Whose Country? Race and the Colonial Experience

Whose Country?Race & the Colonial Experience

The Racial State Week 5Dr Alana Lentin

Monday, 25 March 13

OverviewPossession & Dispossession

Settler Colonialism

Race & Nation

National identity & whiteness

The History Wars

Recognition?

Monday, 25 March 13Aboriginal dispossession as foundational to understanding relationship between racism and Australian nationalism.

What is particular about settler colonialism.

How are race and nation connected.

Whiteness as central to the opposition between non-indigenous and aboriginal Australians. Whiteness as the default or norm - central to Australian national identity.

Negotiations over versions of history - the importance of guilt (Maddison).

Terra Nullius?

The myth of ‘terra nu$ius’

The state of nature

Disavowal of violence

Monday, 25 March 131. The myth of Terra Nullius (land belonging to no one)

- Australian stories of origin rely on the myth of terra nullius.Parallels to other contexts - Zionism: ‘Land without people for a people without a land.’

- Original Australians as poor and dispossessed (convicts) feeds the notion that they were deserving of the land [Secret River book]- Added to mythical status of the pioneer: Australian National Father as ‘cavalier heroes, noble, brave, humble (albeit with larrikin streak), with soldier-like courage’ (Mary O’Dowd).The National Father is portrayed as only fighting the land.

2. The state of nature

The presence of Aboriginal people (Aboriginal meaning only the original inhabitants of the land) was denied in the official mythology which saw the pioneer British inhabitant as battling a cruel, dry and hard land.

The need to defeat the people living on the land was not part of the official story of the origins of Australia.

This is because Aborignals were seen as existing in a ‘state of nature’.

Explain Hobbes and the state of nature (origin of the idea).

Narrative:James Cook was commissioned by the British Royal Society in 1768 ‘to find the great southern continent’.

[click to reveal quote] He was given instructions: ‘Endeavour by all proper means to cultivate a friendship and alliance with them [...] You are also with the consent of the natives to take possession of convenient situations in the country in the name of the King of Great Britain, or, if you find the country uninhabited take possession for his Majesty.’

Aileen Moreton-Robinson (2010):

Instructions make clear that Aboriginals had property rights to the land.But, also assumed that they would give up their right to the land (assumed prior knowledge about ‘natives’ as primitive...)

Cook observed that Aboriginals did not cultivate the land, were less advanced than indigenous people in other places he had been.

He saw them as existing in a state of nature because they did not seem interested in material things - did not take items left for them by the British or give away anything of theirs in return.

i.e. they did not understand the value of exchange of goods.Because they did not seem to value property, they were seen as being in a state of nature.

Based on this logic, Cook/the British could take possession of the land.

From the perspective of a white European, lack of attachment to property or things was incomprehensible. Fundamental to modernity was that to be be fully human, one had to value the private ownership of property.

Being able to say ‘this is mine’ was seen as central to being human. Aboriginal culture did not place emphasis on possession, so Aboriginals were seen as people without will.

Moreton-Robinson: Cook willed ‘away Indigenous people’s sovereignty in order to make them appear will-less.’

This was added to the idea that blackness was degenerate and inferior that had already begun to take hold in Europe.

Cook racialised Aboriginal people as black and without will. This allowed for Aboriginals to be seen themselves as possessions, and not as autonomous subjects.

This was the justification for invasion, and allowed the myth of Terra Nullius to take hold.

3. Disavowal of violenceThe same logic allowed violence against Aboriginals during the invasion of Australia to be written out of history (disavowed/denied).

Deborah Bird Rose:Unavoidable fact: Invasion and colonisation require death and dispossession.

W.E.H. Stanner:The destruction of Aboriginal life and culture is what makes construction of European life in Australia possible - the two go hand-in-hand.

Sarah Maddison:

National history is focused on stories of heroism of ‘strangers in a strange land’ while ignoring/denying genocide of Aboriginals - ‘fetishising of violence’ by focusing on glamour of ‘frontier excitement’.

Maddison: Violence against Aboriginals can be seen as both direct and indirect - three phases of settler violence - can be seen as fundamental to understanding why Australian national identity relies on a disavowal of its violent past.

The admission of violence clashes with the view of Australians as giving people a ‘fair go’.

When we look at the challenges over history (history wars) we will revisit the disavowal of violence and examine what Lorenzo Veracini examines in terms of the national trauma this causes society in Australia.

Next slide - Three stages...

Terra Nullius?

The myth of ‘terra nu$ius’

The state of nature

Disavowal of violence

‘Endeavour by a$ proper means to cultivate a %iendship and a$iance with them [...] You are also with the consent of the natives to take possession of convenient situations in the country in the name of the King of Great Britain, or, if you find the country uninhabited take possession for his Majesty.’

Banner (2005)

Monday, 25 March 131. The myth of Terra Nullius (land belonging to no one)

- Australian stories of origin rely on the myth of terra nullius.Parallels to other contexts - Zionism: ‘Land without people for a people without a land.’

- Original Australians as poor and dispossessed (convicts) feeds the notion that they were deserving of the land [Secret River book]- Added to mythical status of the pioneer: Australian National Father as ‘cavalier heroes, noble, brave, humble (albeit with larrikin streak), with soldier-like courage’ (Mary O’Dowd).The National Father is portrayed as only fighting the land.

2. The state of nature

The presence of Aboriginal people (Aboriginal meaning only the original inhabitants of the land) was denied in the official mythology which saw the pioneer British inhabitant as battling a cruel, dry and hard land.

The need to defeat the people living on the land was not part of the official story of the origins of Australia.

This is because Aborignals were seen as existing in a ‘state of nature’.

Explain Hobbes and the state of nature (origin of the idea).

Narrative:James Cook was commissioned by the British Royal Society in 1768 ‘to find the great southern continent’.

[click to reveal quote] He was given instructions: ‘Endeavour by all proper means to cultivate a friendship and alliance with them [...] You are also with the consent of the natives to take possession of convenient situations in the country in the name of the King of Great Britain, or, if you find the country uninhabited take possession for his Majesty.’

Aileen Moreton-Robinson (2010):

Instructions make clear that Aboriginals had property rights to the land.But, also assumed that they would give up their right to the land (assumed prior knowledge about ‘natives’ as primitive...)

Cook observed that Aboriginals did not cultivate the land, were less advanced than indigenous people in other places he had been.

He saw them as existing in a state of nature because they did not seem interested in material things - did not take items left for them by the British or give away anything of theirs in return.

i.e. they did not understand the value of exchange of goods.Because they did not seem to value property, they were seen as being in a state of nature.

Based on this logic, Cook/the British could take possession of the land.

From the perspective of a white European, lack of attachment to property or things was incomprehensible. Fundamental to modernity was that to be be fully human, one had to value the private ownership of property.

Being able to say ‘this is mine’ was seen as central to being human. Aboriginal culture did not place emphasis on possession, so Aboriginals were seen as people without will.

Moreton-Robinson: Cook willed ‘away Indigenous people’s sovereignty in order to make them appear will-less.’

This was added to the idea that blackness was degenerate and inferior that had already begun to take hold in Europe.

Cook racialised Aboriginal people as black and without will. This allowed for Aboriginals to be seen themselves as possessions, and not as autonomous subjects.

This was the justification for invasion, and allowed the myth of Terra Nullius to take hold.

3. Disavowal of violenceThe same logic allowed violence against Aboriginals during the invasion of Australia to be written out of history (disavowed/denied).

Deborah Bird Rose:Unavoidable fact: Invasion and colonisation require death and dispossession.

W.E.H. Stanner:The destruction of Aboriginal life and culture is what makes construction of European life in Australia possible - the two go hand-in-hand.

Sarah Maddison:

National history is focused on stories of heroism of ‘strangers in a strange land’ while ignoring/denying genocide of Aboriginals - ‘fetishising of violence’ by focusing on glamour of ‘frontier excitement’.

Maddison: Violence against Aboriginals can be seen as both direct and indirect - three phases of settler violence - can be seen as fundamental to understanding why Australian national identity relies on a disavowal of its violent past.

The admission of violence clashes with the view of Australians as giving people a ‘fair go’.

When we look at the challenges over history (history wars) we will revisit the disavowal of violence and examine what Lorenzo Veracini examines in terms of the national trauma this causes society in Australia.

Next slide - Three stages...

3 Stages of Aboriginal Displacement

Monday, 25 March 13Patrick Wolfe’s three phases:

1. Race was used to justify the displacement or destruction of the local indigenous population. Settlers battled ‘against Nature’ and ‘against the natives’ to establish what they saw as civilization.

Aboriginals seen as a dying breed, thus legitimising their further annihilation (direct violence or through introduction of disease and forcing them to live outside of their natural environments).

Racism: A history excerpt on Tasmania to exemplify this.

Note the coexistence of naturalist and historicist approaches throughout.

2. Post-federation (1901) policy of ‘protection’.Creation of reserves and missions to contain Aboriginal people.Mixing of clans and nations, away from traditional lands.

Legal apparatus (recall week 3): Legislation to control movement, marriage, employment (could not leave without boss’s permission, often not seeing wages) and association.

Aboriginal children taken from their families. Aboriginals still seen as a dying people.

Christianity (missions) used to deny Aboriginal spirituality and culture. Names changed. Ceremonies forbidden.

3. 1951 - assimilation.Recognition that Aboriginals would not die out. Better for them to be absorbed into white culture. Best route out of poverty - seen by whites as the road out of social marginalisation.

Full adoption of historicism.

Aboriginals were often expected to assimilate while still confined on reserves and missions.

Recalling Fanon - Yorta Yorta leader Paul Briggs cited in Maddison: ‘... the pressure to conform and live white, act white, think white, so that you can get on and get access to services.’

Assimilation into the white culture responsible for the dispossession of Aboriginals, seen as racially inferior and treated as such legally, socially, politically and economically, is arguably an impossible task.

Note: This attitude does not go away. Elizabeth Povinelli: In 1997 John Howard forced Senator Ross Lightfoot to apologise after he said, as cair of the Committee on Aboriginal Affairs, that ‘Aboriginal people in their native state are the lowest colour on the civilization spectrum.’

Arguing in favour of the 1950s assimilation policy, the Aboriginal Affairs Minister under Howard, John Herron, said that ‘“Half-caste” children had been given an economic and social head start over their “full-blood” cousins who were handicapped in the race to civil society by their adherence to outmoded beliefs and practices’ (Povinelli).

1970s on: assimilation rejected in favour of partial acknowledgement of Aboriginal right to land, re-telling of history from Aboriginal perspective, etc.

However, constant opposition to attempts to redress injustice as well as the use of institutions (e.g. the law) to re-entrench Aboriginal marginalisation has meant that reconciliation is still not achieved (e.g. recognition of Aboriginals in Australian constitution is just begin discussed now - dealt with in the conclusion to the lecture; NT intervention and suspension of Racial Discrimination Act from 2001-10 - dealt with in Week 10).


Phase 1: Con%ontation









































Phase 2: Protection





















Phase 2: Protection

Phase 3: Assimilation





















Phase 2: Protection

Phase 3: Assimilation‘... the pressure to conform and live white, act white, think white, so that you can get on and get access to services.’

Paul Bri,s



















Settler Colonial Logic

The British Empire (Settler colonies in orange)

Monday, 25 March 13To set Australia in context, a quick look at the theory on settler colonialism...

The map shows that Australia is not the only settler colonial society - New Zealand, Canada, the US, Israel, South Africa...

1. Difference between migration and settler colonialism:Both settlers and migrants move across space and may end up permanently in a new country.

But settlers ‘are made by conquest, not just by immigration’ (Mahmood Mamdani).

Lorenzo Veracini: Settlers found political orders while migrants enter into an already established order.

James Belich: an ‘emigrant joined someone else’s society, a settler or colonist remade his own.’

2. Settler colonialism vs. colonialism:

Patrick Wolfe: Unlike colonialism (where the coloniser does not permanently settle in the new land), settler colonialism is not a master-servant relationship ‘marked by ethnic difference’ (e.g. what Fanon described in relation to the French in Martinique).

3. The primary object of settler colonialism is the land itself, not the profit to be made from that land.

So, colonialism sees the natives as indispensable - necessary for making a profit (e.g. through their labour). But settler colonialism wants to own the land and sees the natives as dispensable.

Veracini calls it a ‘winner takes all project’ - Indigenous populations can be eradicated so that the land itself can be worked and possessed by the settlers.

4. Anna Johnston and Alan Lawson: the settler is caught between two first worlds - Europe - the source of their culture and authority - and that of the First Nations ‘whose authority they not only replaced and effaced but also desired.’

This tug between the desire to know the land as well as indigenous people and the determination to own the land - which means the need to deny and efface local knowledge and culture - has arguably never been resolved.

For this reason, non-indigenous Australians can still be thought of as settler colonials. Aboriginals insist that their people, contrary to the myth of Terra Nullius, never gave their consent to their land being taken. Hence, Australia, like the US, Canada, etc. can still be thought of as settler colonies.

Legal structures still privilege white Australians over indigenous people with regards land for example. White people still dominate government and all allied institutions and private business (e.g. mining). So, there is still no balance of power between settlers and indigenous in Australia, NZ, the US, Canada, etc.

Newer migrants benefit too, although they are racialised in other ways (Week 6). We all participate in the displacement of Aboriginals.


Migration vs. settlement




















Settler colonialsm vs. colonialism





















Land as primary goal





















Land as primary goal

Caught between two first worlds


















Race & Nation

Monday, 25 March 131. Nations and nationalism

Nations are modern phenomena - European inventions - spread to the globe. Today the only legitimate structure for a people to organise politically and be recognised (e.g. Palestinians struggle to be recognised by the UN).

Nations come after the state and come to be thought of as synonymous - the nation-state.

Nationalism is the movement that brings nations into being. Nations are defined in opposition to others. Thus borders are drawn, wars are fought and immigration begins to be controlled. Who is an insider/outsider.

2. Primordial or invented?Debates in nationalism studies between those who see nations as based on ‘ethnic origins’ (Smith) and those for whom nationalism is completely modern and which relies on invented myths and symbols to function (Gellner, Hobsbawm...)

Australia is a good example of a modern nation which nonetheless borrows from its British roots to ‘invent’ an authentic ethnic origin. This allows for aboriginals and non-white Australians to be seen as inauthentic.

3. Balibar: Racism and nationalism are not the same but they are each determined by each other and are in a reciprocal relationship.

All nationalisms have the potential to be racist. The distinction between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ nationalism (e.g. democracy vs. fascism) is false. e.g. democracies can still oppress racial minorities.

Racism comes to the fore when there is a challenge or a need to dominate.

e.g. Aboriginals are constructed as racially inferior due to the settlers’ need to colonise the land.As we shall see next week, White Australia answers the demand for the protection of white workers.

How is Australian national identity racialised?

Race & Nation

Nations & Nationalism












Race & Nation


Priordial or invented?












Race & Nation


Priordial or invented?

Reciprocity of racism and nationalism (E. Balibar)












Constructions of national identity

Monday, 25 March 131. Australian national identity is premised on the idea of the pioneer who conquered a cruel and unforgiving land.

Mary O’Dowd: White heroes were especially valued for having died in the fight, either against the land or abroad (at war).

Contrast with Aboriginals for whom the land was ‘a mother, a part of self, something to be cared for; a country to be lovingly sung to; a land whose seasons were accepted; and land through which they walked softly.” (O’Dowd: 94).

Jason Donovan - Who Do You Think You are documentary - his ancestor, Cox, described as ‘man against nature’. [show clip]

Mary O’Dowd; no mention of the impact of Cox’s road on Aboriginal life or of Cox’s role as a major player in the invasion of the land of the Wiradjuri Nation.

2. Bravery and fairness:The white hero is reproduced in both high and popular culture (e.g. Crocodile Dundee).Because of the disavowal of violence, Australians are portrayed as classless people, coming to a new (unpeopled) land in search of prosperity, willing to give everyone who works hard a ‘fair go’.

Aboriginals are portrayed as opposing this spirit for their failure to concede the land and embody this identity.

This view denies the structural disadvantage faced by Aboriginals who were precisely not given a ‘fair go’ despite the mythology.

3. Whiteness:Whiteness is not just a skin colour (after all who is really white?)It is a power structure. So, it is not just about skin. It relates to a global discourse (across and beyond individual societies) about who has power and privilege.

Modernity - humanness becomes universal (human as distinct from animal).But, as race develops with modernity (week 1), whiteness is made synonymous with humanness.The racialised occupy the space between the human and the animal - less than human (Fanon).

[click to reveal quote]: Dyer: Whiteness is not questioned.White people are seen as individuals.Therefore they don’t think of themselves as raced. They are just the standard.

In Australia:Moreton-Robinson (2004) - Due to British colonialism, whiteness as a power structure is cemented.Whiteness is defined in opposition to Aboriginals in the context of domination.

So, Irish and Scots Catholics (racialised in British context) became white in Australia by defining themselves in opposition to Aboriginals. Later, Italians and Greeks and other migrants become white.(Who is still not white?)

Becoming white means self-defining in opposition to Aboriginality (primitiveness/less than human) in Australian context.

(More on the whitening of newer migrants after White Australia next week.)

Configuring of national identity is achieved through white figures - e.g. the ‘white digger’ (e.g. ignoring Aboriginal participation in WW2).

Sport too: As Moreton-Robinson asks, ‘Consider why Cathy Freeman is positioned as running for reconciliation, yet Ian Thorpe swims for the nation.’

O’Dowd: Terms like ‘Aussie pioneer’, ‘Aussie’ and even ‘Australian’ are often seen as non-Indigenous (white). they suggest ‘a strong understanding of indigenous people as outside of “Australianness”.’

Race is always about the non-white other. It belongs only to Aboriginals allowing for whiteness to remain hidden.

This allows for the power dimensions of race to be concealed. Race becomes synonymous with blackness rather than being a concept for explaining how power operates within colonial and postcolonial settings.

To overcome this, whiteness as a racial category must be revealed.

Quote from I Can Fix It: Racism:“Be white. Acknowledge that white is a color and a race. Learn how to say “white people.” Don’t play dumb.Don’t say “I don’t know what to say, do, think” or “I don’t really have a race.” Resist feelings of hopelessness and self pity. Do not invent white suffering. Lose the drama.”


Conflicting representations of country

















































Bravery and fairness

























“[W]hites are overwhelmingly and disproportionately predominant, have the central and elaborated roles, and above a$ are placed as the norm, the ordinary, the standard. Whites are everywhere in representation. Yet precisely because of this and their placing as norm they seem not to be represented to themselves as whites but as people who are variously gendered, classed, sexualised and able. At the level of racial representation, in other words, whites are not of a certain race, they’re just the human race.”

Richard Dyer (1997:3)

Bravery and fairness

Whiteness























The History Wars

Monday, 25 March 131. Sarah Maddison:From 1970s on - reevaluation of Australian history to incorporate Aboriginal perspectives.

Influences - global trends (anticolonial, liberation movements of 1960s-70s), more Aboriginal scholarship, legal successes (e.g. Mabo decision and later The Native Title Act - recognising Aboriginals as original owners of the land, though stopping short of granting propriety in common law).

2. Public discussion of rights and wrongs of Australian history made non-Indigenous people uncomfortable.

Historian Geoffrey Blainey coined the term ‘black armband view of history’ - critical historians were blamed for only seeing the negative side of Australian past and not emphasising the positive.

He said: the ‘balance sheet of Australian history’ showed there was more to be celebrated than regretted.

John Howard takes up the theme: The balance sheet shows Australians have nothing to be ashamed of.

Mid-90s on: This led to a debate about the extent to which it could be said that there had been a deliberate policy to exterminate Aboriginal people, whether massacres had taken place or foreign diseases introduced into Aboriginal populations.

As shall be discussed in Week 7, the history wars peaked over the debate about the Stolen Generations following publication of ‘Bringing Them Home’ (report about the separation of Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders from their parents). Those who opposed the report questioned the numbers as well as arguing that the separation was for the good of the children.

Sarah Maddison and Mary O’Dowd both argue that the debates of the History Wars were less about establishing actual facts and figures and more about ‘the moral and political implications of our history’.

It is to do with what image of the nation we want to project. A positive, celebratory view of Australia cannot be established while recalling the treatment of Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders. It conflicts with the image that people have of themselves as ‘good people’.

As Howard said in refusing to apologise for the Stolen Generations: ‘We don’t think it’s appropriate for the current generation of Australians to apologise for the injustices committed by past generations.’

Howard realised that the apology would have a reflection on current generations.

5. Psychoanalysis can help us understand why talking honestly open the past in Australia is so difficult to this day.Lorenzo Veracini: Even when trauma is repressed (as in Australia for a very long time) it is still latent (under the surface) and can emerge in various forms.

The longer something is repressed, the greater the resultant problems (political but also emotional) for both non-indigenous and indigenous Australians.

Veracini: It is difficult to acknowledge the violence of the past because it is foundational to settler colonial existence. Veracini theorises that settler colonial subjects identify very strongly with the motherland (Australia) and are invested in representations of it both as the ideal society and as an uncorrupted version of the original society (England). Any crack in this perfect image leads to the shattering of the individual’s own identity. So, non-indigenous Australians are heavily invested in emphasising the positive image.

Maddison: Non-indigneous Australians are also scared of ‘being cast out’ of the land, of having to literally give back land, or of losing legitimacy as owners of the land.

This is clear from Howard’s speech at a conference on reconciliation, analysed in the film by psychoanalyst Judith Brett.

4. Mary O’Dowd:Referring to Henry Reynolds 1999 Book, ‘Why Weren’t We Told?’ - the idea is that Australians were not told about the history of Aboriginal dispossession and settler violence.

O’Dowd: the question should be ‘why can’t we hear?’. As we have seen, Australians know about violence but are heavily invested in disavowing or denying it.

But, as Sarah Maddison says, the very fact that Aboriginals and TSI exist in our communities means that we cannot forget. We therefore find all kinds of means for justifying the condition Aboriginals and TSI find themselves in - alcoholism, welfare dependence, and other forms of deviance are blamed as at the root of why Aboriginals and TSI people cannot ‘rise above’ their condition. It is too damaging to the self image of Australians to see those social problems as consequences, rather than causes, of dispossession, violence and assimilation.

O’Dowd: problem in education:research with university educators show that students are resistant to learning about Aboriginal suffering. They often resort to stereotypes about Aboriginals as ‘advantaged in terms of government benefits’).

Aboriginals are, at best, seen as a problem to be solved (social work case) not as a population which never ceded its land to the colonisers (which would see them as more equal - albeit this is not a comforting realisation).

O’Dowd cites a study by Rhonda Craven et al. on pre-service teachers.

They found that some teachers said that Aboriginal studies were only relevant for Aboriginal students. They also found that 25% did not teach Aboriginal studies even though it is mandatory on the NSW curriculum. Some would only teach it to Aboriginal students.

So, Aboriginal studies is seen as a specialist subject, mainly for Aboriginal students interested in their own history.

5. Unhistory:

O’Dowd: we need to untell the dominant history in order to be able to hear another history. At the moment, Aboriginal history is like an unhistory or a non-history.

This is difficult because a sanitised version of Australian history is implicit in national identity, art, literature and popular culture.

O’Dowd: This is clear in John Howard’s remarks that ‘I sympathise fundamentally with Australians who are insulted when they are told that we have a racist, bigoted past.’

Howard is insulted on behalf of today’s Australians who he said had no part in the past.

O’Dowd: Howard’s statements shows that he sees Australian nationalism as non-indigenous. He is speaking for Australians who are ‘insulted’, but what he really means is that he is speaking for non-indigenous Australians. Indigenous Australians are, therefore, seen as not being part of the nation, or part of its history.

Placing Aboriginals and TSI people outside of national history makes it easier not to hear their story as relevant to ‘us’. This makes it easier to justify their continued marginalisation and dispossession.

Links to Fanon on visibility - seeing people as fully human means recognising them. We can only recognise someone fully if we listen to what they say about their own experience. Rejecting others’ experience as less important, or ‘all in the past’, or ‘not as bad as all that’ literally means not seeing their humanity. No one would relativise the experiences of the Anzac soldiers.

The History Wars

Shi-ing perspectives


























5. Unhistory:








The History Wars


‘Black Armband’ view of history


























5. Unhistory:








The History Wars



Psychoanalytic readings


























5. Unhistory:








The History Wars





























5. Unhistory:








The History Wars




Why can’t we hear?


























5. Unhistory:








The History Wars




Why can’t we hear?

Unhistory


























5. Unhistory:








Where to from here?

Monday, 25 March 131. The utility of guilt:

Maddison: ‘We need to experience our discomfort in a deep rather than a superficial way’.So, it is it sufficient to understand Aboriginal and TSI people’s trauma while still looking down on them (Kevin Gilbert, Aboriginal poet).

Guilt obviously produces discomfort and our natural tendency is towards denial. But Maddison recommends ‘sitting with our guilt’ rather than shoving it aside.

But, non -Indigenous Australians should not wallow in their guilt. They need to own it, take responsibility and use it productively.

Acknowledging the past will not automatically lead to reconciliation.

Working with guilt should mean doing so in dialogue with Aboriginal and TSI people so that it doesn’t become all about ‘our guilt’, i.e. about non-indigenous Australians’ feelings of guilt - they are not the ones who suffered the trauma, they are the beneficiaries.

There should never be an end-point, a point at which the past is laid to the rest, allowing us to sit back on our laurels. Coming to terms with the past is about what happens in the present and is an ongoing process.

2. Towards recognition:

You Me Unity campaign to recognise Aboriginals and TSI people in the Australian constitution.

[Show video]

Recommends the following changes: Remove Section 25 – which says the States can ban people from voting based on their race;Remove section 51(xxvi) – which can be used to pass laws that discriminate against people based on their race;Insert a new section 51A - to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and to preserve the Australian Government’s ability to pass laws for the benefit of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples;Insert a new section 116A, banning racial discrimination by government; andInsert a new section 127A, recognising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages were this country’s first tongues, while confirming that English is Australia’s national language.

An important step towards recognising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in Australia’s Constitution took place in November 2012 with the introduction of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples Recognition Bill 2012 into Parliament. The introduction of the Bill is an important step towards achieving constitutional change to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

Now, a change to the constitution requires a referendum.

3. Recognition and national valueLinking to Week 7 on the Apology, need to think about whether recognition and acknowledgment in themselves can bring about change.

With regards to land rights:

Povinelli: In 1997, following objections to the decision in the Wik case (which relates to a claim of native title on land that included pastoral leases granted by the Queensland Government), various public figures including former Prime Ministers Paul Keating and Malcolm Fraser argued in favour of the decision.

Argument: urged people to look beyond simple property rights and actual conditions of Aboriginal people’s lives.

Recognising aboriginal law would free Australia from its colonial past and make it a modern, multicultural nation. This was seen as particularly important in the context of the upcoming Sydney Olympics.

The Labour leader argued that native title would only ever be able to be claimed by a small number of people and would only really have ceremonial value.

In light of this, it is necessary to ask to what extent recognition actually changes conditions for indigenous people and goes towards redressing the colonial past, or whether it is more invested in shoring up national identity, understood as non-indigenous.

[Link to next week on MC]

Where to from here?

The utility of guilt










[Show video]












Where to from here?


Towards recognition










[Show video]












Where to from here?


Towards recognition










[Show video]












Where to from here?


Towards recognition

Recognition and national value










[Show video]












Tutorial Questions

Two sides of the ‘History Wars’

Monday, 25 March 13

Tutorial Questions

What does Australia Day/Anzac day mean to me?

Why should we remember 1788?

What is the purpose, if any, of guilt?


Monday, 25 March 13

Tutorial Questions

What does Australia Day/Anzac day mean to me?

Why should we remember 1788?

What is the purpose, if any, of guilt?


How did your adopted identity make you feel?

Monday, 25 March 13

Documents

Whose Country? Race and the Colonial Experience