this post was submitted on 14 Dec 2023
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Those areas are also wildly romanticized. Let's not forget that one of the ways that some Europeans got established was by trading guns to indigenous people so they could go off and kill other indigenous people for their land.
The idea that we were warmongers was made up to justify stealing our land. Who was it that welcomed the colonists with open arms until they spat in our ancestor's faces? Our stories talk about war parties going out and coming back home with zero blood shed. What conflicts we did have were extremely low intensity, we didn't have the numbers for the horrific wars like the ones waged against us by the colonists.
Many of the tribes were nomadic, we didn't have oil reserves to war over. We had hunting grounds and fishing spots and art, and just about everyone agreed that these things weren't worth dying for.
Similarly in Australia there were a lot of symbolic battles that never resulted in serious injury or death.
That said I wouldn't characterise pre-invasion Australia as great, most of the country is pretty fucking hard to survive in (let alone over 60k years of climate change)