University tells students Britain 'invaded' Australia

[Grouse]

Look, of all our former colonies, Australia has done jolly well! Just enjoy and quit moaning ?

[KarenBravo]

@Alan Deer

It's a fact of life that when a superior technological culture meets an inferior one, the inferior one loses.

That's why there was a Persian empire, which then succumbed to a Roman empire.

This is why the whole of Africa, the sub-continent and north and south America was taken over by European powers.

Why did this happen? Because of the European Enlightenment and the flowering of science.

In the 19th century, Japan clearly saw the danger, so, sent it's brightest people to learn in many countries in Europe.

With that knowledge, they became the first Asian industrialized nation. What did they do with that knowledge? 

They subjugated Korea and China.

 

For you to pick just one colonial power and one present country, whilst ignoring all other colonizers is a bit disingenuous.

How about the Maoris who completely exterminated the original inhabitants of New Zealand, the Maruiwi? Today, we have a word for that. Genocide. Of course, that wouldn't really fit your PC and sanitized view of the world, now would it?

Man is a martial species. That's just the way it is. Thankfully, civilization has tamed this trait.

 

Edited January 13, 2017 by KarenBravo

[Alan Deer]

7 minutes ago, Grouse said:

Look, of all our former colonies, Australia has done jolly well! Just enjoy and quit moaning ?

 

Again that is a grossly distorted view point and totally misinformed when it comes to the history of indigenous Australians.

also you might might look around the world at ex-British colonies and see how well they are doing ...most ae still trying to disentangle the mess and ethnic strife left after colonialism - not just British but other countries too.

They are in reality still by far the most disadvantaged people in Australia, on healthcare, education opportunity whatever yardstick you care to use te indigenous Australians are disadvantaged - and this is a direst result of the behaviour of the European settlers and successive Australian and State governments.

 

It is a wonder that the various indigenous nations tribes and clans have survived at all considering the systematic attempts at eradicating them over the past 200 years - in fat they have survived an invasion by a society that out gunned and outnumbered them to bring their own population back to approaching the levels it used to be and all by using the invaders own legal system.

 

Genocide in my opinion is something to "moan" about and Australia still faces a problem the effects of th bloody history of the past have divided modern politics as some still try to deny the reality of the events of the 19th Century ever took place - whereas time and again their denials are discredited and history has chipped away at the lies and secrets.

Of course as time passes this is getting a little easier - in Cairns in the 1990s there were men still alive who has hunted aborigines for sport cutting off bits of their bodies for trophies....few survive to this day.....but their families still feel they have to hide that shame.

a country that lies about its history is a country without foundation.

 

 

[Alan Deer]

2 minutes ago, KarenBravo said:

It's a fact of life that when a superior technological culture meets an inferior one, the inferior one loses.

That's why there was a Persian empire, which then succumbed to a Roman empire.

This is why the whole of Africa, the sub-continent and north and south America was taken over by European powers.

Why did this happen? Because of the European Enlightenment and the flowering of science.

In the 19th century, Japan clearly saw the danger, so, sent it's brightest people to learn in many countries in Europe.

With that knowledge, they became the first Asian industrialized nation. What did they do with that knowledge? 

They subjugated Korea and China.

 

For you to pick just one colonial power and one present country, whilst ignoring all other colonizers is a bit disingenuous.

How about the Maoris who completely exterminated the original inhabitants of New Zealand, the Maruiwi? Today, we have a word for that. Genocide. Of course, that wouldn't really fit your PC and sanitized view of the world, now would it?

Man is a martial species. That's just the way it is. Thankfully, civilization has tamed this trait.

 

Yet another amateur historian - please you really need to educate yourself of the causes of rises and falls of empires etc etc......history is NOT simple and answers like that are just plain WROJNG.

[Alan Deer]

54 minutes ago, billd766 said:

 

Can you not reply with a simple answer?

 

You claim all of this but cannot back it up.

 

YOU made the claim, YOU back it up.

You made the claim of no law - a new historical concept! -  look it up yourself - I already know and come to this discussion with a pretty good all-round understanding of it. There are some basics you should know before you start

 

Edited January 13, 2017 by Alan Deer

[KarenBravo]

1 minute ago, Alan Deer said:

Yet another amateur historian - please you really need to educate yourself of the causes of rises and falls of empires etc etc......history is NOT simple and answers like that are just plain WROJNG.

 

Please use facts to refute my post. Especially the bit about the Maoris.

[Alan Deer]

Just now, KarenBravo said:

 

Please use facts to refute my post. Especially the bit about the Maoris.

"How about the Maoris who completely exterminated the original inhabitants of New Zealand, the Maruiwi?" - is utterly baseless nonsense and isn't supported by any evidence - in fact the latest genetic evidece would pretty much totally debunk your theory - I can't understand why you put forward this totally out of date myth as if it is pertinent to the invasion of Australia in ter 18th century by the British; please explain how you see a connection.

 

Quote for you from Wiki

"Michael King wrote in his history of New Zealand, "Despite a plethora of amateur theories about Melanesian, South American, Egyptian, Phoenician and Celtic colonisation of New Zealand, there is not a shred of evidence that the first human settlers were anything other than Polynesian", and Richard Hill, professor of New Zealand Studies at Victoria University of Wellington, said in 2012, "Not one of [the theories] has ever passed any remote academic scrutiny."^[8] Hugh Laracy of the University of Aucklandcalled them "wild speculation" that has been "thoroughly disposed of by academic specialists".

[Alan Deer]

13 minutes ago, KarenBravo said:

 

Please use facts to refute my post. Especially the bit about the Maoris.

Why would I use facts when you haven't - the one thing my posts have that your lack is critical thinking.

as any professional historian, scientist, archeologist or whatever will tell you is that facts alone are nothing, it is the analysis and assembly of facts into a theory that is important.

In fact "facts" in history and science or any form of academia are few and far between, it is the proposal of a THEORY that is most important - and let me distinguish between the academic meaning of theory and the simple everyday linguistic meaning which is actually only hypothesis.

Edited January 13, 2017 by Alan Deer

[KarenBravo]

Also from Wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moriori

 

A few more for you.

http://m.nzherald.co.nz/northern-advocate/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503450&objectid=11086095

https://infogr.am/themoriori-genocide

https://rmtowersconspiracy.wordpress.com/2013/01/27/new-zealand-before-the-maori/

http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-TreRace-t1-body-d22-d2.html

 

There are loads of others.

You are just plain wrong. Any comment about my assertions for the Europeans and Japanese that I mentioned?

Love it when people big themselves up saying how much they know.

Edited January 13, 2017 by KarenBravo

[Alan Deer]

3 hours ago, overherebc said:

 

Can we go for Brits and not just English.?

If you don't agree I'll play bagpipes outside your house every morning for a month.

No - you have to very careful who you mean by British...they are for instance not Britons, or English and in 1801-  AFTER Cooke landed i Oz - Great Britain included Ireland, but with your "500" years ago your are definitely talking about ENGLISH.

[champers]

On 3/30/2016 at 0:41 PM, transam said:

But then you must look at the USA, or even the South America's with their Spanish stuff. England had 500 years of Italians, thankfully they left...So where do we start or Stop...?

We're gonna build a wall ..... said Hadrian.

[Alan Deer]

6 minutes ago, KarenBravo said:

Also from Wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moriori

 

A few more for you.

http://m.nzherald.co.nz/northern-advocate/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503450&objectid=11086095

https://infogr.am/themoriori-genocide

https://rmtowersconspiracy.wordpress.com/2013/01/27/new-zealand-before-the-maori/

http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-TreRace-t1-body-d22-d2.html

 

There are loads of others.

You are just plain wrong. Any comment about my assertions for the Europeans and Japanese that I mentioned?

Love it when people big themselves up saying how much they know.

Oh dear - as I said you are an amateur and clearly have no idea on how to conduct research - in fact you haven't "researched" at all - all you have done is SEARCHED on Google - and then you don't appear to have the wherewithal to identify a historiographical piece or one that is pure conjecture.

If you do proper research (i have done several decades) you will learn how to differentiate  and you would also be aware that those "Hypotheses" (they barely qualify as that) have been soundly and roundly debunked - I bet you think Michelle Obama isa man and the never landed on the moon........

 

i notice too that you are unable to explain how you see the relevance between your outdated claims and the history of Australian indigenous people ......

[Alan Deer]

On 3/30/2016 at 0:53 PM, Fookhaht said:

After having studied the noble "American Revolution" all my life, imagine the shock of opening a British school boy's history book (while on vacation at a B&B in London), and seeing the dastardly chapter title: "The American Rebellion."

One man's revolution is another man's rebellion.

One man's invasion is another man's settlement.

Historians rewrite history all the time according to their own world and life view. Or according to a government's edict. Deal with it.

You appear in all your studies to have overlooked the fact that both sides in the American conflict were British subjects. ...and I wonder if you are aware of the part that Terra Nullius had in that conflict?

[Grouse]

Much of my response was light hearted, humorous even

 

If you wish me to provide a detailed analysis I WILL oblige but you may not like it...

[SheungWan]

 

48 minutes ago, Alan Deer said:

Oh dear - as I said you are an amateur and clearly have no idea on how to conduct research - in fact you haven't "researched" at all - all you have done is SEARCHED on Google - and then you don't appear to have the wherewithal to identify a historiographical piece or one that is pure conjecture.

If you do proper research (i have done several decades) you will learn how to differentiate  and you would also be aware that those "Hypotheses" (they barely qualify as that) have been soundly and roundly debunked - I bet you think Michelle Obama isa man and the never landed on the moon........

 

i notice too that you are unable to explain how you see the relevance between your outdated claims and the history of Australian indigenous people ......

 

Nothing more pompous than a retired historian, 'er living in Thailand........

Edited January 13, 2017 by SheungWan

[Alan Deer]

I'm most certainly not retired - I'm currently engaged on a project involving history of photography in Queensland

Despite the fact that Australia and the history has moved on, on this thread, there still seems to be a series of ill-conceived amateur  conjectures, suppositions and assumptions that have dragged the topic way off course.

What the UNSW is attempting is to use language that actually relates to the reality of events - you could no more call a settler a “pioneer” than you could call a 4 wheeled vehicle a motorcycle - it’s just not the right word.

 

(Incidentally I still prefer the use of Aborigine to Indigenous, because I know the meaning is nearer the truth - however like so many words in English through usage it has altered in meaning and carries with it a derogatory subtext; but that is another sub-topic)

 

My family settled in Queensland in the late 19^th Century, my father was born in the bush during a cyclone and partly as a result of that I was educated in UK where I got an hons degree in History.

I then moved to do an MA in Oz. On returning to Australia I was amazed to find that the vast majority of Australians were totally unconversant with even the most basic aspects of Australia history and even University staff and lecturers - many of whom were foreign - subscribed to a totally false interpretation - partly though ignorance and partly though fear of upsetting the apple cart.

 

Fortunately at that time thanks top Mabo, with a sympathetic federal government and the publication of a lot of new thinking the walls were beginning to tumble - however if I or my colleagues challenged the use of the word pioneer as a suitable description for those who settled on the land, we were met with blank disbelief.....

 

The semantics of colonisation and oppression were deeply ingrained throughout Australian society........some of the conversations I had with members of the public would have made a BNP member blush.

 

Fear and ignorance were still the order of the day.

 

In UK the words advocated by the Sydney Uni would not have caused a ripple even in the late 80s early 90s, but Australia was still hell-bent of hiding a past - a past that at theme it occurred was criticised by many but later on covered over by the States.....education, media and folklore all colluded to create a false past for an entire nation.......some of the rubbish taught was not just on a par with, it exceeded the  Russian propaganda of the cold war and the Japanese’s refusal to include WW2 in school text books - such was the disinformation spread throughout Australia.

However rule of law in Australia has been a strong feature of the 20^th century and the myths have been challenged and are being debunked.......so the “traditional” language is changing.

At first the “re-writing” of history was resisted vehemently by some who created the powerful but meaningless phrase “black armband” - on some occasions it was impossible to have a conversation about indigenous history, there was just continual denial and resistance to discussing Australian history.....yet the same Uni was teaching classes about such things as Renaissance art in Europe and the slaughter of indigenous peoples in the Americas.

Eventually it has been shown without doubt “that ‘black armband’ histories are not modern-day rewrites, motivated in part by anti-British sentiment.

On the contrary, apart from Aboriginal evidence, it is largely British opinions from the previous century which form the basis of current claims about the brutal nature of settlement. Nor were these nineteenth-century informants from the outer fringes of British colonial society. They included explorers, pastoralists, police, scrub-cutters, future parliamentarians and journalists” - Tim Bottoms - “Conspiracy of Silence” 2013

 

The key to understanding the need to change the language used to describe the distinctive but not unparalleled nature of  Aboriginal history in Australia - is in the concept of Terra Nullius and how it was applied.

 

Firstly someone unbelievably disputed the existence of the concept of Terra Nullius under international law in the 18^th and 19^th centuries.

 

So. Here’s a brief rundown on that...

 

The history of international law goes back thousands of years - over 2000 BC to  Mesopotamia for example.

 

After the collapse of the Roman empire international law was used to help the city states communicate and above all trade - trade is the mainstay of international law.

 

The treaty of Westphalia [1648] is often regarded as the first example of “modern international law -

 

This abstract from a paper by Alexander Orakhelashvili - 2006 is interesting as it is relevant to the use of Terra Nullius in particular in Oz....

 

https://academic.oup.com/ejil/article/17/2/315/2756256/The-Idea-of-European-International-Law

 

Doctrinal attempts to identify European international law relate to developments in the period from the 1648 Peace of Westphalia to the First World War. In the 18th century Moser developed the idea of the European law of nations, but did not conceive it as an exclusive system; he denied European nations any right to infringe on the sovereignty of other countries in a manner that was inconsistent with the law of nature. Whatever the tenets of the positive European law of nations, the law of nature did not allow European powers to establish colonies against the will of the communities concerned. The concept of ‘public law of Europe’, introduced in the 18th century by French, Spanish and German legal scholars, referred mainly to treaty practice among European states. These teachings were not necessarily exclusivist, but engaged in descriptive analysis of treaty practice.

 

 

********

 

The concept of Terra Nullius was used extensively in the Americas but before the American revolution it was largely abandoned and is a major reason (more than tea and taxes) for the eventual separation if Britain from the colonies. Basically Britain made a load of treaties with the Native American Nations and the revolutionaries realised that if they broke with the British they could break the treaties and expend westward into what they were to regard again as Terra Nullius.

 

This also lead to the end of deportation to the states - some 120,000 “criminals” were sent there.....and signalled the start of British expansion Eastward.....Australia looked to be a suitable place for convicts and convicts were suitable fodder for colonising a continent.

 

 

If it wasn’t for Terra Nullius - the would probably have been no grounds for the term invasion - for instance in most countries around the world Britain -on paper at least - was signing treaties with the indigenous people they were exploiting...or coming to arrangement recognised under the international law of the time.

 

By the time Cook set out for Oz - “The use of Terra Nullius had ceased in other British colonies(e.g. in North America).

 

“The early nineteenth century in fact saw the rise of an active British humanitarian movement seeking to improve the conditions of indigenous people throughout the empire. The movement achieved many successes, such as the abolition of slavery in the colonies. In Britain and Australia there were vocal, powerful people, both inside and outside the government, who urged that terra nullius had been a terrible injustice to the Aborigines.” - http://treatyrepublic.net/content/terra-nullius

 

Cook was under strict orders from both the Royal Society and the British government which he received before he set of on his scientific tour of the Southern Hemisphere - remember his main task was ostensibly to do the Venus measurement experiment. (look it up!)

 

“James Douglas was the president of the Royal Society. He knew that Cook's expedition was likely to encounter "natives of the several Lands where the Ship may touch." He instructed Cook to "exercise the utmost patience and forbearance" when he met them. In particular, he warned Cook not to attempt the conquest of their land, because any such attempt would be unlawful. "They are the natural, and in the strictest sense of the word, the legal possessors of the several Regions they inhabit," Douglas reasoned. "No European Nation has a right to occupy any part of their country, or settle among them without their voluntary consent. Conquest over such people can give no just title." - [ibid]

 

Cooke was also given “confidential orders from the British Government who wanted to use the trip to explore the possibilities of the still unchartered land in the South “terra australis incognita” first suggested or described by ancient Greek philosophers....and already mapped to a large extent the Dutch - the British government had decided to move or be beaten to it by the French or even the Dutch.....

 

He was told to

 "endeavour by all proper means to cultivate a friendship and alliance with them." Cook was not to seize the land if it was inhabited. He was told instead: "You are also with the consent of the natives to take possession of convenient situations in the country in the name of the king of Great Britain, or, if you find the country uninhabited take possession for His Majesty." - [ibid]

 

 So what went wrong? Basically settlers and then states took the law into their own hands and set about exterminating the native inhabitants wherever they wanted the land - often whole communities were shot poisoned tortured and women and children raped and killed; their land was taken but then frequently abandoned as the Europeans didn’t know how to use it.

 It wasn’t so much the British government, it was the local State/colonial governments and the “settlers” themselves who perpetrated these crimes.

 They weren’t “pioneers” which suggests some kind of glorious trailblazing - they were farmers who indulged in genocide.

 

 So this is why the vocabulary used is redundant or misleading....and not just the UNSW is changing their attitude it is all of Australia is learning and coming to terms with the truth..

 The QLD premier basically agrees......

“"For many years Australian schools and Australian institutions have not told the truth about the way in which Australia was settled," Premier Palaszczuk said on Wednesday.” - BBC

 

However as an alumni of UQ I am not in the slightest surprised to hear they may be dragging their heels - after all it is Queensland that has the most to hide.

 

 

 

[Alan Deer]

1 hour ago, Grouse said:

Much of my response was light hearted, humorous even

 

If you wish me to provide a detailed analysis I WILL oblige but you may not like it...

please do.

[Tawan Dok Krating Daeng]

1 hour ago, Alan Deer said:

I'm most certainly not retired - I'm currently engaged on a project involving history of photography in Queensland

 

 

Despite the fact that Australia and the history has moved on, on this thread, there still seems to be a series of ill-conceived amateur  conjectures, suppositions and assumptions that have dragged the topic way off course.

What the UNSW is attempting is to use language that actually relates to the reality of events - you could no more call a settler a “pioneer” than you could call a 4 wheeled vehicle a motorcycle - it’s just not the right word.

 

 

(Incidentally I still prefer the use of Aborigine to Indigenous, because I know the meaning is nearer the truth - however like so many words in English through usage it has altered in meaning and carries with it a derogatory subtext; but that is another sub-topic)

 

 

My family settled in Queensland in the late 19^th Century, my father was born in the bush during a cyclone and partly as a result of that I was educated in UK where I got an hons degree in History.

 

I then moved to do an MA in Oz. On returning to Australia I was amazed to find that the vast majority of Australians were totally unconversant with even the most basic aspects of Australia history and even University staff and lecturers - many of whom were foreign - subscribed to a totally false interpretation - partly though ignorance and partly though fear of upsetting the apple cart.

 

 

Fortunately at that time thanks top Mabo, with a sympathetic federal government and the publication of a lot of new thinking the walls were beginning to tumble - however if I or my colleagues challenged the use of the word pioneer as a suitable description for those who settled on the land, we were met with blank disbelief.....

 

 

The semantics of colonisation and oppression were deeply ingrained throughout Australian society........some of the conversations I had with members of the public would have made a BNP member blush.

 

 

Fear and ignorance were still the order of the day.

 

 

In UK the words advocated by the Sydney Uni would not have caused a ripple even in the late 80s early 90s, but Australia was still hell-bent of hiding a past - a past that at theme it occurred was criticised by many but later on covered over by the States.....education, media and folklore all colluded to create a false past for an entire nation.......some of the rubbish taught was not just on a par with, it exceeded the  Russian propaganda of the cold war and the Japanese’s refusal to include WW2 in school text books - such was the disinformation spread throughout Australia.

 

However rule of law in Australia has been a strong feature of the 20^th century and the myths have been challenged and are being debunked.......so the “traditional” language is changing.

 

At first the “re-writing” of history was resisted vehemently by some who created the powerful but meaningless phrase “black armband” - on some occasions it was impossible to have a conversation about indigenous history, there was just continual denial and resistance to discussing Australian history.....yet the same Uni was teaching classes about such things as Renaissance art in Europe and the slaughter of indigenous peoples in the Americas.

 

Eventually it has been shown without doubt “that ‘black armband’ histories are not modern-day rewrites, motivated in part by anti-British sentiment.

 

On the contrary, apart from Aboriginal evidence, it is largely British opinions from the previous century which form the basis of current claims about the brutal nature of settlement. Nor were these nineteenth-century informants from the outer fringes of British colonial society. They included explorers, pastoralists, police, scrub-cutters, future parliamentarians and journalists” - Tim Bottoms - “Conspiracy of Silence” 2013

 

 

The key to understanding the need to change the language used to describe the distinctive but not unparalleled nature of  Aboriginal history in Australia - is in the concept of Terra Nullius and how it was applied.

 

 

Firstly someone unbelievably disputed the existence of the concept of Terra Nullius under international law in the 18^th and 19^th centuries.

 

 

So. Here’s a brief rundown on that...

 

 

The history of international law goes back thousands of years - over 2000 BC to  Mesopotamia for example.

 

 

After the collapse of the Roman empire international law was used to help the city states communicate and above all trade - trade is the mainstay of international law.

 

 

The treaty of Westphalia [1648] is often regarded as the first example of “modern international law -

 

 

This abstract from a paper by Alexander Orakhelashvili - 2006 is interesting as it is relevant to the use of Terra Nullius in particular in Oz....

 

 

https://academic.oup.com/ejil/article/17/2/315/2756256/The-Idea-of-European-International-Law

 

 

Doctrinal attempts to identify European international law relate to developments in the period from the 1648 Peace of Westphalia to the First World War. In the 18th century Moser developed the idea of the European law of nations, but did not conceive it as an exclusive system; he denied European nations any right to infringe on the sovereignty of other countries in a manner that was inconsistent with the law of nature. Whatever the tenets of the positive European law of nations, the law of nature did not allow European powers to establish colonies against the will of the communities concerned. The concept of ‘public law of Europe’, introduced in the 18th century by French, Spanish and German legal scholars, referred mainly to treaty practice among European states. These teachings were not necessarily exclusivist, but engaged in descriptive analysis of treaty practice.

 

 

 

********

 

 

The concept of Terra Nullius was used extensively in the Americas but before the American revolution it was largely abandoned and is a major reason (more than tea and taxes) for the eventual separation if Britain from the colonies. Basically Britain made a load of treaties with the Native American Nations and the revolutionaries realised that if they broke with the British they could break the treaties and expend westward into what they were to regard again as Terra Nullius.

 

 

This also lead to the end of deportation to the states - some 120,000 “criminals” were sent there.....and signalled the start of British expansion Eastward.....Australia looked to be a suitable place for convicts and convicts were suitable fodder for colonising a continent.

 

 

 

If it wasn’t for Terra Nullius - the would probably have been no grounds for the term invasion - for instance in most countries around the world Britain -on paper at least - was signing treaties with the indigenous people they were exploiting...or coming to arrangement recognised under the international law of the time.

 

 

By the time Cook set out for Oz - “The use of Terra Nullius had ceased in other British colonies(e.g. in North America).

 

 

“The early nineteenth century in fact saw the rise of an active British humanitarian movement seeking to improve the conditions of indigenous people throughout the empire. The movement achieved many successes, such as the abolition of slavery in the colonies. In Britain and Australia there were vocal, powerful people, both inside and outside the government, who urged that terra nullius had been a terrible injustice to the Aborigines.” - http://treatyrepublic.net/content/terra-nullius

 

 

Cook was under strict orders from both the Royal Society and the British government which he received before he set of on his scientific tour of the Southern Hemisphere - remember his main task was ostensibly to do the Venus measurement experiment. (look it up!)

 

 

“James Douglas was the president of the Royal Society. He knew that Cook's expedition was likely to encounter "natives of the several Lands where the Ship may touch." He instructed Cook to "exercise the utmost patience and forbearance" when he met them. In particular, he warned Cook not to attempt the conquest of their land, because any such attempt would be unlawful. "They are the natural, and in the strictest sense of the word, the legal possessors of the several Regions they inhabit," Douglas reasoned. "No European Nation has a right to occupy any part of their country, or settle among them without their voluntary consent. Conquest over such people can give no just title." - [ibid]

 

 

Cooke was also given “confidential orders from the British Government who wanted to use the trip to explore the possibilities of the still unchartered land in the South “terra australis incognita” first suggested or described by ancient Greek philosophers....and already mapped to a large extent the Dutch - the British government had decided to move or be beaten to it by the French or even the Dutch.....

 

 

He was told to

 

 "endeavour by all proper means to cultivate a friendship and alliance with them." Cook was not to seize the land if it was inhabited. He was told instead: "You are also with the consent of the natives to take possession of convenient situations in the country in the name of the king of Great Britain, or, if you find the country uninhabited take possession for His Majesty." - [ibid]

 

 

 So what went wrong? Basically settlers and then states took the law into their own hands and set about exterminating the native inhabitants wherever they wanted the land - often whole communities were shot poisoned tortured and women and children raped and killed; their land was taken but then frequently abandoned as the Europeans didn’t know how to use it.

 

 It wasn’t so much the British government, it was the local State/colonial governments and the “settlers” themselves who perpetrated these crimes.

 

 They weren’t “pioneers” which suggests some kind of glorious trailblazing - they were farmers who indulged in genocide.

 

 

 So this is why the vocabulary used is redundant or misleading....and not just the UNSW is changing their attitude it is all of Australia is learning and coming to terms with the truth..

 

 The QLD premier basically agrees......

 

“"For many years Australian schools and Australian institutions have not told the truth about the way in which Australia was settled," Premier Palaszczuk said on Wednesday.” - BBC

 

 

However as an alumni of UQ I am not in the slightest surprised to hear they may be dragging their heels - after all it is Queensland that has the most to hide.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think the key element in your thesis of Terra Nulius and its application to International Law is the idea of the nation state. The idea of the nation state was introduced by the Treaty of Westphalia that essentially ended the former Medieval regime of feudal states and religious conflict. International Law became the means by which Nation States would engage with each other. It could be argued that the indigenous people of Australia did not exist within a Nation State so that the precedent of International Law would not apply but Terra Nulius cemented the idea of an unclaimed territory by denying the existence of the indigenous people completely.

 

I am more interested in the changing interpretations of history. It is clearly a necessary activity. The invasion or colonization of Australia occurred at a time when the British Empire was going through its 2nd Expansionary period which like the 1st period that saw the colonization of North America was opportunistic and mercantilistic. The British were looking for trade and they were looking for locations and materials to equip their ships. These were the reasons that the British established footholds in many places. In the early 19th Century however, it seemed that the British developed a missionary sense to make the world a better place. It would be said to be the Triumph of Liberalism. The slave trade was defeated. Governor's General were appointed to bring the benefits of British civilization the world's ignorant. This missionary zeal for progress was a contributing factor to the way indigenous people were treated in Australia during the settler and colonial period and evidence of these beliefs existin attitudes among Non Aboriginal people towards Aboriginal people to this day.

 

I am an admirer of British historian Simon Schama who dealt with this topic of the change in focus of British Colonialism from opportunistic indifference to active proselytization of liberalism in the episode of this History of Britain entitled 'The Empire of Good Intentions'

 

"They had a vision that their Empire was the best the world had ever seen because it was built on virtue."

http://subsaga.com/bbc/documentaries/history/a-history-of-britain-by-simon-schama/series-3/3-the-empire-of-good-intentions.html

 

I recall when the term 'settlement' was being substituted by the term 'invasion' and the howls of outrage that resulted. This was in the 80's. I also recall the tent cities in Canberra in the 70's. I am still embarrassed by the Howard Government's refusal to issue an apology to indigenous Australians for so long and it took until 2008 for the Rudd Government to issue that apology. It is a small, but significant step. The use of the term 'invasion' was deliberately provocative. It has achieved its purpose and it is now inappropriate to use the term 'settlement' when referring to the colonization of Australia. To the old Brits whose lives are defined by their lost Empire, such usage will always be contentious. Tough. To those Australians who still cannot accept this term, you are most definitely on the wrong side of history. Whether such non acceptance is due to the very virulent racism that runs through white Australian culture or through ignorance of history is not really that important. What is important is to realize that such attitudes continue the marginalization of indigenous Australians and presents real barriers to developing an accommodation between Aboriginal and Non Aboriginal Australians.

 

 

Edited January 13, 2017 by Tawan Dok Krating Daeng

[NumbNut]

^^^

EXCELLENT post! You've encapsulated above what Alan Deer was getting at, apologies Alan if this is not correct.

 

There may well be more posts on this thread coming up to (Australia Day, Invasion Day, Barbie & Pissup Day, Wear the Aussie flag Around Your Neck Like a Superman Cape Day) 26th January but we could probably stop this thread now. You've hit the nails on their collective heads in five succinct paragraphs, I wish I could be so brief and clear in my posts.

 

The right side of history... can't think of a more apt way to put it.

[transam]

13 hours ago, overherebc said:

 

Can we go for Brits and not just English.?

If you don't agree I'll play bagpipes outside your house every morning for a month.

Sorry, I thought the Romans stopped at Hadrians wall...I failed history O level..

[overherebc]

8 minutes ago, transam said:

Sorry, I thought the Romans stopped at Hadrians wall...I failed history O level..

 

Me too?

[scorecard]

On 3/30/2016 at 0:23 PM, SgtRock said:

At the time of the prison ships, Australia's population is estimated to have been around 5000. I do not think that there would have been many land grabs or people being dispossessed.

I take it that is what you meant and not people being disposed of.

 

Let's also recognize that on at least some of these sailing ships there were free settlers.

 

My great grandmother (my mother's side of the family), came to OZ with her parents as free settlers, on a convict ship. I recall as a small kid great grandmother telling us she actually went to school on the sailing ship for 2 hours a day. I'm told she wrote a book about her experiences over the 9 months she spent on the ship, but sadly I've never seen the book. 

 

My great grandfather (my mother's side my family) was a boy convict, removed from his family in England and transported alone. He later married my great grandmother (above). I'm told he remained illiterate to his passing, but also became a successful businessman to make & repair horse carts and similar, with his wife keeping records and explaining every document to him.

 

 

 

 

[Alan Deer]

1 hour ago, transam said:

Sorry, I thought the Romans stopped at Hadrians wall...I failed history O level..

England didn't exist under the Romans....that concept came later from the Angles..hence the name.

[Alan Deer]

On 30/03/2016 at 0:23 PM, SgtRock said:

At the time of the prison ships, Australia's population is estimated to have been around 5000. I do not think that there would have been many land grabs or people being dispossessed.

I take it that is what you meant and not people being disposed of.

Totally incorrect...the population was between 750000 and 1.25 million...largely concentrated in the areas now inhabited by the invaders 

[paulinbkk111]

Perhaps these Unis should spend more time dealing with current Indigenous issues such as prison rates, unemployment, seperated families from their culture, support services, high suicide rates and more, rather than just sitting in East Sydney with other academics discussing the semantics of an event 200 years ago. 

But that would be too hard and they wont be able to pat each other on the back.

[Alan Deer]

1 hour ago, scorecard said:

 

Let's also recognize that on at least some of these sailing ships there were free settlers.

 

My great grandmother (my mother's side of the family), came to OZ with her parents as free settlers, on a convict ship. I recall as a small kid great grandmother telling us she actually went to school on the sailing ship for 2 hours a day. I'm told she wrote a book about her experiences over the 9 months she spent on the ship, but sadly I've never seen the book. 

 

My great grandfather (my mother's side my family) was a boy convict, removed from his family in England and transported alone. He later married my great grandmother (above). I'm told he remained illiterate to his passing, but also became a successful businessman to make & repair horse carts and similar, with his wife keeping records and explaining every document to him.

 

 

 

 

   This doesnt directly relate to the topic but it does highlight how Australia has distorted their own history. The total number of convicts was actually quite small and over a long period, about 150000.  They were predominantly male and not all sent for life...many returned to UK or died. The concept that everyone who went to Oz stayed and wanted to found a new country is seriously flawed. Most "free" settlers wanted to make a fortune and then return to the "motherland"....of course this didn't work out as planned for many.

There is also the misconception that a large number of white Aussie families are descended from the original convict stock...in reality the numbers who claim this are pretty much mathematically impossible. The demographics simply don't support this.

There is also a changing attitude to genealogy...the sad idiot arm of history...as families who used to seek to deny convict heritage now flock to claim it....Irish descent was also out of fashion for some time as was mixed race.......people ovelook the fact that Ireland was in fact part of Great Britain for most of the colonial period.

[Alan Deer]

6 minutes ago, paulinbkk111 said:

Perhaps these Unis should spend more time dealing with current Indigenous issues such as prison rates, unemployment, seperated families from their culture, support services, high suicide rates and more, rather than just sitting in East Sydney with other academics discussing the semantics of an event 200 years ago. 

But that would be too hard and they wont be able to pat each other on the back.

It is unfortunate that you fail to see the connection...which has been reiterated several times in this thread

[billd766]

13 hours ago, Alan Deer said:

Now you are just showing your ignorance - if you don't know look it up don't just make baseless assumptions.

By the 18th Century there was a huge and sophisticated network of treaties and trade deals through out Europe that covered not only alliances but trade and carving up of the rest of the world in regards to colonies - Terra Nullius was one of the bases for this.

 

who do you think invented international law?????

 

No reply as usual. Just insult the poster instead.

 

So, tell all of us ignorant people.

 

Which countries DID invent international laws?

 

Where was the first international courts of law situated, in which country?

 

In what century and year was all this done?

 

You must know all about it because according to you it is true.

[Grouse]

On behalf of all British people I would like to apologise for invading Australia.

 

We should have left the place to the Aborigines and the Kangaroos. I understand that contemporary Australians gained nothing from British culture over the centuries.

 

I will buy the next loud, bevested Australian I come across a beer and beg forgiveness. 

 

 

[Fookhaht]

You appear in all your studies to have overlooked the fact that both sides in the American conflict were British subjects. ...and I wonder if you are aware of the part that Terra Nullius had in that conflict?

"Subjects" is a term open to wide interpretation when a revolution is involved.

Indeed, the Declaration of Independence declared that the colonists had suddenly declared themselves "non-subjects."


Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect