AH challenge: Aboriginal PM of Australia

Is that POV fairly common down there?

1. That you must be fully Aboriginal to be a "proper" one? Basically the one drop rule in reverse.

2. The myth that people with smaller blood quantum pose as indigenous for "entitlement"? In the US at least it's a fairly common racist urban legend ie "Indians get free money."

Nationally, to be classified as "indigenous" you need to be at least 1/8 Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander. And there are in fact a bunch of government programs and such that give benefits to people who qualify as indigenous (e.g. Abstudy).

I don't think it's so much a "one-drop rule in reverse" thing as a view that 1/8 is too small. For example, here's my mum's view on Geoff Clark: "How does he count as Aboriginal anyway? He's BLOND!"
 
I believe that the indigenous people of Tasmania lost their nation because of the classic UN definition of genocide.

It wasn't the holocaust; it was dispossession, marginalistion and neglect. And yes, terror was employed by the colonists to achieve this dispossession.

I respectfully disagree. Doesn't the UN definition require an intent and positive action to physically destroy the group in question? Dispossession and marginalisation do not do so in themselves - and the large scale relocation initiated by the colonial authorities, I believe, were an attempt to preserve them. Yes, it was widely believed that they would die out naturally. And yes, they were neglected. But I can't see anything to suggest that this neglect was a deliberate policy to hasten their destruction - it was a shameful abandonment, not a plot.

Terror: yes it was used. By some colonists - not as official government policy, the Black Line was intimidation but not terror. Genocide needs more organisation than was evident in the colonists' attacks.

IIRC my uni classes, the indigenous Tasmanians had been driven off the land & had lost their hunting grounds before being exiled to the islands--they were actually relying on the Protectorate for basic sustenance.

They did go hunting on the islands. And they did continue to receive support from the Protectorate. Maybe not as much as would be considered appropriate today, but they weren't left to die of exposure and starvation either.

Anyway, God help any American here who writes of native Americans being sent on the 'Trail of Tears' with their consent, or of the Soutwestern tribes being sent to Florida with their consent.

But it's nice to see you retract the most egregiously ignorant thing in your post, however...

As I said, I used consent in a technically accurate sense, and I appologise to anyone who may have drawn unfortunate implications.

No Pooh-Bah, I will not respond to your parsing of my language with the intent of petulantly dismissing what I wrote.

As I said, very slightly irritated. However, the message was genuine: are you suggesting that there was a concerted plot, consciously designed, and carried out to utterly destroy the Tasmanian Aborigines? Despite all you have said, I remain unsure. I apologise for the loss of temper that saw me indulge my locquacity.

Maybe if you didn't admit to being educated by fucking wikipedia on this subject I'd ignore the above emptyheaded paragraph & take you seriously.

Anybody who think that ex-Pol-Pot-supporter-turned-reactionary-nutcase Keith Windschuttle knows a damn thing about this subject goes straight onto Ignore.

Charming. First, I have not based what I have said upon Wikipedia, rather, I offered you links to certain Wikipedia articles on the subject as you can access them as easily as myself, whereas if I was quoting a book, I have no way of knowing that you have a copy available at your end. There are a fair few sources listed on the pages I gave you, so if you wish to read up on any of them further, by all means do so.

As for Windschuttle, while he and I disagree on many things, I have seen no reason advanced by you why his scholarship on the subject is untrustworthy, disengenuous or worthless, save that you and he are on different sides of the political spectrum. I am perfectly ready to be convinced otherwise if you can point to errors he made within his work, but outright dismissal because he happens to edit Quadrant or some other political short-coming doesn't cut it.

If you feel so strongly about this that your only recourse is to ignore me, which is your prerogative, then I'm very sorry for you.
 
What you describe is a concerted effort at genocide. That they may have had no "choice" but to leave, or that those who carried out the genocide felt justified by claims of self defense, hardly justifies it.

No, it was not concerted, unless you believe that all the colonists who perpetuated the massacres were plotting out their campaign together, or that everything happened on the orders of the colonial authorities. Both of which are ridiculous; read of the orders and policies given by the governor, etc. and you'll find they were working to protect the Aborigines' lives, not destroy them. As for self-defence, no, it doesn't justify genocide, but it does explain conflict, from whence these violent incidents stemmed. Some of the massacres may have occurred without any provocation, and were solely about land, but many were revenge attacks.

1. Use your own words, "coercion, lack of alternative options."

By your argument, a woman who "cooperates" in a rape to avoid getting her throat cut would be doing it "voluntarily."

On balance, I think least-bad option may be the most accurate. Your analogy is incorrect, as it requires the colonial authorities and the settlers to be working as one, which simply wasn't the case.

2. Even a high school student (hopefully) knows better than to use Wikipedia. Try the biblio I provided from Yale, one of the best universities in the world.

As I explained to Magniac, Wikipedia was simply the most convenient. I shall certainly try to look through your proffered sources. Many thanks for taking the time.

3. Actually, the burden of proof is on you. Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof. You are asserting, against virtually all historical consensus, that there was no genocide. And all you can show so far is Wikipedia and a white supremacist revisionist, Windschuttle.

Except they're not extraordinary claims and there is no historical consensus. I put forward a point of view that is accepted by large segments of both academia and the general public. The History Wars are not over and the Black Armband perspective is only one view. And as no-one before me provided any sources at all, I see nothing wrong with using a very low-level source to counter unsupported claims.

Also, do you actually have anything to suggest that Windschuttle is a white supremacist. Or to disprove anything he said on this subject. As to another source, I'll add Geoffrey Blainey, who I personally prefer over Windschuttle - a better prose style in my own opinion. And if you're going to cast slurs at him as well, try to find something he actually said as evidence.

4. It certainly is not an argument over semantics.

Magniac's initial attack on me was to castigate me for using a basically technically correct word with unfortunate implications. More generally I suspect we probably disagree over the definition of genocide. Words are a major component of this argument.

5. You actually seem to find the subject of genocide amusing. A real class act...

No. No I don't. But I find the beliefs of some about this subject to be utterly ridiculous, and occasionally that may seep through into my choice of words.

6. And here you find a white supremacist and falsifier of history "honorable". So we all know where you stand.

One. I have seen nothing to suggest he is guilty of either accusation that you have levelled at him. Use some evidence if you're going to launch attacks like that.

Two. My use of 'honourable' was a verbal flourish intended to counter other posters' attacks while avoiding becoming bogged down in a debate; a subtle suggestion that we may all agree to disagree as further attacks would most likely achieve nothing but raise tempers. So much for that. I disagree with Windschuttle on many a topic but if pressed I will certainly state that he is not dishonourable. Unwisely hasty? Yes. A tendency to be one-eyed? Fine. A liar and a bigot, as you assert? There we must disagree.
 
On reflection, I'd like to apologise for bringing up this whole debate, which was at best tangentially related to Melvin's challenge. The History Wars have been going on for a long time, will likely continue for a long time, and it's very unlikely that this will achieve anything but inflame tempers. Rather than be acrimonious and further derail Melvin's thread, might I respectfully suggest we end this argument, which I really shouldn't have started, and agree that the Aborigines have had an often unpleasant history since colonisation, but there remains in Australia some significant disagreement over aspects of this. Mea culpa, entirely. Sorry Melvin.
 
1. No, it was not concerted, unless you believe that all the colonists who perpetuated the massacres were plotting out their campaign together, or that everything happened on the orders of the colonial authorities.

2. I put forward a point of view that is accepted by large segments of both academia and the general public.

3. Also, do you actually have anything to suggest that Windschuttle is a white supremacist. Or to disprove anything he said on this subject.

1. Concerted simply means a strenous effort. It's not the same as "conspiring together" like you seem to think.

You argue that it was basically a few sporadic attacks, which it wasn't.

2.Academia? No. Windschuttle has very few supporters among history professionals. His research is so poor and his racism so blatant he can't even get hired.

That there may be a sizable chunk of white Australians in denial that there was genocide doesn't surprise me. There's a large number of white American who'd deny genocide happened in the US, and a smaller number of Germans who'd still deny genocide happened under the Nazis also. (Defeat tends to force people to be more honest.)

3. Both are extremely easy to find. A ten second google seach will give you this for example on his falsehoods.

http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/lab/85/grieves.html
Windschuttle's Fabrication of Aboriginal History : a View from the Other Side Vicki Grieves

How Windschuttle's argument is white supremacist is discussed here, and the support he receives from fellow racists as well.

-----------------
http://www.johnpilger.com/page.asp?partid=328
But even history is a battleground, in which "revisionists" - the likes of Keith Windschuttle, a self-publishing and much-publicised "new historian" - can suggest that Tasmanian Aborigines lacked humanity and compassion. Not anywhere in the world with indigenous populations, not in North America, New Zealand, even South Africa, could you get away with such a slur.
Windschuttle has been the darling of an influential group of white supremacists, who buzz around the far-right magazine Quadrant (once funded by the CIA). They deploy their arguments in a manner not dissimilar to the way David Irving used his history texts to promote Holocaust denial, with the difference that they have been given generous space and tacit support in the press. In rejecting what they call "the black armband view of history", they claim, absurdly, that mass killing and resistance in Australia did not happen, nor many of the horrific separations of Aboriginal children from their families, ordered by the state.
-----------------

http://www.borderlands.net.au/vol5no1_2006/perera_raceterror.htm

22. Anglo-Australian men as an endangered species in the law are only a part of Fraser's apocalyptic vision of the future. In an article, "Rethinking the White Australia Policy" (a review of Keith Windschuttle's book, The White Australia Policy), Fraser asserts:

Within two or three decades, it is not unreasonable to expect that Australia will have a heavily Asian managerial-professional, ruling class that will not hesitate to promote the interests of co-ethnics at the expense of white Australians. (Fraser 2005b).

23. Fraser supports this statement with the fantastic notion, as recapped by Windschuttle, that "Europeans ... evolved in a cold climate to support non-kinship forms of reciprocity and thus to welcome strangers," while "Chinese and Japanese businessmen operate within mafia-like, extended family clans that are bound by shared genes to support one another" (Windschuttle 2005)....

Despite their internal differences, however, Windschuttle, Fraser and Duffy represent an institutionalised and politically powerful configuration of contemporary Australian nationalism that exists on a continuum with assertions of race pride that are usually disowned as extremist....

30. The most distinctive feature of the formation represented by Duffy and Windschuttle is its foregrounding of Anglo-Australian achievement and white racial pride. Its platform is premised on a whitewashing (Manne 2003) of Australian history, especially of the violence directed towards Indigenous people and their ongoing resistances.

------------------

Windschuttle also appeared in a racist propaganda film with two fellow white supremacists, David Yeagley and Barbara Lindsay, members of the extremist One Nation (not affiliated to Australia's One Nation, but with a similar POV).
http://davidyeagley.blogspot.com/2008/02/open-letter-to-makers-of-prisoners-of.html

And note that white supremacists use the term "black armband view of history" the same as you. If you claim to not be racist or white supremacist yourself, you really should quit falling for their lies.
 
On reflection, I'd like to apologise for bringing up this whole debate, which was at best tangentially related to Melvin's challenge. The History Wars have been going on for a long time, will likely continue for a long time, and it's very unlikely that this will achieve anything but inflame tempers. Rather than be acrimonious and further derail Melvin's thread, might I respectfully suggest we end this argument, which I really shouldn't have started, and agree that the Aborigines have had an often unpleasant history since colonisation, but there remains in Australia some significant disagreement over aspects of this. Mea culpa, entirely. Sorry Melvin.

It really doesn't help matters when you try to whitewash genocide as just "often unpleasant."

Stubbing your toe is often unpleasant. The murders of thousands shouldn't be compared to it.

I actually think this does help the subject of the thread. It shows just how difficult it might be for an Aborginal Australian PM to become PM. I can't imagine any US President post 1960s saying the kinds of things that Howard did, at least without paying a heavy political price. Congressmen sometimes do though, in districts with lots of anti Indian racists.
 
Nationally, to be classified as "indigenous" you need to be at least 1/8 Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander. And there are in fact a bunch of government programs and such that give benefits to people who qualify as indigenous (e.g. Abstudy).

I don't think it's so much a "one-drop rule in reverse" thing as a view that 1/8 is too small. For example, here's my mum's view on Geoff Clark: "How does he count as Aboriginal anyway? He's BLOND!"

Well, there are sometimes American Indians that are blond.

http://www.nativecelebs.com/profiles/heather_locklear.htm
 
1. Concerted simply means a strenous effort. It's not the same as "conspiring together" like you seem to think.
You argue that it was basically a few sporadic attacks, which it wasn't.

No, concerted means acting in concert. Obviously. Another way to say that is 'conspiring together'. Which patently wasn't the case.

2.Academia? No. Windschuttle has very few supporters among history professionals. His research is so poor and his racism so blatant he can't even get hired.
That there may be a sizable chunk of white Australians in denial that there was genocide doesn't surprise me. There's a large number of white American who'd deny genocide happened in the US, and a smaller number of Germans who'd still deny genocide happened under the Nazis also. (Defeat tends to force people to be more honest.)

You're trying to make this debate revolve entirely around Windschuttle, and important though he is, he is at the more extreme end. I am putting forward a rather more moderate position, which has considerable support through academia and the mainstream; namely, that a considerable amount of this history is open to dispute, that both sides have probably made exagerrations, but that categorising it as genocide is ridiculous and completely lacks evidence.

3. Both are extremely easy to find. A ten second google seach will give you this for example on his falsehoods.
http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/lab/85/grieves.html
Windschuttle's Fabrication of Aboriginal History : a View from the Other Side Vicki Grieves

How Windschuttle's argument is white supremacist is discussed here, and the support he receives from fellow racists as well.

Shows he probably has some bias, which is hardly astonishing, but doesn't prove him to have deliberately falsified evidence. He clearly underestimates Aboriginal cultural sophistication - I'm with Blainey here - but I wouldn't call it racist. It skirts a little too close, but it doesn't cross over to white supremacy. Although, if you could quote something he actually said, that might help.

But even history is a battleground, in which "revisionists" - the likes of Keith Windschuttle, a self-publishing and much-publicised "new historian" - can suggest that Tasmanian Aborigines lacked humanity and compassion. Not anywhere in the world with indigenous populations, not in North America, New Zealand, even South Africa, could you get away with such a slur.
Windschuttle has been the darling of an influential group of white supremacists, who buzz around the far-right magazine Quadrant (once funded by the CIA). They deploy their arguments in a manner not dissimilar to the way David Irving used his history texts to promote Holocaust denial, with the difference that they have been given generous space and tacit support in the press. In rejecting what they call "the black armband view of history", they claim, absurdly, that mass killing and resistance in Australia did not happen, nor many of the horrific separations of Aboriginal children from their families, ordered by the state.

Pilger is at least as far, if not further, to the left as Windschuttle is to the right. I wouldn't trust anything either said about the other.

The 'lacking humanity and compassion' thing, though an argument of Windschuttle's of which I am very sceptical, is rather out of context; he's talking about the existence of cultural differences, not ethnic short-comings. And there isn't anything to suggest he believes this makes them less worthy of humane or compassionate regard on the part of the colonists.

22. Anglo-Australian men as an endangered species in the law are only a part of Fraser's apocalyptic vision of the future. In an article, "Rethinking the White Australia Policy" (a review of Keith Windschuttle's book, The White Australia Policy), Fraser asserts:

Within two or three decades, it is not unreasonable to expect that Australia will have a heavily Asian managerial-professional, ruling class that will not hesitate to promote the interests of co-ethnics at the expense of white Australians. (Fraser 2005b).

23. Fraser supports this statement with the fantastic notion, as recapped by Windschuttle, that "Europeans ... evolved in a cold climate to support non-kinship forms of reciprocity and thus to welcome strangers," while "Chinese and Japanese businessmen operate within mafia-like, extended family clans that are bound by shared genes to support one another" (Windschuttle 2005)....

Despite their internal differences, however, Windschuttle, Fraser and Duffy represent an institutionalised and politically powerful configuration of contemporary Australian nationalism that exists on a continuum with assertions of race pride that are usually disowned as extremist....

30. The most distinctive feature of the formation represented by Duffy and Windschuttle is its foregrounding of Anglo-Australian achievement and white racial pride. Its platform is premised on a whitewashing (Manne 2003) of Australian history, especially of the violence directed towards Indigenous people and their ongoing resistances.

Points 22 and 23 don't say a thing about Windschuttle's beliefs (he strongly opposed Fraser's assertations). As for point 30, I see no 'white racial pride' on his part and nothing to condemn about 'foregrounding Anglo-Australian achievement'. Bad things in history don't nullify a nation's successes.

Windschuttle also appeared in a racist propaganda film with two fellow white supremacists, David Yeagley and Barbara Lindsay, members of the extremist One Nation (not affiliated to

As the author in this article only used the previous source as evidence, which I already stated does not appear to me to be racist - incorrect maybe; culturally chauvinistic, perhaps, but not racist - there is little to add. If the author came across as a little less hysterical, it might be easier to take him seriously.

And note that white supremacists use the term "black armband view of history" the same as you. If you claim to not be racist or white supremacist yourself, you really should quit falling for their lies.

'Black Armaband' is used by most people in Australia to describe that historical school, including many of those who belong to it - the left-wing students and teachers of history and politics I know all quite happily use it.

I actually think this does help the subject of the thread. It shows just how difficult it might be for an Aborginal Australian PM to become PM. I can't imagine any
US President post 1960s saying the kinds of things that Howard did, at least without paying a heavy political price. Congressmen sometimes do though, in districts with lots of anti Indian racists.

If you think disputing your view of history can only be rationalised as a symptom of deep-seated racism, then I can see why you might believe that. Most Australians are very aware that Aborigines have suffered, and continue to suffer, discrimination and a poor economic, educational and health situation. Personally, I doubt that a talented, competent, educated Aboriginal politician, campaigning for all Australia, would have much greater difficulty than a non-Aboriginal politician in becoming prime minister - positive and negative discrimination would likely tend to even out.

And what, pray tell, has Howard ever said that would be so politically unacceptable in the US?

It really doesn't help matters when you try to whitewash genocide as just "often unpleasant."
Stubbing your toe is often unpleasant. The murders of thousands shouldn't be compared to it.

I tend to use understatement whenever I talk or write - it makes for a rather more civilised discourse than the typical interweb hysteria. And describing the Australian treatment of Aborigines as genocide trivialises the victims of the Holocaust and the Killing Fields.
 
How likely is it that an aboriginal sporting hero/ heroine might get into politics?

They would probably enter parliament very easily. Unfortunately, it is probable they would follow Peter Garret's path, used to sell unpopular policies to the people they were supposed to appeal to.

That's not to say a politically talented sportstar couldn't do well, mind.
 

Deleted member 5719

I tend to use understatement whenever I talk or write - it makes for a rather more civilised discourse than the typical interweb hysteria. And describing the Australian treatment of Aborigines as genocide trivialises the victims of the Holocaust and the Killing Fields.

You are joking, hopefully. The most succesful genocide of all was the extermination of the Tasmanians. You may not have noticed but there are still Jews left. And the killing fields were not a genocide as they were not an attempt to exterminate a race.
 
You are joking, hopefully. The most succesful genocide of all was the extermination of the Tasmanians. You may not have noticed but there are still Jews left.

Yes, a greater proportion of Tasmanian Aborigines died than the proportion of Jews in the Holocaust (although there still remain a number of people descended from Tasmanian Aborigines). But it was not a genocide. It was primarily disease. The massacres played a much smaller part, were not an organised campaign but local in nature, and occurred in the context of an ongoing conflict, with both sides attacking one another - settlers were killed in the Black War too. Above all, there was no intent to wipe out the Aborigines. That, to me, is the key distinction.

And the killing fields were not a genocide as they were not an attempt to exterminate a race.

Well, my understanding was that some ethnic groups were particularly targeted, but I generally agree with you that categorising it as genocide is problematic. I went a bit over the top there.
 
I did Aboriginal studies at university and I teach it at a secondary college in NSW. I also identify as an Aboriginal. My great-grandmother was enslaved and raped - my grandfather was born as a result of such behaviour by white invaders.

There can be no doubt of a genocide - at least in Tasmania. Tasmanian Aboriginals were used as target practice and hunted for sport by the white settlers. Others were killed to feed the dogs. Truganini, as an example, was repeatedly raped by syphilitic soldiers, her mother, uncle and betrothed husband were all murdered and three other families members were enslaved. This process was repeated across Van Diemen's Land for years. There are even accounts where Aboriginal people were forced by whites to engage in self-cannibalisation and self-mutilation for their amusement. I can produce concrete, contemporary evidence of the day for each of these claims.

Massacres of the Aboriginal people WAS an official policy from 1828, and, between 1828 and 1829, sixty percent of the black population of Tasmania were killed. In 1803, there was a camp of three hundred Aboriginals just outside Hobart. By 1833, there were only two hundred Tasmanian Aboriginals left total on the island.

As for the peaceful resettlement on islands, two-thirds of those who made it to Flinders Island and other smaller settlements were dead within a year. This is because the places where the Aboriginals were resettled were basically hostile to life.

Denial that this was a genocide is a sign of someone being misinformed (in which case I hope you do some more reading) or expressing racist and inflammatory views (irregardless of how rationally they may be expressed). I hope for the former, but your persistence in your views, Pooh-bah, leads me to suspect the opposite.
 

Deleted member 5719

Pooh, I've not seen a government document advocating extermination, but the desire to eliminate the natives was present in the white community.

Colonial Times and Hobart Advertiser said:
The Government must remove the natives- If not, they will be hunted down and exterminated like wild beasts.

This prescription was followed to the letter. The Blacks were removed by the government, and those who refused to go were killed. In their prison camp, the remaining Tasmanians (around 7% of the original population) died out from disease.
 
There can be no doubt of a genocide - at least in Tasmania. Tasmanian Aboriginals were used as target practice and hunted for sport by the white settlers. Others were killed to feed the dogs. Truganini, as an example, was repeatedly raped by syphilitic soldiers, her mother, uncle and betrothed husband were all murdered and three other families members were enslaved. This process was repeated across Van Diemen's Land for years. There are even accounts where Aboriginal people were forced by whites to engage in self-cannibalisation and self-mutilation for their amusement. I can produce concrete, contemporary evidence of the day for each of these claims.

I don’t doubt that these sorts of atrocities were perpetrated by some whites. However, they certainly don’t put genocide beyond a doubt; they only show that some whites behaved barbarically. They do not suggest that this was in any way normal behaviour on the part of the settlers, many of whom, in this early period, had fair relations with Aborigines who passed through their land. Also, and feel free to correct me, but my vague understanding was that many or most of these incidents were committed by whalers, sealers and the like, who tended to be on the outer edges of society and the law. Yes, it was terrible. But that isn’t enough to be genocide.

Massacres of the Aboriginal people WAS an official policy from 1828, and, between 1828 and 1829, sixty percent of the black population of Tasmania were killed. In 1803, there was a camp of three hundred Aboriginals just outside Hobart. By 1833, there were only two hundred Tasmanian Aboriginals left total on the island.

The official policy was to move Aborigines out of the settled areas, for the sole purpose of putting an end to the cycle of attacks and counter-attacks. Violence was to be offered to Aborigines as an absolute last resort, prisoners were to be treated humanely and it remained a crime for civilians without military or magisterial authority to use force against Aborigines for any purpose save self-defence. Obviously not everyone followed these directives, and some farmers took the wrong interpretation of it, but it’s pretty clear that massacres were not part of the official policy, which was directed at both settlers and Aborigines. When you have a conflict between two groups with an immense technology gap, the casualties will be immensely disproportionate.

Both the number killed and the total population of Aborigines in Tasmania can only be wildly varying estimates, and your figure of sixty percent does sound rather like the high end of the spectrum. Also, the question of how many died from disease or inter-tribal conflict seems to be ignored.

As for the peaceful resettlement on islands, two-thirds of those who made it to Flinders Island and other smaller settlements were dead within a year. This is because the places where the Aboriginals were resettled were basically hostile to life.


Hostile to life? Flinders Island is not some barren rock; plenty of hunting existed. Cattle were grazed here. And in any case, they weren’t dumped there to die. The Protectorate could have done much more, but they did provide some food, facilities and medical attention. The Tasmanians died due to introduced diseases. Perhaps there was also something about ‘losing the will to live’, although I really don’t know about that one. But FlindersIsland was not some attempt at a guiltless gulag, leaving the elements to finish the job.

Denial that this was a genocide is a sign of someone being misinformed (in which case I hope you do some more reading) or expressing racist and inflammatory views (irregardless of how rationally they may be expressed). I hope for the former, but your persistence in your views, Pooh-bah, leads me to suspect the opposite.

My persistence is simply due to the personality defect of being unable to sit by while an at best controversial viewpoint is aired as if it is accepted historical fact, while the opposing view is ignored as if it’s a lunatic fringe theory. There is a very active ongoing debate as to whether or not this was genocide, and respectable historians are not united on one side. I agree it is always a good thing to do more reading, but I am speaking from a vantage point of having received a schooling in history in which both sides were considered and no conclusion of fact on the question was definitely reached, read a fair number of the arguments and accounts of both sides, and have come to the conclusion that the facts are extremely sketchy, that a lot of awful things happened, but calling it genocide is simply incorrect.

Ironically, this is not an issue I feel very strongly on at all, and what I have said is certainly not racist in any manner and only inflammatory if you have a rock-solid faith in your position on this subject and cannot abide disagreement. Sometimes this is an appropriate attitude, but this is not one of those times. However, I do feel a duty to respond to criticisms of statements I make with either an apology or my reasoning. Given the aforementioned sketchiness of knowledge about the subject, I doubt that you can produce evidence to change my beliefs on this subject, and similarly I doubt that I can convince you that you are incorrect. Therefore, I suggest we leave this dispute here.
 
Pooh, I've not seen a government document advocating extermination, but the desire to eliminate the natives was present in the white community.

This prescription was followed to the letter. The Blacks were removed by the government, and those who refused to go were killed. In their prison camp, the remaining Tasmanians (around 7% of the original population) died out from disease.

While you may disagree with my interpretation, I read that as a prediction, not a threat. They are arguing that the Aborigines, with their hunter-gatherer way of life, and the pastoralists cannot coexist on the same land. Which is rather questionable, the early generation of farmers managed by and large. But they don’t desire the elimination of the natives; relocation was the only feasible way of ending the cycle of conflict.

And the Tasmanian Aborigines were not put in a prison camp.
 

Deleted member 5719

Pooh, you are weaseling.

Let's look at the facts.

1. British settlers arrive on an island.
2. They take possession of the land and, bit by bit deny access to food sources to the original inhabitants.
3. They kill those who remain on the land, the death toll from direct killing probably reaches a thousand.
4. Women of this group are kidnapped and kept in sexual slavery.
5. The last 200 survivors (a 95% reduction in population) are taken to live on an island where they are prohibited from participating in their original cultural life.
6. The survivors die.
7. For the next 100 years everybody accepts that the natives were exterminated by the newcomers.
8. One guy writes a book about how what everybody alive at the time of the genocide says happened couldn't possibly have happened. This coincides with other native groups finally getting compensation for the theft of their lands.

If that is not genocide, what is?
 
1. British settlers arrive on an island.
2. They take possession of the land and, bit by bit deny access to food sources to the original inhabitants.

Agreed.

3. They kill those who remain on the land, the death toll from direct killing probably reaches a thousand.

Some of which is barbaric murder, some of which takes place in a conflict situation, and none of which is organised. Which doesn't absolve the colonists of their excesses. The Aborigines had every right to resort to armed conflict. But being worse at killing doesn't mean they become solely victims.

4. Women of this group are kidnapped and kept in sexual slavery.

No-one denies this happened.

5. The last 200 survivors (a 95% reduction in population) are taken to live on an island where they are prohibited from participating in their original cultural life.

How? Beyond the immense and pretty unavoidable aspect of uprooting them from their traditional lands, the Protectorate allowed them to maintain their cultural heritage as much as was feasible. There was no attempt to destroy their culture.

6. The survivors die.

Yerrsss, as far as full-blooded Tasmanian Aborigines go.

7. For the next 100 years everybody accepts that the natives were exterminated by the newcomers.

Often using very different definitions. Often such terms were used for all the indirect consequences of colonisation, including everything arising from being driven of land and unintentional acts of negligence. The usual conception of genocide is rather different to this.

8. One guy writes a book about how what everybody alive at the time of the genocide says happened couldn't possibly have happened.

I am sceptical of a lot of Windschuttle's claims about certain massacres occurring, but at the same time he did correct some errors and exagerrations. However, that is not the main point: Windschuttle was not the first to challenge claims of genocide, nor are his claims needed to categorise this as outside the definition of genocide. Henry Reynolds, one of the most prominent of the black armband historians, disagrees with Windschuttle on almost every aspect of the conflict, but agrees, at least the last I heard, that it cannot be called a genocide.

If that is not genocide, what is?

An event that fits the definition of genocide, most commonly the UN's version:

any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. (a) and (b) certainly both occurred in Tasmania, I've never seen evidence of (c), never a serious claim of (d), and (e) I don't recall if it was ever carried out in Tasmania.

However, this bit:
'committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group'​
is the stumbling block. Intent to destroy. To be genocide, it must be part of a campaign, the purpose of which is to destroy one of those groupings. I have never seen anything to suggest that all the atrocities and massacres were part of a campaign to wipe out Tasmanian Aborigines.

I contend that Windschuttle was partially correct in that some of the massacres - not all he claims - have been exagerrated, and that disease played a much larger role than some suggest; while supporting Reynolds' argument that most of the massacres occurred either in a state of conflict similar to a war or locally initiated crimes, rather than an organised campaign of extermination. As such, no intent to destroy.

To categorise this as genocide is to twist the definition for no reason save that you think it should be called a genocide.
 
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