Colonising History
It wasn’t just COVID-19 that led to the 250th anniversary of Cook’s landing passing by relatively unnoticed. By Nick Cater.
The bad news from this week’s 250th anniversary of Captain James Cook’s landing was that it barely made the news at all. Even with the COVID-19 pandemic, such a significant moment in the history of the world surely deserved more attention.
The good news is that there was scant acknowledgment by Cook’s detractors either, save for a daft tweet from Victoria’s Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr Annaliese van Diemen comparing Cook to coronavirus.
Two years ago it seemed the anniversary might provoke an ugly skirmish in the history war. Cook’s statue in Sydney’s Hyde Park had been defaced by graffiti while his effigy in Melbourne was drenched in pink paint.
It prompted me to write an essay in Quadrant defending Cook’s reputation as a man of the Enlightenment and the leader of a scientific voyage of discovery. To portray his voyage of an act of imperial oppression is a gross distortion of his history. The intelligence he took home to Britain inspired a new type of colony, one that sought to build a better country from the ground up.
As I wrote at the time:
“The British, unlike the Dutch, did not come here to set up shop, not least because the hunter-gatherers who lived here had little to barter. They did not come here to plunder or pillage. They were not here to build a fortress. They were not here to extend God’s kingdom. And while this was a penal colony, they were not here to build a prison. They were here to practise the lessons of the Enlightenment in a bold attempt to build a new civilisation in the South using the wonders of science and guided by humane principles. “
The lack of celebration or protest this week can only partly be attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The statue-defacing movement struggled to gain steam. Critics of early settlement were outnumbered by the ordinary Australians who jumped on social media or called talkback radio to defend founding fathers and their traditions.
When a progressive campaign runs out of puff, its advocates seldom hesitate to drop it and move on.
It would be a mistake to claim victory, however. We have yet to find an antidote to the viruses affecting intellectual thought and this one is simply in remission.
There has been no surrender in the history wars, as Ms van Diemen’s tweet demonstrated.
In the coffee queues of Fitzroy North and other placed frequented by the intelligentsia, the assumption that Australia’s European past is entirely disreputable grows stronger.
The foundational narrative for settled Australia matters to conservatives. The intentions of the pioneering settlers determined the nation we are; it either encourages shame or enables pride; feelings of disgust or feelings of respect. It decides whether our institutions should be maintained or torn down; if we should carry on as we have been, or make a sharp turn of course.
Two years ago I predicted that if Cook’s reputation survived 2020 intact, it would be by popular acclaim, not the modest amount of money the government has invested in the celebration.
Those who oppose the progressives’ cultural advances need not despair; a nation’s history is determined by its people, not just its intellectuals.