The big picture
In 1987, in a fascinating and most useful talk on ABC radio, John Tranter said: “From the 1960s, for a mixture of reasons, Aborigines have been more publicly visible than in earlier times. They have been subjects of greater controversy, and they have been participants in controversy as never before.”
Tranter did us all a great service by analysing in considerable detail the background for these developments. His piece is more relevant now than ever before and, potentially, more useful than the current agonies surrounding the fate of the proposal for a Voice
John Tranter and his work were unknown to me until I came across a transcript of the episode of Helicon, ABC radio’s national arts program, broadcast on 26 January 1987.
Tranter died on 21 April 2023. I only wish I had had the chance to thank him for a wonderful piece dealing so clearly with many aspects of policies in Australia relating to its Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Over thirty six years ago Tranter was able to provide a most readable summary and analysis, with numerous historical facts and opinions, of issues that still trouble us greatly today.
John Tranter produced Helicon in 1987-1988. Later in his work for the ABC, and with others, he devised the radio program Books and Writing. He was also the founding editor and publisher of Jacket, an award-winning internet literary magazine.
A long-term view
The subject piece is entitled From 1788 to 1988: Visions of Australian History. I came across it in a hard copy that does not credit an author. It is dated January 1987. Given the dates of his tenure at Helicon, what I have already discovered of the breadth of his study and the style of his writing, I have assumed that John Tranter was its sole or main author.
If this assumption is false I sincerely hope that the other people involved will forgive me. My purpose is to give greater publicity and notice to the clearest of expositions of matters even more contested today, in 2023, than they were in 1987.
The piece is marvelous in the breadth of its coverage, in many senses prescient, and so clearly written. It is erudite but still accessible.
It pleases me to know that it is (back?) in the public domain, albeit on a very modest platform. My hope is that John Tranter would find my motives and intentions to be entirely worthy.
I beg you to read the article full. If it means to you a fraction of what it already means to me, it will be well worth your time.
The complete transcript is here as a PDF.
