Mick Hartley

I posted about Settler Colonialism here back in November, having just read Adam Kirsch's On Settler Colonialism. Now here's Helen Dale, who's also just read Kirsch's book. She has a specifically Australian take.

Many of the world’s worst ideas come from the United States. Critical race theory and affirmative action, for example, are all-American. Even when bad ideas lack American origins, US academics manage to execute hostile takeovers of (say) French nonsense like postmodernism or queer theory early on in proceedings. This is then exported in over-simplified form to the rest of the world, to other countries’ considerable detriment. Even the American political system—which works well enough for Americans in their own country—tends not to travel. US-style presidential regimes are “one of this country’s most dangerous exports,” in Aaron Sorkin’s memorable West Wing phrase, “responsible for wreaking havoc in over thirty countries.”

However, other countries can also wreak ideological havoc, even quite small countries. It’s worse, I suspect, when those small countries have a reputation for peace and prosperity and order and competence in areas other than academic scholarship. Australia is one such country. And Australia is responsible for about half—perhaps more—of the settler-colonial theory now exploding metaphorically all over US university campuses and literally all over Israel, Gaza, and Lebanon.

It's worth reading in full. Her conclusion:

Everyone on earth is living on “stolen” land. Move on.