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The Forum > Article Comments > National anthem and history > Comments

National anthem and history : Comments

By John Williams, published 25/1/2021

It is little understood that whilst this 'Commonwealth of ours' today assumes an all-inclusive Commonwealth, the Commonwealth of 1901 included only six states and ignored the Commonwealth of Aboriginal Nations.

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Foul-Mouth,

Stop talking ancient history.

Australia is now an Asian nation-state about to be overrun by the Chinese.
Posted by Mr Opinion, Monday, 25 January 2021 10:53:50 AM
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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.
Posted by ttbn, Monday, 25 January 2021 10:54:36 AM
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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.
Posted by Luciferase, Monday, 25 January 2021 11:57:54 AM
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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
Posted by plantagenet, Monday, 25 January 2021 12:05:37 PM
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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.
Posted by Mr Opinion, Monday, 25 January 2021 12:06:12 PM
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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
Posted by loudmouth2, Monday, 25 January 2021 12:27:40 PM
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