What could be a weightier problem than a prosperous, fortunate country that was founded upon genocide? Clearly, if it was so founded, an intelligentsia is urgently needed to help it emerge from the dark moral labyrinth in which it exists, hitherto blindly. For only an intelligentsia is sufficiently used to thinking in abstractions to be qualified to act as guide to the nation.
Of course, an intelligentsia needs allies, for it is rarely strong enough by itself to dominate and control a society, and oddly enough the genocide school of Tasmanian history has created allies in people who now call themselves Tasmanian aborigines. But – I hear you object – I thought you said that Tasmanian aborigines died out in the nineteenth century (the last one being called Truganini)? Yes, I reply, but that is full-blooded aborigines. Because there were sexual relations between the first settlers and aborigine women, there exist people in Tasmania with aborigine blood running in the veins. Admittedly, that blood is almost as dilute as a homeopath’s medicine, but it is enough for some purposes.(source)
Thanks to JF Beck for pointing the way to this great essay about the history wars and in particular why the chattering classes love the idea that our nation was built upon Genocide, very much a piece that will give you a wry smile if you are a rational human being and make you fume if you are a rabid leftist who thinks that history is the explanation of why we, as a nation, should feel guilty for the bounty in our lives.
What ever your political orientation, give it a whirl, I guarantee that it will get those neurones firing.
Filed under: Australian Politics, Education, Ethical questions, Indigenous Issues, Justice, Law, Leftism, Political Correctness, human rights | Tagged: history wars
I would have thought it self-evident that acceptance by a ‘culture’ or society is about more than just ‘blood’. After all, the category ‘Australian’ does not require those with whom it is identified to hail from any particular race or country.
The passage you cite purports to refute the notion that an aboriginal exists if he or she is the product of ’sexual relations between the first settlers and aborigine women’.
Unfortunately, such ‘blood’ bound, eugenicist notions of race died in the 1940’s in Germany, and in the 1960’s in the Deep South of America.
Having ‘blood is almost as dilute as a homeopath’s medicine’ is generally thought not to prevent one from identifying with a particular culture or society. Aboriginals I have met do not think of themselves as ‘one-eighth Koori’ any more than they think of themselves as having Aboriginal legs but a European torso. Surely whatever it means to be ‘aboriginal’ involves the indivudal embracing the group, and, reciprocally, the group recognising the individual. At least, this is how I understand it, and I don’t think my understanding is just irrational ‘rabid leftism’.
Consequently, you are right – this is another shot in the so-called history wars, but this one appears to have hit its author in the foot.
You haven’t read the whole piece I quote from have you Hap?
I read it. I wanted to draw particular attention to the passage you cited. If the author is working from demonstrably shonky premises, then maybe you should consider whether his conclusion is actually worth listening to.
Why pray tell is his premise “shonky” surely one such as your self who is so fond of denouncing Moi for making generalisations can do better than
.If the author is working from demonstrably shonky premises, then maybe you should consider whether his conclusion is actually worth listening to.
Come on, demonstrate why your claim here is valid.
If you read my initial comment, you would see that the authot is claiming that ‘aboriginality’ is about ‘full-blood’. I’ve never heard of any Aboriginal accepting this definition. Nor would any Australian consider him or herself less ‘Australian’ by lacking ‘full-bloodedness’. Being part of a culture or society is about more than blood ties – I would have thought this is fairly uncontroversial, as I said, unless one is a 1940’s German, or a 1960’s hillbilly.
Consequently, his cheap shots about those awful ‘intellectuals’ (who supposedly love ‘genocide’, and who dishonestly portray the joyous occasion of Australian settlement as being unpleasant for Aboriginals) are founded on completely primitive and mistaken ideas about race and culture, that no rational person could accept.
Is that sufficiently clear? I’d have thought the first comment was equally clear.
Furthermore, our anti-intellectual comedian makes the following disreputable claim:
‘Indeed, it has been suggested that half the territory of the island of Tasmania be reserved to aborigines.’
These are weasel words. Who is seriously suggesting that half of the Apple Isle be given to Aboriginals as a collective land rights settlement? I didn’t notice this rider in Noel Pearson’s latest proposals. Methinks you and Becky have been dudded by a dubious source.
Hap
Your assignment was to explain why the premise of the piece was “shonky”. In the last two comments you have not even come close to doing that. All you have done is to nitpick about definitions of aboriginality and Theo’s reiteration of the sort of claims that would be well within the mindset of Michael Mansel et al.
So I’ll ask you again why is the premise of the piece “shonky”
Hint: – First of all why don’t you try to define what the premise of the piece actually is.
I won’t waste too much more of my time explaining the obvious to you. It is not my job to double-check your sources. If this isn’t schematic enough for you, I’m afraid you’ll need to find a grown-up to explain it.
The author’s argument can be summarised as follows:
1. The ‘intellectual left’ want to feel important. It’s all they live for.
2. They need a myth about ‘genocide’ to do this.
3. To that end, the leftists have aligned themselves with the cause of Tasmanian aboriginals.
4. Tasmanian aboriginals don’t actually exist. As the author says, the last one died some time ago, and the others have ‘diluted blood’, and are not really aboriginal at all.
5. The leftists have perpetuated an awful smear campaign against Windschuttle, and against Australia itself. Furthermore, they want to give half of Tassie to pretend Aboriginals.
There isn’t a single one of these conclusions that stands up to scrutiny, as you know perfectly well.
In particular, the author’s conception of race is so backward as to be completely useless. By his definition of race, almost nobody in Australia would count as Australian. If a mass murder of Italian Australians occurred, for instance, it wouldn’t really be part of Australian history since, by his definition, the victims wouldn’t be ‘full-bloods’. If this isn’t a shonky premise, I don’t know what is.
Finally, it’s hilarious that this clown makes reference to the ‘lucky country’ – if he weren’t so busy attacking those self-aggrandising lefties, and actually did a bit of reading, he might’ve learnt that the term ‘lucky country’ actually came from a leftist history intellectual, and it was clearly intended to be ironic…
Hap
You make the claim
But your assignment was not only to define the premise as you seek to do above but to explain WHY it is “shonky” still waiting for that I’m afraid.
By the way I am well aware that Donald Horne originally used the term “lucky country” with an Ironic intention. However just because he meant it thus does not forever cement it’s meaning to that which he intended.
Felling a little steamed up?
Oh my, but I bet your neurons are firing though
Not steamed up. As fun as it is to hold your hand through reasoning that you disingenuously pretend to ignore, life’s a bit too short.
This guy thinks being part of a cultural group is about ‘blood’ – it isn’t, and nobody thinks it has been, for decades. There – you’ve got shonky in spades, regardless of whether you choose to accept it.
But that is only a very small part of the essay and I actually read it as being of little consequence to the wider argument that you have not even come close to answering. For some one who has tickets on themselves as a great and logic polemicist you are not doing so well this morning Hap. Six comments and you still have not got to the gist of the essay.
Maybe you are right Iain. Perhaps you could help this confused leftie by giving me straight answers on a few things. A yes or no will do nicely.
1. Do you endorse a ‘blood’ theory of race and culture, as this author clearly does?
2. Do you believe that aboriginals with some non-aboriginal ancestry should be disqualified as aboriginals?
3. Is ‘genocide’ or mass-murder In Australian history a myth because nobody was killed, or because they weren’t ‘real’ aboriginals?
4. Do you seriously believe that leftists are plotting to give half of Tasmania to an Aboriginal collective?
5. Does any white person, intellectual or not, stand to make some substantive gain by perpetuating a story about Aboriginal suffering?
6. Do you consider yourself Australian given that, at some point, you must have non-Australian heritage?
We cannot discuss a people if we cannot even define who they are. Ergo, these questions cut to the core of your argument, which has been utterly skewered in any case. Let’s see if you have the intellectual honesty to answer them.
Windschuttle’s rationale is pretty simple to understand. He only accepts murders and violent deaths which can be verified by a certain standard of evidence; there are very few government records about such deaths; and most Tasmanian settlers were good Christians and would never purposefully engage in killing. It all seems quite specious, as though he’s concocting a method to fit his ideological viewpoint.
On the flip side, it’s true that some left-leaning historians have recounted killings and massacres with flimsy, dubious or conflated evidence. The indigenous were vermin to be cleared from the land, either with bullets or biologically-infected blankets. Thousands died in this genocide, which was near systematic in the way it was conducted.
Neither sits too well with me. If the settlement of Tasmania matches the other examples of imperial conquests then I’m sure more than 120 natives were killed. But the British were not the most bloodthirsty colonisers of the period so the claims of a Tasmanian holocaust also seem rather excessive.
Hap you sadly disappoint me. Despite giving you lots of hints you just can’t get past the notion that the essay is all about race can you? The Essay is about how in the face of social good fortune leftist intellectuals have sought to put forward the notion that we, of the present, have to atone for the sins of the past even if those sins are in fact imagined or at the very least exaggerated.
What nonsense you come out with here The study of DNA suggests that despite outward differences there are very few genetic differences between various groups of people. I have always thought that the concept of “race” is a rather spurious one, wether you construct it in genetic or cultural terms. There are in the end only human beings of the same species.
I think that it does not matter (see answer above)
Neither
The term genocide is somewhat over used and one of the points that is well made in the essay is that introduced diseases killed far more people that the gun or the rope and that such deaths of indigenous people was by no stretch of the imagination a deliberate intention of the colonial settlers, neither was the loss of fertility of indigenous women from venereal disease. By definition Genocide requires intent and active efforts to achieve the death of an entire people. So I suggest that it is a myth for these reasons and not as you claim because they were not “real” aboriginals.
I am unaware of the providence of this claim but given that we are talking about Tasmania I would not put it past the likes of Mansel to make such a suggestion.
Are you trying to prove that you are a racist here Hap? In any case How would I know such a thing ? Neither is this the contention of the essay explain why you ask this and I may consider the question further.
Hap I make no secret of the fact that I am an Englishman by birth but I am an Australian by choice , I live here ,I raise my children here and this is the place that I want to spend the rest of my life. But what has that got to do with the topic at hand?
I will make a small prediction at this juncture, namely that you will come back with some sort of ad hominem response rather than actually considering what I have said.
Frankly you should resist claiming victory before you have won anything at all. It just makes you look arrogant and rather silly.
I always answer questions with intellectual honesty. I think you are confused by the fact that I do not always give you the answers that you want to hear.
Coherence is not a strong point for you, Iain. In trying to make some half-arsed generalisation about the left, you’ve ‘fisked’ yourself.
‘Despite giving you lots of hints you just can’t get past the notion that the essay is all about race can you?’
The author explicitly invokes race as a topic of the essay, and you cite the very passage yourself, moron. It isn’t my fault if the author;s whole contention relies upon a primitive and bigoted notion of race.
‘What nonsense you come out with here The study of DNA suggests that despite outward differences there are very few genetic differences between various groups of people.’
The ‘blood’ theory of race is that espoused explicitly by the author. Put your reading glasses on and you may see it where he dismisses Tasmanian Aboriginals for having ‘diluted blood’.
‘By definition Genocide requires intent and active efforts to achieve the death of an entire people.’
Sure, genocide is over-used. Let’s just stick with the term ‘mass murder’ or ’systematic destruction’ if it’s more politically correct for you.
‘I am unaware of the providence of this claim but given that we are talking about Tasmania I would not put it past the likes of Mansel to make such a suggestion.’
The article explicitly makes this claim too, so maybe you or its author ought to check out its ‘providence’ before getting yourselves worked up.
‘Are you trying to prove that you are a racist here Hap? In any case How would I know such a thing ? Neither is this the contention of the essay explain why you ask this and I may consider the question further.’
The contention of the essay is that the evil ‘leftist intellectuals’ get something out of pushig an Aboriginal genocide myth. The author says this very clearly. Obviously, it isn’t true, and you obviously either don’t get it, or are simply trying to skirt around the issue.
‘Hap I make no secret of the fact that I am an Englishman by birth but I am an Australian by choice , I live here’
Then by your own definition of race/culture, the above cretin is wrong. Deal with it.
Obviously, your contemptible snark of a post has been utterly demolished, and you’ve once again been caught with your hand on your sausage peddling vile theories of race, and dneying Aboriginal suffering, just to make a few cheap points about the Lefties in your head.
Fear not – I suspect your chivalrous comrades from Aryan Rabbit and A Stormfront Heart and the like with ride to your rescue and defend the honour of your pathetic and racist views. Until then, please consider remedial Enlgish lessons, that you may learn to comprehend the garbage that you cite. And, when reading an article about ‘the left’, alsways ask yourself – ‘Is this true, or did I read it in the Australian’?
What did I say about you coming back with an ad hominem response?
No, the author makes the very reasonable point that despite have virtually no remanent culture the descendants of the sealers and some aboriginal women that they either abducted or traded goods for are being rather opportunistic in claiming aboriginality. This is not a major part of the thesis of the essay however, but in your mind it seems to be the only thing that matters here.
I this the sound of you trying to shift the goal posts? The point made rather well in the essay, as I pointed out previously is that far fewer people were deliberately killed than claimed by leftists such as your self, you guild the lily here to claim that such killing amounted to either “mass murder” or “systemic killing”.
When I wrote my piece I said that I thought that the essay was some thing that would get the neurons firing. That does not mean that I take every word as if it was delivered from God and as if it is holy writ. You seem to think that I do. I read this as a reference to some of the more hyperbolic ambit claims from the likes of Mansel et al, some thing that was never seriously advocated by anyone.
The Essay is talking about the type of mindset on the left that just has to believe that our success as a nation is to be denounced, or at least counterbalanced by the notion, that it is predicated upon the bones of an indigenous people deliberately slaughtered, when much of their decline can be attributed to disease (admittedly introduced by new arrivals but not intentionally so).As you have conceded to call the decline in the population of indigenous people genocide is to misuse the term, so it is not wrong to characterise such claims of genocide as mythic.
Hap, mate, when are you going to learn that when some one answers a specific question that you can’t take their answer out of context and claim that it proves an entirely different point? Now go back to your original question, have a good look, and you will see that it has no mention of either race, or culture.
Still claiming a victory when the battle is not over I see, a very bad habit that has seen many a warrior lying dad on the field of battle.
I have never denied the suffering of indigenous people as a result of the colonisation of this or any other piece if real estate. The reality is that human beings have for millennia fought over the right to exploit the natural resources of the world. And in any battle there are winners and losers Clearly the way of the world is that a people can only truly own a land if they can exclude all others from it . The indigenous people (who’s ancestors had likewise invaded the land) could not exclude the British and so their long dominance of this continent came to an end. You obviously have the mistaken idea that anyone can have an eternal ownership of a piece of dirt because they were the first people to claim it, which is utter bollocks.
The chaps from AWH and Crusader Rabbit are indeed gentlemen of the first order and as much as I like and respect them I do not, on this occasion, need any help from them to deal with you.
With regard to you claim of a superior grasp of the English language I feel that I should bring to your attention the fact that you have made several spelling mistakes, your grasp of a logical argument is compromised by a personal need to denigrate your interlocutor and your arrogance causes you to repeatedly claim that you have won the argument as if claiming it will make it so. This suggests to me that you may in fact need to do just a little bit more growing up before you can be considered to be a decent human being.
Cheers
With regard to you claim of a superior grasp of the English language I feel that I should bring to your attention the fact that you have made several spelling mistakes,
Iain,
You are the last person who should be lecturing on spelling mistakes, don’t you think? You forfeit the right to claim its ok for your own spelling mistakes when you have a go at the mistakes of others. A double standard you have committed countless times!
Best Rgrds,
Ian
.
Ian
I have as much right as any one to point out the errors of others because I freely acknowledge my own shortcomings in orthography. However that is only one part of the issue here as Hap claims that I am in need of “remedial Enlgish “ while posting a less than perfect post himself. In any case I speak and write in English and I make no claims to be even familiar with “Enlgish” let alone needing remedial studies in it.
As you well know I am happy to fix such small errors for my commenters, but the price for such an indulgence on my part, is that said commenters do not use my own errors as a stick to beat me with. Hap has made it his practise to attack me here and elsewhere in the basis of my spelling. So in his case I am, at present, making an exception to my more usual live and let live attitude to such things.
Cheers
Iain
Yeah, I guess I shouldn’t criticise too much – its not like I use cut and paste or type properly either!
Anyway any views on the lack of impact of the US surge? You seem strangely quiet on that one….
Rgrds,
PKD
.
Ian
that is another topic for another time, especially as I have not been paying that much attention to Iraq of late.
Aah, once again you have mistaken my inability to spell your name for my own – (who the hell calls their kid Ian with two ‘i’s – its just not normal!). Just like my inability to type ‘mindless’ correctly or to use a spell checker…
ON more interesting matters, I am gobsmacked you have not been paying attention to Iraq of late!?! It’s one of your fav topics? Anyway the link to the BBC article I gave you on the other thread should bring you upto date – and it’s not good news.
Rgrds,
PKD
.
No Ian
You signed off thus on a previous comment
And the spelling of my own name is actually quite common in Scotland.
If you look back through my blog you will see that there are other things that I write about and my choice of topics tends to go in cycles. Iraq has been mentioned in relation to certain court proceedings but I have had other fish to fry.
Cheers
Iain
Like I said before a type writer is not my writing tool of choice – it dont mean a thing other than another typo.
Anyway if I really was called Ian I’d be seriously tempted to change it be deed poll to something else given some of the more extreme views you’ve held – just like many people called Adolf changed there name after the war…
Rgrds,
PKD
.
PS – Dont bother complaining – its *slightly* tongue in cheek – and you asked for that one!
Rgrds,
Ian
this is not the first time you have accidentily signed of on a post as “Ian” you also did so in the BWW days, so don’t try to pretend that it is not your name. OK?
I can take a joke so I won’t complain about the previous comment.
Adolf,
No, its not my name but my bad typing – but then obviously neither is PKD. But I suggest Adolf, that if you wish to be called the name you would prefer, then you do likewise to others, hmm?
Rgrds,
PKD
.
Oh my! This topic always gets them going doesn’t it.
‘Windschuttle’s rationale is pretty simple to understand. He only accepts murders and violent deaths which can be verified by a certain standard of evidence; there are very few government records about such deaths; and most Tasmanian settlers were good Christians and would never purposefully engage in killing.’
Well I think that’s part of what he says, and why he’s criticised. To claim that one can successfully count each individual death in order to come to a definate tally disregarding all other factors and possibilities is, in my opinion, actually quite funny. For some reason this high standard doesn’t apply to historians in so many parts of the world, on so many issues, but it does here for Windschuttle. That good Christians won’t kill is also a humerous notion in my book for obvious reasons.
Gross exagerations have given birth to Windschuttle there’s no doubt, and he has exposed some of them. But to simply expose wrong doings doesn’t immediately make your own version any more convincing. And I didn’t find his version convincing.
It would have been good if he did without the polemics and ignored his overt ideology. He claims this was neccessary because the ‘orthodox school’ don’t critique each other but that’s wrong. Reynold’s book on Tasmania completely disregards the claims and tallys made by Lydall Ryan and asserts his own more modest estimations. He also explicitly denied that the evidence shows it was ‘genocide’, and he did all this years before Windschuttle came and threw them all in the ‘genocide’ camp. Broome has come to far different conclusions many times in regards to disease as well, yet he’s also ‘one of them’.
This is no longer a rational debate about evidence and facts, it’s a ridiculous side show in the culture wars.
Excellent points Madd – I don’t know too much on this particular topic, but what you say seems to make a lot of sense.
Rgrds,
PKD
.
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=6079
which is rather hollow because you did not deny being Ian at BWW.
this viewpoint is worth considering in the light of this post.
PKD
I am happy to address you by what ever name you please but don’t try to pretend that your signing off on that post as “Ian” was a typing error.
On the keyboard the letter “I” is close to the “p” but the “a” is a long way from the “k” and the “n” is likewise far enough from the “d” so that your claim that signing off as “Ian” was a “Typing mistake” does not fit the facts.
Just admit it you slipped up and now you are fiercely trying to do a Jeremy Sear here
I found several things wrong with that piece Iain:
There was a popular xenophobia that the government did little to curb. The Chinese lived in fear and humiliation which continued into the early 20th century.
These days staging a Sorry Day for Chinese doesn’t fit in with that race’s understanding that to survive you must adapt. They follow a proven formula: you get a job, you then get a mortgage and you then hang on like grim death to your job to pay off the mortgage.
This appears irrelevant considering that the Chinese were themselves immigrants. There was no dispossession of their land, only xenophobia once they arrived so their position is an entirely different one.
A problem most of non-Aboriginal Australia has is the number who have identified themselves as Aborigines but who are in fact 50 per cent or less Aborigine. Only a minority today look anything like those in photos taken in the 1890s. Who would we actually be making a treaty with?
Sorry but this is crap. As HR has said, these kinds of ideas went out in the days of eugenics. Culture determines where you belong and if you’re from a family which has held onto their historical traditions then this defines you more than whether you’re a quadroon, octoroon etc…(sorry bout the offensive titles to who may be reading but what’s the diffence).
The January 26, 1788 is referred to by some as Invasion Day. That label is potentially divisive. There was no invasion.
I’ve always found this claim interesting because even some of those on the first fleet had mentioned that what they were effectively doing was invading. Are they right, or are later generations?
The outcome is referred by some as The Stolen Generation. The records show that there was a significant amount of goodwill behind a very misguided policy which caused the Aboriginal people much misery.
Goodwill? Well not in all cases, and certainly not in the cases where policy was influenced by people like Cecille Cook. For an in depth look at the practice of child removal I suggest one look into these papers compiled by Robert Manne prior to a debate with Andrew Bolt(I witnessed) on this issue. Let’s just say that Bolt didn’t come out unscared.
Also in the period 1910 to 1970, thousands of unmarried white girls had their babies removed. They were dismissively told: “It is for the best dear”. What happened to the babies? Will they get a Sunday when Sydney Harbour Bridge will be closed off so that 250,000 can walk across in their memory?
This is horrible but this tactic is, and has always been, a joke. It’s the ‘you talk in defense of X, but what about Y? This must mean that you don’t care about Y so why should we care about X’? Come on.
I agree that some things have gone too far but land rights are not misguided, in fact they’re uniform across many western countries and just. The dispossession was horrible for Indigenous people and killings did often occur. Especially up there in Queensland Iain.
Did my link work or not?
http://www.themonthly.com.au/Documents/stolen.pdf
Whatever Iain – you can think my name is whatever you want – I don’t really care – but online you can call me PKD!
BTW – Read your link – I do disagree with the ‘not owing an apology’ if the Aboriginals haven’t had it – they certainly deserve it. I think the last thing they would want is sympathy from those people who have caused their misfortune in the first place!