LL:ART: Take Heart - Keating's speech @ launch of History Wars
AN EXTEMPORANEOUS ADDRESS BY P.J. KEATING LAUNCHING THE HISTORY WARS MELBOURNE, 3 SEPTEMBER 2003 The writing of The History Wars is very important. The book will sit on the shelves of libraries as a sort of code stone to help people understand the motivations of players in today's contemporary debate. It sheds light on the political battle which is carried on in the pubs and on the footpaths about who we are and what has become of us. For the protagonists and antagonists in academe are now surrogates in a broader political battle about Australia's future. We should reflect on this: alone, amongst the peoples of the world, we have possession of a continent, a continent we laid claim to as part of an empire, one we expropriated from another race, but a continent that is no longer an island in a sea of subjugated and colonial places. The Dutch no longer run Indonesia, the French no longer control Indo-China. And the Chinese now run China for themselves. We occupy a continent surrounded by ancient societies; nations which have reclaimed their identity and their independence. The Australian story, for it to be a record of continuing success has to come to terms with our expropriation of the land, our ambivalence about who we are and our place in the new geo-political make-up of the region. That is, being part of it, rather than simply being tolerated in it. History is always our most useful tool and guide. Knowing our past helps us to divine our future. To see the long strands which denote our character and which have been common in each epoch of our development. And how they may be adapted in our transformation as an integral part of this region, while re-energising our national life. How do we pick the good strands and the step changes on the pathway to our security? Because there are only 20 million of us, the primary matter for national policy is how we maintain possession of the continent. How do we find the pathway to a genuine security, a naturally reinforced one. Security in Asia and not from Asia. Where we are other than a client state perennially searching for a strategic guarantor. Once, all our faith was in the British Navy. Now it has swung to the American defence establishment. Those who militantly defend the conservative orthodoxy in Australia see all change as an affront to the past, especially their view of the past. Whereas, knowing the past and seeing it for what it is with all its blemishes, allows us to divine our destiny for our appointment with reality. And our appointment with reality has to come around. We are no longer part of some empire. We are no longer some passenger on the British Lion. We are no longer protected by their navy to the extent that we ever were. While people may say we enjoy some protection from the Americans, we have to be clear what reality, in this respect, means. I have never understood why the Howards and the Blaineys et al are so defensive. So resistant to novelty and to progress. They are more than conservatives. They're reactionaries. Conservatives gradually, if somewhat reluctantly, accept change. Reactionaries not only resist change, they seek to reverse it. Understanding and acknowledging the past and moving on to bigger and better things is anathema to them. They absolutely insist on their view and the lessons they see in our history. Yet in their insistence, their 'proprietorialness' their 'derivativeness' and their rancour, they reduce the flame and energy within the nation to a smouldering incandescence. What they effectively do is crimp and cripple our destiny. It's like suffering from some sort of anaemia; robbing the political blood of its energy. The problem for the Howards and the Blaineys is that their story is simply not big enough for Australia. No great transformation can come from their tiny view of us and their limited faith in us. Their failure is not simply one of crabbiness or rancour; it's a failure of imagination, a failure to read our historical coordinates correctly but usefully to move to a bigger construct, a bigger picture as to who we are and what we can be. That's the real job of political leadership. Their timidity not only diminishes their own horizon, it is a drag on the rest of us. The country always has to make its progress despite them. They never help. They have always to be dragged along and they will only accept a new norm when someone else has struggled to put it into place. But the fact is, their view will not prevail. They cannot win because they have no policy framework to win with. And deep in their tiny, timorous hearts they know it. The undertaking is simply too big for them. This is why you get all this thrashing about in the press and why we are drenched in the babble of the lickspittles and tintookies around them. And it's just that, babble. It's babble because at the heart of their wrong-headed campaign is an attempt to contain and censor the human spirit, to muffle, muzzle and vitiate
LL:DDV: Melbourne solidarity events
AAWL Email News Thank you to everyone who attended the solidarity events in support of workers in the Philippines, East Timor, Burma, Korea, and the Stolen Wages campaign in Queensland Stolen Wages postcards are now available from ACTU, VTHC and AAWL The following important solidarity events are being held in September: Thursday 11 September; 10am to 3pm Vigil for the workers killed in the war on Iraq and Afghanistan US Consulate, 553 St Kilda Road Melbourne Organised by Women for Peace - 03 9387 6490 Thursday 11 September at 3:30 pm Protest 30 years of oppression & injustice - 30th anniversary of the coup in Chile US Consulate, 553 St Kilda Road Melbourne Organised by Chilean Popular & Indigenous Network - 0401 558 373 Thursday 11 September at 6:30 pm Venezuela: The revolution unfolding in Latin America - Public meeting with Alvaro Guzman Trades Hall, 54 Victoria Street Carlton South [Entry $8/$5 donation] Organised by Committee in Solidarity with Latin America & the Caribbean - 03 9639 8622 Saturday 13 September; 12 noon to 5:30 pm The war on the poor - Seminar on militarism & globalisation today Green Building, 60 Leicester Street Carlton Organised by Victorian Peace Network - 03 9659 3582 Tuesday 23 September at 7 pm Pay up now! - Public meeting on the Aboriginal workers campaign for Stolen Wages Solidarity Salon, 580 Sydney Road, Brunswick Organised by Radical Women - 03 9386 3230 Australia Asia Worker Links PO Box 264 Fitzroy Victoria 3065 Australia Tel: 61 3 9663 7277 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: www.aawl.org.au ABN: 82 920 590 967 Assn No: A1318 -- -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archived at http://www.cat.org.au/lists/leftlink/ Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Sub: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsub: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
LL:PR: Media Release: REFUGEE CONVERGENCE ON CANBERRA 8.9.03
MEDIA RELEASE REFUGEE COVERGENCE ON CANBERRA Rally on Parliament House lawns, 12.30pm Monday 8 September Speakers include: Democrats Senator Andrew Bartlett; The Greens; Carmen Lawrence; Peter Malone, secretary ACT Labor Council; Anne Coombs, Rural Australians for Refugees; Pat Power, Auxilliary Bishop Canberra and Goulburn; Diana Abdulrahman representing ACT Muslim community; Refugee Action Committee, Canberra Hundreds of refugees on temporary protection visas will converge on Parliament House, Canberra, Monday 8 September. A convoy of cars carrying mostly Iraqi refugees will depart from Campbelltown, Sydney at 7.00am.The Sydney convoy will be joined by Afghan refugees. They will be joined in Canberra by Iraqis TPV holders travelling from Melbourne. "The uncertainty has become too much," said Ian Rintoul, a spokesperson for the Refugee Action Coalition. "Thousands of TPV's have expired, but there is no indication of the government processing Iraqi applications for further protection. Those Afghan applications that have been processed have all been rejected." The central concerns of the rally are permanent protection, the right for family re-union, the right to travel, and the right to study. An appeal from the Iraqi TPV holders will be read to the rally and handed to Parliamentarians. "Most of us have been in Australia for more than three years without any capability to travel or to be re-united with our families or to apply for other visas," the appeal says in part. "Our questions have long been left without any response Please do not keep us in trauma," it continues. The rally comes at the beginning of the parliamentary sitting in which Immigration minister Philip Ruddock is to introduce new regulations to entrench the temporary visa regime. If accepted, the new regulations would also widen the minister's discretionary powers to grant refugee visas. This use of ministerial discretion is already the subject of a Senate inquiry over the cash for visa scandal. The refugee movement is calling for the new regulations to be disallowed in the Senate. "The situation with the Iraqi and Afghans shows why we do not the temporary visa regime to be extended," said Ian Rintoul. "Under the present system Iraqis could be left on temporary visas indefinitely. There is no way that Iraq is safe or stable, yet the refugees are denied permanent residency. The Iraqis are being used as pawns in the government's political game of border protection," he said. For more info contact: Refugee Action Coalition Ian Rintoul 0417 275 713 or Iraqi representatives Mueen 0412 209 997 or Kamal 0422 334 893 -- -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archived at http://www.cat.org.au/lists/leftlink/ Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Sub: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsub: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
LL:INFO: Truck 'Sunshine' to Bougainville - PLEASE HELP !!!
[ PLEASE PASS ON TO YOUR NSW + QLD CONTACTS !!! ] http://sydney.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=34620&group=webcast Truck 'Sunshine' to Bougainville - PLEASE DONATE !!! by Mathew Davis 5:16pm Sat Sep 6 '03 article#34620 phone: 0418 335 864 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.wetlandecosystems.com.au/index.php?page=82 Wednesday night, a big yellow truck named "Sunshine" rolled into Sydney, at the end of the second day of a long journey to Bougainville. [..] You can help in a number of ways... [ PHOTO 1: This truck will soon be shipped to Bougainville. Workers from the RACV put in over 150 hours restoring it. ] (article 1) MEDIA STATEMENT, 4 September 2003 Bougainville Truck Last night, a big yellow truck named ‘Sunshine’ rolled into Sydney, at the end of the second day of a long journey to Bougainville. After 25 years of a quiet life pottering around the paddocks of a family farm in South Gippsland, 'Sunshine' has been restored and is on its way to a new life in the jungles of Bougainville, carrying with it a load of donated tools, clothing, school books and medical supplies. After a decade of war, the Bougainvillean people have returned to their villages, their gardens and their lives. But for a generation of young people, peace is new experience. They enter it having missed out on an education, on a chance to develop practical skills in areas such as building and agriculture, and without the ability to support themselves and participate as full members of the community. Many of these young people took part in the fighting. An hour south of the town of Arawa, in the Daantanai valley, the elders of ten different villages have come together to build a new school for these young people. It will be a place where they can gain new skills and opportunities, a new basis for self-esteem and standing in their community. Under the supervision of local elders, the young people are building the school themselves, logging and milling the timbers from trees near the school site and raising money to equip the school by growing cocoa in the valley's rich volcanic soil. Before the war, Bougainville was famed for its quality cocoa which commanded high prices on the world market. But these young cocoa farmers do not have a vehicle to transport their produce down to the wharf, from where they could ship it directly to overseas customers. Instead they must sell it at a low price to agents who travel out to the villages. The world price for cocoa has climbed over the last few years, and with a suitable vehicle they would be able to fund the school and pay themselves a reasonable income. So 'Sunshine' is on its way to Townsville to catch a boat to Bougainville and start a new life as the village cocoa truck, where it has the potential to transform peoples lives. Over the next month, as 'Sunshine' is driven up the east coast of Australia we would like help in raising $5000 to cover shipping costs and to give some money to the new Daantanai Open Learning Centre on Bougainville. Wetland Ecosystems, an environmental restoration company, will match any contributions. If you would like to donate to this worthy cause, please deposit monies into the Bougainville Freedom Movement cheque account - Account No. 2212-1002-9038 at any Commonwealth Bank. For more information about 'Sunshine' the Truck and the Daantanai Open Learning Centre please visit http://www.wetlandecosystems.com.au/ or contact: Mathew Davis phone: 0418 335 864 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Thanks. You can help in a number of ways: - By making a donation towards the $3500 we still need to raise. By contacting local media about our trip and arranging interviews with newspapers, or television and radio stations along our route up the east coast of Australia from Sydney to Townsville. By finding local businesses or organisations in your area who would like to sponsor us, even for a small amount. Shipping the truck is expensive. Because we are charged by volume rather than by weight, we want to fill the back of the truck up with useful items that are needed in Bougainville these include: Clothing: particularly shorts and t-shirts Tools: hand tools, rechargeable power tools Medical supplies: bandages, sutures, things with no expiry date, not pharmaceuticals. You could collect these items in your area and arrange for them to be somewhere on the Princes Highway for us to collect. --- For more info on Bougainville and the Bougainville Freedom Movement, check out http://www.eco-action.org/bougainville/ -- -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archived at http://www.cat.org.au/lists/leftlink/ Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Sub: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsub: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
LL:DDV: Aborignal Workers Fight for Stolen Wages
Radical Women Meeting Tuesday, 23 September, 7.00 pm "Pay Up Now! Aboriginal Workers Fight for Stolen Wages" From 1897 until 1972, the Queensland Government had the power to declare Aborigines as wards of the State and therefore take control of their lives, including their earnings and their children. Women and men worked as domestics, stockmen and labourers in Queensland's most profitable industries, but this large Indigenous workforce never saw their pay packets. After decades of fighting for hundreds of millions in back pay, claimants last year were given Premier Beattie's "Lousy Little Offer" of a few thousand dollars each. Learn about the historic Stolen Wages Campaign which is winning support from unions and activists across Australia. Find out what you can do to help win justice. Everyone is welcome! Hear from Ruth Hegarty, Stolen Wages claimant and Brisbane Indigenous Elder, plus speakers: * Gwynnyth Evans, Member of the Australasian Meat Industry Employees Union and Australia-Asia Worker Links * Debbie Brennan, Feminist and Australian Services Union delegate At Solidarity Salon, 580 Sydney Road, Brunswick (Plenty of parking, or take a North Coburg tram or Upfield train) The meeting is free. Dinner, with vegetarian option, will be served at 6.30 pm for $6.50 donation For information, contact Radical Women * Ph: 03-9386-3230 * Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * website: www.radicalwomen.org . -- -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archived at http://www.cat.org.au/lists/leftlink/ Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Sub: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsub: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
LL:DDV: Is that all there is?Beyond the Happy Housewife Heroine
Socialist Feminist Study Group "The Feminine Mystique and Its Relevance Today." Thursday 18 September -- Is that all there is? Beyond the "Happy Housewife Heroine." Recommended reading: * Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique, Chapter 2 "The Happy Housewife Heroine" * Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique, Chapter 3 "The Crisis in Woman's Identity" * Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique, Chapter 4 "The Passionate Journey" Dinner at 6.30 pm. Session 7 - 8.45 pm at Solidarity Salon. 580 Sydney Road, Brunswick. All welcome. For more info call 9386-5065. Sponsored by Freedom Socialist Party and Radical Women. All reading materials are available for sale at Solidarity Salon, 580 Sydney Road, Brunswick. Solidarity Salon is open Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday. Call to confirm hours on 9388-0062 . -- -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archived at http://www.cat.org.au/lists/leftlink/ Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Sub: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsub: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
