A Secret Country

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KIRKUS REVIEW

Open Preview See a Problem? Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. The Hidden Australia by John Pilger. This study takes the reader beyond the euphemistic and romantic popular misconceptions of Australia to reveal the often invisible past and the present subterfuge of the country.

The author recognizes that since its very beginning the history of white Australia has been shrouded in secrecy and silence. He remarks that it is a country with perhaps more cenotaphs per head of This study takes the reader beyond the euphemistic and romantic popular misconceptions of Australia to reveal the often invisible past and the present subterfuge of the country.

He remarks that it is a country with perhaps more cenotaphs per head of population than any other and not one stands for those aborigines who fought and died for their land. After the bicentennial "Celebration of a Nation" the racial and political tragedy of the aboriginal people, from whom Australia was taken violently years ago, continues.

It portrays a country of stark contrasts, of visionaries and criminals whose secrets are exposed. The author has twice won British journalism's highest award, that of Journalist of the Year, for his work in Vietnam and Cambodia. Hardcover , pages. Published December 24th by Knopf first published To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about A Secret Country , please sign up. Lists with This Book. Jul 05, Lachlan rated it liked it. When Pilger talks about Aboriginal rights and the treatment of Indigenous Peoples in this book, it is profoundly important and we should all pay due attention.

When he discusses American specifically CIA interests and intervention in Australian politics specifically when a democratically elemented Prime Minister was dismissed by the Governor General , we should think a little deeper. When he speaks about Murdoch amassing and consolidating power under the Hawke government, we should be pissed When Pilger talks about Aboriginal rights and the treatment of Indigenous Peoples in this book, it is profoundly important and we should all pay due attention.

When he speaks about Murdoch amassing and consolidating power under the Hawke government, we should be pissed off.

A Secret Country

But when he speaks as if all politicians are provably part of the same 'boys club' I get the feeling he might lean on the side of poetic and journalistic license to expand connections a little beyond their reality. In any case - and whatever the truth - there is more than enough in this book to warrant a 4 star rating, especially on Pilgers work on Aboriginal affairs, Labor government power and the Whitlam debacle.

Jan 26, Summer Lewis rated it really liked it Shelves: This book gave me a lot of deep background on Australia and it's long history. It looks at the treatment of Aborigines and immigrants in a candid way--not something you get out of "fun" travel books. A great quote from the book: All principal beaches in Australia are public places. This is not so in the United States and Europe, where the private possession of land and sea is rightly regarded by visiting Australians as a seriously uncivilized practice.

Although private property is revered by man This book gave me a lot of deep background on Australia and it's long history. Although private property is revered by many Australians, there are no proprietorial rights on an Australian beach. Instead, there is a shared assumption of tolerance for each other, and a spirit of equality which beings at the promenade steps. I ought not to make too much of this, though foreigners, Americans especially, admire it. Perhaps the reason for this sense of ease is that many on the beach are there to elude and evade: When I worked in a postal sorting office in Sydney one summer, I would clock on, sort letter for an hour or two, then, with others, slip out through a hole in the back wall.

We would then proceed to Bondi for a day of lurking. This attitude this represented was summed up by Jean Curlewis in her book, Sydney Surfing, published in Why get all hot and bothered over More Production when the thing you want is produced by the Pacific cost-free? It is a philosophy that drives the American efficiency expert in to a mental home.

The beach and the way of life it represents are central to this. A spectacle at Bondi in the s—second only to the sight of thousands of bathers beating their personal best whenever the shark bell rang—was the arrival on the beach of the first post-war immigrants: Cockneys and Irish, Calabrians and Sicilians. Bolting lemming-like into a deceptively light surf, they would be duly rescued by lifesavers with a large trawling net.

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The ritual was repeated as each national group arrived: Today the sons and daughters of these people are often the majority on Bondi Beach, where lifesavers have Italian, Greek and Turkish names and board riders are Vietnamese. Walk at dusk along the colonnade of the Bondi Beach Pavilion and the laughter and banter and music belong to former dagos, wogs, Balts and reffos.

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Call them that at your peril; the beach is theirs now. If you are Australian you need to read this book. Some of the things within will make you cry, make you ashamed and make you proud. Pilger is a first rate journalist. He believes a journalist ought to be a guardian of the public memory and often quotes Milan Kundera: It's the journalist's job, first of all, to look in the mirror of his own society. Aug 10, Michael rated it it was amazing. All Australians should read this. Nov 27, Victoria rated it it was amazing. Explodes the mythology of Australia as the egalitarian lucky country full of mates and a fair go.

Sep 16, Alastair Rosie rated it it was amazing Shelves: I'm often forced to inform Brits that Neighbours and Home and Away are not reality tv.

When it comes to Australia they think of kangaroos, a funny shaped opera house, sport, and beer. We have all of that and more, it's a vast country, something Brits just can't come to terms with, it has the most extreme climate ranging from baking heat to snow, and a black history. John Pilger has always been one of my favourite journalists. I remember the first time I saw him was late one night in suburban Heathmont, Melbourne when I turned on the tv to escape a novel I was writing. There was Pilger talking about East Timor and one of the worst examples of genocide, backed by American, British, and Australian military and economic aid.

I was rooted to the spot, for years I had wondered about the great Australian silence and you have to live there to understand the Australian silence. Now at last someone had broken the silence and asked the most obvious question, why? Why are we allowing our 'ally' to slaughter civilians wholesale, not only that but we gave them the weapons to do it and closed our eyes. Pilger is like that, he opens your eyes and for that he has been slandered in the mainstream press and by governments.

For good reason, they hate having their lies and duplicity laid out for the world.

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A Secret Country is the history we were never told. Back in high school during our year of Australian history we were given an Australian history book. I've forgotten the name of it but it was lamentable. We had two paragraphs about Aborigines and then it was white civilisation, which didn't seem so civilised even then. Pilger has rolled back the curtain to reveal not only Aborigines but also their wars of rebellion and their continued fight against white oppression.

He also uncovers the convict myth to reveal that contrary to popular opinion in Australia, our nation started as a brutal military dictatorship, perhaps that's why we supported Suharto in Indonesia? He covers the sacking of the Whitlam government in , how well I remember the rage that day. My teacher Mr Brown came out and screamed at the kids, 'they've sacked bloody government! Pilger shows how and why it happened, CIA involvement, and American foreign policy demanded he be removed.

He also looks at Hawke, Keating and other likely suspects to shine a light on their sins. We elected a man, Hawke, whose most famous talent I remember was being able to stand on his head and drink a yard glass of beer. No wonder we were doomed. He also reveals heroes, people who stood up and changed the system and gave women the vote before any other Western nation. We were the first to introduce a minimum wage, child endowment and a thirty five hour week.

He praises our ability to absorb different nationalities with a minimum of disruption, for the most part. If you want to maintain your illusion about Australia and beer drinking sessions and wet tee shirt contests then it's probably a bad book to read. Pilger will shatter your illusions. But if you want to get past the mainstream crap and read about the real Australia then I can't recommend this book highly enough, you will see us warts and all.

And let's be honest if we want to avoid making the same mistakes over and over, we first need to recognise our past mistakes. I've read a lot of John Pilger's work on Palestine, but this is the first of his Australian work I've read— silly, I know, given that I've lived on this massive hunk of land for almost two years now. I picked it up a few months ago, but it was hard to get into, because he spends the first chapter babbling ad nauseum about the beach, about how Australians are beach people, about how perfect the beach is, about the water, sun, the waves and surfing, blah blah.

I'm not a beach person. And I've met qu I've read a lot of John Pilger's work on Palestine, but this is the first of his Australian work I've read— silly, I know, given that I've lived on this massive hunk of land for almost two years now. And I've met quite a few Australians who aren't either. They're city people, like me.

And I have little patience for beach-nature-porn. But I picked the book up again last week, because I was granted an interview with Mr. Random House just re-released A Secret Country for the twentieth anniversary. The book is really good, still interesting, still informative after twenty years.

Parts of it are worth skipping these days, the Order of Mates, wherein John uncovers the hidden world of rich white men who ran everything in Australia twenty years ago. Not only is that information out of date, it's also White men, being rich. And the interview was awesome. He was polite and kind and answered all my questions. If you want to hear the interview when it airs, go to finaldraft. I was introduced to John Pilger in a senior English class here in Australia in the late 90s. Pilger's book A Secret Country was published in It focuses on the same themes presented in this documentary.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

A Secret Country: The Hidden Australia

The Television Reporting of John Pilger. National Library of Australia. Retrieved 5 October Retrieved 24 December The secret country [videorecording]: The First Australians Fight Back". Tiga Bayles interview with John Pilger: First Nations Peoples and the new Film 'Utopia ' ". Documentaries of John Pilger. The Last Battle Inside Burma:

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