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The Forum > Article Comments > The meaning of genocide > Comments

The meaning of genocide : Comments

By Dirk Moses, published 18/4/2008

Rather than waging history wars about the honour of the victors, perhaps we ought to try to understand the experience of those who were conquered and suffered.

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The attempt to wipe out the Australian Aborigines was not the result of some racist mindset on the part of unenlightened individuals in positions of authority. It was spawned out of the requirements of establishing private ownership in property, initially in grabbing the land: And the axis – the murderous removal of any present and future aboriginal claimants. Genocide emerged out of the need of the emerging Australian squattocracy to “clear the land”. And the appalling conditions faced by the majority of Aborigines today similarly derive from the requirements of the “market”.
“Reconciliation” accepts the private profit system, which remains utterly incompatible with the rights of Australia's indigenous population to justice, equality and basic human dignity. Indeed, one of the primary purposes of the “reconciliation” campaign is to help cement relations between mining companies, agricultural combines and Aboriginal entrepreneurs to facilitate planned large-scale mining projects and farming of Aboriginal land. Billions of dollars are at stake, with a small share destined for a select few Aboriginal leaders, while the living conditions of most Aboriginal people deteriorate further. The attacks PRESENTLY taking place in the Northern Territory continue in a different but similar form of the ongoing genocide and brutal oppression of aboriginals. What is really required is not another "report" but the only genuine alternative socialism.
Posted by johncee1945, Friday, 18 April 2008 2:30:35 PM
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All he did was put up the legally adopted definition of genocide and the right loose their marbles as usual.

Do any of you ever read these articles or do you see the headline and scream out "how dare he"?
Posted by Marilyn Shepherd, Friday, 18 April 2008 2:31:06 PM
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Heduanna "amen"

John Greefield.. grateful thanx for you efforts of exposing the selective nature of the 'Anti-Moses' types, like DM and cronies.

Such deliberate promulgation of imbalance and white anting of our historic self esteem by DM and ilk is vulgar, vile and dare I say 'demonic'.

If you have a white page with a small black dot on the middle and ask people what they "see" most will say 'a black dot'... rather than the bigger white page.
History is littered with such dots, but there is also the bigger PAGE which should be considered.
Posted by BOAZ_David, Saturday, 19 April 2008 9:47:49 AM
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Bravo for Dirk and Marilyn's comment.

Meanwhile five other authors which in one way or another write about the genocidal and eco-cidal impulse at the root of the Western Imperial project.

Beyond Geography by Frederick W Turner

Endgame by Derrick Jensen http://www.derrickjensen.org

Facing West: The Metaphysics of Indian Hating & Empire Builiding by Richard Drinnon

American Holocaust by David Stannard.

Against the Megamachine by David Watsom
Posted by Ho Hum, Saturday, 19 April 2008 9:56:44 AM
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John Greenfield,

While I agree with the thrust of your comments I baulk at your somewhat onesidedness in the mid east. You point the finger at an Hamas conspiracy but you overlook the actual genocide being carried out by the Israelis. How about some balance.

Dirk you'd have to agree with that comment too.

Dirk the occupation of Eastern Europe by the Communist USSR fits within your definition ... does your support and lack of criticism of those communist totalitarian regimes and their underlying philosophy mean you are guilty of supporting genocide?

Do you accept your belief in and subscription to communism indicates support for the communist desire to change, with violence, the beliefs of all those who subscribe to the culture that underpins Western Liberal Democracies? That's support for genocide and it fits into the UN definition.
Posted by keith, Saturday, 19 April 2008 1:33:22 PM
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The use of the term genocide, in application to Australia, is pure pot-boiling history that benefits the careers and bank accounts of grasping and dishonest historians and opportunistic lobbyists.

Contrary to the impressions they like to create, there are very adequate records which prove otherwise. The true colours of these dispicable fabricators was demonstrated in the way they ganged up so hysterically on Windschuttle, instead of responding with established and measured process.

The reality is, settlement and contact began in 1710, by 15,000 Macassan Indonesians, and the first diseases that were primarily responsible for Aboriginal morbidity were transmitted then, with later pandemics of small pox, influenza, mumps, measles and STDs; eliminating two thirds of the population in a very short period. This was always going to happen.

But back to the ramblings of Dirk Moses, his assertions of forced breeding out of NT Aborigines are absolute urban myth. As far as I know, I was the first to serially investigate the circumstances of part Aboriginal children becoming wards of the state, as part of my occasional role as case reviewer (an annual event, by the way). Many veteran case workers were deeply offended by the depth of my investigations, with some justification because not one file indicated unreasonable intervention.

It was during the bitter discourse that followed that a fellow welfare worker, then Barbara Cummings, told me about her perspective as a result of being a Rita Dixon 'dormitary kid'. She later wrote the book the Stolen Generation, so cynically hijacked by HREOC.

Some time mid-century, removal of half-European children gave way to a more universal assessment criterion and, by 1977, even the issue of promised husbands demanding their wives give up mixed race children, was resolved by Aborigines themselves.

This was the epic clash of very disparate cultures; the story of humanity in almost every part of the world, and it continues today. Learn from the past and manage the future. This will not happen if people futiley impose contemporary values on history.
Posted by Tony Ryan oziz4oz, Sunday, 20 April 2008 11:07:31 AM
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