December 17, 2002
NASTINESS DOWN UNDER:
Story of nation's birth turns spiteful (Misha Ketchell, December 16 2002, The Age)The debate among historians over the extent to which Aborigines were the victims of violence and genocide is getting nasty.Reputations have been attacked, insults traded, legal action threatened. It could seem excessive, until you consider what is at stake. This is a battle over the story of how a nation came into being.
There are two broadly opposing views of what happened in Australia after European settlement. Many historians believe Aborigines became engaged in a frontier war with European settlers.
They claim large numbers of Aborigines were killed in what some, such as Henry Reynolds, have described as a genocide. Art critic Robert Hughes and academics such as Lyndall Ryan, Lloyd Robson and Robert Manne all fit into this camp.
Over the past two years an attack on this version of history has been led by Keith Windschuttle, a Sydney-based former teacher of history and journalism who now works as a freelance publisher and author.
More important than the raw numbers is the question of what alternative there was. The encounter of aboriginal with technologically advanced cultures seems to have been destined to be devastating in the short term and beneficial in the long term. Get over it.
Posted by Orrin Judd at December 17, 2002 9:24 PM
Well, not beneficial to the Tasmanians in the long run, since they are extinct.
And while you or I might think that other survivors are
better off than they would have been, that's just another
example of projection. Hawaiians, to take an example,
are not all convinced they are better off now than they
would have been. And it's a mixed bag for them. Their
autochthonous religion was not very appealing, but the one they substituted for it isn't either.
Theyir life expectancy was 35.
Posted by: oj at December 18, 2002 8:34 PMThat's 35 better than 0.
And for Europeans of the time, it was also
about 35, so that's a wash.
Alexandra who is claimed to be an authority in this debate, has issued an unreserved apology to Windschuttle that was published in the Age a couple of days later. Apparently Alexandra made his comments not from an original copy of Windschuttle's book but from extracts supplied by journalists. So the 'plagiarism' debate seems more like a setup or stuff up to me.
Posted by: Tim at December 19, 2002 10:33 PM