Too bad Australia Day is painted in politically correct circles as Aboriginal Complaints Day.

If Australia Day were moved from 26th January complaints would note abate.

My personal experience has shown me that the real Aborigines who keep away from their multiple ancestry city dwelling band wagon cousins do not share the perpetual blame game & do not participate in the opportunistic exploit of that industry !

There was a federation and the formation of six states before any alive today were even born!

We recently changed the national anthem to accommodate the alleged concerns of a handful of vociferous semi-white activists? I would suggest that is more than enough to cover their alleged concerns! End of story!
Alan B.

Here it is our new National Anthem:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeMFXiEq_ow

All bow to Xi! All bow to Xi!

Australia is geographically and tectonically a very old continent, billions of years old.

Australia is politically a very young country, a collection of colonies only between 1788 and 1900, and a united political entity since 1.1.1901.

In between, for perhaps sixty thousand years, it was populated by a multitude, perhaps thousands, of clans, associated in hundreds of language groups often called 'tribes', nowadays called 'nations', often at war with each other, but exchanging women for their labour and in order to reproduce the clans.

So which is it to be ?

Joe

Hold on I forgot that we are a multicultural nation so let's throw in a couple more numbers so that we have a Multinational National Anthem. So here's a few more I should have included:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOWfayODNZ4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvVRecQrHpU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29FFHC2D12Q

I really like the Taiwanese anthem: makes me think I'm at a Verdi opera in La Fenice.

Foul-Mouth,

Stop talking ancient history.

Australia is now an Asian nation-state about to be overrun by the Chinese.

The "Commonwealth of Aboriginal Nations". There was never such a thing. It is not derogatory to modern Australians claiming an Aboriginal heritage to state the fact that their ancestors were little more than family groups - tribes at a stretch - wandering hither and thither.

As for all this rubbish about an anthem that a miserable whining minority don't like the words of, who in his/her right mind gives a continental! It's a crappy song that most people don't even know, let alone care, what the words are.

We are 'young'. The project that is modern Australia didn't exist before 'invasion' and settlement.

A few aborigines couldn't defend a massive continent against outsiders pushing in. Aborigines now 'own' whatever they are able to defend under the law of the land, through native title and land rights legislation, while not withdrawing from the benefits other Australians enjoy because they remain 'Australian's whenever land, not sovereinty, is ceded to them

I can just see the Chinese giving them that chance were they the 'invaders'. You only ever own that which you have the power to defend, as we may well find against the Chinese soon enough. Will we be defending aboriginal land when that happens, or when the Japanese attacked, or be defending what is 'ours' together? Maybe aborigines could swing a better deal with the Chinese than they now have, and side with them when they come (not the sensible ones I know).

I don't care how 'Australians' got here, by air, by sea, or by ancient land-bridge, this nation, in the legal sense of what a 'nation' is, IS young, and changing the anthem is bending the knee in a way that acknowledging gender and other previous changes were not, fundamentally striking at our nationhood.

I am indigenous, I was born here. I lost family in the invasion too, and there'll be no treaty or sovereignty conceded on my watch to the side that couldn't defend what its claims 'always was, always will be' theirs. In fact, seeing public money spent on perpetrating that divisive message irks me.

Where the author claims "Aboriginal ancient civilisation is internationally acknowledged as the oldest surviving civilisation"

this is incorrect

fragmented warring tribes without urban development do not satisfy such definitions of "civilisation" as:

A civilisation is any complex society characterized by urban development, social stratification, a form of government, and symbolic systems of communication (such as writing)
Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilization

Luciferase,

We need the National Anthem to reflect true blue Aussies like this:

http://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/bachelor-star-kiki-morris-boyfriend-28-convicted-of-drug-offences/ar-BB1d3aVX

Nothing fake about these Aussies. Everything is so real. Look if you don't believe me.

Hi Pete,

I've never understood what was meant by 'the world's oldest civilization'. Surely, by virtue of our common humanity, all societies or cultures or whatever are equally old ?

Most systems have been greatly modified by changes in climate, technology and/or outside influences, but some - such as those here in Australia, cut off as it was for those 60,000 years - retain, out of a lack of any alternative, the old ways of operating.

Farming societies, and their interface with foraging societies, have been common around the world for 10-12 thousand years. But except for ephemeral visits by S-E Asian seamen, raiding parties from what is now PNG, and perhaps a group of 'settlers' from south India in the Kimberleys around four thousand years ago (viz. the Bradfield drawings), Aboriginal people have been out of touch with the rest of the world ever since they arrived.

And, let's be honest, out of touch with most of each others' groups if they were more than a few hundred miles apart.

And everyone was of course oblivious to the existence of a single 'Australia', in the same way that ancient Britons would have been oblivious to the existence of a 'Britain'.

Unless they could levitate, of course :)

Joe

John Williams, May I say a well considered article which will sit comfortably with many. I would like to see the contributions of genuine aboriginal Australians recognised in a united sovereign Australia where all are equal. Unfortunately the quote by Paul Keating exposes the real agenda of the contemporary quasi aboriginal community - "… doing away with the bizarre conceit that this continent had no owners prior to settlement of Europeans.". Prior to European settlement the reality is that Australia was occupied by a diverse collection of hunter gatherer tribes, mostly warring at one time or another. There were no civilisations in the real meaning of the word. A civilisation is created when a population of humans creates a synergistic development and culture for the benefit of all. There was no agriculture, no technology, no permanent housing, no written language, no sense of a place or location that could or would be defended from intruders, no records other than memory and images on rocks etc. There was no cross-fertilisation of ideas and knowledge with peoples from other parts of the planet. None of this should preclude of course a recognition of the longevity of isolation of aboriginal Australians, nor the intention to be recognised as such in a united sovereign Australia. May I suggest that the demands of the contemporary Australian aboriginal people (which includes many with little claim for aboriginality) for constitutional recognition of the first nations are seen by many as a ploy to subdivide Australia into many sub-nations where disputes over sovereignty will become the norm. Such an Australia has no real future.

Indeed Joe

In terms of the author's 60,000 years of continuous civilisation claim - nNo way was there an Australian Aboriginal NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS 600 years ago, let alone 60,000 years. If there were NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS one would eg. expect Aborigines of the Pilbara 300 years ago having a good working knowledge of Yorta Yorta http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yorta_Yorta customs or trading goods 300 years ago .

This is also noting TASMANIAN Aboriginal were physically cutoff from the mainlaind polopulation for 1,000s years ie. no communication or consciousness.

As you imply "consciousness" may be fostered by (or require) CONTRASTS eg. opposition or recognition of Difference from outsiders. Eg. Northern-NT aborigines may have sensed they were different from visiting Southeast Asian sea-cucumber gathering seamen and from Torres Strait Islanders (TSIs).

TSIs may well have been self-conscious of mainland PNG raiders/traders AND difference of TSIs when they canoed and met mainland aboriginals.

Hi Pete,

Yes, it's puzzled me why Aboriginal groups on Cape York didn't take on the bow-and-arrow hunting technology from the PNG raiders.

Forty-odd years ago, I did a tiny bit of work sorting spears at the SA Museum and was struck by the size of the spears from up that way, barely a metre: even then, I thought, wow, bows and arrows would have surely been more useful in rain-forest ? Like in the Amazon, and in Borneo ?

Cultural systems seem to have their own momentum, in that ways of doing may be perpetuated where possible (maybe for a very short time), even if they are manifestly out of date - but perhaps only until the older people pass away. So older people fishing by spear down this way, even on government-supplied boats, while younger people were using fishing lines and nets - but nobody knowing how to make fishing spears by the 1880s (or presumably using them).

Joe

The whole show is just a profitable circus for the opportunistic within Academia.

How many waves of people arrived on this continent ?
Who knows ? No one probably. After the landbridge to Papua or to the
Indonesian Islands went people could still arrive by sea as knowledge
of the land would still be known to fishermen.
Except for the Northernmost Aborigines knowledge of the rest of
humanity would not even exist in imagination.
So did the Aborigines displace by invasion numerous other forgotten
peoples ? Does DNA tell us anything ?

I do not think I can ask Norwegians to aplogise for displacing my
ancestors in Britain and even their descendants for invading from
Normandy and killing my King Harold.

The Aborigines are not exempt from the machinations of history and
the movement of people around the globe.
History does not dish out special treatment.

So Live With It !

We are all custodians of the land. The bush, beaches, mountains and rivers all here for us to enjoy, and we are free. A shame the division of anthem/Australia Day persists and there should be boxes to tick in the next election, for there's no doubt about that event.
Good book to read, The Custodians.

Long ago self ceased celebrate 26 January.

Instead I celebrate the peaceful creation of the Commonwealth of Australia on 1st January 1901 as Australia an independent nation.

The ABC, various political activists, often complain about 26 January, yet rarely express interest in adopting 1st January for celebration of Australia peacefully becoming an independent nation.

Most of them complain for sake of complaining, or to promote treating of Australian's differently using race as their measure

The term “First Nations” derives from twentieth-century American politics and has been transported to Australia, where it does not fit. Aboriginal clans, hordes and tribes, which in most cases were no more than extended families, never attained nationhood either before 1788 or any time after. This was confirmed in 1836 in the seminal judgment of William Burton in the New South Wales Supreme Court and has been repeated several times since by Australian judges, including the High Court’s Harry Gibbs in 1979.

Invaders! Ha, ha! Starved and barely alive, emaciated prisoners in clanking chains would have imposed dread, fear and consternation!

Imagine if Herr Hitler has sent his legions forth in that condition to take Poland from the Poles! Invasion! What a load of smelly, rotten crock!

Those invaders the Author allegorically claims took his land away? Could have been sent packing by a few dozen spear-throwing "first nation" warriors!

And or later by that first nation having a council of war, massing their combined strength and weaponry against the English redcoats who would have been vastly inferior numbers, even at the height of transportation? And could have been hurled back into the sea, BY A NATION!

Except, there was never ever a first nation just a motley collection of permanently warring tribes invading the territories of adjacent tribes in wife hunting expeditions! Moreover, there was a colour code and routine infanticide!

This place first became an actual NATION for the very first time ever with federation! Time to move on and just can the endless monolithic BS and mendacious denials!

Truth and reconciliation and full citizenship in an Australian nation replete with a treaty and a bill of irrevocable rights! Or more of this mendacious muckraking? Choose wisely, given we may never come this way again!?
Alan B.

Alan,

We come back to it time and again, every year - should the British and all other colonial powers (including present-day China) have left, and still leave, the continent of Australia to Aboriginal people, foraging as they had done for tens of thousands of years ?

OR should Aboriginal people have been dragged into touch with the modern world, like almost every other part of the world ?

Should Britain or some other colonial power have patrolled the Australian coast-line to ensure that no other colonial power tried to colonise the continent ? Would the French, Spanish, Dutch, later German, Russian, Japanese, and currently Chinese, perhaps Indian and Indonesian, colonial powers have left Australia alone ? Forever ?

Aboriginal people have always had the right to live traditional lives (cf. article by Reynolds & Dalziel, Uni of NSW law Journal, 1996), foraging - hunting, fishing, gathering, harvesting whatever nature provided. I wonder how many blokes went out hunting - using traditional weapons, and women went out gathering grass-seed - using traditional containers - today ? Or tomorrow ? Is it still a vibrant and active culture ?

Should we, as Germaine Greer declared from her English garden, all pack up and go back to whichever original homeland we fancy (since most of us would have somewhat mixed ancestries) ? Would we be allowed back in ?

So much to think about on Australia Day.

Joe

This one is way off-topic, but might be useful to somebody to file away:

http://www.denbighshirefreepress.co.uk/news/national-news/19038072.ancient-settlers-americas-brought-dogs-them/

Being Welsh, this news-site would be completely reliable.

So Native Americans may have had dogs for perhaps ten thousand years or much more, before Aboriginal people here were introduced to them by Austronesian seaman-traders four thousand years ago, all of north-central Asian origin.

So, maybe, in addition to my post immediately above, we could add a belated prohibition on Austronesians, Javanese, Macassans, Timorese and Rotinese from coming anywhere near land here in Australia, and upsetting the delicate cultural 'balance' which had been in place here for tens of thousands of years ?

Joe

Foul-Mouth,

Why would anyone want to file it away?

Is that how you think people in the Arts subjects like history, anthropology, archaeology, sociology, philosophy, etc. do things?

Oh well, if it makes you happy to think that is how things get done then please don't let me distract you from your FILING AWAY.

On one hand the multi-genetic urban Aborigines proudly proclaim how much "Progress" they make in education i.e. Uni graduation etc but on the other hand they denounce the colonisaton that eventually make that possible for them. Confrontation in the very early days of Colonisation/invasion was inevitable due to ignorance on both sides.
It appears many want that to continue to happen judging by the vigour of the tearing at the scabs of history !
Just as the colonisers have changed, many indigenous have changed even more. The only thing that doesn't change is the number of morons on both sides !

There's no such thing as the "Commonwealth of Aboriginal Nations" you nauseating foolish brainwashed hate-filled ideologue.

Individual,

I haven't heard anybody both praise Indigenous university successes (60,000 graduates) AND then slag colonialism. It probably happens, some people are funny that way.

But I suspect that you have concocted that false opposition to suit your own prejudices.

Joe

Joe. Go back? Me? Well, send my heart and one eighth to Tasmania. Then send around a quarter of what remains to bonny Scotland. Around a third to Ireland. one fifth to Celtic Cornwall and the rest to Celtic Europe, from Spain to the French provinces and beyond.

[Chambermaids were routinely impregnated by "Royalty" throughout most of the above barring Tassie? But could be sent there if pregers?]

With around one sixteenth Nomadic Gypsy thrown in for good measure.

Go back? Here's the thing? If we all go back to our origins then the whole of the human race, including the Aborigines is about to head for Africa? Just not doable? Right?

By the way, nice well-informed, well-researched posts! And par for the course from your erudite, educated pen!
Cheers, Alan B.

But I suspect that you have concocted that false opposition to suit your own prejudices.
loudmouth2,
I know some of your ilk are not keen on having a bit of truth laid out for all to see.
Are you of indigenous heritage or invader/indigenous. judging by your writings I can tell you belong to the latter.

What a complete load of pure crapola from the neo Marxists and their pet cause, the Aboriginal Grievance Industry.

To begin with, John Williams, since when did the people you call "aborigines" (whatever happened to "their is only one race, the human race") ever have a damned civilization? Please name one "aboriginal" town or city founded by the people you name as a distinct race and call "aborigines".

Next, it is laughable that you and your commie mates go on and on about "inclusion", when it it was your push that dreamed up "identity politics" which essentially means "stir up the non whites to hate the whites." "Diversity" literally means "division", and that is what your push has been advocating as a way to destroy democracy for the last 50 years. Then you have the audacity to pretend that you want "inclusion" and unity.

Fact John Williams.

If the British had not settled Australia, and it had been the Japs or the Germans there would be no "aborigines" today. If it had been the Arabs the people that you call 'aborigines" would all be slaves. If nobody had come to settle Australia, then Australia would today be yet another totally difunctional and bankrupt black state holding out the begging bowl to the rest of the world. And the people you call "aborigines" (but which I call "Australians") would, just like the Africans and Arabs, be paying people smugglers to get them into Europe so that they could live on the white man's dole.

And if it is "racist' to say that, it is also the damned truth.

My white European civilization invented damned near everything and built the modern world, and everywhere we went where we had democracies we created viable and peaceful societies that every minority now is breaking his neck to be a part of, whether we want them or to not. The people you call 'aborigines", many of whom are more white than black, have nothing to whine about at all.

Personally I like the seekers song I am Australia as it includes all cultures but that aside every year Australia day brings out the activists and lambs who don't really know what Australia day is. Cook landed here three days before the 26th. What Australia day is the day on which Australians became Australians and not British Jan 26 194(7) I think. It only after this that Australian passports were issued. having said that the Aboriginals need their own day. The other thing that happens on the 26th is the desire to have the Australian flag recognised. Where I grew up red was the color of death. You painted things red and wore red paint when someone died. To me the Aboriginal flag is not something I worship-death. So the Aboriginals want to have another national anthem. Who will design and choose this? A group of activists who represent onlly a small proportion of the many communities that once were predominant here.