The Sydney Morning Herald
Friday, September 22, 2000
LETTERS
Too much evidence to deny Aboriginal
massacres
In writing about the foundation of the nation, Keith Windschuttle
(Herald,
September 19) claims the Forrest River massacre is "pure mythology"
with no evidence that any Aborigines were ever killed.
The 1927 Royal Commission found they were killed. Extensive evidence
of these massacres is recorded in The Forrest River Massacres (Neville
Green, 1995). Also, in the 1950s, novelist Randolph Stow transcribed
oral
accounts of the massacres, and published them verbatim in The
Bulletin.
Massacres also occurred in south-west Australia following colonisation
in
1829; evidence is freely available in documents at the State Library
of
Western Australia. In at least one case, the numbers killed and burial
sites
are recorded or carefully estimated.
In 2000, perhaps we can still learn from a letter to the Perth Gazette
in
1833: "When we dispossessed a people of their country which of us can
say he made a rational calculation of the rights of the owners of the
soil,
of the contemplated violation of those rights, of the probable
consequences of that violation, or of the justification of such an
act? If
perchance at any moment the murmurings of our conscience made
themselves heard, were not its faint whisperings stifled by the bustle
of
business? Did it never occur to us that in extending the dominion of
Great
Britain ... whilst seeking a fortune for ourselves we were about to
perpetrate a monstrous piece of injustice? ... We owe the Aboriginal
inhabitants of this country a debt which as honest conscientious men
we
are bound to discharge."
Irene Cunningham,
Woonona, September 19.
A weather-worn cross about 4 metres high, made of welded steel, used
to
stand on a hill above Forrest River mission in Western Australia. I
saw it
about 30 years ago, in the early 1970s. It was explained to me that it
was
the memorial of the 1926 massacre, erected a few years later. There
were
old people still living who had been children at the time of the
massacre.
I don't know whether Keith Windschuttle can allow a story to be
mythology as well as fact, in the sense that myths make a difference
to a
people's belief and identity. If he doesn't, I'll settle for the
massacre as a
fact and he can teach his views on mythology to his students .
Jim Bishop,
Leichhardt, September 20.
Historian Keith Windschuttle has exposed the falsity of recent guesses
about the number of Aborigines said to have been massacred by early
settlers, and in doing so has given your columnist, Robert Manne, a
severe
serve for allegedly both distorting and ignoring facts contained in a
Windschuttle essay due to be published in the October issue of
Quadrant,
and which had apparently come to his notice.
One can appreciate Mr Windschuttle's feelings. P.P. McGuinness, the
current editor of Quadrant, had a similar brush on the "stolen
generations"
theme with Mr Manne in your columns a year or so ago. He dealt with
him in a similarly harsh manner.
But what these critics should understand is that the motivations that
drive
members of the black armband brigade come from the heart not the head.
Instead of putting the boot in, a nobler purpose would be served by
forgiving them their trespasses and helping wipe their tears away. In
short,
whatever the facts, reconciliation!
Geoffrey Reading,
Castle Hill, September 19.
We might as well let Holocaust denier David Irving into Australia. The
Herald gives regular column space to Mr McGuinness, who denies the
truth about our country's past, and has given Mr Windschuttle a good
run,
as well.
Revisionism used to be a respectable branch of historiography before
distorters and propagandists such as these claimed it as their
territory.
Perhaps they need a refresher course on research using primary source
material.
Steve Ellis,
Hackett (ACT), September 20.
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