On Tue, Nov 20th, 2012 at 9:53 PM, Mark Trickett <marktrickett@gmail.com> wrote:
On Tue, 2012-11-20 at 17:26 +1100, Roger wrote:
History is now history of Asia and aborigines, not history of Australia.
That is appropriate. Remember that all the "First Fleet" people, convicts and authorities, were "boat people" invading an already settled and occupied land, just not a European settlement. Except for those of "Aboriginal" ancestry, we are all either boat people or immigrants, or the descendants of such.
Australia is geographically part of Asia, not Europe. A knowledge of the "local" history is a good thing, although I would also strongly recommend a breadth of global history as a good background.
Mark Trickett
Who was there before the aborigines? Maybe they were harvested by aliens. Did one tribe settle Australia, followed by more boat people? Did it all happen when the continents were joined? How did a thousand different tribes/clans come about? Also this business about 'invasion of an already settled land' I find is purely emotive. Is there some date when this became unethical? If it has always been unethical, winding back and seeking reparation is going to interesting everywhere else in the world let alone the current invasions. The statement 'Australia is geographically part of Asia, not Europe' I regard as nonsense, if you follow that line of reasoning, you would argue that China is on the same continent as Europe so if you follow the geographical links we're all Europeans. In these days of fast transport and communications, I really can't see the usefulness of 'geographic' links. I don't see African countries saying they're a part of Arab or European regions and they're joined by land. Why don't we try getting an identity before we start saying of whom we are a part? Lu