It seems odd to me that there is no thread on this subject already.

Julie Bishop calling Australian Academics 'Maoist'and claiming that left-wing intellectuals have hijacked Australian History raises a raft of issues in my mind.

Why would a large body of the most intelligent and highly educated people in the society be left-wing? Why would people who spent their whole lives studying Australian History have a different view on it than our Prime Minister?

Would a loyalist, royalist history be an objective one? It could certainly discount all that rubbish about aborigines being unfairly treated when every right thinking (pun intended) person knows that their problems stem from their being hopelessly over-indulged.

Let's get back to the facts, eg James Cook discovered Australia in 1770. That's clear, that's simple, that's history John Howard style. What does it matter if it is wrong? It is simple and it promotes conformity with WASP ideals and that is what is important, isnt it?

You'd think President Howard would want to avoid talking up white Australian history considering very little of it supports his position on just about anything.

An industrial relations system very like the one he's trying to create here caused so much poverty that the prisons overflowed and convicts had to be shipped somewhere else, thus Australia was settled.

Various working class solidarities produced our more memorable events like Eureka and the shearers strikes, the Labor party, the Harvester judgement. We've had more evenly distributed wealth than almost any other country and less unrest. Working class solidarities and unions have been an important part of Australian history, which he's dismantling.

Clobbering on about Anzacs is celebrating a war we got into to please Britain and which needlessly killed too many of us. Right now we're in another war to please another country we're not particularly fond of.

Which bits of history would they like us to know that won't make them look like nation wreckers?

No need to whitewash the arrival and settlement of White Australia, I say TELL IT..WARTS AND ALL... and even to the point of suggesting that the best thing indigenous Australias could have done is kill every white skin landing on their shores. But they didn't, and paid the price.

But at the same time, our young people must be educated about the BIG picture of history and their place in it.

We must connect our 'now' to the whole stream of western history, and this must include reference to such events as the collapse of the Roman Byzantine Empire, the Rise of Islam and the Battle of Yarmuk.
Then the crucial battles of Tours and Vienna where expanding Islam was finally stopped.

There are great lessons to be learnt from Tours, Charlemaigne had fewer soldiers but they were DISCIPLINED and well trained.
The exploits of bravery by the Poles at Vienna are to be admired.

We cannot understand the white settlement of Australia apart from these events.

Then, we have to explain clearly that history is basically not about 'fairness' but brutality, war and territory. At the same time, it can be shown that invasion and dispossession are not the worst things in the world. The assimilation/absorption of the Angles, Saxons, Vikings and French Normans into 'England' is an example.

But just don't ask a Welsh person how they feel about the English :)

If it was possible to undo the horror of dispossession, by all means encourage it. (My "hero" is Robert Mugabe) Taking BACK the 90% of good land that the 10% of whites stole, leaving the 90% of blacks to the worst 10% of the land.

We also have to be realistic enough to anticipate the polarization of our own indigenous community, and their exploitation by outside elements (Radical Islam being one).

Anything less than honest history will backfire on any government which seeks to delude its population with a sanitized version.

There are very few 'goodies' in history. Mostly just baddies. "us" and "them". Also, we don't have to repeat the 'might is right' approach.

DB,

Am I correct in knowing that there Jewish people on the first fleet (1788, Sydney Cove)?

Julie Bishop did Chairman Mao a great disservice.
Mao would never have tolerated the trendy armchair leftists who infest our academia & press.For all his faults, Mao was a realist.

Rob513264,
"Why would a large body of the most intelligent and highly educated people in the society be left-wing?"

I wouldn’t agree that the most intelligent & highly educated people in society are leftwing history teachers.

They used to say, those that can, do it.
And those that can’t, teach it .

The most intelligent & dynamic people are usually too busy making history themselves.

Dear Gadget
I'm sure there must have been. I don't know it for a fact, but I'd guess there would have been a small number.
Your point ?
cheers