‘Gallipoli: a necessary mythology?‘ Honest History, 14 April 2015
The author compares the lives of two Lalors in order to ask whether we are neglecting our heritage from the 19th century.
For the next four years we will hear a great deal of how the Australian characteristics of mateship, endurance and perseverance under pressure were forged on Gallipoli and in the trenches of the Western Front. But is this nonsense? Surely these national traits had been developing for a hundred years or more during the course of the 1800s, during the convict era, on the goldfields at Ballarat and Bendigo and during the land settlement phase later in that century …
The provenance of our laws, our parliamentary system, our marvellously egalitarian society, some of our most distinctive literature and poetry, even the way we speak, were embedded in our culture during the course of the 19th century.