I think the most shocking thing I've discovered since getting back here is that there really are still people like Keith Windshuttle around. Much New Zealand's Elizabeth Rata, this guy seems to be a disaffected academic who's decided to stick it to the man rather than admit they have a professional leg to stand on.
A nice irony in this accusation is that Henderson, who's accusing Windshuttle of being a "Marxist turned conservative waging a personal war on the very left-wing interpretation of Australian history that he once embraced and proclaimed", is something of a Conservative and is effectively turning his back on what he might otherwise have endorsed.
This little difference aside, that Windshuttle can even try to claim that the White Australia Policy didn't exist, or is justifiable, is totally beyond me, and smacks of the worst kind of historical revisionism, of which Henderson is guilty (if I remember correctly).
Windshuttle is part of a larger 'culture war' that's been going on and off over here for a number of years now. In brief, the culture war is all about what to do with all that unsightly past Australians seem to not know what to do with. But, sweeping it under the carpet is only likely to make walking through Australian history like a stroll in a bouncy castle.
What Windshuttle subscribes to is a version of Australian history I've heard called 'three cheers for Australia', or the 'white blindfold' approach. He first came to prominence a couple of years back with a book called The Fabrication of Australian History, where he argued that Tasmanian Aboriginals weren't actually killed by settlers, but died of disease and inter-tribal warfare.
I haven't actually viewed the pages of Windshuttle's book, I don’t want to dedicate my scant time to being pissed of by it, but it irks me to think that someone is even writing this kind of stuff, but I am pleased it raised enough hackles amongst historians for an entire conference and published reply.
Essentially, his argument is fairly sound and logical. There's simply not enough evidence to suggest that Tasmanian settlers systematically massacred Aboriginal people. He concludes therefore that it never happened, and is instead a myth perpetuated by 'the Left' to maintain their university tenure. Big call, and an explicit attempt at under-carpet-sweeping.
Naturally, this line of reasoning was embraced by 'the Right' as part of their campaign against what in the late 1980s another guy called Geoffrey Blainey called the 'Black Armband' version of Australian history. Blainey was on form during this time in joining with John Howard in his condemnation of multiculturalism and the need to reappraise letting too many Asians into Australia.
This stoush continues to centre on how the individual wants to understand Australian history, either as an ongoing drive to create a prosperous and modern nation, or as a litany of exploitation and imperial domination. Naturally enough, there's all kinds of positions between these two poles, but what both boil down to is the kind of nation-state citizens of Australia want to imagine themselves belonging to.
Certainly, there is a little liberal white guilt in the Black Armband version, and a little cultural Darwinism in the White Blindfold, but both indicate that no-one is really happy with the nation's past.
Accentuating this problem is the ongoing reality of Aboriginal people's marginalisation in Australia. While the comfortable white people argue about what they have and haven't got to be sorry about, Aboriginal people are dying in droves as young as their fifties, and the remote communities are an absolute shambles.
It's interesting therefore that the only real news over the past few weeks has been the Hikoi conducted by an ex-Aussie Rules player named Michael Long, and the acceptance of a new paradigm in Aboriginal policy by several Aboriginal leaders. Interesting because the old 'rights' based arguments of the 1970s and 80s seem to have gone out the window in favour of a new approach.
Now, while any approach that stops Aboriginal kids from suffering pre-WW2 diseases like glue ear is OK with me, but what the new system seems to like is a nicely maternal system where Aboriginal communities are essentially placed on 'good behaviour bonds' in return for Federal money. Some commentators are calling this a paternal system, but this is a misnomer in my estimation. Exactly the same idea was tried in the Mission stations here in Victoria in the early 1920s with the imposition of 'matrons' to teach 'manners' to the inmates.
The new paradigm in this case turns on getting some traction on disparity statistics in remote and rural Aboriginal communities by using a system called 'mutual obligation', which argues in layman's terms that 'you can't get something for nothing'. A prominent Aboriginal social critic called Noel Pearson has been arguing this idea for something like ten years, and it's interesting to see that veteran Aboriginal rights activists like the Dodson's changing their tack to affirm Pearson's ideas.
What seems to have occurred is that Aboriginal activists have realised that Howard isn't going away, and a grim determination to work with Him has gelled. The real test though will be whether Howard's 'spritely' version of Australia and the way he wants it to be will actually deliver anything for Aboriginal people.
As it is the new accord is being called a 'new deal' for Aboriginal people, and involves Howard appointing a fourteen member 'council' that is used as a consultative body much like the old New Zealand Maori Council. The threat is of course that this National Indigenous Council will be used as a means to rubber stamp ideas like the 'washing for petrol' scheme that is, as mentioned, essentially a good behaviour bond.
What Pearson really talks about is the need to find means to make Aboriginal people in the remote communities feel that the dole money isn't 'free', but that they've got to give something back to their community in return. Howard on the other hand, is using mutual obligation as a way to appear to give a toss about Aboriginal communities, even though he withdrew untold funding from the former peak Aboriginal representative body, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC), and used the behaviour of its Chairman Geoff Clark as a justification for finally abolishing it.
The trick in this instance is the shifting of the onus onto Aboriginal people. By indicating that the need to 'get on with it' is the responsibility of the Aboriginal people themselves, failure to improve outcomes for the minority can be blamed on them. And, yes, this is a very cynical approach, as Chris Pearson over at the Australian points out. But, my gripe with this approach is that it smacks of an 'all care, but no responsibility' approach by White Australians not willing to deal with their own role in putting Aboriginal people in this position in the first place.
And, even worse, I was appalled at the entire panel of Insiders, a current affairs talk show I watch on ABC on Sundays, Conservative and Liberal, agreeing that the privatisation and individualisation of Aboriginal communally held lands was a necessity. Something also argued by Warren Mundine, national Vice-President of the ALP and member of the National Indigenous Council. These people need to read about the Maori Land Courts of the 1800s.
Sure, individual title itself won't be a problem, but in a political atmosphere that specifically wants to see Aboriginal people integrate into the Australian nation as 'dark-skinned' Australians, the threat to what remains of the once-rich tapestry of Aboriginal culture and community is profound.
Finally and on a more positive note, it's interesting that a post of four words gets more mail than anything I've ever written. Maybe we all watch too much TV.