It couldn't last. Just as commentators were saying that the Sydney Olympics showed Australia had achieved "cultural maturity", our "progressives" showed that when it comes to cultural politics they are as childish as ever.
It started at the Closing Ceremony, with the "sorry suits" of Peter Garrett and the other Midnight Oil members. At first, caught up in the euphoria of the event, I gave them the benefit of the doubt -- perhaps their clothing was an expression of guilt over all the money they have made from their unimpressive music and their support of foolish and counter-productive causes.
Unfortunately, it soon transpired that I was wrong. The band was making an important political statement to the effect that no venue or activity should ever be free from moral posturing on Aboriginal matters.
The immaturity continued throughout the following week. The delight that ordinary Australians took in Cathy Freeman's win and the prominence of indigenous themes during the Games seems to have confused the Aboriginal industry and its supporters.
How could they continue to say that Australia is a racist nation when people were so obviously pleased when Aborigines did well? Perhaps reconciliation has effectively occurred at the grass roots level, and it doesn't need an apology or a treaty or any of the other demands that generate a warm inner glow amongst the virtuous.
So they must have felt a great sense of relief when they came across an interview with the Minister for Reconciliation, Philip Ruddock, published in the French newspaper, Le Monde. Here was something that could be given just the twist required to restore divisiveness to indigenous issues, put the Howard government on the back foot, and ensure that Aborigines could continue to be presented as the victims of racism.
As reported in Le Monde, Mr Ruddock responded to a question about indigenous disadvantage by stating that Aborigines came into contact with Western civilisation later than people such as Canadian or American Indians, and that they had had less time to adjust. He also said that as hunter-collectors, Aboriginal technology was not as developed. He added that this was not a matter of the superiority of one people over another, noting that Aborigines had survived in a very difficult environment because of their ingenuity.
The actual interview with the Le Monde journalist went for over an hour. But the published version was only around 700 words, which means that less than a quarter of what was actually said would have found its way into print. Mr Ruddock states -- and there is no reason to doubt him -- that he also discussed other causes of Aboriginal disadvantage, such as dispossession and the damaging effects of previous policies.
Nevertheless, Kim Beazley, Meg Lees, Aden Ridgeway, and many other worthies, both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal, called on Mr Ruddock to resign or be sacked. Even Richard Court, the Liberal Premier of Western Australia, got caught up in the fervour, saying that Ruddock's remarks were "inappropriate".
But were they? Any honest attempt to explain contemporary Aboriginal disadvantage must acknowledge that this is being assessed according to Western criteria. What is so disturbing about low life expectancy, poor housing conditions, high levels of domestic violence, and the other unsatisfactory Aboriginal social and economic indicators is that they are much worse than those for people of European descent.
Given this, it is not wildly unreasonable to suggest that the length of time since contact is one of the factors that should be considered when attempting to explain Aboriginal disadvantage. Certainly, it does seem that on many social and economic measures, Aborigines in the longer settled south east of Australia are better off than those in the more recently settled remote parts of the country.
Furthermore, in general terms, hunter-collecting people, with their small-scale societies, relatively simple technologies and low population densities fared much worse than agricultural peoples in encounters with Western civilisation. Mr Ruddock was making no statements about the moral or intellectual qualities of Aboriginal people, and nothing that he said was incorrect.
Unfortunately, this was not true of his critics, who resorted to the evasions and sentimental misrepresentations that are common in public discussions about indigenous affairs. Kim Beazley told the ABC that technologically and philosophically, Aboriginal culture was one of the most advanced civilisations to have come out of the Ice Age.
As far as technology goes this is highly questionable. And, because the earliest writing systems were not invented until many thousands of years after the end of the last Ice Age, no-one has the faintest clue about the philosophical sophistication or otherwise of any cultures at that time. Furthermore, even if we did know, it would be totally irrelevant. Mr Ruddock was asked to explain the contemporary situation of Aborigines, not their circumstances 10,000 years ago.
The problem is that the self-appointed defenders of the Aborigines are so patronising. There is still only one acceptable way to explain Aboriginal disadvantage and that is to present Aborigines as victims. The mention of any other possible causes is seen as offensive, and prompts the kind of moral frenzy that we saw last week.
So perhaps Mr Ruddock really did get things wrong in the interviews he gave to the foreign media. He should have explained that one of the greatest disadvantages Aborigines face in contemporary Australia is the desire of many "progressives" to keep them permanently trapped in a sense of victimhood.
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