Perspectives on genocide
A POWER-PACKED book launch headlined by renowned human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson and senior crown prosecutor for NSW Mark Tedeschi left a large audience hanging onto every word at the Sydney Jewish Museum last Thursday for the release of Genocide Perspectives V: A Global Crime, Australian Voices.
A POWER-PACKED book launch headlined by renowned human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson and senior crown prosecutor for NSW Mark Tedeschi left a large audience hanging onto every word at the Sydney Jewish Museum last Thursday for the release of Genocide Perspectives V: A Global Crime, Australian Voices.
The latest volume in this important series is dedicated to the lifelong contribution to genocide research by Australia’s Professor Colin Tatz, who penned a chapter about genocide education and received a standing ovation on the night.
Co-edited by researchers Nikki Marczak and Kirril Shields from the Australian Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, it features a collection of essays by Australian scholars that not only explore international perspectives and pressing questions related to genocide, but also Australia’s own history of genocide against its Indigenous peoples – which Robertson described as “the mote in our own eye”.
Tedeschi praised the book for addressing the topic, and said, “In my opinion the story of what happened to the Aboriginal inhabitants in colonial times should be taught in our schools as readily as we teach the exploits of the great explorers.”
He spoke of the trials held after the 1838 Myall Creek massacre of 28 Aboriginal men, women and children from one tribe – successfully prosecuted by attorney-general John Hubert Plunkett amid a wave of hostility.
“Plunkett not only prosecuted 11 men for murder, he prosecuted his entire society for its connivance in the attempted annihilation of the Aboriginal people and their culture,” Tedeschi said.
“Until we acknowledge that what was perpetrated amounted to an attempted genocide that today would be categorised as a war crime, and until we teach this to our children, we will not reach full maturity as a nation.”
Robertson spoke about the growing problem in the International Criminal Court of judges defining too specifically what constitutes intent to commit genocide, “making it more difficult to prosecute”.
He also touched on the “massive problem of genocide denial by governments” – particularly Turkey regarding the Armenian genocide, and said countries including the USA, UK and Australia should not continue to refer to that genocide only as a tragedy, but as a crime.
SHANE DESIATNIK
comments