Radio National Presents

150 years ago thousands of young men were taken from the Pacific Islands. Today the scars are still being felt.

Muslim Malaysians often have complex and tangled views about polygamy. Their feelings and beliefs aren’t always mirrored by their actions.  What role does pragmatism play? What role does faith play?

The island of Poruma is a shrinking tropical paradise — battered by king tides and eaten by coastal erosion. Meet the locals fighting for survival, in more ways than one.

Climate change is lapping at the shores of Poruma, a tropical island in Australia’s Torres Strait. It’s a dot in the Pacific Ocean — just two kilometres long and 300 metres wide — that sits halfway between the northern tip of Australia and the south of Papua New Guinea.

This tiny landmass, also known as Coconut Island, is becoming smaller. King tides are battering its beaches, and coastal erosion is eating the island at both ends.

Moving isn’t an option for the locals. As First Nations people, they have a deep spiritual connection with the land and sea, and, for many, fishing is their source of income.

Global warming isn’t the only threat.

Christianity came to the Torres Strait in the late 1800s and it’s been embraced by Islanders. But when the locals of Poruma gained this faith, they lost parts of their culture and language. As former councillor Aunty Nora Pearson explains, ‘Christianity trimmed us’. Today, the island’s native tongue Kulkalgaw Ya is critically endangered.  

Fuelled by their Christian faith, and inspired by their ancestors’ stories of survival, the people of Poruma are ready to fight. Meet the locals battling to save their land, their language and their cultural traditions – before it’s too late.

Hear more fascinating programs in the Shifting Cultures series, a co-production between the BBC World Service and ABC RN.

Expectation and competition are pushing young South Koreans to give up on marriage and kids.

If everyone was against the Vietnam War, how come Australian forces spent 10 years fighting in Southeast Asia? Why have the supporters of the Vietnam commitment been forgotten? And why do we believe returned men were abused?

Perhaps we should ask Rambo.

Written and presented by Dr Mark Dapin.

Anyone could be discharged from the Australian armed forces for gay sexual behaviour in Vietnam. And since nobody wanted to fight the Vietnam War – and gay men were excused national service — there must have been no gay people on Australian military bases in Vietnam, right? Wrong.

Written and presented by Dr Mark Dapin.

Did mateship really sustain Australian POWs of the Japanese any more than it helped — for example — the Dutch to endure the horrors of the Thai-Burma Railway? And why is there a bridge on the River Kwai today when there was no bridge in the Second World War?

Written and presented by Dr Mark Dapin.

Why do we commemorate an event that probably didn’t happen?

Did the Japanese really plan to invade Australia in 1942? What does it mean that we have come to commemorate a battle that many historians argue never actually happened? And whatever happened to the Rats of Tobruk?

Written and presented by Dr Mark Dapin

Why some prisoners of war were happiest in Singapore.

Was Changi a POW heaven or a death-camp hell? The camp’s reputation has worsened in the years since the Second World War, but the truth lies somewhere in between.

Written and presented by Dr Mark Dapin.