Historian John Hirst [1942-2016] had thought long and hard about the settlement of Australia. One aspect he wrote about was the violence between the Aborigines and the settlers - was it inevitable and how bad was it?
In his essay, How Sorry Can We Be, which appeared in his book, Sense & Nonsense in Australian History (Black inc. 2009, p80-103) he described what he called the ’liberal fantasy of Australia’s origins.'
Adherents to this fantasy ‘believe that it was possible to dispossess the Aborigines without bloodshed….It avers that the conquest could have been done nicely. This view is quite widespread and influential…’ (ibid., p82).
Without agreeing to all of Keith Windschuttle’s conclusions, Hirst cites attacks on Windschuttle’s work on violence on the frontier (and the relative lack of it compared to similar colonisations processes around the world) as a way of describing the ‘liberal fantasy origins of Australia’:
Figure 1 - (ibid., p80).
Figure 2 - (ibid., p81).
1 - A member of the public’s Liberal Fantasy:
Figure 3 - (ibid., p81).
Figure 4 - (ibid., p82).
2 - The Liberal Fantasy of the Judiciary and High Court:
Figure 5 - (ibid., p82).
Figure 6 - (ibid., p83).
3 - The Liberal Fantasy of historian Henry Reynolds
Figure 7 - (ibid., p84).
4- The Liberal Fantasy of author Kate Grenville
Figure 8 - (ibid., p84).
Figure 9 - (ibid., p85).
5 - The Consequential Realities of Adopting the Liberal Fantasy Mindset
Figure 10 - (ibid., p85).
Figure 11 - (ibid., p86).
Figure 12 - (ibid., p87).