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5 comments about Australia: A Biography of a Nation.

1. .

   Phillip Knightley says English journalists, when visiting Australia for the first time, can't help but exaggerate their experiences. After such a long absence from Australia you would have to call Knightley more a Pom than an Aussie. Right from the first chapter of "Australia - A Biography of a Nation" the author falls into the journalistic trap of not letting objectivity get in the way of a good story.

   Knightley has the typical view of the expats who left Australia during the 1949-66 reign of the Liberal PM Sir Robert Menzies. He has little time for that remarkable man and the uninterrupted growth in prosperity he delivered. To reinforce his prejudices he tells us that Menzies came from a privileged "born to rule" background. In fact Menzies came from a family of modest means. His father had a general store in a small country town in Victoria and his mother's father was a leader of a gold miner's trade union. The fact that Menzies was a "scholarship boy" belies Knightley's description.

   Let's flip forward to another notable Australian Prime Minister of the last 40 years. Edward Gough Whitlam had a very brief ascendancy. He was PM for 2 years and 10 months. For those who idolise him it will remain "The Whitlam Era"; and so Knightley's Chapter 17 is duly titled.

   We all know "a week is a long time in politics" but you would need to invoke time dilation and Special Relativity to turn 34 months into an era.

   The dismissal of Gough by the Governor General Sir John Kerr on November 11 1975 sees Knightley wheel out his favourite conspiracy theories including shadowy CIA sponsored possibilities.

   One of the most remarkable admissions by Knightley is the fact that his wife (at the time) was a telex operator in the London office of the Pakistani commodity trader Tirath Khemlani. Khemlani was appointed by the Whitlam government to find a four billion-petrodollar loan to help fund the massive spending spree that they had embarked upon. When the Minister responsible (Rex Connor) was told to terminate the negotiations because of the unsavoury associations, Connor persisted in his discussions. When you recall Knightley's familiarity with the spooky world of Philby and Profumo, the existence of leaked telexes which lead to a government's downfall has an unusually strong scent of intramural associations.

   Whitlam's fall is also, in part, attributed by Knightley to Rupert "The Dirty Digger" Murdoch. Murdoch's energetic promotion of Whitlam's cause in 1972 followed by the equally harsh criticism in 1975 was seen in Labor circles as traitorous. Of course, those who were the beneficiaries of Whitlam's patronage saw his short and inept reign as being beyond criticism.

   Knightley correctly identifies that a real Australian success has been managing the transition from a mono-cultural Anglo-flavoured society into the confident, outward looking, culturally diverse nation that it is today.

   Knightley portrays Arthur Calwell the Labor Immigration Minister (1945-49) as some xenophobic relic. In fact it was Calwell who encouraged the migration of Southern Europeans to Australia at a time when Briton's were still amused by the expression "Wogs start at Calais".

   We now have 2nd generation Italian and Greek Australians as leaders across Australian society. Knightley denigrates Calwell and gives no recognition to his pioneering role in making a multi-cultural Australia.

   Knightley's viewpoint is blatantly Sydney-centric. This is not surprising when he admits that he sees Britain through the eyes of Londoner. This geographic blinkering can lead to a lack of objectivity. He names the alma mater of Germaine Greer (every thinking Australian males pin-up girl(?)) as Sydney University. In fact she was a graduate of Melbourne University who happened to move up the road to do her MA.

   Knightley sees the Sydney Gay Mardi Gras as the most emblematic of the cultural shifts that have occurred in Australia. By a remarkable coincidence so did Robert Hughes in his recent TV series which re-visited the "The Fatal Shore".

   In the past 10 years, advancement of indigenous Australian's rights has become central to much public debate. Knightley recognises this and the progress that is being made. However he ignores one of the key fallacies underlying the new policy agendas.

   Knightley, together with many other commentators, unquestioningly accepts the wisdom of the Mabo High Court decision. This case marked a watershed in Aboriginal rights in Australia. It overturned the concept of Australia being a "terra nullius". The test case applied to a group of Torres Strait people who are of Melanesian origin. They are distinct culturally and ethnically from the mainland aborigines. These Islanders have long established traditions of "gardening" in contrast to the traditional hunter-gatherers who lived on the mainland. The Mabo Case has been extended to the recent Wik decision. This has profound implications for land holder's rights throughout Australia.

   Knightley's own definition of "terra nullius" (p314) includes land that is uncultivated. Mainland aborigines have never been observed to till and harvest their land in a continuous and systematic manner.

   Knightley's "Biography of a Nation" falls short in many areas. Australia is the only nation occupying a continent. It is a very ancient landmass. Can we have a meaningful biography of such an entity? If the term can be applied to a nation, then a more intensive, broad reaching and balanced consideration should be provided. Instead, this book is one man's attempt to try and catch up with all that he has missed out on during a mere (in geological terms) 40-year absence. Contrast this with the latest news from anthropologists. Australians have been around for 50,000 years. Happy Birthday Australia!




2. This is a history-memoir type book, dealing pretty chronologically with Australia in the 20th century. Many chapters were of high interest, though one is not sure how objective the author is. It was annoying that there was not a single footnote, and that the bibliography did not list books alluded to in the text. The chapter detailing how the Aboriginals were allegedly treated in this century and even into the 1960s was appalling to me, tho Australia seems to have put the worst of that attitude behind it, what with the decisive repudiation of the One Nation Party in the last few years. The author expresses some highly opinionated views on subjects with little effort to tell the other side of the subject, presuming there is one. An interesting if not very scholarly effort.



3. Far too many history books are deadly dry, a compilation of facts and dates that often leave out the human element and with little sense of drama. This book does not fall into that trap, being something of a mix of memoir, short vignettes of many, many people, both famous and ordinary, and the more normal recounting of the happenings of history. Often the people stories are insightful, sometimes humorous, and do much to help illustrate Knightley's main thesis of just what an Australian really is.

   The downside of this method of narration is that it is easy to lose objectivity, something I'm afraid Knightley is guilty of in at least a few places. His political bias is very much in evidence throughout this book, most glaringly in his depiction of the various Prime Ministers and the battles between the working man and the rich landholders/business executives. At the same time, his depiction of the items that have gone into the making of the essential Australian character is well told, forming a mosaic of events and people that put this character into clear focus. Having lived in Australia myself (a very long time ago, but I don't think there has been any basic change in this item since), I can testify that the traits of wishing everyone to `have a fair go' and mateship really do seem to be defining items of that character.

   One item that would definitely have improved this book would have been the inclusion of some maps of the country. Unless one is intimately aware of the geography of this continent-country, the references to literally hundreds of place names and towns can be daunting without some way to place them spatially. I would have also liked to see a little greater treatment of the early period of its settlement, as the emphasis of this book is very much the twentieth century, and even more so on the last half of that century. Often the narration is told from the strictly political point of view, with little reference to the great resource finds and their development that had quite an influence on how Australia developed.

   On the other hand, Knightley does a very good job of portraying and documenting the treatment that the Aborigines have been subjected to, from the earliest settlements to the latest landmark court decisions dealing with their land rights. More than any other item, this one area shows just how much Australia has changed from a blatantly racist and xenophobic nation to one that has at least begun to recognize its past failings and find its place in a truly multi-cultural world.

   --- Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)




4. An insightful book into the fascinating history of Australia. Intriguing stories coupled with historical events make this a must have for anyone interested in Australian history.



5. This book is a disgrace. Purporting to be a history of Australia it is filled with errors - beginning with the description of the settlement of Sydey cove on the dust-jacket. There is an absurd claim that a dingo fence can be seen from outer space, that there was slavery in Australia, that in 1931-32 Australia was close to civil war, a completely unsourced and baseless claim Australian troops tried to surrender en masse at Gallipoli, etc. That's just for starters and before we even start on the author's personal bias any mythologising. The account of the dismissal of the Whitlam Government is the sort of thing that gives paranoia a bad name. It is claimed the Catholic activist BA Santamaria, one of the best-known figures in contemporary Australia, was expelled from the Labor Party - he could not have been expelled from it as he was never a member of it. Sloppy rersearch, bad history, a contempt for, or indifference to, truth and fact. The book is worthy of Manning Clark.

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