14 Australian cartoonists at the end of empire
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David Olds
Abstract
This chapter observes the changes in Australian attitudes to colonialism through the prism of the Bulletin and The Australian in the 1960s. When Sir Frank Packer took over the magazine in 1961, he made Donald Horne editor, whose first move was to take ‘Australia for the White Man’ off the banner. This was not merely cosmetic: Horne was determined to remake the symbolic organ of White Australian cultural nationalism in a new internationalist way. While Horne’s politics were Cold War conservative, he was a maverick, hiring closet communist Les Tanner to edit the cartoons and images. Tanner led a new generation of progressive cartoonists who came to dominate Australian newspapers and magazines from the 1960s. Tanner and his protégés rather abruptly lifted the national tradition from its imperialist and racist mode, turning politically and culturally away from Britain and empire to a more modern and liberal (even socialist) nationalism. When Rupert Murdoch set up The Australian in 1964 with Bruce Petty as cartoonist it, too, was culturally and politically anti-establishment for a decade. Petty was consciously decolonialising even before the anti-Vietnam movement, and there’s a clear argument that a group of cartoonists were among the leaders of this social and political change.
Abstract
This chapter observes the changes in Australian attitudes to colonialism through the prism of the Bulletin and The Australian in the 1960s. When Sir Frank Packer took over the magazine in 1961, he made Donald Horne editor, whose first move was to take ‘Australia for the White Man’ off the banner. This was not merely cosmetic: Horne was determined to remake the symbolic organ of White Australian cultural nationalism in a new internationalist way. While Horne’s politics were Cold War conservative, he was a maverick, hiring closet communist Les Tanner to edit the cartoons and images. Tanner led a new generation of progressive cartoonists who came to dominate Australian newspapers and magazines from the 1960s. Tanner and his protégés rather abruptly lifted the national tradition from its imperialist and racist mode, turning politically and culturally away from Britain and empire to a more modern and liberal (even socialist) nationalism. When Rupert Murdoch set up The Australian in 1964 with Bruce Petty as cartoonist it, too, was culturally and politically anti-establishment for a decade. Petty was consciously decolonialising even before the anti-Vietnam movement, and there’s a clear argument that a group of cartoonists were among the leaders of this social and political change.
Chapters in this book
- Front matter i
- Contents v
- List of figures vii
- List of contributors xvi
- Acknowledgements xxi
- 1 Introduction 1
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PART I: High imperialism and colonialism
- 2 Courting the colonies 31
- 3 ‘Master Jonathan’ in Cuba 66
- 4 ‘The international Siamese twins’ 92
- 5 ‘“Every dog” (no distinction of color) “has his day”’ 134
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PART II: The critique of empire and the context of decolonisation
- 6 The making of harmony and war, from New Year Prints to propaganda cartoons during China’s Second Sino-Japanese War 161
- 7 David Low and India 192
- 8 Between imagined and ‘real’ 216
- 9 The iconography of decolonisation in the cartoons of the Suez Crisis, 1956 242
- 10 Punch and the Cyprus emergency, 1955–1959 277
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PART III: Ambiguities of empire
- 11 Outrage and imperialism, confusion and indifference 305
- 12 Ambiguities in the fight waged by the socialist satirical review Der Wahre Jacob against militarism and imperialism 334
- 13 The ‘confounded socialists’ and the ‘Commonwealth Co-operative Society’ 362
- 14 Australian cartoonists at the end of empire 393
- Index 426
Chapters in this book
- Front matter i
- Contents v
- List of figures vii
- List of contributors xvi
- Acknowledgements xxi
- 1 Introduction 1
-
PART I: High imperialism and colonialism
- 2 Courting the colonies 31
- 3 ‘Master Jonathan’ in Cuba 66
- 4 ‘The international Siamese twins’ 92
- 5 ‘“Every dog” (no distinction of color) “has his day”’ 134
-
PART II: The critique of empire and the context of decolonisation
- 6 The making of harmony and war, from New Year Prints to propaganda cartoons during China’s Second Sino-Japanese War 161
- 7 David Low and India 192
- 8 Between imagined and ‘real’ 216
- 9 The iconography of decolonisation in the cartoons of the Suez Crisis, 1956 242
- 10 Punch and the Cyprus emergency, 1955–1959 277
-
PART III: Ambiguities of empire
- 11 Outrage and imperialism, confusion and indifference 305
- 12 Ambiguities in the fight waged by the socialist satirical review Der Wahre Jacob against militarism and imperialism 334
- 13 The ‘confounded socialists’ and the ‘Commonwealth Co-operative Society’ 362
- 14 Australian cartoonists at the end of empire 393
- Index 426
