Throughout history many different strategies and tactics were employed to not only establish a colony, but also to manage the colony as it grows and evolves into nations. By understanding the methods of colonisation, we can better recognise how they affect us today, and resist against the tide of empire. 

For my money, one of the most important colonial tactic to keep your eyes on is “legitimisation”. Once you start seeing how colonies make themselves seem legit, you will not stop seeing these tactics everywhere. The gist of it is that empires, nations and states need to be seen to be legitimate, ideally in law and morally. Through that legal and moral authority, select communities of people can control a nation. Note that the state only needs to be perceived to be legit, and the facts and reality are not as relevant. 

The best example to draw on here is the founding of Australia. Legitimisation was a massive part of James Cook’s functional declaration of terra nullius. By claiming that no-one was on the land, the British Empire could “legally” claim the territory for the British, legitimising their rule in the eyes of other nations. This legal claim follows the trajectory of international law today, where the only ways to acquire territory are through conquest in war, through treaty or through terra nullius. This is the original sin of colonisation in Australia, a hateful lie about the First Nations. When this lie was uttered, it has forced Australia to either maintain the lie, or bring the lie into reality and make it true. Australia needs to reckon with this lie if we are ever to grow up and mature as a nation. 

With maintaining the lie of terra nullius front of mind, we start seeing other efforts to erase Indigenous culture, knowledge and people from the land differently. We see it now as a core requirement of maintaining the colony, and not just a hateful and genocidal enterprise. This is the business of colonies. The tactic of lying leads to the strategy of erasure to support an illegal and immoral nation. 

We know that terra nullius is a lie, and so do the courts. That was the key finding in the Mabo Case that brought about Native Title Rights. The High Court found that the founding of Australia was built on a lie, but ultimately copped out by saying they did not have the authority to do anything about. This is a perfect example of the preference for perceived legitimacy over real legitimacy.

Once an empire and colony has legitimacy, they can justify violence. The self-appointed role of states like Australia and its old colonies was to protect their subjects and interests, and that always involves some kind of violence. It might be violence against a foreign enemy in war, or against its own people through institutions like the courts. Either way the result is death, poverty, pain and destruction for those that are not the chosen few. Then resistance against this violence is seen to be a rejection of the state itself, an illegal and illegitimate activity. 

Mob know that the promise of protection under sovereignty is hollow, based on more than a century of betrayals. Children stolen, circles broken. Again and again and again and again we have been let down and lied to. My favourite essay “Tradition, truth and tomorrow” details this disappointment better than I ever could. 

So, how do we resist against these tactics? What can we do practically to decolonise in the face of this strategy? 

The greatest ally in this fight is the truth. Stick to the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. When old lies get peddled out, remind people of the truth and remind them that we have known this truth all along. Do not let people get away with saying that Mob did not qualify as a society or as nations capable of having sovereignty. Do not let people say that moving Mob onto missions and stations were to protect them. Do not let people try and justify stealing children from families and communities as “for their own good”. Truth is the light that draws a long shadow, while also revealing our shared path forward. 

Another priority has to be pushing our communities and nations to move past the violent tactics of the past. As lies empower governments to justify violence, the truth underlines how unnecessary violence is. War does not bring about peace. Prison does not heal, and it does not teach. Removing a child does not secure their future. We need to invest in real solutions that are supported by the evidence and knowledge we have gained over millennia and that have been crystallised by our elders and leaders. We know what to do and how to do it too, our brightest minds have laid a lot of it down already. Just go look at the thousands upon thousands of ignored recommendations in Royal Commissions, senate inquiries, and other non-government reports.

At a fundamental level, colonies, empires and modern nations grow in power based on how afraid, uninformed, and desperate its people are. When we are scared we want a hero to save us, to control us. I would rather live in a future where truth wins out and we can save ourselves from the gullet of a greedy colony, hell bent on destroying itself and its subjects.