An Unlikely Massacre

Sir: Some thoughts on Keith Windschuttle’s article on an alleged “Hospital Creek Massacre” (November 2017) and also on Jan Cooper’s subsequent letter (December 2017).

Given the type of weapons available in 1859, two years before the US Civil War in which muzzle loaders were still in common use on both sides, it doesn’t seem credible that a party of ten or so mounted settlers and Aboriginal employees would be likely to kill outright forty times their own number in a single “massacre”.

Rifles with magazines were not in common use in 1859. Weapons such as the US-made Sharps Combine or the British Snider used in the Crimean War (1853–1856) were typical for the day—single shot, large calibre. The B. Tyler “Henry” model (Winchester) repeating rifle was still some years away. Revolvers were available but were in most cases notoriously inaccurate except at very close range.

The Aborigines were not only armed (according to Con Bride, quoted by Cooper) but would have been completely familiar with the local terrain. It seems to me that only a very gullible person with scant knowledge of weaponry, outback terrain and Aboriginal resourcefulness would unhesitatingly accept a claim of four hundred dead.

As Windschuttle quite reasonably asks, why wasn’t such a huge “massacre”, impossible to conceal, reported in the papers?

Cooper’s letter (quoting Bride), suggests six out of nine alleged perpetrators were themselves Aborigines. Bride himself apparently wanted to make those claimed to have been massacred to “shift”, to “take fright and clear out”. He is alleged to have told G.M. Smith that “a dozen or more fell”. Another volley whistled over their heads. Then he saw them “retreating”. What happened to the other three hundred and eighty-eight?

To paraphrase the late Robert Hughes, a desire to emphasise the undoubted suffering of Aborigines following European colonisation doesn’t justify every lie, exaggeration or therapeutic slanting of evidence that claims to support it.

Frank Tully
Tenterfield, NSW

Sir: A man was once on his way down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell into the hands of brigands; they took all he had, beat him and then made off, leaving him half dead.

Now a priest happened to be travelling down the same road, and when he saw the man he stopped and asked what happened. “I was attacked by young Africans,” the man cried.  “Those poor boys,” the priest responded, “I must contact the bishop and organise help for them.” Then the priest passed by.

In the same way a journalist who came to the same place saw him, and asked what occurred. “I was attacked by young Africans,” the man groaned. “You racist,” the reporter replied. “We must do stories about this on the ABC.” Then the journalist passed by.

But a samaritan traveller who came upon him was moved by compassion when he saw him. He went up and bandaged his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them. Then he lifted him onto his own mount, and carried him to an inn to look after him.

When they arrived there, the innkeeper said, “That man is all over the news. The premier is calling for the Human Rights Commission to prosecute him for stigmatising socially disadvantaged ethnic people as ‘Africans’; and Mrs Barabbas is quite distraught at how he has driven her vulnerable sons into crime.”

Christopher Heathcote
Keilor, Vic

Sir: Belatedly, I have just read Tony Thomas’s article “The School of Pro-Islamic Studies” (October 2017). It made some very telling points about sloppy research methodology. However, I take issue with one of his comments.

He nominated female subservience and polygamy as at the “mildest end” of how sharia doesn’t fit Western laws. These aren’t mild at all. If I had to spend my life under the command of all-male religious and political leaders, father, brothers and husband and what’s more, share my adult household with other wives and their children, I would see that as servitude akin to slavery and on a par with stoning. One’s attitude regarding “mildness” here might just possibly depend on which gender you belong to.

Janet Halliday
Lindfield, NSW

Sir: Christopher Heathcote (Letters, November 2017) is entitled to be dismayed.

Clearly the archdeacon in question pulled rank and committed a parish building to be used as a billboard for same-sex-marriage advocates. In doing so the archdeacon rubbished the Anglican synodical principle which requires genuine consultation between its clerical and lay constituents.

Pulling rank occurred a good deal during the wrangle over same-sex marriage, and the prize for audacity must be awarded to the Anglican Archbishop of Brisbane. Moreover, the Pyne–Turnbull axis against guaranteed religious freedoms works in favour of episcopal arrogance.

On the eve of the same-sex-marriage debate turning seriously political (July 19, 2017, to be precise) the Archbishop revealed that a senior Anglican priest had transgendered without prejudice to either its role or emoluments in the diocese. To achieve this the Archbishop pulled rank in two ways. He ignored the synodical principle on which Anglican governance rested. Both his own Synod, and the General Synod, had yet to decide its attitude to the LGBTIQ+ phenomenon. In short he acted unilaterally, albeit with selected private consultations. The Archbishop also assured the diocese that, as a bishop, he was possessed of an inside understanding (shades of gnosticism) which authorised his decision.

Understandably, the Archbishop fell silent during the postal survey, having already committed the diocese to accommodate LGBTIQ+ reform. To shield himself against indifference he circulated three documents taken from elsewhere. One, from the Anglican Primate, was cryptic; one was an obscure ABC transcript of a personal venture into theology which made God and Man equal partners in creation; and one was a biblical discourse from the Diocese of Sydney. The Archbishop clarified nothing, and added nothing. But he counselled against diocesan dissent from his affirmative transgender action. This action had said everything.

But dissent is inevitable. To forestall this the Archbishop is already arming his defence with overwhelming evidence from the “lived experiences of LGBTIQ+ people”. St John’s university college is his collector.

But will dissent be allowed? If the intent of Turnbull’s yet-to-be-disclosed “freedom of religion” legislation protects the new status of the LGBTIQ+ community it may undermine the freedom of religious debate within religious organisations. Once LGBTIQ+ rights to ecclesiastical office come before a Synod the sole transgendered priest sitting in the Synod has the right to invoke the protection of 18C. Future Anglican Synods will function at their peril.

The Archbishop’s fait accompli is his victory, and his ally is the Pyne–Turnbull embargo on guaranteed religious freedoms.

Good luck may have fallen the Archbishop’s way. Did he simply stumble into a victory over his Synod? Or, has he cunningly schemed for it?

George Shaw
Brisbane, Qld

Sir: Those concerned about bad behaviour by Aboriginal youth like to blame it on the presence of white society, but that only works for the town and city Aborigines in the south of our country. That the culture of disruption and petty crime has now spread to the traditional Aboriginal communities to the north is much more worrying. It suggests that a whole generation of traditional Aboriginal youth have become alienated from their own society, and this suggests that Aboriginal culture itself is going under, that the lore of the group is no longer being passed on.

Aboriginal society was not destroyed by magic in 1788, and has shown itself remarkably resilient—until now. Sooner or later all minority groups in larger societies have to adapt or go under. Fostering some kind of angry separation of Aborigines from mainstream society simply prolongs the agony.

Peter Gilet
Subiaco, WA

Sir: I can understand Peter Smith’s article about God versus Science (January-February 2018), having gone through that sort of personal analysis as a young person. However, after considerable discussions with both clerical and secular people, I arrived at the opposite conclusion to Peter.

While I understand his rejection of the Black Hole being the start of all existence and the natural step then to resorting to a unique power that created our existence, it is significant that modern scientific technology is radically opening up the discussion on the evolution of our galaxy and whether there are other societies in the universe.

One of the recent advances in cosmological science is the research into the existence of a pre-Big Bang four-dimensional universe. The singularity (an infinitely dense point) that started our Big Bang was the result of a collapse of a previous four-dimensional universe. Effectively that raises a difficult-to-comprehend concept that existence does not have a start, just as time does not have a start, or a finish for that matter.

This sort of scientific research into these exotic areas simply points up just how early days it is for research into the start and finish of our existence.

The latest Hubble telescope exploration has revealed that the known universe is far larger than we knew previously. It so far has revealed that our galaxy, the Milky Way, is just a quite small player in a massive collection of 100,000 galaxies, with many more surrounding that.

Given the number of potential galaxies and stars and therefore planets, there are potentially millions of opportunities for life forms to evolve which may have done so and lived out their existence already. We are an infinitesimally small player in the incredibly large universe in which we live.

Do we need a god to have started all that? Unlikely. More likely a god is the creation of non-scientific societies trying to understand the reason for their existence. If evolution went a slightly different way and Earth was a bit closer to the Sun, it could have meant that this planet would never have had intelligent life on it. Would that mean there was no god?

Distorted versions of various religions around the world have caused and will continue to cause terrible anguish and loss of life, primarily over different versions of what each individual decides is the only correct version of his god’s word. Religious groups worldwide seem powerless to prevent this. If there is a god, then I am puzzled why he hasn’t stepped in and resolved it (as he apparently did in the past).

Perhaps it is now time for the rule of secular law to prevail? Or has that already been shown to be a spent force too?

Tony Caldersmith
via e-mail