Review of Lachlan Strahan’s Day of Reckoning
2006; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 3; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2104/ha060021
ISSN1833-4881
Autores Tópico(s)Island Studies and Pacific Affairs
ResumoAnyone who has used court transcripts and evidence files as a source for writing knows how detailed they can be. Day of reckoning does just that, giving the reader an incredibly dense account of a series of criminal trials in New Guinea and the Moluccas in late 1947 and early 1948. The events were not related directly, although some of the official personnel cross the boundaries. The real links are to questions of Australian sovereignty, and Australian and American attitudes to race, both with regard to New Guineans and Asians. The book is set in New Guinea and adjacent islands and is based on evidence from the court cases. Lachlan Strahan has created an intimate literary picture of post-war New Guinea and inter-personal relations that has few equals in Pacific history. The cases take place in four places: Lae, Kaiapit, Manus and Morotai. Lae in Morobe District was a new town, originally upstaged by Salamaua in the pre-war gold rich days, and only became the main centre after the war. Kaiapit was a village in the upper Markham valley, also in Morobe District. Manus was a major American naval and air force base during the Second World War, with hundreds of ships in its harbours and more than one million men passing through. Manus was one of the main bases from which the retaking of the Philippines was accomplished, then just as suddenly its huge infrastructure lay dormant, with a mass of equipment sold off to the Chinese government. Morotai is in the far north of the Moluccas in what was then eastern Dutch East Indies, which were in the midst of revolution as Indonesian nationalists forced the Dutch out. Into these scenes come the characters, more as representatives of their types than as individuals. John Scott, a mine manager, was involved in a minor assault by Filipino Scouts at a New Year’s Eve dance at the Hotel Cecil in Lae, but subsequently died. Filipino Eduaro Bahinting was charged with his manslaughter. Three weeks later a young Manus man, Pondranei, was assaulted by four Chinese labourers because they thought he had stolen cigarettes. Two, Hsueh and Chou, were identified and charged with deprivation of liberty and assault. Less than a month later Willem Anker, a Dutch maritime engineer, was assaulted in a minor way, on isolated Morotai by Australian airman Alexander Newman, over the sexual favours of an Indonesian
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