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The Forum > Article Comments > Speak English youse bastards > Comments

Speak English youse bastards : Comments

By John Tomlinson, published 27/4/2017

We have many platitudes to disguise the fact that this country was seized from the original owners at gun point.

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To quote something from your article.
"But I have met people who were born here and who have only a tenuous grasp of the English language"

The reason for this could be they were born here but educated in another country because if educated here the whole curriculum is in English.
Posted by Philip S, Friday, 28 April 2017 1:19:25 AM
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.

Dear John,

.

Australia was ranked 8th Best Country in the world by the US News Report in 2017. The UK-based Economist Intelligence Unit ranked it the 10th most democratic country. The Serbian-based Numbeo ranked it 9th in the world for its Quality of Life this year.

You have done a great job presenting the case for the prosecution, John. May I suggest that you sit down at your desk once more and present an equally vibrant plea for the defence.

But, in fact, I should not be totally satisfied until, having carefully weighed-up the case, for and against, you take-on wig and robe and render a substantiated and well-founded final judgment:

« At last came the day of trial. Every seat in the Court was filled, and a mass of the unwashed hung over the gallery rail, gazing at the show provided for their entertainment. Mary Grant and Mrs. Gordon went into Court at the suggestion of their leading Counsel, Bouncer, Q.C., who was nothing if not theatrical. He wanted them there to see the overthrow of the enemy, and to lend point to his invective against the intruders who were trying to take away their birthright. A small army of Doyles and Donohoes, who had come down for the case, were hanging about dressed in outlandish garments, trying to look as if they would not tell a lie for untold gold. The managing clerks were in and out like little dogs at a fair, hunting up witnesses, scanning the jury list, arranging papers for production, and keeping a wary eye on the enemy. Punctually as the clock struck ten, the Judge strutted into Court with as much pomp as a man-of-war sailing into a small port; depositing himself on the Bench, he glared round for a few seconds, and said to the associate, “Call the first case,” in a matter-of-fact tone, just as if he did not know what the first case was going to be. A little rustle went round the Court as people settled themselves down for the battle »

http://www.telelib.com/authors/P/PatersonAB_Banjo/prose/OutbackMarriage/outbackmarriage_28.html

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Posted by Banjo Paterson, Friday, 28 April 2017 7:44:29 AM
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Hi Benk,

As far as I can tell, there has never yet been a single forensic examination of a supposed massacre site in Australia. Surely, one suspects, they happened ? But not a shred of evidence. UNLESS, of course, you define a 'massacre' as the killing of one or two people ? If so , yes: in South Australia, in about 1842, the Protector of Aborigines was told of a massacre of thirty or so Aboriginal people, up near Burra; he immediately sets off (he was a doctor) to investigate; by the time he gets to Clare, the number is down to six; when he gets to the area, he finds two bodies buried, those of a man cut down by a sabre and a woman shot. Thirty to six to two: be careful what barflies tell you. But by god, they fit into the Narrative so well.

And yes, there was a massacre of twenty eight people massacred on the Coorong in 1840, but they don't really count because they were white. There were quite a few other massacres of white families, but let's nor worry about those. In the case of one, the Rainbird family killed on Yorke's Peninsula in about 1862, the suspects were freed on the grounds that there wasn't an interpreter available: after all, as British subjects, Aboriginal prisoners were entitled to be able to defend themselves properly and those blokes couldn't do that if they couldn't understand the language of the court, could they ?

I look forward to the first proper forensic investigation of a massacre site, regrettably sometime in the distant future: investigators would need to distinguish between a white-Aboriginal massacre and an Aboriginal-Aboriginal massacre: the second would exhibit no traces of bullet wounds or sabre cuts or attempt to conceal or bury the bodies. As well, a mass grave may be evidence of deaths from epidemics, such as the pre-Contact smallpox epidemics that swept down from the North, one down the East Coast, another down the far West Coast, another down from the Gulf to the Darling and Murray.

Cheers,

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Friday, 28 April 2017 11:04:38 AM
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The author airily writes of poisoned water holes. Again, it would be useful to have just one water-hole forensically examined, although poisoning dogs (dingoes) over a couple of hundred years would leave quite a bit of poison around in their bones, which might end up in wager-holes. So actual Aboriginal bones, with traces of poison, would be useful to establish some basis for the truth of the claim.

And since Arsenic and Strychnine are elements, which do not break down, traces would remain forever, as long as the bones do. So there's another fertile area for 'Indigenous research' if it ever really gets off the ground.

Dispossession: as it happens, earlier this week I was reading the earliest reports of the [second] Protector here in SA, Bromley, in about July 1837: he notes that the Governor has ordered that any land being used by the local Aboriginal people was not to be intruded on, it was to be reserved from use or sale.

By this time, the ration system had become well-established: the local people had become so used to flour that they refused to try rice or oatmeal when the flour supply was exhausted. Whether deliberate or not, the ration system - free food, for no effort - sucked people out of the countryside, especially since all elderly people, women with babies, children and sick people, could get plenty of food, without the able-bodied having to find it for them. So able-bodied people really had to supply food only for themselves, and the law allowed them fully to do so, by either hunting, fishing and gathering, OR working for farmers.

Plenty of food ? Try it: a loaf of bread each day, a pound of meat each day. Give it a go, just for a day, and see how hungry you'll feel.

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Friday, 28 April 2017 12:32:32 PM
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Hi there BENK...

I'm somewhat puzzled by your contribution where you claim inter alia - '...Australia was invaded, it's a statement of fact...'? Was it? Was a single British vessel with only a minimum complement of armed Marines on board, capable of 'invading' a massive Island the size of Australia; well I guess I should dedicate much more time to study our early history?

Although I dunno; to my way of thinking; Invading somewhere, means to intrusively enter a country in large military strength, in order to attack it, for the purpose of trying to subjugate or occupy it. Somehow Capt.James COOK RN. together with his cohorts were in no position whatsoever to mount any sort of campaign (attack), let alone invade it. Still it is your opinion, as is mine? Thank you BENK.
Posted by o sung wu, Friday, 28 April 2017 12:41:02 PM
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Hi O Sung Wu,

That raises the thorny question, the Big One: what would have happened if the British had not settled/occupied/invaded the continent of Australia ? Does anybody seriously think that it would never have happened otherwise ? That the French, Russians, Japanese, etc. etc., would - all of them - have left it alone ?

And this raises another difficult question: would the Indigenous people here have been better off if they had had no contact of that sort with the outside world ? I suppose the answer is in what Indigenous people have done since, and could easily still do now - stay as hunters and gatherers.

Are there any Indigenous people relying entirely on hunting and gathering now, today, in 2017 ? No ? What does that say about their preferences ? Everywhere and everybody ?

Never forget the past, especially since it can't be undone and re-run differently. But acknowledge what is now the situation. And for all the talk, maybe nobody wants to return to the 'noble life'. I had a bit of a laugh once when one of my student, very 'cultural', complained one Winter morning that her air-conditioning was playing up. She had a house with a big back-yard, so I wondered if she could just go out and make up a fire to sit around. Ideally with just a possum skin.

Cheers,

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Friday, 28 April 2017 1:14:32 PM
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