Great book, great launch

At a history making Quadrant Dinner on February 24 Andrew Bolt launched The Fabrication of Aboriginal History, Volume 3, The Stolen Generations by Keith Windschuttle.

Listen to Andrew Bolt and Keith Windschuttle’s speeches here…

Here are some comments from the blogs.
 

Blogger Andrew Bolt:

I’m flying back from Sydney, where I last night launched Keith Windschuttle’s superb The Fabrication of Aboriginal History, Volume 3, The Stolen Generations, which really should end the careers of three academics who have done most to propagandise the “stolen generations” myth.

As I said last night, the sin isn’t just the falsification of our history, or the trashing of pride in our past – so necessary to build a sense of community. It’s the price Aboriginal children have had to pay in their own blood for a myth which counts it a sin to save Aboiginal children from sometimes lethal black communities.

I fear I may have got a bit a heated. Still;, among those kind enough not to say so were John Howard, the lovely John Herron and his wife, Professor Bob Carter, blogger Gavin Atkins, Professor David Flint and John Stone, who nevertheless gave me curry for saying very nice things about Charlie Perkins. Janet Albrechtsen seemed perfectly liberated, having just left the ABC board.

Source Andrew Bolt

Blogger Paul Norton:

Andrew Bolt reveals that climate denialist Bob Carter made it from Townsville to Sydney to join the White Right Tribe of AUstralia at the launch of Keith Windschuttle’s latest installment of dispossession denialism.

Source johnquiggin.com

Blogger Gavin Atkins:

“So how many of us here are virgins?” asked my table companion, and four, five…six hands went up.

It seems a lot of us at the launch of The Fabrication of Aboriginal History Volume Three had never been to a Quadrant event before. Although I had hoped some of the people at my table were part of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, most of the people I spoke to were regular people from the suburbs: timber-yard workers, an advertising copywriter, a geologist, a medical exporter, a salesman, a software developer, a blogging wannabe.

Asking around, it turned out we were all at Keith Windschuttle’s book launch because we admired the work of Keith Windschuttle. As the Americans would say – go figure.

Some of the younger inner-city types at my table admitted they felt they couldn’t tell their friends about the event they were attending. As one young lady accompanying her partner said: “One friend of mine who found out where we were going suggested I should break up with my partner over it. She was half-joking – I think.”

A bonus on the night was the appearance of John Howard.  He was a ball of energy, greeting old friends and helping elderly guests to get around. Clearly his legendary ability to work a room, remember names and faces and greet strangers warmly is completely undimmed. All around the place were familiar but sagging faces of Ministers from former governments, all now – more than ever – looking like the caricatures cartoonists once drew of them. Time is nothing if not a joker.

Andrew Bolt spoke passionately about the myth of the stolen generations with particular reference to his experiences growing up in the Northern Territory. The thing that has perpetuated this myth, he says, is that believing you were the victim of racist policies would be preferable for many people over believing the hurtful reality of being abandoned by your parents. For this reason, the people involved are worthy of sympathy.

However, as Andrew points out, anyone who reads this book is likely to have much less sympathy for the academics who have perpetuated the myth. For fear of repeating the horrors of something that never happened, children have since died. The kids who died for an idea have names, and their details are tragcially scattered through the coroners’ reports.

Volume Three, said Andrew, is even better and more important than Volume One.

Source Asian Correspondent

Blogger Gregory Solomons:

But what now? Before they leave school, most kids have been shown the film Rabbit Proof Fence multiple times. According to Mr Bolt, the veracity of this film is demolished by the very book upon which it is based and by the comments of its real life protagonists. Our children are taught that their nation is steeped in racism, cruelty and even genocide! This propaganda is poisoning the moral self-confidence of our youth. Internationally Australia is being compared to Rhodesia, and apartheid South Africa. Our relationship with India is under great strain. What can be done to reverse these new tragedies?

Well,  we now have an academic work that systematically dismantles these accusations of racism, cruelty and genocide. Unpacking this and explaining it to the Australian public is the next challenge. Extracts of this book will soon be available online and hopefully schoolchildren will be able to read  some factual information. Unless  Senator Conroy manages to place it on the internet blacklist.

John Howard has stated that, as a conservative he does not feel morally superior to his grandfather. Keith Windshuttle’s book defends the morality of our forebears. Australia was very well served by John Howard’s sensible perspective on this issue. We should also gratefully acknowledge Andrew Bolt’s energy in fighting the media blackout on the absence of evidence. And now we can thank Keith Windshuttle for his determined pursuit of objective truth, in the writing of this book, to which we can point and declare "this is what we believe".

Let us hope that the Coalition will be emboldened by this book and not be afraid to take its message to the Australian people. The time is right to sweep away false dogmas. The nation is listening to the climate change debate and slowly absorbing the shocking fact that mountains of scientific evidence have been corrupted, skewed and massaged into a predetermined message. No less shocking, the Stolen Generations is a fiction based on no evidence at all.

Source Conservative Observations