Happy Amnesia, I Mean, Australia Day!

By on January 25, 2012 in News 15

I am an Australian (for the time being: citizenship now being reviewed, I’m sure) and I endorse this message from Juice Rap News:

So, with prejudice and pride, let our freaky flag of racism fly over the crumbling ruins of indigenous history!

h/t Earthsharing.org.au

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  • Jimpliciter

    Indonesians or Japanese would have colonized Australia eventually if the English hadn’t- I’m sure they would have been just as ruthless about it if not more so.

    • Jin The Ninja

      “Indonesians or Japanese would have colonized Australia”

      that was one of the most stupid, historically un informed comments I have ever heard. One of the two countries you listed was actually a Dutch colony for close to 400 years, and had been colonised 200 years before the first British Settler to Australia. Japan managed to conquer as far as Okinawa in a historical pre ww2 context, but aside from naval battles with the Chinese, Koreans, and occasionally Malay Pirates, never quite got around to empire building UNTIL the meiji restoration.

      Australia accepted, apoloigised for it`s genocidal policies against Aboriginal people and signed the UN Convention on Indigenous People.

      time to get a new narrative.

      • http://voxmagi-necessarywords.blogspot.com/ VoxMagi

        I suppose his point is that, in the long context of history, indigenous peoples have always encountered other cultures eventually…and the results have almost never been a harmonious melding of cultures. This, broadly speaking, would be accurate.

        But using that as an excuse to shrug and act like past horrors were inevitable and completely acceptable…is infantile bullshit. The only appropriate act, for any people who claim some veneer of ‘civilization’, is to acknowledge wrongdoing, take steps to prevent it in the present and future, and do what can be done to right it in as reasonable a way as possible.

         I’m no proponent of eternal guilt…we cannot carry the stains of ancestral crimes forever (since this is the process of recrimination that has fueled centuries of tit for tat bloodshed and debauchery)…but if we buckle down and do the right thing to start with…we can lay the ghosts of yesteryear to rest once and for all.

        • Jin The Ninja

          i agree with most of your points vox, where it is problematic for me, is that in this case, aus. aboriginals (i know there are thousands of ethno-linguistic groups that comprise that label), had been encoutering polynesians and trobriand islander groups for at least 1000 years pre-colonisation.i am not going to romanticise about it, but aside from minor tribal conflict both groups manages long term trade relationships with coastal and inland groups.

          the truth is, people should not be expected to carry cultural shame hundreds of years later, but even if you allow 100 years to normalise race relationships in the context of colonisation or slavery, at least here in canada, we havent even hit that threshhold yet, nor truly began even, to redress our settement sins. (residential schools lasted until 1969).

          colonisation is about race, and the inequity of race, the settling race has responsibility to take in their complacence in the allowance of atrocities.

        • Jimpliciter

          Yep, the comment wasn’t in any way intended to impart my long forgotten BA in Australasian History and yes, I was suggesting that eventually some country would have beaten the British to the same end. As for the idea of original sin,…

          • Shayne Oneill

            how the fuck did you get a BA in australian history and come to the conclusion that indonesia or japan would have invaded. Good grief.

          • Jimpliciter

            Clearly I didn’t! Even goodlier grief.

    • Shayne Oneill

      Indonesian  fishermen where coming here for centuries before white folks did , and the japanese where visiting here as long as whites where, and neither had any interest in taking over. The indonesians and aborginals had friendly relationships and traded extensively. Thery had no reason to invade. And, uh, I’m pretty sure the japanese had more local interests than travelling half way across the world to invade a country they had no interest in. Even the WW-II darwin bombing wasnt about invading here, but rather trying to force australian forces back home as part of a strategy to try and divide allied forces. Prior to the english, both dutch and french explorers had found australia. The dutch thought the place was too harsh, and the official reason the french never colonized australia was because, and I quote, “The country is already inhabited”, refering to the aboriginal tribes that the french had met, and for whom the french found to be friendly and curious people.

      • Straight Facts

        What a load of Bull Shit. Aboriginals traded with no body. There is no evidence to back those claims. There is plenty of evidence they were a nomadic primitive people.

        Japanese visiting here too? I don’t know where you are getting your history from.

        • Anon

          The Yolngu trepang trade with the Makassans is well documented – so well documented I can provide a link to peer-reviewed documentation rather than have to rely on bald, obnoxious and, as it turns out, erroneous assertion:   http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0011346 

          If Wikipedia is more your speed, try: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makassan_contact_with_Australia

        • Oli42

          I live in Darwin, we have many mixed Aboriginal/Indo/Japanese walking around, living history, they traded trepang (sea slugs) and pearls. Going way back! Where are you getting your history from?

          • Andrew

            > Where are you getting your history from?

            His white supremacist imagination.

        • Jin The Ninja

          “Aboriginals Traded with No(body)”

          False. Aus. Aboriginal groups are extremely diverse linguistically, and can be divided into different cultural groups by language family (or lacktherof), just as American Indians can be. The fact that they readily traded amongst ‘themselves’ (meaning indigenous groups trading with other indigenous groups is proof enough that they traded with other peoples. Add that to the scant but existing archeological evidence of polynesian fishhooks, broadswords and cowrie shells on the NW Coast and outlying islands, which suggests an intersection of at least one other culture with Aus. aboriginals. There is undeniable material evidence to link trade with coastal PNG ethnic groups and Coastal Aus. groups.
          Widely mainstream is the suspected trade with Solomon and Fiji melansian islanders.

          another poster detailed Macassan trading with aboriginal groups, so you can read their links below.

          define “primitive”

  • DeepCough

    Guess what, white people: we are all the bastard children of war.

  • rtb61

    The context here being, not to try to gloss over the reality of the brutal occupation, theft and a people being turned into an excluded minority within their own land.
    So a need to ensure all public holidays and public celebrations are inclusive and do not perpetuate lies and deceits.
    In this case of Australia the term ‘aboriginal’ should be eliminated and replaced with native Australians members of the original Australia Nations and their history should be properly incorporated into ‘Australian’ history.
    http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3793024.html Now that’s the government owned news outlet.
    http://www.australiaday.com.au/studentresources/history.aspx
    So a lot of work still needs to be done to do justice to true Aussie Battlers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aussie_battler and that is the reason why it remains such a troublesome issue for Australians.