8º of latitude

3 responses to “SHOW US YER UNDIES”

1. 

   reastgat@bigpond.net.au

   January 27, 2024 at 1:18 pm

   I will prepare my own response.

   I don’t know of you have seen this, but it is a comment posted by my first wife’s eldest son.

   It could easily be a dissertation for a Master’s thesis.

   Which, BTW he has successfully completed.

   His subject?

   Short title, “Colonial Wars”

   I strongly suspect he strongly disagrees with Matt Webber (a former ABC Gold Goast mornings and drive presenter) about who are the confectioners.

   https://www.facebook.com/mark.eastgate?comment_id=Y29tbWVudDoxMDE2NDA5NDY5ODM3NzU3NV80MTE5Mzk4NDEyNjYyMjc%3D&__cft__%5b0%5d=AZXUGuicOg1RHsNVt37ZuhVztZdZLGh8PEifly7U3o-qelGrGGJ7Ai-GNhtfmCRx8z_eUe5kDZFJywhKuZUioX4I8c1hB5iizDGM9vYtGrmfd1c-Jky_CEvDJmFVMAoISahdgJthQyMIFNQkeiygH2ZMVswKB9nA7aWWKBF_3G6CPA&__tn__=R%5d-R Mark Eastgate

   https://www.facebook.com/matt.webber.315?__cft__%5b0%5d=AZXUGuicOg1RHsNVt37ZuhVztZdZLGh8PEifly7U3o-qelGrGGJ7Ai-GNhtfmCRx8z_eUe5kDZFJywhKuZUioX4I8c1hB5iizDGM9vYtGrmfd1c-Jky_CEvDJmFVMAoISahdgJthQyMIFNQkeiygH2ZMVswKB9nA7aWWKBF_3G6CPA&__tn__=R%5d-R Matt Webber I couldn’t agree more that the outrage over Australia Day is utterly confected. The vandalism of the statue of Cook last night demonstrates that it’s the crass emotive exploitation of the historically illiterate who don’t know the difference between James Cook and Arthur Phillip.

   The fact is that human population migration and displacement has been a trait of human existence since the first Homo Sapiens encroached upon the first Homo Neanderthalensis, and empire building goes back at least as far as the first humans were capable of writing about it. It has existed across continents and cultures throughout recorded history. Britain itself, our much bemoaned colonial oppressor, has suffered from the same fate at least three times – once by the Romans, once by the Angles and Saxons, and once by the Norman French (not counting numerous, smaller examples of Scandinavian adventure tourism). In terms of late 18th century European imperialism, the specific example in this case, the indigenous population of Australia hit the figurative jackpot when it was the Union Flag raised at Port Jackson on 26 Jan 1788.

   The other, glaringly obvious, fact that is generally overlooked in this debate is that it was an absolute lay-down misere that this continent would be colonised by someone. The vast territory, sparse population, and overwhelming technological disparity meant that someone was going to come here and take possession. But, who were the other contenders if not the vile British?

   The most compelling case can be made for the French. Arthur Phillip and his motley crew only managed to beat French explorer Jean-François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse to Sydney by only two days. The Sydney suburb of La Perouse is named for him. Now, he was only on an exploratory mission and not of a mind to start collecting territorial acquisitions, but things back in France moved apace. Lapérouse was still at sea when Louis XVI had his appointment with Madame Guillotine. His eventual replacement, Napoleon Bonaparte, was certainly not backwards in coming forward when it came to expansion of the empire. It is perhaps instructive to then quickly review the outcomes of colonialism in the former French Empire. New Caledonia and Tahiti remain, in 2024, French territories. In fact, the French retain territory in South America, Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific. Their former colonies in North Africa and Southeast Asia suffered horrifically at French hands. While we ululate and rend our garments over the massacre of tens of aboriginals 200 years ago, the French were massacring tens of thousands as recently as the 1940s, including colonial troops in France who were there to repel Nazi Germany. The wars in Algeria and Vietnam are testament to the brutality of French colonial occupation. French territories in North America, sold to the US in the Louisiana Purchase, were at the very heart of the trans-Atlantic slave trade which significantly pre-dated their absorption into the union, and of the Confederacy which rose to defend that vile trade in humanity, (bearing in mind that it was the Royal Navy, our erstwhile oppressors, who finally crushed that particular pipeline of misery.)

   The other prime contender would be the Dutch. Less grandiose in their imperial vision than the French, they nonetheless held tightly to the Spice Islands among other possessions in Asia as well as South America. It is to the Dutch East Indies (formerly the Spice Islands and now Indonesia) that we should look to find our examples of Dutch colonialism.

   Given the length of time that the Dutch controlled the East Indies, it is surprising that they had not already made a move on Australia. They certainly knew it was there. Perhaps it was the lack of nutmeg, or bike paths. As a demonstrative illustration of Dutch ruthlessness in their colonial territories, one should perhaps look to the conquest of the Banda Islands in 1621 when virtually the entire population was exterminated under the orders of Governor-General Jan Pieterszoon Coen. In the following centuries, indigenous opposition was cowed by exemplary violence, a practice which continued up to and including the independence movement in Indonesia after the Second World War. The Dutch, like the French, were only divested of their prime colonial possessions by violent revolt.

   The colonisation of Australia by the British predates any serious attempts at establishing overseas empires by either the Germans or the Belgians, both of whom would later show just how ruthless they could be in the acquisition and maintenance of colonial possessions. It also occurred at the very end of Spain’s imperial grandeur. The Napoleonic wars prevent Spain from seriously being considered to be a possible coloniser of Australia, a fact for which we should all be terribly grateful. However, there is no reason that our hypothetical coloniser has to be European. Perhaps we should ask the Tibetans or the Vietnamese what it’s like to be subsumed into a Chinese Empire or the Koreans a Japanese one?

   In short, my argument is not that ‘Oh well, it could have been worse”. My argument is that, without the British, it WOULD have been much, much worse. For all its faults, the British Empire was built largely on trade rather than violent oppression. In our specific example, the net results of British colonialism are positive. We are a peaceful, democratic and multi-cultural society. The settlement that was hewed from the wilderness by a few Naval Officers, some alcoholic Marines, and a few boatloads of wretched convicts is now a nation to stand with the great democracies on the world stage. Thus, the single most significant date on the path to our modern nation is January 26. We should not forget the sins of the past, but they really should be put into context.

   .

   Ross Eastgate OAM

   Blog: Australian Defence History, Policy and Veterans Issues (targetsdown.blogspot.com) https://targetsdown.blogspot.com/

   0419 673 500

   Reply
   1. 

      8degreesoflatitude

      January 27, 2024 at 2:25 pm

      Moral equivalence rarely gets a look-in, though it really should. I don’t know anyone who says we should revert to the status quo ante, though given the states of mind that exist widely these days, there may be some out there. Australia’s circumstances are certainly unique. We just need to recognise that uniqueness from more than one side of the crowned coin.

      Reply
2. 

   Ross Eastgate

   January 27, 2024 at 4:14 pm

   There is indeed a lot of bullshit about.
   The first official use of the name Australia was, in a despatch to Governor Lachlan Macquarie of Matthew Flinders’ navigational charts using that name.
   By 1824 the British Admiralty had started to use the name officially, and the term Australia was first used in British legislation in 1828 to apply to the two colonies of New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land combined.
   The first acknowledgement of January 26 occurred in 1818, although it travelled under different names and some different dates, most commonly Foundation Day.
   Conspicuous among the recalcitrants was South Australia, which liked to point out it was the only colony not to have convicts.
   However, South Australians from all walks of life from the privileged top to the battling lower classes have since done their damnedest to correct this apparent anomaly.
   By 1935 the name and date were uniform, but the occasion was not new.
   The Australian flag was on a red field, not blue.
   And it wasn’t our only significant date.
   Until 1958 Australians commemorated Empire Day on May 24, with a public holiday on the closest weekend to the date, with most towns holding parades, picnics and sport.
   It became Commonwealth Day, marked on the second Monday in March, when citizens no longer cavorted but laboured at looms in mills.
   Other groups marked different anniversaries, St Paddy’s Day for the Irish for example, but the cynical among you might suggest this was a marketing ploy by the country’s mostly Irish publicans.
   Although January 26 was recognised as the most significant date, it was marked on the nearest Monday to that date, and the looms and mills fell silent for a long weekend.
   By the 1950s Britain’s second wave of deportation of its unwanted masses was in full swing, when the ungrateful whingeing sods wanted to introduce round ball football, plus sandals and socks, rolled up trousers and vests and knotted hankies for recreational wear.
   Nothing seemed to satisfy them, from the weather to cold beer.
   And of course the BS about indigenous folk (and women) not being able to participate in the democratic process (see Geoffrey Blainey’s excellent recent piece).
   Australia led the world in electoral reform.
   But the great unwashed, drawn here for the opportunities this country presented, complained our compulsory, preferential voting system was somehow undemocratic and detrimental to the imported working class.
   Except that many of them as dual citizens could and still can vote in each country for which they hold a passport.
   What about one person, one vote?
   As for me, I’m happy with the date, what we have achieved and become and it seems from the polling, most Australians are as well.
   Those original reluctant imports didn’t wear undies, and the local people wore less, until interfering missionaries covered their “shame and nakedness”!
   I like my undies and won’t be losing any skin fighting for change.

   Reply