Kelly is an Icon because of Rubbish Like This Video:

‘Ned Kelly: Our Historic Outlaw” is a 15 minute lecture on YouTube given by Professor John Molony as part of a lecture series called  “Convicts to colonies”  organized by the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra in 2011. You can see it here:

No doubt the reason John Molony was chosen to give this lecture was not just because he is an Australian History Professor, but also because he is the author of a Ned Kelly biography, his own version of the life of Ned Kelly published as “I am Ned Kelly” in 1980. Being a retired Professor by the time he delivered this lecture, he had acquired a certain authority in the world of Australian History, and also a casual,confident and convincing style of lecturing. This made it an easy video to watch, and I have no doubt would have persuaded anyone with only a casual acquaintance with the story, which is almost everyone, that what Molony was telling you was history, that he was outlining the basic facts of the kelly story.  In fact this video is only fleetingly in contact with the truth - it is in fact a dreadful piece of Kelly propaganda that I am sure the Kelly fanatics would adore, but it left me shaking my head and thinking, “well no wonder the Kelly legend lives on”

Now, if this narrative had instead been spoken by an ordinary self–confessed “Kelly Tragic” – say someone from the Ned Kelly Forum or one of those Lawyers who keep popping up to defend Ned on TV and in the Press - then such a video wouldn’t be much of a surprise. If you knew where the person was coming from you would expect to hear his “side” of the story. He’s a believer – he’s not interested in making a case for “unbelief”.

But if you were getting the story from a Professor of Australian History is that what you would expect ? What I would expect, and I think all of us ought to expect from a Professor Of History, unless he clearly states that he is expressing his own personal viewpoint, is something “Professional”, an objective and balanced account that informs us of what is known, what is not known and what is controversial. He can still tell his story in his own way, but should indicate where this part is in dispute, that claim is controversial, here is a gap, here is an undisputed fact, this is an allegation…

But no, Molony abandons any attempt at balance and professional and scientific objectivity and makes use of the opportunity to deliver a very unbalanced, inaccurate, and highly skewed Kelly story. He paints Kelly very much as persecuted and hard done by, a supremely decent brave pioneer Australian who was innocent of any serious crimes and even of the murder for which he was hanged. By contrast, the Police were corrupt and conniving beyond belief.

The well documented and extensive criminal past of the greater Kelly family, and of Ned in particular is unmentioned except for two crimes which Molony characterizes as minor and he says the charges were probably trumped up. He mentions them only to make his point that by the time Ned was 17 what he had learned of the Law was that “if they were out to get him, protestations of innocence were useless… futile..” In fact there are many examples in the Kelly story of charges being dropped for lack of evidence, sentences being reduced on appeal, early release from prison for good behaviour: inconvenient for Molonys narrative, but well known and documented. Protestations of innocence were NOT “useless, futile" Molonys flagrant misrepresentation of what is known about Ned Kelly would constitute professional negligence if such behavior was indulged in by a Lawyer or a Doctor -  but a Historian seems to be able to get away with it.

His view of the Fitzpatrick incident is also in contrast with just about everyone elses :  He starts this part of his talk by focusing at length on the character of Fitzpatrick  whom he casts as a sleazy irresponsible womanizer, and then says 

“Mrs Kelly, who was out the back, came inside to find Fitzpatrick trying to rape Kate”

an incident that he said was “hushed up” because 

“in those days, for a girl to carry the stigma of  having been raped was virtually to sign the warrant for your own life…and indeed poor Kate ended up drowned in a creek, probably suicide, out near Forbes”

This is an outrageous bit of muckraking.  As Molony would well know there are so many versions of what may have happened that evening at the Kelly homestead, so many inconsistencies and obvious lies about it, perhaps from all sides involved that there is no certainty about any of it, other than there was a failed attempt to make an arrest and violence that resulted in injury to the Policeman.  Some, but not all of the versions imply something improper between the Policeman and Kate but to publically declare, in the face of all this unertainty that unequivocally the Policeman tried to rape a 14 year old Kate - an absolutely abominable act -  and then link all this to the rest of her tragic life and suicide is absurd and dishonest. I would say almost nobody believes the attempted rape story -  but what a marvelous way to get any viewer who is unfamiliar with the story to take pity on the Kellys and to hate the police! 

Does he inform us that none of this would have happened if the Kellys hadn’t been stock thieves?  Of course not.

Ned, he informs everyone was 400 miles away, perhaps in Dubbo thereby making the Police allegation that Ned shot Fitzpatrick appear beyond absurd, impossible. But nobody believes that story any more as I am sure Molony would have known in 2011: Neds own brother didn’t even believe it.  And of Dan he says “whether he was there, I cant be too sure” - really?  Is the opinion of every other author and source on this topic, that Dan was there, not good enough? 

But facts like those ruin his story so Molony ignores these annoying details. He wants to paint the police as universally corrupt, sleazy, lying and murderous, and the Kellys as innocent and as victims.  “He didn’t have very much control over his own destiny” he laments of Ned towards the end of the Video: what utter nonsense! No control over his decision to be a stock thief? No control over his decision to resist a handcuffing and fight police that ended up in him being chased up the street? No control over his decision to ambush the Police at Stringybark? No control over his decision to take hostages and rob banks at Euroa and Jerilderie, rip up train tracks, take armour and dynamite and hostages to Ann Jones Inn at Glenrowan?

Molony sure drank deep of the Kelly Cool Aid! Excuse me if I don’t follow his example!

There’s no point in me further deconstructing this lecture and pointing out the myriad places where Molonys personal agenda and prejudice has him so egregiously miscasting and massaging  the Kelly story. His treatment of the Fitzpatrick Incident says it all - his interest is not in historical accuracy but in promoting his own interpretation of it. In my opinion its a thoroughly unprofessional and dishonest account of the saga, and the people who watch it will go away seriously misinformed, something that concerns me but obviously doesn’t trouble the arrogant Professor who has apparently convinced himself of the rightness of his view, his interpretations, his analysis and his conclusions, and they are the only ones that count, and the only ones the Public need to know about.

My point is not that he shoudnt be allowed to believe whatever he likes about Ned Kelly - he should be; everyone should be. My point is that being given a Public platform on the basis of his stature as a Professor of History and his career as an historian and published author on the subject, it is an abuse of that privilege to use that platform to push his own personal view without declaring that that’s what they are. Without doubt Molony would know that his views are not mainstream except perhaps  among Kelly fanatics, whose prime interest we already know is not in historical accuracy and in truth but in Mythmaking and story telling, in lionising Ned Kelly and demonising the Police. Molony may be the High Priest of the Kelly religion, but he is a very diminished Professor, in my view.

For that Video: 1 star (for providing an excellent example of Kelly Mythmaking in action)