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Secret Country
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 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 200 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. He has won the International Reporter of the Year Award and the United Nations Association Media Peace Prize.
224 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1980
34 people are currently reading
1079 people want to read
About the author
John Pilger
34 books364 followersJohn Richard Pilger was an Australian journalist and documentary maker. He had twice won Britain's Journalist of the Year Award, and his documentaries have received academy awards in Britain and the US. Based in London, he is known for his polemical campaigning style: "Secretive power loathes journalists who do their job, who push back screens, peer behind façades, lift rocks. Opprobrium from on high is their badge of honour."
Pilger had received human rights and journalism awards, as well as honorary doctorates. He was also a visiting professor at Cornell University in New York.
Pilger had received human rights and journalism awards, as well as honorary doctorates. He was also a visiting professor at Cornell University in New York.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 48 reviews
September 16, 2012
"As an expatriate Aussie living in the UK I'm frequently struck by the naivete about Australia here in Britain. 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.
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 1975, how well I remember the rage that day. My teacher Mr Brown came out and screamed at the kids, 'they've sacked bloody government!' It was not his outburst that angered the school principal, it was because he used the word bloody in front of impressionable kids. 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.
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.
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 1975, how well I remember the rage that day. My teacher Mr Brown came out and screamed at the kids, 'they've sacked bloody government!' It was not his outburst that angered the school principal, it was because he used the word bloody in front of impressionable kids. 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.
July 6, 2011
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 off. 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.
I hate politics.
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.
I hate politics.
August 13, 2023
I enjoyed this so thoroughly that I emailed John Pilger regarding whether an update to this work could be arranged. It was published in the tail-end of the eighties and, as such, has over thirty years of Australian history still missing from its pages as of this reviews published date (2023). Despite that fact, the decades past have not sullied the brilliance of Pilgers' work here, and much of this books topical choices are as relevant as ever today. If you want to know Australia, this is the book to read.
January 27, 2011
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 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: in other words to “lurk.” Lurking, an Australia pastime, can mean being somewhere you are not meant to be. 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. Indeed, the hole was known as the “Bondi Hole.” I was told the bosses knew, but they did nothing about it. This attitude this represented was summed up by Jean Curlewis in her book, Sydney Surfing, published in 1924. “Why toil to get rich,” she wrote, “to do exactly the same thing that you are doing now, not rich? 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.”
Whatever racists and Jeremiahs may say, Australia, a society with a deeply racist past, has absorbed dozens of diverse cultures peacefully. The beach and the way of life it represents are central to this. A spectacle at Bondi in the 1950s—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. The ritual was repeated as each national group arrived: Cypriots, Greeks, Lebanese, Turks, Chileans, Mexicans and Chinese.
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. Call them that at your peril; the beach is theirs now.
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 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: in other words to “lurk.” Lurking, an Australia pastime, can mean being somewhere you are not meant to be. 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. Indeed, the hole was known as the “Bondi Hole.” I was told the bosses knew, but they did nothing about it. This attitude this represented was summed up by Jean Curlewis in her book, Sydney Surfing, published in 1924. “Why toil to get rich,” she wrote, “to do exactly the same thing that you are doing now, not rich? 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.”
Whatever racists and Jeremiahs may say, Australia, a society with a deeply racist past, has absorbed dozens of diverse cultures peacefully. The beach and the way of life it represents are central to this. A spectacle at Bondi in the 1950s—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. The ritual was repeated as each national group arrived: Cypriots, Greeks, Lebanese, Turks, Chileans, Mexicans and Chinese.
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. Call them that at your peril; the beach is theirs now.
August 4, 2009
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: "The struggle of people against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting."
"It is too easy," he says, "for Western journalists to see humanity in terms of its usefulness to 'our' interests and to follow government agendas that ordain good and bad tyrants, worthy and unworthy victims and present 'our' policies as always benign when the opposite is usually true. It's the journalist's job, first of all, to look in the mirror of his own society."
Read more about John Pilger at http://pilger.carlton.com/page.asp?pa...
Pilger is a first rate journalist. He believes a journalist ought to be a guardian of the public memory and often quotes Milan Kundera: "The struggle of people against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting."
"It is too easy," he says, "for Western journalists to see humanity in terms of its usefulness to 'our' interests and to follow government agendas that ordain good and bad tyrants, worthy and unworthy victims and present 'our' policies as always benign when the opposite is usually true. It's the journalist's job, first of all, to look in the mirror of his own society."
Read more about John Pilger at http://pilger.carlton.com/page.asp?pa...
August 10, 2012
All Australians should read this.
March 1, 2010
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 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. Pilger himself! 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...you know. Just like everywhere. 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.podomatic.com, and subscribe to the podcast--
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 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. Pilger himself! 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...you know. Just like everywhere. 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.podomatic.com, and subscribe to the podcast--
September 8, 2011
I was introduced to John Pilger in a senior English class here in Australia in the late 90s. Distant Voices was a senior text and two years later my sister had the same class and brought home A Secret Country. Since then I've owned several copies of this book over the years and it doesn't stay on my shelf long. Someone will look bewildered as we discuss some matter of Australian history, domestic or foreign policy, or politics, that should be common knowledge and the best way to continue is to give them my copy of this book. I always instruct them to finish it and give it someone else to read. There are few countries whose past is as tainted yet glossed over as Australia's is and this book is even more important over twenty years on as so many of the issues presented are still pertinent to this day. Get angry.
August 27, 2007
This book really opened my eyes about Australia's history. It is a fascinating, and at times often infuriating, look at the emergence of Australia over the last two hundred years.
The book will present a contrary image of Australia than you may have. It is not the romantic picture of bronzed life savers on a sun soaked shore and a 'fair go' in this book, but a depiction of a country that is uncomfortable about its past, that is easily seduced by power (Nuclear testing and US bases) and where the terrible treatment of Aboriginal people is in stark contrast to the egalitarian, classless society that is often portrayed in tourism Australia advertising.
The book will present a contrary image of Australia than you may have. It is not the romantic picture of bronzed life savers on a sun soaked shore and a 'fair go' in this book, but a depiction of a country that is uncomfortable about its past, that is easily seduced by power (Nuclear testing and US bases) and where the terrible treatment of Aboriginal people is in stark contrast to the egalitarian, classless society that is often portrayed in tourism Australia advertising.
August 31, 2008
A brilliant insight into Australian History. A real eye opener that should be standard reading for any Australian.
January 14, 2012
Thought provoking. Explodes the mythology of Australia as the egalitarian lucky country full of mates and a fair go.
August 2, 2024
Totally absorbing (in a horrifying way, a lot of the time) - I did find the first two thirds more interesting than the final third about the 80s political scene.
May 27, 2024
Pilger stresses a need for Australia to break free of our colonial legacy and subservient following of Britain and United States. He is deeply critical of our political leaders who have continually failed First Nations communities and deliberately distanced the national consciousness from the truth of history. He laments our desperation to follow Britain and the US into global conflicts. Also Pilger strongly opposes the ‘mateship’ of political leaders and big business leaders which have deepened the pockets of few at the expense of many giving countless examples.
Although written in 1989, many issues such as a Australian Republic, Aboriginal Land rights, treaty and the failed voice referendum, growing inequality and the absurd housing market echo his sentiments today. An informative read.
Although written in 1989, many issues such as a Australian Republic, Aboriginal Land rights, treaty and the failed voice referendum, growing inequality and the absurd housing market echo his sentiments today. An informative read.
January 19, 2024
Pilger exposes the crimes against aboriginals, CIA involvement and the coup against the progressive Whitlam government and the Australian economy pillaged by parasites like Rupert Murdoch. RIP
February 18, 2012
Mandatory reading for every Australian.
November 22, 2024
It's a testament to the comforts of Australia, being able to live here so long with zero insight into its recent or ongoing politics, or a sense that the current problems are recent and have no point of contact with all the previous problems.
The book is fairly out of date, but most issues still stand. The author is a journalist so it sometimes has a bit of a sensationalist/provocative/biased flavour, rather than strictly academic rigour (well, most of it really). Covers racism, immigrants, poverty, media monopolisation and corruption scandals of the time. General point of the author is that there's a tendency to ignore all this, and the perception of Australia as some kind of fairyland where nothing bad happens - which seems to be still true to a large extent.
From my high school history classes, I knew almost nothing of this, even if we only count the solid established facts (no citizenship for ingenious people until 1950s???) and not the more speculative ones (uhhhh alleged CIA coup?? You always get a bit suspicious when journalists start pointing fingers at the CIA).
The book is fairly out of date, but most issues still stand. The author is a journalist so it sometimes has a bit of a sensationalist/provocative/biased flavour, rather than strictly academic rigour (well, most of it really). Covers racism, immigrants, poverty, media monopolisation and corruption scandals of the time. General point of the author is that there's a tendency to ignore all this, and the perception of Australia as some kind of fairyland where nothing bad happens - which seems to be still true to a large extent.
From my high school history classes, I knew almost nothing of this, even if we only count the solid established facts (no citizenship for ingenious people until 1950s???) and not the more speculative ones (uhhhh alleged CIA coup?? You always get a bit suspicious when journalists start pointing fingers at the CIA).
February 3, 2025
Though very much dated now, the pleasure in reading this book has been in gaining a much better understanding of the political landscape in Australia during my childhood. Clearly Pilger was a gifted writer who can sustain interest in that banal topic of political machinations by adding in slices of unbelievable truth! I had no idea just how dodgy the 1970’s and 80’s was in Australian politics and some of the “stories” outlined here are truly beyond belief.
Chapters on politics are flanked by those of the plight of the real life down trodden, Aboriginals and the working class.
In reading this book there is a sense, also of nostalgia at the simplicity of life before the internet and tech booms.
Such an enjoyable read, I will surely be watching the Nugen Hand Bank documentary.
Chapters on politics are flanked by those of the plight of the real life down trodden, Aboriginals and the working class.
In reading this book there is a sense, also of nostalgia at the simplicity of life before the internet and tech booms.
Such an enjoyable read, I will surely be watching the Nugen Hand Bank documentary.
April 5, 2019
This book about Australia changed my view of the country and deeply enhanced my knowledge fo its history. I especially enjoyed the first sections on the Aboriginal history and their unfortunate treatment by the English arrivals. The second part of the book reveals somehow surprising links with CIA, which I found to be a bit too detailed without having that knowledge. Nevertheless, excellent read for everyone who is interested in Australian history and for thea readers who are ready to accept that like most of countries, Australia has its own dark part, too.
April 9, 2018
4.5 stars. Well worth reading. The first half is more compelling than the second (especially the beautiful chapter about Pilger’s memories of Sydney growing up), but the second half is also worthwhile. Am definitely less confused about oddities of industry concentration and Australia’s relationship with the US now.
April 10, 2018
This book was a good introduction to what makes Australia unique, and what makes it sadly similar to countries everywhere - CIA meddling in internal affairs, control by oligarchs, systems that disadvantage everyone but white men... I'd like to read the author's views about what happened between the book's end around 1990 to today.
June 13, 2018
Pilger's coruscating overview of his native Australia at the end of the 1980s is frequently despairing but ultimately patriotic, and another great piece of reportage from one of the world's greatest living journalists. The chapters looking at the mistreatment of the Aboriginal peoples and the coup against the pioneering Whitlam government are especially rewarding.
August 29, 2021
Well I learnt a lot about my country! History and the politics... Leading up to the 90's. How much control the governor general has is Australia. Why pine gap is a place I herd mentioned when I was a kid growing up in the 90's. The horrible things the aboriginal people went through and still do to this day.
Recommended it to anyone interested in Australian history.
Recommended it to anyone interested in Australian history.
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November 19, 2025incisive, scathing overview of australia's history and politics. although it was written in the 90s it remains no less urgent. i don't agree with pilger's viewpoint on everything in here, and think he is far too optimistic about the radical potential of the average australian, but this is a remarkable book. journalism as it could and should be.
September 16, 2020
of variable strength. the parts on the distinctly australian tradition of nepotism and cronyism were excellent. murdoch’s rise correctly predicted in 1989. and excellent on first nations. not so good on whitlam or kerr, or the cia
November 8, 2022
Really great! The aboriginal chapter was particularly interesting though there was great detail and excellent writing throughout. It's showing its age a little at this stage but such is the nature of history writing. History just keeps going. Must read
July 31, 2024
The distinctly personal angle of this book was occasionally tedious with a bit of journalistic inside baseball, but outside of that it’s a very compelling portrait of Australia (Australias?) that are rarely or never told. I miss Pilger.
April 2, 2019
Amazingly insightful! Tackling Australian politics and history with so much of detail.
January 26, 2020
Compulsory reading, should be on the school curriculum
December 24, 2020
a timely piece from a great Australian journalist with credibility; every Australian should read
September 20, 2024
Still relevant 30 years on. Great investigative journalism.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 48 reviews