Collateral Damage

by Dr. Victor Ragunathan, February 10, 2009

Devil’s illusion (devolution) and Devil’s Option (Development) of the

Neo-Colonialist (neo-terrorist) in the making of Piece (Peace)

"The Black War of Van Diemen's Land" was the name of the official campaign of terror directed against the Black people of Tasmania between 1803 and 1830. The Black aborigines of Tasmania were reduced from an estimated five-thousand people to less than seventy-five. With the declaration of martial law in November 1828, Whites were authorized to kill Blacks on sight. Although the Blacks offered a heroic resistance, the wooden clubs and sharpened sticks of the Aborigines were no match against the firepower, ruthlessness, and savagery exercised by the Europeans against them.

After the Black War, for political expediency, the status of the Blacks, who were no longer regarded as a physical threat, was reduced to that of a nuisance and a bother, and with loud and pious exclamations that it was for the benefit of the Blacks themselves, the remainder of the Aborigines were rounded up and placed in concentration camps.

In 1830 George Augustus Robinson, a Christian missionary, was hired to round up the remaining Tasmanian Blacks and take them to Flinders Island, thirty miles away. Many of Robinson's captives died along the way. By 1843 only fifty survived.

On Flinders Island Robinson was determined to “civilize and Christianize” the survivors. His settlement--at a windy site with little fresh water--was run like a jail. Children were separated from parents to facilitate the “work of civilizing” them. The regimental daily schedule included Bible reading, hymn singing, and inspection of beds and dishes for cleanness and neatness. However, the jail diet caused malnutrition, which combined with illness to make the natives die. Few infants survived more than a few weeks. The government reduced expenditures in the hope that the native would die out. By 1869 only Truganini, one other woman, and one man remained alive."

The tragedy of the Black aborigines of Tasmania, however painful its recounting may be, is a story that must be told. What lessons do we learn from the destruction of the Tasmanians? Truganini's life and death, although extreme, effectively chronicle the association not only between White people and Black people in Tasmania, but, to a significant degree, around the world. Between 1803 and 1876 the Black aborigines of Tasmania were completely destroyed. During this period the Black people of Tasmania were debased, degraded and eventually exterminated. Indeed, given the long and well-documented history of carnage, cruelty, savagery, and the monstrous pain, suffering, and inhumanity Europeans have inflicted upon Black people in general, and the Black people of Tasmania in particular, one could argue that they themselves, the White settlers of Tasmania, far more than the ravenous beast portrayed in American cartoons, have been the real Tasmanian devil.” From “BLACK WAR ,THE DESTRUCTION OF THE TASMANIAN ABORIGINES” By RUNOKO RASHIDI 1998

They came to help us (or so) in the name of peacemaking

Instead

They made us into Pieces with their lethal cargo

They conquered us with a showpiece of four billion dollars that never existed like the New York stockmarket

Instead

They made us homeless and stylishly called us Internally Displaced People

They came to talk about the Devolution of powers

But now

They are no longer talking about Devolution

Instead

It is the Devil’s illusion

They came to talk about Development

Instead

It is now the Devil’s Option

They said Tigers are banned and they will never talk

Instead

They welcomed the only man who abducted their citizen in the Island*

They said they are Terrorist and should stop bombing in Colombo

Instead

They never stop condemning even when a stray bomb goes off in a pile of garbage

They have no knowledge about the bombs dropped by the Kifirs and MIGs on schools, hospitals and temples

Instead

They have all the knowledge about the Child soldiers

They said Sri Lanka has no strategic value for them

Instead

They are looking for a military cum refueling base in South Asia.

They never failed to condemn black tiger attacks on the military even before the dust is settled,

But

They never heard that hospitals after hospitals were bombed to the ground.

They never said it was Genocide in Rwanda until the number of killed well passed a Million

Instead

They will tell (or so) when the Number of Tamils Killed well pass over hundred thousand

They never tortured anyone until the Abu Ghraib prison photos were on the internet

Yes, they are selective deaf, blind and mute on one side that they never wanted to hear, see or talk

.

The devils are in the making of neo- GENOCIDE

It will be stylishly called

“COLLATERAL DAMAGE”

* Douglas Devananda