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| Australia Day explainer |
The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) was founded in 1966 and I became an early member in 1969. The ACF is now the largest environmental body in Australia. Nowadays it’s not only about conservation. It’s also about politics...
In the lead up to Australia Day, today 26 January, the ACF are inviting me, not to celebrate the day, but to mourn it:
26 January is an uncomfortable reminder of how First Nations people and Country are suffering from colonisation that is unjust, often violent, and continues to this day.
Teila Watson ACF Community Organiser and Josie Alec ACF First Nations Lead, who go on to invite me to attend an “invasion day rally”, or any one of many “survival day events”.
Yeah, but nah. And in saying that I join the vast majority of Australians, including most Indigenous Australians, who simply want to have fun and celebrate the success of a very special country. (Though there is a case to be made to shift the date, as January 26th is the day the Union Jack was hoisted up a mast and so rather sensitive two many, and I get that).
I mean, sure, let’s recall some of the horrible things done to aboriginal Australians, especially back in those days. But let’s also recall how improved things are. When the First Fleet landed on Sydney Cove in 1788, the indigenous community were hunter-gatherers living in the stone age. Their life expectancy was 31 and literacy rates were zero %, as they had no system of writing. Today life expectancy is 75 years and literacy 75%. These still lag the population as a whole, hence the talk of “gaps”.
But it’s not like nothing has been done to help close gaps even further. Billions are spent each year, by very many well-meaning people. That can’t be ignored. The results have fallen below expectations, to be sure. Which is why people like Senator Jacinta Nampijimpa Price and aboriginal activist Warren Mundine call for a detailed analysis of where the money has gone and how it could be used better. But that’s a whole ‘nother story.
To the Teila Watsons of the world, who demand we “mourn” the coming of the English, as “invasion day”, we must ask: what did you expect? That this huge southern land would remain in the hands of a few hundred tribes of hunter-gatherers? Pristine? In its prelapsarian glory? Until today? Really?
Or that someone other than the British would have staked a claim? Like the French most likely. Their history of colonialism -- Algeria, Haiti -- was everywhere far more brutal than the British ever was. Or the Portuguese, or the Dutch, or even the Chinese. Whatever, it could not have remained Terra Aborginas alone and forever.
Teila Watson writes elsewhere about the downfall of democracy in “so-called australia", a downfall she seems to yearn for. To be replaced — apparently— by a neo-Marxist First Nations dictatorship, leavened by a dash of ecological authoritarianism. Though it’s hard to be sure, given the abstraction of her prose. Have a look at her writings here. Don’t worry if you don’t understand it all or don’t quite get what she’s on about. It is pretentious pabulum. I ran it through Readable.com and it got a “D”.
Josie Alec [profile] is a purveyor of traditional aboriginal medicine. She looks like a jolly person. And I wish her well with her entrepreneur-ship. Good on her. For the traditional aboriginal medicine, I’ve got about as much time for that as I do for Traditional Chinese medicine, which is to say, none. Still, power to her.
In her spare time, Josie works to stop Woodside’s offshore natural gas projects, arguing that the Great Serpent in the sea is one of Seven Sisters Dreaming. Or something. It must be respected. So Woodside had to stop development — at a cost of billions. This is like stopping a major project because the Astrological signs aren’t propitious. Australia had better sort out this issue before it impoverishes everyone, First Nations and Later Immigrants. As it stands, it’s condescending to treat indigenous superstitions more seriously than western ones. We can mock western astrology, but not, apparently, “aboriginal astronomy”. Hmm….
ADDED: what Teila and Josie have to do with environmental conservation, it seems, is that "we have much to learn from the nation’s original, enduring custodians”. To which I also say “Yay”. Bring it on. I know that we could learn about controlled fire to control bush fires. I guess there’s also food, aka “bush tucker”, in Oz. And then... Whatever else there is to learn, by all means let’s learn it. Again, I’m pretty sure that there’s been quite a bit done in this area; but let’s keep learning.
The First Europeans were not the murderous barbarians they’ve been paired as by the Teila crew. The instructions to Governor Arthur Phillip were specifically to not harm the native inhabitants, and not to take any land without their permission. There were horrid cases, for sure, of murder or even massacre. But these were punished by the authorities and white settlers put to death. From the top, the message was to get on with the native tribes, peaceably. Which by all accounts happened.
Against this backdrop, one of Arthur Phillip’s great achievements during that first foundation year, and into the next, was the relationship he cultivated with the Indigenous people. Clear principles had been enunciated in Britain before he departed. The shedding of native blood was prohibited as a crime of the highest nature and the Indigenous people could not be deprived of their land without consent. [Link]
ADDED: I rather liked this summary from then PM Tony Abbott on 2015 Australia Day:
“Modern Australia has an Aboriginal heritage, a British foundation and a multicultural character”…. [Link]
And that, dear Aussie compatriots, is something to celebrate. Yay, for Oz Day!
As are Marilyn and my Mum, Mutti, rising 103.... Celebrating Australia Day in Canberra.
