Patriotism and its discontents: a small town in a great strike i Julie Kimber Lecturer in Politics Social & Policy Studies Faculty of Life and Social Sciences Swinburne University of Technology Mail H31 PO Box 218 Hawthorn VIC 3122 Australia Email:
[email protected] Tel: + 61 3 9214 8103 Fax: + 61 3 9819 0574 1 Patriotism and its discontents: a small town in a great strike Julie Kimber* Much ink has been spilt on the question of the General Strike of 1917. Despite nuances of interpretation there exists a general consensus that the strike was a product of the deeply disruptive social, economic and political circumstances of World War I. This paper seeks to add to that discussion through a vignette of the strike, as it played out in the town of Orange in central western NSW. The battle for the meaning of words unleashed during the period illustrates the now well- known fault lines of power and social control embedded in Australia. The 1917 Strike cannot be studied in isolation from World War I. As Dan Coward argued the reaction to the strike ‘reflected a corrosive social and political malaise’ then prevalent (Coward, 1973, p. 80). Despite differing nuances, a historiographical consensus exists on the particularly brutal effects of the processes of the war (see, for example, Gollan, 1963; Turner, 1965; Coward, 1973; Taksa, 1991; and Bollard, 2006). The conscription referenda campaigns, punctuated by the General Strike, lifted the veil of consensus, created new social fractures and entrenched divisions between political parties. It purged these parties of marginal supporters, removing the cross-class nature of organisations in infancy.