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Different Perspectives on Black Armband History
Dr Mark McKenna
Politics and Public Administration Group
10 November 1997
Contents
Major Issues Summary
Introduction
The Origins of Black Armband History
The Use of Black Armbands by Aboriginal Australians
1988: The Debate Begins
Paul Keating and Australian History
The Black Armband Debate 1996 and 1997: Different
Perspectives
Prime Minister Howard and Australian History
The Wider Debate Responses to John Howard
Conclusion
Endnotes
Bibliography
Major
Issues Summary
The wearing of black armbands is a custom which originated
in Ancient Egypt and came to the West through Republican Rome.
The expression 'black armband view of history' has been
used to describe a brand of Australian history which its critics argue
'represents a swing of the pendulum from a position that had been too
favourable, too self congratulatory', to an opposite extreme that is even
more unreal and decidedly jaundiced. Not only, it is said, does the black
armband view belittle past achievements, it also encourages a 'guilt industry'
and impedes rational thinking on current problems. From this perspective,
the black armband view of history is a strand of 'political correctness'-the
dominant but erroneous view of how we see ourselves and what we see as
worthwhile in our culture.
For others, the term is inherently political and a misrepresentation
of the work of many serious historians. It is an attempt to appropriate
an established symbol of genuine grieving, loss and injustice by those
who do not accept, or do not want to accept, that past wrongs must be
fully recognised before present problems can be resolved.
Both sides accuse each other of attempting to distort
history and of taking an extreme view.
Since the Bicentenary in 1988, and with greater intensity
since the High Court's decisions in Mabo and Wik, competing
attempts to explain Australia's past have been swept up in the rhetoric
of Australian politics.
Contrary to popular perception, this is a debate which
has close parallels overseas. In many respects Australia is only now addressing
issues related to its national identity which have surfaced in most post
industrial societies.
In Australia, the debate over how we see our past, has
unsurprisingly centred on the past treatment of the Aboriginal people.
In an earlier period, the black armband was a symbol of both black protest
and grieving. From 1993 ownership of the term has been contested reflecting
a parallel contest over 'historical truth'. The use of the term by Prime
Minister John Howard has given the debate an added dimension and greater
import.
What has emerged is a degree of incoherence in public
discourse. Leading historians such as the late Professor Manning Clark
and Professor Geoffrey Blainey have become strongly identified with the
partisan politics of the liberal left and the radical right respectively.
The writings of those two and other historians have been drawn on by the
political protagonists, so it is useful to know what those commentators
have said, how they have influenced the language of politics, and, just
as importantly, when they have not.
One of the striking features of the debate is the degree
to which the protagonists at times misrepresent the claims of their opponents.
Presently, we seem to have a situation in which one side alleges that
the other has no pride in Australia's history, and the other alleges that
its opponents want to censor Australian history and deny the truth about
the history of Aboriginal dispossession and the White Australia policy.
Yet a close reading of the arguments presented, suggests that neither
side is saying precisely what its opponents claim that it is saying.
On balance, the statements of the Prime Minister, although
critical of a perceived 'black armband view', have been more consistent
and closer to the middle ground than the more recent remarks of some like-minded
commentators.
A close reading of the arguments outlined in this paper
indicates that neither side is saying what the other side claims it is
saying. John Howard and Geoffrey Blainey are not seeking to whitewash
Australian history, just as Don Watson and Manning Clark were not seeking
to denigrate Australian achievement. The argument is not about content-it
is about emphasis. It is not so much concerned with the nature of history
as it is with the use of history. As a people, we are trying to come to
terms with the fact that 'Australian' history is no longer written purely
from the perspective of the majority.
In a spirit of reconciliation, some Aboriginal leaders
such as Noel Pearson have also sought to find common ground by emphasising
'the complexity of the past' and the value of some transplanted colonial
institutions such as (perhaps somewhat pointedly) the common law.
Introduction
Since the occasion of the Bicentenary in 1988, Australian
history has gained increasing prominence in public debate. At a time when
the traditional discipline of history is in decline in schools and universities,
parliaments and media outlets have elevated history to an issue of national
importance. Some historians have even become national figures. Particular
views concerning Australian history have also played a pivotal role in
the formulation of the political philosophies of all parties over the
last decade. At issue is the use and representation of our nation's past.
In 1993, Professor Geoffrey Blainey was the first to
refer to the 'black armband view of history' as one which represented
the 'swing of the pendulum from a position that had been too favourable
to an opposite extreme that is decidedly jaundiced' and 'gloomy'. Blainey's
interpretation has been influential in determining the position of the
Howard government on Australian history-just as Manning Clark's reading
had previously guided the Keating government's initiative to recast Australian
identity.
For Australians, it is important to remember that the
political debate which circles the black armband label is not a uniquely
domestic phenomenon. Similar patterns of debate can be discerned in Britain,
the United States and Western Europe since the 1980s. An important feature
of the popular appeal of both Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan was
their ability to conscript a particular view of history to foster pride
in national identity, and the subsequent identification of this pride
with their respective political parties.(1) 'Witness for example Margaret
Thatcher speaking in 1979, in a manner not dissimilar to some of the rhetoric
to be found in our own debate:
We are witnessing a deliberate attack on our values,
a deliberate attack on those who wish to promote merit and excellence,
a deliberate attack on our heritage and our past. And there are those
who gnaw away at our national self-respect, rewriting [our] history
as centuries of unrelieved doom, oppression and failure-as days of
hopelessness, not days of hope'.(2)
Although comparative analysis lies outside the scope of this paper, it
is worth keeping in mind that Australian history has been subject to pressures
and trends found in other post-industrial societies. The so called 'crisis
in history'-a fragmentation of the grand narrative, and the sudden priority
given to history in political rhetoric, is directly related to the emergence
of the new 'critical' histories. These histories are the histories which
emerged in the 1970s and 1980s- the histories of indigenous peoples which
have documented the dispossession, exclusion and marginalisation of the
American Indians, Australian Aborigines, and of all colonised peoples.
In addition, there are the histories which have underwritten the new social
movements-women's history, environmental history and ethnic histories.
The writing of 'critical history' has had a political impact in many liberal
democratic societies.
In Australia, the 'critical history' which has had the
greatest impact is the new approach to Aboriginal history. Writing in
1959, J. A. La Nauze observed that Aboriginal Australians had appeared
in Australian history only as a 'melancholy anthropological footnote'.(3)
Forty years or so after La Nauze's survey of historiography in Australia,
the footnote has been elevated to a chapter but the melancholy remains.
The work of W. E. H. Stanner, C. D. Rowley, Bernard Smith, John Mulvaney,
H. C. Coombs, Henry Reynolds, Andrew Markus, Anne McGrath and Bain Attwood
among others, has produced a fundamental shift in the way in which Australian
history has been 'contested' over the last decade.(4) The new emphasis
on the dispossession and decimation of Aboriginal society, is perceived
by some to have threatened the moral legitimacy of the nation state. This
is especially so since the handing down of the High Court's Mabo
and Wik decisions, both of which made use of recent historical
scholarship on contact history.(5) In addition, Aboriginal protest movements
which rely heavily on the acknowledgment of past injustice as an impetus
for their own political program, have had their message carried through
the mass media. In a manner not dissimilar to the ongoing debates in Germany
and Japan, the issues of 'guilt', 'responsibility' and the 'Great Forgetting',
today permeate much of the public discussion surrounding Australian history.(6)
But although this focus is novel in its degree of emphasis, it is not
an entirely new theme in our history. As far back as 1888 Henry Parkes
quipped in the NSW Parliament that the government should not organise
centenary celebrations for the Aborigines because it would only remind
them that they had been robbed.(7)
While there has been much discussion of 'black armband
history' since the change of government in March 1996, there is still
no comprehensive coverage of the debate, nor is there any substantial
research published on the origins of the term 'black armband'. This paper
attempts to redress the imbalance-primarily by concentrating on assembling
the arguments associated with the debate. It makes no attempt to provide
analysis of this sensitive issue. This approach will hopefully help readers
to draw their own conclusions.
The paper is divided into three broad categories-the
formulation of each category being guided by a question. First, what is
the origin of the phrase 'black armband' history? Does the sense of the
term predate Professor Blainey's use in 1993? In this section of the paper,
I will detail the use of black armbands in the Aboriginal protest movement
as far back as 1970. I will then discuss the debate over Australian history
which characterised the years immediately preceding the Bicentenary in
1988. Finally, I will present the Keating government's statements pertaining
to the representation of Australian history.
Second, in the period following the change of government
in 1996, who are the main players in the debate, what have they said,
and in what context has it been said? Here, I will collect the relevant
statements of three groups-historians, politicians, and public intellectuals.
Finally, the paper will conclude with a brief overview
which attempts to identify the broad themes and recurring elements in
the debate as well as the common ground which exists between the protagonists.
I should emphasise that my intention in this paper is to present evidence
in an impartial manner. The paper also includes substantial notes and
a bibliography which will hopefully encourage further reading. My aim
is to provide Senators and Members with a valuable and useful resource
which will assist in producing a more informed debate.
The Origins of Black Armband History
The wearing of black armbands, a custom which originated
in Ancient Egypt and came to the West through Republican Rome, bears obvious
connotation. In the public display of the black arm band there is mourning,
grief, and irretrievable loss. Applied to history, it paints a bleak view
of the past-a history without light and hope. A history of lamentation
and even despair. Professor Geoffrey Blainey was the first to coin the
phrase 'the black armband view of history' in his 1993 Latham lecture.
The centrepiece of his argument was as follows.
To some extent my generation was reared on the Three
Cheers view of history. This patriotic view of our past had a long
run. It saw Australian history as largely a success. While the convict
era was a source of shame or unease, nearly everything that came after
was believed to be pretty good. There is a rival view, which I call
the Black Armband view of history. In recent years it has assailed
the optimistic view of history. The black armbands were quietly worn
in official circles in 1988. The multicultural folk busily preached
their message that until they arrived much of Australian history was
a disgrace. The past treatment of Aborigines, of Chinese, of Kanakas,
of non-British migrants, of women, the very old, the very young, and
the poor was singled out, sometimes legitimately, sometimes not. My
friend and undergraduate teacher Manning Clark, who was almost the
official historian in 1988, had done much to spread the gloomy view
and also the compassionate view with his powerful prose and Old Testament
phrases. The Black Armband view of history might well represent the
swing of the pendulum from a position that had been too favourable,
too self congratulatory, to an opposite extreme that is even more
unreal and decidedly jaundiced'.(8)
Although Geoffrey Blainey may have invented the phrase
'black armband history', he was not the first to apply the black armband
image in the context of Australian history-this was done by Aboriginal
Australians.
The Use of Black Armbands by Aboriginal Australians
A spirit of mourning has been an important feature in
the politics of Aboriginal resistance in twentieth century Australia,
most notably at times of national celebration for White Australians. At
the one hundred and fifty year celebrations in 1938, members of the Aboriginal
Progressive Association wore formal black dress when they met at Sydney
Town Hall on January 26 to declare Australia Day a day of mourning.(9)
In their petition to King George VI, they stated:
To the Aborigines who are proud of their heritage
it is indeed a day of mourning; we mourn the death of the many thousands
of Aborigines who were brutally murdered; we mourn the loss of our
land and the rape of our women by the white invaders.(10)
On the bicentenary of Captain James Cook's landing at
Kurnell on April 29 1970, the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines
and Torres Strait Islanders, led by Kath Walker, marked the occasion as
a day of mourning. 'We intend a silent, dignified vigil of protest', said
Walker. 'Those who cannot afford to wear black clothes will be asked to
wear black armbands or bows'.(11) In Hobart, on the day of the bicentenary
celebrations, students wearing black armbands demonstrated against the
Tasmanian government's refusal to grant Truganini's last wish to be buried
at sea.(12) In Melbourne, more than 150 people marched from Captain Cook's
Cottage in the Treasury gardens denouncing Cook as an invader and calling
for Aboriginal land rights.(13) In Sydney and Canberra the wearing of
black dress and black armbands was a common feature of vigils and protests.
In the words of Kath Walker, the wearing of black dress symbolised both
the genocide committed against Aborigines since the white man arrived
and the present plight of Aborigines.(14)
In the years immediately preceding the Bicentenary, Aboriginal
protesters and white sympathisers continued to employ the phrase 'black
armband' to describe the post-1788 history of Aboriginal Australia.
In 1986, a poster designed by the Treaty 88 committee
in Alice Springs, a committee which Geoffrey Blainey had himself been
asked to join, called on Australians to 'wear a Black Armband' for the
'Aboriginal year of mourning'.(15) In Canberra, on the following Australia
Day in 1987, 200 Aborigines and supporters gathered in front of the Australian
War Memorial to mourn 'invasion day'. The Canberra Times reported
that 'many in the crowd wore black armbands'. At noon, wreaths were laid
on a stone inscribed with the words 'Their names shall live forevermore'
and 'two minutes silence commemorated the Aborigines who died since white
settlement'.(16) On Australia Day 1988, this same language of protest
was incorporated into the Aboriginal demonstration against the bicentennial
celebration. Again, protesters wore black armbands and marched under 'Invasion
Day' banners.(17) Even those crew members who sailed under the Coca-Cola
flag of the first fleet re-enactment wore black armbands to demonstrate
their sympathy with Aboriginals.(18)
1988: The Debate Begins
The fact that the most public manifestation of the black
armband view of history occurred around the celebrations in 1988 is significant
in understanding the current debate. By the late 1980's, there was already
a degree of similarity between the rhetoric in Geoffrey Blainey's public
speeches and that in John Howard's political statements. Blainey's views
on multiculturalism, immigration and history enunciated in the early 1980s
bore a striking resemblance to Howard's 1988 initiative Future Directions.
In 1985 Blainey delivered a public lecture at the Mt. Eliza Uniting Church
in Victoria. In this lecture, he spoke of the 'vocal, richly subsidised
multicultural lobby' and of the need for Australia to be 'one nation'
rather than 'a nation of many nations'. Blainey alleged that the Labor
Party was the captive of the 'multi-cultural industry' which had 'little
respect for the history of Australia'. Together with the 'socialist' elements
in the Hawke government, the ABC, and schools and universities, elite
groups were spreading the view that Australia's history was 'largely the
story of violence exploitation, repression, racism, sexism, capitalism,
colonialism and a few other isms'.(19)
In Future Directions, John Howard claimed that
he wanted to see 'one Australia' proud of its heritage-'not an Australia
of individual groups'.(20) He also stated the importance of history to
Coalition policy. Looking back on the first years of the Hawke government,
Future Directions claimed:
Even people's confidence in their nation's past came
under attack as the professional purveyors of guilt attacked Australia's
heritage and people were told they should apologise for pride in their
culture, traditions, institutions and history. Taught to be ashamed
of their past, apprehensive about their future, pessimistic about
their ability to control their own lives let alone their ability to
shape the character of the nation as a whole, many came to see change
as being in control of them instead of them being in control of change.
With it, hope and confidence in the future were transformed into concern
and despair.(21)
Naturally, John Howard and Geoffrey Blainey were not
alone in their views. In 1988, prominent intellectuals warned of the new
tendency of historians to focus solely on the dark side of history. John
Hirst wrote in the IPA Review, concerned about what he referred
to as the 'black school' of Australian history, while Robert Manne appeared
in Quadrant commenting on the 'sombre Bicentenary mood of intellectuals'.(22)
Malcolm Fraser criticised the views expressed by Professor Manning Clark
and reminded Australians that they had no need to feel guilty over the
sins of the past-after all these were matters over which they had no control.(23)
Prominent businessman Hugh Morgan also spoke out against the 'guilt industry'
which he believed to be responsible for an 'Orwellian reconstruction'
of the past.(24) There was no clearer evidence needed to demonstrate just
how charged the debate over Australian history had become than the events
of 21 January 1988. On this day, Aboriginal protesters hurled a copy of
Professor John Molony's Bicentennial History of Australia into
the waters of Sydney Harbour. They were unhappy with the book's treatment
of Tasmanian Aborigines and the insufficient attention devoted to Aboriginal
history.(25)
Yet throughout the 1980s, it was the public figure of
Manning Clark which was instrumental in shaping the political debate around
Australian history. The importance of Manning Clark and his public embrace
of the Labor Party after the dismissal of the Whitlam government in 1975
(when he asked 'Are we a nation of bastards'(26)) cannot be underestimated.
Long before the bicentenary, Clark had made no secret of his political
allegiance-Clark's depiction of the ALP as the party of national vision
and social reform did not endear him to the coalition parties. At times,
his rhetoric was extremely partisan. In 1977 for example, Clark referred
to Australian conservatives as 'clock back putters', 'money changers',
and the guarantors of 'the greed and titillation lifestyle'.(27) Controversy
surrounded Clark's delivery of the 1976 Boyer lectures, allegations were
made that Clark was not sufficiently impartial and therefore did not deserve
the honour of delivering the lectures.(28)
By the 1980s, a decade in which the Labor Party held
power in Canberra and the States to an unprecedented degree, Manning Clark
was not only Australia's most notable historian, but also one of the nation's
most prominent public figures. The media turned frequently to Clark for
prophecy and enlightenment on the subject of Australia's future.(29) The
fact that Labor governments were in power only added to Clark's ascendancy.
In 1988, Manning Clark published an article in Time Australia on
January 25 entitled 'The Beginning of Wisdom'. Clark wrote:
Now we are beginning to take the blinkers off our
eyes. Now we are ready to face the truth about our past, to acknowledge
that the coming of the British was the occasion of three great evils:
the violence against the original inhabitants of the country, the
Aborigines; the violence against the first European Labor force in
Australia, the convicts; and the violence done to the land itself.
The rewriting of our past has begun. In radical literature the white
man has replaced the capitalist as the chief villain in human history.
Our history is in danger of degenerating into yet another variation
of oversimplification-a division of humanity into goodies and baddies.(30)
Clark went on to speak of the misguided attempt of British
'Civilisation' to rescue Aborigines from 'barbarism'. Ironically, Clark's
warning concerning the descent of history into black and white stereotypes
alluded to the very sin which his detractors accused him of committing-that
of denouncing Australia's British heritage and portraying the radical
labour inheritance as the sole purveyor of Australian nationalism.
After Clark's death on May 23 1991, tributes were paid
in the House of Representatives. The response of the leading spokespersons
on both sides of the House gave some indication of Clark's importance
in stimulating interest in Australian history and the increasing interest
of political leaders in participating in the related public debate. Paul
Keating, then Treasurer in the Hawke government, rose to tell the House
that Clark was a strong supporter of the Australian Labor Party. He believed,
said Keating, that 'Australia had a choice between two paths: the path
of the straighteners and the path of the enlargers of life'. Paul Keating
would later employ these same categories to differentiate the Labor Party
from its opponents during the 1993 election campaign.(31)
From the other side of the house there came quite different
sentiments. David Kemp reminded members that Clark had often used his
craft to promote a 'highly personal and political agenda'. As a historian,
said Kemp, Clark had 'rejected the British heritage and that vein of Western
society which had most profoundly shaped civilisation in modern times-the
liberal tradition and its institutions'.(32) These different interpretations
of Clark's legacy were influential in determining the framework of much
of the debate around black armband history in the 1990s.
Paul Keating and Australian History
It is not possible to appreciate the position of the
Howard government on the representation of Australian history before first
understanding the stance of the preceding Labor government. Paul Keating
came to the prime ministership in 1991, the year of Clark's death, and
immediately employed one of Clark's devotees, historian Don Watson, as
his major speech writer. The link between Watson and Clark is particularly
strong when it comes to the representation of Australia's British past.
Inspired by Clark, one of the most prominent features of the Keating government's
determination to re-cast Australian identity was the call for Australia
to break free from its British-centred past.(33) In one way, this was
an extremely convenient position given that the Labor Party had itself
been among the most vigorous champions of the White Australia Policy and
loyalty to Empire throughout the twentieth century. The push for a republic,
based on a rejection of the 'dead' British past, à la Clark,
could be read as a useful means of transferring responsibility for the
evils of colonisation from Australia to Britain. It also appeared to laden
Menzies' Australia with sole responsibility for excessive imperial loyalty
and the White Australia policy. Keating's description of the Liberal Party's
contribution to Australia as 'good little Horatios' who had 'held the
bridge against national progress' in his 1993 Evatt Lecture, was but one
example of his government's stereotyping of pre-Whitlam Australia as a
'gloomy cave' ruled by a 'semi-hereditary elite'.(34)
As John Howard pointed out in Howard's Menzies lecture
of 1996, Keating attempted to paint Menzies' Australia as an 'industrial
museum'. Labor were Manning Clark's 'enlargers of life'-the party with
reform initiative, whereas the conservatives were 'straighteners'-mere
agents of 'resistance'.(35) In this description of Keating's use of history,
Howard is undoubtedly correct, and perhaps he has claims in one other
area-the perceived denigration of Australia's British heritage. Don Watson
recently gave an example of Manning Clark's 1988 rhetoric when he addressed
a seminar on Black Armband History in Melbourne on 12 March 1997.
I do not know a serious historian who believes that
a credible history of this place could be written without acknowledging
that the country was part of the British Empire; exploited human and
natural resources; and practised racism and other forms of discrimination.(36)
There are two features of this representation worth noting.
First, it could be seen as one dimensional-the British Empire might be
construed to have acted only in a mean-spirited manner. Second, it contains
an unfortunate bracketing of words. Following the words British Empire,
the words 'exploit', 'racism' and 'discrimination' immediately follow.
Once again, it is difficult to discern exactly where British responsibility
ends and Australian responsibility begins. A paragraph of qualification
which emphasised the complexity, nuances and difficulties of attributing
blame may have allowed Watson to escape this criticism. But it is this
arrangement of words in the Watson-Clark rhetoric which understandably
attracts the ire of conservatives protective of British heritage. These
feelings were only reinforced in February 1992 when Paul Keating accused
Britain of having deserted Australia at the time of the fall of Singapore
in 1942. Keating went on to allege that the opposition parties were a
'British bootstraps' coalition. Said Keating, 'the Liberal and National
parties are the same old fogies who doffed their lids and tugged the forelock
to the British establishment'.(37) Significantly, the most vocal critic
of these statements was the then shadow minister for industrial relations,
John Howard. Howard claimed that Keating was denigrating Australia's British
heritage and indulging in 'pommy bashing for political purposes'.(38)
In this light, it is possible to understand the background to the Howard
government's current position on Australian history. To some extent, it
is a direct response to the agenda of the Keating government.
It is also important to remember that together with Don
Watson, Paul Keating was responsible for the Redfern Park speech in 1992.
At the heart of this speech was an apology to Australia's indigenous people.
'We took the traditional lands-We brought the diseases, We committed the
murders, We took the children from their mothers-it was our ignorance
and our prejudice'.(39) Keating's words attempted to acknowledge the dark
aspects of Australia's past, but they also went much further than any
previous or subsequent public statement from an Australian Prime Minister.
The use of the word 'We' implied that present day Australians should bear
responsibility-at least partially, in atoning for the wrongs committed
by past generations.
By 1992, the acknowledgment of past injustice to Aboriginal
Australians had moved beyond the historical profession and the Federal
parliament to the High Court of Australia. One statement in particular
would draw criticism from the likes of Professor Geoffrey Blainey. In
Mabo (no. 2) 1992, Justices Deane and Gaudron referred to 'a national
legacy of unutterable shame'.(40) While the Court's use of history in
Mabo and Wik raises important questions concerning the legal
acceptance of historical interpretation, particularly in respect to Justice
Kirby, Toohey and Gaudron's reliance upon the despatches (pertaining to
pastoral leases) of Colonial Secretary Earl Grey in the 1840s in the Wik
judgement, it is interesting that the conservative focus on Mabo
and Wik has tended to concentrate primarily on the Court's acknowledgment
of Aboriginal 'dispossession' and the 'shame' of white Australians.(41)
Suggestions of shame or guilt appear to have motivated much of the black
armband rhetoric of both Geoffrey Blainey and John Howard.
The Black Armband Debate 1996 and 1997: Different
Perspectives
I profoundly reject the black armband view of Australian
history. I believe the balance sheet of Australian history is a very
generous and benign one. I believe that, like any other nation, we
have black marks upon our history but amongst the nations of the world
we have a remarkably positive history. I think there is a yearning
in the Australian community right across the political divide for
its leader to enunciate more pride and sense of achievement in what
has gone before us. I think we have been too apologetic about our
history in the past. I believe it is tremendously important, particularly
as we approach the centenary of the Federation of Australia, that
the Australia achievement has been a heroic one, a courageous one
and a humanitarian one.(42)
Prime Minister John Howard, October 30 1996.
Since the election of the Coalition government in March
1996, John Howard and Geoffrey Blainey-motivated by the preceding Labor
government's alleged cave-in to the lobby groups of the new social movements,
the Keating-Watson attempt to distort Australian history, and some High
Court judges recognition of 'unutterable shame' regarding Aboriginal dispossession,
have together advanced a new and powerful label in Australian political
language. In a debate which is at times highly emotional, the Queensland
Premier has referred to the High Court as a 'pack of historical dills',
while Pauline Hanson has declared that 'if White Australians are to feel
guilty about settling Australia then Aborigines should apologise to the
relatives and descendants of the Chinese they cannibalised in North Queensland
in the 1890s'.(43)
Prime Minister Howard has accused some school
curricula of teaching Australian students that they have 'a racist and
bigoted past'.(44) Finally, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Alexander Downer
has declined to present the Georgetown University library with a collection
of Manning Clark's six volume history of Australia while on a trade mission
to the United States. Instead, Downer decided to present the Americans
with a biography of Sir John Monash.(45) History has become politicised
in a manner not seen before in Australian political life.
Prime Minister Howard and Australian History
John Howard has been by far the most important figure
in the public debate on Australian history since his election in March
1996. As Prime Minister, he has placed the issue of the representation
of Australia's history at the core of his government's position on national
identity and Australia's self image. This focus was prefigured in Howard's
fourth Headland speech as Opposition leader in December 1995. In this
speech, he referred to Paul Keating's attempts to distort Australia's
past. Australians, said Howard, should not have to 'choose between our
history and our geography'-they did not have to 'disown their past' in
a bid for acceptance in the South East Asian region.(46)
During John Howard's Prime Ministership, the first inkling
of these views surfaced on 5 July 1996 when Howard delivered the Sir Thomas
Playford lecture at Adelaide Town Hall. Here, Howard spoke of his predecessor's
desire 'to rewrite Australian history' and 'stifle voices of dissent.'
Howard implied that the task of the historian was not to view history
from the perspective of one particular group. History was a national story:
The fact is that the history of our nation is the
story of all our people and it is a story for all our people. It is
owned by no-one. It is not the story of some general conspiracy or
manipulation: it is a history which has its flaws-certainly-but which
broadly constitutes a scale of heroic and unique achievement against
great odds.(47)
In between the time of John Howard's Playford lecture
in July 1996 and his delivery of the Sir Robert Menzies' lecture in November,
Pauline Hanson delivered her maiden speech in the House of Representatives
on September 10, in which she attacked the level of funding for Aboriginal
Australians as well as the level of Asian immigration.(48) A nation-wide
debate on the race issue ensued. As the debate gathered momentum, the
Prime Minister appeared on the John Laws program on 24 October 1996. One
of the issues explored during the program was the reason behind the popularity
of Pauline Hanson. It was while discussing this issue that John Howard
made the following remarks:
You don't want to turn people into martyrs and you
don't want to create a situation where people attract unnecessary
levels of attention. Now I understand the sense of unease and insecurity
that a lot of people feel about their jobs, about the future of Australia.
I think we've had too much ... we talk too negatively about our past.
I sympathise fundamentally with Australians who are insulted when
they are told that we have a racist bigoted past. And Australians
are told that quite regularly. Our children are taught that. Some
of the school curricula go close to teaching children that we have
a racist bigoted past. Now of course we treated Aborigines very, very
badly in the past ... but to tell children who themselves have been
no part of it, that we're all part of a racist bigoted history is
something that Australians reject.(49)
These comments suggested that Mr. Howard saw the spread
of an overly negative view of Australian history as one of the contributing
factors to the electoral appeal of Pauline Hanson's populist nationalism.(50)
The comments were also consistent with the Prime Minister's statement
two weeks earlier, that he had 'some reservations about the practical
and material benefits to be derived from the inquiry into the removal
of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their parents'.(51)
The emphasis should not be on past wrongs but on present disadvantage.
The media pounced on the comments made in the interview with John Laws,
and sought responses from leading historians. Professor Henry Reynolds
accused the Prime Minister of attempting to censor history-'we have to
face the reality of our past to say as he does that Australia does not
have a racist past suggests to me that John Howard does not know his history'.(52)
Some church leaders, Aboriginal spokespersons, the Federal Opposition,
and the Australian Democrats also condemned the Prime Minister's remarks.(53)
Three weeks after his appearance on the John Laws program,
Mr Howard delivered the Sir Robert Menzies lecture on 18 November 1996.
In this lecture, which was reported widely in the media, he rejected the
Keating government's 'sustained, personalised, and vindictive assault
on the Menzies' legacy'. In doing so, he returned again to the theme of
black armband history:
I have spoken tonight of the need to guard against
the re-writing of Australian political history and, in particular,
to ensure that the contribution of Robert Menzies and the Liberal
tradition are accorded their proper place in it. There is, of course,
a related and broader challenge involved. And that is to ensure that
our history as a nation is not written definitively by those who take
the view that we should apologise for most of it. This black armband
view of our past reflects a belief that most Australian history since
1788 has been little more than a disgraceful story of imperialism,
exploitation, racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination. I
take a very different view. I believe that the balance sheet of our
history is one of heroic achievement and that we have achieved much
more as a nation of which we can be proud than of which we should
be ashamed. In saying that I do not exclude or ignore specific aspects
of our past where we are rightly held to account. Injustices were
done in Australia and no-one should obscure or minimise them. But
in understanding these realities our priority should not be to apportion
blame and guilt for historic wrongs but to commit to a practical program
of action that will remove the enduring legacies of disadvantage.(54)
Academics contacted by the Sydney Morning Herald
criticised the Prime Minister for seeking to exclude certain views from
Australian history. Professor Henry Reynolds claimed that Howard was trying
to restore a 'white picket fence view of history that minimises women,
Aborigines and other minority groups'. Professor Anne Curthoys saw Howard's
speech as nothing to do with history but every thing to do with 'an appeal
to a political constituency.' Professor Elaine Thompson alleged that the
Prime Minister was attempting to 'rewrite history to counter-balance Keating'.(55)
By the end of Mr Howard's first nine months as Prime
Minister, it was clear that the desire to project a largely proud, heroic
and benign version of Australian history was at the heart of his government's
political philosophy and possibly its electoral strategy. This became
even more obvious in 1997 when the Prime Minister repeated his assertions
regarding black armband history in the context of his government's response
to the Stolen Generations report and the debate surrounding the
Wik legislation. Speaking at the Reconciliation Convention in Melbourne
in May this year, he reminded those in attendance that while he felt personal
sorrow in regard to the injustices committed by previous generations of
Australians against indigenous people, he was unwilling to accept any
suggestion that Australian history was 'little more than a disgraceful
record of imperialism, exploitation and racism'. Contemporary Australians
could not be held responsible for the sins of past generations.(56) Thus
the Howard government's refusal to formally apologise to Aboriginal Australians
on behalf of the Australian people appears to be entirely consistent with
John Howard's stated views on Australian history.
The Wider Debate Responses to John Howard
Before embarking on a survey of the various responses
to the Prime Minister's arguments, it is important to point out that Professor
Geoffrey Blainey has made one further contribution to the black armband
debate. This occurred shortly after the handing down of the High Court's
Wik decision. In an article published in the Bulletin in April
1997, Blainey launched a sustained attack on the High Court and increased
the stridency of his language. Blainey's article is especially significant,
given the previously similarity between the rhetoric of John Howard and
Blainey's 1993 Latham lecture. After the Wik decision, Blainey's
views departed from those articulated by Mr Howard, becoming more emotive
and sensational. Blainey's most recent foray is quoted below.
In the past two decades a tidal wave of opinion has
swept across a big section of educated Australia. It has challenged
and changed the way people think about the nation's past, and especially
about the Aborigines. This view of history is increasingly called
the black armband view. It often laments Australia's abuse of the
natural environment, attitudes to women and minorities, and above
all the treatment of the Aborigines. In its view the minuses virtually
wipe out the pluses. In my mind the swing, useful in pointing to past
wrongs, has run wild the black armband view, while pretending to be
anti-racist, is intent on permanently dividing Australians on the
basis of race. Many historians preach a black armband view, but the
view is more emphatic outside than inside the history books. It is
noticeable on the TV news, ABC radio, and the high brow dailies. It
is vigorous in the Canberra based media, whose members mostly cheered
aloud when the goal of black armband ideology, the Native Title Bill,
was bulldozed through federal parliament by the Keating Government
which, it now transpires, did not know what the Bill portended partly
because that black armband tribunal, the High Court, was still in
the process of discovering the law. So long as the black armband view
is influential-so long as it insists that the treatment of Aborigines
was so disgraceful that no reparations might be adequate, that no
reconciliation can be certain of success, and that black racism is
justified-then Australia's future as a legitimate nation is in doubt.(57)
Blainey's attack on the High Court was more in keeping
with some of the more spirited criticisms emanating from tropical Australia
after the Wik decision. But it is significant because many of the
comments made in response to the anti black armband crusade have appeared
in the context of not only John Howard's remarks, but also those of Geoffrey
Blainey. The distinction between the two is not often made.
If we turn to the historical profession for a response,
the most conspicuous critic of the Howard-Blainey assault has been Don
Watson-the former Keating speech writer. In March 1997, Watson addressed
a seminar at the University of Melbourne, devoted entirely to the black
armband issue. His main target was John Howard.
The employment of this black armbands charge is probably
quite dangerous. It will be a very sad thing if it begins to affect
school curricula. It's pernicious because the puerility of it has
been cleverly attached to the national mood. We have to presume that
is why John Howard took up the cry. None of us believes there is a
single serious Australian historian whose work fits Mr Howard's description.
It is difficult to believe that the motives of the black armband school
are not political, if only because their reading of history and their
understanding of how it is written could be so wrong headed without
being wilful they might be in denial.(58)
In a much longer essay in the Australian's Review
of Books, in July 1997, Watson described the black armband school
as those who wanted to leave out 'the grisly and sad bits' from the national
story and 'tell a story with only light.' Of all 'the inherent absurdities',
said Watson, 'the greatest is to imagine that history cannot accommodate
the whole story'.(59) His comments differed from those of Noel Pearson,
former chair of the Cape York Land Council, who, when responding to the
Prime Minister's Menzies lecture in November 1996, pointed out that John
Howard was not seeking to deny 'the depredations against Aboriginal people
that are illuminated by the new Australian history'. Pearson stressed
that the Prime Minister had publicly acknowledged that 'injustices were
done in Australia and no-one should obscure or minimise them'.(60) The
debate therefore was not about the facts of history, rather, it was a
debate about the way in which Australians should respond to the past.
Other historians not traditionally aligned with the Labor
side of politics, such as Professor Patrick O'Farrell, tend to agree with
John Howard that the 'guilt school of Australian history has gone too
far'. According to Professor O'Farrell, as reported by Mark Uhlmann, 'there
should be no apologising for murder or mistreatment, but even in such
cases a historian has an obligation, using the tools and intellectual
rigour of his trade, to understand why things happened. An individual
or society who does one bad thing, is not usually wholly bad. A historian
must also look for the redemptive features'.(61) Professor O'Farrell emphasised
that it was the duty of the historian not to apportion blame or guilt
but to develop 'empathy with historical figures' and look at the past
with compassion. The historian was not the judge of human error but the
person who bore a social responsibility to explore the stories of human
endeavour-in all their various shades and colours.
Intellectuals outside the historical profession, such
as Stephen Muecke, Professor of Cultural Studies at the University of
Technology of Sydney, have approached the history debate from an entirely
different perspective. Muecke has argued that 'the most memorable national
historical events are black armband events. They are associated with loss
of life, grief on a national scale, and rituals that bring people together
in common remembrance.' Anzac day is but one example. The critics of the
black armband view therefore want 'to be selective about whose dead should
be honoured in this kind of way.' Muecke implies that the motivation of
the black armband critics is their desire to own the national symbols
and events which remember those who have sacrificed their lives for the
nation. For example, the erection of a monument in Canberra, in commemoration
of all those Aboriginal Australians who have died defending their land
since 1788, as proposed by Professor Henry Reynolds, is unlikely to be
endorsed by the Howard government if we accept Muecke's position.(62)
Other prominent intellectuals who have offered a critique
of the black armband categorisation have focused their attention on Professor
Geoffrey Blainey. Dr Gerard Henderson, Fairfax columnist and executive
director of the Sydney Institute, has criticised Blainey for failing to
name the historians responsible for the black armband view. Referring
to Blainey's 1993 Latham lecture, Henderson noted that Blainey named only
two individuals-Bob Hawke and Manning Clark. In Blainey's Bulletin
article in 1993, he mentioned only Don Watson. The other guilty parties
were not historians but High Court judges. In Henderson's words, this
lack of hard evidence makes Blainey's claims of a black armband school
of thought 'vague' and a 'bit thin'.(63) Henderson's observations are
perhaps a thinly veiled criticism of John Howard, given that the Prime
Minister has named fewer historians than Geoffrey Blainey.
As a concluding remark, it is worth pointing out that
perhaps the more remarkable aspect of the responses to Blainey and Howard
is that there has been so few. Don Watson has chastised the members of
his own profession for failing to speak out.(64) History is indeed the
subject of public and political discussion-but there are few historians
willing to become embroiled in controversy by risking their detached position.
Perhaps their silence also reflects the fact, that unlike Don Watson,
who for personal reasons is undoubtedly keen to defend his reputation
as a historian, other historians do not perceive the black armband debate
as an assault on the historical profession.
Conclusion
This paper has attempted to provide readers with the
background to the current debate on black armband history and a concise
map of the most significant arguments involved. Some patterns in the debate
are now discernible.
First, the debate over the issues associated with the
black armband label predates Professor Geoffrey Blainey's use of the term
in his 1993 Latham lecture by more than a decade. Second, Aboriginal Australians
have employed the black armband as a symbol of their historical dispossession
since at least 1970. Third, Prime Minister John Howard appears to have
relied heavily on Blainey's 1993 Latham lecture in the formulation of
his own argument on Australian history. This indicates that Professor
Blainey's role is not entirely dissimilar to the role played by Manning
Clark during the Hawke-Keating era. However, it could be argued that John
Howard's views have remained reasonably consistent over the last four
years whereas Professor Blainey's views are expressed in more virulent
terms-especially since the High Court's Wik decision. Another significant
difference is that Professor Blainey does not appear to occupy the same
status in the national psyche as Manning Clark did in the 1980s.
One of the more striking features of the arguments presented
in this paper is the degree to which the protagonists misrepresent the
claims of their opponents. Presently, we seem to have a situation where
one side alleges that the other has no pride in Australia's history, emphasises
only the dark aspects of our past, encourages feelings of national guilt
and shame, and denies the legitimacy of European culture. The other side
responds in a predictable fashion. It rejects all of these claims and
alleges that its opponents want to censor Australian history and deny
the truth about the history of Aboriginal dispossession and the White
Australia policy.
A close reading of the arguments outlined in this paper
indicates that neither side is saying what the other side claims it is
saying. John Howard and Geoffrey Blainey are not seeking to whitewash
Australian history, just as Don Watson and Manning Clark were not seeking
to denigrate Australian achievement. The argument is not about content-it
is about emphasis. It is not so much concerned with the nature of history
as it is with the use of history. As a people, we are trying to come to
terms with the fact that 'Australian' history is no longer written purely
from the perspective of the majority. Historians now ask different questions.
History can be heroic or bleak-depending on who is telling the story.
For much of our past women, non anglo migrants, and indigenous Australians
did not have a public space in which their stories could be heard. Political
leaders are now grappling with the fact that there is more than one national
story to be told. They are trying to understand how it is possible for
Australians to 'listen' to different histories and accept the legitimacy
of 'different' perspectives, while also retaining a shared history which
can act as a binding force in the national community. This is the underlying
tension in the black armband debate.
The common ground shared by all participants in the debate
is that they perceive history to be of enormous importance. For all parties,
history is the bridge to a national community founded on shared experience.
For political leaders especially, there is a need to project a positive
view of national traditions, heritage and identity. Yet this requirement
need not mean that history be sanitised or simplified in the interests
of political expedience. The most terrible events in the past can be used
as a source of positive affirmation if they are addressed in an honest
and open manner. All history is useful. Notions of guilt or denial are
less helpful. In an effort to show that there is a shared national history
in Australia which can indeed be a source of inspiration, I will leave
the last word to Noel Pearson.
We need to appreciate the complexity of the past
and not reduce history to a shallow field of point scoring. I believe
that there is much that is worth preserving in the cultural heritage
of our dispossessors as a nation, the Australian community has a collective
consciousness that encompasses a responsibility for the present and
future, and the past. To say that ordinary Australians who are part
of the national community today do not have any connection with the
shameful aspects of our past is at odds with our exhortations that
they have connections to the prideful bits. If there is one thing
about the colonial heritage of Australia that indigenous Australians
might celebrate along with John Howard it must surely be the fact
that upon the shoulders of the English settlers or invaders-call them
what you will, came the common law of England and with it the civilised
institution of native title. What more redemptive prospect can be
painted about our country's colonial past?(65)
Endnotes
- H. G. Kaye, Why do Ruling Classes Fear History?, New York;
St Martins Press, 1996, pp. 20-21 and J. J. Kaye, The Powers of the
Past, pp. 95-119, and G. Lipsitz, Time Passages Collective
Memory and American Popular Culture, University of Minnesota Press,
Minneapolis, 1990, pp. 32 and 33.
For an examination of the use of history under Helmut
Kohl's Christian Democrats in Germany and the push for a 'normalisation'
of the past see J. Habermas, The New Conservatism: Cultural Criticism
and the Historians' debate, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1989.
- Quoted in Kaye, The Powers of the Past, p. 95.
- J. A. La Nauze, 'The Study of Australian History 1929-1959, Historical
Studies, vol. IX, no. 33, November 1959, p. 11.
- See Markus and McGrath in D. H. Borchardt, (ed.) Australians a
Guide to Sources, Fairfax, Syme and Weldon, 1987, pp. 117-30, for
the most comprehensive discussion of this work.
- R. Hunter, Aboriginal histories, Australian histories, and the law,
in B. Attwood, (ed.) In the Age of Mabo, pp. 1 and 16. Attwood's
book is attacked in Pauline Hanson The Truth. Ipswich 1997, p.
118. Also see the assault on Reynolds, p. 121.
- This discussion can also be found in fiction and poetry see e.g. G.
Page, and Pooaraar The Great Forgetting, Aboriginal Studies Press,
1996.
- A. W. Martin, Henry Parkes. A Biography, MUP 1980, p. 3469.
- G. A. Blainey, Balance Sheet On Our History, Quadrant, July
1993, pp. 10-15.
- Aborigines Petition the King-1937. Churinga, May 1970, p. 27.
- ibid.
- Australian, 7 February 1970.
- Australian, 30 April 1970.
- Age, 29 April 1970, Some wore red head bands to symbolise the
spilt blood of Aboriginal Australians.
- Australian, 7 February 1970 and Age, 11 February 1970.
Also see Australian editorial, 30 April 1970, which is not dissimilar
to Keating's Redfern Park Speech.
- Treaty 88 poster. Held in poster collection of Institute of Aboriginal
Studies ANU (POS0136). Also J. Patten and W. Ferguson, Aborigines
Claim Citizen rights! The Publicist, Sydney, 1938.
- Canberra Times, 27 January 1987.
- See e.g., photographs of Aboriginal protesters in C. Healey, From
the Ruins of Colonialism, CUP, 1997, pp. 2 and 43.
- Jonathan King. Sailing into history, Sydney Morning Herald,
13 May 1997.
- G. Blainey, Eye on Australia, p. 46 and 51.
- Future Directions, Liberal Party of Australia, December, 1988, pp.
92-93. Also P. Kelly, The End of Certainty, Allen and Unwin,
1992, pp. 422 and 423.
- ibid., p. 7. Also see Hanson's maiden speech in Pauline Hanson.
The Truth, especially pp. 2 and 3.
- J. Hirst, The Blackening of our Past, IPA Review, December-February
1988-89, pp. 49-54. Also R. Manne, Bicentennial Guilt, Quadrant,
vol. 33, no. 3, March 1989.
- Sydney Morning Herald, 23 January 1988.
- Sydney Morning Herald, 25 January 1985.
- Sydney Morning Herald, 22 January 1988.
- C. M. H. Clark, Occasional Writings and Speeches, Fontana Collins,
1980, p. 209.
- The Australian, 26 December 1977.
- See for example The Age, 23 September 1976.
- See for example The West Australian, 20 January 1991.
- C. M. H. Clark, The Beginning of Wisdom, Time Australia, 25
January 1988, p. 12.
- House of Representatives, Votes and Proceedings, no. 69, 28 May 1991.
- ibid.
- See P. J. Keating, Speech at Corowa Shire Council Centenary Dinner,
31 July 1993.
- P. J. Keating, H V Evatt lecture, Sydney, 28 April 1993.
- J. Howard, 1996 Sir Robert Menzies Lecture, 18 November 1996.
- D. Watson, Teach it all, good and bad. Australian, 13 March
1997.
- Daily Telegraph Mirror, 28 February 1992 and The Age,
28 February 1992.
- ibid.
- Age, 11 December 1992.
- G. Blainey, Black future. The Bulletin, 8 April 1997, p. 22.
- F. (S. J.) Brennan, The Wik Judgment. Paper deliver to Social
and Political Theory Group Seminar, RSSS, ANU, 26 March 1997.
- Weekly House Hansard, 30 October 1996, p. 4.
- Pauline Hanson. The Truth. Ipswich, Queensland 1997, p. 132.
Borbidge comment on ABC TV News, March 1997.
- Interview with John Laws, 2UE, 24 October 1996; See also, Canberra
Times, 25 October 1996, and Sydney Morning Herald, 25-26
October 1996.
- Australian, 12 June 1996, (Greg Pemberton).
- J. Howard, Headland Speech no. 4, Grand Hyatt Hotel, Melbourne, 13
December 1995.
- J. Howard, Sir Thomas Playford Lecture, 5 July 1996, pp. 1
and 2.
- P. Hanson, The Truth.
- Transcript of John Laws program, 24 October 1996, p. 19.
- See also John Howard's address to the Australia-Asia Society in Sydney,
8 May 1997. Edited version in The Australian, 9 May 1997.
- Canberra Times, 7 October 1996.
- ibid., 25 October 1996.
- Sydney Morning Herald, 25-26 October 1996, also Weekend
Australian, 26-27 October 1996.
- J. Howard, Sir Robert Menzies Lecture, 18 November 1996, p.
9.
- Sydney Morning Herald, 20 November 1996.
- The Australian, 25 May 1997, Also see Sydney Morning Herald,
27 January 1997.
- The Bulletin, 8 April 1997 p. 21-23.
- The Australian, 13 March 1997.
- The Australian's Review of Books, July 1997 p. 6-9.
- The Australian, 22 November 1996.
- Canberra Times, 11 March 1997.
- The Financial Review, 11 April 1997.
- The Sydney Morning Herald, 8 April 1997.
- The Australian, 13 March 1996.
- The Australian, 22 November 1996.
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