Geoffrey Blainey On Australian History

The discourse of whiteness began at Colonisation when Indigenous Peoples were dehumanised. To legitimise the colonisation Moreton Robinson (2004) and Phillips (2005) state the traditional owners of the land needed to be ‘othered’, thus lacking innately human characteristics and, therefore, of unequal civil status. Othering of Indigenous Peoples enabled Australia to be defined as ‘Terra Nullius’, and according to McGrath (1995) and Crowley (1980), the myth of Terra Nullius is central to the discourse of whiteness and the white epistemology of Australia. The invasion and subsequent Colonisation

Stan Grant, ‘The Australian Dream’ has a more effective illustration of the perception of all Indigenous Australians, that Indigenous people should not be segregated from society due to racism. Grant’s version of the reality is that racism is still continuous despite the perception of multiculturalism and therefore places great emphasis on Australia’s racism towards certain groups and questioning the Australian ideal. This is evident in the lines “But every time we are lured into the light, we are mugged by the darkness of this country’s history.” Through the utilisation of metaphor and juxtaposition, Grant is able to make a strong emphasis that, Australia had tried to erase racism, such as through the apologies and reconciliation made by the people, but are then blinded by the past targeting of Aboriginal people who continue to be disadvantaged in the community today. Through this Grant has effectively stated that the nation covers the truth by providing hope to those most vulnerable but in fact the perception of a multicultural country still contains racism. Furthermore, Grant successfully expresses the fact that the nation overs the truth of racism, through the National Anthem in attempt to erase racism. However no matter what strategies are implemented to hide the truth, the country’s history will always be a reminder of the racism as it has shaped the nation as it is today. “It reminds me that my people, were killed on those plains. We were

After this time, many atrocities occurred, such as the fact that Aboriginals were often killed for sport, and massacres such as Myall Creek were occurring, where 28 Aboriginal men, women and children were murdered near Myall Creek Station in 1838. There was also the problem of the Stolen Generation, when Aboriginal children were forcibly taken from their homes to be raised as though they were white. It was only recently in 2008, that Kevin Rudd, the Prime Minister of Australia at the time, apologised for the actions that the government had undertaken. In another apologetic move, Prime Minister Paul Keating delivered a powerful speech regarding the fact that Aboriginal Communities were still segregated despite the fact that laws had been changed a number of years ago. This shows that the idea of atonement by Australia is quite a new topic. Does this prove the challenges that Aboriginal’s faced nearly 200 years ago are still present in today’s society? It was enough to force the Aboriginal men, women and children to begin act in support of their rights.

This essay will be arguing that Australia’s historical fear of invasion does continue to influence Australia’s foreign policy today. This essay believes that the fear of invasion in Australia has evolves and changes over time from a traditional realist perspective that focused on states, to one focused on individuals and non-state actors. Firstly, this essay will briefly discuss the previous fears of invasion, from the introduction of the White Australia Policy to the War on Terror, and how events in Australia’s past shaped foreign policy. Secondly, this essay will discuss the current, evolved fear of invasion Australia experiences. How it has evolved away from the threat of invasion of another state or foreign political system to the invasion of individual people and conflicting ideologies. Lastly, this essay will briefly discuss foreign policy and the relation it has to the new fear of invasion. The policy that will be discussed is immigration restrictions and the treatment of people who have attempted to enter Australia informally.

Aboriginal Studies and Torres Strait Islander Studies include histories, cultures, values, beliefs, languages, lifestyles and roles of Aboriginal societies or Torres Strait Islander societies before and after invasion. This study of Torres Strait Islander people and Aboriginal people presents an accurate history of Australia.

‘Australia’ also showed how the government controlled how children of Aboriginal descent were brought up with language used such as “The mixed raced children must be dislocated from their primitive full blooded Aborigine, how else are we to breed the black out of them”. This presented again the reason as to why the Aboriginal children were taken away from their own cultures to be raised in something completely different.

Furthermore, Keating employs the extended metaphor of “test” to further affirm the cultural devastation as it was “our failure…to ask- how would I feel if this were done to me?” the hypophora which he then answers “As a consequence, we failed to see that what we were doing degraded all of us.” The inclusivity sheds light on reality of the dispossession of Aboriginal people from their land. A factual report “The Report of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in custody showed that the past lived on in inequality, racism and injustice.” Appeals to our logos and enables us to reflect on the reality of our “failure” as well as authenticating the speech to give it textual integrity. Keating not only focuses on the mistakes of the “White” but also highlights the good done by Indigenous Australians. “…remind ourselves that Australia once reached

The powerful interaction of power and privilege is thoughtfully explored throughout The Secret River (2015) by Diana Reid which shows the discriminatory ,ethnocentric practices between the Australian Colonizers and the Indigenous people that defines the period. Before Colonization in 1788, Aboriginal Civilization was composed of over 600 different nations that organized the Australian landscape which was more than 40millenbia (Broome 2010). Privilege is a benefit that only a single person or group of individuals usually has because of their position whereas Power is the potential to control the people and events .(Barbara 1994). Several factors lead to power differences between the Indigenous and European cultures that resulted in dispossession

Tom Wright demonstrated through his play ‘Black Diggers’ the harsh reality of the treatment of indigenous Australian during the time of World War 1.’Black Diggers’ captured the exclusion, the violence and loss of opportunities faced by the Indigenous Australians. Australia 100 years on still shows similar hostilities towards Aboriginal individuals, some movement has been may towards Aboriginals being equal but still not much meaningful change has occurred.

Now, in 2017, the protests over Australia Day and the history of the country have escalated to a level first seen here in America. Over a week ago, in Sydney’s Hyde Park, the statute there dedicated to Captain James Hook was vandalized. With what is presumed to be spray paint, “no pride in genocide” and “change the date” were written across the statute. Many members of Australia’s nationalist party have spoken out and held their own protests in response to this “heinous” act. They have spoken out how this act is tarnishing the history of Australia and given the country a bad name as well as spreading the positivity of nationalism. The Prime Minister of Australia, Malcom Turnbull called the act, via Facebook, an act of Stalinism, and that Australians

Noel Pearson’s speech ‘an Australian history for us all’ discusses his approach to trying to solve some of the most systemic problems facing Australian Aboriginals today. The speakers are successful in understanding the ideas and values of the speech. Through the uses of various language techniques and context, Pearson’s speech details the struggles of the relationship between the first European settlers and Aboriginal Australians.

The construction of Aboriginality in Australia has been achieved through a variety of processes, in various places and at various levels of society, giving rise to a complex interaction between the constructions. At the local level, the most striking line of tension may seem to lie between what Aboriginal people say about themselves and what others say about them. But crosscutting this is another field of tension between the ideas of Aboriginality (and non-Aboriginality) that people of all kinds construct and reproduce for themselves, and the constructions produced at the national level by the state in its various manifestations, the mass media, science, the arts and so on (Beckett, 1988).

This essay will describe what the Gammage Thesis is and how it impacts on the perception of pre-colonised Australian and its indigenous populations. The Gammage thesis is the theory that Australia in its entirety had been managed and shaped by the Aboriginal communities, tending to it as one might a private park. William Gammage, author of the book “The Biggest Estate on EARTH: How Aboriginals Made Australia” describes in great detail Australia’s environment before and after the British colonisation and the destruction of the native populations, as well as giving huge amounts of evidence supporting his theory.

Australian Aborigines are thought to have the longest continuous cultural history in the world. Yet, within a hundred years, the near extinction of the Aboriginal culture almost occurred. This single event, the invasion of the Australian continent by European settlers, changed the lifestyle, the culture, and the fate of Australian Aborigines. Their entire lives were essentially taken away and they were forced into a white, European world where the lifestyle change could not have been any different. Aborigines in Australia today are struggling to deal with a past in which they lost touch with their culture and now are trying to regain some of that cultural identity.

Essay introduction approx. 200 words There has been much controversy and debate over the issue of frontier violence and conflict between colonial settlers and indigenous Australians during early colonisation of Australia. While some historians contend that the evidence of frontier violence and indigenous deaths has been overestimated, others argue that the figures are potentially under estimated. There is ample evidence to indicate violence and deaths did