Australian History and Aboriginal Culture

I was really looking forward to these lectures and was sorely disappointed when they actually happened. Though I have really enjoyed Greg Pemberton’s lecture style, he tried to get into the theory of history as well as the how’s and why’s rather than the who's and what’s—or as he put it, “One damn thing after another.” These lectures took about four hours each, and I had a really hard time listening.

The Australia Day as an Independence Day that I described a while ago is a lie, and I am much less pleased with the actual meaning of it—it celebrates the day when Captain Cook discovered Australia in the same way that Columbus discovered America. So it’s less of a stick it to Great Britain more of a stick it to the Aboriginals. The Columbus parallel was talked into the ground, along with the concept of “discovery” as ownership.

US independence had a lot to do with the founding of Australia, in that once we were no longer owned by the crown, Great Britain could no longer send convicts our way, so they started investigating Cpt. Cook’s report and pretty much said “Hey! Let’s use this!” and so it was.
1770-Cook’s report was filed away as there was no immediate wealth to be taken1776-US Independence1781-Parliamentary committee investigates where else to put convicts
1787-Decision on Aussie convicts settlement (at Sydney).

Movies that were recommended were “The Plowman’s Lunch” and “The History Boys.” Also, discussed were the ideas that monuments are in place to tell a national biography. As well as two ways of knowing the old way which was through the church and was pretty into acquiescence and the new way--through science--which demands activism and participation. Also, it would seem that throughout my post-secondary education, Cod keep coming up as a main theme of history, and let me again (if I haven’t already) recommend Cod: A History of the fish that changed the world by Mark Kurlansky. It is such an apt title.

This brings us to the Aboriginal lecture—which again took forever though wasn’t quite as excruciating. As I may have mentioned before, it comes back down to “it’s the same all over” and parallels the US settler/indigenous person situation.

Fun facts include that in the National War Museum there is no (or now very little) mention of any of the many Aboriginal men who have fought for ANZAC and other forces. They were not considered British subjects until 1921 and couldn’t vote in all states until 1941; though women got the vote in 1906 (Kiwi women enjoyed the vote since 1893—all three of them). The original Australian constitution called for Aboriginals to not be counted in any census until 1971. Like the US and Canada, there were generations of children were swept away to boarding schools, given anglicized names, and pretty well stripped of culture. Australia, like Canada has since apologized for this.

Some interesting acts in the indigenous rights movement include one leader flying to England and planting the Aboriginal flag and claiming England. Another is a tent embassy near all of the other embassies in Canberra that has been their for 37 years to assure reasonable representation. There is an idea for having a few seats in parliament set aside for aboriginal people, but it hasn’t gone so well. In New Zealand though, there are seats set aside for Maori, though percent wise there are more Maori in New Zealand than there are Aboriginal people in Australia. (Something like 12% versus 2% of the population). I would be interested to see how that idea would go over in the United States.

There was also discussion that history is absolutely bound up in politics, or, as my mother (jokingly) says, “Written by the winners and taught by the losers.” Also discussed were that global attitudes, as well as money, drive a lot of progressive policy. For example, discrimination against Asian peoples only became passé after Asia was seen as a market for Australian goods. Oh! Side note! Australia is the biggest supplier of coal to China. Take a minute and think about how big that is and the consequences (and benefits) that rest therein. It’s a big deal. Really though, Pemberton boiled it all down to, “It’s all about real estate” and that’s all I have to say about that.