1870's colonial Australia, Irish
nationalism and Ned Kelly
VICTORIA
POLICE FIRING HISTORICAL BLANKS
By Sasha Uzunov
It is a pity to see Victoria Police’s Chief
Commissioner Ken Lay and police union boss Greg Davies so ignorant of
Australian, British and Irish history. Both have been jumping up and down about
how outlaw Ned Kelly and his gang have been elevated to hero status, whilst the
three Victorian police constables they shot and killed in 1878 portrayed as
victims.
Victoria Police Association Secretary
Senior Sergeant Greg Davies, said he was sickened by the constant glorifying of
Kelly and his gang. He uses highly emotive words and in an incredible irony
accuses people of twisting history.
He even quotes the notorious Winston
Churchill, who will become central to this story a lit later. link to Herald Sun story
"Winston Churchill once said that
'history is written by the victors', well, one side of the story around armed
robbery, theft and multiple murders committed by a bunch of vicious criminals
in country Victoria has certainly challenged that statement," Sen-Sgt
Davies said.
"From horse thieving to assaults and
armed robberies, to unlawful imprisonment and a plan for a massacre by train
derailment, to the murder of three policemen, the real story around Kelly has
been twisted to something entirely unrecognisable from the historical truth.
"Those who deliberately distort the truth
and try to rewrite history, in order to line their pockets by perpetuating a
lie, are the worst thieves of all. They steal our past.”
Perhaps this last bit of advise should
apply to Snr-Sgt Davies.
For those who are not familiar with the Ned
Kelly (1855-80) story from Australia’s British colonial past. He became a
bushranger or outlaw in the colony of Victoria during the late 1800s, and was
involved in robbery and killings. Some have elevated him to hero status
interpreting, rightly or wrongly, his motives as that of a poor Irishman being
picked on by the British authorities at the time.
In 1878 whilst on the run from the law,
Kelly shot and killed three Colonial Victorian Policeman: Kennedy, Lonigan and
Scanlon, all Irish like Kelly. In 1880 Kelly was executed by hanging Edward ‘Ned” Kelly was the son of an Irish
“convict” transported to the then British colony of Victoria as punishment.
Regardless of any crime being committed by Kelly's
father, who saw him being transported from his homeland of Ireland by a foreign
occupying force, the British Empire to then Colony of Victoria, this act of
ethnic cleansing in itself could be interpreted as a "war crime"
against the Irish people.
Kelly and his father do not necessarily have to be connected to Irish patriotism or even freedom fighting.
We apply the same standards to a starving
Jewish youth taking a loaf of bread for survival in Nazi-occupied Poland and
being deported to the killing fields of the Ukraine. Or an apolitical French
man, who is was not a member of the French Resistance, involved in smuggling in
Nazi occupied France or collaborationist Vichy France (1940-4) trying to
survive.
If the apolitical Frenchman, who is not a
member of the French Resistance but is a smuggler, then shot and killed three Nazi-collaborationist
French policemen, would Snr-Sgt Davies be mourning their loss?
Moreover, the three Victorian Police
officers, who were Irish, were committing an act of treason by collaborating
with the occupying force. It then becomes irrelevant who pulled the trigger, a
bank robber such as Ned Kelly or an Irish freedom fighter and because Ireland
was occupied and from time to time there where rebellions which were brutally
put down, a semi state of war existed.
The question that historians and journalists
need to ask is what were these three doing in serving as collaborators in the
Victoria Police? It seems an uncomfortable question to ask.
Furthermore, hasn’t Snr-Segt Davies read
about the:
The Irish
Rebellion of 1798, a republican uprising against British rule of
Ireland
The United Irish
Uprising of 1800, an uprising against British rule of Newfoundland
The 1803 Irish rebellion led by Robert Emmet
The Young
Irelander Rebellion of 1848, also called The Famine Rebellion of
1848
The Fenian Rising of 1867
The Easter Rising of 1916, a
nationalist uprising against British rule of Ireland
The Irish War of
Independence (1919–1921).
Snr-Sgt Davies’ “hero’ Winston Churchill
was brutal in his opposition to Irish independence.
The Victorian Police officers were, in
effect, aiding and abetting the enemy. The colony of Victoria was an extension
of Britain. The deaths of the police officers can be attributed to this status
of semi-war.
Let me put it to you this way, would
Australia have tolerated three Australians serving in the Ottoman Turkish Army
at Gallipoli in 1916 fighting against their fellow Australians?
We now have a wonderful country in Australia
and a great state in Victoria and people who commit crimes should be punished.
But in 1878 and even 1916, Britain was in a brutal manner occupying a foreign
land in Ireland, which it finally relinquished in 1922 with the Anglo-Irish
Treaty after the Irish War of Independence.
What Snr-Sgt Davies needs to do is study
his history and stop “elevating” three Police officers to hero status.
Furthermore he should apologise to the Republic of Ireland and Australians of
Irish decent for his comments.
If we follow Snr Sgt Davies logic, then East Timor should not have been allowed to resist or break away from Indonesian occupation--Indonesia invaded the former Portuguese terrirory in 1975.
POST SCRIPT:
My argument is actually legalistic rather than based on nationalist sentiments. The Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921-22 after the Irish War of Independence is tacit acknowledgment that a state of war existed between Britain & Ireland over the centuries.
If a de facto state of war existed, then Irishmen serving in the British & colonial military and police are collaborators. If they are killed in the line of duty serving a foreign occupier during a state of war then that is not murder.
As the 3 policemen were chasing or pursuing Kelly he would have every right to shoot them without warning, much in the same way a French civilian during World War 2 were to shoot a French police officer collaborating with Nazi occupation authorities without giving them prior warning; regardless if they a bank robber or a freedom fighter.
If Ireland had not been granted independence & Ireland had instead been absorbed into the UK then Snr Sgt Davies assertions about the killings would be correct. The Anglo-Irish Treaty in directly "excuses" or "absolves" Kelly of those killings.
As a journalist I would be asking why did 3 Irishmen collaborate with an occupying force?
If anything, the 3 police officers should be respectfully mourned in the Australia War Memorial as having been killed in defending the British Empire as such; not as law & order martyrs or victims of crime. Australia didn't prosecute the Viet Cong for killing Australian diggers during the Vietnam War (1962-72).
