4 Jul 2007
Howard Hilton
It is as usual refreshing to read Theodore Dalrymple's view; although by nature a contrarian this is no disadvantage when there is much about which to be contrary.

I too have read no convincing refutation of Windschuttle.  However, I think that a large part of desire of Australians to believe the worst about their forebears is to somehow understand and encompass the awful living conditions of most mainland aboriginals.

It has become unacceptable to entertain and certainly to express the view that to any degree they are responsible for their own situation and it is thus necessary to find an external reason for the degredation in which they so often live.

This is of course a complex and difficult issue and one that gets attention, it seems, immediately before elections, as is now the case.  However, a good part of the problem has been caused by the system of  isolating aboriginal people in remote settlements in inhospitable country with no prospect of proper or any work and no entertainment other than alcohol and petrol sniffing.

The intelligensia have provided the intellectual raison d'etre for such a system in the name of cultural sensitivity, as if aboriginals, unlike other humans are unable to abide cultural diversity and the normal give and take in ordinary  city and rural living. It is no more than patronising nonsense and would be seen as such immediately in other circumstances.

When such settlements fail as they do other reasons must be found to explain such failure. Thus is discovered  the genocide, lack of  funding and the implacable hostility of governments and non-aboriginal people to explain the failure and to to conceal the povety of the original notion.

The debate has been disfigured by ad hominen attacks, the defending of  entrenched views and by a lack of grace amongst the historians and others whose views have been shown to be  based on error and tinged by the usual liberal left prejudices.

 

4 Jul 2007
michael roloff
well, a pox on those exterminators via v.d.! i must say i have not the slightest desire to visit this haven of the rejects of britain. nice women, brutish men.

4 Jul 2007
SA

"Australian intelligentsia" - as oxymoronic as "Scottish Amicable"!

(Sorry, but as a Kiwi i'm duty bound....)

4 Jul 2007
Tchicherine
Mr Dalrymple's article is not a bad summation of the "history war" precipitated by Windschuttle's book, although he should have mentioned the fairly blatant vein of racism that runs through it – familiar arguments about the native population being savages with no identifiable culture, who had not cultivated the land, and so forth. The comparison to holocaust deniers is apt: Windschuttle's contrarian stance provoked the complacent Australian academic establishment to review the evidence and defend their assertions, just as David Irving's writings have provoked much-needed debate in holocaust studies. Some of Windschuttle's claims were true, some were not, but the debate itself was extremely productive in that it forced a country that would rather forget its early history to look at it carefully and at length.

However, Mr Dalrymple's perceptions and criticisms of Australian culture are not so accurate. He repeats the often-heard meme that Australia is "a lucky country", but does not explain what the phrase really means. It comes from the Australian social critic Donald Horne's book "The Lucky Country", but the full sentence it appears in is this:

"Australia is a lucky country, run by second-rate people who share its luck."

It is not supposed to be a term of endearment or approval, and a critic of Mr Dalrymple's stature should know better than to use it as such.

Secondly, Mr Dalrymple's claim that "no one in Australia has ever feared the midnight knock on the door" betrays a serious ignorance of the country's recent history and current affairs. Aboriginal Australians have every reason to fear that midnight knock, especially since the Prime Minister's recent declaration of a "national emergency" in the communities of the remote Northern Territory and his commitment to sending troops to discipline them. Aboriginal deaths in custody and the appalling lack of health care and education that plague Aboriginal communities across the country are other indicators that suggest there is a significant number of people in the country of which I am a citizen who are not so lucky.

Attacking the self-satisfaction and elitism of Australian academia is shooting fish in a barrel. Mr Dalrymple would do well to read (or, hopefully, reread) "The Lucky Country" to discover what the nation’s real problems are: self-righteous and nostalgic conservatism, ignorance of our own history (whether genocidal or not), lack of serious and informed debate, and the tendency of mediocre people to attain the highest positions of power. In one way or another, "The Fabrication of Aboriginal History" contributed to the amelioration of all of these, but Mr Dalrymple chooses to focus instead on its narrowest, most over-examined, and least interesting effects. In his eagerness to skewer the intelligentsia and his ignorance of broader Australian history and society, Mr Dalrymple ultimately misses the point.

4 Jul 2007
Jon Jermey
I think one reason why local historians want to 'sex up' Australian history with genocides - amongst other things - is because it's so bloody boring! No local wars, no Revolutions, no massive ideological struggles, regicides, world-shaking leaders... it's hardly surprising if they look for ways to make their topic a bit more entertaining.

4 Jul 2007
Kerri
You say that no-one in Australia has to fear the midnight knock at the door.  I beg to differ.  I'm a student at one of Australia's leading universitiesy, and a few months ago a classmate of mine told how friends of his had been rousted from their beds at 3am and 4am by Federal Police, taken to police stations and questioned at length before being either released, shaken, or charged with various offences.  Were they terrorists?  Nope.  They were activists, protesters, who were involved in nonviolent protest against recent visits to this country by American neoconservatives.  Such is the repression of public dissent and freedom of speech in this country.  You should make time on your lengthy reading list for a recent book:

 

5 Jul 2007
Norman Hanscombe

Perhaps Jon Gearing found Australian History "boring"  because he had boring teachers/lecturers? As for why the 'intelligentsia' (sic) turned to creating black armband versions of Australian History, could it be, in part at least, the consequence of there being so many distraught ex-marxists, etc., seeing their opium like dreams of "scientific' history fall apart, thus requiring the 'discovery' of new faiths -- naturally of a non-theistic nature?  The Tooth Fairy Brigade are the inheritors of the Latter Day Lysenkos who once supported Darwinian evolution loudly, without ever understanding its less (for them) useful implications.

Tchicherine's reference to Windschuttle's belief that indigenous cultures were less sophisticated than most says more about him/her than about Windschuttle.  If I'm wrong about this though, I wait with bated breath and a sense of great excitement for the day I'm able to 'understand' that a culture whose greatest achievements include the didgeridu and the boomerang, mustn't be seen to have achieved anything less significant than (for example) the far more sophisticated Melanesian cultures to our north.  Not, mind you, that indigenous Tasmanian cultures reached the dizzying heights found on mainland Australia.

Sadly, if one reads the whitewash book called --- most aptly as it turns out --- "Whitewash", in which Windschuttle's critics [oops, opponents, they hardly rate as strong a term as 'critics'] provided it's read carefully, it soon becomes clear that the main arguments in Windschuttle's book are 'overlooked',  The whitewashing authors of "Whitewash" are content to engage in a game far more trivial than "Trivial Pursuit."

As for the criticism re whether Dalrymple understood how the Phrase "Lucky Country" was used by Horne, I suspect Dalrymple has a stronger grasp of irony than his critics?  The suggestion Dalrymple's aim was to "skewer" the "intelligentsia", is perhaps the funniest.  You only bother to "skewer" the "intelligentsia" when they're showing signs of intelligence, so when it comes to those Tchicherine defends, there's no need to skewer because they've done such an excellent job of skewering themselves.

S.A. might check to see if there's a difference between 'oxymoron' and 'contradict'?  I used to think there was.

As for Michael Rocoff, not visiting Australia will be his loss, just as his migrating here could well be ours.

5 Jul 2007
Simon Smith

Your information on Wındschuttle and his work is completely incorrect. Windschuttle arrived at his figure of 120 aboriginal deaths by counting only those deaths which gained an official written report - either in newsapers, or police documents. İn part he relied on the work of Brian Plomley as documentation.

The problems are twofold: first it seems overwhelmingly likely that many murders of aborigines would have gone unreported, or reported merely as general conflicts. Secondly, Windschuttle ignores voluminous reports in diaries and letters of conflict and killing of aborigines.

Brian Plomley's work was explicitly an investigation of white deaths only. The aboriginal deaths he recorded were only those arising from conditions in which a white person was also killed.

Finally you seem to be ignorant of the fact that from the 1830s onwards, it was no longer a crime for white Tasmanians to kill aborigines - which given the imbalance in weapons, amounted to open season.

Most of the Tasmanian aborigines died in camps established for their 'protection' of diseases and poor conditions. İn other words they died as many in the Soviet gulags died - not of extermination but of conditions known to be unliveable.

Using Windschuttle's method, İ believe the figure for the Holocaust comes ın at about a million and a half - even allowing for the punctiliousness of Nazi record-keeping.

But yes apart from that, no-one's poked a hole in Windschuttle's argument

5 Jul 2007
Ian Osborne
Thoedore Dalrymple proceeds in this article as in much of his writing from the first principle of the "common sense" view of life based on supposedly solid empirical evidence. But the problem with this position is that it involves the begging of many questions . For example Mr Dalrymple's rather too glib separation of the destruction of indigenous populations as a result of conscious policies of deliberate extermination from the destruction of those populations via the agency of diseases such as influenza and smallpox which arrive with the colonising population.

"Genocide" may be an inappropriate term here but whatever the terminology deployed, the material fact of the matter is that these populations were decimated bythe impact of empire . In New Zealand, nearly 70% of the maori population were wiped out by diseases brought in by the pakeha. When destruction is visited upon any culture to such an extent, its is not just a body count which is registered. Social institutions such as the family and the village and the wider regional structures which give any society its sense of coherence are fatally weakened and demoralised.

The subsequent failure to recognise the extent of this damage and the blundering self-justifying denials of any form of responsibility for trying to put things right plus the subsequent "blame the victims for their plight" mentality that has ruled in Australia for so long combine to form a poisonous cocktail of right wing self-righteousness and plain dishonesty which is vested currently and most completely in the Howard Government.

It used to be said in Britain that it was pointless to provide the working classes with baths as they would only keep coal in them. I think the nazis had similar views in respect of gypsies or am I confusing them with the mentally sub-normal or some other branch of the untermenschen? I have heard white south africans proclaim that the "blacks" will always prove unfit to govern themselves and then point to the tyrant Mugabe as proof positive of their views. I have also heard white australians say that it is equally pointless to give aboriginals houses as they will "only light fires in the middle of the living room floor".

The whiff of this species of bullshit rationality hangs around Mr Dalrymples "common sense" views in so many areas - but the corrective evidence is everywhere to hand - the slow but gradual move towards democratic institutions in Africa, the equally gradual evolution of Maori rights in New Zealand, the influence of the 1945 Labour Government in Britain and the statistics which demonstrate the decline in infant mortality, the improvement in life expectancy, in literacy and so on in the UK ever since.

This is not to suggest that some notion of utopia is ever at hand - there will inevitably be sectors of any population at the bottom of whatever strata any such improving efforts try to build and there will always be reverses as well as advances - look at the evidence over two millenia of European History. However that does not mean that the impulse to improve things and develop the lot of people is ipso facto a bad thing. The point about Australia is that White majority governments have historically done so very very little to even try to lift the Aboriginal people up. And those same governments have always been too willing to throw up their hands as if the doing of so little had in fact taken so much effort as to render the doing of anything further a waste of energy. The issue of whether or not a bunch of ocker nazis created the situation or whether it was just the work of their germs doesn't change the situation much at all.

Mr Dalrymple has a jaded view of the human race developed from spending too much of his professional life staring at the underbelly of the underclass. There's no need to flee to France, Theodore - come down to the college where I work and I'll introduce you to lots of kids from very poor backgrounds who work very hard to change their lives through education - good god, many of them even go to universities - (probably crap universities to do crap degrees I can hear you respond) - but believe me they go on to enjoy good careers and good lives. Or go out to Australia and get down with aboriginal communities where I am sure you will find the same story of the human spirit trying to get out from under...and yes you'll also find heartbreak in equal measure....

but please spare us any more of your jaded despair as it is such an inaccurate account of the real complexity of human societies either then or now....tell ya what, pick up a copy of Chatwin's "The Songlines" or go check out "Ten Canoes" and report back on what kind of people you think the native australians are then.

and do chuck another lump of coal in that bathtub while you're up, old cock.

5 Jul 2007
Paul Bamford
Perhaps Mr Dalrymple should catch up on his historical reading by obtaining a copy of Henry Reynolds' An Indelible Stain.

Windschuttle's main "contribution" to Australian history was to impugn the reputations of a lot of historians - but none of the mud he slung so  enthusiastically stuck to Reynolds.

It's notable, that Windschuttle's Fabrication was heralded as the first volume of a multi-volume work - after Tasmania, he proposed (if memory serves) to tackle Aboriginal history in Queensland. We're still waiting for that volume. Here in God's Own country we refer to that as the missing Sorry Henry, You Were Right After All volume.

As Dalrymple himself remarks, his argument on the intelligentsia here down-under wandered into the ad hominem. As a result, his conclusions are not subject merely to reasonable doubt, they are wildly and hilariously wrong.

Is this bloke actually paid to write this guff? Nice work if you can get it.

5 Jul 2007
Gunar Kravalis

Bravo.

I would add to this that in my opinion, intellectuals no longer believe in the west: its values, history, tradition, religion and philosophy. Promoting believe in aboriginal genocide helps support their belief that the west should not believe in itself or especially its religious and cultural heritage.

5 Jul 2007
Sam guster

Mr Dalrymple has a complete lack of understanding of Australian history and culture.  That he doesn't understand the irony of the expression "The Lucky Country" is reason enough to doubt his credibility as an intellectual fit to comment on Australian history and culture.

The midnight knock on the door happens in the lucky country.  Unempowered workers are forced to sign away their hard won rights or face "work for the dole".

True disbelievers like Mr Dalrymple or for that matter Mr John Howard (know in Oz as "honest john") or Mr Mindschuttle do not have the honesty to look at what really goes on in the world of humans today and can never have the capacity to understand or debate honestly what really has brought us to where we are and where we are going.

I imagine Mr Dalrymple believes in the USS Maine being blown up by the spanish - because they really didn't want Cuba or the Phillipines any more.  Perhaps the North Vietnamese really did send those torpedo boats into the Tonkin Gulf and that those weapns of mass destraction are still hiding somewhere in Syria which will, or may have already, given them to Iran who has given them to Osama Bin Laden who wll give them to an Iraqi expatriate doctor who will let them off - or at least make a damn good attempt at attempting to, or failing that, an attempt at attempting to attempt to.  OH SUCH THEATRE!.

One cannot convice an apologist such as Dalrymple that history is other than he sees it.  It is of course a Panglossian form of historiography which has all the crebility of the current leaders of Great Britain, the USA, Canada and Australia.

As a clearly fraudulent intellectual Mr Dalrymple may find an excellent employment opportunity working here for the current "government" in the Ministry for Truth or perhaps preparing historically "correct" histories for the Ministry for Peace.  It would be  short term assignment.

Mr Dalrymple could inform himself well on Australia by reading the many works of Henry Reynolds and the History of Australia by Manning Clark.  maybe he could read Donald Horne's "the lucky country".  Perhaps then when he next writes about Australian affairs he may have some idea of what he is talking about.  But I must thank him for a great laugh!  I have circulated a link to his silly piece widely around Australia.  We are all having an excellent belly laugh!

6 Jul 2007
Martin

From the dictionary: Genocide - the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group.

From Mr. Darymple's article on the remaining Aborigines in Tasmania: "These aborigines live indistinguishably from their non-aboriginal neighbours. They speak no language other than English; they do not forage in the bush for food; they have the same jobs and are under no social disability, perhaps because they are also physically indistinguishable from non-aborigines."

In Tasmania, it appears "job done". There is a little mopping up still to do on the Mainland. The Government have that in hand though.

6 Jul 2007
John G Dawson

 
Martn plays the “cultural genocide” card, which makes the loss of language and traditions genocide – which is a slap in the face of every survivor of real genocide. 

Sam Guster is too saturated in prejudiced belligerent to warrant comment. Except “The Lucky Country” was never irony, it was coined to suggest the country had survived despite bad management, but since Australia continued to prosper, the term is now commonly used exactly as Mr Dalrymple quite properly did.   

Paul Bamford may be right about Reynolds reputation with those who would never dream of reading Windschuttle. With those who have studied the issues his reputation is badly damaged.   

Ian Osborne started out all right, but after two paragraphs one of Mr Guster’s fleas must have got down his shorts.

Simon Smith is quite wrong, Windschuttle does not just record Plomley’s records then ignore “voluminous reports in diaries and letters of conflict and killing of Aborigines.”  His tally of 120 is all the deaths he could find “for which there is plausible evidence of some kind”. He doesn’t deny there could have been more, but after all their huffing and puffing the academics found just one! Which is now added to Windschuttle’s tally making it 121.  Simon is also wrong about it not being a crime to kill Aborigines from 1830, Marshall law only lasted from November 1828 to August 1830. He is also wrong about the imbalance of weapons - surprisingly, the Aborigines had the upper hand in bush combat, a point academic historians such as Reynolds insist on. Finally, he is wrong about his gulag, only 150 or a few ore were removed to Flinders Island. Despite being looked after as best as anyone knew how, they died of disease before reproducing their full-blooded race. 

No one has poked any holes of any significance in Windschuttle’s thesis. What they do is make Windschuttle dolls and poke holes in them with pins while chanting their mantras.

Congratulations Norman Hanscombe , so few readers check the facts.

Tchicherine applies a PC definition of racism that I reject.
Stating the truth, e.g. that Aborigines didn’t cultivate the soil, is not racism. 

Howard is not sending troops to discipline Aborigines [unless Techicherine is referring to the arrest of rapists and pedophiles]. Howard is sending teams of doctors, health workers, policemen and some troops to bring security. Nearly everyone of any color or political party who knows what’s going on and has nothing to hide supports the move [or criticizes Howard for not doing it earlier]. 
 
As may be indicated from these posts, academia and the Left [they are almost the same thing] are stuck in their self perpetuating Marxist/PC/Multicultural/Postmodern 70s/80s twilight zone (The Lucky Country was published 1964), that connects with the real world only long enough to pick up their grants.

http://www.papertig.com/Publishing_Washout.htm

 

6 Jul 2007
Ryan Stephenson

6 Jul 2007
Ron Tundstall

I think it's a good point to notice Mr. Dalrymple is a bit jaded, but then again, so would you be having experienced the same employment.

Mr. Dalrymple does indeed make some very good points. The fatheads will certainly make things up if the real story is different than what they can use. Just the fact everyone knows about the holocaust and not the holodomor is proof of this. If you purposely obscure facts relevant to any story, that is the same as making them up.

It seems to me there is a point here everyone is missing. Almost every tribe in the history of the world has been tamed one time or another. Originally, people came from local tribes and were eventually conquered outright, or forcibly assimilated into larger societies. It happened to the Irish, Romans, Greeks etc. hell, it's happened to everyone! That's the way it was. Period. The stone age is over and now it's time to grow up and move on. The difference is today we can learn from and transcend our differences if we are truly humanitarian.

6 Jul 2007
JLE
This was a pleasure to read. 

6 Jul 2007
Martin
Mr Dawson - by definition there can be no survivors of genocide. My point, though put too briefly, is that we have achieved true genocide in Tasmania, and in the rest of Australia we are heading rapidly towards achieving that goal. Maybe that is the fate of all indigenous people. I don't know. What is appalling is the way we have gone about treating Australia's aborigines. No-one can justify the current state of neglect. Quibble if you will about precise numbers in the past. Those that do (Windschuttle) have a broader agenda. What is clear is that they (Tasmania's aborigines) are dead and someone killed them. And another thing. You, like many other frustrated individuals in this country (Aus), seem to be obsessed with the left and academia. Get over it - they are not the same. I can't believe I bothered coming back to check on responses to this article.

6 Jul 2007
John G Dawson

Windshuttle proved decisively that there was no genocide in Tasmania. That is now conceded in a backhanded manner by the academics who are falling all over themselves to either claim that they never had said   there  was genocide there, or to equivocate about the definition of genocide, or both.

On the mainland there are probably more Aborigines than there were prior to colonization. Those who took the leftists advice and chose not to integrate live in appalling conditions despite billions of taxpayers dollars thrown in their direction every year,

http://www.papertig.com/Publishing_Washout.htm

7 Jul 2007
Paul Bamford
I hope you can substantiate that claim that "billions of taxpayers dollars" are thrown in the direction of aboriginal communities every year, Mr Dawson. Otherwise I might conceive a few doubts about the depth of your studies in this area.

I've been looking for those legendary billions - so far through Mal Brough's own portfolio, I've found only $40 million and change in the 2007-08 Federal Budget. I'm still looking for the rest, in the other Federal budget papers.

So, where's the rest of the money?

7 Jul 2007
Ian Osborne
In response to Mr Dawson, its not so much a case of fleas down the shorts as right wing apologists gnawing at one's tender parts - ie; the conscience...

the real point here is the one about humanitarian principle - even the germans had the marshall plan - as for "billions of dollars" of australian government generosity, since you are so hot on a scrupulous counting of the beans, please provide the evidence or at least indicate where the rest of these coreespondents can view it..

7 Jul 2007
John Dawson

The first billion dollar budget for indigenous projects was 1994, subsequent budgets were as follows: 1995 = A$1.2 billion, 1996 A$1.2b, 1997 A$1.3b, 1998 A$1.7b, 1999 A$2.2b, 2000 A$2.3b, 2001 A$2.4b, 2002 A$2.5b, 2003 A$2.7b, 2004 A$3.0b, 2005 A$3.1b, 2006 A$3.3b, 2007 A$3.5b.

These billions do not include medical, unemployment, and other welfare that is available to all Australians.  They do not include funding from state and territory governments.  They do not include revenue from the vast areas of land (e.g. 40% of Northern Territory) that Aborigines own collectively.

http://www.atsia.gov.au/Budget/budget07/default.aspx

7 Jul 2007
Mark Richardson

Simon Smith wrote:

"Most of the Tasmanian aborigines died in camps established for their 'protection' of diseases and poor conditions. In other words they died as many in the Soviet gulags died - not of extermination but of conditions known to be unliveable.

Using Windschuttle's method, I believe the figure for the Holocaust comes in at about a million and a half - even allowing for the punctiliousness of Nazi record keeping."

This is the kind of thing Australians have to put up with from our "intellectual" class. Simon Smith wants to believe that the early settlers treated Aborigines the way the prisoners in the gulags were treated - with such deliberate neglect that death was inevitable. He also brings in the inevitable Nazi reference.

If we turn to Windschuttle's book we find on page 241 that in 1838 there were 65 whites employed to look after 86 Aborigines on Flinders Island. It's as if each Aborigine was provided with a white convict servant to provide food, clothing, shelter and health care.

I would like to bet that the residents of the Soviet gulags wouldn't have minded this deal. Living on verdant, temperate Flinders Island with a convict servant to take care of them.

Yes, it's true that disease still cut down the Aboriginal population on Flinders Island. In 1839, for instance, a supply ship visited the island and an outbreak of flu caused many deaths. This problem wasn't solved, but it's a different thing to a deliberate mistreatment or neglect of the Aborigines on Flinders Island.

As for the modern day "intellectuals" they will continue to serve up their libels whilst whinging that they aren't sufficiently appreciated.

7 Jul 2007
Kris
I am surprised that no-one has thought to question Dalrymple's assertion that Australia is one of the best places in the world to live - every time I have visited relatives there I have been appalled at the rampant racism, sexism & anti-intellectualism displayed at every level of society. Maybe it is only an easy place to live if you are a white man who likes watching sport & drinking beer.

7 Jul 2007
kristof
even the "great" manning clark (history of australia vols 1-6), a darling of the left, conceded that the original english governors were given the mandate to develop harmonious relations with the aborigines and violence only erupted in spasmodic locations when the settlers were attacked. there was no policy of killing as our lefty marshmallows love to claim. see you, i'm off to the beach.

8 Jul 2007
John Dawson

No wonder the white racists Kris is so familiar with drink so much beer, since any Australian sport they choose to watch will feature so many non-whites playing with whites.

There are white racists in Australia, such as those who tell Aborigines they must preserve their ancient culture and shun integration so they wont be contaminated by capitalistic values. In South Africa this was called apartheid, here it is called multiculturalism or homeland setlement, and anyone who speaks against it is branded a racist.

8 Jul 2007
Ian Osborne
to John Dawson thanks for the figures and the link so in summary the picture is 1: Billions are being spent by the Howard Government on aboriginal welfare, education and development annually 2: there was no genocide or even major death of aboriginals who were in fact actively preserved by the colonial agencies to the extent that many had convict servants assigned to meet their needs or active medical intervention in an attempt to preserve their lives 3: There are in fact no current problems related to any form of institutionally negative treatment offered to aboriginals by the dominant white society 4: any issues related to above points are imagined by lefties or conscience stricken whingers who don't know their facts or choose to misread history 5: other problems within the indigenous australian community are in fact down to that community being unwilling or incapable of self improvement. it would be interesting to read an aboriginal perspective on this debate ... they must be very grateful for all this munificence anyway, sounds like a case of no worries, job done and back to business as usual in god's own country.... enlightenment is indeed a wonderful thing

8 Jul 2007
Ron Tundstall

I'm not really sure why the left thinks their services are sorely needed anywhere. The history they've evolved from is replete with mass genocides, bigotry, and media corruption. After studying their motives, any clear thinking individual has to come to the conclusion the anti-racists are some of the geatest persecutors alive.

From the Soviet liquidation camps, to Mao's slaughter houses, walk the line to those killing fields of Pol Pot, and snuff depots of Kim Jong-il. The left has a lot of explaining to do and has shown it cannot be trusted. It's like having the damn Nazis trying to mediate humanitarian justice.

They talk a good game, and seemingly have benevolent aspirations, but when it comes down to it they are mostly interested in demonizing their opponents and acquiring power for themselves. That's the truth. That's where they've evolved from, and that's the only place they know how to go.

So spare me all of this high-minded repulsion on what 'they' have done, and how 'the enlightened ones' have the answers. Your side doesn't have the answers. They only have the most yawning crimson incisions to their credit.

8 Jul 2007
Ian Osborne
dear rod murderous totalitarian despotisms occur on all sides of the ideological fence and always have done - take yer hitler f'r'instance, or yer saddam hussein, or yer pinochet or that ghastly little creep Franco's mass graves or the creepy yugoslav nationalists from the ustashe to milosovic to various balkan psychopaths or yer islamofascists or the catholic church's eradication of the cathar heresy or various african nutcase nationalists like Amin or indeed the reverend jim jones or Verwoerd and so on and so forth.... all the above of course represent the excesses of the er "left" who have cunningly disguised themselves as the rabid right - the commie bastards! .... if we are going to have a debate lets at least bring our brains to the table - now take john dawson, there's a conservative you can have a good banter with and you have to mind your arguments a bit ... but you, old mate, just need to go away and read some history...

8 Jul 2007
Paul
"murderous totalitarian despotisms occur on all sides of the ideological fence and always have done - take yer hitler f'r'instance, or yer saddam hussein, or yer pinochet or that ghastly little creep Franco's mass graves or the creepy yugoslav nationalists from the ustashe to milosovic to various balkan psychopaths or yer islamofascists or the catholic church's eradication of the cathar heresy or various african nutcase nationalists like Amin or indeed the reverend jim jones or Verwoerd and so on and so forth.... all the above of course represent the excesses of the er "left" who have cunningly disguised themselves as the rabid right - the commie bastards!"

A mixed bag to be sure, but when it comes down to totting up the numbers, the Left's record in the relatively short period of its existence has been staggering.  And as for the idea that Hitler was "rabid right" --- well, it would have been news to him. 

"but you, old mate, just need to go away and read some history..."

Those in glass houses... 

".... if we are going to have a debate lets at least bring our brains to the table - now take john dawson, there's a conservative you can have a good banter with and you have to mind your arguments a bit ..."

Rather than just serving up the usual PC tosh? 

8 Jul 2007
Fred Z
Cui bono about sums it up.

8 Jul 2007
Ron Tundstall

Reply to Ian Osborne.

Seems to me you've been sipping the funny juice again you little twit. Your rebuff slathers sloppily all over the spectrum trying to compare my laser-like analysis of despotic leftist dictators to godless national socialists, secularists, islamofascists, nut case Africans and even Christians who were simply defending their ancestral homelands from muslim invaders. You did happen to get a couple right though. The two legitimate right-wingers you mention, Franco and Pinochet,  murdered about 6,000 between them. Compare this to the 100 million victims of left-wing bastards murdered in the past 80 years.

8 Jul 2007
Norman hanscombe

Oh for the days when 'left' and 'right' actually meant something significant --- perhaps not as much as one would like, but at least something.  Still, we shouldn't deprive the language-challenged of such useful replacement words for the more difficult task of analysing our respective faiths?

Instead of arguments re the suggested use of convict labour for indigenous Australians on Flinders Island, why not, for example, have a look at the [blindly 'racist' perhaps?] allocation of land, equipment and stores which occurred in the early 19th Century with aborigines in NSW near Elizabeth Bay and Evans Head, in the hope they might succeed as full partners in the development of the Colony?  It didn't work out, but the Governor tried again at Evans Head around 1830, this time even supplying convict labour.  As far as I'm aware, this may well be  the only time in Colonial History that an "invader" provided the indigenous population with what (were the skin colours reversed) the Tooth Fairy Brigade would now denounce as slavery?

I have to confess, we Normans didn't treat the Saxons as well.

Worse still, if anyone bothered to consult the old records, they'd find examples such as an early NSW Governor deciding to release aboriginal killers on the grounds that although they'd killed innocent white settlers on the Hawkesbury, he understood they acted as they did because of what other Europeans had done previously.

Less tough than modern Magistrates?

I do however, agree with one of Windschuttle's critics in strongly recommend a careful reading of Reynolds.  Start with his treatment of the "Black War" (sic) in Tasmania, especially Reynold's accurate verbatim report from the Governor's Official Despatch to London, in which Reynolds gives us the precise wording of the Governor's "fears" [supposedly for the population of Hobart, in danger of being over-run by the indigenous forces]  Then go to the original Despatch, and you'll find it referred not to the Governor's concerns for the inhabitants of Hobart Town, but his desire to safeguard the well being of local Indigenes.  I first became aware of this when Reynolds denied having ever written it --- until the journalist, less ideologically blinkered than most, hit Reynolds with the quote from his book.  still, Henry acted with the purest of motives?

Lyndall Ryan's desperate goal of backing Henry's "Black War" thesis led her into producing bizarre 'supporting evidence' in her interesting historical romance, "The Aboriginal Tasmanians". In it, Mosquito [a Sydney aboriginal, convicted for murder there and transported to Tasmania, and became angry when his time was up but he was refused free transport back to Sydney, and decided to become a bushranger] is somehow transformed into the major role of leading an indigenous 'war' against the invaders of 'his' Tasmanian 'homeland'.

Mind you, when compared with modern Tasmanian indigenous leaders, Mosquito's record isn't too bad. Take the current 'leading' families there.  The Mansells are descended from a Bass Strait sealer who is recorded as participating in both the killing and non-fatal shooting of Tasmanian aborigines --- although this didn' prevent him having three aboriginal wives.  The second 'leading' aboriginal family in Tassie, the Everitts, are desceded from a far more colourful ancestor, Jem Everitt who shot a woman on Woody Island because she refused to collect muttonbirds for him.  Clearly, on the evidence of how many Everitts there now are, he didn't shoot all indigenous women he met.  Today, the Mansells and Everitts of the postmodern world cry out for justice for the crimes perpetrated on indigenous Tasmanians by?     Ooops!

By their own ancestors!!!!!!!!!!!!

Australian History can be much more fascinating than we might at first think --- but only if we're prepared to put aside what we'd like to believe, and try a little hard work carefully checking the desired P.C. 'facts'?

9 Jul 2007
Dr Ray RITCHIE

Why Intellectuals Like genocide

One of the more honest articles I have seen about the games people play over Aborigines in Australia.  It is often difficult for foreigners to grasp how fraudulant the aborigine industry is. It is a terrible truth that much of the Aborigine Industry is a cruel intellectual game played by intellectual wankers who have never seen or spoken to someone who is identifiably aboriginal.  Social engineers treating other human beings as lab mice.

The so-called intellectuals in Australia deserve their bad reputation with ordinary people because of their morbid self-hate and the fact that they lock themselves in ghettos in the fashionable parts of Sydney and Melbourne.  They lead very comfortable lives thankyou very much.  The fact that most Australians are well off and happy really upsets the self-appointed intelligentsia. Hardly any have seen or spoken to anyone recognisably aboriginal in their lives.  Still, they really love to get their rocks off over "Australia's dark past".  It costs them nothing and sin/forgiveness bondage and discipline is great fun to some perverse minds. They know perfectly well that the deeds to their house with its wine cellar and their investment portfolios are secure against any land rights claims.  Aboriginal welfare housing is also unlikely to be built across the road.  Government subsidised private schools mean thay have no fears about busing or the racial/ethnic composition of the local public school. 

If genocide was carried out it was by my pioneer farmer ancestors.  I have never heard anything of the kind from my relatives even from very old ones who had been born in the mid 19th century.  My mother could remember the last aborigine of the district where she was brought up - an old white haired man with withered skin like leather at least 90 years old when she met him when she was about 5 in 1918!

Incidentally I am 53 years old and a fifth generation Australian.  I did not see anyone recognisable as an aborigine until I was 18 years old and I have never spoken to one. This is not because I have deliberately avoided or snubbed anyone - I have simply never met one.  Quite an acheivement because I have taught thousands of people in Universities.  The only knowledge I have of "the aborigines" is what I see on TV and in the newspaper.  Often very hard to take the blue-eyed red-haired "aborigines" very seriously.

9 Jul 2007
Peter Bayne

Those interested in the behaviour of intellectuals and an alternative but similar explanation of the behaviour of Windschuttle's attackers might find stimulation in George Orwell's essay 'Notes on nationalism'  (The Collected Essays, vol 4, p 410, Penguin). By nationalism he meant "the habit of identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing it beyond good and evil and recognizing no other duty than that of advancing its interests". Orwell (writing in 1945) was aiming mainly at the Russophilia of the left, but he regarded a merely negative attitude, such as Anglophobia - "a derisive and mildly hostile attitude towards Britian" - as a form of nationalism and found it prevalent among the intelligentsia.

Orwell noted that the nationalist "is haunted by the belief that the past can be altered". "Material facts are supressed, dates altered, quotations removed from their context and doctored so as to change their meaning".

One interesting question arising is how many of Windschuttle's attackers have a Russophilian background.

 

 

(It would be instrucive

9 Jul 2007
Oddyseus

I think that Mr. Dalrymple overly complicates the thought process of intellectuals.  Intellectuals must separate themselves from the rest of us through the exercise of their moral and mental superiority, but in a manner that is not too inconvenient for them.  They must denounce the system, even as they benefit from it, in such a way that their benefits are not threatened, but their moral putiry is reinforced.  Notice that American liberals who favor reparations for slavery never seem to give their own money, but demand that it come out of the common till, or that jeremiads against global warming are often delivered from the on-ramp to the private jets of celebrities.  It is rank hypocrisy, but it makes the elites feel good. 

It also provides them with an authority which they would otherwise not have, the easy authority that can only come from moral posturing.  Curing a disease or ending hunger in the third world takes effort.  It requires years of study and discipline, not to mention a wilingness to spend time in some truly awful places, places without Starbucks or 5-star hotels.  That's far more work than simply ranting on a talk show or playing a couple of sets at a concert, and after all, what's the difference if you actually solve the problem?  The whole point is to reinforce the image or political prospects of the speaker, not actually do anything constructive.  If the poor are still poor, the Earth is still warming or the Aborigines are still dead, well, that's not the fault of the intellectuals, now is it?  They did their best to enlighten us poor, benighted savages, after all. 

Now, as to why elites love genocide, it should be obvious.  After WWII, Germany was properly chastened for having committed the most unspeakable crimes in human history, and spent the next decades properly atoning for them.  The lesson of the Holocaust is that with great crimes come great guilt, and that if Australia can be made to feel the same anguish over past actions as postwar Germany did, then the elites will be able to dictate the scope of the atonement.  They will get to dictate school curricula, allocate reparations and lord it over the rest of the population as they become the arbiters of just how much needs to be done before the nation can, if ever, move forward. 

9 Jul 2007
Ron Tundstall
I'm sad that the godless marxists have committed the most heinous crimes in the history of the world. Starting with the Bolsheviks in 1917, the killings of the innocents were extremely vicious, and continue on to this day.

9 Jul 2007
Tim Rochford

Academic disputes on numbers massacred aside, Windschuttle's alternative explanation to the genocide (that Tasmanian aboriginal peoples sold all their women into prostitution) is banal, racist and ridiculus.

It is also banal to ignore the other well documented abuses of the indigenous peoples of Australia including the denial of their legal status as human beings until 1967.

These abuses should be the concern of all people as crimes against humanity. 

10 Jul 2007
John Dawson

Tim Rochford said: "Windschuttle's alternative explanation to the genocide (that Tasmanian aboriginal peoples sold all their women into prostitution) is banal, racist and ridiculus."  Windschuttle said no such thing - which makes Rochford's insults ...?

He said: "It is also banal to ignore the other well documented abuses of the indigenous peoples of Australia including the denial of their legal status as human beings until 1967." What documents denied Aboriginal humanity? This is another myth created  by anti-western academics and activists.

He said: "These abuses should be the concern of all people as crimes against humanity." Injustices occurred during colonization, and indigenous populations were tragically decimated (and in Tasmania extinguished), mainly because of introduced diseases for which they had no immunity. But to equate this with "crimes against humanity" such as were purposely perpetrated by Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot etc is an historically inaccurate travesty.

Incidentally, it does today’s Aborigines no good at all to keep telling them that all their troubles are the fault of the white men who slaughtered their ancestors 200 years ago.

http://www.papertig.com/Publishing_Washout.htm

 

10 Jul 2007
Norman Hanscombe

ANYONE FOR UNDERSTANDING vs EMOTION?

Wilson had a 14 Point Plan, God had 10 Commandments, but in this busy age, perhaps we might settle for a mere four goals.

1. Read Wibdschuttle --- carefully.

2. Read "Whitewash" (the Official 'response') --- carefully.

3. Concentrate on the major issues, not periheral sleight of hand distractions.

4. Resist the teachings of that seminal figure of postmodernism --- Humpty Dumpty.

Then resume the debate.  You still may not be as well informed as you'd wish; but it would help to keep attention on what I'd hope we all deemed moderately important, i.e. what precisely was Windschuttle trying to bring to readers' attention, and have his critics made a genuine effort to concentrate on the most significant issues he raises?

Or am I being "old-fashioned" in thinking this is important?

10 Jul 2007
Ron Tundstall

"ANYONE FOR UNDERSTANDING vs EMOTION?

God had 10 Commandments,

Or am I being "old-fashioned" in thinking this is important?"

A couple of you chaps are much smarter than I'll ever be. And Norman,  you raise a good point in that understanding is more reliable for discernment than emotion is. This isn't just poppycock. Sometimes important blokes are very emotional, and refuse to be rational. So how do you respond to them then?

I do think this subject is important. Certainly more important than reflecting on the Kakadu wasp population.

I think the world's population would propbably be insane by now without the ten commandments.

 

10 Jul 2007
Jeff Day
The pseudo-intelligensia is devolving into a Brahma class of quasi-religious clerics whose dogma is based on loathing of liberal western civilization. They chant their guilt- and blame- dumping screeds with little more wit and wisdom than generations of pagans memorizing and reciting, line by line and word by word, the Eddas and Sagas in Norway, the Maha Bharata in India, or the Iliad in Greece. Then here comes Windschuttle, daring to change the text of their sagas of the evil white men spreading death and destruction around the world. With religious ferocity the pesudo-intellectuals turn on him with a vengeance popularly reserved these days for global warming skeptics - another breed of heretics that deviated from their scriptures.

11 Jul 2007
Flying Spaghetti Monster

Rod Tundstall said "I think the world's population would propbably be insane by now without the ten commandments."

Quite clearly it is insane with them and, probably, because of them.

11 Jul 2007
Norman Hanscombe
Clearly my sense of irony has grown rusty?  But it's pleasant to see no one criticising the main arguments?

11 Jul 2007
peter o'keefe
Perhaps if more attention were paid to contemporary horrors than historical ones the world would be a better place.

12 Jul 2007
Ian Osborne
sorry to return to this discussion but there are still several points that genuinely puzzle me - apart from the ad hominem abuse, as ever the sign of a real unwillingness to engage with the debate - anyway a few points for consideration or response -

1: John Dawson demonstrates that money is not the issue - billions are being spent so perhaps an audit of where this cash is actually going might be a good place to start. -

2: the "genocide" scenario clearly needs some auditing as well - what actually did happen (and probably still happens) to create what by any reading is a complex and disturbing state of affairs in a western multicultural democracy such as Australia ?

3: This nonsense about "the intelligentsia" and their allegedly pernicious role in the life of the nation is a bit disturbing - I quote from the last posting;

"a good part of the problem has been caused by the system of isolating aboriginal people in remote settlements in inhospitable country with no prospect of proper or any work and no entertainment other than alcohol and petrol sniffing.

The intelligensia (sic) have provided the intellectual raison d'etre for such a system in the name of cultural sensitivity"

Surely the "system of isolating aboriginal people" must have derived from governmental policy over many decades - both conservative and liberal in origin - so who are these "intelligentsia" who have devised this policy ? Can this all have been done "In the name of cultural sensitivity" ? or was old-fashioned political expediency not likely to have been at work here ?

4: and speaking of "Intelligentsia", what about educational policy in regard to aboriginal development since WWII - presumably there are aboriginal graduates or - teachers, doctors, lawyers who have contributed to the development of policy in Australia and who still do so ? Even within the rigidly seperatist apartheid ideology in South Africa, the education of a small element of the African population developed an educated middle class who were very capable of representing the issues and offering leadership - Mandela and Oliver Tambo were Lawyers, Mbeki is a Political Science/Economics graduate (admittedly from Sussex University), Tutu a highly intelligent and educated cleric etc etc . So where has this strand of policy developed in contemporary Australia ? (Please note I am not suggesting it hasn't developed - simply asking for information such as John Dawson provided with his clear reference to Government budgets)

5: To return to the "anti-intelligentsia" issue , what are contributors suggesting here - that Australian policy would better developed by unintelligent people ? That education is a bad thing because it develops intelligence ? That only certain kinds of intelligence are required in australia ? That debates are only permissible so long as the right conclusions are arrived at ? That good intentions will always produce bad results ? That everything has been tried in terms of trying deal with these problems and that all of these efforts have been frustrated or contaminated by the educated/intelligent classes ?

I confess to a sense of genuine puzzlement here - perhaps I am missing some key point...

I would genuinely welcome some further comment which explores these complexities rather than simply retires behind well-rehearsed positions and hurls abuse into the aridity of no man's land - for whatever else has emerged from this sometimes mutually frustrating and often entertaining (and enlightening !) series of exchanges, two points remain salient - 1: people care about these issues - perhaps too passionately in some cases and 2: whatever solutions have been applied thus far, the problems of native australians and ipso facto their relationships with the euro-centric mainstream australian culture remain apparently intractable.

But please - no more abuse - go out and kick your dog by all means, but lets apply some intelligence (sorry, I can't think of a better word) to coming up with potential answers.

12 Jul 2007
Ron Tundstall

I have to admit to still finding it quite funny how hypocritical and intellectually dishonest leftists can be when debating almost any subject. I've seen it a thousand times, and yet it's still pretty hilarious..........and pretty pathetic.

Ian Osborne is indeed the first poster here to get downright nasty. He snarls about "poisonous cocktails of right-wing self-righteousness and plain dishonesty", snivels about "ocker nazis", and sarcastically points to "right-wing apologists gnawing at one's tender parts". 

He then conveniently disassociates himself from these comments, and attacks my counter (and laser-like) analysis of marxists for "ad hominem abuse", "rehearsed positions" and remonstrates to "go away and read some history", "go out and kick your dog...but let's apply some intelligence".  I think it's clear that, quite unlike yourself, John Dawson is the only one here consistently doing that. If he would be so kind as to continue to enlighten us, it would be my pleasure as well.

For one last bit of service, I'd like to show everyone how to capture a "Flying Spaghetti Monster". Mr. Spaghetti Monster Sir, you stated that the Ten Commandments are probably the reason for everyone being insane. My opinion is you are on the verge of going crackers because you have not lived by them sir. Can you name one nation in history that is (or was) better than the modern Christian ones who use these commandments as the basis for their human rights and justice systems?

12 Jul 2007
John Dawson

Thanks Ron

Ian Osborn says:

1: perhaps an audit of where this cash is actually going might be a good place to start.

I agree.

2: the "genocide" scenario clearly needs some auditing as well

So far Windschuttle has audited Tasmania. Academics like Reynolds make claims but don’t back them up. They have enormous resources at their disposal (they spend an inordinate amount of it vilifying Windschuttle, who is self funded), but they don’t back their claims of genocide or their death tolls with evidence. Some of them believe they should create history according to present requirements rather than discover it according to past facts.

3: this nonsense about "the intelligentsia" and their allegedly pernicious role in the life of the nation is a bit disturbing.

It is certainly disturbing. But unfortunately it is not nonsense.

Surely the "system of isolating aboriginal people" must have derived from governmental policy over many decades - both conservative and liberal in origin –

Yes, under the Whitlam, Fraser, Hawk and Keating federal, and many state governments.

So who are these "intelligentsia" who have devised this policy ?

The latest round began with Dr H C "Nugger’ Coombs who went along with academics and activists who wanted to save Aborigines from the "contamination" of capitalism by returning them to their homelands where they could re-connect with their hunter-gatherer culture. This idea fitted with Marxist communal living, and/or Postmodern anti-modernism ideals.

Can this all have been done "in the name of cultural sensitivity" ? Or was old-fashioned political expediency not likely to have been at work here ?

The "cultural sensitivity" created the environment in which it was "politically expedient" to put the required action into a bipartisan too-hard-basket. No one dared to even describe the problem, lest they be accused of racist Aboriginal bashing.

4: presumably there are aboriginal graduates or - teachers, doctors, lawyers who have contributed to the development of policy in australia and who still do so ?

Yes, a few, but most of them were indoctrinated in the same anti-western ideologies. A few spoke out about the problems on the ground and tried to do something about it (rather than just say it was all Captain Cook’s fault) but it required a lot of courage to do so. It was Noel Pearson who broke the PC barrier, which helped other Blacks and Whites speak out.

5: to return to the "anti-intelligentsia" issue , what are contributors suggesting here - that australian policy would better developed by unintelligent people ?

No, that the humanities are ideologically corrupt due to bad philosophy – this disastrous situation is by no means unique to Australia. If this sounds incredible - it is. But ask yourself how Western intellectuals could have backed Communism and demonized Capitalism throughout the second half of last century while the former was producing nothing but famine and killing fields, and the latter (even in its contaminated state) was producing the most beneficent societies the world has seen. Is that any less incredible?

That debates are only permissible so long as the right conclusions are arrived at ?

The point is that the universities, (and therefore intelligentsia more broadly) only permitted debate that arrived at conclusions that were within politically correct boundaries. Geoffrey Blainey strayed outside that boundary and was hounded out of the universities. He was not even right wing; his crime was focusing on historical facts and analysis rather than political agendas. He survived as an historian by selling his books to the public, so we know about him. We don’t know how many capitulated or succumbed or abandoned the humanities.

I confess to a sense of genuine puzzlement here - perhaps i am missing some key point...

In my opinion the key point is that warped ideas lead to disastrous consequences on the ground.

Two points remain salient - 1: people care about these issues

I agree.

2: whatever solutions have been applied thus far, the problems of native australians and ipso facto their relationships with the euro-centric mainstream australian culture remain apparently intractable.

Yes and no. Yes for those who remain tied to their Aboriginal communities. No for a majority of those who integrated into the mainstream culture. The answer has to be integration or assimilation, jobs, education and private rather than communal property. Aborigines must abandon their tie to their ancient culture for the same reason that Britons abandoned their tie to Stone Henge and Europeans abandoned their tie to Feudalism and witchcraft. It won’t be easy, it might take generations, but it has worked for many who can now be roll models. But the key is replacing the disasterously stupid anti-capitalist anti-modernist, anti-Western prejudices with better ideas.

http://www.wakefieldpress.com.au/books/washout.html

 

15 Jul 2007
Norman Hanscombe

Socrates is said to have argued that the beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms.  Some of the heat in this debate might diminish if we first asked whether being part of the intelligensia [sic] really entailed one being intelligent?  If not, rejecting their sacred beliefs, whatever form those beliefs may currently take, clearly doesn't imply we should turn to the unintelligent for advice/decision making.

Much of what now pases for "academic analysis" all too often is more accurately seen as partisan defence of the unquestioned "truths" dear to the hearts (if not minds?) of the protagonists.  This, however, isn't to say there is something wrong with the traditional goals of academic analysis?

An excellent example of how reason can be swamped once nominal academics become emotionally committed to a 'just' cause can be seen in their battle royal over the term "genocide".  Its 'academic' supporters have often played verbal gymnastics in their efforts to hide the fact that they rely more on propaganda than logical analysis of their 'suporting' premises.  At the Ourimbah Campus home of Lyndall Ryan, a seminal influence in the growth of the 'Tasmanian Genocide' legend, there was a superb example of this in the launch of "Whitewash", that strangely rambling official non-response to Windschuttle's main points.

Lyndall began with how she had been unfairly attacked and misrepresented by unscrupulous opponents as having somehow suggested there was genocide in Tasmania.  The acolytes present clapped supportively, sympathetic to her unjust treatment.  Near the end of that same speech, Lyndall spoke enthusuastically about her role in encouraging the work of others who had subsequently 'uncovered' genocide.  The audience may have applauded when Lyndall opened with a reference to the alleged unreasonableness of those who suggested she was part of the genocide myth; but their applause was far more enthusiastic when she ended up taking full credit for what had happened.  The sign of true acolytes?  But "inmtelligentsia"?

More intriguing, however, was how the book launch was advertised on Campus.  It was part of a Fine Arts Affair, and on the day, not one of the students I questioned knew it was to include the launch of "Whitewash", or that Lyndall was there in her role as an historian.  The academic opening the event was from Fine Arts, and expressed surprise she had been asked to officiate when there were so many others with History backgrounds available -- then paused.  As she looked around those assembled looking for an historian to name, she realised there was a noticable absence of academics other than from Fine Arts, so she continued without the usual reference because, in this situation, there were no relevant notables to whom she could refer.

In Ryan's defence, not so long ago at a Friday 'gathering' I happened to chance upon, she does seem to have modified her position remarkably.  Although students present tended to follow the 'old faith' faithfully, there was a surprisingly more accommodating attitude from the 'Mother of the Tasmanian Genocide Legend" , towards Windschuttle. In response to questions, it was interesting to see students adopting a far more negative view than the neo-Ryanite perspective.  One can but hope this new perspective will soon be there in print?

Genocide is now on the backburner [hoping perhaps it might 'go away'?]  The new in-word is apparently 'massacre', although obviously its current application by historians in that field is, as she conceded, far less broad than she'd expected.  Still, once the Humpty Dumpty Principle is applied, 'massacre' can be abused just as widely --- and loosely --- as was 'genocide"?

16 Jul 2007
Laurie McGinness
Just last week I was standing on a headland in northern NSW where a large group of indigenous people were murdered in, from memory, the 1830s.  I have also read Roger Millis'  Waterloo Creek, a 1000 page detailed, referenced history of the massacres of the Kamilaroi people by the mounted police in 1838.  If all this is a myth I have yet to see any refutation of it.

16 Jul 2007
Laurie McGinness

To expand a little on the comment I made yesterday I would like to raise the issue of what exactly can be considered genocide.  The usual definition is something like “The deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group.”  In this context it is important to consider the nature and size of Australia’s indigenous population before European contact.  From my reading it would seem that like most hunter gatherers, they lived in relatively small groups with distinct cultural identities within larger tribal and linguistic regions. 

My point is that the deliberate eradication of any of these groups, which quite clearly happened in Australia’s colonial history meets the definition of genocide.  The notion that you have to kill every last member of the population to meet the definition is clearly absurd.  Legal practice in recent years quite clearly supports my position.  In this case the European colonisation of Australia was littered with genocides.

The notion that there is something intellectually misguided in acknowledging this is driven by pure ideology.  I don’t know why Dalrymple has not been convinced by the evidence and can only speculate that he either hasn’t bothered to study it or has brought such prejudice to the issue that he is unable to judge it fairly.  More importantly I doubt that he has ever actually put his foot on the ground and talked to the members of the very large numbers of indigenous communities with very precise and detailed oral traditions of massacres. 

I don’t care particularly about the deeper psychological motivations that so interest Dalrymple.  I do care that the plain and simple truth of the matter be asserted – the numerous massacres that occurred in Australia’s colonial history constitute a series of genocides.

 

17 Jul 2007
Norman Hanscombe

Laurie Mc Ginnes can (in line with the nowadays popular Humpty Dumpty approach) describe 'genocide' however he pleases; but doing this destroys the powerfully negative [and valuable]connotations associated with its normal use.  As for his 'arguments' against the Dalrymple article, by referring to what he's been told about events on the mainland, even if these stories were correct, they miss the point of Dalrymple's article.  The [now increasingly evasive] proponents of the "Genocide" charge presented Tasmania as their prime example, and Windschuttle's refutations have caused them to become more cautious than Laurie is when it comes to what they'll now put in print.

Having (thanks to both family background and where my life has taken me) been inteersted in the subject for more than six decades, I often don't know whether to laugh or cry when I come across new oral 'traditions' about the indigenous past.  "Traditional" stories, for example, on television programmes such as mainland indigenous 'knowledge' of the existence of Tasmania.  Or tales such as the alleged annual trips by the Ku-ring-gai aborigines to visit their counterparts in the Bega Valley --- something no one among the South Coast indigenous communities had been aware of, but the oral 'traditional' story was somehow 'discovered' in recent times at the Sydney end.  A lass from the nearby selective high school attending the seminar told me afterwards to not worry too much about the 'highly qualified' [his decription] indigenous speaker's inability to understand how contradictory his sttatements had been.  She suggested doing what her fellow students did with aboriginal studies --- simply listen in silence, and give them what they want to hear.  The ultimate Humpty Dumpty?

There were quite a few items of 'traditional knowledge' beloved of and passed down by extremely literate sections of my own family --- which proved to be totally wrong.  Why were they believed?  In part because human nature programmes us to examine whatever pleases us in a far more sloppy manner than whatever goes against the grain. One can understand why this happens, especially with disadvantaged groups wanting to create a more satisfying past for themselves.  One can even understand why even among more advantaged groups such as card carrying members of the Tooth Fairy Brigade adopt this approach.  After all, doesn't it help one to feel better?

On the other hand, surely anyone with pretensions to attempting an open and analytical approach to the evidence really does need to consider being willing to face up to suffering the pains associated with accepting that perhaps we've been far too busy making ourselves feel 'good', by painting as black as possible a picture of earlier patriachal 'whites', and as white as possible a picture of the Rousseau-like 'blacks' who abounded in those halcyon days before the 'whites' arrived?

18 Jul 2007
John Dawson

Mr Dalrymple's article was about the first volume of Keith Windschuttle's Fabrication of Aboriginal History and the academics' response to its finding that there was no genocide in Tasmania.  If Mr McGuinness has any evidence that genocide by any definition did take place there, then what is his evidence and definition?  If he is discussing mainland Australia, that discussion does not relate in any way to Mr Dalrymple's article.

18 Jul 2007
Laurie McGinness

Mr. Dawson apparently missed the definition of genocide I gave in the previous post and so had trouble following my line of argument.  He also missed the two lines of evidence that I identified, Roger Millis'  Waterloo Creek mentioned in my first post and the oral traditions of many surviving indigenous communities about the fate of their ancestors and other groups in their region, in the second.

The fact that academic historians place little weight on such evidence is perhaps a necessary condition of their profession.  The rest of us are free to weigh it on the balance of probabilities.  Given the frequency of these stories, even if some have been fabricated or exaggerated, it is clear that mass murder constituting genocide occurred in many places on the Australian mainland and with absolute certainty in Tasmania.

 

Mr Dawson may never have heard of the great bushwhacks where the stockmen in remote regions simply rounded up and murdered the local indigenous populations to make the country safe for their cattle, but those of us who have read some Australian history beyond the white blindfold, ideologically driven texts of those in denial, know something of the truth.

 

My purpose in addressing these issues in this forum is clearly stated at the end of the last post.  Dalrymple might want to play psychologist to  Australian intellectuals but he cannot do it while pretending that there is any doubt at all about the historical genocides that occurred in Australia.

 

18 Jul 2007
John Dawson

Mr McGunness claims that "genocide occurred ...with absolute certainty in Tasmania." His evidence is stories about massacres that alegedly occured on the mainland, "even if some have been fabricated or exaggerated".

He is right about one thing, I do have "trouble following [his] line of argument."

19 Jul 2007
Laurie McGinness

Norman Hanscombe highlights the unreliability of oral history and it is a valid point.  In any individual case these traditions should not be taken at face value.  My point, which perhaps I did not make as clearly as I might have, is that the sheer number and widespread distribution of these traditions points to at least a significant number being based in fact.  Next time you are in the vicinity Norman take a drive out to Red Rock, north of Coffs Harbour and talk to some of the community there.  I would be interested to hear your evaluation of their story.

 

If I was more sensitive I might take offence at the comment that I was defining genocide in anything other than a standard, legalistic manner, but I will instead ask for some clarification.  Where do you disagree with my definition ?  Surely if the cultural group is a tribe of 150 people and enough of them are murdered to effectively destroy the group and scatter the survivors, then that is genocide.  In the case of Tasmania the evidence is clear that large numbers of indigenous people were murdered.  To quibble about definitions at this date is rather to miss the point.  The indigenous culture of the Tasmanian tribes was quite deliberately destroyed.

 

I would also suggest that it is a dangerous ploy in debate to ascribe opinions and attitudes to your opponents that they have not themselves expressed.  I have no illusions about pre-European life in Australia and never suggested that the indigenous population were anything but normal human beings with all the faults typical of our species.  This is not about the noble savage Norman, this is about the ignoble behaviour of sections of colonial society.

 

My final point is that I have twice referred to Roger Millis’ definitive book (Waterloo Creek) on the genocidal actions of the NSW mounted police.  I have never in any forum encountered anyone who has been able to refer me to a text which refutes his findings.  Indeed I usually find myself wondering whether these “experts” on this aspect of Australian history have even read the book themselves. Opinions are always interesting but we should bow to genuine scholarship when it occurs.  Read it!

 

As for Dalrymple I eagerly await his psychological explanations of the irrational feelings of superiority of southern English "intellectuals" and how Einstein’s premature separation from his mother led him to over-compensate in his theory of relativity. Equally worthy fields for study !

Oh and I hope your inability to spell my surname is not an indication of the degree of concentration you have applied to reading my posts!

 

19 Jul 2007
Norman Hanscombe

Far more important, Laurie, than how we spell our names, is how we define the meanings of the words we use.  Your emotive use of the term 'legalistic', by the way, isn't helpful to the discussion.  What's far more important is the misuse of two quite distinct words when talking about Dalrymple's article.  He wrote about genocide, but you conflate it with massacre.  They aren't the same.  To  suggest they are devalues the enormity of the evil of genocide.

You seem to assume you can refute Dalrymple's comments re what occurred in Tasmania, by raising mainland events such as Waterloo Creek.  This tactic, sadly, may have become coin of the realm among the "intelligentsia" Dalrymple criticises, but surely we shouldn't be blindly following their lead?  Surely we only need to fall back on introducing unrelated distant events at Moree ( a considerable distance from Hobart Town) if we can't support our case against the issues Windschuttle has raises which threaten our established "knowledge" concerning Tasmania?

As for the Waterloo Creek incident, while it's not relevant to whether or not there was genocide [as opposed to the more P.C. useful "genocide"]  in Tasmania, it does provide an excellent example of how whitefella oral history can "grow" over the years.  The manner in which its 300 bodies story developed (if one tracks down when and how  various figures appeared / disappeared /  reappeared) is every bit as fascinating as any dreamtime myth could hope to be.

Thanks, by the way, for the advice that I talk to indigenous groups.  I've done that for so many decades now, Laurie, that often I can recognise completely new "traditional" stories which couldn't possibly be true.  The same, not surprisingly, is true of many whitefella tales about earlier days.  It's a human trait against which we always need to be on guard ---  no matter how painful such mental vigilance may be.

Hope I've responded to all your queries, Laurie, but my short term memory has lost many of its pristine qualities.

19 Jul 2007
John Dawson

Mr McGinness claims that: “In the case of Tasmania the evidence is clear that large numbers of indigenous people were murdered.” No, it is not! On the contrary, the evidence is clear that 121 indigenous people were killed in 30 years of colonization, mainly in armed combat. There may have been more than that number killed, but there is no clear and compelling evidence of many more, certainly not enough to be classified as genocide.

Mr McGinness' accusation that the Tasmanian colonists committed genocide, based on nothing but rumors based on  folklore based on  fabricated history  and embellished jourmalism, is typical of the entrenched prejudice that Windschuttle confronted.  The only way of dealing with it was to examine the evidence properly and summarize it in a tally of the death toll. If Mr McGinness is to continue claiming that genocide occurred in Tasmania he must produce his tally, or other verifiable evidence, or tell us the publication where such evidence may be found.

Windschuttle's  numerous critics were scathing about his tally, b