Reconciliation, Assimilation, and the Indigenous Peoples of Australia DAMIEN SHORT ABSTRACT . Reconciliation as a peacemaking paradigm emerged as an innovative response to some of the mass atrocities and human rights violations that marked the 20th century. It provided an alternative to traditional state diplomacy and realpolitik that focused on restoring and rebuilding relationships. To that end, reconciliation processes have set themselves the difficult task of laying the foundations for forgiveness through the establishment of truth, acknowledgment of harm, and the provision of appropriate forms of justice. In 1991, the Australian government instigated a process of reconciliation between the indigenous peoples and wider society in order to “address progressively” colonial injustice and its legacy (Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation Act 1991, 1991: Preamble). This article seeks to demonstrate, however, that restrictive policy framing and a lack of political will has severely hindered the progress of the Australian reconciliation process. An alternative conceptual approach to settler state and indigenous reconciliation is suggested. Keywords: • Australia • Indigenous rights • Internal colonialism • Reconciliation • Self-determination Introduction The first fleet of European colonizers arrived on Gamaraigal land on 26 January 1788. The early reports of William Dampier, the English pirate/explorer, and Captain Cook and others, generally portrayed the “natives” of New Holland, as the continent was then called, as small in number, wandering nomadically with no fixed territory and with no recognizable system of laws and customs (see Dampier, 1927: 312). Subsequently, the colonizers applied the legal doctrine of terra nullius, meaning “land of no one,” to the Australian continent. The philosophical Eurocentric underpinnings of this assertion were based on John Locke’s 17th- International Political Science Review (2003), Vol 24, No. 4, 491–513 0192-5121 (2003/10) 24:4, 491–513; 035237 © 2003 International Political Science Association SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi)