<
https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-neither-a-monster-nor-a-saint-sir-samuel-griffith-queenslands-violent-frontier-and-the-rigours-of-truth-telling-222262>
"Social historians – among whom I am happily one – are those utter nuisances of
people who adamantly insist on reminding others of all the things they are
trying so desperately to forget.
Australian historian Manning Clark, channelling Tolstoy, once compared them to
deaf people who continually keep answering questions that no-one is asking.
Before this new breed of professional troublemaker appeared in the 1960s,
Australian History for the majority was a much simpler and more comforting
affair. The stray bits of it I picked up at school in the 1950s told of a
strictly peaceful, happy land, peppered with heroic pioneers, doughty diggers
and colourful swaggies; and overflowing with sheep and sparkling golden
nuggets.
Aboriginal peoples, if they were mentioned at all, were way off on the margins
somewhere, throwing boomerangs, going walkabout and eating grubs and snakes. In
the most studied Australian history book of this era, edited by Gordon
Greenwood, First Nation Peoples literally disappear. They are not in the index,
and we are even told by one contributor:
The country was empty […] empty grazing country awaiting occupation.
The principal shock here is not just that this was published without
intervention but that no-one who reviewed it pulled anyone up for spreading
this academic gas-lighting.
Many older readers can perhaps recall that balmy time, so reassuring for white
Australians. I know it has never entirely left my consciousness. It was the
only world about which we were “publicly instructed”. But it is a far distant
place from the one where we are heading in this essay."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
