In which the pond continues the celebrations with the reptiles' favourite historian ...

It being the day for it, the pond thought it might drag out Andrew Hill's 1986 print - see here ...

You see, in honour of the day, the reptiles dragged another geriatric out of their closet so that he might become perturbed at assorted clouds, in keeping with recent lizard Oz campaigns ...

Blainey ... Blainey ... that name rings a bell or three ...

Blainey, a well-regarded historian who had coined the term "tyranny of distance" to describe Australia’s relations with its British political founders, argued in a speech to a Rotary club in the Victorian town of Warnambool in 1984 that the pace of Asian migration was too high, that it threatened the "social cohesion" of Australia, that migrants generally took "Australian" jobs and unless major changes were made to immigration policy, racial conflict and violence would ensue. Outrage over his speech kept Blainey’s ideas in the media for some time. His views, while repudiated by some mainstream conservatives (although embraced by the far right National Action and League of Rights), articulated in an intemperate form a concern about the dilution of Anglo-Australian society. But Blainey’s argument, and his assumption of public opinion, were refuted by many other historians and social scientists, as well as politicians and public figures. (here)

But enough of that for the moment, it's on with the celebrations ...

First the pond must pause to admire the Lobbecke, and the casual significance of the brown hand at the barbie.

The pond realises that Lobbecke has a big fan base at the pond, and he never disappoints, though a few might wonder at the significance of the white hand shoving a prawn at the brown hand ...

As for the rest, that line by Blainey about "in retrospect" also has its significance, because in retrospect, a lot of what he wrote had issues ...

That's from a hagiographic reptile portrait of Blainey back in 2016, and easily googled, as the lizard Oz readership are gently prised, like a foot into a shoe, into the peculiar and exotic notion that perhaps their Geoffrey got a few things wrong.

And then there was the matter of the invisible women ...

And then comes the excuse, because apparently women, as well as blacks, were invisible and powerless at the time ...

Oh dear, a little bit of tokenism ...

Blainey has valiantly attempted to add women and stir them into his "new" mix of Australia's people (there is not a single reference to women in The Rush That Never Ended), though his unconscious bias towards the whore/helpmeet stereotype prohibits complexity. Thus Blainey mentions temperance campaigns, but not subsistence riots, equal pay activism or anti-conscription rallies. We get Nellie Melba, but not Vida Goldstein or Muriel Heagney. (here)

Say what? Say who?

...if you are infuriated by Blainey's conservative ideology masquerading as apolitical, detached observation, you should have asked Santa for a cordless drill.

Actually the pond likes that review by Clare Wright so well, here's a bit more ...

And then there's that other matter, dressed up in the Oz profile as best it can be ...

Indeed, indeed, these days Blainey is always willing to hint at the dangers of Islamics, though not quite willing to go the full hog ...

...his powers as a stylist have hardly dimmed, as Australia’s People shows – it’s full of his trademark felicitous phrases and ­succinct snapshots: describing a massive dust storm in 1902 he writes that it spread across the snowfields “like pepper on sugar”; the rise of ­vegetarianism in the 1960s, he remarks drolly, foreshadowed our own era of “implacable dietary fears”. 

 That latter phrase gives a flavour of Blainey’s withering attitude towards many causes of the Left; his new book likens the Green movement to a secular religion and disputes the view that Australia is a particularly racist nation, two familiar themes from his speeches and essays. Its conclusion finds him venturing back into the vexed issue of immigration when he examines home-grown Islamic extremism, which he believes is placing greater strain on the social fabric than the Asian immigration issues he once warned about. “I don’t think there’s any doubt about it,” he says, noting the public calls for a ban on Muslim immigration. Blainey’s own view is that this is “a bit harsh”, but he argues that the problems he outlined in 1984 – poorly educated migrants entering the country with little hope of contributing to the economy – are now overlaid by the fear of Islamist violence.

His powers as a bigot have hardly dimmed either. 

The profile contained stories of disputes and several threats of legal actions ...

Last year Allsop, an admirer of Blainey’s and a former Liberal government adviser, discovered just how deeply Blainey was affected. Allsop had spent nine years working on his thesis with the historian’s co-operation, gaining access to his scholarly papers and interviewing him on 10 occasions. But after Blainey read the finished work he began withdrawing permission for use of certain material. Allsop complied and was revising the thesis for publication as a book late last year when he got a letter from Blainey’s lawyer threatening legal action if publication went ahead. The book has now been cancelled, and Allsop will only say he thinks it’s “sad” that Blainey felt the need for such precipitous action. His account was by all reports extremely sympathetic to its subject. “Clearly, what happened in the 1980s was deeply painful for Blainey,” says Allsop’s supervisor on the thesis, Monash University history professor Bain Attwood. “Perhaps not surprisingly, he hasn’t been able to come to terms with it.” 

In March, Blainey’s lawyer fired off another ­letter, this time to one of his former students, Frank Bongiorno, now an associate professor of history at the Australian National University and author of The Eighties, which devotes a chapter to the Asian immigration debate. Blainey contested the book’s accuracy, and although Bongiorno declines to comment, the paperback edition will be slightly revised. The book’s publisher, Chris Feik of Black Inc, says there is no ongoing dispute – which must be a relief for Feik, who also publishes Blainey’s wife Ann (I Am Melba) and Blainey himself (A Game of Our Own). 

Asked about these incidents, Blainey again demurs. “I don’t think I would comment on that,” he mumbles. But his occasional asides hint at the resentment he nurses. Asked which of his books are taught in Australian schools, he replies that he’s not sure but “I would have books on more ­syllabuses in South America than in Australia”.

Always with the demur mumbles, but at least the pond now understands why the teaching of Australian history is in dire straits in South America ...

And now, though the pond could go on for hours, having slurped thirstily at the cup of history, a final gobbet from the man himself ...

Oh heck, the pond just have to resort to another review, this time in Fairfax here ... this time by John Maynard ...

Unfortunately Blainey has been unable to let go of his fixation with the supposed violence of Aboriginal life. Arguing (still) that Aboriginal inter-tribal warfare and violence prior to European arrival was a significant factor in keeping the Aboriginal population low, Blainey continues to dispute Noel Butlin's 1980s analysis that the Aboriginal population was far more significant than understood by the British at the time of Botany Bay.

Oh heck the pond can't resist another gobbet ...

And so on, and the pond could keep quoting for hours, but what would that do for the state of Australian history in South America?

Well if anyone has endured to this bitter end, and a querulous old man, still seething with resentment at perceived slights, and still blathering on to the reptile faithful, here's something different to wrap things up ...

You see, a kindly soul sent the pond what was thought to be a funny meme doing the rounds, and then attributed it to The Economist ...

Please, credit where credit was due, it's the 404 page for the Financial Times ... 

Perhaps one day the reptiles will even manage a similarly witty one for Australian history as it turns up in the pages of the lizard Oz ...