Of course, I'm trying to generate some sort of debate here
But as the guy in the article says:
The Australian government followed a sensible, enlightened policy that allowed the indigenous people to develop at their own pace. They stopped encroachment by missionaries and miners, set up regular trading posts in the interior, and simply waited for the native people to approach. Contrary to the view of groups like Survival, native peoples are not stupid. They have always heard a great deal about the white men from contact with other tribes. They know that ‘white man’s medicine’ offers better treatment for many conditions than the tribal shaman. They know the value of metal tools and matches – simple implements that can mean the difference between starvation and survival. They know their lives are hard and not as full of ‘social and leisure activities’ as Survival’s ‘experts’ believe.
They would prefer not to have to lose their wives during childbirth, that half their children would not die within the first two years of their lives, and for outsiders to stop the brutal retaliatory wars between tribes that often start as an accident but must then escalate as ‘payback’. They quickly understand the value of disease-prevention (by vaccination or malaria eradication).
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