There is an infinite list of historical events to be rewritten and attitudes to be rectified, and capitulation simply brings on sooner the next case to be corrected. There will be no appeasing those who have adopted a state of offence as their driving force.

Flogging it along are the likes of the Newcastle Greens councillor, John Mackenzie, who moved last week for Newcastle City Council to immediately remove two plaques that name the Civic Park fountain after Captain Cook and "commemorate the bicentenary of his discovery of the east coast of Australia".

Such an issue is grist for the mill of Cr Mackenzie and other Greens and minor politicians. It creates the division essential to the existence of the Greens and creates both their reason for being and their congregation. Without division the Greens are doomed.

Of course every political party uses division and difference as a political tool, although the mainstream parties try not to create division that leaves them in the minority. We should never overlook the fact that democracy is about majority.

There was division on the council last week, as you may have read in this paper, and it was so predictable it is not worth recording again in detail. It centred on the definition of the word discovery, and you'll get the gist in Cr Mackenzie's retort that Captain Cook discovered the Australian east coast for Britain in only the sense that he, Cr Mackenzie, had recently discovered pistachio ice cream.

If it is a distortion it is an ubiquitous and innocent one. An hour before I sat to write this I was reading in a magazine about Lumholtz's tree-kangaroos, which are found in the rain forests of the Atherton Tablelands. It seems that the tree-kangaroos carry Lumholtz's name because he was the first European to record their existence.

Then I read in the article by a writer I know is more than usually respectful towards Aboriginal culture, "their existence first came to light when Indigenous guides led zoologist Carl Lumholtz onto the Cardwell Range in 1882". The fact that their existence first came to light for modern or European Australians is assumed, and I know no offence was meant.

No offence was taken by my Aboriginal self, either, and it is entirely possible that my Aboriginal ancestors had no idea of Lumholtz's tree-kangaroo.

Back to Newcastle, and an Indigenous Newcastle councillor, Allan Robinson, declared that he knew no Aboriginal person who was offended by Captain Cook being described as discovering the east coast, and neither my Aboriginal nor my European bits are less than delighted with Captain Cook being credited with discovering Australia's east coast for the British.

I suspect that there is more manufactured offence than actual offence, and that most of that is worn as a badge by the self-flagellating correct who jump onto every new bandwagon.

Still, if it offends Aboriginal people let's change it. To what?

The new plaques could record that Captain Cook's first steps on the east coast were the first steps in creating the nation of Australia today.

Surely that is something all of us can celebrate. All of us here should celebrate the fact that we are a modern, independent, multicultural, progressive, liberal, free nation in which every adult has a vote, a nation that offers opportunity for all who want it and are prepared to strive for it. Yes it does.

All of us will cheer, and Aboriginal people should cheer a little louder, that Captain Cook discovered this land for the British, and so our government, legal, education and welfare systems are British. Had the Chinese, the Japanese, the Portuguese, the Spanish or any other of the seagoing nations been the colonists the result would have been very, very different and almost certainly very quickly different for Aboriginal people.

Yes, there were atrocities and serious injustices, but it was not all bad. Australia acknowledges that. And we should bear in mind that we can judge our ancestors only according to the laws and mores of their time, that it is a nonsense to judge them by the laws and attitudes of our time.

So, what next? After we've removed or clarified the word discovery, rendered every white man's statue to road gravel, and banned English place names, what then?

I expect we will see the birth of a campaign within a decade or so to free Aboriginal people from white man's law. The first shot in that war may have been fired by the High Court when it ruled recently that an Aboriginal person holding citizenship of a country other than Australia could not be deported from Australia in any circumstances.

As well I see a change of course for the campaign to lower the high incarceration rate for Aboriginal people. This campaign refers to the high incarceration rate, thereby assigning the blame to all of us because it is our society that does the jailing, rather than the high crime rate, which would assign blame to the individual law breaker. It is more than a minor distinction.

Now there is talk of a special court for Aboriginal people.

You'll discover soon enough that the little matter of Captain Cook was just warming you up. Or wearing you down.

jeffcorb@gmail.com

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