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==Genocide debate==<!-- The redirect [[Australian genocide debate]] links to this section--> |
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=== Tasmania === |
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Ever since the introduction of the modern term in the 1940s, [[Raphael Lemkin]] and most other comparative genocide scholars have included the events of the [[Black War]] on Tasmania as a defining example of a genocide. During the Black War, European colonists in Tasmania nearly completely annihilated the Tasmanian Aborigines.<ref>Colin Martin Tatz, ''With Intent to Destroy'' p.78-79</ref> From a population of approximately 5,000 individuals, they were hunted down and killed until only a few hundred individuals were left. These were then relocated to Flinders Island, where disease and neglect reduced their numbers still further, until the [[Truganini|last full blooded native Tasmanian]] died in 1876. |
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Most Australian historians don't dispute the historical events, but some of them don't agree that it should be called a genocide.<ref name=Moses-2004>A. Dirk Moses, ''Genocide and Settler Society: Frontier Violence and Stolen Indigenous Children in Australian History'', Berghahn Books, 2004 ISBN 1571814108, 9781571814104. Chapter by [[Henry Reynolds (historian)|Henry Reynolds]] "Genocide in Tasmania?" [http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=5zHAGNPTkqIC&pg=PA127&dq=Tasmanian+Genocide pp. 127-147].</ref><ref name=Moses-2008>A. Dirk Moses ''Empire, Colony, Genocide,: Conquest, Occupation, and Subaltern Resistance in World History'', Berghahn Books, 2008 ISBN 1845454529, 9781845454524 See the chapter entitled "Genocide in Tasmania" by [http://arts.anu.edu.au/history/curthoys/ Anne Curthoys] [http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=RBgoNN4MG-YC&pg=PA250&dq=Tasmanian+Genocide#PPA229,M1 pp. 229-247]</ref> Some of the debate is over to what extent the governing body of the settler outpost had the goal of complete extermination in mind<ref>http://www.history.ac.uk/ihr/Focus/Migration/reviews/atkinson.html</ref>. What is known is that in 1826, the Tasmanian Colonial Times declared that "The Government must remove the natives -- if not they will be hunted down and like wild beasts and destroyed."<ref>[http://ndpbeta.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/2448994 Colonial Times, and Tasmanian Advertiser, Friday 1 December 1826]</ref> Governor [[George Arthur]]<ref>http://[George Arthur biography adbonline.anu.edu.au/biogs/A010034b.htm]</ref> declared martial law in November 1828, and empowered whites to kill full blooded Aboriginals on sight. A bounty for was declared for "native catching", £5 for an adult, £2 per child.<ref>[http://www.scribd.com/doc/7682790/Tasmanian-Aborigines-DestuctionRunoko-Rashidi Runoko Rashidi, Black War: the destruction of the Tasmanian aboriginals, 1997]. </ref> Journalist and publisher Henry Melville<ref>[Henry Melville biography: http://adbonline.anu.edu.au/biogs/A020188b.htm]</ref>, described the results in 1835: "This murderous warfare, in the course of a few years destroyed thousands of aborigines, whilst only a few score of the European population were sacrificed” <ref>Melville, 1835, p 33, requoted from Madley</ref><ref>http://www.yale.edu/gsp/colonial/Madley.pdf</ref> |
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While accepting that most of the natives were killed by exterpationist settlers, [[Henry Reynolds]] has nevertheless rejected the label of genocide, because he believes that the settler's goal of extermination did not include every native, and that the governor of the island did not intend annihilation. Tatz has criticized Reynolds position as follows: |
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Much of the debate on whether European colonisation of Australia resulted in genocide, centers on whether "the term 'genocide' only applies to cases of deliberate mass killings of Aborigines by European settlers, or ... might also apply to instances in which many Aboriginal people were killed by the reckless or unintended actions and omissions of settlers."<ref name=Australian-debate-on-genocide>[http://www.hyperhistory.org/index.php?option=displaypage&Itemid=364&op=page#arti Debates on Genocide - Part One Debates on 'Genocide' in Australian History], Australian Government Department of Education Science and Training</ref> Historians such as Tony Barta argue that for the victim group it matters little if they were wiped out as part of a planned attack. If a group is decimated as a result of [[Smallpox|smallpox]] introduced to Australia by British settlers, or introduced European farming methods causing a group of Aborigines to starve to death, the result is in his opinion genocide.<ref name=Australian-debate-on-genocide-1-Tony-Barta>[http://www.hyperhistory.org/index.php?option=displaypage&Itemid=364&op=page#arti Debates on Genocide - Part One Debates on 'Genocide' in Australian History], Australian Government Department of Education Science and Training. citing Tony Barta, ''Relations of Genocide: Land and Lives in the Colonization of Australia'', in Genocide and the Modern Age: Etiology and Case Studies of Mass Death, Isidor Wallimann & Michael N. Dobkowski (eds.), New York, Westport, Connecticut, London, Greenwood Press, 1987, pp. 237-251.</ref> |
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<blockquote> |
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[[Henry Reynolds (historian)|Henry Reynolds]] points out that European colonists and their descendants frequently use expressions that included "extermination", "extinction", and "extirpation" when discussing the treatment of Aborigines during the colonial period, and as in his opinion genocide "can take many forms, not all of them violent"<ref name=Australian-debate-on-genocide>[http://www.hyperhistory.org/index.php?option=displaypage&Itemid=364&op=page#arti Debates on Genocide - Part One Debates on 'Genocide' in Australian History], Australian Government Department of Education Science and Training. citing Reynolds, An Indelible Stain? The Question of Genocide in Australia’s History, Ringwood, Viking, 2001, p. 2.</ref> this is an indicator of genocide. |
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Genocide of a part of a population is still genocide... criminality is inherent in incitement participation ''and'' complicity <ref>Colin Martin Tatz, ''With Intent to Destroy'' p.78-79</ref></blockquote> |
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Mindful of these disputes between genocide scholars and Australian historians, Anne Curthoys has said: "It is time for a more robust exchange between genocide and Tasmanian historical scholarship if we are to understand better what did happen in Tasmania in the first half of the nineteenth century, how best to conceptualize it, and how to consider what that historical knowledge might mean for us now, morally and intellectually, in the present.<ref>Moses (2008)</ref> |
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⚫ | The political scientist Kenneth Minogue and |
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⚫ | The political scientist Kenneth Minogue and historian [[Keith Windschuttle]] disagree with the mainstream historical narrative, and believe that no mass killings took place on Tasmania.<ref name=Australian-debate-on-genocide-2> [http://www.hyperhistory.org/index.php?option=displaypage&Itemid=384&op=page Debates on Genocide - Part Two Debates on 'Genocide' in Australian History]. Australian Government Department of Education Science and Training</ref><ref name=KW>Windschuttle, Keith</ref> Minogue thinks Australians fabricated this history out of [[white guilt]],<ref name=Australian-debate-on-genocide-2-Kenneth-Minogue>[http://www.hyperhistory.org/index.php?option=displaypage&Itemid=384&op=page Debates on Genocide - Part Two Debates on 'Genocide' in Australian History]. Australian Government Department of Education Science and Training. Citing Kenneth Minogue, 'Aborigines and Australian Apologetics', Quadrant, (September 1998), pp. 11-20.</ref> while Windschuttle believes that most of the native Tasmanians died of disease. Disease is not believed by other historians to have played any major role in Tasmania before the 1829 relocation to Flinders Island.<ref>http://www1.american.edu/ted/ice/tasmania.htm</ref> |
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While there had been inconclusive speculation as early as 1789 as to the source of [[Smallpox|smallpox]] amongst the Australian Aborigines on the Australian mainland, more recently Professor Noel Butlin, an economic historian, in 1983 speculated: “it is possible and, in 1789, likely, that infection of the Aborigines was a deliberate extermination act”. Historians David Day and Henry Reynolds repeated Butlin’s claims and in 2001 Reynolds wrote “one possibility is that the epidemic was deliberately or accidentally let loose by someone in the settlement at Sydney Cove. Not surprisingly this is a highly contentious proposition. If true, it would clearly fall within the ambit of the Genocide Convention”. <ref>Flood, Dr Josephine, The Original Australians: Story of the Aboriginal People, published by Allen & Unwin, 2006, p125.</ref> |
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=== Mainland === |
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Australian virologist Frank Fenner, an authority on smallpox and principal author of the 1988 World Health Organisation report, Smallpox and its Eradication, stated that it is not possible for live smallpox to have survived the long voyage out from England or the next fifteen months before the first cases were seen amongst Aborigines near the settlement and that the variolous material in bottles brought from England for inoculation purposes could not have infected people with smallpox. Smallpox spread by the inhalation of airborne droplets of virus in situations of personal contact or by contact with blankets that an infected person had recently used. <ref>Flood, Dr Josephine, The Original Australians, pp125-126.</ref> |
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Regarding events on mainland Australia, there have been occasional accusations of genocide, but no clear consensus. Many of the deaths on the mainland were due to smallpox, which is commonly believed to have come from Europe with the settlers. Many historians, like Craig Mear, support the thesis that the settlers introduced smallpox either intentionally or accidentally.<ref>http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-34755365_ITM</ref> |
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Medical scientists Sir Edward Stirling and Sir John Cleland published a number of books and articles between 1911 and 1966 suggesting that smallpox arrived in Northern Australia from an Asian source. <ref>Flood, Dr Josephine, The Original Australians, p126.</ref> |
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Intentional introduction would be considered a form of genocide.<ref>Flood, Dr Josephine, The Original Australians: Story of the Aboriginal People, published by Allen & Unwin, 2006, p125.</ref> |
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Historian Judy Campbell argues that the [[Smallpox|smallpox]] epidemics of 1789-90, 1829-32, did not start with the Europeans. She believes that the smallpox was not a result of contact with British settlers, but instead spread south from the far North of Australia, and was due to contact between Aborigines and visiting fishermen from what is now Indonesia.<ref>''Invisible Invaders: Smallpox and Other Diseases in Aboriginal Australia 1780 - 1880'', by Judy Campbell, Melbourne University Press, pp 55, 61</ref> While this has always been the accepted consensus about the source of the later smallpox epidemics of the 1860s, for the earlier epidemics this view has not met with widespread acceptence<ref>'' However, in separating European presence and Aboriginal disease, Invisible Invaders is not entirely convincing. Untying Aboriginal disaster from European activity ... becomes a mantra almost uncritically repeating official documents and settlers' and explorers' memoirs. Here Campbell's examination moves from scientific to somewhat naïve''' from [http://www.api-network.com/main/index.php?apply=reviews&webpage=api_reviews&flexedit=&flex_password=&menu_label=&menuID=homely&menubox=&Review=4576 from this API review] by Lorenzo Veracini</ref>, and has been specifically challenged by historian Craig Mear.<ref>[Craig Mear The origin of the smallpox outbreak in Sydney in 1789. ''Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society'', June 2008;Vol.94, Part 1: 1-22 http://www.abc.net.au/rn/ockhamsrazor/stories/2009/2557307.htm]</ref> Mear writes: |
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<blockquote>They had been coming to this coast for hundreds of years, yet this was the first time that they had brought the deadly virus with them.</blockquote> |
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He also argues that the scientific model that Campbell uses to make her case is flawed, because it modelled the smallpox at significantly higher teperatures than those recorded at the time. It has also been argued by Lecture in Indigenous Studies Greg Blyton that smallpox did not reach the Awabakal people north of Sydney in 1789-90 and that non-genocidal violence including massacres accounted for depopulation there after 1820[36] [37] |
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=== Genocide in a broader sense === |
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In the April 2008 edition of ''[[The Monthly]]'', [[David Day (historian)|David Day]] |
In the April 2008 edition of ''[[The Monthly]]'', [[David Day (historian)|David Day]] wrote that Lemkin considered genocide to encompass more than mass killings but also acts like "driv[ing] the original inhabitants off the land... confin[ing] them in reserves, where policies of deliberate neglect may be used to reduce their numbers... Tak[ing] indigenous children to absorb them within their own midst... assimilation to detach the people from their culture, language and religion, and often their names."<ref>{{cite journal | author = David Day | year = 2008 | month = April | title = '''Disappeared''' | journal = The Monthly | pages = 70–72 }}</ref> These questions of definition are important for the [[stolen generations]] debate. |
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==Stolen Generations debate== |
==Stolen Generations debate== |
Revision as of 16:45, 15 September 2009
This article is part of a series on the |
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The History wars in Australia are an ongoing public debate over the interpretation of the history of the British colonisation of Australia, and its impact on Indigenous Australians and Torres Strait Islanders. It has resemblances to debates in other countries.[1]
The Australian debate centres on whether the history of European settlement since 1788 was:
- humane, with the country being peacefully settled, with specific instances of mistreatment of Indigenous Australians being aberrations;
- marred by both official and unofficial imperialism, exploitation, ill treatment, colonial dispossession, violent conflict and cultural genocide or;
- somewhere in between.
The History Wars also relates to broader themes concerning national identity, as well as methodological questions concerning the value and reliability of written records (of the authorities and settlers) and the oral tradition (of the Indigenous Australians), along with the ideological biases of those who interpret them.
Background
In 1968 Professor W. E. H. "Bill" Stanner, an Australian anthropologist, coined the term the "Great Australian Silence" in a Boyer Lecture entitled "After the Dreaming"[2], where he argued that the writing of Australian history was incomplete. He asserted that Australian national history as documented up to that point had largely been presented in a positive light, but that Indigenous Australians had been virtually ignored. He saw this as a structural and deliberate process to omit "several hundred thousand Aborigines who lived and died between 1788 and 1938… (who were but) … negative facts of history and … were in no way consequential for the modern period".[3] A new strand of Australian historiography subsequently emerged which gave much greater attention to the negative experiences of Indigenous Australians during the British settlement of Australia. In the 1970s and 1980s, historians such as Manning Clark and Henry Reynolds published work which they saw as correcting a selective historiography that had misrepresented or ignored Indigenous Australian history. Their approach was in turn criticised, in particular by Australian historian Geoffrey Blainey, who called it the 'black armband' view of Australian history. Much of the criticism of this approach was published in the literary and political journal Quadrant.
Interpretations of Aboriginal history became part of the wider political debate sometimes called the 'culture wars' during the tenure of the Coalition government from 1996-2007, with the Prime Minister of Australia John Howard publicly championing the views of some of those associated with Quadrant. [4]. This debate extended into a controversy over the way history was presented in the National Museum of Australia and in high school history curricula.[5][6]. It also migrated into the general Australian media, with regular opinion pieces being published in major broadsheets such as The Australian, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. Marcia Langton has referred to much of this wider debate as 'war porn'[7] and an 'intellectual dead end'[8]
Black armband debate
The 'black armband' view of history is a phrase used by Australian historian Geoffrey Blainey in his 1993 Sir John Latham Memorial Lecture to describe views of history that focus, for example, on the dispossession of Indigenous Australians, which he contrasted with the 'Three Cheers' view of history. The lecture was subsequently published in the political and literary journal, Quadrant.[9], which at the time was edited by Robert Manne and is now edited by Keith Windshuttle, two of the leading "history warriors". The phrase then began to be used pejoratively by Australian social scientists, politicians, commentators and intellectuals for historians they viewed as writing excessively critical Australian history 'while wearing a black armband' of mourning and grieving, or shame. They contested some of the new interpretations of Australia's history since 1788 claiming that they focussed almost exclusively on official and unofficial imperialism, exploitation, ill treatment, colonial dispossession and cultural genocide and ignored positive aspects of Australia's history [10]. Manning Clark was identified as being on the liberal left of the debate and was specifically named by Blainey in his 1993 speech as having "done much to spread the gloomy view and also the compassionate view with his powerful prose and Old Testament phrases."[9]
John Howard claimed in the 1996 Sir Robert Menzies Lecture:
The 'black armband' view of our history reflects a belief that most Australian history since 1788 has been little more than a disgraceful story of imperialism, exploitation, racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination[11]
The equally pejorative response by their opponents was to refer to the 'white blindfold' view of history.[12][13][14]
In his book Why Weren't We Told? in 1999, Reynolds referred to Stanner's "Great Australian Silence", and to "a 'mental block' which prevented Australians from coming to terms with the past"[15]. He argued that the silencing of Australia's history of frontier violence in much of the twentieth century stands in stark contrast with the openness with which violence was admitted and discussed in the nineteenth. Reynolds quotes many excerpts from the press, including an article written in the Townsville Herald in Queensland as late as 1907, by a "pioneer" who described his part in a massacre. Reynolds commented that violence against Aboriginals, far from being hushed up or denied, was openly talked about.
The nature of the debate began to change in 1999 with the publication of a book 'Massacre Myth' by journalist, Rod Moran, in which he examined an alleged massacre of Aborigines at Forrest River in Western Australia in 1926. Moran concluded that the alleged massacre was a myth inspired by the false claims of a missionary (possibly as a result of mental health issues). [16] The principle historian of the Forrest River massacre, Neville Green, now describes it as probable but not proven or disproved [17], however Keith Windschuttle, an Australian historian, has stated that reviewing Moran's book inspired his own examination of the wider historical record.[18]
Windschuttle claims that much of Australian Aboriginal history, particularly as written since the late 1970's, was based on the use of questionable or unreliable evidence and on deliberate misrepresentation and fabrication of historical evidence. He based his conclusions on his examination of the evidence cited in previous historical accounts and reported incidences of non-existent documents being cited, misquoting and misleadingly selective quoting from documents and of documents being cited as evidence that certain events took place when his examination concluded that they do not support those claims. Windschuttle reported his conclusions in a number of articles published in Quadrant and in 2002, he published a book, The Fabrication of Aboriginal History, Volume 1, Van Diemen’s Land 1803 - 1847, which focussed on Tasmanian colonial history.
Historian Geoffrey Blainey argued in a 2003 book review of Fabrication [19], that the number of instances when the source documents do not support the claims made and the fact that the `errors' overwhelmingly tend to support claims of violent conflict and massacres indicates that this is not a matter of mere error but bias.
The debate had therefore changed from an argument over whether there was an excessive focus on negative aspects of Australian history to one over to what extent, if at all, Australian Aboriginal history had been based on questionable evidence or had been falsified or fabricated and whether this had exaggerated the extent of violence against Aborigines.
Particular historians and histories that are challenged include Lyndall Ryan and Henry Reynolds and the histories of massacres, particularly in Tasmania but also elsewhere in Australia.
Windschuttle's claims regarding malpractice by historians and, in particular, the fact that he publicly named the historians who he argued had engaged in misrepresentation and fabrication of the historical evidence, created considerable controversy and produced a range of responses including condemnation of, as well as support for his work. [20][21][22][23] It has been argued that Windschuttle was politically motivated and that the errors he uncovered in the work of other historians were minor.[24]
Genocide debate
There has been debate among certain Australian historians as to whether the European colonisation of Australia resulted in the genocide of groups of Aborigines, and in particular the Tasmanian Aborigines.
Tasmania
Ever since the introduction of the modern term in the 1940s, Raphael Lemkin and most other comparative genocide scholars have included the events of the Black War on Tasmania as a defining example of a genocide. During the Black War, European colonists in Tasmania nearly completely annihilated the Tasmanian Aborigines.[25] From a population of approximately 5,000 individuals, they were hunted down and killed until only a few hundred individuals were left. These were then relocated to Flinders Island, where disease and neglect reduced their numbers still further, until the last full blooded native Tasmanian died in 1876.
Most Australian historians don't dispute the historical events, but some of them don't agree that it should be called a genocide.[26][27] Some of the debate is over to what extent the governing body of the settler outpost had the goal of complete extermination in mind[28]. What is known is that in 1826, the Tasmanian Colonial Times declared that "The Government must remove the natives -- if not they will be hunted down and like wild beasts and destroyed."[29] Governor George Arthur[30] declared martial law in November 1828, and empowered whites to kill full blooded Aboriginals on sight. A bounty for was declared for "native catching", £5 for an adult, £2 per child.[31] Journalist and publisher Henry Melville[32], described the results in 1835: "This murderous warfare, in the course of a few years destroyed thousands of aborigines, whilst only a few score of the European population were sacrificed” [33][34]
While accepting that most of the natives were killed by exterpationist settlers, Henry Reynolds has nevertheless rejected the label of genocide, because he believes that the settler's goal of extermination did not include every native, and that the governor of the island did not intend annihilation. Tatz has criticized Reynolds position as follows:
Genocide of a part of a population is still genocide... criminality is inherent in incitement participation and complicity [35]
Mindful of these disputes between genocide scholars and Australian historians, Anne Curthoys has said: "It is time for a more robust exchange between genocide and Tasmanian historical scholarship if we are to understand better what did happen in Tasmania in the first half of the nineteenth century, how best to conceptualize it, and how to consider what that historical knowledge might mean for us now, morally and intellectually, in the present.[36]
The political scientist Kenneth Minogue and historian Keith Windschuttle disagree with the mainstream historical narrative, and believe that no mass killings took place on Tasmania.[37][38] Minogue thinks Australians fabricated this history out of white guilt,[39] while Windschuttle believes that most of the native Tasmanians died of disease. Disease is not believed by other historians to have played any major role in Tasmania before the 1829 relocation to Flinders Island.[40]
Mainland
Regarding events on mainland Australia, there have been occasional accusations of genocide, but no clear consensus. Many of the deaths on the mainland were due to smallpox, which is commonly believed to have come from Europe with the settlers. Many historians, like Craig Mear, support the thesis that the settlers introduced smallpox either intentionally or accidentally.[41] Intentional introduction would be considered a form of genocide.[42]
Historian Judy Campbell argues that the smallpox epidemics of 1789-90, 1829-32, did not start with the Europeans. She believes that the smallpox was not a result of contact with British settlers, but instead spread south from the far North of Australia, and was due to contact between Aborigines and visiting fishermen from what is now Indonesia.[43] While this has always been the accepted consensus about the source of the later smallpox epidemics of the 1860s, for the earlier epidemics this view has not met with widespread acceptence[44], and has been specifically challenged by historian Craig Mear.[45] Mear writes:
They had been coming to this coast for hundreds of years, yet this was the first time that they had brought the deadly virus with them.
He also argues that the scientific model that Campbell uses to make her case is flawed, because it modelled the smallpox at significantly higher teperatures than those recorded at the time. It has also been argued by Lecture in Indigenous Studies Greg Blyton that smallpox did not reach the Awabakal people north of Sydney in 1789-90 and that non-genocidal violence including massacres accounted for depopulation there after 1820[36] [37]
Genocide in a broader sense
In the April 2008 edition of The Monthly, David Day wrote that Lemkin considered genocide to encompass more than mass killings but also acts like "driv[ing] the original inhabitants off the land... confin[ing] them in reserves, where policies of deliberate neglect may be used to reduce their numbers... Tak[ing] indigenous children to absorb them within their own midst... assimilation to detach the people from their culture, language and religion, and often their names."[46] These questions of definition are important for the stolen generations debate.
Stolen Generations debate
Despite the lengthy and detailed findings set out in the 1997 Bringing Them Home report into the Stolen Generation, which documented the removal of Aboriginal children from their families by Australian State and Federal government agencies and church missions, the nature and extent of the removals have been disputed within Australia, with some commentators questioning the findings contained in the report and asserting that the Stolen Generation has been exaggerated. Sir Ronald Wilson, former President of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission and a Commissioner on the Inquiry, has stated that none of the more than 500 witnesses who appeared before the Inquiry were cross-examined. This has been the basis of criticism by the Coalition Government[47] and by the anthropologist Ron Brunton in a booklet[48] published by the Institute of Public Affairs that was criticised in turn by the lawyer Hal Wootten.[49] An Australian Federal Government submission has questioned the conduct of the Commission which produced the report, arguing that the Commission failed to critically appraise or test the claims on which it based the report and failed to distinguish between those separated from their families "with and without consent, and with and without good reason". Not only has the number of children removed from their parents been questioned, but also the intent and effects of the government policy.[50]
Some critics, such as Andrew Bolt, have questioned the very existence of the Stolen Generation. Bolt stated that it is a "preposterous and obscene" myth and that there was actually no policy in any state or territory at any time for the systematic removal of "half-caste" Aboriginal children. Robert Manne responded that Bolt did not address the documentary evidence demonstrating the existence of the Stolen Generations and that this is a clear case of historical denialism.[51] Bolt then challenged Manne to produce ten cases in which the evidence justified the claim that children were "stolen" as opposed to having been removed for reasons such as neglect, abuse, abandonment, etc. He argued that Manne did not respond and that this was an indication of unreliability of the claim that there was policy of systematic removal.[52] In reply, Manne stated that he supplied a documented list of 250 names[53][54] Bolt stated that prior to a debate, Manne provided him with a list of 12 names that he was able to show during the debate was “a list of people abandoned, saved from abuse or voluntarily given up by their parents”; and that during the actual debate, Manne produced a list of 250 names without any details or documentation as to their circumstances. Bolt also stated that he was subsequently able to identify and ascertain the history of some of those on the list and was unable to find a case where there was evidence to justify the term ‘stolen’. He stated that one of the names on the list of allegedly stolen children was 13 year old Dolly, taken into the care of the State after being "found seven months pregnant and penniless, working for nothing on a station". [55].
The Bolt/Manne debate is a fair sample of the adversarial debating style in the area. There is focus on individual examples as evidence for or against the existence of a policy, and little or no analysis of other documentary evidence such as legislative databases showing how the legal basis for removal varied over time and between jurisdictions [56],or testimony from those who were called on to implement the policies[57], which was also recorded in the Bringing Them Home report. A recent review of legal cases claims it is difficult for Stolen Generation claimants to challenge what was written about their situation at the time of removal[58].
The report also identified instances of official misrepresentation and deception, such as when caring and able parents were incorrectly described by Aboriginal Protection Officers as not being able to properly provide for their children, or when parents were told by government officials that their children had died, even though this was not the case.
The new Australian Government elected in 2007 issued an Apology similar to those that State Governments had issued at or about the time of the [Bringing Them Home] report ten years earlier. On February 13, 2008, Kevin Rudd, Prime Minister of Australia moved a formal apology in the House of Representatives [59], which was moved concurrently by the Leader of the Government in the Senate [60]. It passed unanimously in the House of Representatives on March 13, 2008[61]. In the Senate the Australian Greens moved an amendment seeking to add compensation to the apology, against which all other parties voted, after which the motion was passed unanimously. [62]
Windschuttle's The Fabrication of Aboriginal History
In 2002, historian Keith Windschuttle, in his book The Fabrication of Aboriginal History, Volume One: Van Diemen's Land 1803-1847, questions the historical evidence used to identify the number of Aborigines deliberately killed during European colonisation, especially focusing on the Black War in Tasmania. He argues that there is credible evidence for the violent deaths of only 118 Tasmanian Aborigines, as having been directly killed by the British, although there were undoubtedly an unquantifiable number of other deaths for which no evidence exists. He argues that the Tasmanian Aboriginal population was devastated by a lethal cocktail of introduced diseases to which they had little or no resistance due to their isolation from the mainland and the rest of humanity for thousands of years. The deaths and infertility caused by these introduced diseases, combined with the deaths from what violent conflict there was, rapidly decimated the relatively small Aboriginal population. Windschuttle also examined the nature of those violent episodes that did occur and concluded that there is no credible evidence of warfare over territory. Windschuttle argues that the primary source of conflict between the British and the Aborigines was raids by Aborigines, often involving violent attacks on settlers, to acquire goods (such as blankets, metal implements and 'exotic' foods) from the British. With this and with a detailed examination of footnotes in and evidence cited by the earlier historical works, he criticises the claims by historians such as Henry Reynolds and Professor Lyndall Ryan that there was a campaign of guerrilla warfare against British settlement. Particular historians and histories that are challenged include Henry Reynolds and the histories of massacres, particularly in Tasmania (such as in the Cape Grim massacre) but also elsewhere in Australia. Windschuttle's claims are based upon the argument that the 'orthodox' view of Australian history were founded on hearsay or the misleading use of evidence by historians.
Windschuttle argues that, in order to advance the ‘deliberate genocide’ argument, Reynolds has misused source documentation, including that from British colonist sources, by quoting out of context. In particular, he accuses Reynolds of selectively quoting from responses to an 1830 survey in Tasmania in that Reynolds quoted only from those responses that could be construed as advocating "extermination", "extinction", and "extirpation" and failed to mention other responses to the survey, which indicated that a majority of respondents rejected genocide, were sympathetic to the plight of the Aborigines, feared that conflict arising from Aboriginal attacks upon settlers would result in the extinction of the Tasmanian Aborigines and advocated the adoption of courses of action to prevent this happening. [63]
Windschuttle's claims and research have been disputed by some historians, in Whitewash. On Keith Windschuttle's Fabrication of Aboriginal History, an anthology including contributions from Henry Reynolds and Professor Lyndall Ryan, edited and introduced by Robert Manne, professor of politics at La Trobe University. This anthology, has itself been the subject of examination by author John Dawson, in Washout: On the academic response to The Fabrication of Aboriginal History, which argues that "Whitewash" leaves Windschuttle's claims and research unrefuted. [64]
In "Contra Windschuttle", an article published in the conservative publication Quadrant, S.G. Foster examined some of the evidence that Windschuttle presented on one issue, Stanner's notion of the "Great Australian Silence". In Foster’s opinion, the evidence produced by Windschuttle did not prove his case that the "Great Australian Silence" was largely a myth. Windschuttle argues that, in the years prior to Stanner’s 1968 Boyer lecture, Australian historians had not been silent on the Aborigines although, in most cases, the historians’ “discussions were not to Stanner’s taste” and the Aborigines “might not have been treated in the way Reynolds and his colleagues would have liked”.[65] Foster argues that Windschuttle is “merciless with those who get their facts wrong” and that the fact that Windschuttle has also made mistakes means that he did not meet the criteria that he used to assess 'orthodox historians' he was arguing against and whom he accused of deliberately misrepresenting, misquoting, exaggerating and fabricating evidence relating to the level and nature of violent conflict between Aborigines and white settlers.[66]
At the time of the publication of The Fabrication of Aboriginal History, Volume One it was announced that a second volume, to be published in 2003, would cover claims of frontier violence in New South Wales and Queensland, and a third, in 2004, would cover Western Australia.[67] On 9 February 2008, however, it was announced that the second volume, anticipated to be published later in 2008. would be entitled The Fabrication of Australian History, Volume 2: The "Stolen Generations" and would address the issue of the removal of Aboriginal children (the "stolen generations" from their families in the 20th century. [68]. The proposed second volume has not yet been published. No recent reference has been made to the originally projected second and third volumes.
Stuart Macintyre's The History Wars
In 2003 Australian historian Stuart Macintyre published The History Wars, written with Anna Clark.[69]. This was a study of the background of, and arguments surrounding, recent developments in Australian historiography, and concluded that the History Wars had done damage to the nature of objective Australian history. At the launch of his book, historian Stuart Macintyre emphasised the political dimension of these arguments[70] and said the Australian debate took its cue from the Enola Gay controversy in the United States[71]. The book was launched by former Prime Minister Paul Keating, who took the opportunity to criticise conservative views of Australian history, and those who hold them (such as the then Prime Minister [John Howard]), saying that they suffered from "a failure of imagination", and said that The History Wars "rolls out the canvas of this debate."[72] Macintyre's critics, such as Greg Melluish (History Lecturer at the University of Wollongong), responded to the book by declaring that Macintyre was a partisan history warrior himself, and that "its primary arguments are derived from the pro-Communist polemics of the Cold War."[73] Keith Windschuttle said that Macintyre attempted to "caricature the history debate."[74] In a foreword to the book, former Chief Justice of Australia Sir Anthony Mason said that the book was "a fascinating study of the recent endeavours to rewrite or reinterpret the history of European settlement in Australia."[75]
National Museum of Australia controversy
In 2001, writing in Quadrant, historian Keith Windshuttle argued that the then-new National Museum of Australia (NMA) was marred by "political correctness" and did not present a balanced view of the nation's history.[76] In 2003 the Howard Government commissioned a review of the NMA. A potentially controversial issue was in assessing how well the NMA met the criterion that displays should: "Cover darker historical episodes, and with a gravity that opens the possibility of collective self-accounting. The role here is in helping the nation to examine fully its own past, and the dynamic of its history—with truthfulness, sobriety and balance. This extends into covering present-day controversial issues."[77] While the report concluded that there was no systemic bias, it recommended that there be more recognition in the exhibits of European achievements.[78]
The report drew the ire of some historians in Australia, who claimed that it was a deliberate attempt on the part of the Government to politicise the museum and move it more towards a position which Geoffrey Blainey called the 'three cheers' view of Australian history, rather than the 'black armband' view.[79] In 2006 columnist Miranda Devine described some of the Braille messages encoded on the external structure of the NMA, including "sorry" and "forgive us our genocide" and how they had been covered over by aluminium discs in 2001, and stated that under the new Director "what he calls the 'black T-shirt' view of Australian culture" is being replaced by "systematically reworking the collections, with attention to 'scrupulous historical accuracy'".[80]
An example of the current approach at the NMA is the Bell's Falls Gorge Interactive display, which presents Windshuttles's view of an alleged massacre alongside other views and contemporary documents and displays of weapons relating to colonial conflict around Bathurst in 1824 and invites visitors to make up their own minds.[81]
History wars and culture wars
The "history wars" are widely viewed, by external observers and participants on both sides as an extension of the "culture war" originating in the United States. William D. Rubinstein, writing for the conservative British think tank the Social Affairs Unit, refers to the history wars as "the Culture War down under"[82]. Windschuttle and other conservative participants in the debate are frequently described as "culture warriors". [83][84].
The defeat of the Howard government in the Australian Federal election, and its replacement by the Rudd Labor government has altered the dynamic of the debate. In an article published in 2006, Rudd argued that Howard's use of the history and culture wars was "a fraud" aimed at diverting attention away from more important issues [85], a view contested by Windschuttle. [86]
Since the change of government, and the passage, with support from all parties, of a Parliamentary apology to indigenous Australians, Professor of Australian Studies Richard Nile has argued: "the culture and history wars are over and with them should also go the adversarial nature of intellectual debate"[87], a view contested by others, including commentator Janet Albrechtsen.[88].
Protagonists
See also
- History of Australia
- Australian frontier wars
- Indigenous Australians
- Tasmanian Aborigine
- Black War
- List of massacres of indigenous Australians
- New Historians (comparable Israeli phenomenon)
- Welcome to Country and Acknowledgement of Country
References
- Stanner, W.E.H. (ed), (1979). "After the Dreaming" in White Man Got No Dreaming: Essays 1938-1973, ISBN 0-7081-1802-X. W.E.H. Stanner pp. 198-248
- Macintyre, Stuart and Clark, Anna (2003). The History Wars,Melbourne University Publishing, Carlton, Victoria, ISBN 0-522-85091-X
- Reynolds, Henry (1999), Why Weren't We Told?, ISBN 0-14-027842-7
- Windschuttle, Keith (2002). The Fabrication of Aboriginal History, Volume One: Van Diemen's Land 1803-1847, ISBN 1-876492-05-8
Further reading
- Books
- Attwood, Bain (2005). Telling The Truth About Aboriginal History , ISBN 1-74114-577-5
- Dawson, John (2004). Washout: On the academic response to The Fabrication of Aboriginal History, ISBN 1-876492-12-0
- Manne, Robert(ed), (2003). Whitewash. On Keith Windschuttle's Fabrication of Aboriginal History. ISBN 0-9750769-0-6
- Articles
- Bonnell, Andrew G., and Martin Crotty. "Australian "Historikerstreit"? The Australian Journal of Politics and History. Volume: 50. Issue: 3: 2004. pp 425+. online edition
- Foster, S.G. Contra Windschuttle, Quadrant, March 2003, 47:3
- Francis, P., The Whole Truth...?, (2000) , The Journal of GEOS
- History Wars Special in the Sydney Morning Herald
- Keith Windschuttle, "Postmodernism and the Fabrication of Aboriginal History"
- Gould, Bob. McGuinness, Windschuttle and Quadrant: The attempt to revise the history of the massacre of Aborigines on the British colonial frontier in Australia. (Annotated bibliography of colonial history). [8]
Footnotes
- ^ ABC Radio: History Under Siege (Japan, Australia, Argentina, France)[1]/
- ^ Stanner pp. 198-248
- ^ Stanner, p. 214.
- ^ Robert Manne, “What is Rudd’s Agenda?”, The Monthly, November 2008.
- ^ http://www.crikey.com.au/2007/06/28/1915-and-all-that-history-in-a-holding-pattern/
- ^ [History curriculum author defies his critics to find bias http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24492542-13881,00.html]
- ^ Baudrillard J. War porn. Journal of Visual Culture, Vol. 5, No. 1, 86-88 (2006)DOI: 10.1177/147041290600500107
- ^ Langton M. Essay: Trapped in the aboriginal reality show. Griffith Review 2007, 19:Re-imagining Australia.
- ^ a b Geoffrey Blainey, 'Drawing Up a Balance Sheet of Our History', in Quadrant, vol.37 ( 7-8), July/August 1993
- ^ McKenna (1997). "Different Perspectives on Black Armband History: Research Paper 5 1997-98". Parliament of Australia: Parliamentary Library. http://www.aph.gov.au/Library/pubs/rp/1997-98/98rp05.htm."
- ^ McKenna (1997). "Different Perspectives on Black Armband History: Research Paper 5 1997-98". Parliament of Australia: Parliamentary Library. http://www.aph.gov.au/Library/pubs/rp/1997-98/98rp05.htm."
- ^ Clark, Anna. The First Annual Dymphna Clark Lecture, delivered at the Manning Clark House, 2 March 2002. See footnote 23 that cites Ann Curthoys, 'Mythologies', in Richard Nile [ed.], The Australian Legend and Its Discontents, St. Lucia 2000, pp12,16; and Ferrier, op. cit., p42.
- ^ Carole Ferrier, ‘White Blindfolds and Black Armbands: The uses of whiteness theory for reading Australian cultural production’, Queensland Review, vol 6, no 1, pp 42-9 (Critiques the simplicity and the political implications of such slogans.
- ^ Anna Clark. History in Black and White: a critical analysis of the Black Armband debate. Originally published in Richard Nile (ed), Country: Journal of Australian Studies no 75, St Lucia, UQP, 2002. http://www.api-network.com/main/pdf/scholars/jas75_clark.pdf
- ^ Reynolds (1999), p.114
- ^ Moran, Rod (1999) Massacre myth : an investigation into allegations concerning the mass murder of Aborigines at Forrest River, 1926 Bassendean, W.A. Access Press ISBN 0864451245
- ^ Green, Neville: The evidence for The Forrest River Massacre. Quadrant 1 July 2003
- ^ http://www.sydneyline.com/UNSW%20debate.htm
- ^ http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/nativefiction-1774
- ^ Attwood, Bain (2005). Telling The Truth About Aboriginal History , ISBN 1-74114-577-5
- ^ Dawson, John (2004). Washout: On the academic response to The Fabrication of Aboriginal History, ISBN 1-876492-12-0
- ^ Manne, Robert(ed), (2003). Whitewash. On Keith Windschuttle's Fabrication of Aboriginal History. ISBN 0-9750769-0-6
- ^ Flood, Dr Josephine, The Original Australians: Story of the Aboriginal People, Allen & Unwin, 2006
- ^ http://eprints.qut.edu.au/636/1/ianziti_gary.pdf
- ^ Colin Martin Tatz, With Intent to Destroy p.78-79
- ^ A. Dirk Moses, Genocide and Settler Society: Frontier Violence and Stolen Indigenous Children in Australian History, Berghahn Books, 2004 ISBN 1571814108, 9781571814104. Chapter by Henry Reynolds "Genocide in Tasmania?" pp. 127-147.
- ^ A. Dirk Moses Empire, Colony, Genocide,: Conquest, Occupation, and Subaltern Resistance in World History, Berghahn Books, 2008 ISBN 1845454529, 9781845454524 See the chapter entitled "Genocide in Tasmania" by Anne Curthoys pp. 229-247
- ^ http://www.history.ac.uk/ihr/Focus/Migration/reviews/atkinson.html
- ^ Colonial Times, and Tasmanian Advertiser, Friday 1 December 1826
- ^ http://[George Arthur biography adbonline.anu.edu.au/biogs/A010034b.htm]
- ^ Runoko Rashidi, Black War: the destruction of the Tasmanian aboriginals, 1997.
- ^ [Henry Melville biography: http://adbonline.anu.edu.au/biogs/A020188b.htm]
- ^ Melville, 1835, p 33, requoted from Madley
- ^ http://www.yale.edu/gsp/colonial/Madley.pdf
- ^ Colin Martin Tatz, With Intent to Destroy p.78-79
- ^ Moses (2008)
- ^ Debates on Genocide - Part Two Debates on 'Genocide' in Australian History. Australian Government Department of Education Science and Training
- ^ Windschuttle, Keith
- ^ Debates on Genocide - Part Two Debates on 'Genocide' in Australian History. Australian Government Department of Education Science and Training. Citing Kenneth Minogue, 'Aborigines and Australian Apologetics', Quadrant, (September 1998), pp. 11-20.
- ^ http://www1.american.edu/ted/ice/tasmania.htm
- ^ http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-34755365_ITM
- ^ Flood, Dr Josephine, The Original Australians: Story of the Aboriginal People, published by Allen & Unwin, 2006, p125.
- ^ Invisible Invaders: Smallpox and Other Diseases in Aboriginal Australia 1780 - 1880, by Judy Campbell, Melbourne University Press, pp 55, 61
- '^ However, in separating European presence and Aboriginal disease, Invisible Invaders is not entirely convincing. Untying Aboriginal disaster from European activity ... becomes a mantra almost uncritically repeating official documents and settlers' and explorers' memoirs. Here Campbell's examination moves from scientific to somewhat naïve from from this API review by Lorenzo Veracini
- ^ [Craig Mear The origin of the smallpox outbreak in Sydney in 1789. Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society, June 2008;Vol.94, Part 1: 1-22 http://www.abc.net.au/rn/ockhamsrazor/stories/2009/2557307.htm]
- ^ David Day (2008). "Disappeared". The Monthly: 70–72.
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ignored (help) - ^ Stolen Generations, Background Briefing, ABC Radio National, broadcast 2 July 2000, retrieved 19 February 2008
- ^ Brunton, R. “Betraying the victims: The ‘Stolen Generations’ Report”, in IPA Backgrounder Vol. 10/1, 1998.
- ^ Wootten, Hal (1998) 'Ron Brunton and Bringing Them Home', the Report of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission into the removal of Aboriginal children from ... Indigenous Law Bulletin 44; 4(12): 12-12
- ^ http://www.australianpolitics.com/issues/aborigines/2000-govt-submission-on-stolen-generations-summary.doc
- ^ Manne, Robert The cruelty of denial, The Age, September 9, 2006
- ^ Be a Manne and name just 10 | Herald Sun
- ^ [http://www.theage.com.au/news/robert-manne/the-cruelty-of-denial/2006/09/08/1157222325367.html?page=1
- ^ Manne, Robert (2005-09-03). "The Stolen Generations - a documentary collection" (PDF). The Monthly. Retrieved 2007-12-29.
- ^ [2]
- ^ http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/special/indigenous/
- ^ [Many Voices: Reflections on Experiences of Indigenous Child Separation National Library of Australia Oral History Project, 2002. http://www.nla.gov.au/pub/nlanews/2002/nov02/article3.html
- ^ Buti A. The Stolen generation and litigation revisited. Melbourne University Law Review 2008. at [3]
- ^ http://www.aph.gov.au/hansard/reps/dailys/dr130208.pdf , page 167.
- ^ http://www.aph.gov.au/hansard/reps/dailys/dr110308.pdf , p. 147.
- ^ http://www.aph.gov.au/hansard/reps/dailys/dr110308.pdf , p. 1346.
- ^ [4] , p. 166.
- ^ Windschuttle, pp. 326-350.
- ^ Quadrant Magazine
- ^ Windschuttle, pp 408, 409.
- ^ S.G. Foster, Contra Windschuttle, Quadrant, March 2003, 47:3
- ^ "Our history, not rewritten but put right - smh.com.au". Retrieved 2008-03-06.
- ^ Imre Salusinszky, Aboriginal 'genocide' claim denied, The Australian, 9 February, 2008
- ^ Macintyre S, Clark A. The History Wars. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2003. ISBN 0 522 85091 X
- ^ Who plays Stalin in our History Wars? Sydney Morning Herald, September 17, 2003 [5]
- ^ History on Trial website-Enola Gay Controversy [6]
- ^ Keating's 'History Wars' - OpinionWebDiaryArchive2003 - www.smh.com.au
- ^ http://www.cis.org.au/Policy/summer03-04/polsumm0304-7.htm.
- ^ http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2003/s938399.htm.
- ^ Macintyre, Stuart & Clark, Anna, p. ??
- ^ How not to run a museum: People's history at the postmodern museum. reproduced at http://www.sydneyline.com/National%20Museum.htm.
- ^ http://www.nma.gov.au/shared/libraries/attachments/review/review_report_20030715/files/552/ReviewReport20030715.pdf
- ^ http://www.nma.gov.au/about_us/nma_corporate_documents/exhibitions_and_public_programs_review/>.
- ^ http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2003/s902872.htm.
- ^ Devine, Miranda (2006). "Disclosed at last, the embedded messages that adorn museum". Opinion. Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 2006-06-11.
- ^ Bell's Falls Gorge interactive display at the National Museum of Australia. [7]
- ^ The Social Affairs Unit - Web Review: The Culture Wars Down Under: Keith Windschuttle, the Aborigines, and the Left - Part Two
- ^ PM's contempt for ABC - Opinion - theage.com.au
- ^ ABC gets a culture warrior - National - theage.com.au
- ^ PM's culture wars a fraud: Rudd - National - smh.com.au
- ^ The Sydney Line
- ^ http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/richardnile/index.php/theaustralian/comments/end_of_the_culture_wars End of the culture wars | Richard Nile Blog | The Australian]
- ^ Janet Albrechtsen,"Orwellian Left quick to unveil totalitarian heart", The Australian, December 12, 2007