History
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Oppenheimer and the “forever” wars: Have we learnt nothing?
For the first time since the US achieved global domination economically and militarily after WWII, the military industrial complex and Biden administration fear the rise of China. They have decided that it must be crushed. The US, NATO and its compliant states have whipped up a frenzy of fear and loathing for the Chinese. This Continue reading »
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Hiroshima Day: do we really care about the serious possibility of another war?
Madrid, 6 August 1973––fifty years ago. The son of one of Franco’s generals has summoned us, a gang of rowdy friends, to his absent father’s luxurious home. Lounging on gold brocade sofas, merrily we smoke dope and drink booze till we’re high as larks and tight as owls. Continue reading »
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The trouble with telling history as it happens
In the Ukraine War, scholar Serhii Plokhy has his own biases, which can get in the way of his profession’s fidelity to evidence. Continue reading »
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Let’s not talk down to China, but remember its past civilisation
Tianxia, ‘under Heaven’, is a concept deriving from ancient China, but undergoing numerous interpretations over the ages. It refers to an idealised territorial/moral world order, equal but harmonious. Continue reading »
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How (hard) They Fought: sophistication of First Nations’ resistance
The push to recognise the Frontier Wars at the Australian War Memorial, the teaching of this history in many high schools, and growing commemoration of Frontier War incidents is seeing parallels being drawn between the heroism of First Nations’ warriors and that of the ANZACs. Continue reading »
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Commemorating ANZAC Day – a Chinese Australian perspective
ANZAC Day, 25th April, is perhaps one of the most important national days in the Australian Calendar. Initially it commemorated the Australian and New Zealand soldiers who fought in World War One. In Australia now, on this day, it honours Australian men and women who served in all overseas conflicts and in peacekeeping. Continue reading »
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Integrity and complex systems: The rum rebellion or the shearers’ strike?
While we’re acutely aware that the COVID-19 pandemic has tested the underlying integrity of our current economic and financial models, our infinitely greater concern must be with the inexorable progression of climate change. As physicist Richard Feynman said: ‘For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.’ The Continue reading »
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The lessons from America are stark
From his stronghold at Princeton University, Sheldon Wolin watched his political system collapse. In the latter days of his life, Wolin erupted into utter despair. His final testimony was heartbreaking: America had become ‘the showcase of how democracy can be managed without appearing to be suppressed.’ No opinion critical of the set-up is in any Continue reading »
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The geopolitics of peace in a post-Western world
We are in the midst of an extraordinarily dangerous and destructive hot war in Ukraine, and there is now daily talk about the prospects of a US-China war in Asia, perhaps over Taiwan. We cannot afford a continuation of the current war, and we cannot afford a war between the US and China. That would Continue reading »
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Reshaping Australia: the Whitlam government and telecommunications policy
One of the Whitlam government’s first major reform programs was focused on telecommunications. In January 1973, Whitlam announced a royal commission to investigate the Postmaster-General’s Department (PMG) and provide recommendations on Australia’s ‘present and future needs’. Continue reading »
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Environment and the South Seas Bubble: “nature will demand payment”
Three hundred years ago, Britain narrowly escaped a disaster. Trapped inside a bubble, they needed radical changes to escape. There are parallels to our world today, where the logic of failure is woven into the very fabric of civilisation. We too, are trapped inside a bubble, but one is of far greater significance. The question Continue reading »
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Why history does not disqualify Japan as an ally: a reply to Richard Cullen
Richard Cullen’s article, ‘Why Japan is not an acceptable military ally’, published in Pearls and Irritations (5 Jan. 2023) is an unfortunate piece of historical muck-raking. Continue reading »
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War: truly the last resort for Australians?
If war is the last resort, why doesn’t our governance system enforce that condition? Will our War Powers be reformed in 2023? Continue reading »
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Australia’s racist Constitution and the Voice
Australia has a racist constitution. It gives the Federal Parliament power to make laws for ‘The people of any race, for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws’. Deemed necessary, that is, by the Parliament itself. Continue reading »
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An Australia Day worth celebrating – how might we do it?
As is now usual around Australia Day, commentators from all sides of the argument weigh in to suggest new dates on which we might celebrate the founding of the nation. Henry Reynolds, for instance, has made a case for not celebrating on 26 January and in response in these pages David Havyatt has wondered whether Continue reading »
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Australia Day: a long perspective from 65,000 BCE
‘Australian history does not read like history but like the most beautiful lies.’ – Mark Twain, 1897 Continue reading »
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Truth telling and lamentation before celebration
When one group of people takes the land of another by military force, ‘invasion’ is the most accurate term. We would hardly speak of Germany ‘settling’ France in 1940. Continue reading »
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Don’t change the date, just the name
In noting that debate about Australia Day began early this year, Henry Reynolds has made a very strong case for not celebrating on that day. That case is well made, however, the simple problem remains that 26 January 1788 remains the single most significant day in Australian history. Continue reading »
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Japan is not the most warlike nation in history
Jimmy Carter called the US ‘the most warlike nation in the history of the world,’ and said that ‘peaceful’ China is ‘ahead of us in almost every way’. Continue reading »
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Historically, it’s Japan, not China, that invades other countries
With Japan just having taken over the presidency of the Group of 7 at the beginning of 2023, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has wound up a six-day visit to Britain, France, Italy, Canada and the United States. Continue reading »
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Monument of shame
Anzac Parade in Canberra is Australia’s major ceremonial avenue, a grand boulevard commemorating (heroic) service and sacrifice. Yet at least one of its monuments represents war crimes, racism, torture and murder. Continue reading »
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How the UK is developing the characteristics of a failed society
A new book about Birmingham and its role in shaping modern Britain illuminates how the UK moved from the world’s first industrialised nation to financialisation and deindustrialisation to many of the characteristics of a failed society. Continue reading »
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As time goes by: eighty years since the premiere of Casablanca
It was 1942. Across the Atlantic, vast, troubled swathes of Europe were occupied by the Wehrmacht. Millions of its civilians were displaced; millions more would pack up their belongings and flee as World War II continued to unfold. Continue reading »
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Give thanks and rejoice: reflections for ST Therese’s Parish centenary mass
Last weekend’s Faith column in The Sunday Age provided a nostalgic reflection on what might be called ‘Old Time Catholicism’ and ‘Catholic Culture’, which I well remember, looking back on growing up in St James’s Parish Gardenvale, in the 1950’s and 60’s. Continue reading »
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Ukraine: The other side of the story
It appears that wherever one looks or reads there are calls for Russia to withdraw from Ukraine: no other event is called for; in other words, capitulation by Russia. Continue reading »
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The Queen’s coup and the role of King Charles
‘I wanted you to know that I appreciate what you do and admire enormously the way you have performed in your many and varied duties. Please don’t lose heart. What you did last year was right and the courageous thing to do.’ (Prince Charles) Continue reading »
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How did Dag Hammarskjöld die? The CIA and Indonesian connection
More than six decades after his plane crashed it remains the great Cold War mystery: Was UN secretary-general (1953-61) Dag Hammarskjöld killed by sabotage, a technical fault, pilot error or air attack? If he was assassinated who was the mastermind? Continue reading »
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Australia is addicted to fighting other people’s wars
How do we explain that half the Australian community thinks we should go to war with China? After twenty years of conflict in the Middle East, will our addiction to war and our insouciance about its consequences finally catch up with us in an American war over Taiwan? Continue reading »
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A plan for Australia worthy of our wartime heroes
In the desperation of WWII, Australia established a department of post-war reconstruction that drove far reaching change in how the country was governed. After the jolt of the pandemic, a similar department could be an engine room of a new type of government. Continue reading »
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In Ukraine, Australia has forgotten the lessons of Iraq, Afghanistan
When a new Labor government was elected in May of this year there was a degree of optimism that their reform agenda would extend to foreign policy. Those hopes were not to be realised. The last Labor government to show a measure of independence in its foreign policy was the Whitlam government that ruled from Continue reading »
