Not a wild Colonial Boy

Stace,

It started out innocently enough, a bit of banter between two footy mates, but then apropos nothing he comes out with “Eddie Betts and Adam Goodes were both very proud and outspoken trendy ambassadors for indigenous people within the AFL. The AFL crowds only booed one of them. Yet they are seen as racist.” Then quickly followed by the increasingly popular disclaimer and defuser “Just saying”, always handy to add when you know what you have said is not acceptable but that’s what you want to say anyway,.

To me, there speaks a Colonial, not a true Australian. In my opinion the new true definition of an Australian is one who accepts and assimilates with First Nations cultural beliefs to present as a complete person who identifies with aspects of both colonial and indigenous characteristics.

At a heart felt level. Colonials hold to the English traditions and historical stories to the exclusion of any real respect for indigenous culture. To Colonials the difference between Eddie and Adam was that, in their eyes, and I shudder to have to use this borrowed expression from the USA South, Adam Goodes was “an uppity nigger”.

Sadly, the Colonials seem to hold the majority of power over public opinion in Australia as witnessed by recent events such as

  • the failed republican referendum in 1999
  • the rejection in a referencum on the Voice to Parliament for First Nations people propositon put by the current Labor government
  • the hypocritical outcry over Lidia Thorpes public objection to the recent English King’s visit to Australia.

As for the latter, I have included references below to two excellent articles by Jo Dyer and Paul Bongiorno respectively which I highly recommend to you. Both should be available for free. They are entitled “This is what truth telling looks like” and “Lidia Thorpe and King Charles’s visit” respectively. Lidia’s protest needs to be viewed relative to this statement in “The Shot” article: “proving much more effective when shouted in person than in the pages of the three “respectful” letters Thorpe wrote to Charles in advance of the Royal Tour – letters he ignored in which she asked for a meeting to discuss the issues she later raised in Parliament’s Great Hall, including the repatriation of Aboriginal remains still languishing in institutions across the UK.” Colonials, and their King, don’t want to talk about such things of course.

I come from a predominantly Irish background just two generations removed. Many Irish people migrated to Australia either as convicts or as free men seeking a better life from the poverty enacted on the Irish people by the English overlords. There is an element of spiritual connection by Irish descendants with the plight of First Nations people over the oppression by the English. Take the skin colour out of the discussion and there is a mutual suffering by the Irish and First Nations peoples at the hands of English invaders.

So I proudly proclaim that I am an Australian, not a wild Colonial boy!

p.s. And we need our own flag without the English flag embedded in it!!

References:

Leave a comment