Removing the Stolen Generations

After decades of deluge about the evils of “racism”, discussion of the Aboriginal question invariably puts this word centre stage, but it is not a useful one and never has been. The discussion has more to do with culture than race, and the “Stolen Generations” story has been more about people of mixed descent allegedly and painfully separated from their culture than about real racial prejudice.

But what is “culture”? Is Australian Aboriginal culture, once separated from remote and isolated tribal conditions and thrust into the wider world, much different from say, Scottish or Croatian culture surviving into the suburbs? Is there much of it that is distinctive and worth saving in the modern world, other than a sense of identity and, for those who want it, a preference for mixing with their own kind or a minor badge of pride, like a tartan tie?

These are key issues of the “Stolen Generations” issue, raised anew by the third volume of Keith Windschuttle’s The Fabrication of Aboriginal…