The finest exploration of the history and morality of a continent. Better because it is more serious than Bryson's 'Down Under', and more hard-hitting as it should be. ( )

A confronting eye-opener. Absolutely worth reading. ( )

The term "terra nulllius," for "land belonging to no one," refers to the legal fiction used by the European colonizers of Australia to take the land belonging to the various groups of Aborigines who already lived there and, not so incidentally, for whom the land had very deep significance, reflecting (to oversimplify) the creation of the world. In the book Terra Nullius], Lindqvist combines a travelogue with a look at some highlights (lowlights?) of European interaction with Aborigines: outright massacres, rape, introduction of diseases including venereal diseases, land theft, imprisonment, stealing half-white and other children, breaking up families, testing of nuclear weapons without moving people away, and of course, underlying everything, breathtaking racism. Towards the end of the book, he introduces a little hope with an exploration of the success (i.e., in the white art market) of Aboriginal art and music.

Lindqvist has an amazing talent to blend his travelogue with historical information, which tends to speak for itself, and with examples from fiction written by colonizers (including a book he read as a child in Sweden which characterizes Aborigines as cannibals), which also tend to speak for themselves. He also devotes some space to an analysis of the the thinking of early 20th century European psychologists and anthropologists who hypothesized freely (and incorrectly) about the origins of humanity based on what they "knew" about the Australian Aborigines. I hadn't heard of Lindqvist before learning about this book from another LTer, but apparently he has made a career of traveling to places to understand the European/white impact on the people of color living in the lands they colonized. This is a compellingly readable, if borderline polemical, book, and it spurs the reader to anger. Many of the stories he tells are appalling.

Some examples of Lindqvist's writing.

"When the natives deny the occupiers access to their records and traditions, scholarship declares they don't exist. . .

When the settler community has stolen the land from its original owners, scholarship finds the natives have no land rights." pp. 38-39

So the Aborigines were constantly being moved, not only to allow for atom-bomb tests, but also because the whites' cattle needed a particular pool of water or because the whites' company had found new mineral deposits -- or simply for their own good, so they could be looked after and learn the whites' table manners, the whites' good home cooking, the whites' working hours. The new policy after the second world war was aimed at 'assimilating' the Aborigines, which didn't imply the whites thought they had anything to learn from black people, but meant black people were to be trained to be steady wage earners and consumers on the fringes of white society." p. 163

Lindqvist makes the case for meaningful apologies from the descendents of colonizers by recounting his own encounter, as a young man, with Norwegians who accused him of benefiting from the Swedish policy of allowing the Nazis to march across Sweden to Norway. At first, he was taken aback by this, since he was only 10 in 1942, but comes to realize that "it was my own country's cowardly appeasement policy I had to thank for never having been bombed or shot at or even gone to bed hungry." He also discusses how countries can effectively make amends for past misdeeds; needless to say, saying "I'm sorry" isn't enough.

He ends the book with a broader look at the world.

"Three hundred million human beings on this planet are members of indigenous peoples who have been, or are on the way to being, robbed of their land. They are generally among the poorest and most scorned minorities in the countries where they live. Not long ago, they were considered doomed to die out. But in recent decades the indigenous peoples have seized back the initiative on a global scale." p.204

He then goes on to discuss some of these efforts, what Australia is doing, the fight to obtain German reparations for the Holocaust, and other claims for reparations. He concludes:

"When the misdeeds of the past are brought to light, when the perpetrators and their heirs confess and ask forgiveness, when we do penance and mend our ways and pay the price -- then the crime committed has a new setting and a new significance. No longer the inescapable extinction of a people, but its ability to survive and eventually have the justice of its claim acknowledged." p. 213

Sven Lindqvist voyage en Australie et relate au fur et à mesure de ses pérégrinations quel a été le sort des aborigènes dans les différents régions d'Australie depuis l'arrivée des anglais. C'est une lecture difficile du au sujet malgré la fluidité de l'écriture.

On finirait la lecture de cet ouvrage avec un sentiment de désolation et désespoir si ce n'était pour la conclusion qui apporte des pistes de réflexion pour avancer et le vivre-ensemble.

Peut-on imputer au fils les erreurs et crimes du père ? Peut-on se satisfaire de profiter des privilèges liés à l'histoire sans accepter d'endosser aussi une partie des responsabilités liées à la colonisation et l'occupation ? Comment dédommager les peuples humiliés et spoliés ?

A lire pour en connaître plus sur l'histoire de l'Australie. ( )

Excellent - indigenous history never heard of before - all round Australia.