Yesterday on the acknowledgement of country thread I cited with approval this article by Noel Pearson, which I urge all to read.
However, there was one element of Pearson’s article which I found jarring. In it, Pearson devotes a few paragraphs to this notion:
Anti-Aboriginal thinking is like anti-Semitism: a complex of irrational ideas that cannot be understood as a reaction informed by personal experience, facts or spurious information that is believed to be true.
Irrational contempt becomes the primary reason for its own continued existence. This is captured in the famous dictum on the ineradicability of anti-Semitism: “If the Jews did not exist, the anti-Semites would invent them.”
The irrational nature of anti-Aboriginal thinking through history is obvious. No matter how decimated, powerless, removed to the fringe or distant reserves Aboriginal Australians have been, anti-Aboriginal thinking has been virulent.
and
Those who have ideas about “reverse racism” in favour of Aborigines will not be able to provide evidence or logical reasoning in support of their fixation but will latch on to anything that vaguely resembles their resentment.
The central figure of thought of irrational anti-Semitism is “the Jews have too much X”, where X may be something tangible, material, political or cultural. We all know that every sentence that follows that pattern is unutterable.
Reading these words provoked a gut reaction that something in the suggestion wasn’t right, and despite a fair bit of cogitation I still haven’t managed to put my finger precisely on the problem. Here is the story so far…
For a start, Pearson’s central thesis stands perfectly well on its own merits, without recourse to invoking this equation with anti-Semitism. If you excise the three paragraphs that mention anti-Semitism, the remainder of the article is actually strengthened, becoming more focused. The reference to anti-Semitism seems like a distraction, and a troubling one at that.
But Pearson never writes anything without a reason, and that reason is almost always political. I think in this case Pearson was attempting to leverage (wedge?) traditional right-wing support for Israel and the Jews against traditional right-wing resistance to recognition of Aboriginal rights and claims. However, if so, then the inclusion of the anti-Semitism reference amounts to little more than a ham-fisted and in my view unsuccessful and unnecessary attempt to troll (and shame) the conservative support base into supporting Pearson’s position. It would not be the first time that the force and subtlety of Pearson’s ideas are let down by the, err, force and unsubtlety of his language.
So much for the politics. But let us examine Pearson’s point on its own merits: is the comparison between anti-Aboriginal thinking and anti-Semitism valid? I’m not convinced it is, although I can’t rule it out in principle because I don’t believe, as some do, that anti-Semitism is somehow a unique manifestation of prejudice that brooks no comparison with other forms of oppression.
One important point as a guideline for discussion: Pearson did not compare or equate any aspects of the historical facts of Aboriginal and Jewish realities, past or present – so please do not do so in your response below. Pearson’s object of enquiry is a comparison between the idea-complexes of anti-Aboriginal thinking and anti-Semitism, so to cogently address his argument we need to restrict our response to the realm of those ideas and not “facts on the ground”, please. (Moderation warning: I’m going to be very censorious about responses that wander off into comparisons of historical or current situations, because they’re not what Pearson was on about.)
I do think Pearson attempted to lay a clumsy trap for simple-minded conservative supporters that they would read his post and think that if they support Israel they must therefore support Aboriginal rights – and on the flip side that if you support Aboriginal rights you must support the state of Israel. The usual conflation between support for Jews and support for the state of Israel writes itself in right-wing reality. And some of Pearson’s supporters might just be clumsy enough to fall for that. But it’s a facile notion.
I am aware that there are vast bodies of academic literature studying both anti-Semitism and anti-Aboriginal racism, and although I am not so conversant with these as I ought to be, I am sure many readers here are. So, can readers offer some well-informed thoughts on Pearson’s equation between anti-Aboriginal and anti-Semitic thinking? Myself I think the comparison doesn’t hold water, and is a red herring that is entirely unnecessary to the point Pearson was making.
I do agree with Pearson’s comment that anti-Aboriginal thinking is irrational (in the true sense of being impervious to fact or argument); and there are plenty of conspicuous examples of this on the acknowledgement of country thread. But even so, I think Pearson’s claim to synthesise the two idea-complexes as being aspects of the same phenomenon at the level of theory has yet to be made successfully.
Although I’m sorry I can’t offer an articulate argument on a Sunday morning as to why I think this – it’s a blog, and sometimes gut-feel is all you’re gonna get.
Good-faith thoughts and comments are appreciated!
I think you’re over-reading that section quite a lot: it’s a very illustrative and telling analogy. Anti-semitism is a form of prejudice that’s now widely recognised as contemptible. It’s a guaranteed political pre-selection killer.
Anti-Aboriginalism, as we’ve seen from Abbott’s remarks on welcome to country ceremonies and the response of the News media commentariat, is still considered respectable. So it’s worthwhile for Pearson to point out the parallels with anti-Semitism.
I seriously doubt that there’s any more to it than that – particularly not an attempt to trap conservatives into thinking that if they support Israel they must therefore support Aboriginal rights.
I would agree with him, hearing how northerners talk about Aboriginals. This the clash of capitalist culture with socialist/tribal culture. He is right, most people, I am sure, are not able to identify why they reject aboriginal society/culture, they just react. In the same way I react to my daughter’s unbelievably untidy room. I had to wait till she left to go to uni to get the house straight the way I was brought up. Those who reject the appearence of Aboriginal life are waiting till Aboriginals absorb European culture with all of its trappings. Not going to happen.
Mercurius,
I’m going to disagree with you and it starts with your headline – no, that’s not what Pearson said.
Much of the resentment of Jews comes from the ability to maintain Jewish culture so successfully and for such a long time. This, I think, is additional to the straight link between religious resentment attached to the death of Christ.
There is an assumption of privelege that many people resent. Then they look for confirmatory evidence that yes, Jews have more than they deserve and Jews have been plotting with each other to ensure that this privelege is maintained. By getting that unfair share, of course, they prevent me from getting my fair share.
And this privelege has led to the Jewish control of the world financial system, Hollywood (in order to keep the propaganda up) and now global politics to ensure that Israel is defended.
The evidence is backed up by cultural cohesiveness interpreted as conspiracy and by real success of Jews in business, in the arts, in science, largely because scholarship and learning has always been valued.
I think what Pearson is referring to is resentment of privelege, irrationally held. The expression of cultural difference is rejected as a reason for “special treatment” because anything granted because of those differences must have been gained unfairly.
This meme was strongly represented in the Acknowledgement of country ‘culture wars’ thread.
No matter what line of debate is run against this meme, it returns to its irrational core, fuelled by bait and switch arguments that vacillate between race and culture, presenting fallacy as logic.
The Romany are another group who are singled out for special treatment, so I don’t think this comparison has to be made with Jews but I do think it’s valid, not a crude wedge.
I have no idea what you are on about in this post. I think you have spent too much thinking about it and come up with some woolly thinking. I think Pearson made a good valid point.
RJ, nice piece of ananlysis.
What Gummo said. Apart from that, when I read Pearson’s piece, I was stunned at how subtle he had managed to be, in a newspaper no less. I have written for newspapers, and I can assure you that achieving any sort of subtlety once the editor has wielded her blue pencil is nigh on impossible.
I found the ‘too much of X’ argument very telling, because ‘X’ becomes an empty set to be filled with substantive content at the whim of the accuser. The Aborigine/Jew/gay/etc who has too much of it is thus always on a hiding to nothing.
Well, it’s certainly addressed to conservatives but I don’t think there is a wedge going on at all Mercurious. I think he’s herding the conservatives. He’s playing for the soul of the Right. He always does. He doesn’t bother with the left as they are on board anyway. Note his rhetorical strategies: A little flattery here, a little understanding there, a little concession, a little reminder of where not to go. To this end, he is carefully delineating ‘responsible’ conservatives from irrational racists in his anti semitic/anti aboriginal conflation. Here are the concessions and flatteries: Responsible conservatives, he says, who have no knowledge of aboriginal sufferings are not racist. They are defensive because their history is always presented in an unbalanced way as mayhem and murder and their achievements get all lost in that. Further, appropriate criticism of Aboriginal bodies and institutions is not racist. You can dialogue with true conservatives, he says.
Here is where Conservatives should not wander and where Abbott has indeed wandered: Anti aboriginal ideology, like anti semitic ideology has no logic and should not be engaged with. While he is careful to call Abbott’s statements ‘regrettable’ it is clear that Abbott’s statements fall within the ‘anti Aboriginal irrational camp’.
If you ask me, he knows Abbott won’t be round too long and he’s playing to the conservative constituency beyond the Abbott loony fringe.
My two first thoughts also. What they said.
Among the current 25 year olds and under, there’s no racism whatsoever other than in a few rural pockets – unless you count beautyism as a form of racism: Indigenous Australians who look more like White Australians perhaps still get more & better TV gigs.
I was in the main street of a wheatbelt town recently in company with some Cape York Indig artists – fifteen years ago, they would have caused a mini stir by buying sit-down lunch and a latte. Last week? Totally mainstream. Things have moved on. The sporting authorities are owed a portion of the thanks, for instilling a lot of respect for Indigenous achievement amongst the mainstream footy fans.
Mercurius I can’t agree. Pearson’s central point is that there is an ill-defined, almost emotional view amongst conservatives that Aborigines have been given too much, whether it is government support, air-time, reference in school history curricular or indeed symbolic gestures. He acknowledges this view is irrational, so he cannot rely on rational logic alone to counter it. He must, to make his argument persuasive, refer to a similar situation that everybody acknowledges is wrong. I think his comparison to antisemitism in this context is right.
It is also true that in order to get people’s attention, sometimes you need to spark controversy. I think this explains part of Pearson’s motivation for the comparison. He could, of course, have referred to other examples of indigenous disadvantage being interpreted as unfair advantage. But the conservatives that this article is aimed at don’t care about the disadvantage of other, more distant, indigenous peoples any more than they care about the disadvantage of Aborigines. In fact in the politics of the meritocracy, being disadvantaged for whatever reason is contemptible – I think this is what Pearson was referring to in the politics of downward envy.
… “the Jews have too much X”, where X may be something tangible, material, political or cultural. We all know that every sentence that follows that pattern is unutterable.”
I have a friend who is an Israeli Arab. His family have refused to sign over or give up their rights to their property in Israel. If he were to make the above statement he does so with at least some justification.
BTW his family still live in Israel.
Don’t forget Pearson’s conclusion in his recent Quarterly Essay, “Radical Hope”:
“Radical hope for the future of Aboriginal Australia … will require the bringing together of the Enlightenment and Aboriginal culture. This reconciliation is not of necessity assimilation: just ask the Jews.”
Casey – “To this end, he is carefully delineating ‘responsible’ conservatives from irrational racists in his anti semitic/anti aboriginal conflation. Here are the concessions and flatteries: Responsible conservatives, he says, who have no knowledge of aboriginal sufferings are not racist. They are defensive because their history is always presented in an unbalanced way as mayhem and murder and their achievements get all lost in that. Further, appropriate criticism of Aboriginal bodies and institutions is not racist. You can dialogue with true conservatives, he says.”
I’ve been researching a little about white supremacism recently and think your observations ring very true Casey. I honestly didn’t realise the extent of the hard core racism that was out there to be found on the inter-webs, including facebook, and found the exercise very very disturbing. There is a large contingent of religious white supremacists who justify their antisemitism by purporting that current Jews are not the ‘true’ jews, but that the ancient Tribes of Israel and Judah actually settled Europe, making ‘whites’ gods chosen people. Their views on indigenous people are not even worth repeating.
Indeed, or the David Irving style denialism in the Griffith Review
Or his Griffith Essay: White Guilt and the Quest for a Radical Centre
“There is a strong tradition of denial in Australia. The eminent ethnogra-
pher W.E.H. Stanner named this tradition in the country’s historiography up
to the late 1960s the “Great Australian Silence” (Boyer Lecture, 1968). There
is a very large constituency which denies that the treatment of Indigenous
people in Australia’s colonial history (and up to the present) was as bad as
those historians who have contributed to the genre known as “Aboriginal
history” demonstrate. These people deny that racism in Australia against the
country’s Indigenous peoples is a serious problem. Keith Windschuttle’s
refutation of massacres and violence on the frontiers, and Pauline Hanson’s
galvanising resentments against alleged preferences to Aboriginal people
(and other racial minorities) are just the most egregious representatives of a
wide constituency which adopts a position of denial. Denial is a strong word.
It is only a general characterisation of a spectrum of views amongst non-
Indigenous Australians which range from David Irving-style ideological
denialism to those who acknowledge the depredations suffered by Indige-
nous people through history and the racism in our society, but who minimise
its nature and extent (“we shouldn’t dwell on the past”). Many join this con-
stituency because of political and cultural affiliations with the political right.
There are two important things to understand about this constituency.
First, most of them are defensive about their own identity and heritage. The
accusation that they are racist and their colonial heritage is a catalogue of
shame and immoral villainy – and they should therefore feel guilt for racism
and history – makes them defensive. If race and history are raised in such a
sharply accusatory and unbalanced way, then people who may otherwise be
prepared to acknowledge and take responsibility for the truth end up joining
the hard-core ideologues.”
‘I think in this case Pearson was attempting to leverage (wedge?) traditional right-wing support for Israel and the Jews against traditional right-wing resistance to recognition of Aboriginal rights and claims.’
I’m sorry – but I can’t let this pass. There is nothing ‘traditional’ about right-wing support for Israel (unless ‘traditional’ is post-1967). Zionism was for most of its history a liberal and left-wing cause. Conservatives both within and outside the Jewish community were highly skeptical of Jewish nationalism.
‘I do think Pearson attempted to lay a clumsy trap for simple-minded conservative supporters that they would read his post and think that if they support Israel they must therefore support Aboriginal rights – and on the flip side that if you support Aboriginal rights you must support the state of Israel.’
I think you are playing into the hands of the right by immediately linking a consideration of antisemitism to one’s position as either ‘for’ or ‘against’ Israel. Antisemitism and Israel are two distinct issues.
I’m with Pearson in so far as he places irrationality at the core of both anti-semitism and anti-aboriginality. It is mysterious and difficult to heal.
However, I’ll go further than Pearson and argue that while the structural similarities between anti-semitism and anti-aboriginality draw on irrational feelings, mundanely the fear of difference, there are several other highly sgnificant points of convergance. Of greatest significance is the mutual status of European Jews and Aborigines as the survivors of genocide.
At this point I’d better put in place a few qualifications. Many historians and theorists of the Shoa reject comparison between the Nazi genocide against Jews and deeply resent having the Shoa used as a comparator with any other genocide. Those engaged with genocide studies, however, make the point that post genocidal denialism is a key feature of all genocidal states and is often read as a signifier that genocidal state action has in fact taken place. My own view of the state policy of stealing children and crudely attempting to “breed out” aboriginality is that it was a post-massacre clean up operation in a long genocide.
The second point of convergance between Jews and Aborigines is post-genocidal inter-generational trauma. Trauma can be passed from one generation to another. Trauma effects the neurological functioning of victims which in turn powerfully effects their behaviour. There is a massive literature about this and respondents can find their way to it easily enough. The traumatised often then proceed to induce trauma in their children. Childhood trauma doesn’t so much effect neurological functioning so much determine it by building in almost irremediable hard wired neurological pathways. A lot of what is seen as “bad behaviour” amongst Aboriginal communities (drug use, DV, alcohol abuse, sex abuse of minors) is an artefact of this sort of traumatised neurological functioning in which the flight/fight system is virtually permanently on and is the dominant pathway for processing almost all sense data.
The above, BTW, is not apologism, just a statement of facts. How we deal socially with these behaviours is another matter.
A third point of convergance between Jews and Aborigines is what the Jews call the blood libel. The Australian analog for the blood libel against Jews is the widespread accusation that Aborigines practiced cannibalism. Cannibalism is a fascinating study in and of itself however the point here is the way that Hanson and other racists have moblised Aboriginal cannibalism as cultural libel.
Just a brief reminder of what Hanson was on about:
See wiki entry.
The cannibalism libel against aborigines is so deeply entrenched in Australian culture that it makes an appearance in Patrick White’s “Fringe of Leaves”. Given White’s prowess with words INMHO the cannibalism passage is the most revolting and slanderous couple of pages in australian literary history. Plenty of ink has been spilled on the subject of cannibals and colonialsim. Notwithstanding White’s august stature in Australian culture I think it no accident that a man whose family members used to brag that they owned so much land that they could ride from Sydney to Brisbane and sleep on White family land every night fell into the trap of repeating the common colonial libel of Aboriginal cannibalism.
In summary then, and Pearson wouldn’t thank me for saying this, there are numerous very strong reasons why Jews and Aborigines occupy a similar structural position. The nature of the irrationality differs in time, place and content but the intention, which is constant marginalisation, is the same.
Thanks Mercurius for the thoughtful thread. Hope the response isn’t OTT in length.
Mercurious said….” I think Pearson’s claim to synthesise the two idea-complexes as being aspects of the same phenomenon at the level of theory has yet to be made successfully.”
Pearson is talking about psychology and consciousness in particular irrationality, not a confluence of ideas and theory.
I think what Pearson is alluding to may be a kind of ‘downward envy’ which is not always racist but is characterised by a deep, irrational resentment. Many people simply resent the idea that there is an apparent ‘group’ which is getting too much sympathy or seemingly making too much of their historic plight. So, even though the Jews might be relatively well off as a group and the aborigines poor, they’ve both given honest, hard-working, deserving ‘normal’ folk a reason to feel that someone is getting more of something than they deserve. The bitter may also feel that their ‘uncomplaining’ nature is one of their virtues!
This downward envy/resentment may seem economic and be felt about the unemployed on the dole, single parents, the homeless, refugees and so on; even if they have very little, what they have from the ‘public purse’ is more than they deserve. One consequence of this is a greater resentment of poor Asian refugees – supposedly getting jobs and free housing or whatever – than wealthy Asian investors outbidding everybody at auctions and making houses more expensive. ‘Downward envy’ combines with ‘upward aspiration’.
Of course, bigotry sharpens this irony: yes, to many ‘the Jews have too much of… whatever’, but the same people will not complain about ‘the rich’ having too much, even of the same thing. When there is a discernible ‘group’ delineated by some cultural, racial or religious feature – other than wealth pure and simple – bigotry may come to the fore. I don’t think its expression comes from ‘white supremacists’.
Very informative comment Anthony. Got me thinking.
“The cannibalism libel against aborigines is so deeply entrenched in Australian culture”
Call me ignorant, but I’ll admit that I’ve never encountered that claim as something used to seriously deride Aborigines before, despite the other thousand nasty things I’ve heard. A quick survey of some random people I know shows they haven’t either, so either I have very ignorant friends, or that claim isn’t as entrenched in Australian culture as you suggest it is.
Anti-indigenous bigotry has a different psychological basis to anti-Semitism or other racial or cultural bigotry.
Anti-indigenous bigotry (in the universal sense, not Aboriginal-specific) is based on the fear of retribution. The colonial power fears annihilation by the colonised power – because it was there first. This is as much the case in Northern Ireland (Protestant-Unionist fear of Catholic-Republicanism), or Israel (Jewish Israeli fear of Arab-Israelis), or in Latin America (European power elite’s fear of indigenous populists like Chavez and Morales), as it is in Australia.
Anti-Semitism, on the other hand, is based on fear of the other. It’s often colonial/indigenous bigotry in reverse. The dominant race or culture, who was there first, fears the non-mainstream races or cultures within its borders, especially those who’ve come more recently to the country (migrants, refugeees). The fear is based on a perceived loss of power and control established by the dominant race or culture.
Conrad: try Daisy Bates’ 1938 book “The Passing of the Aborigines” where it is laid out in full. The second most revolting piece of writing in Australian literary history, in my view.
Conrad, long history of it.
Check this article on cannibalism and the law:
http://www.law.usyd.edu.au/slr/slr27_4/Biber.pdf
Thanks all for excellent comments! Really good stuff!
@20 – iorarua, thanks I think you might be onto something that better articulates why I was struggling with Pearson’s claim. The colonial dynamic in anti-Indigenous thinking cannot be overlooked as part of an explanation, and that component is not present in most if not all manifestations of anti-Semitism.
@15 – Yes Tim, your objections are fair, but what you’re objecting to isn’t precisely what I meant…I’m sorry could’ve been clearer, but by “traditional” right-wing support for Israel I was referring to the western, predominantly American Christian right-wing militant support for the state of Israel, and their ideological fellow-travellers in Australia. Sorry I didn’t make that more specific, and you are correct to point out the left-wing nationalist roots of Zionism. And while I am well aware that anti-Semitism and the state of Israel are distinct issues (and again, I’m sorry if that didn’t come across in the article), I see little evidence that such awareness exists in the modern-day western militant Christian-aligned right-wing in the USA or Australia…as I said, the conflation of Israel and anti-Semitism writes itself into all the right-wingers’ versions of reality.
Very good analysis by Anthony Nolan.
I think Pearson feels particularly strongly about anti-Semitism because, as far as
I recall, he worked at Arnold Bloch Leibler. Arnold Bloch Leibler has a strong native title practice, but is also a firm with a strongly Jewish identity, and the Leiblers are often targeted by anti-Semitic and racist organisations (eg, the Citizen’s Electoral Council). I would not be surprised if Pearson has very strong feelings about anti-Semitism as a result of working at this firm.
On one view, too, the resettlement of Israel by Jews involves the taking back of land from which they were dispossessed 2000 years ago (although I note that some contrary views were expressed in a different thread here the other day). In any case, I have noticed strong support for native title among many Jewish people. Perhaps they draw this analogy.
[Note - the point of this post is not to raise the Israel-Palestine issue and who is right or wrong, just to point out that potential parallels that can be drawn.]
Sorry Anthony, I linked to the same article as you already did. Good work on the trauma studies btw. Have you read Sorry by Gail Jones yet?
Anthony & Casey,
I’m not denying people have said it. I’m just saying that I don’t think it’s entrenched in the average person’s hate-files of aboriginal traits (perhaps it differs depending on what state you live — I’m in Vic). If want you test it, go and find a group of people at, say, the football, who don’t have degrees in history and politics, and and ask them to think of why they think people dislike aborigines. If most of them don’t come up with it, then it’s not entrenched, even if it’s entrenched in a small group of people posing as historians (alternatively, I’ll bet low intelligence, lazy, welfare dependent, etc. do come up — they’re the entrenched attitudes). No doubt there are people out there that tell you Jews did too, but that’s not an entrenched attitude either (cf. greedy, sneaky, etc.).
@ 24 Thanks Legal Eagle, but I really need to remind all contributors at this point to resist any attempt to compare the historical facts of the Jewish and Aboriginal peoples – because that wasn’t what Pearson was getting at, and this thread is reserved for an examination of Pearson’s thesis.
Pearson was attempting to draw a link between the idea-complexes of anti-Semitism and anti-Aboriginal thinking: not a link between the histories of those two peoples. Please take your cues accordingly, thanks again.
Casey: no, haven’t read the book by Gail Jones but it is on the list as of today.
Thanks for the reference.
Leagle-E: didn’t know about the Pearson/Leibler connection but it sure makes sense.
Mercurius + iorarua: agreed that the colonial framework is probably the key difference although I’m cautious about the idea that anti-semitism is a function of ‘late arrival’ Jewish emigrees because I thought that the Jews were a pretty constant presence in modern Europe but maybe my history is inadequate on that point.
Nice to have had the chance for a troll free chat.
anthony: ‘… I’m cautious about the idea that anti-semitism is a function of ‘late arrival’ Jewish emigrees because I thought that the Jews were a pretty constant presence in modern Europe …’
True. But European races would have perceived themselves as the original and dominant culture of Europe, especially after the time of the Roman Empire, and Christianity would have perceived itself as the original and dominant religion of Europe, regardless of how much migrating and conquest occurred over the centuries. (No hard and fast rule. This is just an idea I threw into the mix – because I’ve often pondered the issues Mercurious has raise, as well.)
At first I thought Pearson was being totally unobjectionable, but on second reading I suspect he is quietly having a go at both elements of the Left and Aboriginal converts to Islam, particularly at the likes of Anthony Mundine in the second category. (“Conversion among indigenous Australians is growing, driven by the higher visibility of Islam, a rejection of Christianity as a post-colonial religion, identification with Islamic principles, and conversions in prisons where Aborigines dominate the population.“)
I imagine most Aboriginal Muslims are no more prone to anti-Semitism than the most enthusiastic conservative & evengelical Christians are, but you just know there are a few who have given Pearson the irrits.
And as for the Left? Sorry, but there are some middle-aged-and-older Leftwingers who take their opposition to Israel too far. I’m pretty anti-Netanyahu, but I was struck by just how diseased the comments threads on this blog were at the time of the recent Gaza war. I can see Pearson taking that sort of stuff as a wrong cue, and deciding most Australian progressive share that madness.
@23 – Cheers Mercurius I take your point.
In February Pearson made a speech in which he urged Aborigines to follow the example of how the Jewish people have retained their culture in the modern world.
From the Jewish News:
‘“For the future, I have always drawn upon the example of the Jews,” Pearson said.
“They are a community who have never forgotten history and they never allow anybody else to forget history; they fight staunchly in defence of the truth; they fight relentlessly against discrimination; but they have worked out as a people that they never make their history a burden for the future, they defend racism, but they never make racism their problem.”
‘As well as remembering history and avoiding being defined through racism, Pearson added that the idea of maintaining culture in a diaspora could also be adopted by the indigenous peoples.’
http://jewishnews.net.au/tag/noel-pearson
Mercurius – forgive me, will you allow me one last comment to clarify what I was trying to explain? – Tim Dymond’s illustration above shows it beautifully – that Pearson’s thesis as to how Aboriginal people should cope the vicissitudes of colonisation is fundamentally informed by taking the Jews as an example of strength despite marginalisation and genocide.
Yes indeed. The notion of an indigenous diaspora captures the problem beautifully.
I have been accused of being a racist here because of my views relating to some views on Aboriginal issues. But to be compared with anti=semites is a bit rich. My desrie is for aboriginals to lift themselves up and be proud of who they are and be the best they can be. I can’t fpr the life of me see how that is the same as anti-semitism.
Funnily enough I spent all of Saturday in the ECU Aboriginal studies Faculty. The art work is magnificent.
Casey Says:
That’s an extremely weird and suspect paper.
It gives some examples of 18th century popular thinking that well, some natives are cannibals, so they may all be cannibals.
Then there’s a bunch of obviously false attributions, e.g.
So you think, hmm, that’s interesting, what does footnote 10 say?
The references may well be genuine, but the quoted parts in no way support the contention. Even the titles of the references don’t support it, so it’s no great leap to conclude that the paper is just completely bogus nonsense.
And also provides the solution. The Aboriginals only have to convert to Judaism and assert that they are descendants of David. The government of Israel will recognize them as part of the diaspora and they will be granted the right of return to their homeland in Israel. A new settlement will provided for them in East Jerusalem.
@33 Yes Legal Eagle, but that isn’t what Pearson was arguing in this particular article. I don’t dispute that the Jewish means of survival and preserving their cultural identity (note that doesn’t mean becoming living museum exhibits) has instrumental utility for Aborigines, and if that is Pearson’s strategy I’m sure it will be very effective; just as Aboriginal people were effective in modelling their civil rights campaigns on struggles elsewhere in the world.
However, I think other contributions to this thread have helped to highlight that anti-Aboriginal thinking is driven at its base by colonial anxiety, whereas anti-Semitic thinking is quite distinct (tho’ not unique) because at its core one finds religious persecution. If there is some higher theoretical explanation where the two can be integrated, I don’t think Pearson has provided it, and I can’t see it in any of the contributions here either.
And I repeat, Pearson doesn’t need to make this point in order to advance his case, or his cause. I really do believe it’s a red herring.
I can’t share the enthusiasm for the Pearson article. To me, it embodies the corner in which he’s thought himself over the last years of supporting the conservatives. He writes:
Analysis of racism is ultimately futile?
There’s a fundamental confusion here. Racism might be irrational but that doesn’t mean it’s irrational (or futile) to analyse it. Indeed, it’s that irrationality that makes the analysis of racism so important. Why, under some conditions (and not others) do resentments, conspiracies and the rest of it manifest as racism? If you simply rule that question out of bounds, how can you ever develop an anti-racist strategy?
And the comparison with anti-Semitism suggests that Pearson hasn’t just used a sloppy phraseology, since there’s a strand within contemporary Zionism that makes exactly that argument: that anti-Semitism cannot be explained and cannot be overcome. For the Zionists who so argue, the political implications are obvious: because anti-Semitism is eternal, Israel becomes eternally necessary.
Pearson seems to be making a similar move. In context, his dismissal of any analysis of racism seems to be directed at what he calls the ‘school of thought [... that holds]that anti-Aboriginal ideology emerged to justify dispossession’.
Now dispossession does not in and of itself explain anti-Aboriginal racism but it’s quite clearly a source for it. Indeed, it just seems perverse to say that it’s not — unless, of course, you want to make another swipe at the Left.
On the specific issue of welcome to country ceremonies, I agree with Pearson. He writes:
Ok, fair enough. Anyone who starts banging on about how ‘Aboriginal Australians have had it too good for too long’ is usually a racist.
But how does that passage relate to something he says earlier in the article?
Aren’t conservatives who are ‘defensive about their identity and heritage against unbalanced accusations that European settlement was an unrelenting catalogue of genocidal horrors’ almost inevitably engaged in ‘sweeping criticisms of the extent of Aboriginal Australians’ wins’? Doesn’t the conservative argument proceed exactly like that: European settlement wasn’t a catalogue of horrors because Aboriginal Australians have had so many wins? Indeed, in the same edition of the Oz that carried Pearson’s article you could find a review of Keith Windschuttle’s latest, a charming piece arguing that white Australian hadn’t destroyed Aboriginal culture but rather tried to preserve it in the face of Aborigines destroyed it themselves.
In other words, if Pearson is right to criticise Abbott over welcome to country (and I think he is) on the basis that his real agenda is that Aboriginal gains have gone too far, shouldn’t that argument be equally applied throughout much of the contemporary conservative movement?
Indeed. Out of curoisity, how many comments have been deleted?
Oh, and there is one big cultural/legal construct that Indigenous Australians have suffered from but which has little or nothing to do with what the Jews have endured (at least not in our particular Euro-centric universe).
Terra nullius.
I hope this red herring (if it exists) isn’t one that denies a special relationship to the land.
Okay, I mightn’t be a fan of the man, but I don’t see him going that far. That would be just too much.
“Yes indeed. The notion of an indigenous diaspora captures the problem beautifully.”
No it doesn’t. This is still indigenous land, and indigenous people still live here.
Calling whats happened in Australia to blackfellas a “diaspora” is a joke. Up there with terra nullius.
This thread is kind of indicative of what Pearson is talking about actually.
I dunno what the original author’s (Mercurius) background is, but I doubt its indigenous, and its kind of interesting that instead of taking the words of a leading indigenous commentator on their own the author has to qualify, quantify and interpret them in a manner acceptable to the author.
Clearly Pearson’s words, on their own, aren’t enough. They can’t be allowed to stand on their own. (Ie anti aboriginalism is like anti semeticism, in that there is an irrationalism that drives both of them.)
This is clear and obvious imo. As is the actual meaning of what Pearson said.
Which is that there is a strain of irrational anti aboriginal thinking in Australia. Its obviously there on the right side of politics, the comments on welcoming people to country are pretty plain, (and also indicate that an element of the right doesn’t want to be welcomed to this land, it wants to stomp in on its own terms.)
But its also the case on the left as this thread indicates.
“But even so, I think Pearson’s claim to synthesise the two idea-complexes as being aspects of the same phenomenon at the level of theory has yet to be made successfully.
Although I’m sorry I can’t offer an articulate argument on a Sunday morning as to why I think this – it’s a blog, and sometimes gut-feel is all you’re gonna get.”
- Mercurius
It certainly seems like that gut feeling is part of the irrational complex Pearson is getting at.
Why else would it take a thread full of comments to come to the conclusion that the difference, (as the author defines it) is the trivial distinction between fear of the other and colonial guilt. This distinction is pointless and adds nothing to dealing with the consequences of irrational bigotry. Especially if you realise a fundamental part of colonialism is defining the colonised as “other”.
It illustrates Pearson’s point perfectly.
As an aboriginal man his words aren’t allowed to stand on their own, but must be interpreted, (colonised if you will) and structured into a narrative that fits the authors worldview. Assimilated into an acceptable form.
And at no time did Pearson actually say “Aborigines are the New Jews”, he pointed out the irrational basis of the bigotry both people’s have suffered, based on his experience as an indigenous person. He noted the similarities between their experience.
I find it ironic the way he has provoked the very response he was talking about.
@40 josh – nothing has been deleted or edited.
Well Jules, you’ve said a mouthful there but I think if you read my many comments on this thread about acknowledgement of country you’ll see your comments directed at me are completely off-beam.
Also, it was Pearson himself who first raised the idea of using Jewish experience of diaspora as a partial guide for Aboriginal activism. So I do hope you’ll apply to yourself your fervent prescription of “taking the words of a leading indigenous commentator on their own”. Because it’s Pearson interviewed by the Jewish News talking about diaspora experiences as having validity for Indigenous Australians. And that does make sense when you consider that while many of them do indeed live on continental Australia, most have been driven far from their ancestral lands. You are too hasty to dismiss Pearson’s thoughts on diaspora.
BTW, I’m not Indigenous, but I am of Jewish heritage and had direct and close ancestors interred by the Nazis. So I think I can claim a little authority to know what the experience of being on the receiving end of anti-Semitism is like, and again, I haven’t seen in anti-Aboriginal bigotry the same kind of social dynamics at work; that’s not a claim of privilege or priority, it’s a claim for the distinctive experiences of both peoples, which I believe is a properly respectful approach.
You assert that it’s an irrelevant distinction to make between that of colonial bigotry and bigotry driven by fear of the other; but you haven’t explained why it’s irrelevant. The colonial factor is a meaningful component of Australian experience and a significant source of anti-Aboriginal bigotry; and so it does you little credit to dismiss it so blithely. Don’t you think it’s important to understand the motivators of various prejudices and bigotries, the better to overcome them?
Yes, yes I’ve read the same 1990s cultural studies texts as you. So are you going to let my words about a Jewish experience of anti-Semitism stand on their own when I tell you I don’t believe they’re the same as anti-Aboriginal bigotry, or are you going to seal us both together in the same high-walled ghetto?
Pearson has a good point here. Anti-aboriginal sentiment is a key motivating force for many on the Australian right, although certainly not all, the way that anti-semetism was for many on the old European right. Compare to the US where old-style racism has declined in significance dramatically on the right. has anyone noticed that conservatives complain that covering indigenous themes in the national curriculum is black armband history, I thought aboriginal people had nothing to complain about?
Mercurius, I dunno if my comments are directed at you specifically, or a way of thinking that seems to infect Australian analysis in general, and that you were indulging in. So I’m not having a go at you as a person, but at your comments as a commentator. To me they reflect an institutional form of paternalism. Not you as a person.
Just so we are clear on that.
“Also, it was Pearson himself who first raised the idea of using Jewish experience of diaspora as a partial guide for Aboriginal activism. So I do hope you’ll apply to yourself your fervent prescription of “taking the words of a leading indigenous commentator on their own”.”
I understood him to be referring to similarities in actions, not to specific similarities in the way the plights of Jewish people and indigenous peoples are structured in the real world. Any indigenous person in Australia can actually travel to their “ancestral homelands” and experience the feeling of someone else owning them. (The travel might not be ridiculously easy, but its possible in a way the people of the Jewish Diaspora could never achieve.) Those homelands may be hundreds or thousands of kms away, but they may also be just around the corner.
And in the context of NP, who is a native to the Cape, and speaks, primarily on behalf of his mob in that place, a group who are certainly not subject to Diaspora, but are subject to the Wild Rivers legislation (regardless of the rights or wrongs of it, or the practical effect of it on the indigenous people of the cape).
It should be remembered that Pearson went home to the cape over 10 years ago, primarily because his place on the australian political stage at the time didn’t actually help his people much. When he speaks its from the perspective of the cape mobs, specifically, and can be applied more generally around the continent because the sort of issues they face are not unique to the cape.
“You assert that it’s an irrelevant distinction to make between that of colonial bigotry and bigotry driven by fear of the other; but you haven’t explained why it’s irrelevant.”
Ultimately (imo) the sort of disregard for other humans that drives colonialism would have to come from an inability to empathise with and relate to the colonised as humans. As people, with more thats alike than actually different. My point is that colonial bigotry can’t exist without the colonised being viewed as “other”.
Thats where the similarity between the two arises.
“Don’t you think it’s important to understand the motivators of various prejudices and bigotries, the better to overcome them?”
I do, I just don’t think the differences being discussed here are actually relevant to the practicalities of overcoming those prejudices. I don’t think that was the point Pearson was making and I don’t think it matters in the context of this discussion.
At some point before those differences become apparant the “fear of the other” thing kicks in and drives the bigotry in both cases. Its the similarities between both forms of bigotry that drives the damage, and that is what Pearson was pointing too. He was also pointing to the similarities in response to those bigotries that could benefit indigenous people in Australia.
“Yes, yes I’ve read the same 1990s cultural studies texts as you. So are you going to let my words about a Jewish experience of anti-Semitism stand on their own when I tell you I don’t believe they’re the same as anti-Aboriginal bigotry, or are you going to seal us both together in the same high-walled ghetto?”
Of course not. Its obvious that your experiences are yours and his are his, and the context of both are different.
My point is that Pearson never said they were the same.
He said they were similar.
You are the one who is claiming he said they were the same.
And thats how you are doing the very thing he complains about.
(“Similar” and “the same” are two very different things with vastly different meanings.)
Mercurius, no, I’d agree, I don’t think he needs to make the point. I do think you’re right, though, that perhaps part of the reason he’s drawing the parallel is to appeal to right-wingers who support Israel. And perhaps he’s also telling left-wingers who tend to support indigenous rights that they should think about any broad parallels between the Jews and Israel and the indigenous people and Australia.
I once had an argument with a Muslim guy who believed that the entirety of Israel should be given back to the Palestinians unconditionally and immediately because it was an illegal occupation. I said to him, “So by your logic, we should immediately give back Australia to the Aborigines, unconditionally and totally? After all, there’s no justification for the settlement of Australia according to international law, even according to the principles at the time of settlement.” (Personally I think we should give some lands back in full fee simple title, and give financial reparation for expropriating lands). Anyway, this guy said, “Oh, no, that’s been too long. It’s our land now.” So I then asked if Israel occupied Palestine for 200 years, would that be too long and erase the claims of Palestinians? Why should it make a difference if it was 60 years or 200 years? When was the cut off point? “That’s totally different!” he blustered (and swiftly exited the argument). Well, yes, it is totally different when you’re the coloniser in the position of power who might have to give up rights in something.
Look, I’d agree that there are many, many differences between the indigenous experience and the experience of Jews. It’s not a perfect analogy. But there is (hopefully) a general consensus out there these days that it’s totally out of bounds for public figures to be anti-Semitic, and I think Pearson is trying to make the point that it should be equally as out of bounds for public figures to be anti-Aboriginal.
Jules @#46 and particularly @42:
Diaspora: the scattering of language, culture, or people: a dispersion of a people, language, or culture that was formerly concentrated in one place eg the African diaspora.
Google < 30 seconds.
It fits indigenous Australian history perfectly. Here's a question for you: where do all the Aborigines on Palm Island come from? Another question: how many languages have been lost? A third: where different language and culture groups mixed together on the missions?
Anthony, I can see how the scattering of (mostly) Murri and (some) Goori people from the North Eastern parts of Australia all over Palm Island fits the description of a Diaspora perfectly. Thanks for the correction. (I’ve got good friends who grew up on Palm Island, I’ll have to ask them how they feel about that description. Their families weren’t locked up on the Island, they were scattered there. The same way are criminals are scattered to modern prisons I spose, tho without the due process.)
How many languages have been lost? Too many, but that was a result of genocide. You know genocide. The destruction of a unique group (well groups) of people, and their culture (cultures actually.)
Missions are not a “Diaspora”.
They are reservations where people were rounded up and concentrated so invading people could steal their land. People on missions have not been scattered or dispersed. They have been concentrated in places to enable easier control of them.
Often those places are still within cooee of their original homelands.
Often today people who grew up on a mission still have direct cultural and family links to the places they were originally from. Hardly a Diaspora, unless you value the notion that those links have been effectively erased.
That was something fundamental to Native Title btw, an unbroken connection to country – the idea of a Diaspora certainly works against that unbroken connection, but Native Title has been a joke since the Act in 94 did everything it could to undermine the Mabo decision in 92. Still its kind of funny hearing some of the same concepts that were used to justify every kind of assault on any recognition of Native Title coming from the “other side” of politics all these years later.
Yeah. I guess the scattering of diaspora conjures “cast to the winds” in my mind.
Anthony have you read this?
I dunno if thats the piece I was originally thinking of, but its pretty similar, and I think by the same author. There are examples of conflicts between returning “diaspora” people’s and those that were never removed…
maybe I’m quibbling about words, but to me thats important in a “political” discussion. Cos the words do define the ideas.
And diaspora isn’t the right term for me, cos of that whole “cast to the wind” thing. I don’t think thats the case in Australia, even among the people referred to as “Diaspora” people in the article .
I’ve got Irish ancestry in my mongrel mix, and there was an Irish Diaspora, and there was genocide practised against the Irish too. There are similarities, but again they aren’t the same thing. In many transportation thru Hell’s Gates and being shipped to Palm Island are similar, but in others they aren’t and perhaps one of the most important of those is the very real issue of who actually owns the land.
Even tho my family’s (reputed) Irish home is celebrated in song I don’t have any real claim to that land, I might still have a connection to it, even tho I’ve never been there. But I have no claim on it.
The stuff the blackfellas have suffered from is closer to home and more immediate, at least nearer in time for a start. They can still make claims that deserve to be heard in regard their rights to that land.
To me thats a significant difference – something unavailable to people from a diaspora.
(That opens a can of worms wrt the middle east, I know, and I dunno if thats appropriate for this conversation.)
It is an interesting point you raise Jules although the spinning feeling in my head after page three reminded me of why I’m pleased to no longer be an academic. Reading legal anthropology is an acquired skill! I can see from the author’s view how forced removal, relocation and pure flight from persecution has created conflict between various indigenous groups in relation to the cultural authenticity of their native title claims. Some stayed and some went. The numbers are hard to count.
However, this really reflects the cruelty of the High Court decisions in refusing to properly reflect a communal form of native title more than anything else. Remember Eddie Mabo’s boundary rocks? They were evidence of a form of Lockean individual title (fencing) and once it was settled that they substantiated title any and all attempts to pursue communal title failed. So the differences between diaspora Aborigines and those who were never removed only has force as a consequence of the peculiarity of the legislation in the way that it imposes an obligation of proof of unbroken and ongoing cultural or other forms of land use.
That’s a big ask when virtually the whole continent was in fact a killing field. Then there were the stolen generations. Harder still.
Notwithstanding any of the above I still think that diaspora works as a general descriptor of what happened here. The dispersal, removal from country and kin and the violence with which it was enforced ring true to me even if what happened in Australia doesn’t conform to models of what happened to other peoples who experienced diaspora. In any event, and wiki has a usefully broad account of diasporas through history, what the term captures for me is the sense of irremediable uprooting and fracturing that went on. Culture continues, as Pearson emphasises, but it is diasporic. By that I mean it reflects both rootedness and belonging as well as permanenent loss which is then complemented by attempts to reconstruct something new from the fragents of what remains.
I’ll cite Ken Lovell @270 on the “culture wars” thread when he claims that there is “…an inability (or a refusal) to grasp the enormity of the crime committed against indigenous people…”. Finding the language to describe the crime, what we are doing here, is essential to comprehending the enormity of what happened but is as yet an incomplete task
Well I think few can argue the western history of the first Australians hasn’t been clouded by some serious night and fog.
Nabakov@#53
I think Nabakov will find that few people, outside the fever swamps of Black-Armband historical paranoia, would take this allusion seriously. Even Reynolds has backed away from the ludicrous genocide charge. No point in giving Windy a free-kick in front of goal.
Making colonial governments morally equivalent to Nazi Germany is grotesque even by Nabakov’s laughable intellectual standards. It is an insult to compare the threat faced by dissidents, resistance fighters and partisans (including my father) of instant annihilation by Gestapo-SS to the Buckley’s Chances faced by many Aboriginal children.
Night and Fog was an policy kidnapping opponents of the Nazi regime to instill terror in their families and intimidate members of captive countries. Wikipedia:
The “stolen generation” was not a terrorist policy designed to intimidate Aboriginal insurgents. It was a racist triage policy, designed to “protect” half-caste children from the rigours and ills of fringe dwelling camp life.
The idea that Neville, who for all his faults meant well, was some kind of Eichmann dies hard amongst Left-liberals. Most of whom are not fit to lick his boots.
Ah, the famed Jack Stocchi at last. I’ll address your argument once my head clears of the mental image your text has created which is of a herd of panicked wildebeest attempting to cross a river and trampling each other as they struggle up the bank on the other side.
@55 Anthony, Stroccher’s words put me more in mind of a swarm of ants attempting to drag the carcass of one of your trampled wilderbeest back down into their nest, serving only to crush both they and their nest flat, and raising a lot of dust in the process.
On a thread like this, I suppose that it was inevitable that Jack would turn up eventually, like one of those weird naked guys on ChatRoulette.
Next!
Ok: weird ant covered dead white card playing naked guys.
A role model of citizenship passes: Chicka Dixon will apparently be given a state funeral.
In defence of (part of what) Jack Strocchi wrote, he really gets it that the stolen generation “was a racist triage policy, designed to “protect” half-caste children from the rigours and ills of fringe dwelling camp life.” That’s more than Robert Murray admits in his attempt to whitewash Windschuttle in Saturday’s ‘Weekend Australian’.
I’m really disappointed in Murray, he appears to have morphed into a cross between Paul Hasluck and Arthur Calwell on this issue—though I suspect he’s motivated less by paranoia of the Left dominating this historiography than he is by a desire to return to the trouble free days of racial harmony[sic] that existed in the Golden Era of his youth.
I doubt Henry Reynolds no longer believes in a genocidal interpretation of Oz history. The UN convention on genocide is on his side in that argument, though as Antony Nolan points out @ 16 it’s possible for reasonable people to disagree on what exactly makes a capital ‘G’ genocide.
I should add that I fully accept that the Aboriginal protectors were basically social engineering quasi-eugenicists, who wanted to ‘breed out the color’.
Not certain if Strocchi believes there was any attempt at demographic change along those lines.
(and also indicate that an element of the right doesn’t want to be welcomed to this land, it wants to stomp in on its own terms.)
I think there’s probably a lot of people who feel that being “welcomed” to the land that they were born and raised in, by somebody they have never met before, is pretty ridiculous.
Sometimes I think the left forgets that even though white people share skin colour with the british colonialists that stole land from Aboriginals 200 years ago, that doesn’t mean we are them. We were born in Australia and are just as much owners of this land as are aboriginal people who were born here.
I don’t need to be welcomed to my own country, thanks.
Jack says…..
“The “stolen generation” was not a terrorist policy designed to intimidate Aboriginal insurgents.”
While their may be an argument that local police administration of child removal policy was an important part of the intimidation and control of communities that could well be described as terrorism, I will tentatively agree with Jack’s comment.
The terror canpaign against Aboriginal insurgents occured between about 1800 and 1900 before the protection laws were introduced and the survivors of the war were rounded up into reserves.
During that century the native police were used in operations not unlike the U.S. Phoenix program in Vietnam where insurgents were tracked and killed along with their families and communities.
There were other things like the deliberate infection with smallpox, poisoned water holes, poisened flour and after-church boong-hunts that also contributed to the terror campaign but in terms of government policy you can’t go past the native police for a terrorist campaign.
Look, Yobbs, mushrooms also grow here. Out of cow shit after rain. What is your point again?
Nickws@#61
If I had a dime for every time the phrase “breed out the color” was wheeled out by Nazi-hunting Left-liberals, well, I’d have a 50,200 dimes, going by google. The modern obsession with Nazism anti-semitism and US slavery has had a pernicious effect on history, leading people to sniff out genocide in every confrontation between races.
The Black-Armbanders have twisted almost everything about this story out of recognition. I do not “accept that there was an attempt…to social engineer quasi-eugenic…demographic change along” the lines suggested by that quote. That quote has been mined to suggest that the authorities intended to extirpate the entire Aboriginal race, an imputation which is blatantly false.
The authorities were racist alright but their policy was intended to “breed out” color only from half-castes, not the entire Aboriginal race. This was racist for sure, but not extirminationist eugenics. Any one who thinks this is akin to “Night and Fog” is being wilfully obtuse to the point of disingenuity.
To be sure, the segregationist policy was designed to prevent miscegnation, although it was obviously not very effectively enforced further down South. In fact most of the color out-breeding pressure was coming bottom-up coming from blacks, rather than the top-down coming from whites.
As David Foster points out, Aboriginal females were the most industrious social engineers. It was their sexual selection to mate with white males, which “diluted” full-blood Aboriginal blood lines much more than any mythical eugencist. But we do not condemn them as “eugencists”, rather they are examples of assimilation.
Up North the authorities complementary aim was to “breed in the color” of Aboriginals on reservations. Aboriginals were conceived as a “dying race” (“endangered species” in our parlance). Otherwise it was assumed that Aboriginals would rapidly die out. The reservation policy was intended to protect full-blooded Aboriginals by providing a native reserve. The authorities tried to limit contact with whites whose culture was, with some reason, regarded as toxic to those unused to modern ways. Think the missionaries.
That is why the Aboriginal Protectors were called “Protectors”. This is just the opposite of some dastardly eugenic plot, never mind genocide.
The reservation policy did have a eugenic effect, but not in the sense intended by the Black-Armbanders, since it preserved the gene pool of full-blooded Aboriginals. Anyone who ventures to the Far North can see the preponderance of black-fellas there. This has actually improved their lot of full-blood families in the sense of reducing the number of claimants for mineral royalties.
Gummo Trotsky@#57
I can see by this comment that you have been skipping your meds again. Refer to this comment for a much needed sedative.
“I’ll cite Ken Lovell @270 on the “culture wars” thread when he claims that there is “…an inability (or a refusal) to grasp the enormity of the crime committed against indigenous people…”. Finding the language to describe the crime, what we are doing here, is essential to comprehending the enormity of what happened but is as yet an incomplete task” – Anthony N
Yeah … yeah its a fair point about exploring the requisite language, but thanks for taking the time to have a sensible discussion about it. I think in some cases tho Diaspora might be an appropriate term, and way to view stuff. I’m thinking about it at the moment.
As far as the enormity of the crimes … well what can you say.
I know some pretty full on stories, all oral, dunno what the point of repeating them is.
Dunno where you live Yobbo, but … when you go interstate, do get as shitty about someone saying “Welcome to NSW”? ( Vic or Qld, SA or wherever you aren’t living at the time.)
…Jules, Yobbo might be the reason that the old Welcome to Gosford sign along the Pacific Highway at Somersby used to sprout gun-shot holes…
You guys show a real ignorance of what the welcome to country ceremony symbolises. It’s not “welcoming” in the sense like a sign saying hello is. It’s the “traditional owners” giving their permission to do something on “their land”. And the permission is needed for everyone, including non-aboriginal people who live 5 minutes down the road. Not just visitors from interstate and abroad.
Yobbo
@62:
And you’re never going to be welcome in the miniscule patch of “your country” that I’m renting right now, mate.
@67:
And you are wilfully ignoring of the symbolism of such ceremonies, and the underlying good grace shown by those traditional owners. STFU & FO.
Well said Gummo.
Thanks Adrian (@69). Middle-aged grumpiness has its uses.
Yeah yobbo, and if you wanted to come onto my land and do something then you’d need my permission too.
Cos of whatever title/legal rights I hold wrt it
Thats what a Welcome to Country recognises, that there was a legal system here, an “Australian” one, and we stomped all over it. Its a recognition that people held land title here that we ignored when we imposed our system on it. The Australian system is certainly better than most in the world at the moment, but its legitimacy is compromised by how it started.
A Welcome to Country is an attempt to strengthen that legitimacy. And its coming from “both sides”.
Mercurius that image reminds me of the song lyric:
“Burn outs in the parking bays, shooting up the signs.
We’re just here to wreck the place and leave it all behind.”
Thats what a Welcome to Country recognises, that there was a legal system here, an “Australian” one, and we stomped all over it.
No, “We” didn’t. “We” didn’t stomp all over anything. “We” emigrated to a country that already had a full legal ownership system in place in the late 19th century, upon which “We” bought our land legally from a private owner who had full freehold rights.
That’s what my family did, at least. I’m not sure about yours, maybe they did steal something.
British Soldiers stomped all over whatever was here before us. But “We” have about as much in common with them as Noel Pearson does.
That is the point.
Charlie Perkin’ freedom ride in 1965(?) had a very strong impact because it highlighted the widespread injustices of the time in good old NSW. However, the impact is reduced when the injustices being talked about have been fixed or have been committed by someone else’s ancestors a long time in the past. Even less so when we have heard it all before.
I tend to take notice of Pearson when he is talking about tangible things that are blocking Aboriginal progress and really do have to be fixed by outsiders.
But when he wants to use a simplistic analysis of antisemitism to try and make me feel guilty enough to agree with special treatment of Aborigines it tends to switch me off when perhaps I should be looking more closely at whether there really is a practical justification for what he is proposing.
Jack Strocchi, 65, if you had a dime for each use of the well documented expression ‘breed out the color’ you’d have nothing but coins & irrefutable proof of official, racist, non-animal-husbandry policies past.
The former would be American, the latter most certainly Australian.
This is correct, these ‘mulattoes’ were prohibited from marrying blacks, and were corralled into marriages with non-black partners.
Because the nice Aboriginal protectors were convinced the fullbloods were going the way of the dodo. They absolutely, positively thought Darwinian natural selection was causing us to watch the final days of Aboriginal civilisation.
Just because you refuse to
make the bleeding obvious connections in the very history you actually seem to be aware ofsee the irony doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.I don’t know why I bothered here; I should have realised that an anti-prog contrarian who’s willing to call something that was genuinely racist racist is just going to then turn around and tell us up is down, black is white. And vehemently, always vehemently.
John D @74: Thank you for your insight into the internal workings of Noel Pearson’s brain. Any chance of giving us the winner of the next Melbourne Cup while you’re here?
@ 74 – Sigh, Yobbo it would be nice if you showed any sign of having bothered to read the thread, or the comments.
I’d like to see you try and use the argument to talk your way out of paying the debt off of an encumbered vehicle, mate.
Or try to use that argument to explain why Swiss Banks shouldn’t give Nazi Gold and paintings back to their original owners.
Let me try and put this in bogan language so you’ll get it.
If I steal a car and sell it to you, it’s still a stolen vehicle, and even if we exchange certificates and licenses and you don’t even know it’s stolen, you’re still in possession of a stolen vehicle.
You and I are in receipt of stolen goods. Doesn’t matter whether or not we believe they were stolen, doesn’t matter whether the thief who sold them to you gave you a ‘Certificate of Authenticity’, doesn’t matter how long ago the theft took place. Those diamonds, those artworks, that car; they’re still stolen goods and they still belong to the rightful owners.
That’s why the British invented ‘terra nullius’, it was a legal fakery to transform what they knew (and which international treaties at the time recognised) was land theft. And it took until 1992 for our legal system to recognise the fakery.
We’re accessories after the fact, and we’ve grown rich and fat off the proceeds. Just because you’re too obtuse to admit it, don’t change that fact.
“But when he wants to use a simplistic analysis of antisemitism to try and make me feel guilty enough to agree with special treatment of Aborigines it tends to switch me off when perhaps I should be looking more closely at whether there really is a practical justification for what he is proposing.”
As someone who purports to believe in social justice it might be worth stepping back to see if it is Noel Pearson or whether you might have switched off earlier, John D. This so called “special treatment” for aborigines is the tired, old, language of One Nation and apart from it’s mean spirited ugliness has no basis in fact.
It has been used by racists to justify there own small minded views that are completely at odds with the obvious disadvantage those who have endured dispossession and consequent generational trauma. Pauline has gone to England. Get over her, man.
Yobbs: I offer the traditional crow’s greeting “Far cough”.
Didn’t the “Protection” invested in the Protector and in the QLD act partly refer to the desire to stamp out the practice of ‘paying’ the Aborigines who worked their own land for the benefit of usurpers in the ashes from opium pipes? There were overlapping racisms at work as the decline of the Indigenous populations was being attributed to the practices of a few Chinese immigrant farmers.
Ah, this is a legal blind alley, and I’ll detail it now and point to some relevant material so that people don’t fall into the same trap again.
In brief, as long as his receipt is unknowing, the purchaser of the stolen vehicle is generally protected by a legal principle known as ‘the bona fide purchaser for value without notice’. Of course, factual enquiries — should the matter be litigated — must be undertaken, and any intimation of awareness that the vehicle/chattel/etc was ‘hot’ tells against the 3rd party purchaser, such as to strip away his innocence, but very often he does not know and is thus ‘bona fide’.
I have outlined the relevant law, both at Common law and in Roman law (intriguingly, the two systems developed identical principles independently) here.
sceptic..so who does the car actually belong to now?
Jack @ 65:
Better, I think, to be inspired by my meds than by whatever spitefully neurotic urge drives you to these repeated provocations to combative argument when past experience shows that the end result for you is that your nuts are going to be used for soccer practice. If not by me, by someone else.
I’ll pass on the
sedativeemetic for now. More important things to do today.There’s something really sad about the fact that you waited three whole days for that comment to get out of moderation so you could finally fling it in my face. And sadder yet is that you couldn’t resist doing so.
@ SL – Yep, SL, but we know the goods are stolen – even if there were courts at the time that held ‘terra nullius’ as a legal fig-leaf to protect the buyers, and even if that fatally undermines the legal case – we still know it’s stolen.
Please forgive the scatter-gun approach I’m taking, but I don’t have legal training. Here’s a couple of other situations…
- Why are there laws against money laundering? Because we don’t want people taking the proceeds of crime and ‘cleaning’ it through a casino or similar.
- Why, if you buy an encumbered vehicle from a used car dealer in NSW, are you still liable to pay money owed on the vehicle? Because debts are debts, and have to be paid (unless they’re forgiven – and Indigenous Australians have already forgiven about 98% of the debt, yet there are some who still begrudge paying back 2% of the damage as ‘special treatment’).
What the anti-Aboriginal racists see as ‘special treatment’ is merely settling an old debt on encumbered land. And our riches, having been laundered through the legal system, are still the proceeds of a crime.
We can’t change the past. But some of us can be more f**king gracious about how we conduct ourselves in the future. Accepting a sincere welcome is as good a place to start as any.
Upthread Jack Strocchi cites David Foster and I assume he refers to the author of the unreadable “Glade within the Grove” for which Foster was given a bucket of cash by Paul Keating. One would have hoped that this was a bribe to stop him from writing any more but he apparently has taken it as encouragement and continued. Unless Jack Strocchi means to refer to the champion Tasmanian axeman by the same name. But who could tell?
As for the law of stolen land. Receipt of stolen property law is a poor comparison. The essence of Austrlaian land title law is the “Torrens System” which does not actually give ownership of land but more accurately only gives ownership of title to land, the piece of paper in the filing cabinet. Theoretically the Crown still holds the radical title to all land but in Queensland it resides in a corporation, the Brigalow Corporation, which is directed by the parliament, not the crown. (another inteesting constitutional illegality).
Central to Torrens land law is the absolute extinguishment of any liability attatched to the title each time it is transferred. When land is sold, title does not pass from the seller to the buyer, it is returned to the state which issues a new, fresh title guaranteed free of any prior liabilities.
This was a key point in the Mabo High Court decision that ruled, because of Torrens law, any land that is not vacant crown land (they did not consider leasehold as per Wik decision) has had all historical liabilities extinguished and therefore no native title exists.
The legal question is one of sovereignty. What instrument transferred Aboriginal land title (and all other aspects of law) to the British Crown in order for Torrens title to be instituted.
There is no instrument of transfer and there are many statutes and directions from the crown and principles of common law (including the doctrine of separation) making the British claim of sovereignty illegal and all law that flows from it tainted.
The crimes of Australia are war crimes, not simple theft.
error in my previous comment. I said the common law doctrine of “separation”. I meant to say the doctrine of “reception”.
Zoots@77: Sorry I cant help with the Melbourne cup. I find speculating about Noel Pearson’s thinking far more interesting.
Joez @ 79: You say
I argued against special treatment of whites when I was a student in the early sixties and strongly supported the special provisions in Malcolm Frazer’s land rights bill (as well as many of the other special rights that came into place following the 1967 referendum.) However, since then I have seen little benefit and quite a lot of damage to Aborigines as a consequence of these special rights.
One Nation was all about envy but it doesn’t mean that this is what drives everyone who argues against them.
My argument is that it would have been if special provisions had been seen as the last resort to be used if it was impractical to deal with the problems of Aborigines within a non-racial framework.
JohnD: the idea of “special treatment” is actually enshrined in the Australian Constitution. .Eextensive consideration to the meaning of the “race powers” provision of the constitution is provided by Justice Malbon. For starters here is the introductory summary:
Anthony @90
<nitpick>
Historically, “special treatment” has only been enshrined in the Constitution since 1967. From Malbon’s article:
Those assumptions about race are discussed extensively in the Malbon’s discussion of the birth of the race power.
</nitpick>
Gummo: I admit to topping the artcile cited and not reading extensively as I’ve read it previously. However, the term “special treatment” has cultural meanings not addressed by judicial reasoning. These are those expressed by Paul Kelly’s song of the same names os the term. Apart from carrying te meaning in that song (ie, manifold forms of discrimination) the term also carries a meaning specific to the Hansonite demographic. These are poeple who are so marginalised that they resent “special treament” of Aborigines (welfare in all cases) as a form of positive discrimantion from which they are excluded.
Does that address the nitpick?
It really is about finding a language to talk about this. Maybe I shouldn’t have cited judical opinion which is always constructed as the paramount word. Judges are such fun to talk to (eek).
Oh Lord. Drink and keyboard drive again. Guilty. Sorry about the horrible typos etc above. And any incoherence.