AustLit

'This quotation, which appears as an epigraph on the title page of part 1 of Alexis Wright's 1997 book Grog War, immediately frames the problems associated with alcohol in Aboriginal communities as belonging to the legacies of colonialism. Grog is not a passive killer. Poison and guns were killers in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries; nowadays, alcohol is being used to destroy Aboriginal people, families, and whole communities. Grog is contextualized here, at the beginning of Wright's narrative, as an active force in the continuing destruction of communities, a legacy of colonial control and oppression. And if grog is a legacy of colonialism, then both the colonizer and the colonized are compelled to address its destructive force in postcolonial times. A whole community response is needed to address this historical, structural, and social problem. There is no attempt here either to reinforce victimhood or to elude responsibility in relation to the misuse of alcohol. On the contrary, Grog War tells the story of an Aboriginal community's preparedness to face up to the problems of alcohol abuse, to take initiative in working toward solutions, and to encourage a shared sense of responsibility for managing misuse in one Northern Territory town.' (Introduction)