University tells students Britain 'invaded' Australia

[kaorop]

Without reading all the posts, I assume someone mentioned the Brits declared Oz "Terra Anullas" (or something) it meant un-occupied land as in NO human habitation, when CLEARLY there was.

And then, to make that true,  began a "cleansing" program. btw i'm 1/8th aboriginal, 7/8th scottish crim.

[Mojomor]

Well, it's fairly obvious that Britain invaded Australia, so this thread is quite pointless

[SheungWan]

On 1/13/2017 at 11:34 PM, Alan Deer said:

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.

 

Hello Post-modernist gobbledegook!

[SheungWan]

1 hour ago, Mojomor said:

Well, it's fairly obvious that Britain invaded Australia, so this thread is quite pointless

 

Australia as a State was founded post-British landing.

[SheungWan]

On 1/13/2017 at 11:58 PM, Alan Deer said:

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?

 

The leadership might have been but that doesn't account for all significant interested parties. Sloppy.

[NumbNut]

20 hours ago, Alan Deer said:

   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.

 

As you say Alan slightly off topic but it does have some bearing when you consider it was quite often remote convict labour living remotely from the squatters station caring for livestock or guarding crops that found themselves the first actual contact with the resident aboriginal population. 

 

We'll never know now how many of these first contacts were cordial and friendly or not, but what is not in dispute is the number of atrocities that occurred all over Australia that have been proved to have involved convicts, at every level. Not hard to understand how brutalised convicts could act in this way either unfortunately, the frontier of Australia was a hard and unforgiving place. The times being as tough as they were still can not excuse whole families and extended family groups and clans being wiped out... shocking on any level.

 

I've read a couple of books about the convict history in Australia, starting with the famous 'The Fatal Shore' by Robert Hughes and also 'Australia's Birthstain: The Startling Legacy of the Convict Era' by Babette Smith. Both books do a good job of illuminating a large and indeed founding part of our history that has been neglected and in a lot of cases hidden for far too long. If we've ignoring or disregarded Aboriginal indigenous history we are actively guilty of camouflaging and in a lot of cases actually hiding convict history as it relates to Australia. And again, it's our loss that this is the case.

 

I'd love to see a bigger effort in our schools to teach the kids our true history. We all have the right to know our origins, where we came from, and HOW we came to be.

 

Incidentally, I read somewhere once more convicts were sent to North America pre-Revolutionary War then there was in total sent to the Australian colonies... fascinating if this is the case. Can you shed any light on this Alan?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[NumbNut]

20 hours ago, Grouse said:

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. 

 

 

No worries Grouse! It's all good. And get your hand out of your pocket, it's my shout mate. What's your poison? Would be a pleasure to have a beer(s) with you one day mate.

 

You can tell me how shit the Wallabies are or something eh.

 

 

[Alan Deer]

On 1/14/2017 at 2:27 AM, Tawan Dok Krating Daeng said:

 

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.

 

 

 

 

 I agree with most of what you say here - but Schama’s TV show doesn’t really relate the issues of colonialism to Australia, which, because of the declaration of “Terra Nullius” has a history that doesn’t parallel that of India. I think that although there is still a naive perception of colonialism as being “a good thing” - [v Grouse et all on this thread], Australians would have and did know a fair bit about colonial history - especially the Irish potato famine - but at the same time were/are completely ignorant of their own history. Such is the selective memory of a society with dark secrets.

It is worth bearing in mind that while Germany has confronted studied and accepted the horrors of their own past, Australia and along with countries like Japan even the USA to some extent have failed to do this - much to their shame.

 

 

“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'

 

Here., I also am a little concerned about your possible interpretation Schama’s TV show E14. Are you trying to say British colonialism as “benign”? Although there were those who considered colonialism with an almost evangelistic zeal, I think the evidence indicated the image was that of disaster and the overriding reality was that the urge was that of economic benefit...and that “good intentions were largely  superficial; a public relations exercise to sell colonialism to the increasingly enfranchised British public.

 

Schama talks almost exclusively about India (and Ireland) - not Africa and not Australia - and I would submit that in the case of  Australia hiss argument doesn’t fully apply does not apply.

 

Queensland - my own State was a particularly greedy and vicious example. There was no concept there or in the rest of Oz of bringing “civilization” to the Aborigines as their existence was officially denied the aim was to exterminate - a far cry from
India. - in Australia as a whole, the indigenous population as a whole didn’t even get equal voting rights until 1967. Again an example of how colonial attitudes extended right from the first fleet into modern times.

 

The occupation of Australia was dominated by other factors too - in Queensland there was also a couple of strategic aims as well

The Southern based government realize by the beginning of the 19^th century how big their new country was and recognized a need to reinforce their claim to the entire continent-----this led to a government sponsored effort to encourage settlers to move into the relatively uncomfortable sub-tropical and tropical north

 

It also lead to a very laisser-faire attitude as to how the land was acquired - the main concern was to ensure that it was surveyed and acquired. . Selections and pastoral leases were handed out - probably illegally to just about anyone who turned up.... abandonment was common.

 

Who were they afraid of? Well firstly, the French and any other nation that in theory could potentially lay claim to vast areas of this “uninhabited land”.

Secondly and later came the perceived threat of the “Asian hordes” who had traditionally been trading with Northern Australia for centuries before the Europeans arrived. Northern Australia was isolated from the Southern governments and was fast developing as a different quite multicultural society, which was deeply at odds with the plans of those in Sydney and Melbourne for a Whites only Australia.

 

As for “apologies” - remember it was under Keating that the recognition of land rights and dispossession took place - Rudd’s speech was an apology for the stolen generation.

 

There are 2 issues that Keating’s Redfern speech brought to the fore - apology for dispossession and apology for the stealing of children....” the stolen generations”

Mabo

Keating’s  speech 1992

“We did the dispossessing. We took the traditional lands and smashed the traditional way of life. We brought the diseases. The alcohol. We committed the murders. We took the children from their mothers. We practiced discrimination and exclusion.”

Rudd’s apology was for the stolen generations

“Kevin Rudd’s finest hour was the apology he delivered in February 2008 to the stolen generations. There were, however, certain limitations. First, Rudd’s speech did not transcend the confusion that had developed between the general historical apology to the Indigenous people and the historically specific one owed to the victims of Aboriginal child removal”. - guardian

 

Howard’s refusal makes my blood boil - with typical Howard response - “I don’t think it is necessary....” a total deriding of the significance of the situation....

 

Thanks to Howard the movement has lost some of its impetus...

“Despite the momentary excitement at the time of the Rudd apology, it has never returned. Insofar as there is any interest in Indigenous questions, it is now focused not on the quest for reconciliation but almost solely on closing the gap and the overcoming of what is called Indigenous community dysfunction.” Guardian

 

There was support - almost unnoticed surprisingly from this source .......

 

“, Tony Abbott, said: “We have never fully made peace with the first Australians. This is the stain on our soul. [Until we have acknowledged] that this land was as Aboriginal [in 1788] as it is Australian now … we will be an incomplete nation and a torn people.”

“In the Australian discourse over the dispossession, these words, spoken by the deeply conservative leader of the Liberal party, ought to have represented a moment of true significance in the moral history of the nation. The entire political spectrum was now united in a long-sought-after understanding: that the Indigenous people of Australia had suffered an unspeakable tragedy; that they were owed a heartfelt and humble apology from the people who had dispossessed them. Yet rather disconcerting, at least to me, was the fact that when that moment arrived, so thin had the moral atmosphere concerning the meaning of the dispossession become that hardly anyone seemed to notice. - Robert Manne - guardian

 

Despite all this there is a large group of uniformed even bigoted people who refuse to accept the truth....a wedge of the population that prefer to live in denial and prefer to use discredited and unscientific bunkum rather than face up to an undeniable truth that still affects Australian society today.

one example being that they ignored international law then and continue to do it today with the refugee/migrants they deal with.

[SaintLouisBlues]

 

6 minutes ago, Alan Deer said:

Despite all this there is a large group of uniformed even bigoted people who refuse to accept the truth....a wedge of the population that prefer to live in denial and prefer to use discredited and unscientific bunkum rather than face up to an undeniable truth that still affects Australian society today.

I've never met an Australian who cares about it, frankly, let alone "refusing to accept the truth"

[Grouse]

2 hours ago, NumbNut said:

 

No worries Grouse! It's all good. And get your hand out of your pocket, it's my shout mate. What's your poison? Would be a pleasure to have a beer(s) with you one day mate.

 

You can tell me how shit the Wallabies are or something eh.

 

 

 

Let's few cans of Irony Bru, cobber!

Edited January 15, 2017 by Grouse
Damn spell checker

[Grouse]

23 minutes ago, Alan Deer said:

 

 

 

 I agree with most of what you say here - but Schama’s TV show doesn’t really relate the issues of colonialism to Australia, which, because of the declaration of “Terra Nullius” has a history that doesn’t parallel that of India. I think that although there is still a naive perception of colonialism as being “a good thing” - [v Grouse et all on this thread], Australians would have and did know a fair bit about colonial history - especially the Irish potato famine - but at the same time were/are completely ignorant of their own history. Such is the selective memory of a society with dark secrets.

 

It is worth bearing in mind that while Germany has confronted studied and accepted the horrors of their own past, Australia and along with countries like Japan even the USA to some extent have failed to do this - much to their shame.

 

 

 

“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'

 

 

Here., I also am a little concerned about your possible interpretation Schama’s TV show E14. Are you trying to say British colonialism as “benign”? Although there were those who considered colonialism with an almost evangelistic zeal, I think the evidence indicated the image was that of disaster and the overriding reality was that the urge was that of economic benefit...and that “good intentions were largely  superficial; a public relations exercise to sell colonialism to the increasingly enfranchised British public.

 

 

Schama talks almost exclusively about India (and Ireland) - not Africa and not Australia - and I would submit that in the case of  Australia hiss argument doesn’t fully apply does not apply.

 

 

Queensland - my own State was a particularly greedy and vicious example. There was no concept there or in the rest of Oz of bringing “civilization” to the Aborigines as their existence was officially denied the aim was to exterminate - a far cry from
India. - in Australia as a whole, the indigenous population as a whole didn’t even get equal voting rights until 1967. Again an example of how colonial attitudes extended right from the first fleet into modern times.

 

 

The occupation of Australia was dominated by other factors too - in Queensland there was also a couple of strategic aims as well

 

The Southern based government realize by the beginning of the 19^th century how big their new country was and recognized a need to reinforce their claim to the entire continent-----this led to a government sponsored effort to encourage settlers to move into the relatively uncomfortable sub-tropical and tropical north

 

 

It also lead to a very laisser-faire attitude as to how the land was acquired - the main concern was to ensure that it was surveyed and acquired. . Selections and pastoral leases were handed out - probably illegally to just about anyone who turned up.... abandonment was common.

 

 

Who were they afraid of? Well firstly, the French and any other nation that in theory could potentially lay claim to vast areas of this “uninhabited land”.

 

Secondly and later came the perceived threat of the “Asian hordes” who had traditionally been trading with Northern Australia for centuries before the Europeans arrived. Northern Australia was isolated from the Southern governments and was fast developing as a different quite multicultural society, which was deeply at odds with the plans of those in Sydney and Melbourne for a Whites only Australia.

 

 

As for “apologies” - remember it was under Keating that the recognition of land rights and dispossession took place - Rudd’s speech was an apology for the stolen generation.

 

 

There are 2 issues that Keating’s Redfern speech brought to the fore - apology for dispossession and apology for the stealing of children....” the stolen generations”

 

Mabo

 

Keating’s  speech 1992

 

“We did the dispossessing. We took the traditional lands and smashed the traditional way of life. We brought the diseases. The alcohol. We committed the murders. We took the children from their mothers. We practiced discrimination and exclusion.”

 

Rudd’s apology was for the stolen generations

 

“Kevin Rudd’s finest hour was the apology he delivered in February 2008 to the stolen generations. There were, however, certain limitations. First, Rudd’s speech did not transcend the confusion that had developed between the general historical apology to the Indigenous people and the historically specific one owed to the victims of Aboriginal child removal”. - guardian

 

 

 

Howard’s refusal makes my blood boil - with typical Howard response - “I don’t think it is necessary....” a total deriding of the significance of the situation....

 

 

 

Thanks to Howard the movement has lost some of its impetus...

 

“Despite the momentary excitement at the time of the Rudd apology, it has never returned. Insofar as there is any interest in Indigenous questions, it is now focused not on the quest for reconciliation but almost solely on closing the gap and the overcoming of what is called Indigenous community dysfunction.” Guardian

 

 

 

There was support - almost unnoticed surprisingly from this source .......

 

 

 

“, Tony Abbott, said: “We have never fully made peace with the first Australians. This is the stain on our soul. [Until we have acknowledged] that this land was as Aboriginal [in 1788] as it is Australian now … we will be an incomplete nation and a torn people.”

 

“In the Australian discourse over the dispossession, these words, spoken by the deeply conservative leader of the Liberal party, ought to have represented a moment of true significance in the moral history of the nation. The entire political spectrum was now united in a long-sought-after understanding: that the Indigenous people of Australia had suffered an unspeakable tragedy; that they were owed a heartfelt and humble apology from the people who had dispossessed them. Yet rather disconcerting, at least to me, was the fact that when that moment arrived, so thin had the moral atmosphere concerning the meaning of the dispossession become that hardly anyone seemed to notice. - Robert Manne - guardian

 

 

 

Despite all this there is a large group of uniformed even bigoted people who refuse to accept the truth....a wedge of the population that prefer to live in denial and prefer to use discredited and unscientific bunkum rather than face up to an undeniable truth that still affects Australian society today.

 

one example being that they ignored international law then and continue to do it today with the refugee/migrants they deal with.

 

 

Firstly, let me say that I admire your erudition!

 

I need to clarify my position. My response was ironic and aimed to puncture some of the more pompous statements.

 

Of course we all understand The immorality of colonialism at least by 21st century standards. History should and must be taught but the sins of the fathers should not be visited upon the sons.

 

Finally to insinuate that nothing good came of British colonialism is just silly. It's at the level of what did the Romans ever do for us?

 

I think Australia is a great country with many fine institutions including its universities. To not acknowledge that even a tiny bit of this has resulted from British benign colonialism is churlish.

[Alan Deer]

2 hours ago, NumbNut said:

 

As you say Alan slightly off topic but it does have some bearing when you consider it was quite often remote convict labour living remotely from the squatters station caring for livestock or guarding crops that found themselves the first actual contact with the resident aboriginal population. 

 

We'll never know now how many of these first contacts were cordial and friendly or not, but what is not in dispute is the number of atrocities that occurred all over Australia that have been proved to have involved convicts, at every level. Not hard to understand how brutalised convicts could act in this way either unfortunately, the frontier of Australia was a hard and unforgiving place. The times being as tough as they were still can not excuse whole families and extended family groups and clans being wiped out... shocking on any level.

 

I've read a couple of books about the convict history in Australia, starting with the famous 'The Fatal Shore' by Robert Hughes and also 'Australia's Birthstain: The Startling Legacy of the Convict Era' by Babette Smith. Both books do a good job of illuminating a large and indeed founding part of our history that has been neglected and in a lot of cases hidden for far too long. If we've ignoring or disregarded Aboriginal indigenous history we are actively guilty of camouflaging and in a lot of cases actually hiding convict history as it relates to Australia. And again, it's our loss that this is the case.

 

I'd love to see a bigger effort in our schools to teach the kids our true history. We all have the right to know our origins, where we came from, and HOW we came to be.

 

Incidentally, I read somewhere once more convicts were sent to North America pre-Revolutionary War then there was in total sent to the Australian colonies... fascinating if this is the case. Can you shed any light on this Alan?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We actually DO know quite a lot about “first contacts” - governments and companies sent out well-documented expeditions and the allotting of land was also documented. Land claims, pastoral lease etc were documented by the State and local authorities....and there are many collections of letters from settlers (i have an extensive collection from my ancestors - a lot of it referring to the local indigenous people  - the Bama)

Once settlers had “staked their claim” - State governments would send out troops to areas that reported “trouble” with local indigenous groups and the common term used is “dispersal” - this actually means wholesale killing.

Although much was unreported at the time it has been pieced together by diligent research and figures of around 20,000 deaths at the hands of troopers plus the same again at the hands of settlers are accepted as VERY conservative figures. It is true that certain groups of indigenous people have disappeared without trace but others survive to tell the stories. The result is the discovery of massacres and killings throughout the country - but particularly in the northern states.......

Those you mention living remotely were not universally targeted and some had peaceful relations whilst others started by killing the first indigenous people they met.

Unfortunately killing was usually by ambush at dawn where a whole group would be exterminated - including women and children. Another method was to leave food around that had been laced with arsenic - the whole group would suffer a long lingering death.

 

 

It would be wrong to suggest that anything but a minority of these settlers were convicts - most were free settlers. Convicts had few options after “serving their term - they could attempt the dangerous trip home or remain in Oz - but they were largely stigmatized by the free settlers.

 

The 2 books you mention are fine...except they don’t really tackle the question of usurpation of indigenous lands and concentrate of te plight of convicts. As i said earlier - it is now fashionable for anyone and everyone to claim descent from a convict - and if the numbers are crunched the claims are simply mathematically impossible....a lot of the convict story has been distorted my that scourge of historiography - the genealogist.

 

In general Australia has done a good job of ignoring history - as I said earlier when I returned from UK I was astounded by the lack of historical knowledge of the average Aussies I encountered both socially and professionally.

 

“I'd love to see a bigger effort in our schools to teach the kids our true history. We all have the right to know our origins, where we came from, and HOW we came to be’

Well I think over the past few years this is beginning to happen - for multiple reasons which i won’t go into here - but the point about the OP is that Australian consciousness is turning and there are moves to improve the country’s attitude to it’s own history.

 

 

 Before the “loss of the America colonies” - a subject that America’s history is on a par with Australia’s in regards to misinformation and misinterpretation; it is generally accepted that about 120,000 convicts were shipped to the Americas against 150.000 to Australia.

There are a lot of formal complaints in existence from settlers in the American colonies complaining about the British policy of deportation of convicts to their shores - something that appears to have been brushed under the historical carpet in the USA.

[Panda13]

Let's not get the Irish started!

Or the Welsh !

Sent from my SM-G930F using Thaivisa Connect mobile app

[Alan Deer]

21 minutes ago, Grouse said:

 

Firstly, let me say that I admire your erudition!

 

I need to clarify my position. My response was ironic and aimed to puncture some of the more pompous statements.

 

Of course we all understand The immorality of colonialism at least by 21st century standards. History should and must be taught but the sins of the fathers should not be visited upon the sons.

 

Finally to insinuate that nothing good came of British colonialism is just silly. It's at the level of what did the Romans ever do for us?

 

I think Australia is a great country with many fine institutions including its universities. To not acknowledge that even a tiny bit of this has resulted from British benign colonialism is churlish.

 

2 points - 

1 - The invasion of Australia was against the morlaity of the time - see te application of Terra Nullius and the Instructions given to Cooke.

 

the effects of the denial of history permeate Australian society right up to today - so the OP is about eduction and how and qwhat history is taught today in australia.

 

 

acountry that is disconnected from the past is a country without culture or direction.

 

 

"Finally to insinuate that nothing good came of British colonialism is just silly. It's at the level of what did the Romans ever do for us?" - that is a facile remark - no-one has suggested that - it is often response from those who when confronted with new and challenging information don't know how to handle it -  the original Python sketch it is actually about those in denial of history. Members of the Python team who made life of Brian - Michael Palin studied history at Oxford

[Alan Deer]

55 minutes ago, SaintLouisBlues said:

 

I've never met an Australian who cares about it, frankly, let alone "refusing to accept the truth"

you have now!

[Grouse]

1 hour ago, Alan Deer said:

 

2 points - 

1 - The invasion of Australia was against the morlaity of the time - see te application of Terra Nullius and the Instructions given to Cooke.

 

the effects of the denial of history permeate Australian society right up to today - so the OP is about eduction and how and qwhat history is taught today in australia.

 

 

acountry that is disconnected from the past is a country without culture or direction.

 

 

"Finally to insinuate that nothing good came of British colonialism is just silly. It's at the level of what did the Romans ever do for us?" - that is a facile remark - no-one has suggested that - it is often response from those who when confronted with new and challenging information don't know how to handle it -  the original Python sketch it is actually about those in denial of history. Members of the Python team who made life of Brian - Michael Palin studied history at Oxford

 

There you go again! University education! Pah! 'Umbug!

 

Seriously, I don't doubt that appalling things occurred but some good things happened also, including you ?

[Grouse]

2 hours ago, Alan Deer said:

 

2 points - 

1 - The invasion of Australia was against the morlaity of the time - see te application of Terra Nullius and the Instructions given to Cooke.

 

the effects of the denial of history permeate Australian society right up to today - so the OP is about eduction and how and qwhat history is taught today in australia.

 

 

acountry that is disconnected from the past is a country without culture or direction.

 

 

"Finally to insinuate that nothing good came of British colonialism is just silly. It's at the level of what did the Romans ever do for us?" - that is a facile remark - no-one has suggested that - it is often response from those who when confronted with new and challenging information don't know how to handle it -  the original Python sketch it is actually about those in denial of history. Members of the Python team who made life of Brian - Michael Palin studied history at Oxford

http://www.samuelgriffith.org.au/papers/html/volume19/v19chap11.html

 

Dr Partington gives a balanced approach with which I agree.

[Alan Deer]

36 minutes ago, Grouse said:

http://www.samuelgriffith.org.au/papers/html/volume19/v19chap11.html

 

Dr Partington gives a balanced approach with which I agree.

 

I sense here a deep lack of understanding on your part.

 

Your post shows all there symptoms of someone who has scrabbled around for a few minutes on Google and come up with a hit - and rather than giving there own opinion or analysis or even an indication they’ve understood the article has hoped that by posting “what he says” next to it, that it will pass as an argument.

 

I have no idea what you mean by “balanced” unless it is yet another term you hope will lend gravitas to an opinion you haven’t actually expressed.

 

So basically you have left a random citation without any explanation - you really need to back yourself up here. How is it balanced and what precisely  do you agree with?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 15, 2017 by Alan Deer

[Thakkar]

4 hours ago, SaintLouisBlues said:

4 hours ago, Alan Deer said:

Despite all this there is a large group of uniformed even bigoted people who refuse to accept the truth....a wedge of the population that prefer to live in denial and prefer to use discredited and unscientific bunkum rather than face up to an undeniable truth that still affects Australian society today.

I've never met an Australian who cares about it, frankly, let alone "refusing to accept the truth"

 

I think Alan's point is that they *should* care about it. And I think that they themselves would be all the more enriched if they did.

Edited January 15, 2017 by Thakkar
Changed "isn't" to "is"

[Grouse]

44 minutes ago, Alan Deer said:

 

I sense here a deep lack of understanding on your part.

 

Your post shows all there symptoms of someone who has scrabbled around for a few minutes on Google and come up with a hit - and rather than giving there own opinion or analysis or even an indication they’ve understood the article has hoped that by posting “what he says” next to it, that it will pass as an argument.

 

I have no idea what you mean by “balanced” unless it is yet another term you hope will lend gravitas to an opinion you haven’t actually expressed.

 

So basically you have left a random citation without any explanation - you really need to back yourself up here. How is it balanced and what precisely  do you agree with?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yes, I am no specialist Historian but pretty well read. I was surprised that I had not come across the term Terra Nullius previously. Brief research informs that this is almost exclusively used with respect to Australia. 

 

I scanned the article and closely read the conclusions which seem fair to me.

 

I have nothing against your highly praiseworthy research and agree that the history must be taught.

 

However, a little more balance would be appreciated ?

[SheungWan]

1 hour ago, Thakkar said:

 

I think Alan's point is that they *should* care about it. And I think that they themselves would be all the more enriched if they did.

 

You mean as opposed to performing an academic show-off routine?

Edited January 15, 2017 by SheungWan

[Thakkar]

54 minutes ago, SheungWan said:

 

You mean as opposed to performing an academic show-off routine?

 

I suppose that, for the sake of humility, we should all have zero facts, zero knowledge based discussions. 

[SheungWan]

19 minutes ago, Thakkar said:

 

I suppose that, for the sake of humility, we should all have zero facts, zero knowledge based discussions. 

 

After you Claude.

[SaintLouisBlues]

6 hours ago, Alan Deer said:

you have now!

Precisely my point - a tiny, tiny minority. In the office where I sometimes work in Australia the main topics of conversation and the most read section of the newspaper relate to sport - "footy", cricket and occasionally tennis. Survey after survey after survey about what concerns most Australians are their jobs, their families and their health. Occasionally someone might mention global warming or "gay marriage". The white invasion? An obsession of the 10% or so who make up the chattering classes. The 90% aren't in denial, they just don't think about it

[Alan Deer]

2 hours ago, Grouse said:

 

Yes, I am no specialist Historian but pretty well read. I was surprised that I had not come across the term Terra Nullius previously. Brief research informs that this is almost exclusively used with respect to Australia. 

 

I scanned the article and closely read the conclusions which seem fair to me.

 

I have nothing against your highly praiseworthy research and agree that the history must be taught.

 

However, a little more balance would be appreciated ?

 

 

“However, a little more balance would be appreciated” - I have no idea of what you mean by “balance” - this is a meaningless expression......if I put forward a theory that the world is round - what is the “balance” to that?

Any theory - scientific or historical is not a matter of balance it is a matter of examining the evidence and then putting forward your theory - words like “balance and bias are for the likes of Fox News and propagandists.

If you have an objection to any of the information I have presented then I suggest rather than imply it is “unbalanced”, why not actually come up with a counter argument......vaguely invoking citing an ultra-rightwing historian when you haven’t even read his paper seems a rather pointless.

So please say what you think is “unbalanced”.......

 

 

 

 

Terra Nullius -

I suspect your “brief research” was in fact not research at all but a search on Google.....and not a very thorough one at that

A little bit more effort would have revealed that Terra Nullius.......

“Sovereignty over territory which is terra nullius may be acquired through occupation,’

............ dates back a long, long way:-

“ declaring war against all non-Christians throughout the world and authorizing the conquest of their nations and territories. These edicts treated non-Christians as uncivilized and subhuman, and therefore without rights to any land or nation. Christian leaders claimed a God-given right to take control of all lands and used this idea to justify war, colonization, and even slavery. Romanus Pontifex, (meaning empty land). It gave the kings and princes of Europe the right to "discover" or claim land in non-Christian areas. This policy was extended in 1452 when Pope Nicholas V issued the bull Papal Bull Terra NulliusIn 1095, at the beginning of the Crusades, Pope Urban II issued an edict-the

 

It was used in the colonisation of the Americas

was a well-established idea in the Christian world. When he reached the Americas, Columbus performed a ceremony to "take possession" of all lands "discovered," meaning all territory not occupied by Christians.”Doctrine of Discovery“By the time Christopher Columbus set sail in 1492, this

 After the war of independence it was invoked to justify the annexation and invasion of all the lands to the west o=f the original colonies.

 In 1835 - well after Cooke - The Proclamation of Governor Bourke implemented the doctrine of terra nullius upon which British settlement was based, reinforcing the notion that the land belonged to no one prior to the British Crown taking possession of it. Aboriginal people therefore could not sell or assign the land, nor could an individual person acquire it, other than through distribution by the Crown.

 There are still lands today that are regarded a Terra Nullius - mostly uninhabited and desolate....

 “As a consequence of the border dispute between Croatia and Serbia, there are some areas along the western bank of the Danube river that are unclaimed by either country. Serbia has de facto control over areas where territorial claims of both nations overlap, while Croatia has control over the mutually unclaimed parts” - wiki

 There is land between Egypt and Sudan too....historically places such as Greenland and Antarctica fall or fell under this law.

 

 

 

[Alan Deer]

9 minutes ago, SaintLouisBlues said:

Precisely my point - a tiny, tiny minority. In the office where I sometimes work in Australia the main topics of conversation and the most read section of the newspaper relate to sport - "footy", cricket and occasionally tennis. Survey after survey after survey about what concerns most Australians are their jobs, their families and their health. Occasionally someone might mention global warming or "gay marriage". The white invasion? An obsession of the 10% or so who make up the chattering classes. The 90% aren't in denial, they just don't think about it

" The 90% aren't in denial, they just don't think about it" - QED?

[SaintLouisBlues]

15 minutes ago, Alan Deer said:

" The 90% aren't in denial, they just don't think about it" - QED?

They're not in denial, they just don't give a - what's the expression? - "a rat's ****". They don't care whether it happened or not, it's utterly irrelevant to their entire life. If you want to turn that into some arcane notion of "denial", knock your sox off. Denial means an unwillingness to face reality; it's simply not part of their reality. Doubly so if you're a first or second generation migrant, which now encompasses a significant proportion of the population

Edited January 15, 2017 by SaintLouisBlues

[Dipterocarp]

Almost every country in the world was stolen from the natives at some point or another.

 

Colonialism and genocide is nothing to be proud of but at what point do we decide we are all in the same boat

NOW and stop using race and history as an excuse? As far as I know (except for a couple uncles who were hippie bums) my ancestors came off a boat in NY harbor and worked for living.  You want to live in a hut in the bush fine don't expect me to pay for it.  Wont go away though this apologetic handwringing provides a reason for existence for many of these academic bludgerers.

Edited January 15, 2017 by Dipterocarp

[Grouse]

43 minutes ago, Alan Deer said:

 

 

“However, a little more balance would be appreciated” - I have no idea of what you mean by “balance” - this is a meaningless expression......if I put forward a theory that the world is round - what is the “balance” to that?

 

Any theory - scientific or historical is not a matter of balance it is a matter of examining the evidence and then putting forward your theory - words like “balance and bias are for the likes of Fox News and propagandists.

 

If you have an objection to any of the information I have presented then I suggest rather than imply it is “unbalanced”, why not actually come up with a counter argument......vaguely invoking citing an ultra-rightwing historian when you haven’t even read his paper seems a rather pointless.

 

So please say what you think is “unbalanced”.......

 

 

 

 

 

Terra Nullius -

 

I suspect your “brief research” was in fact not research at all but a search on Google.....and not a very thorough one at that

 

A little bit more effort would have revealed that Terra Nullius.......

 

“Sovereignty over territory which is terra nullius may be acquired through occupation,’

 

............ dates back a long, long way:-

 

“ declaring war against all non-Christians throughout the world and authorizing the conquest of their nations and territories. These edicts treated non-Christians as uncivilized and subhuman, and therefore without rights to any land or nation. Christian leaders claimed a God-given right to take control of all lands and used this idea to justify war, colonization, and even slavery. Romanus Pontifex, (meaning empty land). It gave the kings and princes of Europe the right to "discover" or claim land in non-Christian areas. This policy was extended in 1452 when Pope Nicholas V issued the bull Papal Bull Terra NulliusIn 1095, at the beginning of the Crusades, Pope Urban II issued an edict-the

 

 

It was used in the colonisation of the Americas

 

was a well-established idea in the Christian world. When he reached the Americas, Columbus performed a ceremony to "take possession" of all lands "discovered," meaning all territory not occupied by Christians.”Doctrine of Discovery“By the time Christopher Columbus set sail in 1492, this

 

 After the war of independence it was invoked to justify the annexation and invasion of all the lands to the west o=f the original colonies.

 

 In 1835 - well after Cooke - The Proclamation of Governor Bourke implemented the doctrine of terra nullius upon which British settlement was based, reinforcing the notion that the land belonged to no one prior to the British Crown taking possession of it. Aboriginal people therefore could not sell or assign the land, nor could an individual person acquire it, other than through distribution by the Crown.

 

 There are still lands today that are regarded a Terra Nullius - mostly uninhabited and desolate....

 

 “As a consequence of the border dispute between Croatia and Serbia, there are some areas along the western bank of the Danube river that are unclaimed by either country. Serbia has de facto control over areas where territorial claims of both nations overlap, while Croatia has control over the mutually unclaimed parts” - wiki

 

 There is land between Egypt and Sudan too....historically places such as Greenland and Antarctica fall or fell under this law.

 

 

 

 

 

You, sir, are pompous, bumptious even

 

This is a public forum and it is not the correct forum for academic minutiae 

 

My view, as expressed previously, as a layman (I had better say lay PERSON for you) is that shameful things were done in the past. This is now. Not everything the British did was bad. You personally Have benefited from our shared ancestry.

 

Now thanks for all the interesting history but try and take a balanced view (or a drink)?

[i claudius]

I love all the handwringers in these country's who go on about how The "invaders" stole the land etc,well think on luvvies,if they hadn't,you wouldn't be around now living there in comfort and winging on

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