Thought for the day (1)

[old man emu]

New Years Day is a bad day to have as a National day. Although it is the birth date of the Commonwealth of Australia, a celebration of that fact is overshadowed by the worldwide celebration of a completed year and expectation of a new one.

 

Yes, the ethnic heritage of Australia has changed from British to multi-ethnic, but don't lose sight of the fact that it was those who were of British ethnicity who invited the change. Therefore, one could argue that a multi-ethnic Australia would only be possible as a result of the establishment of a permanent British settlement on 26th January 1788. And an important group in that multi-ethnic mix is the Aboriginal peoples.

 

Sure, as a group they were treated abominably in line with European colonial mores of the 15th to mid-20th Centuries, but now we accept Aboriginal peoples openly (one believes) as part of that mix. I know that none of my ancestors were responsible for atrocities against Aboriginals, so I don't have a personal need to apologise, but I can quote the Gospel of Luke 23:34 “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”, and seek the forgiveness of contemporary Aborigines for past wrongs caused by my ancestral ethnic group.

 

 

[spacesailor]

Here's one,

 

L ROSE day

 

You'll have to look it up. (hopefully I got it right)

 

spacesailor

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

... Ataturm Mustafa KEMAL has this attributed to him:

Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives ... You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country.

 

Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours ...

 

You, the mothers who sent their sons from faraway countries, wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace.

 

After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well.

 

This inscription appears on the Kemal Atatürk Memorial, Anzac Parade, Canberra.

One reason he's the only former enemy to be honoured in our national capital;

 

if only the current leader of Turkey was half the man...

 

 

[octave]

An interesting conversation which unusually has not become too polarised (so far).

 

Firstly with respect to Australia day. When I grew up in Adelaide, Australia day was not a particularly celebrated day, in fact, I think the bigger celebration was Proclamation day. For most of my life, Australia day has not been such a big deal. In the 80s there seemed to be a push to big up both Aus day and ANZAC day. From my perspective, one of the things that I have loved about this country is that we are laid back and not into flag-waving jingoism. I saw a television report about Aus day which showed a group of people waving little Aus flags, sorry but to me, this looks quite pathetic and perhaps "American"? The truth is I do love my country but as with my wife and son who I also love I feel I do not need to constantly proclaim that I love my family and they are better than anyone else family.

 

The date of Australia day seems more relevant to the residents of Sydney. If the date is merely symbolic then any date would do. I think when we become a mature enough country we will be big enough to say, yes we have done many good things but we have also done bad things, we don't yet have that maturity.

 

In relation to ANZAC day, I have not attended an ANZAC ceremony since1990 and don't ever intend to. OK waiting for allegations of being insensitive, but in my defence, I spent 12 years of my life as a professional fulltime musician in the Royal Australian Air Force. In that 12 years, I performed at loads of ANZAC ceremonies both in Aus and overseas. Thing is you may think I could only have performed at 12 ANZAC days but the week before ANZAC day is filled with ANZAC functions. Also, you wouldn't believe how many other military memorial days there are, Battle of Britain, Coral sea, VE day VJ day. I have heard so many speeches at these events. Some of these speeches are indeed glorifying war, most are reasonable and some were very moving.

 

What I find a bit worrying is a difference between ANZAC history and ANZAC myth. I recall in school being told about the brave ANZACs with absolutely no mention of the fact that they volunteered without knowing the hideous way in which their lives would be sacrificed for nothing. I also was told about Simpson and his donkey, not to real history but a stylised myth.

 

I heard a politician recently say that we needed to teach children more about ANZAC, I have no problem with that but I fear that what he meant was the shallow mythology rather than the truth.

 

These pictures are from ANZAC day around about 1984 in Singapore after drinks in the mess. These colleagues of mine were drinking with their NZ counterparts. The blood on the shirt was from a NZ serviceman. A little disappointing!

 

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I say yep sure celebrate the good things about our society and but have the balls to admit the things our society has done that were bad, then I can get on board.

 

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[old man emu]

What do the Aborigines of South Australia say about Proclamation Day? Is it their "Invasion Day"?

 

But you must remember that there would not have been a Proclamation Day if there had not been the initial settlement in Sydney from 26th January 1788. Not that I don't think that Proclamation Day should be abandoned. It is part of the history of that part of Australia. Wonder why there is no "John Batman" Day in Victoria.

 

 

[Jerry_Atrick]

D'ya know... I am from Vic; grew up there, went to school there, even used to take the train past Batman station on the way into and out of the city (to my mother and step-father's house); did Aussie History as part of HSC (yep, pre VCE and whatever the bureaucrats have renamed it to since, and possibly dumbed it down to now)... Yet nary a word was mentioned of John Batman - or I was away that day....

 

 

[octave]

What do the Aborigines of South Australia say about Proclamation Day? Is it their "Invasion Day"?

But you must remember that there would not have been a Proclamation Day if there had not been the initial settlement in Sydney from 26th January 1788. Not that I don't think that Proclamation Day should be abandoned. It is part of the history of that part of Australia. Wonder why there is no "John Batman" Day in Victoria.

I did not mean to suggest that Proclamation day was any better or worse than Aus day. I guess I am pointing out that history is about things that change throughout time. Many people seem to believe that aus day has been always been celebrated from the beginning in the way it is today. Change it or leave, I don't really care. I do love my country but I don't particularly need to wave a little plastic flag once a year and I can accept that as a country we have done bad things and good things, Let's celebrate the good and acknowledge our failings.

 

 

[facthunter]

Its based on a lie. That this place was essentially (and conveniently) EMPTY and that sticking a flag in the ground made it yours. You can't just ignore that fact.. Nev

 

 

[old man emu]

Its based on a lie. That this place was essentially (and conveniently) EMPTY and that sticking a flag in the ground made it yours. You can't just ignore that fact.. Nev

Sorry, Nev, but you misunderstand the legal ramifications of the ceremony.

 

Sticking one's country's flag in the ground and saying "I claim these lands in the name of ... (insert king's, emperor's name) was the accepted European way of bringing newly discovered lands into the possession of the discovering country. It was simply that, and no more.

 

Terra nullius: is a concept in international law meaning 'a territory belonging to no-one' or 'over which no-one claims ownership'. The concept is related to the legal acceptance of occupation as an original means of peacefully acquiring territory. However, a fundamental condition of a valid occupation is that the territory should belong to no-one. The concept has been used to justify the colonisation of Australia. The High Court decision of 1992 (Mabo) rejected terra nullius and recognises Indigenous native title.

 

Starting in the 17th century, terra nullius denoted a legal concept allowing a European colonial power to take control of "empty" territory that none of the other European colonial powers had claimed.

 

Of course, most of these "empty" territories were inhabited, so the meaning of terra nullius grew to include territories considered "devoid of civilized society." The most celebrated example is that of Australia, where the concept of terra nullius still features in lawsuits pressed by the Aboriginal peoples. Other examples of lands once considered terra nullius would be Siberia and the Americas. The continent of Antarctica was the only place on Earth that ever was truly terra nullius.

 

Part of the explanation may lie in the fact that rather than implying mere emptiness, terra nullius could also be interpreted as an absence of civilised society. For example, the English common law of the time allowed for the legal settlement of "uninhabited or barbarous country". Although Australia was clearly not empty land, the presence of scattered and nomadic Aboriginal groups would have been widely perceived, through European eyes of the time, as evidence of a barbarous country and thus no legal impediment to settlement. By contrast, most of the other territories ruled by Britain had significant native populations and well-established indigenous administrative codes (as in the cases of India and New Zealand, for instance).

 

It was deemed that, prior to the arrival of Europeans, Australia was "a tract of territory practically unoccupied, without settled inhabitants or settled law" (as the Privy Council put it in 1889). This was, of course, a legal fiction, as the continent was inhabited by native peoples – the Australian Aborigines – and legal codes were already operative in some places (and now we know that legal codes are an intrinsic part of Aboriginal life where tribal life is still followed, and did exist where tribal life has faded away.

 

In European eyes, "ownership" of lands implies the right to transfer the benefits and duties of land ownership from person to person for remuneration. In Aboriginal eyes, no individual owns a square of the tribal land. The whole tribe has access to the benefits and duties of holding a defined area of land for the exclusive use of the tribe. Uninvited incursions onto a tribe's land were reasonable cause for forceful opposition. No Aboriginal individual has the right to transfer ownership of any portion of the tribal land, although a decision to do so could come from a tribal council.

 

 

[spacesailor]

And of course,

 

Blacktown was "Given" to the Inhabitants of the area, to move them a little way off the " white-mans-farm".

 

When are they going to make an acquisition for the Aboriginal Land Council?.

 

spacesailor

 

 

[facthunter]

What "goes" for the new arrivals may suit their way of dealing with the situation, but it's a stacked deck. applying British law in this circumstance.. Because they CAN and have done in other places doesn't make it morally right. Pretty soon it was obvious the existing inhabitants did not like their land being taken from them. While they don't as individuals own particular areas the boundaries are well defined and protected for each tribe. from unwanted intrusion where necessary.... Nev

 

 

[spacesailor]

I don't suppose any-one has done a study on the number of white settler's speared to death by the other crowd, or is this a Taboo subject.?

 

Like the many studies of Aboriginal deaths by white people.

 

spacesailor

 

 

[old man emu]

While it is very true that many Europeans died at the hands of Aboriginals during the period of European expansion into the continent, the deaths were usually of a single person, most often convict shepherds. The response of Europeans to each death was often overkill. This response seems to have been the typical mindset of Europeans in the 19th Century. The Indian Wars in the American West exhibit similar practices.

 

The natives peoples of both countries were simply doing what they had been doing for hundreds of years - if strangers entered their territory, the natives first greeted them with friendly inquisitiveness, but if the strangers broke the rules, then the natives either tried to run them off, or killed them if they refused to go. Simple survival procedures.

 

How do you think the Aboriginals of the Toongabbie area reacted to this? (Scroll down to the Statement of Significance) Toongabbie Government Farm Archaeological Site | NSW Environment & Heritage

 

History Services Blog: Convict History in Old Toongabbie and Winston Hills

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

I don't suppose any-one has done a study on the number of white settler's speared to death by the other crowd, or is this a Taboo subject.?Like the many studies of Aboriginal deaths by white people.

 

spacesailor

I know of none, Spacey, but would be amazed if there were cases where a black fella killed a white fella and nothing was done about it. Plenty of records show that the killing of a white fella resulted in the wholesale slaughter of all blacks in the vicinity. Even killing a few of the white fella's cattle was seen as reason enough to hunt down a few blacks.

 

 

[spacesailor]

OK

 

I've been to "CapeYork" & in a town (maybe Bamaga) In a little Museum place there's a plack depicting Aboriginal greeting Asian people with "open arms", but saying they speared the whites!.

 

I thought it a little offensive.

 

spacesailor

 

 

[old man emu]

But there seems to have been a history of contact and trade between Asians and Aboriginals from Broome to Cape York. The difference between the Asian and European contacts was that the Asians did not want to establish settlements. Perhaps the Asians were the same mob that today's Indonesian fishermen come from. People just gathering food for trade in their homelands.

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

OKI've been to "CapeYork" & in a town (maybe Bamaga) In a little Museum place there's a plack depicting Aboriginal greeting Asian people with "open arms", but saying they speared the whites!.

 

I thought it a little offensive.

 

spacesailor

Do you also find the many accounts of whites killing blacks to be offensive?

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

But there seems to have been a history of contact and trade between Asians and Aboriginals from Broome to Cape York. The difference between the Asian and European contacts was that the Asians did not want to establish settlements. Perhaps the Asians were the same mob that today's Indonesian fishermen come from. People just gathering food for trade in their homelands.

For centuries people in Northern Australia had a well-developed trading system with Asia. Long before Cook, products from Australia were sent as far as China. Early in the 20th century the Government in Adelaide (who were running NT at the time) banned Macassan traders from our shores. This had an enormous impact on Indigenous Australians, some of whom were stranded in what is now Indonesia. Their decendants have recently re-established contact.

 

Macassan Traders

 

Macassan History in Arnhem Land - ABC Darwin - Australian Broadcasting Corporation

 

 

[willedoo]

For centuries people in Northern Australia had a well-developed trading system with Asia. Long before Cook, products from Australia were sent as far as China. Early in the 20th century the Government in Adelaide (who were running NT at the time) banned Macassan traders from our shores. This had an enormous impact on Indigenous Australians, some of whom were stranded in what is now Indonesia. Their decendants have recently re-established contact.

Macassan Traders

 

Macassan History in Arnhem Land - ABC Darwin - Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Old Koreelah, the first time I got wind of the Macassan connection with the Northern Territory and Gulf region was years ago, while watching a news clip on the ABC. They were interviewing an old lady in Arnhem Land who was speaking her local language, but I started to hear the odd Indonesian word thrown in.

 

 

[Bruce]

Dingos came in as meat-on-the -hoof (?) with Macassan traders.

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

Recent research has revealed that feral cats were in northern Australia long before white fellas.

 

Their DNA is Asian.

 

 

[Bruce]

Maybe those cats were brought in the same way. I am surprised though, the native animals are no match for cats and I wonder why they didn't spread through the whole country. The dingo certainly spread.

 

Dingos have apparently been here for 5,000 years and the aborigines 40,000 years. Dingos have another life in the form of kelpies, which are only supposed to be about 5% dingo but I reckon its more.

 

Years ago, it was illegal to have a part-dingo dog, so of course they lied about any dingo being there at all. The 5% figure is recent and comes from DNA work.

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

Maybe those cats were brought in the same way. I am surprised though, the native animals are no match for cats and I wonder why they didn't spread through the whole country...

I believe the amount of Asian DNA in cats diminishes towards the south, possibly indicating those introduced from the north didn't do too well in the dead heart. Maybe only a few were introduced from Asia, with a narrow genetic base. Cats introduced by Europeans predominate further south.

 

...The dingo certainly spread.Dingos have apparently been here for 5,000 years and the aborigines 40,000 years...

The more we dig, the further back in time humans arrived on this continent. Current figures are about 80,000 years, and recent discoveries in Israel indicate modern humans left Africa at least 170,000 years ago. Not much stopping them getting here mobs earlier than we've been told.

 

In Cave in Israel, Scientists Find Jawbone Fossil From Oldest Modern Human Out of Africa

 

...Dingos have another life in the form of kelpies, which are only supposed to be about 5% dingo but I reckon its more.Years ago, it was illegal to have a part-dingo dog, so of course they lied about any dingo being there at all. The 5% figure is recent and comes from DNAwork.

One success story for the locals. If only we had made better use of the huge expertise our indigenous predecessors built up over eons. Native plants and animals perfectly adapted to our environment were pushed aside to make way for introduced plants and animals, many of which have buggered up huge amounts of land.

 

 

[old man emu]

It would seem that Aboriginal numbers did not grow very rapidly from the time the first people arrived here to the time of the British settlement.

 

It seems that the occupation around Sydney only began about 5000 yeas ago. Maybe the Aborigines were stopped from reaching the east cost because they came from the northwest and found the crossing of the mountains too difficult. If food supplies were adequate west of the Dividing Range, they would not have had much incentive to tackle the mountains.

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

It would seem that Aboriginal numbers did not grow very rapidly from the time the first people arrived here to the time of the British settlement.

It seems that the occupation around Sydney only began about 5000 yeas ago...

 

I suspect that people have been there much longer, but we just haven't found definitive evidence yet.

 

Archaelogical evidence suggests that people spread around the coastline and river valleys of Australia fairly quickly. Until about 9,000 years ago much of the Sydney Basin was unproductive sandstone bush land, far inland.

 

Most evidence of early humans in this continent is probably miles out to sea.