This debate to me is good,but it should be made very clear that,the term Terra nullius,is outdated,there never was any piece of this globe (earth ) that that term can be applied to,as for Australia ,the british used it for their claim,to occupy this country,and tried to influence,the ignorance of historians,that supported the system of colonisation,the case of C. Rhodes in Africa had the same political reason,not Terra nullius,but the nature of his writing,was in the interest of colonisation.much more can be wrtten about the subject of Terra nullius,but its political debate about the reasons for using the term,has now in this century failed,as we are,no longer subjected to theory.

Fascinating. Utterly fascinating.

I can see that Lorenzo Veracini has a big future ahead of him as a PR man for the ABC . His mastery of “diseased English” will no doubt be noted by any prospective employer who needs to pull the wool over the eyes of the public.

To those not familiar with diseased English, could I humbly submit a translation?

Mr Veracini’s ideological mates have a problem. Yet another historian has submitted evidence that the entire concept of “Terra Nullius” was an invention of the usual bunch of anti everything intellectuals, who never tire of attacking Western civilisation and who presently infest our universities.

Lorenzo response is certainly a novel one. He proposes that since Terra Nullius did not officially exist, that proves that unofficially, it did exist.

Now, a most people would give that one the hairy eyeball. So, his extraordinary premise has to be put in diseased English in order to slip under the critical analysis circuits of the readers. The purpose of diseased English is to hide the truth by submitting a statement wrapped in such flowery rhetoric that the writer appears to be an exulted authority, while his potential critics are intimidated at their inability to figure out what in the Hell he is even talking about.

People unfamiliar with diseased English may be interested in it’s mechanics and history. English contains approximately 25% of French and Latin words. This rises to 50% when diseased English is used. This is because it has been used by English rulers and their minions to keep the English peasants ignorant since 1066, when a bunch of Frogs from Normandy usurped the English throne.

Lorenzo has used a couple of specimens that are real gems.

“Paradoxically, as a consequence of its inner functioning, it was only at the moment of this legally endorsed partial termination that terra nullius could be properly articulated.”

….“should be integrated by a better understanding of the dynamics of settler colonial practice”

The Australian people usually call this practice “baffle them with bullsheet.”

Nice try, Lorenzo. You'll go far.

Boaz-David

I sense you are in favour of and support reconciliation. I think there is a great deal if unintended insensitivity abounding in this topic.
I must disagree about the extent of the lenghts we need to go to to reach genuine and real understanding. It would need to be much further than the distance run in Kipling's unforgiving minute...from his poem 'If'. I think that minute might be here now, too.

I don't think it's a treaty with the British that is being spoken about. I think you need to listen a little louder.

:-)

Your God may love all people but your God is a Western male construct and probably doesn't realise he might be offensive to women and others.
(I mean that as a little humour.)

Like you I also don't think restoring title is the only solution needed. I see also a need for us all to understand Indigenous Culture is an evolving thing and has evolved successfully through and inspite of the last 230 years. It's retention of it's identity does not extend any longer to living as nomads in the bush. You do in a way like many others fail to recognise the colonised take often the best from the coloniser but wish to retain the essence of themselves. And that ain't about planting crops unless it is of course in a commercial enterprise.

Verdant,

I see your heart is in the right place. You are on a similar path I have taken. I think you are right when you say in your original way

'If aboriginal people were allowed to breathe again their culture could grow itself into it's own 21st century version instead of ours.'

It's the manner in which the breathing can be arranged is what we are all starting to seriously think about.

Regards to you both

Keith
you cannot restore something which didn't exist. "Title" .. is in itself a Western idea. 'Habitation' is what existed prior to white settlement.

Raniers waxing eloquent about identifiable boundaries between tribes would be workable unTIL the first drying up of the water supply or drought or whatever pressure on the resource base of one population group. Then, they would have done what every other human being since Adam has done "pushed and shoved" for a share of whats available.

Such boundaries also exist in Borneo, but they are rather rubber like and depend as much on the whim or more powerful tribes as anything.

I honestly don't know WHAT Ranier and company want.. giving 'native title' is a western exercise in itself. In Sarawak they have a law, 'No land belonging to Indigenous people can be sold to non indigenous people' and the Chinese marry into them :)

I certainly want Crown land regarded as Aboriginal myself, and sacred sites on owned land recognized, and access given.

But no matter which way u cut the historical cake.. they will still be left with the same challenge every society faces when they have suddenly woken up to find 'The world is different' and they are surrounded by white trash like u and me :)

I like Verdants expression, and another I've used which I heard from an Torres Strait Islander is

"You want us to dance like warriors but not act like them".

Take away manhood, and you destroy a people. We are experiencing this to a degree in our own community. Confusion over gender roles.. social cues no longer there.. I want to be a "warrior" (true male) too, I think we all do deep down.

My God is also 'God'. He exists whether or not His creation admits it.
Reconciliation to Him, is the first step to reconciliation with fellow man :)

P.S. Ranier.. I have never claimed to be 'An Anthropologist' I've had specific training in the field..thats all.

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds of distance run
Then yours is all the world and what's in it
And what's more you'll be a man my son.

Kypling. If.

Nothing about dancing or warriors in his definition of manhood. Lot's about taking chances and opportunities though. That's what I've always considered as manhood. It requires a great deal of courage, self-belief and a great emphasis on individualism. What is attempted to be taken away currently (Last 150 years) is that emphasis on individualism.

I don't think anyone as trash.

I think Indigenous people haven't just woken up. They've lived through their nightmare and the evidence is clear, they're rising to it's challenge.

Thanks Keith, Boaz, may I suggest you dialogue with this man. A few short sentences from Keith shows that his wisdom and openness to embrace possibilities for all concerned is not impeded by a dogmatic God – rather by a belief in our need to strive for the common good. Solutions come easy when we are all on the same page.

Back to the topic at hand:

Terra nullius was not just an absence of the recognition of Aboriginal connections to land and the prevailing and deafening white silence that accompanies it. Anthropologist W E Stanner described this silence as 'a cult of forgetfulness' or 'disremembering' that has been 'practised on a national scale'. Connor’s book in yet another symptom of this disremembering.

Boaz, it’s been quite obvious to me that while you can hear me, you cannot listen.

Dancing warriors? How quaint!

Your little story reminds me of those romanticised adventures in phantom comic strip books. Um, Boaz, you do know this comic was works of fiction? Or didn’t you? I do wonder