Colonialism, the Biggar Picture

It is a year since Australians turned down an institutionalised exercise in truth-telling attached to the Voice to Parliament referendum. Many No voters would no doubt like to see balance restored to the prevailing version of Australian colonial history. Yet they instinctively knew this was not the truth-telling the Voice’s proponents had in mind.

This month, a group of eminent historians will gather in Sydney and Melbourne to piece together a more faithful narrative of the history of European settlement. Professor Nigel Biggar, author of Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning, will be a guest of Quadrant in Australia.

He’ll be joined in Melbourne on October 29 by Keith Windschuttle, the author of  The Fabrication of Aboriginal History, and Australia’s greatest living historian, Geoffrey Blainey, whose books include Triumph of the Nomads (1975) and A History of Australia’s People (2016).

In Sydney on October 21, Biggar will be joined by Windschuttle and Margaret Cameron-Ash, the author of Beating France to Botany Bay (2021). An Anglican priest, theologian and ethicist, he has held positions at the University of Leeds, Trinity College Dublin and the University of Oxford until his retirement last year.

Biggar brings a degree of clarity to the issue frequently missing in discussions about our history. When I read his book last year, I was struck with his historical rigour, nuanced arguments and bravery in tackling issues from which others shrink.

Biggar’s 2023 book speaks to the major questions of our day. In an article in this month’s edition of Quadrant, he says he wrote it “to counter a relentlessly negative narrative that corrodes faith in liberal democratic, Western states at a time when illiberal, authoritarian powers are flexing their intimidatory muscles”.

When Biggar’s reassessment of colonialism was published last year, Australians were debating the proposal to grant Aboriginal people special status in the Constitution and Parliament. Biggar brought intellectual clarity to the question of inherited guilt. What was the moral basis for the argument that Indigenous people should be compensated for historical wrongs?

According to Biggar, the argument that the descendants of native people or enslaved Africans suffer ongoing trauma from wrongs visited on their distant ancestors is buttressed by sentiment, not facts. Classifying people as victims, on the other hand, is undoubtedly disempowering and discouraging. This view is supported by countless examples of lives poisoned by the tyranny of low expectations and the fatalistic conviction that one’s chances are forever constrained by genetic inheritance.

The prospect of reparations throws the constitutionally entrenched muddle of the Voice to Parliament into a new orbit of moral confusion. Who should pay the reparations since the individuals who may or may not have been responsible for the mistreatment of Aboriginal people are long dead. And to whom should the reparations be paid since the mortal coils of those who sustained the alleged injuries were shed many years ago?

Biggar cites a letter published in The Times by a former British diplomat who recounted a conversation he had had with a ruler of Nigeria shortly after the country’s independence. The ruler was pressing the case for reparations for decades of colonial oppression.

“I entirely agree,” the diplomat replied.

“And you shall have your compensation as soon as we get ours from the Romans.”

It’s an anecdote, and a broader point, Biggar explored with me in the video below.

Biggar’s conversations with Blainey, Windschuttle and Cameron-Ash will be a chance to explore these issues further with some of the sharpest minds who have studied the history of Australian colonialism.

The Sydney event with Biggar, Windschuttle and Cameron-Ash will be a gala dinner at Dalton House on Monday, October 21, from 6 pm to 9 pm. The conversation will be moderated by Australia’s 28th Prime Minister and Quadrant Chairman Tony Abbott.

The Melbourne event with Biggar, Windschuttle and Blainey on Tuesday, October 29, will be at the Windsor Hotel starting at 5.30 pm and will be in two halves: a talk and discussion over canapés, followed by a dinner at 7.30 pm.

If you are a paid subscriber to Reality Bites or an annual subscriber to Quadrant, you can take advantage of a special early-bird offer. I’ll be attending both events. I hope to see you there.