White-blindfold-view of Australian history

Argument by Ray Jackson against a polemic in “The Australian” newspaper, “The grim legacy of compassion”

the paean to assimilation by patrick mccauley is most surely seen only through his eyes that are wrapped up in the white-blindfold-view of history whereby it becomes confused, contorted and seriously contentious.

i have no idea who mccauley is even though seeking information on google
but whoever he be he must be answered by argument against his polemic.
hopefully i will go some way to doing that.

the quote from noel pearson merely mirrors his and white australia's view
that all we need in the constitution is mention that we, or rather our
ancestors, were the original custodians of australia and we can all live
happily ever after. we won’t and they won’t and he won’t so let's do
something positive instead. sovereignty, treaties and social justice.
then, and only then, we can begin the chat on reconciliation.

yes, the term australia is a white construct but to then go on to opine
that because our ancestors had not mapped nor named this continent is of
little import. he is totally wrong about the mapping anyway as we knew
every square inch or millimetre of our lands. we had trade routes set up,
giving us a knowledge of the lands that was far beyond those of ancient
europe. naming strengthens ownership and this island continent belonged to
us as individual nations. and where europe fought bloody wars for land we
lived quite peacefully in our own nations. the europeans kept their lust
for stolen lands very much alive and brought it with them in 1788. whence
our problems began.

mccauley has a rather jaundiced view on our human abilities to survive and
how europeans led far better lifestyles. again wrong. i would argue that
the aboriginal population of this country would be closer to 2 million
rather than his nominated paltry half million which is at least higher
than the dismal 300 000 that we were taught in school. we've been here for
at least 60 000 years and our procreative skills were at least the match
of the europeans so i find his estimate to perhaps understate the
population facts so their introduced genocide does not look so bad. in
their eyes at least. it looks murderous to us. they pulled this same
counting scam in the americas also after they had invaded there.

i've already addressed his false claim re communications and trade but we
did have fish farming methods that worked very well and fed those
requiring food without overfishing and taking more than could possibly be
eaten. our culture was one of sharing and not selling for profit. such an
idea would have been an anathema to our old ones and our old ways.
comparing lifestyles and longevity between our ancestors and that of
european folk is at least questionable i believe. we had no plagues, we
had no wars, we had a very well-rounded and nutritious diet. we did not
have tobacco or alcohol until the invaders introduced them to our old
ones. was it not capt. phillip who remarked on the good health, stature
and our manly nature, hence the name manly for a northern beaches suburb.
our women and young girls were much coveted by the newcomers so at best
perhaps i could state that both societies had some good and some bad
points in this area.

recent studies have found that in fact our people "farmed" their lands
with fire thus making it far more productive than the tired soils of
europe.

our culture, our religion of course did identify that we did indeed belong
to the land and not the other way round. whilst mccauley finds this notion
to be somewhat of a scornful concept the reality is just ingenious in its
concept. if, as we believe, the land is our mother then it is just plain
common sense that as we honour our birth-mother, so too do we honour our
lands and we kept them pollution free and under-used rather than
over-used. a task that europe and its citizens have failed miserably. i
see no problem for our ancestors here. mccauley's arrogance continues by
his point that aborigines have 'thrown away' our chance to match a
capitalistic europe, and this somehow led to our nomadic existence. what
absolute rot! we lived in peace and a world that generally sustained and
provided all of our needs. yes, we were nomadic, yes we could be called
primitive by a more technological society but i must differ to his
interpretation of what that means. our nomadic life was built around the
seasons of what foods were available in different areas and to allow the
environment to replenish itself. that allowed for a good diet and
lifestyle. our technology was more than enough to survive in all areas of
australia, in all climates. we knew where to find what we needed, when we
needed it. our weapons were apt to the task of what was required of them.
we accepted the land and its bounty, we did not attack it and over-use
it.

the major fault i find with mccauley's thoughts are that he is attempting
to compare our ancient ones and life structures with modern day capitalism
and that is never going to work. from capitalism mccauley then moves to
the utopian world, or utopian australia, that he seems to live in.

firstly, australia is not a democracy, it is at best an elective oligarchy
and nothing else. we are allowed to vote every three or four years and
then short of revolution we have no more control on the political
processes that have made this country a human rights shame job. please
show me one asylum seeker that has equal legal rights with those who are
born here. please show me one aborigine in the nt who can legally opt out
of the infamous intervention. please show me one family, of whatever hue,
that has been granted real justice in the loss of their loved one in
custody. please show me these things patrick that you so easily equate to
your view and understanding of equal rights. while you’re at it, patrick,
explain to me how these one nation embracing political parties, both labor
and the coalition, continue to breach signed un declarations and abuse
human rights in my name. they do not act or speak for me so where is my
equal rights for me to be excluded by these racist parties? equal rights
in this country is based, as it is in many other countries, on class
issues.

secondly, i do agree with you that the majority of australians lead
'comparatively painless lives'. but this painless living is supported by
issues such as those outlined above but mainly their lives are built on
stolen lands and stolen resources taken from the traditional owners of
this ancient land. this windfall for the majority of australians whilst
easily accepted is rarely if ever questioned. and why should it be. this
largesse is based on a genocidal lie. never in this country have all
citizens been valued equally and has nothing to do with democracy anyway.
the cradle of democracy, greece, was only for greek free men and not to
their slaves or concubines. nothing has changed.

again patrick i do agree that we live in two australias. the first taken
by force and genocide, the second that of the birthright of the
traditional owners. i believe that perhaps there are three australias. one
for the wasp-based invaders, the other by refugees who are not wasp-ish
and lastly, my people, the dispossessed.

i find it absolutely amazing that when pundits like mccauley weep that
their right to racism and vilification, free speech as they know it, is
somehow being curtailed by governments who have been seduced by
'whitefella intellectuals and academics' into adopting race laws that
attempt to curtail the worst examples of that racism and vilification. he
uses andrew bolt, that paragon of social virtue (in his own eyes mostly)
as his free speech weathervane but does not recognise that what bolt said
and wrote about aboriginal identification was based on falsehoods, or
false facts if you prefer. in the modern culture of aboriginal
identification we absolutely claim the right to identify an aboriginal
person regardless of his/her skin colour. we do not accept the white
construct of who is and who is not an aborigine. that is our right and
ours alone. any aborigine can ask me to identify and i will. i have been
asked by solicitors and magistrates in court about my identity and i
explain that i cannot answer them but if they have their aboriginal staff
ask me, then i can answer. this has raised feathers at times.

should citizens vilify the industrial moguls, mediocre politicians or
other establishment figures you face being dragged into court on charges
of libel and defamation. that law is to their good so is considered to be
a good law. our right to such a legal protection is considered however to
be a bad law and a dangerous gag to free speech. what free speech has to
do with getting aboriginal children into school, the number of aboriginal
people in gaols and curing alcoholism or drug addiction i just do not
know. this is classic bolt modus operandi. first you identify a problem,
to him, then raise answers that do not relate to the stated problem and
then extrapolating an answer from that. the rule for a bolt discussion is
he talks, he decides, end of story. descriptives such as compassion and
recognition are new meanings and after changing the meanings of the chosen
words they then decide to bring forth an answer that suits only their
purposes and has little or nothing to do with facts. the bolt credo, and
probably mccauley’s also, is that of the cheshire cat that words mean
whatever he wants them to mean.

that system is well shown in mccauley's look at the subject of monies the
governments allegedly spend on 'fixing' the aboriginal problem. by his
calculation each aborigine over their life-span is in the millions of
dollars of government largesse. this is argued to be a financial burden to
the oft described 'tax payers'. there is no recognition that we are tax
payers as well and whilst all of our people do not work or have health
problems, same as the rest of society. i must point out to mccauley the
absolute fact that on a percentage basis aborigines are more teetotal than
non-aborigines. that fact never gets a run. another unarguable fact is
that only some 10% of these government funds actually reach aborigines at
the community level. one only has to remember and consider the waste of
funding that came from the sihip program for aboriginal housing or the
massive rip-offs emanating from the human rights abuses that arise from
the criminal nt intervention. any monies alleged to have been spent on us
over 200 years is but a pittance to the stolen wealth of this country and
its resources. a mere pittance.

it is not unusual that our claim for land rights is seen through the
blind-fold as separation of some kind. it isn't but we do want our lands
back where this is possible to be done. not to set up bantustans or
apartheid-style areas where non-aborigines will not be welcome. whilst
some very few aborigines will argue for that to be done, the majority of
us want the return of our lands for cultural reasons and i see nothing
wrong in that. the problem comes from our claim to all our resources now
and equitable compensation for what has been stolen from us previously.
it seems that compensation becomes a form of invective when it concerns my
people. an apology for the stolen generations is fine but what about
compensation for them. why are we to be treated in a different manner to
others. at least, in my opinion, howard was at least true in his contempt
of us more honest than krudd of his spoken compassion and love for us. i
hate hypocrisy!

we are indeed the first australians. we are aboriginal australians and not
just australians. we first identify as aborigines and then as australians.
and this fact appears to confuse and upset mccauley to no end. it seems
that the invaders loved and respected our ancestors even while they were
murdering us, raping our women and young girls (and possibly boys) whilst
they were taking our lands for their farms and sheep runs. apparently the
genocide of our old people is only a theory postulated by ambitious
left-wing historians. i think the white-blind-fold mccauley is wearing is
becoming way too tight and he is becoming delusional in his white-washing
of the history of this country. as we strongly argue, australia has a
black history and mccauley and others of his ilk had better just accept
it. for 224 years we have had a shared history and our shared history is
not about white explorers 'finding' this place. our place for 60 000+
years. it is more than sheep or foreign kings and queens. it is not the
tragic failure of gallipoli at which my people fought also. it is not just
about how our old ones were used as slave labour on the white-owned cattle
stations, our shared history is about massacres, it is about dispossession
and not only of our lands and our children but also our wages, our human
rights, our humanity. it is about our heroes of our resistance such as
pemulwuy, jandamarra, windradyne, yagan, among many others. yes we killed
the invader and the policeman but we fought for our freedom and our
nations. all this and more is our shared history but whilst my people know
that and more, your people, patrick, not only do not know our shared
history but are loathe to recognise it. as my people suffer from
collective trauma brought about by the invasion so too does his people have
a collective conscience that forces them to not only bind their eyes but
to hear no evil either.

we most definitely do not want modern day australians to, as mccauley so
eloquently puts it, wear the guilt and shame proudly. i would argue that
we want no such thing. all we ask is for truth to overcome spin and lies
and falsifications of the historical kind. we can only move forward
together when there is real honesty between us. when we become equal to
the status of all australians and their governments with our sovereignty,
treaties and social justice. that ethos i would claim as the true
australian way. a way that has been mutilated out of shape by australian
governments leading their citizens into a one nation world.

the sneering comments of mccauley continue unabated. if aborigines are
recognised in the constitution then that is only because of a perceived
left-wing plot against whites. the return of apartheid will occur and the
call for compensation will bankrupt the treasury of those 'tax-payers'.
even our aboriginal organisations are seen to be based on pure evil and
racism. the invaders brought the enlightenment (whatever that was),
christianity (more problems), the industrial revolution and trade (and
all this has done what exactly?). our primitive life was saved by the
modernity of the invaders. the invaders, according to the gospel of
mccauley, brought 'improved joy and happiness' to the primitives and 'we
no longer live in the existential angst of the nomad'. if memory serves me
correctly, our mobs saved more of the invaders than they saved us.
starting with philip and his band of brigands. according to the mccauley
gospel, aborigines came into sydney town in search of alcohol, tobacco,
food, and clothing and the first welcome to country was performed for
arthur philip. the arrogance and the rewriting of history of the author of
this article is remarkable only for its myopically one-eyed view of real
history and mccauley's history. this is unbelievable rubbish. perhaps
patrick mccauley is a non-de plume for windschuttle who is known to write
such rubbish. alcohol and tobacco were introduced by the invaders to
procure aboriginal women. alcohol was introduced to make the local
aborigines fight gladiator-style for the amusement of the troopers, the
first police. our nakedness was only covered because of an introduced
religious shame. our religion found no shame in the way we lived. i have
never seen any information that a welcome to country was done for philip
but i suspect that mccauley is being disingenuous when he makes that
statement as i am quite sure that he would have no truck with that process
either.

i will finish with further words by mccauley in his best and loudest
capitalist establishment voice. with no further comment from me.

viva individual freedom, individual responsibility, free enterprise and
the pursuit of happiness.

the gospel of capitalism. (sorry, couldn't help myself).

fkj

ray jackson
president
indigenous social justice association

isja01@internode.on.net
(m) 0450 651 063
(p) 02 9318 0947
address 1303/200 pitt street waterloo 2017

www.isja.org.au

we live and work on the stolen lands of the gadigal people.

sovereignty treaty social justice