Wednesday, September 13, 2023

THE MYTHS WHICH DAMN US ALL

 


Logic and reason are mist against the stone of ideology and that is the reality. Humans are more reluctant to give up dreams than realities and too many of the stories of our aboriginal stone-age history, repeated today are largely fantasy and have been for half a century.

 

The public has been immersed in the lies, now mythology, since the 67 Referendum when the Yes case used outright lies to win the day. The argument, and it was admitted at the time these were untruths, was that Australians would not be able to understand what the Referendum was about - in essence to transfer responsibility from State Governments to Federal for aborigines who remained living in tribal/clan systems - and the means justified the end. The means were the lies that aborigines were not citizens, did not have the vote, were not counted in the census and had been classed as Flora and Fauna, so not even human.

A very good
paper was written by Helen Irving, Sydney University, in 2015, Indigenous Recognition and Constitutional Myths to counter this misinformation. Irving supports constitutional recognition and in general takes the recent academic view of aboriginal history, but, she clearly felt moved to correct the myths told during the 67 Referendum which too many still believe.  Helen Irving was appointed Professor Emerita at Sydney Law School in 2021. Her research includes Australian and United States constitutional law and history; constitutional citizenship; comparative constitutional design and gender; the use of history in constitutional interpretation, and models of judicial review.

 

Unfortunately, as has been said, a lie repeated often enough becomes a 'truth' and that is what has happened since 1967. And so, today, most people, including those who should know better like teachers, school principals and academics, believe the lies.

 

The mist of reason does not make a dent against the stone edifice of disinformation masquerading as gloriously dressed mythology.



1. That Australians without aboriginal ancestry owe recognition and compensation to Australians with aboriginal ancestry because the British colonised this land more than two centuries ago.

This ignores the fact that everywhere on earth has been colonised as humans migrated around the globe and that those many different peoples here in 1788, called Aborigines by the British, had also colonised the land in different waves of migration. Why is colonisation by stone-age hunter-gatherers, called Aborigines, acceptable and colonisation by Anglo-Europeans is not? The only reason there is an issue today is that the British were more enlightened than stone-age hunter-gatherers and they did not wipe out those they found here, but instead sought to preserve and protect them.

2. That having Aboriginal ancestry, no matter how small and for most who register as Indigenous it is minimal and for some non-existent, gives one greater rights to this land and greater connection to the land including a spiritual link which no human without aboriginal ancestry can possess.

This ignores the fact that all humans were once stone-age hunter-gatherers and connected to the land in order to survive. It also ignores the fact that no-one has lived a true stone-age hunter-gatherer life in Australia for nearly two centuries. When survival depends on what the land does and provides, then of course the connection is powerful and we see this in farmers who are deeply connected to their land because they depend upon it for survival.

And it ignores the fact that if there were some spiritual links to the land and some unique connection then Aboriginal communities would be other than what they are – cesspits of filth and environmental vandalism and degradation.

3. That having Aboriginal ancestry, no matter how small, means the rest of society should respect and honour those with it, particularly anyone over the age of fifty.

Ignoring the fact that respect is earned and there was nothing to respect in the stone-age hunter-gatherer lives found here in 1788 and there is nothing to respect in the remnants of what is called traditional life, but which is a dysfunctional Aboriginal/Anglo European hybrid found in Aboriginal communities. There are of course many Australians with Aboriginal ancestry whose efforts are deserving of respect but that is because it has been earned. If we were to respect people from the past then surely, we would have even greater respect for the settlers who created this modern nation out of nothing?

4. That aboriginality and its myths, traditions and cultures can be invented without any substance in facts and that Australians must accept it all without question. For example, the British practice of children calling adults who were not family members, Uncle or Auntie, has now been co-opted by the aboriginal brigade for any man or woman with some aboriginal ancestry who does or says anything. This honorific has no source in any of the hundreds of different Aboriginal clan traditions and is insulting because adults are being asked to use the terms. These people are not our Auntie or Uncle and in fact they are not even Auntie or Uncle to most Australians with aboriginal ancestry given the rigidity still of tribal/clan divides.

5. That nothing negative can ever be said about the brutal reality, well documented, of stone-age hunter-gatherer aboriginal lives where topics like cannibalism, infanticide, child marriage, violence toward women are censored and condemned and where even academics rewrite history to pretend that the world of stone-age Australia was a Utopia destroyed by colonialism.

6. That reconciliation is needed between Australians with Aboriginal ancestry, around 900,000, most of them minimal in such ancestry, and those without it, more than 25 million Australians.

 

This ignores the fact that the reason why so many are more Anglo European than they are aboriginal is because we have had high levels of intermarriage for more than two centuries. Indeed, today, most Australians with aboriginal ancestry are in mixed marriages. There is no greater reconciliation and acceptance than intermarriage and no greater testament to the lack of racism in most Australians over centuries.

7. That Australians with Aboriginal ancestry are owed ‘rent’ because the settlers created this nation on land where their ancestors lived. Ignoring the fact that the gift of this modern democracy, one of the best places in the world to live, is something for which they should be grateful.

8. That Australians without Aboriginal ancestry are to blame for any dysfunction in Aboriginal communities because it would never have happened if they had not been colonised.

Ignoring the fact that most Australians with Aboriginal ancestry are doing fine with the same sorts of lives and outcomes as anyone else, sometimes better, and that those struggling are generally in communities which, unlike the majority, are not assimilated into the modern world but remain trapped in backward and violent tribal/clan systems. Most people talk about indigenous Australians as if they were one with the same sorts of lives and outcomes when of course they are not. The Linda Burney, Stan Grant, Ken Wyatt, Lidia Thorpe brigade, to name just a few of many, have nothing in common with the few who continue to struggle.

It also ignores the fact that all humans are descended from the persecuted, abused, traumatised and colonised and most do not live lives of dysfunction today because of ancestral suffering. If the claims of inter-generational trauma had any substance, then everyone would suffer from it, particularly those with some Aboriginal ancestry and they do not.

9. That Aboriginal tribal beliefs, practices, lore should be supported and encouraged regardless of how violent and backward they might be.

Ignoring the fact that civil law exists to protect all of us and goes beyond tribe, clan, community or culture for that very reason. Which stone-age practices should be restored? Cannibalism, child marriage, infanticide, women as slaves, brutal initiation practices to boys and girls which often killed them or left them sterile?

10. That longevity of ancestry should give one greater rights as a citizen and greater power over Government.

This is the premise of the voice which wants to single out Australians with Aboriginal ancestry for greater rights and power. Ignoring the fact that our democratic systems have been hard won and evolved in order that tribal systems could be discarded and every citizen would be treated equally as a citizen and where we all had the same voice, the vote. To give one group more voice is to betray our democracy.

These lies have become mythology over the past few decades and the only positive thing about the voice is that it is making more people question them and this racist division of our nation which has been stealing its way into power for too long. Never underestimate the power of a myth for it is a lie dressed in appealing form and too easily mistaken as a truth.


 

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