Blasted Island—Nauru’s backstory
I’m presenting a new performance essay, Blasted Island—Nauru’s backstory, as part of the Sydney Opera House & St James Ethics Centre’s
Festival of Dangerous Ideas
The Playhouse, Sydney Opera House Sunday 31 August at 3:30 pm
Blasted Island—Nauru’s backstory
Today, most of us know it as a detention centre, but there’s a lot more to Nauru’s story, and Australia’s involvement goes back over a hundred years. During that time, Nauru has gone from ‘tropical paradise’ via improbable wealth to ecological disaster. The mining of phosphate made miners rich but turned the interior of the island into a barren moonscape. In a terrible indictment of its own stewardship, in 1961 Australia declared Nauru uninhabitable and proposed resettling its entire population. After the phosphate ran out, so did the money, and now climate change threatens the island with rising sea levels. Nauru’s story may be an environmental parable, but it is also the story of Australia as an exploiter, not a protector.
Go here for more information and for tickets.
Noëlle Janaczewska 