Historical revisionism, while often associated with the ultra-right, is actually one of the few things the ultra-left excels at. They constantly tell us that there was an ‘invasion’ of indigenous nations, that the European powers engaged in systematic genocide against the indigenous people, and that 21st-century inhabitants of European descent of a once colonised land have something to ‘apologise’ for and be ‘forgiven’ for.
I reject these claims out of hand.
Race relations Woke style. Count me out!
There was no ‘invasion’ because there was no ‘nation’ to invade.
Before 1901, Australia was a continental landmass – a geological, not a political, entity. Australia only became a nation upon federation in 1901, prior to which there were six distinct colonies.
The pre-Europeanisation population of Australia consisted of numerous groups of mostly hunter-gatherers. There was no ‘nation’ in the sense of an overarching political structure. Any talk of a First Nation in the singular is arrant nonsense, and makes the suggestion of a First Nation treaty with indigenous peoples, past or present, a non sequitur.
The notion of there being First Nations in the plural deserves a little more consideration. The expression ‘First Nations’ originated in Canada, where ‘treaties’ (in inverted commas because a treaty is an instrument of international rather than domestic law) were concluded with 11 aboriginal populations between 1871 and 1921. Similar deals were struck with indigenous entities in the USA.
To be a First Nation, an entity first has to meet the criteria for nationhood. Those were formalised by the Montevideo Convention of 1933, although they had been tacitly recognised in practice since the 17th century. In brief, these criteria involve a defined territory that is under permanent occupation, a system of governance that exercises jurisdiction over that territory, and the capacity to enter into relations with other nations. The Iroquois Nation, the Cree Nation, the Apache Nation and so on met these conditions; these were tribal nations.
When we look at the Australian situation, we see nothing of the sort. The Map of Indigenous Australia produced by the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
… attempts to represent all of the language or tribal or nation groups of indigenous people of Australia. It indicates general locations of larger groupings of people which may include smaller groups such as clans, dialects or individual languages in a group.
(From the introduction to the map at http://www.abc.net.au/indigenous/map/ )
The use of the zoom facility reveals a plethora of micro-“language or tribal or nation groups” in more fertile regions such as Cape York. ‘General locations’ of those nebulously defined ‘groups’ generally reflect the areas over which wandering bands periodically moved; other groups traversed those same areas. Stick a pin in a map of Australia and half a dozen ‘groups’ are likely to lay claim to it.
The Uluru Declaration stated that sovereignty was never ceded. In a way, they got that right – there was no sovereignty to cede, as not a single one of the criteria for nationhood was in operation. There is no similarity between the Australian situation and that of the First Nations of North America.
The colonisation of the continent of Australia was in accordance with international law and the ethics of the period.
European imperial policy from the 18th century on was generally to forge formal relations through treaties with indigenous entities where it was considered that the latter were at a stage of political development that such arrangements were meaningful. During the 19th century, the British in particular were concluding treaties with local ‘big men’ all over the place – literally hundreds in northern Africa alone – which the International Court of Justice held to have been ineligible in international law either at the time or today because nationhood criteria were not met (Cameroon v Nigeria 2002).
Where the people of the land were adjudged to not be at the level of political sophistication required by this approach, the land was held to be terra nullius. To labour the point developed in the last section, the landmass of Australia was quite rightly deemed to fall into this category. Its occupation by European powers was accordingly wholly legitimate.
Colonisation targeted barbarity and started to bring human rights to indigenous populations.
The fashionable neo-Marxist travesty of history would have us believe that the imperial powers – the British in this instance – instigated programmes of genocide against indigenous populations.
As a general statement, the European imperial authorities were protective towards the indigenous inhabitants of colonised lands. The Spanish government passed laws to protect Amerindians as early as 1512. The first prosecutions of settlers for the unlawful killing of Australian Aboriginals were in 1828. However, we are dealing with a period when the rule of law was weak in untamed areas, including the South America of the 16th century and the Australian outback of the 18th and early 19th centuries. Awful things did happen, but on the whole those were the actions of maverick individuals (sometimes including functionaries) and settlers taking the law into their own hands and were not part of any systematic programme on the part of the legitimate colonial authority. Where atrocities took place, the authorities generally acted against the wrongdoers – but in the days of slow communications, that could take years.
Generally, the British in particular left the indigenous people to their own devices with regard to their customary laws, except where customary practices were barbaric. In India, for instance, the practice of suttee – the burning alive of a widow on her deceased husband’s funeral pyre – was outlawed by the colonial authorities. Are we supposed to ‘apologise’ for that?!
Much has been made in Australia of the ‘Stolen Generations’. I call them the ‘saved generations’. There is a tendency for woolly-headed PC zealots to present indigenous culture as benign, but much indigenous culture is entirely inconsistent with conceptions of human rights since the Enlightenment. In the words of Sara Hudson, “It is time to abandon romanticised notions of Indigenous culture” (in “Time to remove the rose-tinted glasses when it comes to Aboriginal culture”, Centre for Independent Studies, 8 July 2016). In his analysis of entrenched sexual abuse of young girls in indigenous communities, Frank Pledge argues in his Quadrant article of 8 November 2013 “Indigenous culture and vile crimes”,
In those remote communities remnant, traditional culture relating to forced marriage of under-aged girls lent an air of legitimacy to these otherwise illegal activities. In traditional societies, girls under the age of legal consent were considered “available” to be partners, with or without their own consent… These traditional practices, I argue, could provide the template on which modern dysfunction has been built.
To again quote Sara Hudson,
We need to acknowledge there are aspects of Aboriginal culture that need to be kept firmly in the past. No culture is static and unchanging, and the belief that Aboriginal culture needs to be frozen and preserved in time is preventing many Aboriginal people from moving forward and embracing modernity.
Bottom line: we have nothing to ‘apologise’ for or be ‘forgiven’ for.
We in the 21st century should not have the sins of our forebears visited upon us. But I go further: on the whole, there are no ‘sins’ that need to be atoned for. People in the past acted in accordance with the legal and ethical norms of their time, which is all that any of us, past or present, can do. I maintain that the European imperial powers, certainly during the later period of the colonial era, generally acted with the well-being of indigenous peoples in mind; and that, on balance, the association between them and us has been beneficial for them.
I don’t want to be ‘forgiven’ because I am not ‘sorry’. I refuse to have any guilt trip imposed on me on the basis of what is largely a nefarious fabrication. I leave the last words to a ‘victim’ of the ‘Stolen Generations’ (reported in The Age of 14 March 2008):
It was a good system. Or a better system than now. At least my generation learnt to read and write properly.
And here’s hoping all you Aussies enjoyed a great Australia Day!
Barend Vlaardingerbroek is a retired academic who worked at universities in PNG, Botswana and Lebanon. Feedback welcome at bv_54@hotmail.com
6 comments:
Very interesting - but Australia has a much freer media to address this issue in a balanced manner.
NZ's "bought by Labour " biased media is a huge problem for fair reporting and debate. Typical of a totalitarian state.
In retrospect, it was - and remains - so easy for Labour to brainwash an already apathetic public regarding so many important questions.
Thank you Barend. I used to enjoy your contributions from Beirut, and am pleased you are still contributing.
As far as I'm concerned you have it absolutely right. One's descendants cannot be held accountable for actions that were representative of the time. RC
Barend, they were bloody lucky that Ghengis Khan , Attila the Hun or even Chaka the Zulu king didn't make it to Aussie, imagine the deals they would have cut with the local populace. All of the minority radicals in NZ and Aussie very conveniently ignore the benefits of colonialism, a written language, medical care, education and even KFC ; tribal warfare, slavery, cannibalism ceased. The benefits far outweigh the perceived loss of a stone age culture. When are the woke brainwashed politicians going to figure out that the Communist ideal of divide and conquer is progressing well down under. Kiwialan.
Sarah Hudson got it right but, not only is it time to stop looking at the Pre Treaty indigenous tribes of this country through “rose tinted”spectacles, it is also time to recognise the truth about why the colonial forces were invited here.
The revisionists deny the conquest, rape and pillage that was an every day event during the musket wars. Thankfully, a group of the paramount chiefs at the time realised that this genocide had to stop and petitioned the English Crown as the one colonial power who had the capacity and empathy to bring an end to the barbarity of tribal rule.
The result was the Treaty of Waitangi - the breaches of which have been well documented, apologised for along with appropriate compensation.
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While I accept that what happened in the past shouldn't be imposed as a guilt trip by aany English descendants, it's too glib to simply suggest that because the aborigines didn't live the same way as other "first nations" people, their culture doesn't deserve respect. That's treating their situation like a bank does when one applies for a loan, i.e. if you don't fit the bank's limited template, they're unlikely to look after you.
Certainly the sexual offences against females in some aboriginal communities cannot be condoned, however there are many current and developing elders working hard to improve things.
As a white Australian living in NZ, it's interesting to observe that similar problems exist in Maori culture here where it appears de rigeur for the govt to apologise regularly and hand out bundles of $$. None of which reaches the communities that need it, rather it's making certain Maori groups undeservedly wealthy.
There isn't a simple solution for either country, however the hole successive NZ govts have dug for themselves should serve as a red flag for Australian politicians, i.e. it's not the way to correct things.
At least aboriginals deserve to be considered more seriously, given they were living in Australia for thousands of years before Britain gave a thought to occupation. Unlike Maori who were, like the Brits who arrived a couple of hundred years later, relative newcomers to a new land, but nowhere near indigenous. In both cases, British occupation has delivered many positives to both Aussie and NZ societies and should be thanked for it rather than pilloried. Unfortunately, regardless of ethnicity, humans seem to always seek someone to blame for their problems rather than look in the mirror.
Just one pre-european custom justifies colonialism in my book - the eating of the corpses of the dead. That monster Te Rauparaha is on record as saying "there is no other flesh like it" and of giving it as gifts to those he wished to favour. Why are not modern Maori thanking the colonists for outlawing that common hideous custom instead of expecting apologies for dragging the Maori forward many centuries into modern living?
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