July 2016

From the Darling Downs to Don Dale: a litany of monstrous acts against Indigenous children | Paul Daley

Submitted by Paul Daley on

What we witnessed this week is part of a continuum that began with invasion and manifests today in profound disadvantage

Many Australians are aghast at the confronting images of the abuse and torture of Aboriginal children in the Northern Territory that finally hit critical media and political mass this week.

It was mostly politicians (and not all of them non-Indigenous) who expressed “shock” that such abuse of young Aboriginal people could happen in a supposedly civilised place like Australia.

Catholic extremism fears in 1970s Australia made Croats the Muslims of their time | Paul Daley

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Amid the overheated political rhetoric about national security, Australia’s intelligence agencies would be wise to heed the lessons from the Croatian Six miscarriage of justice

Senator-elect Pauline Hanson makes an audacious claim that we are in the midst of a terrorist threat manifesting in the type of politically motivated violence Australia has not previously experienced.

Australians didn't sacrifice themselves at Fromelles. The British sacrificed them | Paul Daley

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The 100th anniversary of the darkest day in Australia’s military history gives us pause to ponder the utter pointlessness of what happened, as well as what, if anything, we’ve learned from it

French Flanders in summertime, especially around the small village of Fromelles, always seems so improbably beautiful when you consider the vast horror that unfolded there a century ago.

Indigenous songlines: a beautiful way to think about the confluence of story and time | Paul Daley

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The theme of Naidoc week is songlines. For the uninitiated – and that is most non-Indigenous Australians – songlines challenge the way we think about history

How many non-Indigenous Australians know what a songline is?

Given this country’s pervasive general ignorance regarding Indigenous Australia, you’d have to bet not too many – despite the fact that songlines criss-cross not only the remotest parts of the continent as well as our seas, but also the cities and suburbs.