National Identity, Multiculturalism, and Aboriginal Rights: An Australian Perspective

Abstract

My main concern in this paper will be with questions of national identity, multiculturalism, and aboriginal rights as they have emerged in Australia, especially over the past twenty or so years. The issues are not, of course, unique to Australia: similar questions have arisen in other places, including Canada, New Zealand, and the United States. However, each place has specific problems, and while I hope that much of what I say has relevance to these countries, I will not try to establish this here.The paper falls into two parts. In the first, I argue for certain limits on the practice of multiculturalism. The basis of this argument is a concern for national identity – especially for what I will call ‘national sovereignty.’ This is a familiar conservative position; however, I hope to show that it is one which liberals and those on the left should take seriously. In the second part of the paper, I distinguish the issue of Aboriginal (or indigenous) rights from multiculturalism, and try to establish that the basis of these rights is a principle very similar to the notion of national sovereignty.

‘A Land without a People’: An Evaluation of Nations' Efficiency-based Territorial Claims

“…As both Waldron and Poole imply, efficiency considerations strengthen the claims of the present occupants of those continents, i.e. the innocent descendants of the European dispossessors of native lands (Waldron, 1992, p. 26;Poole, 1998Poole, , p. 431, 1999. (Though unlike Locke, they clearly do not suggest that such considerations justify the original expropriation thereof.)…”

“…Poole clearly applies such a utilitarian consideration to the aboriginal landrights case. He says of the aboriginal peoples of Australia: 'Where between 300,000 and 350,000 indigenous people were able to subsist before white settlement, neither dependent on nor contributing to the rest of the world, modern agriculture and industry now enable the Australian continent to support and contribute to the support of countless millions more' (Poole, 1998(Poole, , p. 431, 1999. He qualifies this observation by stating that 'these considerations do not justify, excuse, or even rationalize the brutality, oppression, exploitation, and misery which were the direct and indirect consequences of white settlement in Australia' (Poole, 1998(Poole, , p. 431, 1999.…”

“…He says of the aboriginal peoples of Australia: 'Where between 300,000 and 350,000 indigenous people were able to subsist before white settlement, neither dependent on nor contributing to the rest of the world, modern agriculture and industry now enable the Australian continent to support and contribute to the support of countless millions more' (Poole, 1998(Poole, , p. 431, 1999. He qualifies this observation by stating that 'these considerations do not justify, excuse, or even rationalize the brutality, oppression, exploitation, and misery which were the direct and indirect consequences of white settlement in Australia' (Poole, 1998(Poole, , p. 431, 1999. However, Poole does categorize these considerations as moral ones, and adds that 'one does not have to be utilitarian to think that the interests and needs of the many must figure in any argument as to the rights of the few' (Poole, 1998(Poole, , p. 431, 1999.…”

“…He qualifies this observation by stating that 'these considerations do not justify, excuse, or even rationalize the brutality, oppression, exploitation, and misery which were the direct and indirect consequences of white settlement in Australia' (Poole, 1998(Poole, , p. 431, 1999. However, Poole does categorize these considerations as moral ones, and adds that 'one does not have to be utilitarian to think that the interests and needs of the many must figure in any argument as to the rights of the few' (Poole, 1998(Poole, , p. 431, 1999.…”

Reconciliation or Identity in Australia

“…39 Although there are multinational states (states with national minorities as Kymlicka would put it), Poole sees no reason that these are not also nations in themselves. He cites the co-existence of Scottish and English nationalities, and goes on to imagine both Aboriginal and Australian identities existing in a similar way, under a widened understanding of Australian nationality.…”