Ding ding!
The unapologetic Andrew Bolt has tipped his hat at the apologetic former Trotskyist Keith Windschuttle in ‘Windschuttle: Manne must step down’ (February 1, 2010).
I know this because, while I am of course a huge fan of Bolt’s — and rarely miss an opportunity to be enlightened by him — I sadly missed this gem, and it has only come to my attention by way of one of Bolt’s readers citing an earlier entry on my blog, one which reproduces a letter Robert Manne addressed to Bolt some four years ago on the subject of The Stolen Generations (the letter was originally published in Crikey on June 29, 2006).
The text Bolt refers his readers to is ‘Robert Manne: a case to answer’ (QED, Quadrant Online, January 31, 2010). It argues that “Manne should stand down for inquiry”, an inquiry Windschuttle believes should be instituted in order to investigate ‘false claims about Commonwealth government support in the 1930s for a policy of “breeding out the colour”.’ Windschuttle also makes reference to The Curious Case of Ward Churchill, writing:
In 2005, the president of the University of Colorado stood down Ward Churchill, a Professor of American Indian Studies, and appointed a panel of academics from both within and outside his own institution to investigate public charges of academic misconduct against him. In May 2006, the committee found Churchill guilty of falsification and fabrication of history and of plagiarism. The president then dismissed him.
Windschuttle fails to mention that Churchill subsequently won a wrongful-termination lawsuit against the University in April 2009. Three months later, in July 2009, a Judge overturned the decision, which is now subject to a further appeal by Churchill’s lawyer. According to one source, “A hearing will probably be scheduled in mid-2010” (for more infos: WARD CHURCHILL v. UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO).
In any case, Bolt responds to Manne’s 2006 letter on his blog. It makes for interesting reading.
I’ve written about this very list many times. Before I repeat myself, let me ask you something. You’ve cited a list of names, with not a single fact to indicated what lives these children were leading and the reasons they were “stolen”. For all you know, these names could be children enrolled by their parents at a Sunday school. And note that Manne tells you almost nothing about them, too.
Here now is an extract from a longer piece [http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/fisking_mannes_column/P60/] in which I discussed this very list, among other false claims made by Manne:
“I wrote about that very list in the Herald Sun, noting Manne’s names were of children rescued by Dr Walter Roth between 1900 and 1905 and found by a court, even by Manne’s own admssion, to have been neglected. I was able to track down the details of just three (and Manne has provided a partial history of just one more), They included a fatherless 12-year-old girl with syphilis, a 13-year-old who was seven months pregnant and working for no wages on a station, and a boy who was kept chained up in a back yard by white employers when he was bad. These were in no way children stolen, as Manne claimed, just because they were Aboriginal, not because they needed help. If these children were “stolen” than every single child we save from rape and violence is “stolen” too and the term is meaningless. Or a lie.”
Children suffering from venereal disease. Children who were raped. Children kept prisoner by people not their parents. Are these really children who were “stolen” or simply rescued when authorities removed them and sent them to missionaries for care and schooling?
I repeat my challenge. Give me 10 names of children stolen just because they were Aboriginal. And next time you might do better not to take Manne at his word.
Andrew Bolt
Mon 01 Feb 10 (08:47pm)
Bonus Churchill!
See also : Venom and bile without any style, Graham Ring, National Indigenous Times, No.104, May 4, 2006 | Keith Windschuttle is a stooge! (January 6, 2009) | The lie of genocide, Robert Murray, Quadrant Online, January 24, 2010 | The Fabrication of Aboriginal History, Volume Three, The Stolen Generations 1881–2008, Keith Windschuttle, Macleay Press, 2010.
