Thank you, Foxy, for these links. I've got a couple of items on Academia myself, so I didn't think it was so well-known.

But with the deepest respect, neither of those links were any use: they both assumed what needs so desperately to be demonstrated: is there any truth to the RPF story ?

I'll keep waiting :)

Love,

Jo

Dear Foxy,

I know you are finding this disconcerting, after all Loudmouth is a big fan of Windschuttle's historical writing in the past;

“Windschuttle writes exhaustively, thoroughly, citing evidence for each point, I suppose like a lawyer would in court.”

Yet Loudmouth has got it into his head, either through the writings of this so call historian or Bolt or some other Rupert hack, that the story itself is false. He has not a shred of evidence to support himself but that is his rusted on opinion.

I think in the past I have used the term 'willfully ignorant' but I'm not sure it fully describes what we are witnessing here. Loudmouth had taken these news stories and opinion about the movie and determined that the story itself must be false. It is completely fitting his mindset about indigenous issues but also on things like climate change.

He reminds me of this reporter interviewing Bill Nye recently;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKMxmYcfw8Q

Even when it is pointed out to him that the probably sources of his misinformation conclude the story is valid Loudmouth's ideology says NO! He wants someone to turn up at his house and lay the evidence out before him before even contemplating changing his stance.

Of course he exhibits a racist's perspective but it is also something relatively new.

I would be interested in your thoughts.

Hi Joe, I'm sorry for not getting back to you earlier on this. I didn't intend to divert attention from 'Rabbit-Proof Fence' by introducing 'Titanic'. I used 'Titanic' as it is a good example of a short time span historical event which has been well done from both a factual, and an entertainment perspective. I think it is a mistake to confuse the two. For me RPF falls into the entertainment category and I don't criticize it for any lack of historical accuracy.

Some of the basics of the move are true, there was a Mollie, Daisy and Gracie, and there was some kind of event in their lives, so the move at least from there is historically true. I think the producers achieved what they set out to do, and first and foremost that was to make an entertaining movie, there is nothing wrong in that. What else I can I say.

On the score of oral history, go to any court house and you will find judges and juries accepting oral history every day of the week.

First hand accounts are the most reliable, and therefore the most accepted, anything else may be treated as hearsay and not be acceptable. For those peoples who don't have a written history, doesn't mean they don't have a history at all, unfortunately sometimes it is difficult, or impossible, to authenticate that history.

My partner bombards me with oral history of her people all the time. Again can't prove or disprove it, just have to accept it. She claims the old people were charged with the responsibility to faithfully guarding the truth. They took that responsibility very seriously indeed, so its claimed, so it must be true. Such faith.

Hi Steele,

The problem is that there is no corroborating evidence for this amazing story, when there ought to be. No newspaper reports at the time, no mention in the 1000-page transcript at the Moseley Royal Commission in 1934 [available on my web-site: sww.firstsources.info on the WA Page], set up by the Labor Party after winning the 1933 elections, no mention at the Royal Commission or in any writings by Mrs. Mary Bennett, a communist and wonderful woman and champion for Aboriginal rights at the time and until her death in 1961.

And it is an amazing story: think about it, three little girls, setting out in the depths of winter to walk a thousand miles across unfamiliar territory, harsh territory most of the way, to arrive three months later in sweltering heat.

Do you think seriously that nobody - not even the 150 employees of the Rabbit Department working every day to maintain the fence - would have noticed them ? Nobody would have passed on their observations in the local pubs to the local newspaper, who would have sold the story on to the West Australian, a staunchly pro-Labor newspaper at the time ?

Every time we hear a story, we should routinely ask ourselves: what is missing from this story ? What should be there, if we wanted to corroborate it ? What is in the story which doesn't quite ring true ?

So what have we got ? A story, with no independent back-up, except some mysterious 'documentation' relating to the bringing of the girls from the Pilbara down to Moore River Institution. Nothing which can actually verify the story.

Do you think I like being a shag on a rock ? Do you think I wouldn't like to be one of the mob who cheer on the film ? Do you think I wouldn't like to believe without evidence, or question ? Bloody oath, but some accursed little germ in my brain says:

[sorry, there's more]

[continued]

check it out, does it make sense, how could you quickly verify such a charming and tragic story ? Such an amazing story: surely there would be some way to verify it, besides hearsay ?

I've knocked around the Aboriginal cause for more than fifty years now and I've witnessed quite a few scams. What, you think that Aboriginal people are so simple, so childlike, that they are incapable of cooking up stories ? Or at least embroidering stories, filling in the detail as they imagine it might be ? Even unintentionally ? Babies thrown down wells, or massacres: then excavate. Disproportionally too many deaths in custody ? Do the stats. Stolen children ? Check out their ample files. Secret women's business ? Then why no mention for 150 years, and why did some women - just as embedded in the group - not know anything about it ?

Actually doing some work and finding out can be very traumatic. 35 years ago, I did an income study at a community where I had lived, expecting to find high levels of poverty. I found that the average (mean) weekly income there was equal to the Australian average (median) weekly income. I threw in my studies and contemplated suicide (I'd swim out into the middle of the Murray and sink); that certainly was traumatic, since so much of what I believed was riding on it. But it explained lot. I'd probably confused squalor with poverty.

If a cause is just, then any documentation about it must be full, genuine and honest. If not in some particular detail, then that has to be winkled out, exposed and criticised. There can be no real justice through fabrication, dissembling, false stories, or outright lies. The path to genuine justice always bumps over the rocky road of truth.

Cheers,

Joe