Dr Gideon Polya
By Dr Gideon Polya Countercurrents.org 12 May, 2009
Australia has an over 2 century history of involvement in genocide. However this appalling genocide history is kept hidden by a sustained process of Australian holocaust denial and genocide denial
Before going further it must be clearly stated that the term “Genocide” used here is “Genocide” as precisely defined by Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention as follows: “In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: a) Killing members of the group; b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group” (see: http://www.edwebproject.org
/sideshow/genocide/convention.html ).
Further, in assessing deaths from particular policies of invasion, occupation and dispossession one notes that deaths can be violent (from bombs and bullets) or non-violent (from deprivation and deprivation-exacerbated disease). Both kinds of avoidable death (death that should not have happened) are included within the term “excess death” used below (see “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”, G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://mwcnews.net/Gideon-Polya/ and “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950 (2008 lecture)”:
http://globalavoidablemortality.blogspot.com/2008/08/
body-count-global-avoidable-mortality.html ).
The following catalogue of Australian involvement in Genocide - as defined by the UN Genocide Convention and notably in British- and American-imposed genocides - is given below in roughly chronological order from 1788 (the year of European Invasion and First Settlement) to 2009. A key reference is my book “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”; other relevant books are Chalk, F. and Jonassohn, K. (1990), “The History and Sociology of Genocide. Analyses and Case Studies” (Yale University Press, New Haven & London); Tatz, C. (2003), “With Intent to Destroy. Reflecting on Genocide” (Verso, London); Blum, W. (2006), “Rogue State, A guide to the world’s only superpower” (Zed Books, London); and my book “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History. Colonial rapacity, holocaust denial and the crisis in biological sustainability” (GM. Polya, Melbourne, 1998 & 2008: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ ). The following list is an updated and amplified version of that originally published in MWC News as ”Australia’s secret genocide history. La Trobe, “Bundoora Eucalyptus” and black crimes of white Australia” on MWC News, 30 April 2008: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/22128/42/ .
1. 18th-19th century Aboriginal Genocide (the Indigenous Aboriginal population dropped from about 1 million to 0.1 million in the first century after invasion in 1788).
2. Tasmanian Aboriginal Genocide (the “full-blood” Indigenous population dropped from 6,000 to zero in 1803-1776; however there are several thousand “mixed race” decendants of Tasmanian and Mainland Aborigines still living in Tasmania today).
3. British Indian Genocide (post-invasion excess deaths 0.6 billion, 1757-1837; 0.5 billion, 1837-1901 under Queen Victoria; 0.4 billion, 1901-1947, and 1.5 billion in all - or 1.8 billion if you include the so-called Native States of the British Raj).
4. European Chinese Genocide (10-100 million deaths in the European imperialism-driven Tai Ping rebellion period; Australia was involved in suppressing the Boxer rebellion).
5. Maori Genocide (the Maori population dropped from 0.1-0.2 million in 1800 to 42,000 in 1893; Australia was involved in the 19th century Maori wars).
6. African Genocide (scores of millions perished over 5 centuries of European slavery and colonialism; Australians participated in the Sudan War, 1881-1898 and the Boer War in South Africa, 1899-1902).
7. Pacific Genocide (there was a catastrophic population decline due to introduced disease and slavery; thus 40,000 Fijians died from measles out of a population of 150,000 in 1876; “blackbirding” slavery was conducted by Australians in the late 19th century, with the Melanesian slaves - “Kanakas” - being taken to sugar plantations in the Australian state of Queensland).
8. Boer (Afrikaaner) Genocide (1899-1902; 28,000 Afrikaaner women and children died in British concentration camps; Australians participated in the Boer War as immortalized in the movie “Breaker Morant” ).
9. Armenian Genocide (1.5 million killed; the Australian invasion of Gallipoli as part of an Anglo-French force in 1915 helped to precipitate this atrocity; indeed April 24 is Armenian Genocide Day and April 25 is the day of the Australia invasion in 1915 and also a sacred war dead remembrance day for Australians and New Zealanders – it is called Anzac Day after the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) which stormed ashore on that first Anzac Day at Gallipoli in 1915).
10. Bengali Genocide (6-7 million perished in the “forgotten” man-made Bengal Famine atrocity in Bengal and adjoining provinces in British India, 1943-1945; Australians were there and indeed the Governor of Bengal in 1944 was an Australian, R.G. Casey; for a recent BBC broadcast about the WW2 Bengal Famine involving me, Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen of Harvard University, medical historian Dr Sanjoy Bhattacharya of University College London and other scholars see: http://www.open2.net/thingsweforgot/
bengalfamine_programme.html ).
11. British post-1950 Third World Genocide (1950-2005 excess deaths in countries subject to British occupation as a major occupier in the post-war era totalled 727 million; Australia has the same Head of State as the UK and continues to be a loyal military ally of the UK in Occupied Iraq and Occupied Afghanistan).
12. US post-1950 Third World Genocide (1950-2005 excess deaths in countries subject to US occupation as a major occupier in the post-war era totalled 82 million; Australia participated in all post-1950 US Asian Wars in Korea, Indo-China, Iraq and Afghanistan with Indigenous Asian excess deaths now totalling 25 million).
13. Australian Colonial Genocide (1950-2005 excess deaths in countries subject to Australian occupation as a major occupier in the post-war era, namely Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands totalled 2.1 million).
14. 20th century Aboriginal Genocide (total excess deaths are clearly of the order of 1 million; 0.1 million Stolen Generations Aboriginal children forcibly removed from their Mothers in the 19th and 20th centuries; excess deaths in the 11 years of the Bush-ite Howard Coalition Government totalled 90,000 for 1996-2007; currently about 9,000 Indigenous Australians die avoidably each year out of a population of about 0.5 million as detailed in item #18 below).
The following Australian genocide involvements in this catalogue of horrors are ongoing.
15. Palestinian Genocide (post-1967 excess deaths 0.3 million, post-1967 under-5 infant deaths 0.2 million and 7 million refugees; with bi-partisan agreement Australia provides diplomatic, financial and haven support for Israeli state terrorism – even when directed against tens of thousands of Australian citizens as in Lebanon in mid-2006 - and up to life imprisonment for anyone giving support to the Hamas Party that overwhelmingly won the 2006 Occupied Palestinian elections; Australia makes contributions to racist Zionist colonization – i.e. to the Palestinian Genocide - tax deductible: http://www.greenleft.org.au/2008/745/38562 ).
16. Iraqi Genocide (4.1 million excess deaths 1990-2009; 1.3 million post-invasion violent excess deaths and 1.0 million post-invasion non-violent excess deaths i.e. 2.3 million post-invasion violent and non-violent excess deaths; 0.6 million post-invasion under-5 infant deaths; and 5-6 million refugees; Australia has been militarily involved in the Iraqi Genocide since 1990; for details as of March 2008 see “Iraqi Genocide”: http://www.brusselstribunal.org/
Messages190308.htm#polya ).
17. Afghan Genocide (3-7 million post-invasion violent and non-violent excess deaths, 2.3 million post-invasion under-5 infant deaths, and 4 million refugees; Australia was involved militarily in Occupied Afghanistan from after the US invasion in 2001).
18. Ongoing Aboriginal Genocide (9,000 excess deaths annually; 90,000 excess deaths in the last 11 years of Bush-ite Coalition rule; for details and documentation see “Aboriginal genocide. Racist White Australian child abuse and passive mass murder”: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/15140/42/ ).
19. Biofuel Genocide (16 million die avoidably each year but this is increasingly biofuel-impacted as the legislatively-mandated US, UK and EU biofuel perversion forces up global food prices; Australia is a major sugar cane grower and sugar exporter with 60% of sugar going to bioethanol production worldwide; Australia has biofuel-promoting legislation and is a major canola grower, this being a major source for biodiesel; for detailed and documented analysis see my Biofuel lecture notes: http://globalavoidablemortality.blogspot.com/2008/05/
biofuel-famine-biofuel-genocide-meat.html
and http://climateemergency.blogspot.com/
2008/04/biofuel-famine-biofuel-genocide-and.html ).
20. Climate Genocide (16 million die avoidably each year already from deprivation and deprivation-exacerbated disease; Professor James Lovelock FRS says that only 1 billion will survive this century i.e. about 10 billion (2 billion being Indians) will perish this century due to unaddressed climate change; on a per capita basis Australia is among the very worst greenhouse gas (GHG) polluters – in terms of 2004 figures for “fossil fuel-derived annual per capita CO2 pollution” Australia is about 40 times worse than India and 160 times worse than Bangladesh if you include Australia’s world number 1 coal exports; for details and documentation see “ “Climate Disruption, Climate Emergency, Climate Genocide & Penultimate Bengali Holocaust through Sea Level Rise”:
http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/
climate-disruption-climate-emergency-climate-genocide-
penultimate-bengali-holocaust-through-sea-level-rise ).
Of these Australian-complicit genocides, the already-commenced Climate Genocide is most likely going to be the worst – with the likelihood of 10 billion non-Europeans perishing due to First World inaction over First World GHG pollution. Australia is a disproportionate contributor to this man-made holocaust that is largely confined to the non-European World. Australia is the world’s biggest coal exporter, the OECD’s worst per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) polluter and a remorseless world leader in annual per capita GHG pollution. “Annual per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution” in units of “tonnes CO2-equivalent per person per year” (2005-2008 data) is 2.2 (India), 6.7 (the World), 11 (Europe), 27 (the US) and 30 (Australia; or 54 if Australia’s huge Exported CO2 pollution is included).
Just as Australia has made Palestinian Genocide tax deductible, so the latest Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) of the extreme right wing, pro-coal, pro-war Rudd Labor Government provides massive, “business as usual” subsidies for GHG polluters (see “Pro-coal Australian Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) devalues Australian lives, threatens Biosphere and ignores Science “:
http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/
latest-pro-coal-australian-emissions-trading-scheme-ets-devalues-
australian-lives-threatens-biosphere-and-ignores-science-
and-climate-emergency ).
Yet politically correct racist (PC racist) Australia steadfastly “looks the other way” and its past and present involvements in the above atrocities are overwhelmingly not reported by racist, lying, holocaust-ignoring Mainstream media nor taught in Australia’s schools and universities. PC racist White Australia just cannot see the “elephant in the room” – its continuing involvement in over 2 centuries of horrendous genocide.
Remarkable evidence of this Australian Holocaust Denial and Genocide Denial is obtained when one does a Search for the various genocides, specifically for the phrases “Aboriginal Genocide”, “Indian Genocide”, “Bengali Genocide”, “Iraqi Genocide” etc, on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) search device (see: http://www.abc.net.au/ ) - the result is essentially ZERO (0) related links found, whereas searches for these phrases on Yahoo or Google variously reveals hundreds to tens of thousands of URLs.
The Australian ABC is generally regarded as the most “liberal” of the Mainstream media of Australia – and indeed is regarded as “left wing” by the generally extreme right wing journalists of the Murdoch and Fairfax media empires that dominate “news” reporting in holocaust-complicit and holocaust denying, “look the other way” Australia – the Land of Flies, Lies and Slies (spin-based untruths). It is not hard to imagine the awfulness of the other generally pro-coal and pro-war Australian Mainstream media in relation to holocaust commission, genocide commission, holocaust-ignoring and genocide-ignoring.
Peace is the only way but silence kills and silence is complicity. Decent people are obliged to (a) inform others about these continuing atrocities and (b) ensure that they are not complicit in these crimes of genocide commission and genocide denial through avoidable dealings with the people, corporations and countries responsible for these outrages.
Australians are trapped in a Mainstream media-imposed Orwellian dream and will only conceivably stop doing Genocide when they are informed that they are doing it. Sanctions and boycotts are urgently required because Australia is committing these crimes for money – and money is the only thing that amoral, wealth-obsessed Australia will understand.
Dr Gideon Polya published some 130 works in a 4 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text "Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds" (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, New York & London, 2003). He has recently published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://mwcnews.net/Gideon-Polya and http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ) and an updated 2008 version of his 1998 book “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History, Colonial rapacity, holocaust denial and the crisis in biological sustainability” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2008: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ ). He is currently teaching Biochemistry theory and practical courses to second year university agricultural science students at a very good Australian university.
