Submitted by Paul Daley on
Our politicians ask us to imagine that our ‘fallen’ soldiers ‘sacrificed’ themselves for a higher cause. For many young men sent to the first world war, there was no happy, patriotic ending
This year, yet again, the keepers of our national myths will tell us that the soldiers of the “Great War” have passed from life into our collective memory.
Submitted by Paul Daley on
For too many Australian authors the Anzac centenary is little more than a marketing opportunity, but Steve Sailah’s A Fatal Tide is a subtle challenge to the mythologisers
I am deeply cynical about the plethora of books on Australia’s involvement in the first world war, Gallipoli in particular, that are flooding our bookstores as Australia marks what it parochially calls the Anzac 100 centenary.
Submitted by Paul Daley on
The Western Australian city is re-enacting the departure of Australian and New Zealand troops to the first world war. With Gallipoli centenary commemorations looming, not all agree about the way the Anzac legacy is presented
• Albany, the harbour town at the centre of Anzac centenary commemorations – video
Submitted by Paul Daley on
Indigenous people who’ve participated in conflicts involving Australia are not about to win a specific monument on the grounds of the war memorial any time soon – a real shame
Do Indigenous Australian military personnel warrant a monument to their service at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra?
I think so. Here’s why.
Submitted by Paul Daley on
Tony Abbott sees the arrival of the first fleet as Australia’s defining moment. Other Australians disagree: they want it to be archaeological evidence of the first people 52,000 years ago
In late August, Tony Abbott launched a National Museum of Australia initiative to identify the defining moments in this country’s history.
Predictably perhaps, and controversially, the Anglophile Abbott nominated the arrival of the first fleet on 26 January, 1788, as the defining moment in this continent’s history.
Submitted by Paul Daley on
Paul Daley tells how he nearly walked away from his tale set in Canberra after one of his favourite authors came to town preaching against political fiction
Jonathan Franzen. What a bastard. Thanks to him, about this time three years ago I seriously considered walking away from the novel I had been writing for a year (and contemplating for many more).
Submitted by Paul Daley on
Watson’s supremely elegant prose offers a challenge to Australians who’ve long favoured city life on the coastal plains over life in the towns and emptiness beyond
• Don Watson reads an exclusive extract from The Bush
Two decades ago, I found myself sitting with Don Watson somewhere in the labyrinthine offices of the prime minister of Australia, a position then held tightly by Paul Keating.
Submitted by Paul Daley on
Former footballer Rick Hanlon established Cape York House, but says it’s not about developing footballers – ‘it’s about developing young men who’ll have a chance at life’
Australian Rules football may well have been Rick Hanlon’s salvation.
But he is still the first to tell the young Indigenous men and boys to whom he is both a life mentor and a coach that being a great footy player doesn’t make you a good bloke.
Submitted by Anonymous on
Djalu Gurruwiwi is a spiritual keeper of the didgeridoo. He’s also a mysterious and charismatic figure, whose admirers include a film-maker, a street artist and the musician Gotye. Paul Daley joins them on a voyage along an ancient songline
It’s not clear where the story of Arnhem Land’s Djalu Gurruwiwi begins or ends. It just meanders infinitely, back and forth, across the land and into the sea along the songlines that tell it.
Submitted by Paul Daley on
Merritt, a social worker, anti-war campaigner and widow of Flight Lieutenant Paul Pardoel, wants an inquiry into the 2003 invasion, and a debate over further involvement
Kellie Merritt can’t be dismissed as some sort of naïve peacenik for trying to put a brake on Australia’s apparently escalating involvement in American-led military operations in Iraq.