Henry Reynolds

Henry Reynolds is an eminent Australian historian.

Henry's recent articles

In hunting for Chinese spies we hang on for dear life to Anglo-Saxon allies

Like so many members of the security establishment Director of ASIO Duncan Lewis adopted the time-honoured tactic of implicitly saying to the public trust us because we know things you dont know and which we cant tell you.

The Australian Army's inauspicious birth. From the Boer War to the Afghanistan War.

With such intense focus on the armys record in Afghanistan we might look more closely at its history. It had an inauspicious birth on the first of March 1902 in South Africa, three months before the end of the Boer War.

Those dangerous and subversive sister cities.

Sister cities provide opportunities for coercion, according to Professor John Blaxland.

China: are we asserting Australia's independence or America's?

The recent determination to make an enemy of our important trading partner China is the most egregious foreign policy blunder since John Howards reckless decision to join George Bushs invasion of Iraq.

When the war on terror turns inward

We now have evidence of a campaign conducted in Australia to attack the credibility and the reputation of individuals and organisations seen as being too close to China.

The extraordinary ambush of China Matters.

We have been caught in the slipstream of Donald Trumps increasingly erratic struggle against overwhelming adversity .

History Hits the Headlines.Our Troubled Past

History haunts many countries at the moment. This is especially true of the United States. But Australia , New Zealand, Britain, France and Belgium are being forced to once again face up to their legacy of colonial brutality and attendant racism.

The American Alliance: More incantation than inquiry.

Our chosen national heroes are the young men who died fighting for King and Empire on the coast of the Ottoman Empire in 1915. When will our focus shift to the many thousands of indigenous men and women who died fighting for their kin, their customs and their country all over the continent for well over a hundred years?

HENRY REYNOLDS. Australia goes fishing in troubled waters.

A few weeks ago Foreign Minister Marise Payne condemned Chinas actions in the South China Sea, adding that in recent days the Australian frigate HMAS Parramatta had been conducting exercises with two American naval vessels as they passed through the waters.

HENRY REYNOLDS. Between America and China?

In his Lowy lecture delivered in Sydney last October Prime Minister Scott Morrison declared that Australia does not have to choose between the United States and China.

HENRY REYNOLDS. James Cook and the Contested 'Discovery' of Eastern Australia

A problem with the way Cooks voyage has been taught to generations of Australians is that it has been so relentlessly Anglo-Centric. The much earlier and more significant exploration of Dutch navigators has often been overlooked particularly in the eastern mainland states.

Thoughts on an unusual Anzac Day

This Anzac Day we should question the relentless militarisation of our history and the cult of the digger. These ideals make it easier for Australian governments to commit to wars overseas and more difficult for critics to engage in serious debate.

HENRY REYNOLDS supports Pearls and Irritations.

As a daily reader of Pearls and Irritations and an occasional contributor, I am keenly aware of how important it is both to me personally and to the community at large.

HENRY REYNOLDS.- When will we see a cost-benefit of our meddling in the Middle East?

By the end of this year Australia will have begun the process of removing our armed forces from the Iraq and Afghanistan or at least be considering what can fairly be termed a retreat after a series of engagements lasting almost twenty years.

HENRY REYNOLDS. Australia Day or dying in a ditch for January 26.

Australia Day divides rather than unites the community which we presume is the key reason for having a national day in the first place.

HENRY REYNOLDS. 'Strange situation': Why Australia must strike a treaty. (SMH 1.6.2019)

In ringing tones the Uluru Statement declares the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tribes were the first sovereign nations of the Australian continent and possessed it under their own laws and customs. Sovereignty has never been ceded or extinguished, and co-exists with the sovereignty of the Crown. There is, as well, demand for a Voice to Parliament and national commitment to truth telling. But the question of sovereignty overshadows every other consideration.

HENRY REYNOLDS. The centre cannot hold.

In a recent article in the New York Times columnist Ross Douthat drew attention to the Australian elections and the cotemporaneous triumph of Narendra Modi in India and of Nigel Farage in Britains European elections. Each represented a surge in supporter for right wing populism and what he called the global fade of liberalism.

HENRY REYNOLDS. Anzac Day.

As we approach Anzac Day for another year, its national significance is reaffirmed. But we are so familiar with the accustomed ritual and rhetoric that it escapes critical scrutiny. And its sanctity places it outside the reach of sceptical inspection.

HENRY REYNOLDS. The Debate About Anzus and the Defence of Taiwan.

Last week Pearls and Irritations printed spirited contributions by Hugh White and Cavan Hogue about the future of Anzus and the American Alliance. They were both responding to an earlier paper in The Strategist, the in- house journal of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, by Paul Dibb entitled Australia and the Taiwan contingency. It was encouraging to see that there was significant debate within the defence and foreign policy establishment in Canberra although little of it emerges into the wider public sphere.

HENRY REYNOLDS. January 26..... and our Declaration of Dependence.

As we approach another Australia Day, public interest quickens and rhetoric escalates. On both sides of the front line the old trenches are reoccupied and well-known strategies rehearsed. The hostility of indigenous Australians looms large in the thinking of both camps. Opponents of 26 January frequently rest their arguments on the need to respond to those powerfully expressed sentiments. Defenders of the status-quo insist that the will of the majority should take precedence.

HENRY REYNOLDS. When will it end?

Three days after the Abbott government was sworn in on the 18th of September 2013 the new defence minister Senator David Johnston made a statement to the media. He told the Sydney Morning Herald that he wanted the military to be battle ready for future conflicts in the unstable Middle East and south Asia. After 14 years of involvement in overseas conflicts the defence force had a strong fighting momentum that should not be lost. He planned to maintain and augment our readiness for future fights in the unstable region stretching from Pakistan to the Middle East. This was the...

HENRY REYNOLDS. The Best of 2018: Australias perpetual war footing.

We should have paid more attention at the time. It was September 2013 and the Abbott government had just been sworn in. The new Defence Minister, Senator David Johnston, gave an interview to a Fairfax journalist which was reported on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald. The content was truly extraordinary.

HENRY REYNOLDS. Has the Cavalcade of Commemoration Finally Halted?

With Remembrance Day behind us we may finally have some relief from the relentless commemoration of conflict which began twenty years ago and climaxed with the centenary of the First World War. Historians of the future may well wonder where this obsession with war came from and why we spent more on the centenary than any other comparable country. It has been one of the most striking features of both political and cultural life for the last quarter of a century. Despite the continuous and lavish expenditure of public money there has been almost total bipartisan support and few attempts...

HENRY REYNOLDS. Mateship Multiplied.

I was idly trawling through the many programmes available on the hotels television and came upon the History Channel. To my surprise there was a feature about what was called Australias 100 years of mateship with the United States although the particular focus was on Australians who had worked in Hollywood. I later discovered that the episode was one of a series of nine five minute features billed as Australia and the USA: A Century Together and which talked candidly about the effect both cultures had on each other. But the central theme was clear: it was in war...

HENRY REYNOLDS. Henry Reynolds: Australia was founded on a hypocrisy that haunts us to this day.

US slave owners wrote and spoke about liberty, equality and the pursuit of happiness. Similar hypocrisy, buried in the foundations of settler Australia, has escaped comparable scrutiny.

HENRY REYNOLDS. Ethno-nationalism and Australias place in the world.

Ethno-nationalism is resurgent in many European countries, in the United States and in Israel. Hostility to immigration and to refugees is widespread. The Australian debate about the level of immigration is a mild symptom of the present malaise. Andrew Bolts more strident recent attack on immigrant communities attracted widespread and cogent criticism. But it raised a number of significant questions.

HENRY REYNOLDS. A HUNDRED YEARS OF MATESHIP.

The poster was launched by the Australian Embassy in Washington on July 4th, Independence Day. It attracted no attention at all locally which may have been a blessing. I only heard about it when reading the Australian edition of the Guardian online. It featured the faces of 15 men. It was a strange collection of both Australians and Americans. There were all white and there were no women at all. This was the main theme of the Guardians criticism and Ambassador Hockey felt it necessary to issue an apology for the partial selection of the people who were called patrons....

HENRY REYNOLDS. Australia's perpetual 'war footing'. (Repost from 7/5/2018)

We should have paid more attention at the time. It was September 2013 and the Abbott government had just been sworn in. The new Defence Minister, Senator David Johnston, gave an interview to a Fairfax journalist which was reported on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald. The content was truly extraordinary.

HENRY REYNOLDS. The Fighting Retreat of the Anglo-Australians.

Australian budgets rarely make news in Britain. But the Sunday Times was moved to feature the Governments decision to commit just under $50 million to mark the 250th anniversary of Cooks arrival at Botany Bay in 1770. Two points were made. A new $26 million memorial was a token of Turnbulls defiance of this years protests about Australia Day and the graffiti daubed on the Cook statue in a Sydney park. Of more substance was the observation that the fulsome commemoration of Cooks voyage would re-affirm Britains importance to Australia.

HENRY REYNOLDS. Australia's perpetual 'war footing'.

We should have paid more attention at the time. It was September 2013 and the Abbott government had just been sworn in. The new Defence Minister, Senator David Johnston, gave an interview to a Fairfax journalist which was reported on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald. The content was truly extraordinary.

HENRY REYNOLDS. Remembrance Day in New York: Anzac Day in Tasmania.

I was in New York during May last year. At the end of the month, there was a public holiday. It was their Remembrance Day. Not that much happened in New York. There were no flags, no marches or processions. Apparently, it is a tradition for a naval ship to come into port for the occasion and there were a few white uniforms in the crowds of tourists. On Third Avenue, a woman rushed up to a sailor who was just in front of me and declared in a loud Manhattan voice that she greatly appreciated his service. But I...

HENRY REYNOLDS. Brendan Nelson and the War Memorial - what about the Frontier Wars?

On Friday the Director of the Australian War Memorial Brendan Nelson announced plans for a massive redevelopment of the institution which would cost up to $500 million.He hoped to receive the required funding in next years budget and he is likely to be given what- ever he asks for having already received strong support from both sides of politics. He also explained there would be an opportunity for the public to provide input into the project.

HENRY REYNOLDS. Where Was The Governor-General?

Sir Peter Cosgrove was not in Canberra last week to swear in the new leader of the National Party and Deputy Prime-Minister. As far as I am aware there was no official explanation for his absence. But it turned out that he was on a secret visit to Iraq to visit the 300 Australian troops at an airbase just outside Baghdad. Secrecy may have been necessary for reasons of security but it also had the advantage of avoiding the questions which the electorate has a right to ask. What are our soldiers doing there now that ISIS had been defeated?...

HENRY REYNOLDS. A hundred years of mateship?

I was astonished! An SBS news report about the Turnbull visit to Washington declared that the two countries were celebrating their hundred years of alliance. Where had this extraordinary snippet of history come from, I wondered? I then discovered that it was the Australian Embassy which had had been talking about 100 years of mateship.

Australia: A Belligerent Nation

Much discussion has been generated by the recently released Defence White. There were several penetrating essays in Pearls and Irritations.But looking at the text as a historian it seemed that some of the most interesting observations passed without notice. I was drawn to the statement that there was no more than a remote prospect of a military attack by another country on Australian territory in the foreseeable future. It was a truism which, it seemed, scarcely needed examination.

Henry Reynolds. Militarisation marches on . A REPOST

The Australian military featured heavily again in our celebrations of Australia Day 2018. There were Army parades in Canberra and the Navy on show in Sydney Harbour. The militarisation of Australia and the language of war has become the new norm. Is that what Australia Day should be about? What about our civilian achievements? There was no attempt at least officially to seek reconciliation with Indigenous people. This article by Henry Reynolds ' Militarisation Marches on 'was initially posted on April 18 2015. John Menadue

HENRY REYNOLDS. Another Australia Day!

Another Australia Day; another angry national debate! Little has changed, then, since last year. The partisans of both persuasions have returned to their old trenches. The rhetorical exchanges are much as they were twelve months ago.

Unnecessary wars - A Repost from October 26 2017

In a letter written in August 1855 to his colleague John Bright, the great free trade liberal, Richard Cobden, expressed his hostility to Britains involvement in the Crimean War. 'And yet I doubt', he observed, 'if there be a more reprehensible human act than to lead a nation into an unnecessary war'. Cobden clearly had in mind wars that could have been avoided and that were not the result of an immediate and direct threat to a nations territory or interests.

HENRY REYNOLDS. Memories and Massacres- A REPOST from July 10 2017

The release by Newcastle Universitys Centre for 21st Century Humanities of a map of colonial frontier massacres has attracted a burst of media attention. It draws national interest back to those questions that were highlighted during the history wars of a decade and more ago.

HENRY REYNOLDS. The destruction of Dastyari chills an independent foreign policy

In his recent searching commentary on Australias foreign policy Hugh White left us with many challenging observations. Two of them lodged in my mind. In his Quarterly Essay: Without America he argued that Australia is going to have a more independent foreign policy in the new Asiamore independent of Washington that is whether it likes it or not. While commenting on the recently released Foreign Policy White Paper he observed that the document failed the essential ingredient for effective diplomacy when weight of power is not on your side: new ideas. It was, he remarked, a telling omission.

HENRY REYNOLDS. Beersheba and the Militarisation of Australian History.

The commemoration of the centenary of the battle for Beersheba illustrates many features of the progressive militarization of Australian history. No other aspect of our past attracts the lavish funding provided by the federal government. The cost of the commemoration must be considerable given the abundant travel grants and the funding of the new Light Horse Museum. The attendance of the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition, and other prominent Australians, including the Ambassador to the USA Joe Hockey, further enhances the asserted national importance of the event. The uncritical reporting of the accompanying Australian media contingent provided little...

HENRY REYNOLDS. Thinking about memory and monuments.

The controversy about confederate monuments in the southern states erupted in May this year while I was in the United States. I was impressed by the extent and the vigour of the debate. In the back of my mind I wondered if a similar controversy would eventually emerge in Australia. It did and with a speed that surprised me. But it was not simply a matter of reactive emulation. There are interesting similarities between American and Australian history and the way it has been remembered. And on the other hand there are instructive contrasts.

HENRY REYNOLDS. Citizenship and English proficiency and indigenous people.

So we have the anomalous situation of a projected citizenship test which large numbers of indigenous people could not pass.

HENRY REYNOLDS. That day again

Controversy about Australia Day intensifies. The ABCs Triple J is consulting its listeners about moving the popular Hottest 100 Countdown from January 26th. Debate is taking place in council chambers across the country. Melbournes Yarra Council was savaged by Prime Minister Turnbull in parliament last week because the councillors had decided to cancel official ceremonies on January 26. But this week neighbouring Darebin Council voted 6 to 2 to follow suit to be similarly chastised by the federal government.

HENRY REYNOLDS. January 26?

When we examine the violations of law when the British took possession of eastern Australia in 1788, its little wonder that a growing number of people are seeking a date other than January 26 to celebrate Australia Day.

HENRY REYNOLDS. Unnecessary wars in service of other people's empires.

Australia is engaged in a long cavalcade of military commemoration. It has been advancing since the 1990s. Government largesse has speeded it on its way. War is now widely seen as the defining collective experience. The national spirit, the argument runs, emerged in battle far from our shores. A generation of school children have been assured that war was the making of Australia. Given this strident assertion that the history of war is of central importance it might be thought that the whole campaign would deepen our understanding of why Australia has been so often at war and provide answers...

Henry Reynolds. Militarisation marches on.

This article by Henry Reynolds was initially posted in September last year. John Menadue Australia is obsessed with war. For a generation, federal governments have funded an intense program highlighting the importance of our military history. It has reached into every part of the country. Books, films and research projects have been subsidised. Old monuments have been refurbished, new ones created. Trees have been replanted in ageing avenues of honour; new days of remembrance have been added to the already crowded calendar of commemoration. National leaders attend the funeral ceremonies of the fallen servicemen with a regularity that was...

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