Paul Daley on the NMA’s defining moments

Paul Daley writes in Guardian Australia in praise of the National Museum of Australia’s list of ‘defining moments’ in our history and of its initiative in seeking public comments. He quotes the Prime Minister’s remarks opening the exhibition, questions them at length and concludes supportively of the Museum’s

eagerness to define Australian identity broadly, generously and beyond the top-down historical orthodoxies that have long driven and confined such national dialogue. The museum’s initiative here is a welcome conversation-starter in a country whose leaders persistently view nationhood through the narrow, largely masculine moments of European settlement and that other invasion – Gallipoli. It’s precisely what our national institutions should be doing. More please.

Our own take on the Defining Moments initiative is here. An earlier Guardian article and one in The Conversation.

16 October 2014

Click here for all items related to: ,
Loading...