Frontier or History Wars?

For this blog I intend to look at why the frontier conflict debate is so contentious, and indeed so personal. I believe that it has provoked such intense debate within out society, often labelled the "history wars" because the national pride and founding of the Australian nation is being called into question. It could be more accurately assessed as a debate in whether the ancestors of Anglo-Saxon Australians were law abiding and respectable people, or whether they in fact attempted what historians such as Henry Reynolds would call 'genocide'. I intend to use the debate between Reynolds and Windschutttle as a case study for why this debate is so intense.

In the debate between Reynolds and Windschuttle this intense debate is apparent, with Tony Jones pointing out that Reynolds has called Windschuttle the equivalent of a 'holocaust denier'. The debate between the two is fierce, with Windschuttle calling Reynold's research into question, and it is centred around the protection or vilification of colonialists. The debate seems so intense because the early history of white Australians is under attack from Reynolds, who claims 20,000 or more indigenous people were killed in a frontier 'war'. Reynolds suggests that Windschuttle acts as the defence council for settlers and the government, again implying that he is taking part in this debate because of highly personal reasons, wanting to see his ancestors cleared of this unjust war which Reynolds suggests.

Reynold's work in The Other Side of the Frontier suggests another reason why this debate is so intense, because it affects the politics of Australia. From the Mabo to the Wik case, and Tent Embassy of 1972, white Australian response to indigenous peoples has been affected by our politics and consequently our historianism. As Attwood and Foster acknowledge, this view of history affected John Howard and his rhetoric in Australian politics, and our decisions about this debate certainly affect the future policies of the country, particularly concerning indigenous peoples. 

 In this way, I would suggest that the debate over the frontier wars is so  powerful because it is personal to so many in Australia and affects the way they see themselves and their responsibility to indigenous peoples. Bain  Attwood and S.G. Foster argue against the polarisation of the debate, and urge for the actual attempt to discover 'historical truth'. I believe that what is at stake in the debate is the credibility of Australian history, and, like Attwood and Foster, I believe debate should lead us not to absolute opinions and poor historianism, but for an objective search for the truth in Windschuttle and Reynolds respective claims.

This picture is titled 'natives attacking shepherds hut', and is by Samuel Calvert in the early 1800s, it depicts aspects of the 'frontier wars' and suggests definite conflict between the native and colonial people. The fact that it was produced in a newspaper suggests that it may have propagandist intent, vilifying the natives and suggesting that they began the conflict. 

Accessed at National Gallery of Australia : http://nla.gov.au/nla.pic-an8957159