SECRET COUNTRY, A

"A Secret Country" examines controversial issues that need adressing in not only Australia but most of the world: genocide, public amnesia, the worth of capitalism, political corruption, unemployment, media manipulation by not only governments but private enterprise, and most importantly, man's inhumanity to man. Pilger's intention for writing this book is clear: to explode the myths Australia adopted, and by doing so, drag the Australian psyche through a kind of confrontational therapy. Australian's finding their "true identitiy" through the examination of her past is the only way for the country, "To break free from our imperial past; and for us, like everyone else, breaking free is our only future." Two of the most powerful chapters examines the savage genocide of the true Australian's, the Aboriginals, is a fact that most white Australians are aware of but refuse to think or talk about, and continue to turn a blind eye. The most controversial issue of white oppression is Aboriginal "deaths in custody," Pilger writes, "Black Australians continue to die in custody on an average of about one death every fourteen days." A Royal Commision was formed which made 339 recomendations, but after the fog cleared, so to speak, the bottom line, Pilger writes, "There was no call for criminal charges and not a single conclusion of foul play in cases that went back nine years." There is certainly "something rotten in Denmark." (From Hamlet) There are many other issue raised in this text and anyone interested, will find this book both fascinating and terribly disturbing.