Life for the Malay descendants on Cocos was no idyllic island paradise

Of course an expat paper like the Sunday Morning Post would choose to focus on the one descendant of the British family who used to control the Cocos (Keeling) Islands in the Indian Ocean ('How the 'kings' of the Cocos were dethroned', June 3). Don't we just eat up 'white-guy stories' from exotic places?

In my book about the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, I tried to refocus world attention on the lives, the culture and the human rights story of the Malay descendants of the former plantation workforce.

Careful research will reveal that the islands were not initially settled by the Clunies-Ross family. This family took over from an earlier, admittedly dysfunctional, pioneer settlement.

The 'reign' of the Clunies-Ross family was not particularly benign, as your correspondent suggests. It was a classic 19th century plantation with all the abuses of power and personal restrictions that characterised that era. Visiting evolutionary biologist, Charles Darwin's 1836 account of the islands' poor social conditions will attest to that.

The main reason that the UN intervened in 1974, was that the place was still operating in 19th century mode, with the neglectful compliance of the Australian government.

When I first taught on the islands in 1982, it was only the third year of fully-fledged education for the islands' children. The disparities in the provision of basic services between the Malay and the expat Australian residents were unbelievable.