Page 221 - On Not Speaking Chinese Living Between Asia and the West

NOTES

other in its sense of identity, the margin(alized) always has to live under the shadow of
the centre and be constantly reminded of its own marginality.
8 For this kind of interrogation by white feminists in Britain and the USA, see Ware
(1992) and Frankenberg (1993).
9 I would suggest that it is for this reason that the scare campaign against indigenous
native title relied so much on a populist hysteria focused on the absurd assertion that if
indigenous people gain land rights, ‘people’s backyards’ would no longer be safe.
10 In this sense, the theme of ‘reconciliation’ is more important to the peace of mind
of white Australians than to Aboriginal people, for whom reconciliation will never
compensate for their permanent displacement from their land. Indeed, the very notion
of reconciliation – and the willingness of Aborigines to engage in it – signal their
recognition of the permanent presence of white Other on their land.

12 CONCLUSION
1 In white Australian mythology, Truganini was ‘the last Tasmanian Aborigine’. Her
death in Hobart in 1876 was a source of the commonly held ideological belief that the
Aborigines as a people were inevitably doomed to extinction.

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