A TOWN CALLED MALICE

In the 1950s Nevil Shute wrote a novel that was so successful that it was adopted as a film. In the novel the main character is astounded by the beauty of the town. No one would have that view of the place today. "But the life of Noel Ross could barely be more removed from the gentle, hopeful Alice seen by Shute in the 1950s – a place that so reminded his character Jean Paget, in A Town Like Alice, of the lovely England that she had left. Ms Ross, an Aboriginal woman in her fifties, has lived for the past four years in the shell of a wrecked Ford in one of Alice’s black enclaves, ... She has only a sullen dog as a companion and no shield from the alcohol-fuelled violence of Alice’s black enclaves. Last month the town of 60,000 was named the stabbing capital of the world. It also claims the highest murder rate and highest consumption of alcohol in Australia." (Times, 11 August) The expansion of capitalism decimated the population of the Scottish Highlands, wiped out the culture of the native Americans and has wrecked the lives of the Australian aborigines. RD