Payback “justice” is an insatiable beast

Perpetually outraged Senator Lidia Thorpe is a real life caricature of radical blacktivism, including the refusal to spell words correctly like a literate person. Apparently a basic level of literacy is “acting white”, a perverse attitude even President Obama rebuked.

Thorpe is outraged that the Aboriginal separatism movement – envisioned in the Uluru Statement From the Heart and which Prime Minister Albanese is committed to “in full” – isn’t aggressive enough. She lectured gathered bloggers at the National Press Club about the evils of the modern justice system, including removing children from abuse and incarcerating violent criminals.

The problem, according to Thorpe, isn’t that a disproportionate number of Aborigines are molesting their children, beating their wives or killing each other. The actual problem is that convicted criminals aren’t allowed to “care for Country”; that is, avoid all modern consequences of crime conducive to a safe and civilised society and instead be allowed to go free.

Radical blacktivists like Thorpe believe that liberating convicted violent criminals will help close the gap in health and economic outcomes experienced by 1 in 5 Aborigines mostly living in remote communities. Her simplistic reasoning is that modern justice systems were imposed by colonialism, and are therefore oppressive. The Uluru Statement itself fallaciously argues that indigenous cultures can’t be held responsible for their disproportionate levels of incarceration.

Thorpe berates Australians because settlement of this continent allegedly disturbed the blissful tranquility and peace of the prior inhabitants. She claims it was “the coloniser” who brought war, invasion, conquest and conflict to these shores.

“My mob, Gunditjmara Djab Wurrung, my grandmother’s Country, had 70 clans living in peace and harmony… pre-colonisation” she claimed in her more than 70 minutes long lecture to the National Press Club.

But Thorpe’s selective telling of pre-colonial history is a shameless white wash of the violence and genocides which existed here long before white fellas developed the land. In fact, her Gunnai ancestors perpetrated a massacre of more than 60 Bunurong people, contributing to entirely wiping out the Yowengerre clan, which then allowed a clan of Thorpe’s ancestors to colonise that territory.

William Thomas, the Assistant Protector of Aborigines of Port Phillip in 1840, wrote a letter to Superintendent Charles La Trobe explaining “the deadly enmity that had existed for a very long time between the Bonurong and their eastern neighbours.”

Myths of undisturbed peace in pre-colonial Australia are greatly exaggerated. To anyone paying even a little bit of attention to the documented, well evidenced history of this enormous island, that isn’t breaking news.

Will centuries of inter-tribal violence, wars, invasions, massacres and genocides prior to 1788 be included in the demanded “truth telling” if the referendum is successful, or will it just be more dishonest white-washing of history?

Will radical blacktivists like the shameless Senator Lidia Thorpe be forced to sign treaties with the descendants of the victims of her ancestors? Will Thorpe and her mob pay reparations to the prior residents of the Country they invaded and colonised? Or is it the case that only whites can be criticised and condemned?

This is what payback “justice” demands. In Aboriginal customary law, peace after a dispute is achieved by a ceremonial spearing, usually of the thigh, so the accused cannot hunt or even walk properly ever again. That’s what makarrata is.

Such bitterness, blood-lust and hatred can never be satisfied. An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind; and Aboriginal separatism will spear every Australian, white and black alike, through the thigh.

The perpetually hostile ideas of Thorpe and other, less radical blacktivists will cause us to metaphorically limp forever. The referendum on the blacktivist agenda must be rejected as dishonest, divisive, and destructive to the future of the nation as a whole, as well as to those it claims to want a better future for.

Only forgiveness and personal responsibility can heal the wounds of the past, further close the gap, achieve a lasting reconciliation and liberate Australians all to truly rejoice as a nation “one and free”.