In recent months, the social and political situation in Mparntwe/Alice Springs has been making headlines internationally and across Australia. Facing pressure from business groups, the government introduced alcohol purchasing restrictions in the city as well as blanket bans on alcohol in town camps and remote communities in the Northern Territory. Arrernte activists and supporters have blasted the moves as sidelining community voices and avoiding the elephant in the room: systemic racism.

White Australia maintains a general ignorance about the history of Aboriginal political struggle and the devastating scope of conservative reaction. This is, at least in part, how Australian media and politicians so often succeed in whipping up anti–First Nations hysteria. It also goes some way to explain how racist, top-down initiatives that are clearly doomed to fail are continually put forward as reasonable. In this context, revisiting key moments in the struggle for self-determination — including on questions like health, safety, and alcohol — is crucial.

Waanyi writer Alexis Wright’s Grog War is a collective record of such a moment. The book chronicles the people of Junkurrakur/Tennant Creek’s struggle to end the tyranny of alcohol in their community. Grog War was originally published in 1997, and was quietly reissued in 2021. Its author, winner of the prestigious Miles Franklin Award, among other prizes, is probably the most internationally acclaimed literary author from the continent. As with other nonfiction by Wright, however, this text is not just the product of a single individual. Wright produced Grog War on behalf of the Julalikari Council, which represents people from the sixteen language groups of the town camps, outstations, and pastoral properties around Tennant Creek. Its name means “for the people.”