Royal commission result news to those born yesterday
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Peter Waterhouse of Craigieburn (Letters, September 28) praises Australian society because we can hold our footy grand finals without worrying about terrorists. But on the same day, Claire Thurstans (“We can’t just say ‘sport = violence’ and be done with it”, canberratimes.com.au) details the increase in violence which inevitably accompanies such events. People in the street, and women and children at home, are at increased threat from their own fellow citizens and family members.
I recently heard stats from the UK; when the English soccer team plays, domestic violence increases by about 40 per cent if they lose, and by 25 per cent even if they win. We seem obsessed with stranger danger; rejoicing that we don’t get blown up by foreigners once in a blue moon, while ignoring the everyday violence committed by otherwise ordinary Aussies.
SW Davey, Torrens
What Romans did for us The rather dismissive review of Rome: City and Empire by Sasha Grishin, exhibition now at the National Museum, is likely to deter some from bothering to attend. (“The empire stripped back”, September 29 Panorama, p9). Grishin appears to think the exhibition second-rate, and doesn’t like much that the Romans did.
What did the Romans ever do for us, one might say. Rome did take up a lot of space in the ancient world, and they were a tough lot. But they do not deserve criticism that their long rule was a waste of time. We have the exhibition to give us some idea of what they have left behind in terms of culture, even though only a tiny glimpse. As for Roman harshness, I like what Julian Barnes had to say: “What a curious vanity it is of the present to expect the past to suck up to it.”
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