Welcome to Eureka Street

back to site

Keywords: Statues

  • AUSTRALIA

    Deakin and the parting of names

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 14 September 2023
    4 Comments

    As the legacy of historical figures is reevaluated, Alfred Deakin, Australia's second Prime Minister, finds himself under recent scrutiny. A champion of Federation, Deakin also held views towards Indigenous Australians now regarded as abhorrent. But is erasing his name from a university the right step? 

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Venturing across the river: Reflections on The Swap

    • John D’Arcy May
    • 08 June 2023
    3 Comments

    The Swap unfolds as a captivating documentary series and a remarkable ecumenical experiment. With Muslim, Catholic, and state school students at its center, the series illuminates the transformative power of acceptance and understanding through the lens of interfaith dialogue, leading the viewer to wonder: how might interfaith dialogue better shape our collective journey?

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    With less than due respect

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 20 October 2022
    8 Comments

    The one thing lacking in much of the debate about the travails of the Essendon Football Club and the brief tenure of its CEO was a proper respect. That lack of respect may merit reflection. Respect begins with persons, not with principles and opinions. 

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    After the truths are told

    • Dean Ashenden
    • 03 May 2022
    6 Comments

      The danger is that unless commissions and inquiries are accompanied by other ways of telling other truths they will inadvertently help to shrink that national story into the story of victims who in fact have never been only victims, and of unmentioned perpetrators who in fact have never been only perpetrators. They risk preaching to a more-or-less converted majority and to an implacably unconverted minority.

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Revisiting Ukraine

    • Catherine Marshall
    • 12 April 2022
    4 Comments

    The country’s most recent conflict — ongoing skirmishes with Russian-backed separatists in Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk, just 230km east of here — had been memorialised at an open-air exhibition: a latticework of bronze flowers had been superimposed upon an ambulance wrecked in battle; bullet-ridden place names from affected villages were lined up like a column of condemned POWs.

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Carrying the weight of the daily news

    • Cherie Gilmour
    • 29 March 2022
    13 Comments

    A house bursts into flames as it’s submerged in floodwaters. A doctor tells a cameraman filming a dying Ukrainian child to send the footage to Putin. A newspaper delves into the murder of a young woman. It’s like a fever dream: a pandemic bleeds into the edges of a global war. The news presents information, and it has no moral duty to tell us how we should feel about it or help us untangle the knot of feelings which emerge. 

    READ MORE
  • RELIGION

    The makings of a saint

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 20 January 2022
    6 Comments

    On the fifteenth anniversary of Rutilio Grande’s death, I went to a memorial celebration in Aguilares. This crossroads town was the centre of the Jesuit local mission of which Grande had been part. I had already been struck by the affection with which everyone spoke of Rutilio Grande. In a society where any ministry to people who were poor exposed one to constant danger, it was natural to become hardened in order to survive. Rutilio Grande, however, was remembered and treasured for his vulnerability.

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Revisiting American Dirt

    • Gillian Bouras
    • 04 November 2021
    14 Comments

    Writers inevitably learn bitter lessons, including one about readers who will be wounded, hurt, or at least deeply offended by their work. There is usually more than one group of these, for people become upset for reasons that are many and varied. Such is the case in the reaction to Jeanine Cummins’ fourth book, American Dirt. Cummins has been variously accused of stereotyping, racism, narcissism, and of lacking in empathy.

    READ MORE
  • INTERNATIONAL

    From persecution to protection and the purgatory in between

    • Kerry Murphy
    • 28 October 2021
    6 Comments

    Mark Twain is reported to have said ‘history does not repeat, it rhymes.’ Watching a US helicopter evacuating people from the US Embassy in Kabul, that was rhyming. Many have seen this picture before, 30 April 1975, but then it was Saigon. The massive confusion, mixed messages, terrified people, lack of human rights protection happened in 1975, and still happens in 2021.

    READ MORE
  • CARTOON

    The Prime Minister and his cabinet

    • Fiona Katauskas
    • 07 April 2021
    1 Comment

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    The friendly statues

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 16 July 2020
    6 Comments

    These statues form part of the rich texture of our daily lives, personal histories and cultural environment. They invite tolerant smiles rather than scowls. This article celebrates a selection of friendly Melbourne statues that have reflected places where they and I have stood. It invites you to make your own selection.

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    We are home already

    • John Carey
    • 07 July 2020
    6 Comments

    Topple them roll them into the depths of the sea to join their coffin ship. Make space in the air fit to breathe. We are come home to roost. We are home already, never left, just slipped your mind.

    READ MORE