chuckle at his current portrayal — after all, even legends can have a bit of fun with their legacy! 🇦🇺✨
Colonialism can be good or bad...BAL we have been VERY good to people who have come here from all over the world. And I personally think regardless of what might or might not have happened in the past I wonder how many Aboriginals would swap what they have now to the past?
An open insult to our forebears & all they have done for us! Orchestrated division & attack on our historical identity to weaken & destroy Anglos?...the very folks that built this land & gave so much to all here...& built its imperfect but still unsurpassed political system?....done by undemocratic Big Bro bureaucratic autocrats & corruption?...same trick as trans or anything sexual in kindergartens activities et al?....classic Cultural Marxism trick or what? Divide & conquer ...don't fall for it!
Australia Day does not celebrate the
arrival of the first fleet or the invasion
of anything.
On 26th January 1949, Australian
nationality came into existence when
the Nationality and Citizenship Act
1948 was enacted.
That was the day we were first called
Australians and allowed to travel with
passports as Australians and NOT
British subjects.
And that's a bloody good reason to
celebrate!
This article indicates no comprehension of what colonialism is. Just about every part is oblivious, and seems like a demented attempt to turn positivity about Chinese celebrations with no connection to colonial dispossession, into something bad.
And as far as "incomprehensible squabbles" go, well when you don't understand Indigenous peoples' languages or social systems and are too busy oppressing them to learn, then you tend not to get what's going on.
Thanks for your opinion. I don't share it. I support the great Chinese celebrations. My point is that the Council should ALSO be celebrating the Colonial founders of Sydney on January 26.
And quite frankly I've had enough hearing about colonial dispossession. There were roughly 1 million Aboriginal people living in Australia at colonisation, living a very tough stone-age tribal life. Some preferred the old ways, as is evidenced by the last of the Pintupi - when they walked out of the Western Desert in the 1980s, some of them were very grateful for the comforts of modern living, but some returned to the desert (from memory 3 of them walked back). It's not for everyone. Ask around those "colonially dispossessed" people who lost all that land and see if they want to return to a stone-age life. No? Well there's your answer. Colonialism wasn't all bad.
secondly where I said the indigenous people's spearings in the centre of town were "incomprehensible squabbles" that is factually correct. To the British settlers, the squabbles were incomprehensible. They tried to understand them. They were very curious about the habits and cultural beliefs of the indigenous people, and you can read about that journey of discovery in the Sydney Gazettes from 1805 onwards. It makes for interesting reading.
I recall one of them involved the fact that some innocent lad had to be speared because of a superstition that he had somehow caused the death of some other tribal member, who had simply died of old age or disease. Witchcraft. They believed in all sorts of magic. Do you think that's good? Would you like your child to grow up in that system? Who was really oppressed?
Amen Alison
Colonialism is the computer you're typing away at.
great point, sparsely made.
I love this article - thank you, Alison. In the late 1800s my great grandparents settled in a rural area and raised cattle. Life was hard, made harder by visiting tribes expecting a handout of flour and other supplies. I don’t know the details, but they adopted a half-caste child, who had what we now call Asperger’s Syndrome. They raised her lovingly and educated her extremely well (she was brilliant at maths). That was my Dad’s Mum. I wouldn’t be here if not for the kindness and compassion of ‘white settlers’.
Hmm.... some interesting commentary and comments. Whatever one's views, the bottom line is the Aboriginal inhabitants of Australia were defeated by the more advanced weaponry the British had. I'm sure there were many brave Aboriginal warriors who valiantly fought for their land. From the Mongols, the Ottoman empire to the British Empire it's what happens. And,as mentioned, the Muslims co-opting the Aboriginals without anyone mentioning the ultimate goal of all Islamists is a global Caliphate.
Yes, this is true - there was a technological imbalance. And yes, the WEF globalists are co-opting Aboriginal people and so are the Muslims both for their own purposes. It's like another colonisation!
However the British colonisation was not all fighting as we are now being told. The British settled, grew crops and raised livestock. They negotiated a lot, and interacted. There were fights usually over theft or women. There were killings and reprisal killings despite the efforts of the British at the start not to have it that way. Proclamation after proclamation is in that Gazette exhorting the settlers not to do harm to the natives.
There was also co-operation, and mission schools etc. The British colonisation was nothing like the Mongols who really did come to pillage, rape and plunder so much so that today there are estimated to be 16 million men descended from Genghis Khan. The British were not like that at all.
Thankyou Alison
Wisdom is justified of all her children.
Luke 7
God Bless
What a sad article to write and for a reader to read about Australians.
I thought Australians were above the Colonial mindset of the British imperial institutionalisation of a social class divide.
Sadly in 2025 I still see this very much alive in the writer convictions that non-white British people do not belong to Australia celebration.
Quite right. If only to annoy Clover Moore. Never known why the gay community still thinks she's fabulous, when she's destroyed Oxford Street, now a pale shadow of its former once fun self. I've republished it here. https://asenseofplacemagazine.com/sydney-city-council-snubs-its-own-colonial-history-on-australia-day-gives-2-million-to-chinese-new-year-instead/
Hi Alison,
May I please ask if you are paying for your Blue Tick or did you get it for free?
If the former, do you intend to continue paying going forward?
I paid for my Twitter blue tick when Elon bought it and seemed to be going all in for free speech. I haven't thought about continuing to pay it going forward. I liked to support free speech.
Thanks for replying. Appreciate that. Do you still think Musk is a "free speech absolutist" worthy of your (financial) support?
While it's true that the division of the population in general serves the interests of the ruling class, you can't blame them for our failure to learn and gain a deeper understanding of the issues.
The British (as every other coloniser) decimated the indigenous populations everywhere they colonised, including Australia, where they went amok. They even used them to practice shooting, and up to the 60s they weren't even recognised as "humans", they were classified as "fauna" and it took massive protests to change the official definition.
It's a miracle any aboriginal survived the onslaught, which continues to this day with the degradation and dispossession of their remaining population. Not too long ago they allowed Rio Tinto to blow up one of the oldest sites with cave drawings in the world, they gave some land back that they thought was useless only to take it back by force once they discovered minerals, the aboriginals are still incarcerated and dying in custody at a far higher rate, recently they voted in NT to bring the age of imprisonment down to 10 years of age, etc.
That's how colonisation works: send your criminals to kill them, take their lands, flood them with drugs and alcohol so they're sure to never rise up, deprive them of opportunity and push them to crime, and then slander them forever after.
An horrific story, that modern Australia should amend for, instead of the token apologies and land ownership plaques, and pointless divisive referendums.
But they'll never give back what they've taken, they'll never pay for their crimes, they'll celebrate them instead, and guess what,.....when it suits them they'll come for YOU! COVID taught you as much, I hope.
And you can be sure that your skin colour won't even register, neither will the fact that you've supported them all along.
It's always been a class war, and you're standing on the wrong side (assuming you're not a member of the ruling class)
There are bad apples in every barrel, and when you have a situation so wild and with so many communication and cultural barriers, conflict is inevitable.
But I do not at all think the British ran amok. Nor do I think that the British classified Aboriginal people as "fauna" this is a myth.
They referred to Aboriginal people as "natives" as in "native people" not fauna. And they strictly forbid their killing. This is clear. It is in so many of the Gazettes. Settlers were hung for shooting Aboriginal people.
I would want to see hard evidence of the claim that settlers used Aboriginal people for shooting practice and went unpunished. The rules strictly forbid that - 1805, the colony was only 17 years old and the proclamation was in there - Natives and Islanders were considered Subjects of the Crown and entitled to the protection of their lives and property. It's written right there in 1805 - I copied the actual document (microfilm from State Library). You can read that paragraph above.
They also forbade snatching Islanders to use as labor or to take back to England to show them as a curiosity. They were against this exploitation as it would mean hostile relations - and they wanted good relations with the lands around, if only for the self-interest of making their trade easier.
The third Aboriginal person to go to England, Moowattye, wasn't even allowed to go as an assistant to a botanist until Joseph Banks lobbied for him to be allowed. That's how much they wanted to prevent that sort of thing taking hold.
And when he went to England, age 21, they gave him accommodation in the West End and he held court in the local coffee houses, dressed in the finest clothes and attended the theatre. They gave him presents and tried to convince him to encourage his fellow tribesmen to join the colony instead of living wild. He preferred the tribal life, and when he got back he sold the gun they had given him (a fowling piece) and went back to live in the bush. A sad end to that tale is he became the first Aborigine executed - but he wasn't executed for nothing. He was executed because he later accosted a 15-year-old girl, a settler's daughter, on the road to Parramatta. He dashed her head against a tree, beat her brutally and raped her. That's why he was executed. And having been to England he knew that this was wrong.
It's absolute bollocks that it's a "miracle any Aborigines survived the slaughter" - they are MANY examples of quite peaceful co-operation all over the nation. The last of the Pintupi walked in from the Western Desert in 1984. In NSW the Missionaries almost immediately set up schools to teach Aboriginal people who wanted it.
Many didn't want it and went back to their tribes. But some did. In Queensland cattle farmers started providing housing and food for Aborigines who were living wild, and they came in and worked in return as drovers.
So it's absolutely a more complicated and nuanced history. We are being brainwashed into thinking British colonialism was a non-stop genocide, which is nothing short of a blood libel. It's totally false.
I empathise with the pre-european people who lived in Australia. I would have loved to have seen the country in its condition before it was cleared in places and other species introduced. I also feel for the people who were displaced as they like thousands of other groups of people around the world would be greatly saddened by having their way of life irrevocably changed by the displacing force. However your version of what happened is quite biased. There was a great effort made to protect the native people from the colonialists. Many decrees were made to treat them fairly and people were punished for not doing so. In many place the settlers and native people lived and worked together on farms and had good relationships. Of course it wasn't all good and there were cases of mistreatment, but there was not genocide.
that is a well-considered comment. Yes I agree with you Danielle. Yes Aboriginal people were displaced but there are trade-offs. Everything has good and bad in it. Yes, they had all the land before but living a stone-age tribal life, which is very hard. They had a survival culture. It was tough and they did well to survive in such a harsh land. The trade-off was easier living.
My version is the "Fatal Shore" version by Robert Hughes, an acclaimed, fair account of the history of Australia, that everyone should read IMO. The rosy instances of peaceful collaboration were rare and far apart, the abuse was more commonplace, "fauna" you see doesn't deserve empathy in the colonial mindset. They wiped out whole tribes, like in Tasmania. In the process, they wiped out thousands of their own poor people, who were sent here on fabricated crimes to slave labor "for the term of their natural lives", a lot of them children still.
If you empathise, I hope you agree that we should change the date already since it's so emotionally charged. The least we can do to show respect for their pain.
Changing the date does not show respect at all, in fact it shows disrespect.
History is history and needs to be truthfully remembered, without the negatives being distorted as they are now.
January 26 is the day two worlds collided: Settlers and Aborigines. They did their best to navigate a really difficult situation. The good and the bad is our history. To change the date is to lie about the fact that it is that date that is the origin of our modern country.
Rosy instances of collaboration I think happened far more often than we have been led to believe. The Gazettes are full of them. Like the time a soldier was bitten by a snake, and an 'old native' staying at the barracks rushed out, bound his leg with a ligature, cut around the puncture wounds, sucked the coagulation from that wound, and sent him to lie down and stay quiet. The man lived. There are loads of stories like that - half the time the Aboriginal people helping the settlers, sometimes getting into fights, sometimes fighting with each other and dobbing each other in to the settlers. Sometimes collaborating with settlers to commit crimes, like robbing melons from Garden Island.
They weren't considered "fauna" they were considered "natives" which is "native people".
Tasmania was a different colony and they had a whole different story down there - they got off on the wrong foot from the start. There's an account of the first meeting with Aboriginal people in the Gazette, the very first time they set foot on the land and explored was written up and printed.
But that's Tasmania, not NSW. NSW was very different. NT was different again as was Queensland.
It's a lot more complicated, nuanced than what is now being taught to people. It's a blood libel, we're being lied to.
You are right about the "fauna" claim, it is indeed a widespread myth that I have fallen for, it has been fact checked and I was not aware of.
Still, I can't understand why they won't change the date to May the 9th that Australia became a country and the flag to include the indigenous flags, and end the controversy.
The pain that was caused was enormous, it's a small compensation to make.
Thanks for your thoughtful replies, but some of your readers are sadly just bigots
no we're not
nonsense again
Should the Aboriginal people apologise to each other for 40,000 years of inter-tribal rape pillage and plunder?
very good point. The white settlers were simply one more tribe moving in. The same inter-tribal complexities applied, only the British had superior weaponry, and brought new food sources which were highly interesting to Aboriginal people who had never seen these things before
That's their business to decide, and a lame counter argument.
How would you like say China for example to invade, kill everyone, take everything, and turn whoever is left of us into third class citizens, and then say "they were divided, they all came from different parts of the world, they hated and would have killed each other, and they're ratbags anyway"?
I've lost track of this thread so I'm unsure of the analogy here - the British colonists did not invade, they settled. They did not kill everyone or there would be no Aboriginal people left, and they didn't take everything they fenced off land, but in return they gave housing and food, education and opportunities. Aboriginal people are not third class citizens, they are equal citizens with you and me. They have equal rights under the law, plus some extra legal carve-outs.
Can you show me where you have shown one iota of concern over the 40,000 years of inter-tribal genocide, rape, pillage and plunder.
Please get your head out of the racist notion of noble savages living in harmony in paradise.
Don't put words in my mouth, and keep your assumptions to yourself. Whatever the aboriginals did for 40.000 years was their own business, it's not mine or yours to judge. I can only judge my own, and this is what I'm doing here.
Btw, where exactly are you going with this line of argument, and what does it prove to you?
Interesting.
I am Aboriginal.
Why do you think you speak for Aboriginal people?
I don't, YOU think I do. I've stated some hard facts, that's all.
Your posts don't look very "aboriginal-friendly" btw. Either you're a liar, or you're a total turncoat
[Not too long ago they allowed Rio Tinto to blow up one of the oldest sites with cave drawings in the world,]
and the Taliban blew up the Bamiyan Buddhas. It's not just "modern Australians" who may be the bad guys.
correct. We often don't see the similarities in what we do. For example, the settlers looked at the tribal practice of knocking a front tooth out for initiation of young men as barbaric. But then look at the abrahamic religions alternately doing circumcision and clitoridectomy - also mutilations for tribal identity.
For sure. But it's Australia we're talking about, innit? "Enlightened" people don't blow up world heritage sites.
Who's saying predominantly white Anglo-Saxons are any more or less enlightened than anyone else ?
Errrr,....the article?
It claims that colonisation was the result of British enlightenment, ignoring the fact that what pushed them to colonise Australia was their overflowing prisons and Americans who revolted and refused to accept any more of the British inmates. After they degraded their own population, they sent them off to degrade others in faraway lands, in typical colonial fashion.
Enlightenment culture is not the same as saying people are "more or less enlightened" (a value judgement).
Enlightenment culture was a specific set of cultural values brought by the British which gave us individual rights protected by law, private property rights and freedom of speech.
That's not the same as saying a person is more or less "enlightened".
Also no value judgement is there - cultures aren't better or worse than each other. Just different. And produce different outcomes over time.
Tribal culture produces static tribal culture - as you can see 40,000 years of tribal culture did not produce the City of Sydney.
That's not to say it's "worse" or "better" - just different. It had positives as well. You can say that city living and its stressors do not necessarily produce a better life than a tribal life.
Some people preferred the tribal life, like Moowattye who was given the best of the British life on his trip to England but preferred to return to his tribe.
Choices have trade-offs.
We have plenty to learn from Aboriginal people just as they had plenty to learn from us.
nonsense
I wonder what Trump would say to this .... ?🤷🏻♂️
If Trump continues as he started, getting rid of the dead end of globalism, and trying to re-invigorate a healthy nationalism (not a racist nationalism, not an extreme nationalism just a healthy nationalism) then he will be a great leader, restoring the democracy to the people.
Trump just threw out the corporatist globalist warmongering scum from America who have been trying to undermine and destroy that country, too.
But they are here - we have the statue destroyers here as well. It may be that like cancer, they metastasized here and will reinfect the US once he is gone
I agree with you on Trump's apparrent intent , but I will reserve judgement on the outcomes of his actions ....I'm not so sure he's not being allowed to move the dial " so far " , but will the forces at play here continue to mislead him ....he's yet to understand the full position in relation to Russia and Ukrain .....and his support for Israel given the New Russia Iranian ties could well set the world alight .....American sanctions and war have been one of the key drivers of global politics since the second world war .....America is no longer the only kid with muscle , and you can't bully the rest of the world into submission ......Trump needs to understand this , If he really wants to shift the dial and make America great again.....!🤷🏻♂️