I've made a comment on this piece at my blog - http://larvatusprodeo.redrag.net/2005/04/11/moses-v-windschuttle/ - which is where Negri's response to Windschuttle was first published.

More commentary on Negri & Windschuttle can be found here:

http://larvatusprodeo.redrag.net/index.php?s=negri

Moses says in the above piece: "It is obvious that my chapter disapproves of 'wild analogies with Nazi genocide' in general". This is not an honest account of the content of his book's chapter, where Moses writes:
"I am not suggesting that the entirety of Australian history can be reduced to genocide. (No one suggests that studying the Holocaust reduces German history to Nazi genocide.) But neither is it possible to regard the country's genocidal moments in the manner of an industrial accident. They are not contingencies, attributable to misguided or wicked men, but intrinsic to the deep structure of settler society."
This is not so much a wild analogy with Nazism as a sleazy one. Denying it in this forum is even sleazier.

Keith Windschuttle never misses an opportunity to revert to type. In his posting here, he exemplifies, in a beautiful way, the problem I noted about the approach that he and his ilk take to avoid real debate:
"Equally typical in these skirmishes is the history warriors’ avoidance of the actual arguments that historians make. Instead, they fall upon a minor point or footnote they think is vulnerable and rush into print to claim the scalp of a historian, or they ignore the main point altogether. For instance, Windschuttle ends his reply to me by simultaneously raising and avoiding the central issue in my book: “Moses argues the more outlandish claim that genocide was intrinsic to the deep structure of settler society.” Nowhere does he explain the nature of my claim or why it is outlandish although surely that is what readers want to hear from him. It’s easier to try to create a scandal by saying I support Churchill. Frankly, this is risible."

While I think it may be argued that 'genocide' is a term whose meaning has been stretched in its application to mainland Aboriginal dispossesssion, this is not so with reference to Tasmania. I think that Moses' thesis about the structural underliers to Tasmanian settlers' genocidal behaviour is sound, and I find arguments linking colonial genocidal behaviour, eugenics and the Holocaust interesting.

On the other hand, no-one would suggest that Windschuttle is a 'genocide-denier' in the way that, say, David Irving is a Holocaust-denier, would they? That would indeed be a "sleazy" analogy with Nazism.

Great article, Dirk.

Leaving aside Windschuttle for just a moment, it is easy to understand why Churchill's poisonous rant caused such a outcry in the beginning. It makes me ill when men crap on and on about how awful each other's version of hegemony is, native or non-native. What a load of rubbish, in his tiny and unfriendly world there are no innocents nor beneficiaries only western automata who have never done anything good for anyone. How lucky for him and us that he can tap out his sad cant and have it reproduced on the very Internet that, amongst other examples of western technological progress, offers so much educational promise to women across the world and might one day even rescue them from the idealogical brain death imposed on them so frequently by people like him.

I wonder how the historians in the distant future will view our society and us? Perhaps our moral superiors of the future will condemn us all for allowing tyrants to steal from and murder their people whilst we sit around doing nothing about it? Who knows? It doesn’t really matter because none of us will be around to defend ourselves.

I think Keith Windschuttle is wrong when he says that Dirk Moses’ analogy of Australian “genocide” with Nazism was not wild. Have a read of what Dirk says,

"I am not suggesting that the entirety of Australian history can be reduced to genocide. (No one suggests that studying the Holocaust reduces German history to Nazi genocide.)”

If that is not a wild analogy, it is at least a direct one. He then goes further and infers that Nazi genocide can at least be attributed to a small number of “misguided or wicked men”, but describes Australian “genocide” as an intrinsic part of an entire society. What does that mean Dirk? Do you really think that our pioneers were worse than the Nazis? German people aren't judged today on the Holocaust, why do I get the feeling that modern Australia is being judged by these revisionists?

It’s a disgraceful reflection on the state of the study of history in this country when the only way for an historian to gain acceptance from his peers and secure tenure is to jump on the “black armband” bandwagon (to borrow a term from Mr Blainey). The treatment dished out to Keith Windschuttle is proof of what happens when you don’t toe the line. How many school kids have heard of Ludwig Leichhardt, Edmund Kennedy or Thomas Mitchell? I bet they all know what “genocide” means.

Bozzie,
before you go demanding explanations for or interpretations of decontextualised fragments from my book -- or indeed from any other -- you need to equip yourself with the information to participate in this debate in an informed way. This means you need to read my book. You also need to read Keith's, as well as others in the 'history wars'. You will find the answers to the questions you pose there. You don't even have to buy the books; they are in libraries.
Dirk

Dirk – Your statement quoted is a direct analogy between settler treatment of Aboriginals and the Nazi Holocaust involving the deaths of millions Jews and Gypsies. It doesn’t really matter what context it was in. If you really don’t think there is any comparison to be made then why mention the Holocaust at all?

My questions relate to the impression that you differentiate between Nazis and the German people as a whole but do not extend the same differentiation to the Australian people. The one passage from your book was enough to make that impression on me, but I agree that I would need to read more to see if my impression is fair or not.

I have read many books on this subject, Reynolds, Ryan and Windschuttle, amongst other. Most seem dedicated to the cause of using history to promote current political aims. At least Windschuttle appears to me to be trying to uncover the truth of our history and put it in the context of its time.

I do intend to read your book, that is after I recover from the shock of paying $42.95 for it!

Bozzie I do not need historians of the future to condemn me for sitting around and allowing the inhuman things that are happening in the world - and in this country. I condemn myself all the time but I am powerless to stop these things happening.

Didn't you know there were white settlers who condemned the behaviour of other white settlers - the ones who perpetrated the inhuman things that Windschuttle tries to deny happened. I guess they didn't know how to stop it happening either.

But do not be so sure that Windschuttle does this to achieve tenure or acceptance from his peers. It seems obvious to me from listening to him in interviews that he has a huge chip on his shoulder and a degree of paranoia.

His big mistake is to believe that University 'elites' are out to get him because he takes a view opposed to theirs. The truth is that his research and scholarship are poor, driven by his personal agenda and not up to the standard required by the elites.

I don't really understand this academic point scoring. All I know is that an aboriginal being hunted down in 19th century Tasmania probably felt the same about it as a gypsy or a jew on the cattle trucks in 20th century Poland. Persecution of other human beings because of their race or perceived difference is always wrong. Whether one type of persecution was more wrong than another type...well, I guess non-experts like me will always remain bewildered and confused about the energy expended on such arguments.

Ringtail – That is one of the points I am making. It would be unfair for future historians to judge our society without taking into account the context of that society. A future historian describing hatred of homosexuals as being “intrinsic to the deep structure” of our society would be quite wrong. Yet that is what your “elites” are guilty of. I know that there were plenty of whites who were appalled by some of the treatments dished out to Aboriginals. It’s a pity the revisionists give this point scant attention.

Your statement about Windschuttle’s standard of scholarship and research is just plain wrong. If you want to see some good examples of shoddy research, twisting of facts and outright fabrications just read some of the stuff by Henry “All Historians are Fallible and Make Mistakes” Reynolds and Lyndall “Historians are Always Making up Figures” Ryan.

Enjay – The point isn’t whether or not persecution is wrong. That question has been answered long ago.

Jews might have been exterminated simply because of their race, but Aboriginals were not (they were not exterminated, nor were they killed just because they were Aboriginals).

You might not think that the factual reading of history is important, indeed many of our prominent historians believe that history is better “imagined” than uncovered, but since we’re always demanding truth and honesty from our politicians, our police, and our business leaders, it shouldn’t be too much to ask it from our historians as well.

I'm not sure about the points being made - do some people think that the 'Blackarmband' view presents the attempt to wipe out the Blackfellas as worse than other genocide attempts?

It seems to me that Windschuttle is trying to minimise what happened and say that it was not really a bad thing.

But surely there is no denying that some settlers wanted to wipe them out - debating the numbers is like trying to argue about how many angels can dance on the end of a pin.

What does it matter if some people - the blackarmbanders err on the side of exaggeration? How does that hurt the 'winners'? But denial that it was a serious event for the Indigenous really does hurt them.

Why does Windschuttle want to do this?

The quaint idea seems to be circulating that, because Mr. Windschuttle found a few errors in the work of two historians, the entire edifice of Aboriginal History comes crumbling down. Some people choose to believe what they want to believe, it appears, and no amount of evidence one adduces will change their minds. Those open to reason may be intersted in the insightful analysis of the 'history wars' by Martin Crotty, an historian at the University of Queensland: http://www.brisinst.org.au/resources/brisbane_institute_crotty_history.html
He answers this quaint idea very well there.
Dirk Moses

Dirk Moses implies that, contrary to Keith Windschuttle’s claims, orthodox historians don’t exaggerate “claims of genocide and Holocaust in Australia”, and he cites as evidence Windschuttle’s omission of an article of his. But Windschuttle didn’t mention Moses in his book at all. Because it doesn’t purport to cover every historian who ever wrote an article; rather it analyses those historians whose books made history. Where they implied that genocide took place Windschuttle says so, where they denied genocide, he says that too.

But if, contrary to his slurs, Moses agrees with Windschuttle that claims of genocide in Tasmania are fabrications, why did his essay in "Whitewash; on Keith Windschuttle’s Fabrication of Aboriginal History" concoct an elaborate ad hominem “denialist syndrome” to try and tag Windschuttle as a “denialist” akin to David Irving (who denies the holocaust)?

The academics condemn Windschuttle for presenting too many facts, too few, too pitilessly, or anything they can think of, and so box themselves in to defend their indefensible colleagues. This “entire edifice“ comes “crashing down” as soon as anyone checks the facts.

Windschuttle discovered that Lyndall Ryan’s claim of “a conscious policy of Genocide” in Tasmania was totally fictitious. A few erroneous footnotes as Moses twists it, is actually habitual falsification. For example, Ryan implies that Robinson's diaries recorded 1400 Aborigines shot, whereas they report about 188 shot – a “minor point” that has not been addressed by any academic to this date.

We are not talking about a "few errors" of two historians here as Moses turns it but dozens of errors made by Reynolds and Ryan and many more made by many more orthodox historians. And the “mistakes” nearly all overstate British violence, which suggests ideologically driven fabrication.

A score of academics wrote Whitewash, a book full of sound and fury signifying absolutely nothing. Anyone who thinks it makes a case should check out the facts, because they dig the academics deeper into their mire of malice, misrepresentation and malpractice.

Whitewash is analysed chapter by chapter in my book: Washout, on the academic response to Aboriginal history. http://www.wakefieldpress.com.au/books/washout.html

John Dawson

Dirk – A few errors? Very quaint indeed. By “those open to reason” I take it you mean those who already support your view. But I agree that everyone should read Crotty’s analysis. If read with an open mind it’s not quite the insightful demolition job you think it is. It’s so full of holes it wouldn’t flap in a cyclone.

I also think people who are interested should obtain Windschuttle’s Fabrication of Aboriginal History, the academic compilation Whitewash, and John Dawson’s Washout and read all three in conjunction with one another.

Dirk, have a read of some of the comments on this thread. People really believe that a systematic attempt was made in this country to wipe out an entire race of people, and that this attempt was supported and condoned by government and society in general. People believe that organized “turkey shoots” of Aboriginal people were common place and normal. In essence they believe that every Aboriginal death and every Aboriginal child removed from a family was an act of genocide. Why would people have these views when they are clearly and demonstrably incorrect?

More and more Australians are rejecting this exaggerated and totally bleak view of our history and ourselves. Maybe some credibility can be restored if more historians stopped using history to push their politics. We need people like Keith Windschuttle and John Dawson, more now than ever.

Bozzie it seems as if you a patronising me and suggesting that I haven't looked into Windschuttles arguments and find that his point of view does not stand up to analysis.

I do believe that there was an effort to wipe out the Indigenous people. However, not all settlers were involved but the communications from some who objected to the practice clearly shows that it was happening.

Why would it not happen when they were not regarded by many of the settlers as human? If you see black people as a sub-human species, (as Hitler saw the Jews) then there is no reason why you would not exterminate them when they are causing you problems and stealing your property. It was the same as shooting feral dogs.

It amazes me that you are able to maintain that it didn't happen.

You think that to admit it happened is a bleak view of our history. I don't see it that way at all. It does not make our settlers any worse than any other human group through out history but to deny their behaviour and the general attitude of the times, present them as a group of superiour humans, which is quite absurd.

Molydukes says that "there was an effort to wipe out the Indigenous people”. How does she know this? She leaned it from: teachers, professors, journalists, museums, high court judges, Governor General's, etc. How do the teachers etc. know this? They learned it from historians like Reynolds and Ryan.

But historians like Reynolds and Ryan did not prove “that there was an effort to wipe out the indigenous people”, they faked it. How do I know this? As far as Tasmania is concerned, I know this because Windschuttle presented case after case after case where their references were bogus, their arguments fallacious, their narrative fictitious. When you subtract their furphies, they have no case left.

How do I know that it is not Windschuttle who fakes it? By reading the academics' official answer in “Whitewash”, and investigating the attacks of dozens of academics, and discovering that they do not dent Windschuttle’s thesis. In fact they prove it by their inability to answer his charges, and the disreputable means they employ to try to blur the issues, slur Windschuttle, and intimidate anyone who is convinced by him.

Molydukes claims that because some settlers objected to the Aborigines being wiped out, that “clearly shows that it was happening”. By that reasoning, the fact that some people today object to paedophilia, means that future historians will be able to condemn us as a paedophile society.

Molydukes claims that Aborigines “were not regarded by many of the settlers as human?”. No doubt a few settlers thought this, as a few think it today, but the vast majority, and certainly the cultural leaders, were of the enlightenment view that all men of all races were brothers. That is why settlers educated Aborigines, traded with them, converted, adopted, employed them – not the way you would treat sub-humans.

Molydukes is amazed that we are able to maintain that genocidal behaviour didn't happen. We go by the evidence. In Tasmania 120 Aborigines were killed, maybe a few more, mainly in self-defence or retaliation. A claim of genocide requires valid evidence. None has been presented.

John Dawson
http://www.wakefieldpress.com.au/books/washout.html

Mollydukes,
You are now officially a victim of an attack by history warriors. By daring to tell the truth contained in a library of books and articles on Australian history, they pin you against a wall and hiss "where is the proof?!" How are you supposed to do that in an internet forum? And how are you expected to convince the likes of Dawson who is precritically committed to Windschuttle? Let's recall that Windschuttle wrote the foreword to Dawson's book and published it in his vanity press. These are the type of people who think that academic historians are politically motivated but Windschuttle is not!

Note their tactic. Rather than rise to the challenge I made to them in my article here -- which entails reading my book and others like Tony Roberts' -- the pack has rounded on Lyndall Ryan (who, incidentally, did not make the claims attributed to her here) and Henry Reynolds. They simply ignore evidence and arguments that are not congenial to their dogmatically held beliefs. Note, too, that Windschuttle has been unable to contest any of my points in my article. He's hoping that people won't notice; judging by the some of the comments here, he's succeeded with some.

Don't lose heart. Their invectives don't count as scholarship among academic historians (from a broad range of convictions -- not just 'the left'). It it true that the history warriors have powerful friends in the media and government. For that reason, it's all the more important that you post the comments you do so that readers are assured that there is resistance to the trend evident in France, where a law has been passed mandating that only positive stories of its colonial past be told (see Sydney Morning Herald, 16/17 April, p. 24).

As a non-historian, I think that this contrived squabble, between a couple of fringe dwelling 'genocide-deniers' and virtually the entire establishment of academic history in Australia, smacks of the kind of totalitarian revisionism alluded to by Orwell when he wrote "Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." This is the kind of petty academic squabble that ought to have remained on the pages of obscure journals or confined within ivory tower seminar rooms, rather than being splashed all over mainstream media in an obvious attempt by the neo-conservative mainstream media to conscript the latent racism of their readership to the anti-Aboriginal cause.

If this had been the case, Windschuttle et al might have contributed something constructive to our understanding of Australia's shameful history with respect to Aborigines. In my view, the term 'genocide' has been over-used in its application to the dispossession of Australia's Indigenous peoples, but to my mind these 'deniers' damage their credibility irreparably when they attempt to assert, as Dawson does above, that only 120 Aborigines were killed by whites in Tasmania, on the basis that this is the number that is definitely supported by official records of the time - as if official records record the totality of social relations in the past.

One really has to wonder at the motivations of those who seek to sweep our appalling history of Indigenous dispossession under the carpet via such instruments of waspish pedanticism. Given the increasingly obvious agenda of the neo-cons to revert to a general policy of assimilation with respect to our Indigenous people, I suspect that the embrace by the right wing think tanks, media and Coalition of odious sycophants [deleted for flaming] represents more than a touch of the Orwellian project with which I began this post.

Readers can now see what Moses calls the “invective” of “an attack” by us “history warriors”, and compare it with his “academic” approach.

Notice today is Moses’s “denialist syndrome” day when he calls my denial that anything like genocide occurred in Tasmania a “dogmatically held” belief that “ignores the evidence that is not congenial”. What evidence? On what page of "Whitewash" (the official answer to Fabrication) is the evidence of genocide? Or, if its his “we deny genocide too” day (like 11/4), on what page is the evidence of more killings than Windschuttle says? (Whitewash actually notes 3 killings missed in "Fabrication").

Moses says that Ryan did not imply “that Robinson's diaries recorded 1400 Aborigines shot” as I attributed above. On page 175 of the revised edition of “The Aboriginal Tasmanians”, she says: “Even if only half the stories Robinson heard were true, then it is possible to account for seven hundred shot.” When I went to school 700 was half 1400. But then academics may work to a higher math.

Moses doesn’t like my “hiss” for "proof?!" Actually, I asked for evidence. When I went to school, we didn’t accuse people of despicable crimes without it. But then today’s academics clearly work to a different standard. I am “precritically committed to Windschuttle” as long as he provides evidence. When Moses provides contrary evidence I will be committed to his view. But his habitual ad hominem is evidence of nothing but his disgraceful methodology.

It is true that Windschuttle’s publisher published my book – it cost taxpayers nothing. Do you think any publicly assisted publisher, like Black Inc. or a University Press would have published it? They look after their own - publicly funded academics. But then I apparently have “powerful friends in the media and government”. I only wish Moses who knows all about them would tell me who they are!

Moses says I don’t “rise to the challenge” by reading his book. I didn’t ignore his essay in "Whitewash" when I “rose to the challenge” and wrote "Washout" in response. I challenge him to respond to it.

http://www.wakefieldpress.com.au/books/washout.htm

Garra says that I damage my credibility irreparably by asserting that “only 120 Aborigines were killed by whites in Tasmania ... as if official records record the totality of social relations in the past.”

“Fabrication” lists all the killings of Aborigines by whites over 30 years of colonisation that were recorded by: official records, letters, newspapers, diaries, journals, or any other means. These are rated as plausible, or implausible if negated by more compelling evidence. For instance many of the shootings recorded in Robinson’s diaries are known to be mistaken – as Ryan implies, barely half were credible (half of 188, not half of 1400).

The whole weight of academia tries to discredit Windschuttle's total of 120 killings. One “Whitewash” contributor argues that 120 is an “extraordinarily high” figure. Another argues that Windschuttle observes the objective truth but that that’s not what historians should do. Another says Windschuttle contradicts 170 years of scholarship but is not saying anything new. Others say he ignores mountains of source data, but don’t tell us what it is. Others present more furphies as “evidence”. Others say they have evidence of many more killings but don’t present it. Most lace their arguments with misrepresentation, insult, ad hominem and race-card rhetoric.

A lot is made of the possibility of “unrecorded killings”. But everyone agrees that colonial Tasmania was particularly well documented, and many of those who recorded violence (like Robinson) had a vested interest in inflating the number of Aborigines killed rather than reducing it. Apart from two years of martial law, killing Aborigines was a capital offence. And everyone agrees that the Aborigines bested the British in bush combat.

Could there have been more than 120 killed? Of course, but to arbitrarily assert that there were hundreds killed when there is no evidence, is a fallacious approach – you have to put forward some reason to at least suspect killings. All such arguments are dealt with in “Fabrication”. And the academics to date have not dented it –they just keep slinging mud.

http://www.wakefieldpress.com.au/books/washout.html

Mollydukes, genocide is the only thing I deny. To apply that term to the Tasmanian Aboriginals is absolutely incorrect.

Dirk – you should stand in front of a mirror, read your post aloud, and apply some of it to yourself. It’s almost beyond belief that you claim victim status in the debate, considering what Windschuttle has been through. And what do you mean Ryan didn’t say that historians make up figures all the time? That’s exactly what she said. I hope your book is more accurate than your post.

A good example of the way history is manipulated for political ends is the Risdon Cove incident in Tasmania in 1804. The actual eyewitness reports of the event say that several hundred Aboriginals charged into a settlers camp brandishing spears and clubs. The eyewitness’s plainly state that the Aboriginals were chasing kangaroos. The settlers fired shots and the military officer present shot a small cannon to disperse the Aboriginals. As a result of this 3 Aboriginals were killed and some wounded. 3 in the settler camp were attacked. Now that is the eyewitness reports of the incident.

15 years later the same incident is being retold with the Aboriginals entering the camp singing and holding branches as a sign of peace. They were met with a barrage of shots from a military detachment especially banded to kill Aboriginals. These days the number killed ranges from 40 to 100.

Why is the “new and improved” version the closest to the one heard today? What reason is there to disregard actual eyewitnesses? If the eyewitnesses wished to embellish the story, why would they say that the Aboriginals were chasing kangaroos instead of saying they attacked with murderous intent?

Of course the end result of this selective history is that Risdon Cove is now in the possession of an Aboriginal group. There’s much to be gained by the politicisation of history.

Garra – the debate is about genocide, not dispossession of land. Playing the race card is very old hat and not nearly as effective as it once was.

Most historians seem to agree that there were something like 5000 Aborigines lived in Tasmania at the beginning of the 19th century, when British colonists invaded the island. This number declined to zero over the next 70 years. Now, if the colonists were responsible for only 120 deaths, where did the other 4880 Aborigines go?

While we can assume that introduced diseases accounted for many, it would have to have been an unprecedentedly efficient pathogen to have achieved that kind of mortality. Even contemporary diseases such as ebola, SARS, etc do not kill with such efficiency. Even if the disease was caused by early 'germ warfare', this would have to have been a WMD that would have made a Saddam proud. What happened to the Tasmanian Aborigines who weren't among the 120 killed by whites or among those who succumbed to disease? Did they all conveniently leave the island by canoe, or did they leap, lemming-like, into the Southern Ocean? Windschuttle, Dawson & their supporters would have us believe that, because they can only 'prove' 120 official deaths, that is the total number of Tasmanian Aborigines who died at white hands during the brutal process of their dispossession.

What the protagonists aren't telling us here is that part of the argument lies in the definition of what constitutes 'genocide': notably whether or not genocide is confined to deliberate acts that are intended by one group of people to wipe out another sociocultural group. There is some controversy as to whether 'genocide' should be applied to the deliberate destruction of culture (as opposed to being restricted to the actual killing of people), and whether or not genocidal acts include those that, while in themselves were not murderous, represented unconscionable neglect of the victims. For the information of apologists like "Bozzie", you can't separate Aboriginal genocide from their dispossession from their land: that's why it was done, silly.

I note that Dawson has resisted my invitation to explain his motivation and that of the other 'genocide-deniers'. Please elucidate.

Dear Garra,

Genocide Denier here.
The entire paternal side of my grandfathers family were raised from their beds in the middle of the night by jackbooted National SOCIALISTS, sent by train to the ags Chambers, stripped, herder into "Showers" & gassed to death along with millions of others. This is not heresay, this is fact.
There is no debate as to the voracity of Genocide claims perpetuated on the Jews in WW2.

Please stop comparing the incomprehensible, just to score points!

Bozzie I think you are being too precious about the definition of 'genocide'. Words can change to accomodate changes in attitude.

The use of the word 'genocide' to include the wiping out of a 'race' of people, either by passive acceptance or deliberate policy or a combination of both is not something that one would object to unless one has an emotional (read irrational) need to deny that white people killed Indigenous people as if they were animals and were quite prepared to see them killed or die out.

I did not learn my attitude from the list of people who somebody provided - this list only emphasises the limitation of this person's knowledge of the real history of Australia.

My information came from my father who worked in the outback way back in the 30's and spoke to people who actually were involved in hunting parties who went out to shoot Indigenous people indiscriminately and there were no penalities. Police were involved in the hunting.

Also you might like to talk to Ted Egan who also has considerable personal knowledge of the behaviour and attitudes of many settlers.

One only has to talk to people in the outback now to see that the attitude is still very anti Indigneous and many of them will still tell you that they should be wiped out. Surely they haven't adopted this attitude recently.

All the knowledge I have about human nature, about the dynamics of settlement, about the racial beliefs of the time leads to the undeniable conclusion that 'it' happened.

What do you want to call it if not 'genocide'? This is just quibbling over semantics.

Bozzie, don't worry about Mollydukes. He/she likes feeling sorry for aboriginal people so the worse previous treatment of them appears, the more deeply apologetic Molly can be.

t.u.s.

This discussion is becoming ever less fruitful. The predictable polarity has emerged. Plainly, no learning processes will take place on these terms, so consider the following:

1) Who of you have read the UN Convention on Genocide and the writings of the man who invented the term, Raphael Lemkin? If you have not, you have not equipped yourself to participate in a discussion on the topic in an informed way.

2) Despite what Dawson, Windschuttle and their ilk think, hardly any historians advance a case for genocide in Tasmania. Reynolds does not, nor do I. Lyndall Ryan's book (how many of you know its name?) was written to show the survival of Indigenous peoples, not a conscious policy of genocide. There is no consensus among historians.

3) No historian in this country is arguing that a Holocaust took place in Australia.

4) The purposes of Robert Manne's edited book, WHITEWASH, is not to make a case for genocide. The claim of Dawson that it fails to do so and that therefore Windschuttle is vindicated is fatuous and yet another example of the diversionary tactics of the history warriors.

5) No-one has equated Windschuttle with David Irving. I have examined the issue of denialism more broadly in my chapter in WHITEWASH. Make up your own mind on it rather than rely on Dawson's contorted rendering of the argument.

6) There has been sufficient ill- or semi-informed speculation and emoting in these 'comments'. If they are to advance discussion rather than score points (which is boring and a waste of time), people need to spend some time reading what is out there before sallying forth on the net.

7) A structural feature of these 'comments' is that everyone wants to get in the last word and claim victory. Rather than succumb to this vain temptation, and because diminishing returns is now evident in the puerile attacks on 'Mollydukes', this is my last posting.

Enjoy reading some scholarship on these important topics -- if you dare. The intellectual labour involved is harder than dashing off a smarty-pants 'comment' about which one can boast.

Yes people, Dirk has obviously read far more widely than the rest of us so we are unable to comment on his article.

Kinda of self defeating really, because if he wanted to keep the debate in academic circles he could have, but instead he chose to post his extract on a public opinion website which attracts people from a wider range of occupations and backgrounds.

Not to be too pedantic, but Dirk's last post had accusations of people point scoring and trying to have the last word - when he stated he would not be posting anymore (last word) and mentioned Dawson Wndschuttle and their ilk to pointscore against people he disagrees with.

If he didn't know how some these forums evolve (or is that degnerate) he shouldn't have posted his article in the first place. But people are entitled to their opinions even if not informed at such as high level as Dirk.

I think generally the population of posters is well informed even if not all have advanced university degrees.

t.u.s

You’re exactly right, t.u.s. Very well said.

Dirk – if what you say is true; that is you and your “ilk” do not advance the idea of genocide, why is it that most people in this country believe genocide to have taken place? Why is the word constantly uttered when the subject of early treatment of Aboriginal people is debated?

There’s one point I think you miss entirely. Maybe it’s because you’re used to conversing on these points with others who spend their days reading and studying the subject. Most people have to earn a living and don’t have the same time or access to resources as you do. It’s your job to do the study and inform the rest of us, (I might add in an honest and un-politicised way). We might be the great unwashed, but we’re not all idiots. If it’s your view that genocide didn’t take place in Tasmania, then you haven’t done a good job in getting that message out. Instead of dismissing this forum maybe you could use some of the views expressed as a guide as to which areas of public perception need attention.

You and your friends politicize the issue to the extreme and then express dismay when the debate becomes polarized. Maybe when the study of history returns to the seeking of knowledge and truth, instead of the seeking of outcomes, polarization will need not occur.

Your petulant declaration of no more posts is disappointing. Thanks for posting your article, even though is must seem like feeding strawberries to pigs.

Mollydukes – knowledge of human nature, settlement dynamics and racial beliefs has absolutely nothing to do with actual events and contexts of early 19th century Australia. Contrary to the views of some historians today, history cannot be “imagined”.

Reading Dirk's posts here, it does not seem to me that he's expecting people to have a PhD in history in order to contribute to the debate. He's asking people to read a book or two.

I suppose he's saying like what else can academics do? Take out ads during the Footy Show? There is his book, of course, which no-one here appears to have read yet. And Henry Reynolds wrote one on genocide aswell in 2001 called _An Indelible Stain?_. Does anyone here know it?

Incidentally, Lemkin's writings are easily accessible online. Here is the key chapter in which he defines genocide for the first time.

http://www.preventgenocide.org/lemkin/AxisRule1944-1.htm

Instead of trading insults, why don't we share our thoughts on Lemkin?

First, Moses’ diminishing returns

1. The fallacy of Argumentum ad Verecundiam – see “Washout” p234
2. See below
3. The fallacy of non sequitur extension – p235
4. ditto
5. bs – see p223-7
6. Verecundiam - p234
7. Spitting of dummy

With all his reading, academic “labour”, qualifications, tax paid income, and condescention, how many questions did Moses answer without misrepresentation? He says I ignore evidence and misrepresent Ryan. I ask him what evidence and produce proof re Ryan. He calls me fatuous, demands we name Ryan’s book, which I already had, but produces no evidence or Whitewash page. But today’s his “we deny genocide too” day. So does that mean Windschuttle’s right? Not likely, tomorrows another day. And anyway, until we read the UN charter we couldn't possibly understand.

Garra - why so convinced that diseases (e.g. influenza that killed those not immune and VD that rendered women infertile) couldn’t wipe out thousands of Tasmanians (probably two rather than five)? There’s nothing “unprecedented” about it, disease devastated all colonies, and the more isolated the worse the devastation. The Tasmanians were the most isolated people on earth. Why is Garra so convinced (without evidence) that thousands were killed by white murderers while all other colonists conspired silence?

Garra next demonstrates a favourite fallacy of the genocide brigade: equivocation (see p234). When asked for evidence of genocide they switch to a definition that doesn’t require any intent to kill, or even any deaths, just loss of language and customs. Then, having proved “genocide”, they throw the word around in contexts where everyone understands it to mean mass slaughter. This is not only grossly unjust towards the colonists, but (as Sayeret’s post demonstrates) gravely unjust towards the victims of real genocide.

Garra wants me to elucidate my motives. I’m sick of watching the craven injustice and supercilious ad hominem by academics such as Moses being hailed as scholarship. Academics once held the search for the objective truth as their sacred trust. The New Humanities academics don’t even believe there is such a thing.

http://www.wakefieldpress.com.au/books/washout.html

Bozzie Whatever you reckon. You may have no imagination but I do and it works for me. The most 'intelligent' people, for example physicists, have to have very fertile imaginations as well as the ability to reason logically, rationally and dispationately. Try doing that in relation to this issue.

What is your motive for wanting to defend white colonists?

Somebody else believes that they know and can recongnise good 'scholarship' and suggests that the idea that truth cannot be objectively known is restricted to Arts and Humanities faculties. I have to inform you that the idea is also known and accepted in Science Faculties. It is the only rational way to understand the world around us. Do some reading in this area also.

Why is the other side of this debate (Moses, Garra, now Mollydukes) so focussed on motives? What does it matter what my motive is? The issue is, am I right or wrong, and the answer is determined by evidence and logic, not by my motives.

But since Mollydukes asks, I’m not primarily defending the colonists, but truth. That leads me to defend the colonists because they have been unjustly maligned for crimes they did not commit. What’s your motive for maligning them Garra and Mollydukes?

Mollydukes says that “the only rational way to understand the world” is to understand “that the truth cannot be objectively known” – she knows this to be true.

But how can she know it to be true if “truth cannot be objectively known”? Does she “know” it subjectively? That means, not from the “world around us” but from inside her own mind (with or without a trigger from outside)? Why then need the rest of us be concerned about it? We may know subjectively the opposite is true for us from inside our own minds! So what do we do when our ideas clash? We can’t point to evidence “out there” to resolve the issue, so it comes down to how well we can manipulate and intimidate – is it any wonder the academics are so obsessed with “power and privilege”, they think it determines the “scholarly consensus” which determines their tribal “truth”.

When not engaged in ad hominem (such as applying insidious motivations) the academics are likely to be engaged in Argumentum ad Verecundiam, (the “appeal to reverence”). This fallacy assumes that the status of those who believe an idea determines its truth. Notice how, whenever they get stuck, they declare that we must “do some reading” to become as enducated as them.

If they’re so well read, they should be able to explain to us their enlightened ideas, or give us a reference where to find evidence. But simply claiming that because they’ve read something we haven’t that makes them right is, (to put it politely), a fallacious aproach.

http://www.wakefieldpress.com.au/books/washout.html

John and others: I don't think Dirk was taking the high ground and appealing to escoretic knowledge. He was saying, look, this debate is being conducted in an information vacuum. There is a brand new book out there on genocide that includes chapters by Reynolds, Manne, Haebich, Evans, McGregor and others and that's where you'll find answers to the questions raised here.

I'm not surprised he left the thread -- the subsequent posting bear out his exasperation at the points-scoring and pedantic nature of the discussion. We are rehashing old issues.

No-one seems interested in Lemkin, either. Pity. He says something about the relationship between genocide and colonialism on the first page of the link I posted. Is anyone interested in learning something here?

Dump Hux – Whatever Raphael Lemkin meant when he coined the term over 60 years ago bears no relation to what it means now. The word literally means, “race killing”, and it is in that context that the word is used today.

When settler treatment of Aboriginals is discussed, the focus on their loss of culture is quite distinct from the discussion of their “genocide”.

Since Dirk has taken his bat and ball and gone home I can’t ask him so I’ll have to ask you Dump Hux; what makes you believe that this thread has been conducted in an information vacuum? People can only respond to the information available. I’ve read quite a bit on white impact on Aboriginal society, and on Aboriginal society in general, over the last 20 years or so, and every other post here has a relevant point of view to express. You could hardly describe John Dawson as having scant knowledge of the subject.

Mollydukes – what are you talking about? We’re talking about the study of history here, not short story writing. History is, (or should be), non-fiction. It deals in facts, or at least the logical, rational, and unbiased interpretation of events and evidence to arrive at what can reasonably be believed to be the facts. Your political views or the application of a fertile imagination to ignore, twist or deliberately misinterpret facts should not be a factor. David Irving probably “imagines” that the Holocaust did not take place. According to your logic, he is right.

Mollydukes, my observation is that when a scientist says that the truth about a particular thing cannot be objectively known, that in itself is an objective statement. I suspect that most scientists would take you to task on your comments.

I was right; this is indeed all taking place in an information vacuum. Your statement, Bozzie, on Lemkin says it all. According to international law, genocide is not just race murder. What makes you a greater authority? And why did you want Dirk to stick around to educate us when you've clearly made up your mind about everything already? Why do you stick to Windschuttle as reliable and non-ideological when Moses and Bonnell showed pretty clearly that he had totally perverted the facts of the Negri case and Moses book? And why do you think Dawson is an authority? On his own admission, he's simply compared Windschuttle's and Manne's book and drawn his own conclusions. That's not scholarshp; that's a hatchet job performed in the name of his mate and publisher, Keith Windschuttle. How can we take this seriously? You keep revisiting boring issues with Mollydukes. I see that you did this with the Bonnell article. In your hands, this forum has become a site of very low-brow intellectual w-nkery. Note that no-one else bothers to post anything any longer. What's the point?

Difficult to argue the whole ‘truth’ and ‘objectivity’ thing here and pointless, as Dump Hux, points out because you blokes (making an assumption that John and Bozzie are blokes) already know the truth.

I am not maligning the colonists. Read my earlier posts without feeling so angry at the position I take, you might be able to see that.

I do not ‘know’ that ‘truth cannot be known’. I am convinced by the rationality of the argument, by the evidence from neuroscience and psychology that explains how the brain functions. My background is psychology, if you do not believe that is a science, fine. Research psychologists do see themselves as scientists and the limitations on human objectivity are well accepted by these scientists.

I am not declaring that you do some reading. I ask you to critically and as objectively as is possible consider your own responses. Understand where your emotion comes from, what assumptions you make about the world and the judgements you make about the types of people involved in settlement.

You ask for references. You could find them for yourself if you are motivated to understand why this idea is so widespread in Universities.

Surely it is more rational to believe that the view is compelling and makes sense, rather than to imagine that academics have lost the plot? Do you have a convincing rational argument as to why so many supposedly intelligent people have been so easily fooled by a dud idea?

Bozzie History should be non-fiction but what is a ‘fact’ and what is not, is not as easy to determine as you seem to assume. If it was there would be no argument. David Irving is wrong because there is convincing evidence that he is wrong. There is not the same level of convincing evidence for this argument and will not be, because of the circumstances of settlement

Dump Hux, the only “information vacume” here is yours. You ignore what doesn’t fit your preconceptions, so you have an information hole until you hear something familiar – are you a student of Moses?

People play with words, at the UN they do it all the time (bloody dictators are champions of freedom and Western democracies commit genocide). But as Bozzie says, in our context genocide means deliberate “race killing”.

I don’t know the Negri case, but as far as Tasmanian history is concerned I have investigated all of the accusations made against Windschuttle and (with a very few very insignificant exceptions) Windschuttle is right and the academics demonstrably wrong.

If you read the above posts, you will see the pattern. Bozzie gives the example of Ryan saying historians make up figures, I give the example of her falsifying Robinson’s diaries, Moses says she didn’t. We produce the evidence, he ignores it, emotes insults, says he has read more books so he must be right, and moves on. This is what they do all the time. And they accuse everyone else of doing exactly what they are doing – it is practically pathological.

I first assumed Windschuttle’s book must be at least partly mistaken. It wasn’t until I investigated all the academics “answers”, that I knew Windschuttle was right. The evidence is there, you don’t need a PhD to work it out – in fact, given the humanities standards, you need that like a hole in the head – literally.

http://www.wakefieldpress.com.au/books/washout.html

So John go back to the beginning of the forum, add up the nasty words and you will see that you win hands down and that the first insult was by Windschuttle.

The next example of abuse is from someone who objects to Moses’s argument. There does not appear to be any abuse from anyone on the black arm-band side or is this a ’truth’ that I can’t see? Dirk does resort to sarcasm but it is not in the same league as John’s invective.

Bozzie is not particularly abusive but refuses to see that he is missing the point Moses is making about the use of the word ‘genocide’.

Also Bozzie exaggerates what ordinary Australians believe. As Enay says the numbers or proportions don’t matter, we just know that some settlers did indiscriminately kill Indigenous people and we call that genocide. The word genocide is used because it is convenient and because the meaning has become ‘debased’ if you like.

You say that is the only thing you object to and I say you are exaggerating the whole issue of the correct use of words. But are you sure that is the only thing you object to?

Because later you state that Aboriginals were “not exterminated, nor were they killed just because they were Aboriginals” but none of the rebuttals that you or anyone has offered here convinces me of that ‘fact’.

There are other books (and sources) apart from those written by black-armband historians in which I have read descriptions of turkey shoots and attitudes toward black people.

Motive is important because I think it is the motives 'genocide deniers' attribute to 'black-arm-banders' that gets you so emotional and irrational about the whole issue. Now that is a ‘truth’ that you cannot or will not see.

Bozzie says that historians need to stop pushing their politics. Hello! that is exactly what Windschuttle and you blokes are doing. We cannot help but base our arguments on our world-view (not our politics as politics also are based on world views).

Dump Hux – thanks for your high-browed summation of the debate. Your insightful commentary is breathtaking in its scope.

Mollydukes – I don’t feel angry at the position you take. Unlike Dirk and Dump Trux I want to know other people’s position on things. I’m interested in the opinions of others and I’m interested in how they’ve arrived at these opinions. I try never to close my mind to anything,that doesn't mean that I can't hold certain convictions. I agree with John Dawson when he asserts that motivations don't matter, as long as the scholarship can be honestly backed up with facts.

I imagine that the early settlers were people much like ourselves. I think that their lives were somewhat harder than ours today, with no social safety-nets to fall back on. I think they found themselves in a totally alien environment in harsh conditions, with no other means of long term survival other than their own labour and resources. I don't think that they were anymore prone to commit murder than we are today. They were a product of their times.

I agree with you Mollydukes that the study of history is not always as black and white as we would like. That shouldn’t be a license for shoddy scholarship. If some of the "Whitewash" crowd were detectives investigating a crime, they’d be on trial for fabricating evidence and perjury.

My interest here is the understanding of our history. I believe, and ample evidence exists, that this history has been abused to bring about political results. It is this debasing of scholarship that true academics should be attacking, not defending.

I’m glad I win “hands down”, but if she checks I think Mollydukes will find my words are descriptive rather than nasty – and backed up. She won’t find words like “hiss”, “fatuous”, “puerile” and “smarty-pants” amongst them. If she doesn’t think such words are abusive, then yes, that is a truth she doesn’t seem to see.

Mollydukes says “there are other books … in which I have read descriptions of turkey shoots and attitudes toward black people.” No one is denying there were violent white people, either justifiably in self defence, or unjustly initiating force (not all Aborigines were nice either). But we are discussing whether there was anything like genocide.

Windschuttle argues that: “conflict was sporadic rather than systematic. Some mass killings were committed by both sides but they were rare and isolated events where the numbers of dead were in the tens rather than the hundreds. The notion of sustained ‘frontier warfare’ is fictional.” The first volume of Fabrication has proved this in spades for Tasmania. Volumes 2 and 3 will make his case for the mainland.

Academia, and the 600 strong Australian Historical Association, have been out to get Windschuttle by any means. If he were wrong, don’t you think someone would have found something Moses could have used here to back up all his ad hominem? I challenged him to give us the page numbers in “Whitewash” where we may find evidence that would contradict Windschuttle’s death toll. Did he come up with anything? He just evades the challenge by misrepresenting it then demands that we read more of the academics' books. When we do that, and investigate, and find them to be as fallacious as Whitewash, he’ll have a dozen more books to demand we read (if we "dare"). The academics can keep this up indefinitely - at your (taxed) expense. In the meantime Windschuttle has to fight at his own expense. But he’s winning because he has a huge advantage. He can focus on digging up the truth, whereas the academics have to keep coming up with ways to obscure it.

http://www.wakefieldpress.com.au/books/washout.html

Bozzie You claim that Dirk doesn’t want to know other people’s opinion. Why did you say that? It is inaccurate and illustrates your bias attitude. Clearly, he spat the dummy over the ‘abuse’ not over the opinions.

Did you notice your misrepresentation, or do you honestly believe it is ‘true’?

Anyway, I am happy to get rational and not say nasty things.

Lets talk about whether there was ‘anything like genocide’. I say there was something very like genocide.

But if you define genocide in the way that you want to define it then there was nothing like genocide – no death camps, no deliberate government policy of extermination. Discussion finished.

But..the point is that not many of us – academics or otherwise believe that that definition is the 'truth'. Not many of us are interested in counting the numbers. Do you understand that?

You do not seem to understand that for a lot of people the ‘truth’ is more than the black and white history war that you characterise it to be. We have not been hoodwinked by the schools, by Dirk and his ilk.

A more complete and accurate understanding of the ‘truth’ of settlement dynamics and whether there was anything like ‘genocide’ requires that one thinks about ‘genocide’ in a broader sense.

When Bozzie says that he imagines (note that Bozzie you do use your imagination) that the early settlers were much like ourselves, that is where he goes wrong.

They were the product of their time and their time was very different from ours. Think about what life was like in 19th Century England

Children worked in the mines and mills. The death rate was high and the life span low. Black people were exhibited like animals and the philosophy of the day did not admit them as humans.

A recent book I recommend for an idea of attitudes during settlement is “My Dear Spencer the Letters of F.J.Gillen to Baldwin Spencer” http://www.biblio.com/books/2699507.html

Gillen, a decent man who says he prefers the Indigenous (he calls them ‘nigs’) to many of the white settlers, knows a policeman who participates in ‘turkey shoots’.

Gillen is an educated man who corresponds with a respected anthropologist. He was only mildly critical of these ‘turkey shoots’, and did nothing. The anthropologist did nothing.

This is entirely consistent with the way my father described attitudes of the outback people toward the Indigenous in the 1930’s. They detested the Indigenous people, thought they did not deserve to be on the land and thought it a cryin' shame that they hadn't all been shot.

These were not bad men and women. That was just the way it was and even more so back in the 19th century. Think about it.

Perhaps the problem is that you are imagining too much, that the settlers were good blokes just like you. They were good blokes but were still happy to see the Indigenous people die out, or be killed by not so good blokes

I wish to correct a statement made above.

I said: "Whitewash" actually notes 3 killings missed in "Fabrication".

Two of these were recorded in "Fabrication" after all - from a different source.

So in fact "Whitewash" identifies only one killing not discussed in "Fabrication"

John Dawson