Flip-flop from the Fabricator
Keith Windschuttle, late last year:
The responsibility of the historian is … to stand above current political squabbles and aims and objectives and to try and get at the truth.
What the historians of Aboriginal Australia have done is they’ve taken sides in disputes.
They’ve supported one faction over another.
Keith Windschuttle, yesterday:
Windschuttle told a conference in Perth yesterday the indigenous communities were the legacy of a 100-year-old policy of segregation that was continuing to fail Aboriginal people.
He said Aborigines would be better off in urban centres where they could have access to jobs and social services.
[...]
Yesterday, addressing a convention of the West Australian Pastoralists and Graziers Association, he mounted a spirited defence of the state’s 1930s chief protector of Aborigines, AO Neville.
Windschuttle said Neville was portrayed in the film Rabbit Proof Fence as a heartless, calculating bureaucrat, but he in fact was the opposite of racist and had properly supported the integration of Aboriginal people into the wider community.
Speaking before his speech, Windschuttle claimed Neville was right to seek the closure of remote Aboriginal communities.
“Remote communities are a legacy of our past,” he said.
“In the 1930s Neville advocated getting rid of them and it is a tragedy they have continued this long.”
If that’s not taking sides in a dispute, supporting one faction over another, I don’t know what is. Windschuttle is getting involved in “current political squabbles and aims and objectives”, which is the main accusation he levels at his opponents.
He doesn’t hold himself up to the same level of academic scrutiny as he demands of his opponents, and he doesn’t hold himself up to the same standards of political neutrality as he demands of his opponents.
The man is a hypocrite.
Update: When I first read about Windschuttle’s comments, I suspected he was launching an attack on native title. That was, after all, the reason he published his controversial book. Sure enough, that’s what he was on about, according to a story on page 6 of today’s West Australian:
Remote Aboriginal communities were a failure and native title claims were based on misrepresentation of Aboriginal culture, historian Keith Windschuttle said in Perth yesterday.
That Windschuttle’s understanding of Aboriginal culture is fundamentally flawed has been thoroughly demonstrated in the blogosphere. Even Ron Brunton rejects his pathetic attempts to deny that Aboriginal people had a concept of land ownership.
But what of his claim that we should simply move people off their traditional lands? I reckon that’s a cop-out. Most of the problems faced by Aborigines are found in both the cities and the bush. Health and education prospects are worse out back, but the same goes for whites who live in the country. Imagine the outrage if we said remote white towns were a failure, that their citizens were voting with their feet and moving to the cities, and that we should close them down? It’s fundamentally wrong, and we need to look at ways to revive remote communities generally.
In my opinion, the narrow rights that native title confers are the real problem with land rights. If that title confered real, economic title to the land, it might go further (but by no means all the way) to making those communities viable. But that’s just what Windschuttle wants to avoid.
Rather than continue the divisive abuse, wouldn’t it be more helpful to address the point Windschuttle is making: that remote communities are failing at all levels and closure may be the only viable solution. Experienced, rational people of good will need to become involved in this debate. Abuse won’t attract them. The time is well and truly over when apologists for leftwing, patronising policies controlled the game by branding any critics racist.
I didn’t call him racist in this post. I called him a hypocrite, which he plainly is. That doesn’t mean I’m dismissing his idea (I haven’t got time to analyse it at the moment), I’m just pointing out that one of his main arguments is that the “orthodox historians” were writing polemics to justify their contemporary political beliefs. Many of his opponents suggested Windschuttle was politically motivated. He denied it, but now they’re proved right.
Robert,
The first Windshuttle quote is from a discussion of the so called “history wars”. Mr Windshuttle is referring to the distortion of history perpetrated by leftist historians aiming to “prove” that the arrival of Europeans was “like an invasion of the Nazis”. The passage in full is as follows:
Can I just say, Tony, Stuart criticises me in his book as lacking compassion.
The responsibility of the historian is not to be compassionate, it is to be dispassionate.
It’s to stand above current political squabbles and aims and objectives and to try and get at the truth.
What the historians of Aboriginal Australia have done is they’ve taken sides in disputes.
They’ve supported one faction over another.
They’ve taken a political charge that Australia has this deep shame at the root of its history and have tried to make it into a big political case.
As far as I know, his claims of leftist historical fabrication have not been refuted.
Mr Windschuttle’s comments at the convention of the West Australian Pastoralists and Graziers Association are his opinions — no doubt grounded in exhaustive research — on some of Australia’s Aboriginal policies. Surely Mr Windschuttle is entitled to voice his well-informed opinions. At least he didn’t try to pass off assumptions based on fabricated evidence as scholarly history.
Windschuttle accused Reynolds et al of “sexing up” the historical record of Aboriginal dispossession in order to push for land rights. He said this was wrong.
His book was aimed at doing exactly the same thing — if Aborigines had no system of land tenure, and if they were responsible for their own suffering (because they were murderous criminals and whores) then there is no case for native title. Even the anti-native title Ron Brunton has said Windschuttle’s claims that the Aborigines had no concept of land ownership was wrong. In other words, he massaged the historical record to support his contemporary political goals.
He’s guilty of the crimes he accused others of committing. He is a hypocrite.
He didn’t massage the historical record, he drew different conclusions from the evidence. In any event, there has been no refutation of his claims of leftist fabrication. What has he fabricated?
He didn’t massage the historical record, he drew different conclusions from [selective reference to] the evidence.
Tomayto, tomahto.
What has he fabricated?
A history of the Tasmanian Aborigines.
My opinions on this topic are well known. I don’t propose to repeat myself everytime someone joins the blogosphere. Read the archives of Mentalspace, Troppo Armadillo, Road to Surfdom and Back Pages Blog for the full debate.
Okay, so you’ve refuted Windschuttle. Please point me to the academics who have refuted him.
This is an old debate, Whiplash. I suggest you trawl through the archives. I’ve already mentioned that Ron Brunton refuted him. So have many other academics; it shouldn’t take you long to track them down.
“Whitewash” and “The History Wars” should be a good starting point.
“I suggest you trawl through the archives.”
At least it will be easier then finding the “Stolen Generation”.
The interesting slides in Robert’s positions are typical of the campaign to denigrate Windschuttle. His “crime” was that he detailed Lyndall Ryan’s blatant FABRICATION of sources in the book on which her whole career has been based. If Robert took the time to read what he actually SAYS about land ownership, he’d find that Windschuttle’s argument is very different from how it has been presented by his critics, and the language aspect of it far better based than his critics let us know.
Ever wonder why Lyndall Ryan disappeared on “Retreat”, then took an unexpected sabbatical last year? Ever wonder why her Ourimbah Campus Book Launch of “Whitewash” took place without students [not to mention many staff] being told?
At least she’s no longer in charge of Australian Studies, having been moved to a new special position. But students don’t need to know about such things, do they?
In the meantime, provided one has the sort of faith found once in the Crusaders, but still alive in those who “know” their cause is unquestionably “noble”, just attack anyone who questions the Emperor’s New Cothes. Why, you might even construe a discussion of Neville’s policies in the 1930s, as a dastardly example of interference in current problems.
On the other hand, you could consider applying the same “logical” rigour that you apply to others, to your own pet fads.
No flip-flop required, Robert. I know I’m a little late in commenting on your 27 Feb blog but here goes.
As far as I’m aware Windschuttle has never suggested that historians aren’t as entitled as anyone else in the community to have an opinion on issues of the day or to express it freely be it in speeches to the PGA, letters to the editor or elsewhere.
I am pretty certain that his argument is that the ‘expression’ of a historian’s opinion shouldn’t ever take the form of falsifying their academic work to support a particular political or ideological position. A historian can, in their capacity as a private person, take any side he or she likes but professionally they shouldn’t be manipulating the facts and the evidence to support a particular faction.
I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again in a slightly different way: a historian’s personal political leanings may influence the conclusions and arguments they draw from the facts and the evidence but if they present the facts and the evidence accurately and fully, the reader can reject the historian’s conclusions and draw his or her own. That can’t happen if they don’t provide you with an honest presentation of all the evidence.
Today, when I’m reading a book on some aspect of history, I wish I could have the same level of confidence I used to that the footnotes refer to documents that actually exist and if they do, that they actually say what the author claims they do.
As for your comment: “Imagine the outrage if we said remote white towns were a failure, that their citizens were voting with their feet and moving to the cities, and that we should close them down?”
Have you done any travel anywhere inland lately? “White” towns have failed, the citizens did vote with their feet, i.e. went somewhere with jobs and a future. There are plenty of others on their way out with shop after shop shut, houses empty and only a few families left.
There is a difference between supporting towns and areas which are going through a bad spell (eg drought) but should eventually come good; and keeping alive something that should have had the plug pulled on it long ago. Isolating aboriginal people in remote reserves/missions/settlements was a bad (and racist) idea in the first place. It kept them far away from the jobs, educational opportunities, access to health care, etc, etc that we in the cities take for granted. Oh, and the difference between the level of problems faced by aborigines in the cities and those left in the remote communities is astronomical. Yes, the people in Redfern are in a bad situation but Redfern holds a miniscule (and unrepresentative) fraction of the urbanised aboriginal population.
There has been too much misery perpetuated in remote settlements for me to believe that artificially propping them up is doing the people living there a favour. Windschuttle didn’t suggest forcibly removing people but anyone living in a remote community should be encouraged to go someplace with a future and offered incentives to do so. Why is keeping aboriginal people isolated from the rest of Australia in remote settlements where there are no jobs, no facilities and no future still being promoted as a good thing?
As for Windschuttle having been refuted, I’ve yet to see anything that seriously addresses the issues he raises, let alone refutes his position. He may be wrong on minor issues such as the fire-making skills of the Tasmanian aborigines but on the big issues, no-one has laid a glove on him. Pretending that his position has been demolished doesn’t make it so.
Have you done any travel anywhere inland lately? “White” towns have failed, the citizens did vote with their feet, i.e. went somewhere with jobs and a future.
That was exactly my point. Do you hear people calling for the destruction of what’s left of those towns? No, instead we demand (for example) that more doctors head out there. We don’t offer them incentives to move to urban areas, we offer them incentives to stay put! To paraphrase your good self: “Why is keeping country people isolated from the rest of Australia in remote settlements where there are no jobs, no facilities and no future still being promoted as a good thing?”
It’s usually the same people (pastoralists and miners) who want the government to prop up white towns but close down remote Aboriginal camps.
I am pretty certain that his argument is that the ‘expression’ of a historian’s opinion shouldn’t ever take the form of falsifying their academic work to support a particular political or ideological position.
Windschuttle’s book was written with a political aim in mind. He wants an end to land rights, among other things, and seeks to reinvent terra nullius. Anyone who has objectively read Whitewash or a variety of other reviews and critiques will know that Windschuttle went to the Tasmanian archives with his mind made up, selectively read the sources, and ignored or discredited a wealth of information that contradicted his thesis.
You seem to have missed the part where I said: “There is a difference between supporting towns and areas which are going through a bad spell (eg drought) but should eventually come good; and keeping alive something that should have had the plug pulled on it long ago.”
A lot of small and a few not-so-small towns have died without the need for people to call for their destruction. No-one had to get up on a soap-box and say “Let these towns die!”; they were simply allowed to ‘die’ when the economic reasons for their existence passed. With modern transportation and communications, services such as shops and medical facilities have contracted to larger centres. Mechanisation and other factors have reduced the size of the workforce required to run many rural industries. Which has meant a stream of country people relocating as has happened throughout history.
There is a difference between, on one hand, trying to encourage doctors (most of whom would rather enjoy the lifestyle available on the coast and in the cities) to take up positions in country towns that are economically viable over the long term and, on the other hand, keeping remote communities without a viable economic base alive purely by subsidisation. There is a difference between providing temporary drought relief and permanent dependence on welfare. I don’t recommend the latter to anyone. But there is no question that governments have to get tougher on subsidies to rural areas. If there is no reasonable prospect that the market for a particular crop, such as sugar, is going to improve, then the responsibility of government is to provide ongoing support for those currently dependant on that industry while at the same time encouraging them to take up a viable alternative even if that means moving elsewhere.
As far as I can tell, Windschuttle’s position with regard to land rights is that they don’t solve current problems for the aborigines. Since much of Australia isn’t ever going to be subject to successful land rights claims (largely because the traditional connection to the land had been severed, i.e. anything worth having, we colonisers have already taken), most of the land that aborigines will wind up getting back isn’t going to provide a viable economic base for its owners. In other words, owning a million acres of worthless desert isn’t a big economic leap forward for the aboriginal people. It may be a moral victory but you can’t eat moral victories.
I’ve seen the argument that he ignores or discredits evidence before. In every case that I’ve followed up on, I’ve found that there is a good reason why that ‘evidence’ didn’t affect his thesis. (As in the case of the evidence of the ex-convict Edward White regarding Risdon Cove.) You do have to discard evidence if it isn’t reliable, if it doesn’t come from a credible source, if there is other evidence from much more credible sources that contradicts it. By the way I have read Whitewash; and from my humbly objective point of view, it’s just more of the same post-modernist tripe that Windschuttle rails against. It simply didn’t address the issues he raised.
There is another factor that should be considered and that is the question of what a particular piece of evidence proves. For example, evidence that a particular massacre such as the Myall Creek massacre actually happened proves just that. It doesn’t prove that every alleged ‘massacre’ really happened. The fact that one colonist or a group of colonists may have done something unconscionable to the aborigines in one area at one time does not prove that all colonists everywhere in Australia were engaged in unconscionable acts against the aboriginal people.
Does Windschuttle have a political agenda? Well, he is certainly a conservative but it seems to me that he has had a key long-term agenda of addressing the incredible drop in standards in the history profession.
To quote Windschuttle: “My political agenda is that I think history has been spoiled by political agendas. I think the politicisation of history has been a disaster for the profession. I mean, good historians try and stand about their society and assess it evenhandedly, and they don’t become participants in particular political disputes.”
Which is where we came in, of course.
“My political agenda is that I think history has been spoiled by political agendas.”
Oh, puh-lease. You don’t really buy that, do you?
I’ll respond as briefly as possible, because I don’t have time to do anything more:
1. Sure, some white towns died out. So did some Aboriginal communities. And some of each should be kept going until they revive. But equally, some of each have been propped up despite no real prospects of survival.
2. I acknowledged that native title does not confer real economic benefits in the body of my post.
3. Some parts of Whitewash are better than others, but to dismiss the whole thing as “post-modernist tripe” is disingenuous. Neville Green’s chapter on the Pinjarra massacre is excellent, as is Mark Finnane’s on Windschuttle’s dodgy (to say the least) statistical manipulation.
4. I have never argued that Myall Creek proves every massacre. Nor has any other historian I have come across. By contrast, Windschuttle relies on the punishment meted out to the Myall Creek perpetrators to argue that all colonists, everywhere, were God-fearing and law-abiding. It cuts both ways…
Anyway, I think we’ll have to agree to disagree.
Sadly, robert, acdemic integrity has been dying out faster than a country town. Even Lyndall Ryan’s fellow academics have become increasingly coy about defending her against the fabrication charges, and [since you vivit the Cassandra's Cave Blogsite] you’re presumably aware of the fiasco surrounding her efforts to hide the issue from students at her own Campus.
What Windschuttle uncovered may not help causes you support, but don’t blame him for uncovering the gross fabrications of others. For anyone who has followed the events carefully, the most intriguing aspect of his “critics” is the manner in which they have poured out reams of words ["Whitewash" being the prime example] without actually responding at all to his most damaging claims.
I empathise with those who are primarily concerned about assisting ANY disadvantaged group. I do not, however, see anything creditible in trying to cover up extensive fabrications of history, on the grounds that you’re doing it for a good cause, or you don’t have time to check the material.
The Ahab principle may have been good enough for true believers in the Middle Ages, but it was out of favour, even before Vatican II.
I’m baaaack. Time flies when you’re having fun.
1. With regard to “But equally, some of each have been propped up despite no real prospects of survival”. Can I take this as agreement that the inhabitants of failed remote aboriginal communities (i.e. those with no viable economic base or any prospect of developing one) should be encouraged to move to mainstream towns for their own good? Maybe not marched there at bayonet point, but encouraged?
2. I didn’t suggest that you hadn’t acknowledged that native title does not confer real economic benefits. My point was that Windschuttle is not part of some grand scheme to get Mabo overturned and all native title wiped out, though he does believe that native title as currently understood is based on a mistaken interpretation of the aboriginal relationship to the land and the way they, as nomadic hunter-gatherers, ‘occupied’ it. How do you ‘return’ title to a particular piece of land to a particular tribe if, in pre-colonial times, that tribe never had, or felt the need for, exclusive possession, if that tribe ’shared’ occupancy of that piece of land with other tribes, had no concept of ‘trespass’ and migrated elsewhere as and when it suited them?
His comments to the PGA were about the fact that remote settlements are not a benefit to the aboriginal communities that live in them but a failed policy that disadvantages them. From his writings, I interpret his opinion on land rights to be the same as my own, that is: an enormous amount of time, money and effort has been spent pursuing a land rights agenda that in the end won’t give the aboriginal people an acceptable economic result. Real social equality stems from economic equality. You can’t ’spend’ the same time, money and effort twice and it would have been better utilised trying to do something with real economic (and social) benefits for the aboriginal people.
That is something that frustrates me about a lot of government policy and spending. They spend millions or billions on taking some sort of token action that won’t do any good (but is popular) and then run short on funding for things that actually do good.
3. I suspect we will never agree on the worth of the contributions of Neville Green and Mark Finnane (or any of the rest) to ‘Whitewash’.
Neville Green’s analysis of Pinjarra struck me as a classic case of picking and choosing the bits, from the available documents, that suit his desire to portray it as an planned ambush and massacre while glossing over the causes for the conflict and, more importantly, Stirling’s attempt to open negotiations rather than resort to violence as the first option. It places way too much reliance on accounts by those not present, in particular, a Perth newspaper report as well as always choosing the most negative and extreme interpretation of the official documents. (I really wish someone would post the entire unexpurgated content of all the Pinjarra official reports, newspaper reports, etc on the Net rather than just be reliant on excerpts.) Much of it is just a matter of Green’s interpretation and which document he chooses to quote from.
Even so, just as an example, the parts the correspondence between Lord Glenelg and Stirling that Green does refer to make it pretty clear that Stirling’s threat, made to those captured and then released, of general destruction of the tribe was no more than an audacious bluff intended to frighten the tribe into ceasing its raids. Lord Glenelg made it clear that even so, Stirling had gone too far in making that threat, as they didn’t want the native population to believe that the British would ever countenance such action. This attitude is significant, in my view, but Green just glossed over it.
Mark Finnane’s contribution gives new meaning to the words: “lies, damn lies and statistics”. It would qualify as a first rate ’smoke and mirrors’ or ‘blind them with science’ attempt to divert attention away from the causes of the violent conflict, the actual death toll (as compared to other places where genocide actually was practiced) and the all-important INTENT of the parties involved. You suggest that Windschuttle manipulated the statistics. I know who I think did the real dodgy bit of manipulation.
I strongly suspect that a principle purpose for publishing ‘Whitewash’ was simply so that there would be articles and reviews (written, of course, by those sympathetic to the orthodox view) saying that Windschuttle had been refuted. A lot of people would rely on such reviews (without even reading ‘Whitewash’, of course) and be discouraged from reading ‘Fabrication’ and judging for themselves. Why read a book that has already been ‘refuted’? ‘Whitewash’ itself doesn’t do the job it was supposed to. I’d call it a bluff.
4. I didn’t suggest that you or any historian argued that Myall Creek proves every massacre. My point was that if any historian wants to argue a case for genocide or frontier warfare, they have to go a long way beyond analysing one incident. It takes a ‘big picture’ approach based on reliable evidence, an analysis of all the reliably recorded deaths along with the reasons for them, to support one side or the other on that issue. From what I’ve seen, Windschuttle has done that kind of analysis for Tasmania in ‘Fabrication’ and demolishes the case for genocide there. No one has come close to refuting his work. I’m waiting anxiously for the next volume.
And Windschuttle never suggested: “all colonists, everywhere, were God-fearing and law-abiding”. It is a little disingenuous to say that he did. His work uses Myall Creek as one example included along with a lot of other examples (other incidents, other trials, proclamations from colonial Governors and so on) to show that while there were those who murdered and otherwise mistreated the aborigines, the colonial administration did not tolerate it and took action against those who acted against the law. Such action would, of course, always be limited by the ability to prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt in a British court of law where, of course, there were real problms if, for example, the only witnesses are people who don’t speak English and have no understanding of how British justice worked.
On Windschuttle’s agenda, of course there is a political aspect to it just as there is a political aspect to just about everything, something can only be apolitical if there is no possible way to relate it to current politics. I just don’t think that his agenda is what you seem to believe. I really doubt he expects to overturn Mabo, eliminate native title or restore the British Empire.
You can trace Windschuttle’s long-term agenda of addressing the drop in standards in the history profession back at least to his 1996 book, ‘The Killing of History’ which was expressly about historians rewriting history and distorting it for their own political or ideological agenda. Interestingly, in that book, he actually praised the work of Henry Reynolds regarding aboriginal ‘resistance’, no doubt because at the time he was a believer in the orthodox school.
There are political elements to ‘The Killing of History’ because that is what it is about: people rewriting history to suit their own political or ideological agendas and the incredible fact that they really think that it is justifiable to do so. The same is true of ‘Fabrication’.
For me, the fundamental issue is always going to be which school of thought produces reliable real evidence to support their arguments. Windschuttle has proved that much of the evidence the pro-genocide, pro-frontier warfare crowd relies upon isn’t reliable and produces solid evidence to support his main arguments. While, overall, I regard Windschuttle as more right than wrong, there are some aspects of what Windschuttle writes that I disagree with. For example, he interprets aboriginal raids to obtain desirable European goods (flour, sugar, etc, etc) as criminal acts rather than as acts of resistance. I agree that they weren’t acts of resistance but I think he needs to re-examine the cultural attitudes of tribal people. The taking of something of value from a person outside your own tribe was rarely viewed as a criminal by tribal people (though it may be inadvisable if it invites reprisals against the tribe). Anyone not of the tribe is generally regarded as either an enemy or potential enemy. Taking something of value from them makes the ‘enemy’ weaker and the tribe stronger. It wasn’t that long ago that the European/Western attitude to taking loot from an enemy was the same. A similar attitude towards killing someone outside the tribe has long been a feature of tribal societies. I think it is a weakness for Windschuttle not to look beyond criminality as an explanation for aboriginal raids. But then there are always minor mistakes made and the potential for improvement in anything new. That’s why they bring out revised editions (along with the need to sting us for more money).
I suspect , Tony, that even Lyndall Ryan would acknowledge [admittedly only to herself] that much of what you have written is embarassingly accurate. When the “Whitewash” was launched at her Ourimbah Campus, she returned secretively for the function, but it was kept such a closely guarded matter, that students [and most Newcastle University staff for that matter] didn’t know the book was being launched, or Ryan would be there.
Isn’t academia going in fascinating directions? Perhaps we need a book on its killing as well.
That book launch was a pretty telling measure of the stature of ‘Whitewash’ as a work of history/historiography. I wonder whose idea it was to pick someone who isn’t a historian and apparently has no knowledge of the issues to open the ’secret’ launch and praise the book and its contributors?
The scary thing, Norman, is how far the sort of attitude demonstrated by the adherents to the “orthodox school” of aboriginal history has spread throughout Western society in general, not just through academia. Now, something is true if it fits in with our view of the world and untrue if it doesn’t. We used to be a civilisation that tried to exalt reason over irrationality, truth over falsehood. Now we just want to believe what we choose to believe and demonise anyone who has an opposing view.
There have always been those who manipulated the facts to suit their own purpose. Political correctness gave that sort of conduct some sort of respectability; it’s OK to lie for a good cause. It is one of the most insidious and destructive ideas ever to emerge. Academia used to be the bastion against the darkness of superstition and unreason, now it is a surrendering to the barbarians. Who knows where that is leading us?
When the barbarians aren’t so much at the gates, Tony, as already inside, and in charge of the gates, it doesn’t auger well. It is, in fact, one more occasion on which I hope I’m wrong although sad to say, while my record hasn’t been quite as good as the mythical Cassandra’s, it’s proved unpleasantly accurate in the past.