John Pilger - The Forgotten Coup: How America and Britain Crushed the Gov't of their 'Ally', Australia - TruePublica
John Pilger – The Forgotten Coup: How America and Britain Crushed the Gov’t of their ‘Ally’, Australia
Every weekend we feature an article written, with kind permission, by highly acclaimed film-maker, author and journalist John Pilger
who, with such foresight encapsulates how our world is being shaped by
corporations, corrupted political systems, propaganda, globalisation and
war. This piece was written originally July 2008 and is just as
applicable today, if not more so.
Across the political and media elite in Australia, a silence
descended on the memory of the great, reforming prime minister Gough
Whitlam, who died last year. His achievements are recognised, if
grudgingly, his mistakes noted in false sorrow. But a critical reason
for his extraordinary political demise will, they hope, be buried with
him.
Australia briefly became an
independent state during the Whitlam years, 1972-75. An American
commentator wrote that no country had “reversed its posture in
international affairs so totally without going through a domestic
revolution”. Whitlam ended his nation’s colonial servility. He abolished
Royal patronage, moved Australia towards the Non-Aligned Movement,
supported “zones of peace” and opposed nuclear weapons testing.
Although not regarded as on the left of the Labor Party, Whitlam was a
maverick social democrat of principle, pride and propriety. He believed
that a foreign power should not control his country’s resources and
dictate its economic and foreign policies. He proposed to “buy back the
farm”. In drafting the first Aboriginal lands rights legislation, his
government raised the ghost of the greatest land grab in human history,
Britain’s colonisation of Australia, and the question of who owned the
island-continent’s vast natural wealth.
