'The bloke with a stroke' - Alick Wickham, the 'crawl' and social memory

Solomon Islander swimmer Alick Wickham is a celebrated figure in Australian, Solomon Islander and international sport history. His iconic status is inextricably linked to the myth that he introduced the crawl stroke, commonly known as freestyle, to Australia and hence the wider world. The focus of this paper is not the mythic qualities of Wickham's contribution to the crawl stroke, but rather how this myth has been enmeshed in a range of discourses. Through the lens of postcolonialism and by focusing on the creation of social memory - in literature, postage stamps and documentaries Wickham's contribution to the crawl stroke has been represented in three dominant ways: as a racial discourse centring on the social construction of the 'nimble savage', as part of Australian nationalism in terms of the nation's contribution to world swimming, and as a discernible dimension in the construction of Solomon Islander identity after independence.

The Future of the Australian-U.S. Security Relationship

Australia is an increasingly important ally for the United States. It is willing to be part of challenging global missions, and its strong economy and growing self-confi dence suggest a more prominent role in both global and regional affairs. Moreover, its government has worked hard to strengthen the link between Canberra and Washington. Political and strategic affi nities between the two countries have been refl ected in--and complemented by--practiced military interoperability, as the two allies have sustained a pattern of security cooperation in relation to East Timor, Afghanistan and Iraq in the last 4 years. This growing collaboration between the two countries suggests that a reinvention of the traditional bilateral security relationship is taking place. At the core of this process lies an agreement about the need for engaging in more proactive strategic behavior in the changing global security environment, and a mutual acceptance of looming military and technological interdependence. But this new alliance relationship is already testing the boundaries of bipartisan support for security policy within Australia. Issues of strategic doctrine, defense planning, and procurement are becoming topics of fi erce policy debate. Such discussion is likely to be sharpened in the years ahead as Australia’s security relationship with the United States settles into a new framework.

Good readers and good citizens: Literature, media and the nation

IN recent decades nationalism has sometimes been classed in the same category of immoral behaviours as racism and sexism. Reading from the historical and literary record, nationalism often appears to have been little other than racism and sexism. Race was the very basis of the national settlement in early twentieth-century Australia; how profoundly, I think, is something we still have to learn. How far are we from thinking in terms of First Nations as a way of acknowledging Indigenous Australia? Our easy familiarity with and moral superiority to' pre- I967 Australia and the White Australia Policy means that there are many degrees of Australian racism that remain hidden from commonplace historical knowledge·:' Australians still tend to think of South Africa as belonging to-another time and place altogether, another moral universe and historical trajectory. This was not a mistake that colonial Australians made. The parallels will become less and less resistible.