"Welcome To Country" Speeches .......... Gone Too Far Now ??

[jakson68]

So let’s get this right, CC had no agenda coming to Australia? And what happened beyond his arrival had nothing to do with him seeing the country as viable for colonisation?

Lets play devils advocate and think outside the square about Cook coming to Australia.

Imagine if it was a different race of people that came to Australia.
Fair chance 200odd years later, there would be no WTC.

Certainly doesn't make what happened way back then right but it could have been a hell of a lot worse.

 

[South of the Yarra]

Lets play devils advocate and think outside the square about Cook coming to Australia.

Imagine if it was a different race of people that came to Australia.
Fair chance 200odd years later, there would be no WTC.

Certainly doesn't make what happened way back then right but it could have been a hell of a lot worse.

I know 200 years of murder, slaughter, dispossession, stolen lands, rape, stolen families, lowered life expectancy, worse health outcomes, was just not enough. It could have been a hell of a lot worse.

 

[Bostonian]

Google it…

I have, its a hodge podge of different things combined to make a modern thing.

I'm struggling to find a long past historical record of it.

 

[South of the Yarra]

What is that and what does it mean?
Are you implying Captain Cook is a war criminal?

James Cook and the Doctrine of Discovery – 5 Things to Know​

The Doctrine of Discovery (also known as the Doctrine of Christian Discovery) is an international legal concept and Christian principle, that is borne out a number of catholic laws (called “papal bulls”) originating out of the Vatican in the 15th and 16th centuries. It gave the monarchies of Britain and Europe the right to conquer and claim lands, and to convert or kill the native inhabitants of those lands.
In 2019 it will be 250 years since this process was carried out in Aotearoa New Zealand, by James Cook. Here are 5 important things to know about that:

1. The intent of the Doctrine
   The Doctrine of Discovery provided a framework for Christian explorers, in the name of their King or Queen, to lay claim to territories uninhabited by Christians. If the lands were vacant, then they could be defined as “discovered” and sovereignty claimed.
   
   
   
2. Within the framework of the Doctrine, Indigenous Peoples were considered non-human
   The Doctrine asserts that non-Christians on these discovered lands were not human and therefore the land was empty or “terra nullius”. When Cook arrived in Aotearoa he was under orders to claim land for King George III, preferably by consent – however he did so without consent. When he arrived in Australia, there would have been up to 750,000 people living there, who had been living on those lands for over 65,000 years, however, he declared the land “terra nullius”, which means he declared the Indigenous people of Australia to be not human, and the land empty – and then claimed the land for King George III. In Aotearoa, Lieutenant William Hobson, on order from the British Crown, declared Te Waipounamu (The South Island) terra nullius in 1840 and then claimed it for the Crown.

 

[Headless]

Can you site the studies that can confirm this?

As a more general point, academic literature is historically privileged and exclusionary.

 

[Freshwater]

Still seems incredibly self centred. You can’t be grateful for something you had no choice in. I mean if he didn’t come here then we wouldn’t know.

‘Left behind’, sometimes it’s ok not to have everything.

I’m grateful for all my ancestors. I’m grateful that I live in one the free countries, with English Common Law, free market free speech, that create wealth and security. I’m grateful for the family I grew up with. I’m grateful for my Irish ancestry and religion. I definitely can be grateful for what went before me. We wouldn’t have our infrastructure and culture and sports etc without them.

 

[eastfreo75]

Lets play devils advocate and think outside the square about Cook coming to Australia.

Imagine if it was a different race of people that came to Australia.
Fair chance 200odd years later, there would be no WTC.

Certainly doesn't make what happened way back then right but it could have been a hell of a lot worse.

The harsh reality is that humans have done bs to other humans forever and especially over land.

Not sure it's a good argument that it would have been worse because it was pretty fork up already.

Sure, Australia was always going to be taken over by somebody but wrong is wrong.

All we can do is try to include first people's as much as we can.

 

[Freshwater]

James Cook and the Doctrine of Discovery – 5 Things to Know​

The Doctrine of Discovery (also known as the Doctrine of Christian Discovery) is an international legal concept and Christian principle, that is borne out a number of catholic laws (called “papal bulls”) originating out of the Vatican in the 15th and 16th centuries. It gave the monarchies of Britain and Europe the right to conquer and claim lands, and to convert or kill the native inhabitants of those lands.
In 2019 it will be 250 years since this process was carried out in Aotearoa New Zealand, by James Cook. Here are 5 important things to know about that:

1. The intent of the Doctrine
   The Doctrine of Discovery provided a framework for Christian explorers, in the name of their King or Queen, to lay claim to territories uninhabited by Christians. If the lands were vacant, then they could be defined as “discovered” and sovereignty claimed.
   
   
   
2. Within the framework of the Doctrine, Indigenous Peoples were considered non-human
   The Doctrine asserts that non-Christians on these discovered lands were not human and therefore the land was empty or “terra nullius”. When Cook arrived in Aotearoa he was under orders to claim land for King George III, preferably by consent – however he did so without consent. When he arrived in Australia, there would have been up to 750,000 people living there, who had been living on those lands for over 65,000 years, however, he declared the land “terra nullius”, which means he declared the Indigenous people of Australia to be not human, and the land empty – and then claimed the land for King George III. In Aotearoa, Lieutenant William Hobson, on order from the British Crown, declared Te Waipounamu (The South Island) terra nullius in 1840 and then claimed it for the Crown.

Doesn’t mean he agreed with all that. What he did was extraordinary, with or without that silly piece or legal reasoning.

 

[South of the Yarra]

Doesn’t mean he agreed with all that. What he did was extraordinary, with or without that silly piece or legal reasoning.

Agreed with it, he was the one that carried it, evoked it and put it into action.

 

[Bostonian]

I know 200 years of murder, slaughter, dispossession, stolen lands, rape, stolen families, lowered life expectancy, worse health outcomes, was just not enough. It could have been a hell of a lot worse.

It could have been far worse.

World history is full of cultures that were either wiped out never to be seen again or dispersed so widely that the original culture disappeared.

The Ostrogoths are but one example.

 

[South of the Yarra]

Doesn’t mean he agreed with all that. What he did was extraordinary, with or without that silly piece or legal reasoning.

Silly piece of legal reasoning? It is a piece of paper that led to murder, slaughter, tyranny, broken families. rape, and dispossession. Oh but it is just a silly piece of paper.

 

[South of the Yarra]

It could have been far worse.

World history is full of cultures that were either wiped out never to be seen again or dispersed so widely that the original culture disappeared.

The Ostrogoths are but one example.

Spoken by someone who did not experience it.

 

[PerthBoy86]

I am torn on this stuff. Disclaimer: I have studied and teach indigenous history.

The irony is that if I type exactly what I think/know, I'll probably end up being censored or warned by a mod who probably knows nothing about the area, or thinks they know.

The reason I'm torn is because every country seems to inevitably benefit from myth-making, but I'll say that pre-colonisation indigenous culture was tremendously varied. Different languages, traditions etc. And most of them had no clue the others existed. At all.

Maybe it's for the best that we pretend they all felt intimate connections with 'the Land', had a 'dreamtime' and 'songlines', 'smoking ceremonies' ... and chuck in a rainbow serpent if you like, too. We all sign up to the claim that footy and marngrook are intimately linked, and perhaps it's better for the culture that we do, regardless of fact.

But I'll never lose sight of the irony that at least one of the cultural groups to which we now pay tribute before games was positively genocidal. Their word for all other indigenous groups translates as "non-human", and they considered it their primary purpose in life as to wipe them out.

There are probably many who think aboriginal people all lived in a peaceful utopia before white fellas came along, but of course there were many diverse tribes etc and conflict like anywhere else. There was no sense of a pan Australian aboriginal identity. Humans fight, conquer etc, regardless of skin colour. Doesn't justify a lot of the terrible things the colonists did though, but some act like Europeans had some unique propensity to conquer and colonise, when it's been happening all over the world for millennia.

But I'm not against the idea of welcome to country per se, I do think it has become a been tokenistic. Like is saying the land was stolen, is aboriginal land, never ceded helpful if you're not going to give it back? Not that that's even possible now as the damage has been done. Its like the victor constantly sending condolences to the loser. I mean if it helps some indigenous people that's good, but I imagine a lot of white guilt is being assuaged.

 

[Bostonian]

Spoken by someone who did not experience it.

You exist.

All those other cultures do not.

Spoken by someone who has read a history book.

 

[Elixuh]

I’m grateful for all my ancestors. I’m grateful that I live in one the free countries, with English Common Law, free market free speech, that create wealth and security. I’m grateful for the family I grew up with. I’m grateful for my Irish ancestry and religion. I definitely can be grateful for what went before me. We wouldn’t have our infrastructure and culture and sports etc without them.

And you can be grateful for all of that. But equally there is no reason you can’t form a rationale view on the impact on indigenous Australian since CC landed in Australia and at a more granular level CCs impact. Doing so isn’t going to disappear those things you love from your life or your heritage.

 

[rei154]

How has this thread turned to semantics and arguments about historical figures?

Seems a large chunk of people don't understand what a welcome to country is and refuse its importance out of some faux principle relating to keeping politics out of sports.
Do people have the same concerns relating to the flooding of gambling advertisements? Are people concerned about the ability for gambling lobbyists to influence our economy or our media discourse?
Typically no.
Because people are scared and soft when it comes to acceptance.

Welcome to country doesn't have anything to do with colonisation, doesn't have anything to do with nationality and as far as I know isn't supposed to make people of different skin colours uncomfortable.

Old mates speech was fine. He had one joke that offended a bunch of people but that was incredibly harmless to the rest of us.
It isn't political to make a joke about a man that objectively changed the course of history for the people of the land he came to.

The same people getting upset over this are the same who stuck the boot in to Hawthorns response to Ginnivan/Ken and called them soft/snowflakes.

Pot, meet kettle. Kettle, meet pot.


If you were offended by the welcome to country, that sucks. Don't project your offendedness, maybe work to see where that feeling comes from.

 

[eastfreo75]

James Cook and the Doctrine of Discovery – 5 Things to Know​

The Doctrine of Discovery (also known as the Doctrine of Christian Discovery) is an international legal concept and Christian principle, that is borne out a number of catholic laws (called “papal bulls”) originating out of the Vatican in the 15th and 16th centuries. It gave the monarchies of Britain and Europe the right to conquer and claim lands, and to convert or kill the native inhabitants of those lands.
In 2019 it will be 250 years since this process was carried out in Aotearoa New Zealand, by James Cook. Here are 5 important things to know about that:

1. The intent of the Doctrine
   The Doctrine of Discovery provided a framework for Christian explorers, in the name of their King or Queen, to lay claim to territories uninhabited by Christians. If the lands were vacant, then they could be defined as “discovered” and sovereignty claimed.
   
   
   
2. Within the framework of the Doctrine, Indigenous Peoples were considered non-human
   The Doctrine asserts that non-Christians on these discovered lands were not human and therefore the land was empty or “terra nullius”. When Cook arrived in Aotearoa he was under orders to claim land for King George III, preferably by consent – however he did so without consent. When he arrived in Australia, there would have been up to 750,000 people living there, who had been living on those lands for over 65,000 years, however, he declared the land “terra nullius”, which means he declared the Indigenous people of Australia to be not human, and the land empty – and then claimed the land for King George III. In Aotearoa, Lieutenant William Hobson, on order from the British Crown, declared Te Waipounamu (The South Island) terra nullius in 1840 and then claimed it for the Crown.

This article fails to see the impact of Social Darwinism.

Indigenous peoples were seen as subhuman, unadvanced, and not important.

Blaming this on Christianity is pretty stupid actually because in gospels Jesus taught all people have value.

Sure, some used religion for their own agenda but seriously social Darwinism is much easier to use, and it was.

 

[South of the Yarra]

You exist.

All those other cultures do not.

Spoken by someone who has read a history book.

Probably the most shallow response that I have read on Big Footy. You read a history book, wow. You must know it all. I may exist, many of my family do not.

 

[South of the Yarra]

This article fails to see the impact of Social Darwinism.

Indigenous peoples were seen as subhuman, unadvanced, and not important.

Blaming this on Christianity is pretty stupid actually because in gospels Jesus taught all people have value.

Sure, some used religion for their own agenda but seriously social Darwinism is much easier to use, and it was.

It was a Papal decree. Christianity had everything to do with it.

 

[Freshwater]

And you can be grateful for all of that. But equally there is no reason you can’t form a rationale view on the impact on indigenous Australian since CC landed in Australia and at a more granular level CCs impact. Doing so isn’t going to disappear those things you love from your life or your heritage.

I actually agree and mentioned we definitely can acknowledge aboriginal history heritage and culture without demonising Cook or the British because this was happening from someone. And better the British than any other culture, saying this with Irish ancestors who literally came here in chains.

 

[Bostonian]

Probably the most shallow response that I have read on Big Footy. You read a history book, wow. You must know it all. I may exist, many of my family do not.

And many of other people's families do not exist as well.

It's like you think the experiences of your family are exclusively unique to just one group of people.

We can go all over the world map and find of examples of all the things you have stated over millenia.

So yes, reading a book does give context to actions.

 

[Freshwater]

Silly piece of legal reasoning? It is a piece of paper that led to murder, slaughter, tyranny, broken families. rape, and dispossession. Oh but it is just a silly piece of paper.

Doesn’t mean Cook did what he did because of that. Discoverery and colonialism wasn’t a bad thing like you think it is.

 

[demondavey]

Lets play devils advocate and think outside the square about Cook coming to Australia.

Imagine if it was a different race of people that came to Australia.
Fair chance 200odd years later, there would be no WTC.

Certainly doesn't make what happened way back then right but it could have been a hell of a lot worse.

Or we could just accept the fact it did happen and that he made a joke about white people (that wasn’t even offensive) that has caused a raucous about of uproar from anyone looking to kick WTC out the door.

 

[demondavey]

Doesn’t mean Cook did what he did because of that. Discoverery and colonialism wasn’t a bad thing like you think it is.

Killing all those aboriginals and displacing them was definitely not a bad thing

 

[Aristotle Pickett]

What does that even mean?

It means he shot dead many Indigenous people, pretended he was a God , treated the women like prostitutes and he and hid crew spread Syphlis knowing they had it and infected people with tuburcoiosis knowing they had it
He treated Indigenous people like they were animals.
If anyone got aggressive, he would blow their brains out.
This guy was a real murdering racist prick.