Colonialism_Racism_and_Prejudice

The Question Compare the different viewpoints presented by indigenous and non-indigenous people about invasion and colonisation in Australia. * When comparing the different viewpoints presented by the indigenous and non-indigenous peoples of Australia, in relation to invasion and colonization, it is evident that different ideas circulate throughout the people of Australia as to what appropriate term should be used. In terms of invasion the following two examples substantiate a view of invasion, these are the national Day of Mourning and the establishment of the tent embassy outside parliament old parliament house in Canberra. In regards to colonization the following two examples of the British feeling supreme over the Aborigines and the fact that they thought the land was unoccupied, justifying the term of terra nullius. The National Day of Mourning on the 26th of January 1938 in mark of the sesquicentenary of British colonisation of Australia, is evidence to substantiate the Aboriginal viewpoint of invasion. It was declared to be a protest of 150 years of callous treatment and the seizure of land, and was designed to stand in contrast to the Australia Day celebrations held by the European population on the same day. The Day of Mourning protests were organised by the Australian Aborigines League (AAL), based in Victoria and led by William Cooper, and the Aborigines Progressive Association (APA), based in New South Wales and led by Jack Patten. The question is why would the indigenous people put up such a fight for this day, and for what reasons' The answer is simply that they felt their land and their culture had been wrongly taken from them, taking something that isn't yours by force constitutes as invasion in a modern day English dictionary. A piece of evidence from the official Day of Mourning poster states ''on the 26th day of January, 1938, this being the 150th anniversary of the white man's seizure of our country''[1]. This statement supports a strong view of invasion, these words come from the indigenous peoples themselves so it must mean something, but people aren't listening. One of the most powerful protests that indigenous peoples have participated in relation to equal opportunity and to present the view of invasion. On 26th January 1972, a group of young Aborigines erected a beach umbrella on the lawns of Parliament House in Canberra, with a sign saying 'Aboriginal Embassy'. Over the next months, thousands joined their demonstration, which captured national and international attention, before being finally dispersed by police in July. The establishment of the embassy supports the view of invasion because it shows that the once historic aboriginal culture was on the brink of extinction and destruction, of which could have only been possible with a forceful European invasion. You cannot simply destroy a culture by peacefully colonising the land. Mum Shirl an indigenous elder quotes ''it said to white Australia, 'You've kicked us down for the last time''[2]. This primary statement acknowledges the wrongs committed by the Europeans(white Australia) in the dispossession of culture, land, identity and most important of all the invasion of the country. The initial feeling of the British feeling somewhat superior to that of the Aborigines supports a viewpoint for colonisation and occupation of the land under no permissions whatsoever from the Aboriginal people. White people, claimed that they had greater natural abilities and a higher standard of civilisation, which soon justified what was happening. When they later looked backwards on their short time in Australia, they began to revere the achievements of pioneering whites. The achievements of the Aboriginal people, and the story of what had happened between whites and Aborigines, were ignored or quickly passed over. This feeling of supremacy and it alone was a strong evidential belief that instigated the so called colonisation of Australia, of which is a perfectly valid white viewpoint that should be taken in account. The Europeans strongly believed that so called people wearing no clothes, talking foreign tongues, waving spears in the air, living in huts with no territorial fences and no form of currency were savages and in turn were inferior to the British Victorian way of living. A statement from ''the Eora Confront the British handout'' had the British stating '' The British claimed to be a civilised people bringing the arts and sciences to a backward land'[3]'. This highly controversial claim supports a notion of colonisation in the fact that the British truly had it brainwash into their heads that they were the dominant race, and that the Aboriginals did not deserve this land called Australia, because they did not use and abuse it in the correct European way. Some may consider this view to be false and ethnocentric, negatively comparing your race and way of life to that of another. However this view does in some ways substantiate a view of colonisation and thus can be considered as a valid argument. The fact that the British thought the land of Australia was unoccupied by any clear developed civilisation and deemed ''terra nullius'' by Captain Cook, is viewpoint that justifies the view of colonisation. On 23 August 1770 Captain Cook landed on a small island off the northern tip of Australia and claimed the whole of eastern Australia for Britain. During his voyage up the east coast he had landed only at two places: Botany Bay and Cooktown. He knew nothing about the vast inland. However, Cook did know that Aborigines inhabited the land all along the coast because he had seen them, or at least their fires. How, then, could he now say that all this territory belonged to Britain' Cook quoted on seeing Australia ''that the land belonged to no-one, and I claim this land for the crown and Great Britain''[4]. Indeed, how could the British government act as if this land belonged to them' How could Britain decide, in 1788, to send its convicts to form a settlement on the land of the Eora tribe without asking them' How, after 1788, could the British government keep, give away or sell not only Eora land but also that of nearly every other Aboriginal tribe in Australia' The simple answer to all of these questions is that the British did not consider Aboriginal people as the rightful owners of this land. New South Wales, as Cook had called it, was regarded as terra nullius. This is legal term, a Latin expression which means 'land belonging to no one'. According to the European view, Aboriginal people may have been on the land first but they did not own it because they did not use the land or show ownership in the same way as Europeans did. Thus Europeans felt free to settle anywhere in Australia, ignoring Aboriginal rights to land they had occupied for thousands of years. In conclusion the different viewpoints presented by indigenous and non-indigenous people about invasion and colonisation can be substantiated through various historical movements and thoughts. However from the evidence presented the viewpoints for invasion seem to be stronger and have more meaning than those supporting colonisation. However the argument will continue well into Australia's history for many years to come and colonisation cannot be ruled out.