When I was studying at the University of Melbourne back in the early 1970’s, one of the most memorable and impressionable lecturers was Professor Geoffrey Blainey, the noted Australian historian. His subject for my purposes was Economic History, and for what might seem to many readers to be a rather dry topic, Blainey had a way of creating a certain fascination for the subject, particularly on such occasions, as the excursion on one occasion, when he led us students to a site somewhere to the east of Ballarat, searching for Aboriginal artifacts. This ‘creative’ ability to make a ‘dry’ subject interesting, is also expressed in many of his books, a number of which I have read.
From one Wikipedia source, we read that – “Geoffrey Norman Blainey AC FAHA FASSA (born 11 March 1930) is an Australian historian, academic, philanthropist and commentator with a wide international audience. He is noted for having written authoritative texts on the economic and social history of Australia, including The Tyranny of Distance.. He has published over 35 books, including wide-ranging histories of the world and of Christianity. He has often appeared in newspapers and on television. He held chairs in economic history and history at the University of Melbourne for over 20 years. In the 1980s, he was visiting professor of Australian Studies at Harvard University. . He received the 1988 Britannica Award for dissemination of knowledge and was made a Companion of the Order of Australia in 2000. He was once described by Professor Graeme Davison as the “most prolific, wide-ranging, inventive, and, in the 1980s and 1990s, most controversial of Australia’s living historians”
On the question of controversy – “Blainey has, at times, been a controversial figure too. In the 1980s, he queried the level of Asian immigration to Australia and the policy of multiculturalism in speeches, articles and a book All for Australia. He was said by leftist critics to be closely aligned with the former Liberal-National Coalition government of John Howard in Australia, with Howard shadowing Blainey’s conservative views on some issues, especially the view that Australian history has been hijacked by social liberals [the so-called ‘History or Culture Wars’]. As a result of these stances, Blainey is sometimes associated with right-wing politics.[ Blainey himself is a member of no political party”……….
From my reckoning, Geoffrey Blainey has published 51 books from ‘The Peaks of Lyell’ [1954] to ‘Before I Forget [2019], together with countless shorter publications, newspaper and magazine articles, etc, – principally on the history and other aspects of a broad genre of subjects ranging from histories of Australia, Victoria, the world, Mt Isa mines, Christianity, Australian mining, Camberwell, University of Melbourne, Wesley Colleger, the rise of Broken Hill, the origins of Australian football, the NAB, Captain Cook – the list goes on!! Probably the book he is best known for was ‘The Tyranny of Distance: How Distance Shaped Australia’s History’. First published in 1966, the book examines how Australia’s geographical remoteness, particularly from its colonizer Great Britain, has been central to shaping the country’s history and identity and will continue to shape its future. The long distance between Australia and its colonial forebears in Europe, and also the United States, made Australians unsure of their future economic prosperity.
Geoffrey Blainey is now 89, and some might suggest he is still creating controversy, as for example with an article published in August this year in the ‘Australian’ newspaper, headed ‘Too easy to be an Aussie: Blainey” [Historian’s Citizenship Stance]. I copy that article in full for the interest of readers…………………………………….
“Noted historian Geoffrey Blainey believes Australia gives away citizenship too easily, and that it creates a problem for our democracy.
Professor Blainey told a Sydney audience on Wednesday night ‘Why should someone who has been in the country two or three years and does not know the language or the common discourse, why should they necessarily have a vote, if voting is compulsory?’
Last night, speaking from his Melbourne home, the 89-year old said that the right to vote was ‘quite a difficult responsibility if you know very little about the society and the language of the society. After all, democracy is government by discussion and not to have the common language limits your ability to take part in that debate and take responsibility for what happens in an election.
‘Once you accept the idea that everyone can vote, you are really downgrading democracy because you are really saying that it doesn’t matter if it is hit or miss, it doesn’t matter if a considerable proportion of the population, whether they’re native-born or not, it doesn’t matter if they know what they’re talking about or not.’
Professor Blainey said that compulsory voting was now widely favoured in Australia, and would probably not be abolished.
‘But we have to be wary of our tradition of compelling adults to vote on election day, especially when many know little or nothing about the national questions they are asked to vote upon’ he said. ‘That custom makes light of democracy.’
Professor Blainey’s initial comment was in answer to a question at a Sydney Institute event celebrating his new memoir ‘Before I Forget’, which covers his life until the age of 40.
Last night, he did not resile from his answer, but admitted to being concerned about sparking a controversy – although he has commented on the issue many times in the past.
‘I am concerned, it’s very difficult to take part in these debates’, he said. ‘But when people ask you a question you’re almost honour-bound to try to answer them.’
Professor Blainey told the audience that governing in a democracy was difficult and he would not be surprised if democracies did not exist in 100 years’ time.
‘Democracy depends not only on having parliamentarians but on 15 to 20 per cent of the population [taking responsibility for democracy],’ he said. ‘It depends on that segment of the population but I think that segment is diminishing. I remain optimistic but I remain wary in assuming that democracy will go on and on.’
Professor Blainey recalled that he invented the phrase, the ‘black armband’ view of history in the early 1990s to explain the change in approach to writing history. People had seen the phrase as anti-Aboriginal but it was ‘in no way anti-Aboriginal’. When he was younger, Australian history had been very congratulatory but later people felt ashamed.
‘They felt the treatment of the environment was terrible and in some ways, it was,’ he said. ‘Aborigines, contrary to the statements that they made [at Welcome to Country ceremonies] were not really custodians of the land. No human being can be custodian of the land. Nature is infinitely stronger than human beings.
Professor Blainey said the phrase ‘the history wars’ was exaggerated because all forms of intellectual activity involved debates ‘in which friendships are broken. History was full of disagreements, but in Australia, far more than in other countries such as the UK, history was an important arbiter in current topics such as the republic issue.
‘All the major questions have a very strong historical component. That is especially true of Australia at the moment and especially true of Aborigines and their way of life and Europeans and their way of life,’ he said.
‘The saddest thing is not that the debate takes place but that important areas of evidence are not even considered safe to investigate, and that is wrong.’
In Aboriginal.European issues there was clear-cut evidence that was regarded’as out of bounds’ because one side would not look at it.
‘We hear again and again people say it’s terrible that Aborigines were not considered worth counting in the Census,’ he said.
‘I looked up the Censuses since 1901 and there have been more Censuses that count Aborigines than count other Australians. How can you possibly allow a heresy like this to be undiscussable? That’s when the history war becomes a war rather than a serious discussion of the facts.’
However, Professor Blainey said his view was Australia was a ‘success story’. ‘[There] are many failings but Australia, by and large, is a success story and that’s why we have such an immigration border-protection problem,’ he said………………………….
[From the ‘Australian’ newspaper, 2 August, 2019, written by Helen Trinca].
Now admittedly, that article strayed from the nature of the way in which the article was initially headed [an easy way to attract attention to a piece of writing that might otherwise be ignored, with a leading ‘controversial’ statement]. However, I’d just make one reflection on the area where Professor Blainey comments on the question of people seeking citizenship and with it the right to vote, while not really being qualified for either because they know little or nothing about the national questions, or the language, on which they are asked to vote or acknowledge in the relevant ceremony. I wonder just how many ‘native’ Australians [Indigenous and non-indigenous] really have much idea themselves about the ‘debates’ and national questions that they are asked to vote on – how many just blindly follow the way their fathers voted, or simply vote because they have to, without giving any consideration at all to policy issues, etc?
Site Title 
Leave a comment