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Changing rights and freedoms: Aboriginal people
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Terra Nullius: changed and changing views of history
Topic : Terra Nullius: changed and changing views of history
In this topic you will learn...
Chapter 1 :
The 'White' version of Australia's past
Many settled countries have a darker side to their past
This past has been glossed over in order to celebrate the progress of the nation
Australia's history had been sanitised like this
Historians had been eager to present a country united by its heroic struggles
The Mabo decision was a turning point for the 'White' version of Australian history
It overturned the doctrine of terra nullius
Until the 1970s the Indigenous experience was nothing more than a footnote in history
The beginning of multiculturalism in Australia, in the early 1970s, changed that
Since then an ethno-centric version of the past has no longer been seen as acceptable
The 'white' version of the past can no longer be upheld as the historical truth
Chapter 2 :
The black armband view
Henry Reynolds' history book The Other Side of the Frontier was published in 1981
It approached the frontier war period of history from an Indigenous point of view
Since then many other historians have helped revise the 'traditional' view of the past
History books now talk about a 'white' invasion rather than a peaceful settlement
They also tell of an organised Indigenous resistance to that invasion
The term 'black armband' history was coined by the historian Geoffrey Blainey
He claimed the new accounts of Australia's past are politically motivated, not historically
Some Australians feel that a black armband has been placed around Australia's past
They see the new historical accounts as too negative
Other Australians say it is better to have a 'black armband' than a 'white blindfold'
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