The equality of man, said Barton, was never intended to apply to those who weren’t British. And white skinned. ibid.
The same shacks. The same lack of basic services. The same diseases. ibid.
Almost one third of Aboriginal people are dead before the age of 45. ibid. caption
Aboriginal people were not counted in the Census unlike the sheep. A school textbook explained why: ‘We are civilised, and they are not’. ibid.
A genocidal history that's barely recognised in white Australia. ibid.
Today, black Australians are among the most imprisoned people on earth. ibid. caption
Rape and sexual exploitation were used by whites against black women and children. ibid.
All over Australia black children are being taken from their homes. ibid.
Australia has again declared war on its Indigenous people, reminiscent of the brutality that brought universal condemnation on apartheid South Africa. Aboriginal people are to be driven from homelands where their communities have lived for thousands of years. In Western Australia, where mining companies make billion dollar profits exploiting Aboriginal land, the state government says it can no longer afford to ‘support’ the homelands.
Vulnerable populations, already denied the basic services most Australians take for granted, are on notice of dispossession without consultation, and eviction at gunpoint. Yet again, Aboriginal leaders have warned of ‘a new generation of displaced people’ and ‘cultural genocide’.
Genocide is a word Australians hate to hear. Genocide happens in other countries, not the ‘lucky’ society that per capita is the second richest on earth. When ‘act of genocide’ was used in the 1997 landmark report Bringing Them Home, which revealed that thousands of Indigenous children had been stolen from their communities by white institutions and systematically abused, a campaign of denial was launched by a far-right clique around the then prime minister John Howard. It included those who called themselves the Galatians Group, then Quadrant, then the Bennelong Society; the Murdoch press was their voice. John Pilger, article April 2015, ‘The Secret Country Again Wages War on its Indigenous People’
Why are we here? Why are we doing this every 26th January – year after year? Of course, we know why – Indigenous people are saying to Australia: ‘Look, we are still here. We have survived the massacres and the cynicism. We have survived.’
But is that enough, I wonder? Is survival without action ever enough?
The sources of power in Australia – especially political and media power – draw both comfort and delusion from the very idea of Survival Day.
Yes, yes, they say, we understand. We have a place for you on the great Australian facade, next to Qantas and Anzac and Fair Go. Their delusion is that as long as Indigenous people have a token role in the theatre of Australia Day, then all is well. As long as there's a bit of dancing and a smoking ceremony down by the Harbour Bridge, then all is well.
Societies like Australia – with dark secrets and dishonest politics – feed off image and tokenism. They admire their own image of gormless, unthinking patriotism, while secretly admiring their capacity to silence and divert dissent and to control and co-opt people and never to change. It’s a clever system of divisiveness. How does it work?
Take the idea of ‘reconciliation’. It sounds good, but what does it mean? What is there to reconcile between oppression and suffering, poverty and privilege? Does it include ‘justice’? Of course not. Reconciliation is to make the majority feel good with symbolic gestures and symbolic speeches. Nothing more.
Is this acceptable to us, here today? John Pilger, rally Sydney Town Hall 26 January 2016
It’s quite useless to treat the Aborigines fairly because they are completely amoral, and incapable of sincere and prolonged gratitude. Sir Stephen Roberts, historian, school textbook until early 70s
Ancient Aboriginal rock-art shows many examples of alien-type beings which are known as Wandjinas. Every year Aboriginal tribes-people travel to remote parts of Western Australia and repaint the outline of the Wandjinas, who are known as the creator spirits of the Aborigines. Chris Everard, Secret Space II
In the rough rocky countryside of north-west Australia there are scores of cave paintings which date back far in time. Drawings which are probably some of the earlier messages from prehistoric man. In Search of Ancient Astronauts, 1973
The black-armband view of History. John Howard, former prime minister
A blemish on the nation’s History. John Howard
I don’t want to sound alarmist but we are living in a different world, and something like what happened in Bali last Saturday night could happen in Australia. John Howard
After Question Time today the Attorney-General will introduce into the House an urgent amendment to an existing counter-terrorist legislation. We will seek passage of the Amendment through all stages this evening. John Howard 2nd November 2005
Days after the Bali Bombing a review of federal anti-terror laws was announced. Over the next 24 months the Bali Bombing was used in Australia to pass over 30 pieces of anti-terror legislation. But that was just the framework. Fool Me Twice, 2007
The Terrorist Act becomes a terrorist act. And subsequently prosecutions can be made without identifying any specific act of crime. ibid.
Sedition is now an act of terrorism. ibid.
So far all they’ve had is the crumbs that drop from the white man’s table. The Aborigines have had secondary rewards. Professor Fred Hollows
Above our writers – and other artists – looms the intimidating mass of Anglo-Saxon culture. Such a situation almost inevitably produces the characteristic Australian Cultural Cringe. Arthur Angel Phillips
Politicians on both sides, and the labour movement in general, I think are worth only contempt for their failure to stand up over this Murdoch affair. Politicians who in the past have spoken up against Murdoch and his ownership and his citizenship and so on ... have gone so far as to say the opposite on this occasion. David Bowman, former editor-in-chief Sydney Morning Herald
The Treaty [for East Timor gap oil] makes the Australian government a receiver of stolen property. Professor Roger Clark, international law
Now our friendly Australian landlord hasn’t yet demanded their rent. But we Americans will always be good tenants. We want you to know that we pay our bills promptly. Ed Clark, US Ambassador, opening N W Cape Base 1967
It was Sunday December 17th 1967. With his country at war in Vietnam, the Australian prime-minister Harold Holt went missing. They said it was a case of accidental drowning – an all too common Australian tragedy. But many people remained unconvinced. This is the story of the prime minister’s secret world in the months before he disappeared. The Prime Minister is Missing, ABC 2008
The prime minister left behind tantalising clues that day; clues which challenged the official explanation of his disappearance. ibid.
Was it a simple accident? Why did he enter the turbulent surf that day? ibid.
And agreeing to a referendum which would see Aboriginal Australians counted as citizens in the census. His defining foreign policy decision was to bring Australia even closer to the United States by trading the nation’s troop commitment to the Vietnam War. ibid.
There had been four people on the beach with the prime minister; not one as previously reported. ibid.
If the police failed to uncover Holt’s relationship with Mrs Gillespie, what other evidence have they overlooked? ibid.
Holt’s briefcase contained evidence of a poisonous feud between the next two most powerful men in the coalition. ibid.
Holt’s housekeeper witnessed the removal of documents from his briefcase. ibid.
There have been a lot of conspiracy theories about it. Ian Hancock, historian
The prime minister disappears without trace. This is unparalleled in modern history in Western democracies. Tom Frame, Harold Holt’s biographer