Lexi,

Please don't abandon us, we need your leavening comments. Otherwise, we're all just a bunch of ratbags.

Cossomby,

Yes, many years ago ('Minority Education and Caste', 1978) John Ogbu did some incredible research into minority education around the world, and found that migrant and what he called 'involuntary minorities', meaning Indigenous people and refugees, had very different attitudes to, and performed very differently in, education, and for political/social rather than cultural reasons. That debate still continues.

I think that, during the nineteenth century, 'Afghanistan' was the title given to all that country between British India and Persia (Iran), including even the Rann of Kutch, in present-day India. So the great majority of 'Afghans' in Australia in the nineteenth century, perhaps all of them, were never within cooee of Afghanistan as we know it today. They may not have all been Muslims either, perhaps some Sikhs and Hindus as well.

Oh well, BTT. What's wrong with the notion of flying people back to their place of departure if they don't have proper departure (or entry) documents, and assisting those countries with their 'illegal departures', with some financial support ?

Joe

Also, from the point of view of Pashtuns, Afghans, Sikhs etc., it was the Ottoman Empire that we were at war with in 1915, not Turkey as it evolved after WW1 and as we know it today. So for the men in Broken Hill to align themselves with Turkey wasn't just about religion.

After the event, the Broken Hillians burnt down the German Club in retaliation. (I can't remember whether the Germans in town, probably from the early SA Lutheran community, had been interned by that stage).

jayb,

Go back to page 18 of this thread, then work your way
through pages, 19, 20, 21, 27, 29, onto page 51,
52, 54, 55, and look at the language that you've
used, from "Potential Terrorists," to "Muslim
apologists," to the sweeping generalisations about
Muslims in general. Then perhaps you will begin
to understand why I think that this thread is not
a fair-minded debate.

In any case I've had enough. You don't want Muslims
in this country - you even want their citizenships
taken away.
You feel that they are a danger to Australia. "They are
not wanted here." And this you have clearly expressed
throughout this thread. I get it.
I'm just no longer interested in reading it - or anything
else that you've got to say on this subject.

Cossomby: I'll put the 'Moccasins' for Maccasars down to a typo. Afghans were bought in with camels ca 1860s but not as surveyors. The British (and Irish) surveyors were already doing an excellent job surveying, with the most up-to-date techniques for the time (The Brits were at the forefront of navigation and surveying). However if you have any specific archival references to Afghan surveyors I'd be interested to hear.

I typed in Moccasins & Word changed it. You'll have to take that up with Microsoft. You are right, of course, about the WW1 incident.

My reference comes from my Grandparents/Great uncles & the early survey map of Ayr. You could probably get a copy from the Burdekin Shire Council, as I did. According to the old people of the Burdekin there was an attempt to survey Wickham & Jarvisfield by a British Surveyor but there was a dispute. Wickham was washed away in a flood. Later the town of Ayr was founded & Afghan Surveyors were brought in as, even though the method they employed was older, by a few thousand years, it was more accurate. I was told that most of the towns in North Queensland were surveyed by the Afghan team.

My Great aunties were granted the first land in Giru & my Great-uncles were let out of jail in custody of my Great aunties. My Great-uncles had murdered about 100 Aborigines & 6 Chinese on Massacre Hill outside Ravenswood. They got 7 years for the Chinese. My Grandfather was lucky Grandma gave birth to Auntie Winnie that night; otherwise he would have been with them. Still, he did miss out on a farm.

It would be nice if you didn't hold me personally responsible for what my forbears did 110 years ago.

Dear Joe (Loudmouth),

I would not classify any of you guys as "ratbags."
Just males who should be better and wiser.

Thanks Jayb, I'll follow that up re the surveyors.

I won't hold against you what your ancestors did. But if you were commenting at the time, you would of course have demanded that they be deported as terrorists