Remembrance or forgetting?
Australia is just one of many nations – from Poland to Japan, France to Turkey, Indonesia to England – that make certain realities unwelcome and prefer mythology to truth-telling. But Australia is unusual in having a very small group that cares a great deal about the telling of the story, as well as a very large group that cares somewhat. If we manage to press on with dismantling our Great Australian Silence, it will be because that small group has been able to seize the moment to mobilise the large one to get behind truth-telling.