armband

An armband is a piece of cloth worn around the arm over the sleeve of other clothing to mark the wearer as belonging to group, having a certain rank or role, or being in a particular state or condition.

When used as part of a military uniform it is called a brassard. Uniforms serving other purposes such as to identify members of clubs, societies or teams may also have armbands for certain ranks or functions. An armband might identify a group leader, a team captain, or a person charged with controlling or organizing an event.

Armbands are sometimes used to indicate political affiliations or to identify the wearer with an ideology or social movement.

In some cultures the wearing of a black armband signifies that the wearer is in mourning or wishes to identify with the commemoration of a comrade or team member who has died. This use is particularly common when a group or team meets after having lost a member. In the movie It's a Wonderful Life, George Bailey is seen wearing a black armband in several scenes after the death of his father. Black armbands are referenced in Tom Lehrer's song, We Will All Go Together When We Go, and in the Guns N' Roses song Civil War.

The phrase to wear your heart on your sleeve, meaning to show your feelings, to display an emotional affiliation or conviction, is supposedly related to armbands. In medieval jousts, ladies of the court were said to tie a piece of cloth — a scarf or kerchief — around the arm of their favorite knight, who thus displayed his affection for the lady.

The 'black armband' view of history is a phrase used by Australian historian Professor Geoffrey Blainey in his 1993 Sir John Latham Memorial Lecture to describe a view of history that focuses, as an illustrative example on the dispossession of Indigenous Australians. The lecture was subsequently published in conservative political and literary journal, Quadrant.^[5] Blainey contrasted this view with the Three Cheers view of history.

Although it is claimed that Blainey coined the term, the phrase in the context of Australian history predates Blainey's 1993 speech by at least more than a decade. Leading up to the 1988 Bicentenary, Aboriginal protesters and Anglo-Celtic sympathisers used the phrase 'black armband' to describe the post-1788 history of Aboriginal Australia. In particular, a 1986 poster in Alice Springs asked Australians to 'wear a Black Armband' for the 'Aboriginal year of mourning'.^[6]

The phrase is used pejoratively by some Australian social scientists, politicians, commentators and intellectuals about historians who are seen to be writing critical Australian history 'while wearing a black armband' of mourning and grieving, or shame. They contest interpretations of Australia's history since 1788 that argue that the history is marred by both official and unofficial imperialism, exploitation, ill treatment, colonial dispossession and cultural genocide.^[6]

John Howard's involvement in the National Museum of Australia controversy and Keith Windschuttle's claims about Tasmanian settlement constitute arguments within this theoretical perspective. As was argued by Howard in the 1996 Sir Robert Menzies Lecture:

“

The 'black armband' view of our history reflects a belief that most Australian history since 1788 has been little more than a disgraceful story of imperialism, exploitation, racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination.[6]

”

Manning Clark was identified as being on the liberal left of the debate and was specifically named by Blainey in his 1993 speech as having "done much to spread the gloomy view and also the compassionate view with his powerful prose and Old Testament phrases."^[5] Particular historians and histories that are challenged include Henry Reynolds and the histories of massacres, particularly in Tasmania but also elsewhere in Australia.

In his book Why Weren't We Told? in 1999, Reynolds referred once more to Stanner's "Great Australian Silence", and to "a 'mental block' which prevented Australians from coming to terms with the past"^[7]. He argued that the silencing of Australia's history of frontier violence in much of the twentieth century stands in stark contrast with the openness with which violence was admitted and discussed in the nineteenth:

“

[T]he records are there in the libraries and archives. They overflow with evidence of violence. The message they carry is incontrovertible. To hide the violence it is necessary to hide the history. What I found most surprising in the records of colonial Australia was the frank and open discussion of racial violence and the public acceptance of violence which that discussion signalled. The newspapers were the most revealing and most copious source of material. This was particularly true in Queensland, which had many small provincial newspapers which began publication when violence still haunted local hinterlands. There was little reticence or fastidiousness in discussion about how to 'deal with the blacks', although there was always debate and disagreement. There were invariably citizens who counselled clemency. But there were also journalists and correspondents from the frontier who spoke openly of their own brutal deeds, who boasted of deadly prowess or of involvement in massacres, or who advocated atrocity from the comfort of editorial desks.[8]

”

Reynolds quotes many such excerpts from the press, including an article written in the Townsville Herald in Queensland as late as 1907, by a "pioneer" who described his part in a massacre:

“

In that wild, yelling, rushing mob it was hard to avoid shooting the women and babies, and there were men in that mob of whites who would ruthlessly destroy anything possessing a black hide. [...] It may appear cold blooded murder to some to wipe out a whole camp for killing, perhaps a couple of bullocks, but then each member of the tribe must be held equally guilty, and therefore, it would be impossible to discriminate. [...] The writer never held a man guilty of murder who wiped out a nigger. They should be classed with the black snake and death adder, and treated accordingly.[9]

”

Reynolds commented that violence against Aboriginals, far from being hushed up or denied, was openly talked about: "[This] was printed in the daily newspaper of a major provincial city in 1907, six years after Federation. The writer confessed to mass murder without the slightest concern about prosecution or even social opprobrium."