Terra Nullius: the lie of the land
Australia is fighting not only the most stupid
and manipulative war in history in Iraq, but has its own internal war going on,
known as the history war. In this war, eminent scholars who choose to face the
sordid past of white settlement in scholarship and books are attacked, lest the
displaced Aboriginal people receive some sympathy for their plight. The latest
effort seeks to tell me, who was told about
terra nullius
throughout my school years in the 50's and
60's, that it didn't happen, and that
terra
nullius was invented by radicals in the
1970's to further the fight for land rights. The strategy seems to be that old
reliable one of if you tell a lie, tell a big one and tell it often. Of course,
all of these rewrites of history have the old "I'm not a racist, but.........."
tone to them.
Terra
Nullius itself was the lie this country has
lived under since its inception. Even as a school boy when I was first told of
terra
nullius, it seemed to be so unfair, so
ridiculous - and of course it was. The British, wanting to claim the land they
'found' and eventually to settle it, wanted to do it legally, and it was
necessary to go through some charade to do this. They declared the land
terra
nullius, meaning "empty land" or "no man's
land". Although there were attempts at fairness in parts of the on-going
settlement of Australia (one must remember that these were separate colonies
being settled - Australia was not a confederation) Aboriginal people were in
general, driven off their land because the white settlers wanted it. This of
course is the part of the history of black/white relationships that even the
revisionists can't deny, although they try to imply that it was all done nicely,
presumably with the agreement of the indigenous
people.
Even the Federal Government of
Australia supports the cover-up of the atrocities of white settlement. The Prime
Minister of Australia, John Howard, labels those who seek to describe the
dispossession of the Aboriginals as writing a "black armband view of history".
When the national museum in Canberra displayed a sympathetic view of Aboriginal
people, the Howard Government sacked its director, and had the display
re-arranged to suit its own view of history. Ironically, the revisionists accuse
those seeking to depict Aboriginal history in a sympathetic light, as "rewriting
history". Well I am a witness to what I was told during my upbringing - that
terra
nullius was the convenient subterfuge to
occupy the land. It follows that by "rewriting history" and insisting that the
British did not use terra
nullius, and that
terra
nullius was conveniently invented in the past
20/30 years, the revisionists are continuing to distort, to muddy, and to
downright lie to promote their version of
history. The Australian,
the national Murdoch newspaper (and the
greatest enthusiast of the Iraq war) even supports the
terra
nullius revisionism currently being peddled,
in a recent editorial. Apparently they are too lazy, too stupid, or can't be
bothered to do a little research and to put this lie to rest.
Posted: Thu - September 21, 2006 at 04:13 PM
