Hi Paul,

Your reflection, that: "No matter what evidence you provide ...." may need some elaboration: what evidence do you mean ?

I fully agree with you, that "Shameful things happened to Aboriginal people .... " But you may need to fill out your conclusion: "That is enough evidence."

Well, no, it isn't. No evidence is, however you cut it, no evidence.

By definition, racists and bigots are happy to run off at the mouth with no evidence to back up their vile declarations, which commonly malign innocent and good people. I hope you are not anything like that, Paul :(

So my puzzlement still is: why do people so fervently believe something for which there is absolutely no evidence ? And, to boot, a story which is amazing, unbelievably heroic, and probably physically impossible. Where is the evidence that should be there, IF this story were true ? Documentation, newspaper reports, complaints by Mrs. Bennett, letters to and fro, etc. etc. ? Why is it 'missing' ?

Joe

Dear Loudmouth,

Where does the crime of being half-caste fit into your definition since this was singularly the most often used reason for stealing children from their families?

Does your failure to mention it show a scant appreciation for the policies and actions that drove the removal of so many children? Or do you see it as a valid default reason for tearing children from their mothers?

As to why I believe the tale of the children escaping the Moore River settlement is not only the testimony of those who did the walk but also the journalistic training of the author, her obvious regard for documentation, and her acknowledged research skills. Add to that her work was researched by a person very antogonistic toward Stolen Generation accounts but who found little to fault in her work. Given the above my default position is to accept and celebrate the account until proven otherwise. To me this is the logical thing to do.

Someone like yourself is determined to dismiss it for your own reasons but they have little to do with logic although you attempt to dress them up as such. For instance you ask why there were no newspaper reports. Perhaps there were but logic dictates it would entirely unlikely their families would be announcing to the world that their children had returned because they would face immediate recapture and possible prison sentences.

Look mate, you are certainly more reasonable than many on this forum but I recognise this is a blind spot for you. That's fine, I have them on other issues myself, but don't expect not to be called out on them.

Trust Paul1405, the claimed adoring 'good mate' of the CFMEU and the NSW Greens 'Eastern Bloc', to step in and try to poison the well against anyone who quite politely and reasonably asks what evidence there is for the far leftist religious martyrdom of the characters of the fictional novel, 'The Rabbit Proof Fence'.

It was clever getting it on the schools curriculums. That it is the subject for historical and social criticism MUST mean there is some truth in it. Typical left to aim at vulnerable young, developing minds.

The revolutionary left, an example being the far left Greens, likes to imagine it can win through demonisation, polarisation and through censorship, even of innocent questions.

That is where, for example, Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act comes in to threaten and cause journalists and the public to self-censor, lest their words (and thoughts!) “offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate” someone because of their race or ethnicity.

The environment of politically correct propaganda, intolerance, censorship, and demonisation of any opposing views being promoted by the ideologically preening left elite, their bully boy and girl sycophants in the media and by opportunist, egocentric politicians like Willie Shorten, can and does lead to more authoritarianism and more extremists, both left and right. That is not good for society.

In the US the centre left has thrown in the towel to the far left, who are undemocratically refusing to accept the result of the US election. All of those celebrities must be right, so don't think, just abuse and demonise. Heaven knows what manner and number of extremists, far left and far right (in opposition), are being fostered, only to emerge later through some horrendous personal-political stunt.

It is time that the illiberal left 'progressives', who are rapidly earning their nick as 'regressives' woke up to themselves. Even if only because it isn't serving their own political interests. In the US for example, Trump grows stronger because of wild, unreasoning, ranting left ideologues. In Australia, by comparison with left ideologies, One Nation are the honest brokers, reasonable and the political centre.

Dear foxy,

This is from a newspaper report the following year after the girls made their escape;

The increasing number of escapes
from the Moore River native settlement
is referred to by the Chief Protector of
Aborigines (Mr. A. O. Neville) as a
matter for concern. In his annual re
port Mr. Neville says that ten male and
eighteen female aborigines decamped
during the year.
"These were practically all adolescent
youths and girls, some of the girls being
enticed away by outside young men of
their own class," says Mr. Neville. "By
thus decamping the majority of these es-
capees committed breaches against the
Act and regulations, and rendered them-
selves liable to imprisonment. I do not
like to see these youngsters sent to
prison for running away, and it is very
rarely that a girl goes there unless the
offence is repeated more than once, but
this is a problem which is extremely
difficult to deal with.

The thought of these youngsters trying to make their way back to their families and country is sobering. It is not hard to imagine that most did not succeed but many obviously attempted to do so. I think of my kids at that age and wonder how totally lost they would feel.

SteeleRedux,

Was it anything like this, where the sources and documentary proof are available for all to scrutinise?

"Forgotten Australians are the estimated 500,000 children and child migrants who experienced care in institutions or outside a home setting in Australia during the 20th century. The Australian Senate used the term specifically when reporting on its 2003–2004 "Inquiry into Children in Institutional Care".
Children ended up in out-of-home care for a variety of reasons, mainly relating to poverty and family breakdown at a time when there was little support for families in crisis.

Residential institutions run by government and non-government organisations were the standard form of out-of-home care during the first half of the 20th century. Children in institutions were sometimes placed in foster homes for short periods, weekends or during holiday periods. There was a move towards smaller group care from the 1950s and a move away from institutional care to kinship and foster care from the 1970s.

Many of these children suffered from neglect and were abused physically, emotionally or sexually while in care."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forgotten_Australians

Maybe call them the 'Invisibles', who are never to be seen or recognised by leftist ideologues. Doesn't suit the politics, eh?

SteeleRedux, I won't comment on the movie but I will address your comment about children being removed just because they were half caste.
That is not correct. If it were correct then the Welfare Dept would have primarily taken the most available half caste children, those who resided in towns, right under the noses of police and Welfare Officers. But they didn't. My half caste husband, his siblings and thousands of other half caste children all grew up in the towns of the Kimberley, attended school, played sport and generally made themselves very conspicuous, yet were never even threatened with removal. If you study government policy at that time you will understand why. Apart from the aboriginal reserve, any aboriginal person who moved into a town had to have a job, which meant all the children had working fathers, sometimes mothers as well, and all children were cared for and educated.
As it is, the children taken were almost always children from remote areas like cattle
stations, who had no father present and mothers with no means of support. Many were pubescent girls,who were sexually active with the white stockmen others were outcaste because of their fair skin. Many of the fair skinned babies had been killed at birth because they were born outside their correct skin group.
The government policy at the time was to not interfere with full blood children as it was felt full bloods should not have their culture interfered with but the half caste children were different because they had white fathers and the government decided that if those white fathers wouldn't take responsibility for their offspring, then the government was obliged to, just as it did with neglected white children.
On a final note, the argument that those removed children should have been left to live with their culture is a fallacy, because most were more white than black, so their dominant culture was European, and as such, they had every right to be raised in that culture.