Who needs a unifying theme anyway?

I was in Year 11. I went to my Modern World History class. The night before, we had all seen the stories on television about the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Our teacher drew a big question-mark up on the chalkboard, and we all speculated about what it meant. After a few minutes, our teacher erased the question-mark and replaced it with:

THE COLD WAR: 1945 – 1989 

It was stunning. Growing up in the 80’s there was a palpable fear that not only would there be nuclear war, but that we in Australia would get drawn into it, or suffer its consequences no matter what we did. ‘On The Beach’ was largely set in Frankston – five minutes from my high school. An Australian film from 1984, One Night Stand, starkly depicted our paranoia. One of the most popular Australian records of the 80s, Midnight Oil’s “Red Sails in the Sunset” has album art that shows Sydney annihilated by nuclear war.

There was no Australian ‘Red Dawn’ because we never thought we had a chance. That’s how scared we were. All the time.

And then, 20 years ago, overnight, it was all over. Like someone flicked a switch.