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Brian Ross
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23 myths you might believe about Aboriginal Australia
23 myths you might believe about
Aboriginal Australia Are you believing some myths about Aboriginal people? Check this
list to learn if they are true!
Why is busting myths about Aboriginal people
important? It can be toxic if you encounter the same negative stereotypes over and over again. It leads to frustration, anger and eventually bad health.
If we perpetuate myths without questioning them we demonstrate our own ignorance and illiteracy of Abo-
riginal culture.
Knowledge is power, and we should be brave enough to say: “I’m sorry, but that is not true. That’s a myth.”
Let’s have a look into what you might think you “know” about Aboriginal culture and how true it is.
Understanding why Australia's First Peoples are so angry starts with
an open mind, and an education.
—Chris Graham, editor of 'Matilda' [1]
Busting the myths
Myth 1: We should all be celebrating Australia Day
Shift your perspective: Non-Aboriginal people celebrate Australia Day for the arrival of the British. For Aboriginal people the day marks the loss of their land, their children, their wages, many aspects of their culture, and their freedom.
In short, it celebrates a day of widespread loss, death and dispossession. How can you expect a race of people to celebrate that?
Imagine if on April 25, Anzac Day, the Turkish community in Australia held a ‘Defeated Australia Day’, replete with a national holiday and people draping themselves in the Turkish flag, celebrating everything Turkish.
Truth: We can find a better day to celebrate being Australian than the day of the invasion.
Myth 2: Australia was colonised, not invaded
The Wikipedia defines ‘colonisation’ as an act where a species “populates an area”. It is a term derived from the Latin colere, “to inhabit, cultivate, frequent practice, tend, guard, respect”.
It defines an ‘invasion’ as “a military offensive” which “aggressively enter[s] territory controlled by another…entity, generally with the objective of either conquering, liberating or re-establishing control or authority over a territory”.
Looking at Australia’s history we find at least 5 National Aboriginal wars (‘Frontier Wars’) starting shortly after the landing and lasting until the 1930s, spanning a total of 146 years.
Add to that fierce resistance fighters such as Jandamarra, Windradyne or Yagan, the deliberate poisoning, shooting and massacring of Aboriginal families with the intention of wiping them out, and you have all the ingredients of a civil war and genocide.
Truth: Australia was invaded.
Myth 3: There is one Aboriginal culture in Australia
It’s easy to assume that there is one Aboriginal culture in Australia. Truth is, there were more than 250 language groups with hundreds of dialects, and many had their own regional customs.
Think of it: Aboriginal nations in the tropical, seasonally wet north must have had a different culture than those in the cold and dry south, saltwater people a different one than freshwater people.
But many media fail to point out where an Aboriginal person comes from. They contribute to readers seeing “an Aboriginal woman” rather than “a Nyoongar woman” (i.e. a woman from a Western Australian Aboriginal nation).
Similarly, many people think there is “an Aboriginal word” for something. In fact there once were probably more than 250 words for the same English word, given the language variety and many dialects.
Truth: There are many different Aboriginal cultures, customs and languages in Australia.
Myth 4: Land rights compensated Aboriginal people
Some Aboriginal people in some jurisdictions of Australia do have some land rights. But those rights are always under threat, and they almost always give way to non-Aboriginal economic or political interests (e.g. development, mining) if there is a conflict.
Wiradjuri woman Jenny Munro knows this all too well:
“If Aboriginal people in this country think we got justice from Native Title they are fooled because it is just another way for the white system to affirm illegitimate control of our land through their laws. They are legally extinguishing our title to the land, giving precedence to white title that has only existed for a blink of an eye compared to our culture and our law over the land.” [4]
Initially Aboriginal people owned 100% of Australia. In New South Wales they now own less than 0.01%. Is this a fair compensation for what they lost?
If you look at maps showing Aboriginal land it is almost always in areas that non-Aboriginal people have no interest in.
Also, land rights legislation is under constant attack from Australian governments who try to whittle it down.
Aboriginal people have a very special connection to the land. Destroying that connection means destroying the people.
Truth: Land rights have failed to deliver, and never will.
[cont'd]
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