Daily Dialectic

The picture of white Australia which has surfaced in the past five decades, tells the story of an oppressive colonial force, attempting to assimilate or annihilate the indigenous peoples of Australia. The ability of British colonists to persistently perform such injustices was constituted by their blindness to the ethical agency of Australian Aboriginals. This colonial blind-spot was rooted in the discursive undercurrents which circulated throughout 19th and early 20th Century colonial opinions.

Through a brief engagement with Australian history, discourse and policy, the above mentioned failure to recognise Aboriginal ethical agency will be articulated and explained. Widespread indigenous resistance to colonial oppression will then be articulated as an expression of Aboriginal ethical agency. In order to illuminate the darkness of colonial blindness to Aboriginal ethical agency, a mutual recognition of ethical agency must be established in the Australian public at large. And it will be asserted that this mutual recognition may be achieved through an institutional process of acknowledgment and atonement; which then enables the possibility for widespread indigenous attitudes of forgiveness.