The Resident Judge of Port Phillip

Constitutional Clarion. Religion and Constitution Strictly speaking, this isn’t a podcast but a YouTube video, but given that the presenter, constitutional lawyer Anne Twomey is just sitting in front of a bookshelf with the occasional image popping up beside her, it may as well be. Unfortunately it’s chopped up with advertisements, which is very annoying. But the content itself really is excellent, giving a constitutional historian’s views on current events. For this Christmas episode, she admits that she had to scratch around to find any link between Christmas and the constitution- although she did find one link with wartime legislation banning Christmas and Easter advertising that did end up in court. She then broadens her survey to look at the role of religion in the Australian constitution more generally, starting with the NSW constitution which prohibited religious men from being elected (although not appointed, note) then going on to look at the Federal constitution. She talks about various court challenges over time, e.g. The Defence of Government Schools case against government funding of private schools, the Chaplaincy Act etc. Fascinating.

Being Roman with Mary Beard A Bag of Snails and a Glass of Wine Calidius Eroticus and Fannia Voluptas- surely spoof names!- were innkeepers described on a stone excavated in a vineyard in southern Italy, and so Mary embarks on looking at inns and eating-houses generally in Roman times. Upper class Romans wouldn’t be seen dead eating publicly, but the dangers of fires in closely-settled towns meant that poorer people ate communally. Some were just take-away shops, while others were more like restaurants, mimicking the eating habits of the higher classes. Snail stew…..mmmmm.

The Rest is History. Episode 456: Fall of the Sioux: The Massacre at Wounded Knee (Part 3) At last, the final episode of this series on Native Americans. I haven’t really enjoyed this series: partially because of their flippant attitude, and also because I haven’t ever really got into this aspect of American history. Chief Sitting Bull had been seduced into Buffalo Bill’s show, and unable to see visions in the Ghost Dance phenomenon that was sweeping through the remnant tribes, he had lost all authority. He was deeply depressed when the Swiss activist and friend (something more?) Mrs Caroline Weldon left him. Meanwhile, the Indian Agent James McLaughlin teamed up with Lieutenant Henry Bullhead, of the Indian Agency (similar to the Native Police in Australia) to arrest him at his cottage. He was shot and killed. His cabin was picked up and carted around as a fairground exhibit. Then the inevitable denouement, with the massacre at Wounded Knee, when Custer’s old regiment – all raw recruits who had never known Custer, but were imbued with all the ‘honor of the regiment’ rubbish- surrounded over three hundred Lakota people and massacred them. But as we know, this was not the end of Native Americans, millions of whom still live in America today, albeit in the poorest economic and social conditions. Heather Cox Richardson wrote a post about Wounded Knee on her Substack, as she does every December 29. She wrote a book about it: Wounded Knee: Party Politics and the Road to an American massacre and is obviously still shaken by it.

History Hit Following on from the episode about Tudor Christmas, Georgian Christmas takes up with the re-establishment of Christmas after being prohibited under the Puritans. In this episode, Dan Snow goes on a stroll around the streets of Islington and Clerkenwell with Footprints of London tour guide Rob Smith. It’s not all directly related to Christmas, but they do emphasize that a Georgian Christmas was a public-holiday event for working class people, who celebrated outside and in public. His guest being a tour guide, there’s lots of interesting little snippets including the fact that The Angel, Islington on the Monopoly Board was actually a pub- the only actual building other than railway stations on the board- and it was the last named, largely out of exhaustion.

Dan Snow’s History Hit The Syrian Civil War: How it Started The recent events in Syria have seen the overthrow of the Assad regime, but in many ways Assad came to dominate because of the preceding civil war that brought his father to power. This episode with Shashank Joshi, the Defence Editor for The Economist traces through the history of Syria from WWI onwards, and the consequences of the French promoting the interests of the Alawite minority- a typical colonial-power strategy. I wish The Economist wasn’t so damned expensive: it has some interesting features.

The Coming Storm Season 2 Episode 2 Flight 007 My husband was listening to this in the car with me, and he disliked the way that Gabriel Gatehouse does not challenge the conspiracies being promulgated in these episodes. I don’t agree: I think that it’s perfectly clear that he is incredulous at some of what he is hearing. In this episode Flight 007 he discusses the conspiracy theories surrounding the Federal Reserve in America, right from its formation among bankers in 1913. He focuses on the John Birch Society and one of its leaders the Democratic Party Congressman Larry McDonald, who was killed when Flight 007 was shot down by the Soviets in 1983. A staunch conservative and anti-communist, and far more aligned to the old Southern Democrat politics rather than the modern Democrat party, McDonald’s death has fuelled further distrust of the three-letter agencies in America: a distrust that Trump has capitalized on.

In the Shadows of Utopia Episode 14: The End of French Indo-China Another long episode, with a lot in it, covering the period December 1953 – July 1955. By this time the Khmer Viet Minh controlled about 1/3 of Cambodia, but not in a clearly defined area. What mattered more was what was happening over the Vietnamese border where the Viet Cong defeated the French at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. This battle came eight years into the war, with the French already exhausted from WW2. It took place in a valley, with the French troops dropped by air into a clearing surrounded by jungle in the middle of a Viet Minh controlled area. The Viet Minh had brought in artillery under camouflage, with Chinese and Soviet support that had been freed up after the Korean War. It was a brutal battle with a very high death rate on both sides, and when it became trench warfare, it was likened to Verdun (in WWI). Both sides suffered from jungle sickness, and amongst the Vietnamese troops PTSD and fear was seen as being ‘rightist’, a marker of the ideological language that was used to describe behaviour. The battle was important, but even before then, there was strong international pressure for a diplomatic solution. This culminated in the Geneva Convention, where the four main powers (UK, US, France and USSR) were represented, along with China, Laos, Cambodia and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Omitted were the Khmer Viet Minh and Issarak. It was decided to divide Vietnam into North and South Vietnam, with Cambodia and Laos to be neutral and independent, with representative governments. So by the end of July, the first Indo China War was over, and a 300 day period was set aside for people to shift from one region to another, depending on their political affiliation. In Cambodia, Sihanouk was pleased with Geneva Accords, which put an end to Vietnamese and French interference and which left the Khmer Communists very unhappy. Some Khmer Communists went back to Vietnam or French, others stayed undercover, while others remained politically involved as an outward mask for their continued secret Communist activity. However, Sihanouk wasn’t so pleased with the “representative government” part of the Accords, because the Democratic Party was likely to win.First he held a very dodgy referendum to remind Cambodians of what he claimed as his role in gaining independence, then he abdicated as King in favour of his father (who would be no threat to him) and engaged himself in the elections in his own right. He formed a ‘movement’ based on personal loyalty to him, uniting centrists, elites and the ‘little people’ who felt aggrieved (sounds rather Trumpian to me). The elections were nasty, he suppressed the media, threatened assassination and jailed opponents. As a result his Sangkum Party won all the seats. Sihanouk played all sides: he proclaimed neutrality and to reject US overtures but accepted their money quite happily and he allowed the North Vietnamse communists to act clandestinely in Cambodia as a way of sidelining the Khmer communists.

The Coming Storm. This is the new season of The Coming Storm which continues on the rise of conspiracy thinking in America. After a very long introduction Episode 1 The Yogi tells the story of Allan Hostetter, an ex-policeman and former yoga teacher who seemed to be set off by COVID regulations and went further and further down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole. No doubt, he welcomes Trump’s victory and the prospect of release.

Dan Snow’s History Hit Henry VIII’s Tudor Christmas Dan Snow is doing a series on The Origins of Christmas at different times in mainly British history. Here he wanders around Hampton Court with Historic Royal Palaces chief curator Tracy Borman, going from room to room and imagining Christmas being celebrated there during Henry’s time. As they point out, the nature of the Tudor Christmas changed over time, especially as Henry aged and couldn’t be bothered with it all. The Tudor Christmas didn’t put particular emphasis on 25 December: instead, it was a 12 day festival with two large meals every day served up to over 1000 people. It was also a predominantly religious festival too, with Henry attending chapel twice a day, and later Elizabeth spent the whole of Christmas Day in prayer.

The Documentary (BBC) The Global Jigsaw: The rebels who retook Aleppo I listened to this as the Assad regime fell in Syria, but the program was actually first broadcast in 2023. It looks at Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS), led by Abu Mohammed al Jawlani (although I note that this is his ‘nom de guerre’ and he’s now going by Ahmed al-Sharaa. In 2023 when this was recorded, there was scepticism about his transformation from islamic terrorist to the leader of the ‘Salvation Government’ that he was leading in Idlib province. This government allowed in aid, re-opened schools, shops and churches, and as leader he wanted to appear statesmanlike, trimming his beard and wearing casual clothes, moving around openly in Idlib. Like many, I have been appalled by the repression of the Assad government that is now being fully revealed. Let’s hope that Syria has a better future.

The Rest is History Episode 455 Fall of the Sioux: The Ghost Dance (Part 2) This is all so sad and has so many resonances with Australian Aboriginal history. From their webpage “Following the tragic death of Crazy Horse and the ruthless cessation of the Sioux way of life, the last of the great Native American leaders were gradually picked off or repressed by the U.S. Government. Few though had so pitiful a fate as the once mighty Lakota War Chieftain, Sitting Bull. Having fled to Canada in search of peace from the relentless harrowing of his people, Sitting Bull finally returned and arrived at the Standing Rock Reservation in 1883. He was unprepared, however, for the changes wrought upon his people. With the explosion of railroads and the decimation of the already flailing buffalo populations, the Great Plains had been transformed into a desolate, barbed wasteland. While, the Native Americans within the reservations were increasingly coerced into Christianity by missionaries, or controlled by Federal agents. Then, news reached Sitting Bull and his people of a messianic figure from beyond the Rocky Mountains, who would come to liberate them from their plight. With him he brought the answer to their troubles: the Ghost Dance. Would it see the drums of war sound once more?” When Sitting Bull returned to Standing Rock, everything had changed. He joined the Buffalo Bill tour, and the restaging of Custer’s last Battle. Then we have the ‘second coming’ narrative of spiritual leader Wovoka, whose Ghost Dance, if performed properly would reunite the living with spirits of the dead, bring the spirits to fight on their behalf, ending Westward expansion and bring peace and prosperity. This is not going to end well.

History Extra A Victorian Cult: Inside the Strange World of the Agapemone I tend to think of cults today as being an American phenomenon, but especially during the 19th century, Britain had its fair share too. The Agapemone (originally called the Princites), named for Henry James Prince, who believed that he had a direct line of communication with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit told him to establish himself in Somerset, in a house purchased from the ‘donations’ of his wealthy, mainly female followers in 1856. Those who could not afford to donate their money donated their labour instead, working in the kitchen. There they were to wait for the second coming, and as they were already saved, then they weren’t going to die- which became a bit embarrassing when they DID start dying off- but no matter, because John Hugh Smyth-Pigott quickly took his place, as cult leaders tend to do. The commune limped on until the 1960s when it had become a type of old-people’s home. The episode features Stuart Flinders, the author of A Very British Cult: Rogue Priests and the Abode of Love (Icon Books, 2024).