Mars?
According to the ABC's News website, Deputy Liberal leader Sussan Ley has compared the arrival of the First Fleet with Elon Musk's efforts to build a colony on Mars. Ms Ley insisted that British settlers did not land at Sydney Cove "to destroy or to pillage", but "in what could be compared to Elon Musk's Space X's efforts to build a new colony on Mars, men in boats arrived on the edge of the known world to embark on that new experiment."
It's quite staggering to know where to begin with this.
British Settlers did not arrive to embark on any form of experiment. They arrived expressly when they did to relieve prison overcrowding, expand trade, and maintain their global influence (particularly at the expense of the Dutch). This is so well known that even ChatGPT knows the answer, even if Ms Ley does not.
Ms Ley is quite right though, that barring a discovery of life on Mars, it will be colonised rather than invaded. One cannot invade an empty space. Conversely, one does not colonise an occupied one without first having to take it over. This is called invasion. If I come to your home and build my own home in or on it, using your resources to do so, I am destroying or pillaging, whether it was my 'intention' or not. It might be better put that the invaders did not recognise their actions as destruction or pillage, because their amoral eurocentrism allowed them to deny the humanity of First Nations Peoples.
How can it be possible that one of the most senior members of an Australian (opposition) government in 2025 can be so ignorant? To choose to ignore the enormous body of factual evidence that refutes a position such as her is a racist reading of Australia's history, because it utterly ignores clear-minded truths in favour of a white fantasy.
There is an irony, though. Elon Musk is making it increasingly clear to the world that he IS a white fantasist. With his Nazi/Fascist saluting, his attempt to influence foreign elections by supporting Far Right candidates in Germany and the UK, he is, I suppose, conducting an experiment. And he's certainly trying to increase his global influence. Why does Musk want to go the Mars? For the glory, and the money.
Perhaps Ms Ley is right after all. Welcome to the New World Empire. And just to be clear, Australians of every colour and culture are by no means guaranteed to be on the winning side of this one.
Comments