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The Nondiscovery of Australia (fwd)
Elizabeth Vance (epoland@OSF1.GMU.EDU)
Wed, 13 Dec 1995 19:01:53 -0500
Hi all...
I found this on one of the newsgroups, and thought the list might
appreciate it.
- E
>
> By Andrew G. Smallacombe (Guru).
>
>
> __The Non-Discovery of Australia__
>
> Although Australia is the largest island on earth and
> contributes a continental land mass in its entity, it
> remained undiscovered for a considerable length of time.
> This paper deals with those who did not discover Australia,
> why, and the implications of their non-discoveries. The
> Australian Aborigines were the first people to not discover
> Australia. There are a number of theories put forward by a
> number of leading experts as to why this is so. It is
> generally accepted that the Aborigines failed to discover
> Australia because they had:-
>
> -no guns
> -no Bibles
> -no diseases such as the plague, small pox, etc.
> -no flags
> -no title deeds
> -no monarch
>
>
> Furthermore, current theory is that they may have
> crossed over from Southeast Asia by a number of land bridges
> caused by the Ice Age, which would have been cheating, since
> all discovery had to be done by boat. In addition, the
> Aborigines are not of European descent, and it is
> universally accepted that discovery can only be an act of
> white races.(1) At any rate, this all took place long before
> the Age of Discovery and therefore can and should be
> discounted.
>
> Therefore Australia remains undiscovered.
>
> The next group of people not to discover Australia were
> the Dutch, which is somewhat surprising considering the
> number of times they ran into it on their way to subjugating
> Java and laying the foundations of apartheid in South Africa.
> In hindsight, however, this may be rather fortunate(2) since
> otherwise we would all be Reformed and speaking Dutch. This
> is why Australia is known as "the Lucky Country".
>
> The Third people not to discover Australia were the
> Spanish (or Spaniards, as they are sometimes called). The
> Spanish (or Spaniards) sailed throughout the Pacific
> Ocean(3), naming almost everywhere they discovered after
> their saints and conquering South America and the
> Philippines. Incredibly, by the time they discovered Vanu
> Atu(4) they had run out of saints. Naming the largest island
> Espiritus Santo, they returned home to obtain the latest
> list. Again, this proved fortunate since Australia would
> have been the next destination, and we might all be Roman
> Catholic, had the Inquisition, and speak Spanish (or
> Portuguese, as the Brazilians call it.)
>
> The French (ba^tards!) also did not discover Australia.
> They sailed around the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans,
> carving up an empire in and enslaving the people of Africa,
> the Middle East, India and Indochina into colonies, thus
> promoting liberty and equality. This was done to prove
> French superiority to the nations of the world, despite the
> fact they couldn't even win a war against England. That they
> failed to discover Australia meant that we have been
> (largely) free of quiche, atom bombs and /Chiraq/.(5)
>
> The English were the last people to not discover
> Australia, in spite of the huge number of fleets sent out to
> discover it. That so many commissioned explorers somehow
> managed to miss a land mass of such magnitude may help
> explain England's demise in the arena of international
> cricket. England then colonized Australia, sending out
> fleets of settlers. Traditionally, it was thought that most
> of the early settlers were undesirable elements of English
> society, but recent research suggests otherwise.(6)
>
> Finally, Australia was not discovered by Indonesian
> fishermen, seafaring Chinese of the Ming Dynasty, or
> Japanese tourists. These people are known to history as Et
> Cetera.
>
> ---------------------------------------------------
>
> (1) Other examples include China (discovered by Marco Polo,
> not the Chinese) and the Americas (discovered by Colombus,
> not the Indians)
>
> (2) Those who doubt the validity of this statement usually
> change their opinions when their attention is directed to
> Anita Keating.
>
> (3) This was named by the Spanish (or Spaniard) explorer
> Magellan, who originally intended to name it The Ocean. He
> was allegedly requested by his first officer to name it more
> specifically, upon which he renamed it The Specific Ocean.
>
> (4) Vanu Atu was not discovered by the Melanesians. See
> above for reasons.
>
> (5) Chirac (pron. Shi-rack) Fr.= military disaster.
>
> (6) This would explain the presence of whinging poms, soccer
> hooligans, cockneys, and Take That in England, and their
> absence in Australia.
>
>
>
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