Hi again. I commissioned my colleague and Webdiarist Antony Loewenstein to research and write a chapter on the Hanan Ashrawi controversy for my book. The campaign against Ashrawi was spearheaded by the Melbourne think tank AIJAC (the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council), led by Colin Rubenstein. According to Liberal Senator George Brandis, Rubenstein had also endorsed his speech to Parliament accusing the Greens of being Nazis. I wanted to raise this in my introduction to Antony’s chapter, so I emailed Rubenstein to ask whether Brandis’s statement was true. In the course of a long correspondence, Rubenstein not only pointedly failed to answer my question, but demanded a retraction of something I’d written in Webdiary. So here are all the emails on the matter.

And then, Webdiary’s Meeja Watch man Jack Robertson suggests Rubenstein have a word to a certain Herald columnist about the anti-semitism of Mel Gibson’s film The passion of Christ.

Webdiary entries on Hanan Ashrawi are The battle for minds; Ashrawi and Brandis: the great debate; Real Sydney people meet Hanan Ashrawi; Ashrawi leaves behind a fresh air debate on the Israel Palestine question; More than two sides to Ashrawi fallout story and Ways of thinking: Stuart Rees on the lessons of the Ashrawi ‘debate’.

Webdiary entries on the Brandis speech are Nazi Greens an enemy of democracy, government decrees; Teeth bared, Howard’s team mauls our latest outbreak of democracy; Howl of the despondent historian andGreen historian to Brandis: my work’s been abused;

Margo to Colin, January 12, 2004

Hi. I’m writing a book about democracy in Australia. A contributor to the book, Antony Loewenstein, has been in touch with you with respect to his chapter on the Ashrawi controversy, and I understand that you have exercised your right not to comment on that or any other matter.

My interest is specific, in relation to another chapter in the book, on the addresses to Parliament by Presidents Bush and Hu last October.

In the wash up of the visits, George Brandis stated that the Greens were the new Nazis. This comparison was repudiated by Jeremy Jones (president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry) but, in a conversation with me, and two days later, on Lateline, he stated that you had endorsed his speech. In our conversation, he said he had called you the day after the speech to run it by you and that you agreed with it without reservation. On Lateline, he said you had called him:

“I was contacted by a very large number of leaders of the Jewish community who told me that they fully supported what I had said, in particular the leader of the other peak Jewish community in this country, Colin Rubenstein, the executive director of the Australia Israel Council told me not only was he not critical of the speech but he supported it and he was pleased that it had been given.”

I ask:

1. Did you call him or did he call you?

2. Did you endorse the contents of his speech?

3. If you did endorse the speech, on what basis did you do so and in what capacity?

4. Was there any aspect of his speech that you disagreed with?

Regards,

Margo Kingston

*

Colin to Margo, January 28

Your communication of Jan. 12 has drawn to my attention your weblog of November 6, 2003 in which you said, “To Rubenstein, it’s fine to call the Greens Nazis”. Prior to attributing such a view to me you should have checked with me whether it was accurate. You did not check this with me. It is not – and never has been – my view that the Greens can be called Nazis.

Accordingly, I would appreciate a retraction.

In my view, equating Greens and Nazis trivialises the horrors of Nazism which one should always avoid, a view I believe Senator Brandis shares. I note in passing that Senator Brandis has stated unequivocally that he “did not assert the Greens are Nazis”.

*

Margo to Colin

Hi. As you will see from the text of Senator Brandis’ speech, he does equate the Greens to Nazies. For example:

“The commonalities between contemporary green politics and old-fashioned fascism and Nazism are chilling.”

And:

“It is time that somebody in this country blew the whistle on the Greens. The Greens are not the well-meaning oddballs we thought they were. The Greens are not the scruffy ratbags we thought they were. The Greens are a sinister force in this country inspired by sinister ideas, wrapped up in a natural mysticism – which is hostile and which sets its face against the very democratic values which this parliament represents and then cynically uses the procedures of this parliament in order to give itself political cover so that the sinister and fanatical views represented by Green politicians can grow and gain strength under the cover of democratic forms.

“As well – and I will not go too much further into this – we see other common features. We see the very clever use of propaganda. We see the absolute indifference to truth. We see the manipulation of bodgie science in order to maintain political conclusions. We see the hatred of industrialisation. We see the growth of occultism built around a single personality. We see a fundamentalist view of nature in which the integrity of the human person comes second to the whole of the natural system.

“My point is that the behaviour we saw from Senator Nettle and Senator Brown last Thursday was not just a publicity stunt. It was not just a random event. It was the very mechanical prosecution in this parliament of a profoundly antidemocratic ideology having deeply rooted antidemocratic antecedents. To hear Senator Brown – and no doubt Senator Nettle in a moment – stand up and seek to claim democratic cover for their actions and for their ideology should shock us. It should alert us to their game and it should send a message loud and clear to the Australian people – not just to the 90 percent of Australians who condemned their behaviour last Thursday but to 100 per cent of Australians – that this is the kind of crypto-fascist politics we do not want in this country.” (speech at Brandis)

When I said to Brandis that jews of my acquaintance had been distressed by his speech, he replied that the day after his speech and the furore which followed, he ran it by you and that you agreed with it:

“Brandis told me over coffee last week that after the furore over his speech he called Colin Rubenstein, who agreed with it. Brandis suggested on Lateline last Friday night that Rubenstein called him:

“I was contacted by a very large number of leaders of the Jewish community who told me that they fully supported what I had said, in particular the leader of the other peak Jewish community in this country, Colin Rubenstein, the executive director of the Australia Israel Council told me not only was he not critical of the speech but he supported it and he was pleased that it had been given.”

Could you advise if this is the case?

Regards,

Margo Kingston

*

Colin to Margo, February 2

Dear Ms. Kingston,

Thank you for your response. My previous statement stands. Please advise me when I can expect your retraction of the statement in your weblog.

Yours,

Colin Rubenstein

*

Margo to Colin, February 2

I assume, therefore, that you did approve his speech contents.

Regards,

Margo

PS: I see no need to make a retraction of Webdiary.

*

Colin to Margo, February 17

Dear Ms. Kingston,

I have returned from overseas to find your email dated 2 February 2004, which I regard as mischievous.

My email to you dated 28 January 2004 sets out my position and your comment of Nov. 6 “To Rubenstein, it’s fine to call the Greens Nazis” is untrue and defamatory.

I once again request you either make a retraction of your webdiary or publish in its entirety my email to you of 28 January 2004.

Yours,

Colin Rubenstein

*

Margo to Colin, February 17

Hi Colin. I’m hoping to be back at work next week, and will publish your emails when I do so. Re the book, I still do not have an answer to my question of whether you agreed with the contents of the Brandis speech, as claimed by him. In view of your failure to answer, I propose to record this in my book.

Regards,

Margo

*

Colin to Margo, February 25

Dear Ms. Kingston

Thank you for your email of February 17. It would be false and incorrect to state in your book that I have not responded to your questions. I have provided my views in detail in my email of January 28 and suggest that should you wish to cover this issue in your book, your omission of my response would present an inaccurate and biased account to readers.

Yours

Colin Rubenstein

*

Margo to Colin, February 25

OK, one last attempt. Was George Brandis correct in his statement that after his Greens and Nazis speech Mr Rubenstein contacted him to say he supported it and he was pleased it had been given.

Regards,

Margo

***

The following email was added to this Webdiary entry on April 27.

Colin to Margo, March 04, 2004

One more time. Your failure to want to comprehend my previous email leaves me with my initial impression that you are out to create mischief and misrepresent the truth. I reserve my rights.

Colin Rubenstein

***

MEEJA WATCH

Drop Miranda a line, Colin

by Jack Robertson

If Colin Rubinstein is worried about apologists for anti-Semitism and wacky conspiracy theorists embedded among Fairfax journos, maybe he should drop Miranda Devine a line.

In this little one-year lesson in conservative religious hypocrisy, Miranda begins by ignoring her own Infallible Pope’s explicit pontifications on behalf of God and attacking those who oppose the Iraq war or question US foreign policy as ‘anti-Semitic’, having ‘blinkered amorality’ and ‘slip-sliding priorities’, and ‘undermining the war effort’. (Yes, give that nasty ‘neo-pacifist’ Pope a piece of your mind, Miranda!)

She ends by generously slip-sliding over and around and past Mel Gibson’s blinkered refusal to condemn his father’s ‘outrageous’ Holocaust denialism and disavowing that Gibson’s new film has a whiff of anti-Semitism to it (in the face of explicit protest from Jewish groups worldwide), before finally going on to proclaim her own Faith’s imperative lessons: to ‘end war’, ‘love your enemies’, and ‘pray for those who persecute you.’

Colin Rubinstein and supporters, I put it to you that we lefties at Webdiary aren’t an anti-Semitic threat. There’s plenty of genuine stuff out there – no arguments from me on that score. But the true danger is exported Saudi Arabian Wahhabism – an ugly distortion of Islam that was effectively underwritten for decades by the US oil industry. I’d also be keeping an eye on the more extreme elements of George W. Bush’s own home-grown Fundamentalist voting base if I were you – Christian zealots not entirely unlike one Hutton Gibson, say.

But then I’m a Green ‘Nazi’ myself, so what do I know about God.

***

1. Pope says Iraq war threatens Humanity (24 March 2003)

Pope John Paul, in his first public comment on the outbreak of hostilities in Iraq, said on Saturday that the war threatens the whole of humanity, and that weapons could never solve mankind’s problems.

“When war, like the one now in Iraq, threatens the fate of humanity, it is even more urgent for us to proclaim, with a firm and decisive voice, that only peace is the way of building a more just and caring society,” he said. The Pope, in a speech to employees of Catholic television station Telepace, added: “Violence and weapons can never resolve the problems of man.”

The Pope led the Vatican in a diplomatic campaign to avert war, putting the Holy See on a collision course with Washington and its backers in the Iraq campaign.

Miranda knows best, though. Who does the Pope think he is – leader of the Catholic world?

2. The Joke is on the Pacifists (Miranda Devine, April 10, 2003:

Still, ridiculous though [Iraq Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf] is, he is a valuable metaphor for the sorts of “truths” we have been hearing about the war from a group of people you could call neo-pacifists. This is a tiny unelected cabal of influential left-wingers who have infiltrated the media, universities, newspapers’ letters pages, and Simon Crean’s brain. They all share a common hatred of John Howard and a sense of cultural superiority, more akin to the French than the Americans.

Before the first coalition soldier entered Iraq, these neo-pacs were most concerned about the influence of another cabal, the neo-conservatives of Washington DC, who had persuaded the Cowboy Moron in the White House to invade Iraq. With the help of sinister background music, ABC Four Corners’ Jonathan Holmes exposed their “hidden agenda”. They are “almost all Jews whose parents had emigrated from Eastern Europe”. Crikey!

In beautiful Iraqi Information Ministry style, Holmes later claimed those who pointed out the anti-Semitism embedded in his story were the “bigots”. As the Jerusalem Post pointed out last week, neo-conservative has become a code word for Jewish, just as neo-pacifist is a code word for delusional. Having uncovered the dastardly plot by Jews to take over the world, starting with Iraq, the neo-pacs moved on to more mundane matters, like undermining the coalition war effortThankfully, with their blinkered amorality and slip-sliding priorities, the neo-pacs are making themselves as irrelevant as al-Sahaf. Come to think of it, al-Sahaf deserves his own show on Radio National.”

***

3. Holocaust exaggerated: Gibson dad (19 Feb 04)

A WEEK before the United States release of Mel Gibson’s controversial movie, the filmmaker’s father has repeated claims the Holocaust was exaggerated.

Hutton Gibson’s comments, made in a telephone interview with New York radio talk show host Steve Feuerstein, come at an awkward time for the actor-director who has been trying to deflect criticism from Jewish groups that his film might inflame anti-Semitic sentiment.

In his interview on WSNR radio’s Speak Your Piece, to be broadcast on Monday, Hutton Gibson argued that many European Jews counted as death camp victims of the Nazi regime had in fact fled to countries like Australia and the United States.

“It’s all – maybe not all fiction – but most of it is,” he said, adding that the gas chambers and crematoria at camps like Auschwitz would not have been capable of exterminating so many people. “Do you know what it takes to get rid of a dead body? To cremate it?” he said. “It takes a litre of petrol and 20 minutes. Now, six million of them? They (the Germans) did not have the gas to do it. That’s why they lost the war.”

Gibson’s father caused a furore last year when he made similar remarks in a New York Times article. In a television interview with Diane Sawyer this week, Mel Gibson accused the Times of taking advantage of his father, and he warned Sawyer against broaching the subject again.

“He’s my father. Gotta leave it alone Diane. Gotta leave it alone,” Gibson said, while offering his own perspective on the Holocaust.

“Do I believe that there were concentration camps where defenceless and innocent Jews died cruelly under the Nazi regime? Of course I do; absolutely,” he said. “It was an atrocity of monumental proportion.”

During his lengthy radio interview, Hutton Gibson, 85, said Jews were out to create “one world religion and one world government” and outlined a conspiracy theory involving Jewish bankers, the US Federal Reserve and the Vatican, among others.

The Passion, which gets its US release on February 25, purports to be a faithful and graphic account of Christ’s last 12 hours on earth. Jewish leaders who have attended advance screenings have voiced concerns that its portrayal of the Jews’ role in Christ’s execution could stir up anti-Semitic feeling.

Again, Miranda knows best, though. Who do all these ‘Jewish leaders’ think they are – leaders of the Jewish world?

4. Christians the most eager to cast stones (Miranda Devine, 26 February, 2004)

Inside the bathroom at the Academy Cinema in Paddington on Tuesday night, there was a most unusual silence as a long line of women waited to get into the cubicles. They had just watched a preview of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ and seemed lost in their private thoughts. For long minutes in that bright, crowded room there was no sound but the whirring of a fan. It is one sign of the power of Gibson’s movie that, in such a noisy era, silence is the first response.

Of course, inside the theatre after the last credits rolled, critics chatted away about the biggest movie controversy of recent memory – the charge that Gibson’s portrayal of the last 12 tortured hours of Jesus Christ’s life was anti-Semitic.

It is a charge that began last year with a vicious article in The New York Times about Gibson’s devout Catholicism and his 85-year-old father Hutton, who keeps giving outrageous interviews saying the Holocaust was exaggerated and the September 11 terrorists were Americans. The controversy grew when a stolen draft of the script found its way to an interfaith committee of the United States Bishops Conference. Scholars and Jewish activists denounced Gibson and called for boycotts before seeing the movie, which opened around the world yesterday, Ash Wednesday.

According to the New Yorker magazine, the scholars demanded 18 pages of changes, including that the two men crucified with Christ be described as “insurgents”, and not robbers. Much furore appears to have been whipped up by Christians whose ideological hatred of conservatives such as Gibson in their churches has overwhelmed their faith.

Even the Pope’s reported verdict – “It is as it was” – became a political weapon, and later was denied by a Vatican official.

Critics have called the movie a “blood libel” against Jews, and a “religious splatter” film. The New York Times critic Frank Rich was among the most vicious, writing at one point that even if the final product was not anti-Semitic, “either way, however, damage has been done: Jews have already been libelled by Gibson’s politicised rollout of his film”. Which was rich of Rich, considering his newspaper politicised the rollout.

One New York Daily News critic wrote that it was “the most virulently anti-Semitic movie since the German propaganda films of World War II”. It makes you wonder if she watched the right movie. Maybe, as a Catholic, I am not in a position to judge, but it is difficult to see how the movie is anti-Semitic.

There are Jews portrayed as villains, particularly the merciless high priest Caiaphas, who incites the crowd to chant “Crucify Him”. But other priests call for mercy and just about every good person in the movie is a Jew, including Jesus and His mother Mary.

The people who really could complain about being portrayed as sadistic brutes are the Roman soldiers. They laugh as they flagellate Jesus, and His skin flies and blood splatters their faces. Even when He has endured more suffering than you think possible, they torment Him, pressing a crown of thorns deep into His head.

They whip Him as He struggles to carry His cross through the streets of Jerusalem. And when they nail Him to the cross, and the blood spurts from His broken hands and feet, they still laugh. In a squeamish age, we have the sanitised version of Christianity, in which, if crosses are worn at all, they are plain, with no nails, no body. But Gibson has deliberately rejected what he calls the “fairytale” version. “Think about the crucifixion,” he said in one interview last year. “There’s no way to sugar-coat that.”

His movie is gruelling to watch, with no relief, from the dark opening scenes in the garden of Gethsemane until the brief resurrection scene at the end. The close-ups of Jesus are remorseless. You don’t want to look at His poor ruined body, His destroyed eye, His skin in strips, bloody gore underneath. Even His mother can hardly bear to look.

One of the most touching scenes has Mary at the foot of His cross, reaching for His feet but afraid of hurting Him more. She kisses the tip of His toe, getting blood on her lips. Only Gibson, at 48, with all his residual pretty boy glamour, could have made this movie so successful as church groups around the globe flock to advance screenings, breaking all records for a subtitled film. Projections now are that he will make back his $40 million in the first five days.

It was an admirable gamble for the movie star, backed up by a life that seems equally admirable. A 24-year marriage and seven children with his wife Robyn, a former Australian dental nurse, is no mean feat but for a Hollywood sex symbol, it is remarkable.

Gibson has said making the movie was an act of faith. And in a post-September 11 world, with talk of a “clash of civilisations”, and fears of a religious war between Islam and the West, his movie has a profound resonance. A clue to what he hoped to achieve comes in an upcoming Reader’s Digest interview. When he is asked: “Give me the headline you want to see on the biggest paper in America the day after The Passion opens,” he replies: “War ends.”

The Passion’s central message comes in a flashback when Jesus tells His disciples: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. For if you love only those who love you, what reward is there in that?” It is the central message of Christianity, which many of us too easily forget. Miraculously, and against all odds, Gibson has made that message more difficult to ignore, and will reignite the faith of many in the process.

* * * *

Miranda claims that the film isn’t anti-Semitic because only some Jews are bad guys and plenty more are good guys. She may be right – I haven’t seen it and don’t intend to because I think the whole ‘crucifixion thing’ has long been turned by bad Catholics into a deeply destructive (and creepy) fetish, rather than the profoundly moving creative metaphor it was really meant to be. Funnily enough, Devine didn’t and presumably still doesn’t extend the same flexibility of appraisal to the debates about the neo-cons and the Iraq War and terrorism. No; apparently all the many Jews worldwide who opposed the war and remain among the fiercest critics of the American neo-conservatives aren’t similarly living, breathing arguments against HER anti-Semitism blanket slanders. Noam Chomsky, Paul Krugman, Eric Akerman, Naomi Klein, Susan Sontag, Ian Cohen anti-Semitic?

Only if that term no longer has any meaning, Colin Rubinstein.

But how about that cracking line from Mel’s dad – that the Americans weren’t simply ‘to blame’ for the attacks of S11, but actually DID them. Wow, Miranda – even a Lefty West-hater like me wouldn’t try to take the root cause argument to those extremes! But – where’s the Devine vitriol? Why is she extending so much deference to Mel Gibson’s pathetic calls for the media to lay off his nasty old man? This is a woman who relentlessly flays us sad Lefties for our ‘anti-Americanism’ – I’m confused!

 

Martin Davies image. www.daviesart.com

“It is hard to believe that either Washington or London would relish the prospect of an open trial. They would not want Saddam to adumbrate their support for him – credit-by-credit, pathogen-by-pathogen, weapon-by-weapon – during the 12 years before he became an official enemy by invading Kuwait in August 1990.” Scott Burchill

G’Day. Sick of the triumphalist pap that passes for commentary on Saddam’s capture in most Australian media? Want a realistic assessment of its effect on the ground in Iraq – an assessment reflected in the sombre tone of President’s Bush’s speech on the matter? Try Saddam, celebrity tryant: His capture may create more problems than it solves and the website of Michigan University history professor Juan Cole.

 

When I saw the close ups of the tyrant I thought of his accessories, did you? Who will join him when he’s tried for crimes against humanity? Which multinational companies and which western politicians? Reconciliation requires confession from all parties, after all, if all sides are to move forward to a democratic and free Iraq. You can bet the Iraqis haven’t forgotten history. I wonder if Saddam’s decision not to kill himself was about his final revenge – looking the West in the eye and saying “You too.” Tonight Scott Burchill, lecturer in international relations at Deakin University and a regular Webdiary contributor, recalls the past. See also US Takes Custody of Another Wayward Client

***

Hoping for amnesia

by Scott Burchill

Sometimes in politics the moral high ground can only be reached by wading through the lowlands of public amnesia.

Reacting to the capture of Saddam Hussein on 13 December, Prime Minister Howard declared his enthusiasm for a public trial:

“I believe he should be tried in Iraq. I think it should be an open trial. I think the details of what he did should be spelled out, detail-by-detail, slaughter-by-slaughter, death-by-deaths.”

Saddam’s arrest also vindicated the Man of Steel’s decision to commit Australia to war:

“If the alternative advice had been taken, “Saddam Hussein would still be running Iraq, he would still be murdering people, he not only would not be in captivity but he would have others in captivity in Baghdad.”

Denuding such an important discussion of its historical context and narrowing the focus to Saddam’s moral turpitude will induce self-righteousness in Western leaders every time. On the question of Iraq, however, such lofty sentiment lacks authenticity.

Isolating Saddam’s capture from the consequences of his removal from power is a clever polemical device which Mr Howard likes to employ. However such a strategy is unlikely to persuade the families of the 9,500 innocent Iraqi civilians killed during the invasion and occupation of Iraq that their sacrifice was worth the cost. Or the recently unemployed, the victims of street crime and those who depend on essential services for their survival. These Iraqis don’t matter and aren’t counted in the West – literally.

History is the great antidote to public amnesia and it suggests the Prime Minister’s distaste for Saddam’s tyranny has not always been so passionately expressed.

Before the war Mr Howard’s humanitarian concerns for the people of Iraq were insufficient to support ‘regime change’ in Baghdad. He told the National Press Club in March that Saddam could stay in power, and therefore keep tormenting his people, providing he gave up his Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD).

Given the Iraqi leader had evidently disposed of his WMD several years before, according to the Prime Minister’s logic – now derided as “alternative advice” – Saddam should still be in power.

This ‘change of course’ is dramatic, if unsurprising. A search of Hansard for the period when Saddam was committing the worst of his crimes – gassing Iranian soldiers in 1983-4 and the Kurds of Halabja in 1988 – fails to turn up any expressions of concern in the Parliament by either John Howard or Alexander Downer. It’s not until the WMD pretext falters in the weeks before the invasion that Canberra discovers human rights violations in Iraq.

There were certainly no expressions of humanitarian concern while Canberra supported a vicious sanctions regime which, over a decade, must have been responsible for the deaths of hundred of thousands of Iraqis, while strengthening Saddam and compelling the population to rely on him for their survival.

It is hard to believe that either Washington or London would relish the prospect of an open trial. They would not want Saddam to adumbrate their support for him – credit-by-credit, pathogen-by-pathogen, weapon-by-weapon – during the 12 years before he became an official enemy by invading Kuwait in August 1990.

Saddam’s worst crimes, when presumably many of the mass graves now disingenuously “discovered” by the West were dug, had been committed when he was the West’s favoured ally and trading partner. At the time, his crimes against humanity, for which charges should now be laid, elicited little if any concern in Western capitals. Quite the opposite.

Historian Gabriel Kolko notes that:

“The United Stares supplied Iraq with intelligence throughout the war [with Iran] and provided it with more than $US5 billion in food credits, technology, and industrial products, most coming after it began to use mustard, cyanide, and nerve gases against both Iranians and dissident Iraqi Kurds.”

After he poisoned over 5000 people in the Kurdish city of Halabja on 17 March 1988, Saddam was rewarded by George Bush 1 with new lines of credit and praise from Bush’s Assistant Secretary of State, John Kelly, as “a source of moderation in the region.”

Twenty months after this horrific crime, Washington was still providing Baghdad with dual-use licensed materials, including chemical precursors, biological warfare-related materials and missile guidance equipment – enabling Saddam to develop his WMD programs. It’s difficult to believe that either George Bush 2 or over 150 companies in Europe, the United States and Japan which provided components and know-how needed by the monster in Baghdad to build atomic bombs, chemical and biological weapons, want this information publicly aired.

During the worst decade of Saddam’s rule (1980-90), the UK sold Iraq �2.3 billion in machinery and transport equipment and �3.5 billion in trade credits, supporting the creation of a local arms industry and freeing up valuable resources for the Iraqi military.

London responded to the atrocity in Halabja by failing to criticise Saddam (ditto for Washington), doubling export credits to Baghdad and relaxing export guidelines making it easier to sell arms to Iraq.

This behaviour is difficult to reconcile with the West’s belated concern for humanity in Iraq today. There will be no expressions of regret for the support he was given at the peak of his crimes. When Saddam comes to trial, the West will just be hoping that he too has joined the culture of forgetting so pervasive amongst his captors.

 

Martin Davies image. www.daviesart.com

“Empowered by the American people, I will work to restore the legitimacy that comes from the rule of law, the credibility that comes from telling the truth, the knowledge that comes from first-rate intelligence, undiluted by ideology (and) the strength that comes from robust alliances and vigorous diplomacy.” Howard Dean

Howard Dean is the Democrats frontrunner to stand against George Bush for the job of President of the United States next November.

 

Fulfilling the Promise of America: Meeting The Security Challenges of the New Century

by Howard Dean, Governor of Vermont, December 15

In the past year, our campaign has gathered strength by offering leadership and ideas and also by listening to the American people. The American people have the power to make their voices heard and to change America’s course for the better.

What are the people telling us? That a domestic policy centered on increasing the wealth of the wealthiest Americans, and ceding power to favored corporate campaign contributors, is a recipe for fiscal and economic disaster. That the strength of our nation depends on electing a President who will fight for jobs, education, and real health care for all Americans.

But the growing concerns of the American people are not limited to matters at home: They also are increasingly concerned that our country is squandering the opportunity to lead in the world in a way that will advance our values and interests and makes us more secure.

When it comes to our national security, we cannot afford to fail. September 11 was neither the beginning of our showdown with violent extremists, nor its climax. It was a monumental wake-up call to the urgent challenges we face.

Today, I want to discuss these challenges. First I want to say a few words about events over the weekend. The capture of Saddam Hussein is good news for the Iraqi people and the world. Saddam was a brutal dictator who should be brought swiftly to justice for his crimes. His capture is a testament to the skill and courage of U.S. forces and intelligence personnel. They have risked their lives. Some of their comrades have given their lives.

All Americans should be grateful. I thank these outstanding men and women for their service and sacrifice.

I want to talk about Iraq in the context of all our security challenges ahead. Saddam’s capture offers the Iraqi people, the United States, and the international community an opportunity to move ahead. But it is only an opportunity, not a guarantee.

Let me be clear: My position on the war has not changed. The difficulties and tragedies we have faced in Iraq show that the administration launched the war in the wrong way, at the wrong time, with inadequate planning, insufficient help, and at unbelievable cost. An administration prepared to work with others in true partnership might have been able, if it found no alternative to Saddam’s ouster, to then rebuild Iraq with far less cost and risk.

As our military commanders said, and the President acknowledged yesterday, the capture of Saddam does not end the difficulties from the aftermath of the administration’s war to oust him. There is the continuing challenge of securing Iraq, protecting the safety of our personnel, and helping that country get on the path to stability. There is the need to repair our alliances and regain global support for American goals.

Nor, as the president also seemed to acknowledge yesterday, does Saddam’s capture move us toward defeating enemies who pose an even greater danger: al Qaeda and its terrorist allies. And, nor, it seems, does Saturday’s capture address the urgent need to halt the spread of weapons of mass destruction and the risk that terrorists will acquire them.

The capture of Saddam is a good thing which I hope very much will help keep our soldiers safer. But the capture of Saddam has not made America safer.

Addressing these critical and interlocking threats terrorism and weapons of mass destruction – will be America’s highest priority in my administration.

To meet these and other important security challenges, including Iraq, I will bring to bear all the instruments of power that will keep our citizens secure and our nation strong.

Empowered by the American people, I will work to restore:

* The legitimacy that comes from the rule of law;

* The credibility that comes from telling the truth;

The knowledge that comes from first-rate intelligence, undiluted by ideology;

The strength that comes from robust alliances and vigorous diplomacy;

And, of course, I will call on the most powerful armed forces the world has ever known to ensure the security of this nation.

I want to focus first on two ways we can strengthen the instruments of power so we can achieve all our national security goals. Then I want to lay out my plans for dealing with the central challenges I have identified: defeating global terrorism, curbing weapons of mass destruction.

First, we must strengthen our military and intelligence capabilities so we are best prepared to defend America and our interests.

When the cold war ended, Americans hoped our military’s job would become simpler and smaller, but it has not.

During the past dozen years, I have supported U.S. military action to roll back Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, to halt ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, to stop Milosevic’s campaign of terror in Kosovo, to oust the Taliban and al Qaeda from control in Afghanistan. As President, I will never hesitate to deploy our armed forces to defend our country and its allies, and to protect our national interests.

And, as President, I will renew America’s commitment to the men and women who proudly serve our nation and to the critical missions they carry out. That means ensuring that our troops have the best leadership, the best training, and the best equipment. It means keeping promises about pay, living conditions, family benefits, and care for veterans so we honor our commitments and recruit and retain the best people.

It means putting our troops in harm’s way only when the stakes warrant, when we plan soundly to cope with possible dangers, and when we level with the American people about the relevant facts.

It means exercising global leadership effectively to secure maximum support and cooperation from other nations, so that our troops do not bear unfair burdens in defeating the dangers to global peace.

It means ensuring that we have the right types of forces with the right capabilities to perform the missions that may lie ahead. I will expand our armed forces’ capacity to meet the toughest challenges like defeating terrorism, countering weapons of mass destruction, and securing peace with robust special forces, improved military intelligence, and forces that are as ready and able to strengthen the peace as they are to succeed in combat.

When he ran in 2000, this president expressed disdain for “nation building.” That disdain seemed to carry over into Iraq, where civilian officials did not adequately plan for and have not adequately supported the enormous challenge, much of it borne by our military, of stabilizing the country. Our men and women in uniform deserve better, and as President, I will shape our forces based not on wishful thinking but on the realities of our world.

I also will get America’s defense spending priorities straight so our resources are focused more on fighting terrorism and weapons of mass destruction and honoring commitments to our troops and less, for example, on developing unnecessary and counterproductive new generations of nuclear weapons.

Leadership also is critically needed to strengthen America’s intelligence capabilities. The failure of warning on 9-11 and the debacle regarding intelligence on Iraq show that we need the best information possible about efforts to organize, finance and operate terrorist groups; about plans to buy, steal, develop, or use weapons of mass destruction; about unrest overseas that could lead to violence and instability.

As President, I will make it a critical priority to improve our ability to gather and analyze intelligence. I will see to it that we have the expertise and resources to do the job.

Because some terrorist networks know no borders in their efforts to attack Americans, I will demand the effective coordination and integration of intelligence about such groups from domestic and international sources and across federal agencies. Such coordination is lacking today. It is a critical problem that the current administration has not addressed adequately. I will do so – and I will meet all our security challenges – in a way that fully protects our civil liberties. We will not undermine freedom in the name of freedom.

I also will restore honor and integrity by insisting that intelligence be evaluated to shape policy, instead of making it a policy to distort intelligence.

Second, we must rebuild our global alliances and partnerships, so critical to our nation and so badly damaged by the present administration.

Meeting the pressing security challenges of the 21st century will require new ideas, initiatives, and energy. But it also will require us to draw on our proudest traditions, including the strong global leadership demonstrated by American Presidents from Franklin Roosevelt to Bill Clinton, to renew key relationships with America’s friends and allies. Every President in that line, including Republicans Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and the first President Bush demonstrated that effective American leadership includes working with allies and partners, inspiring their support, advancing common interests.

Now, when America should be at the height of its influence, we find ourselves, too often, isolated and resented. America should never be afraid to act alone when necessary. But we must not choose unilateral action as our weapon of first resort. Leaders of the current administration seem to believe that nothing can be gained from working with nations that have stood by our side as allies for generations. They are wrong, and they are leading America in a radical and dangerous direction. We need to get back on the right path.

Our allies have been a fundamental source of strength for more than half a century. And yet the current administration has often acted as if our alliances are no longer important. Look at the record: Almost two years passed between September 11 and NATO assuming the leadership of a peacekeeping force in Afghanistan. More than six months have gone by between the fall of Baghdad and any serious consideration of a NATO role in Iraq.

It can, at times, be challenging, even frustrating, to obtain the cooperation of allies. But, as history shows, America is most successful in achieving our national aims when our allies are by our side.

Now, some say we shouldn’t worry about eroding alliances because, whenever a crisis comes up, we can always assemble a coalition of the willing. It’s nice when people are willing, because it means they will show up and do their best. It does not, however, guarantee that they will be able to accomplish all that needs to be done.

As President, I will be far more interested in allies that stand ready to act with us rather than just willing to be rounded up as part of a coalition. NATO and our Asian alliances are strong coalitions of the able, and we need to maximize their support and strength if we are to prevail.

Unlike the kind of pick-up team this administration prefers, alliances train together so they can function effectively with common equipment, communications, logistics, and planning. Our country will be safer with established alliances, adapted to confront 21st century dangers, than with makeshift coalitions that have to start from scratch every time the alarm bell sounds.

Rebuilding our alliances and partnerships is relevant not only in Europe and Asia. Closer to home, my Administration will rebuild cooperation with Mexico and others in Latin America. This President talked the talk of Western Hemisphere partnership in his first months, but at least since 9-11 he has failed to walk the walk. He has allowed crises and resentments to accumulate and squandered goodwill that had been built up over many years. We can do much better.

Third, I will bring to bear our strengthened resources, and our renewed commitment to alliances, on our nation’s most critical and urgent national security priority: defeating the terrorists who have attacked America, continue to attack our friends, and are working to acquire the most dangerous weapons to attack us again.

Essential to this effort will be strong US leadership in forging a new global alliance to defeat terror.

And a core objective of this alliance must be a dramatically intensified global effort to prevent the most deadly threat of all the danger that terrorists will acquire weapons of mass destruction: nuclear, biological, and chemical arms.

A critical component of our defense against terror is homeland security. Here, the current administration has talked much, but done too little. It has devised the color coded threat charts we see on television, but it has not adequately addressed the conditions that make the colors change. Our administration will.

We will do more to protect our cities, ports, and aircraft; water and food supplies; bridges, chemical factories, and nuclear plants.

We will improve the coordination of intelligence information not only among federal agencies but also with state and local governments.

And we will enhance the emergency response capabilities of our police, firefighters and public health personnel. These local first responders are the ones on whom our security depends, and they deserve much stronger support from our federal government. A Department of Homeland Security isn’t doing its job if it doesn’t adequately support the hometown security that can prevent attacks and save lives.

As President, I will strengthen the National Guard’s role at the heart of homeland security. Members of the Guard have always stood ready to be deployed overseas for limited periods and in times of crisis and national emergency. But the Iraq war has torn tens of thousands of Guard members from their families for more than a year. It also deprived local communities of many of their best defenders.

The Guard is an integral part of American life, and its main mission should be here at home, preparing, planning, and acting to keep our citizens safe.

Closing the homeland security gap is just one element of what must be a comprehensive approach. We must take the fight to the terrorist leaders and their operatives around the world.

There will be times when urgent problems require swift American action. But defeating al Qaeda and other terrorist groups will require much more. It will require a long-term effort on the part of many nations.

Fundamental to our strategy will be restoration of strong US leadership in the creation of a new global alliance to defeat terror, a commitment among law-abiding nations to work together in law enforcement, intelligence, and military operations.

Such an alliance could have been established right after September 11, when nations stood shoulder to shoulder with America, prepared to meet the terrorist challenge together. But instead of forging an effective new partnership to fight a common foe, the administration soon downgraded the effort. The Iraq war diverted critical intelligence and military resources, undermined diplomatic support for our fight against terror, and created a new rallying cry for terrorist recruits.

Our administration will move swiftly to build a new anti-terrorist alliance, drawing on our traditional allies and involving other partners whose assistance can make a difference.

Our vigilance will extend to every conceivable means of attack. And our most important challenge will be to address the most dangerous threat of all: catastrophic terrorism using weapons of mass destruction. Here, where the stakes are highest, the current administration has, remarkably, done the least.

We have, rightly, paid much attention to finding and eliminating the worst people, but we need just as vigorous an effort to eliminate the worst weapons. Just as important as finding bin Laden is finding and eliminating sleeper cells of nuclear, chemical, and biological terror.

Our global alliance will place its strongest emphasis on this most lethal form of terror. We will advance a global effort to secure the weapons and technologies of mass destruction on a worldwide basis.

To do so, we will build on the efforts of former Senator Sam Nunn and Senator Richard Lugar, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. And our effort will build on the extraordinary work and leadership, as Senator and as Vice President, of one of America’s great leaders, Al Gore.

The Nunn-Lugar program has been critical to securing the vast nuclear, chemical, and biological material inventory left over from the Soviet Union. Incredibly, despite the threat that the nexus of terrorism and technology of mass destruction poses, despite the heightened challenges posed by 9-11, the current administration has failed to increase funding for these efforts to secure dangerous weapons. I know that expanding and strengthening Nunn-Lugar is essential to defending America, and I will make that a priority from my first day as President.

Our new alliance will call upon all nations to work together to identify and control or eliminate unsafeguarded components – or potential components – of nuclear, chemical and biological arms around the world. These include the waste products and fuel of nuclear energy and research reactors, the pathogens developed for scientific purposes, and the chemical agents used for commercial ends. Such materials are present in dozens of countries – and often stored with little if any security or oversight.

I will recruit every nation that can contribute and mobilize cooperation in every arena – from compiling inventories to safeguarding transportation; from creating units specially-trained to handle terrorist situations involving lethal substances to ensuring global public health cooperation against biological terror.

A serious effort to deal with this threat will require far more than the $2 billion annual funding the U.S. and its key partners have committed. We need a global fund to combat weapons of mass destruction not just in the former Soviet Union but around the world – that is much larger than current expenditures.

Our administration will ask Congress to triple U.S. contributions over 10 years, to $30 billion, and we will challenge our friends and allies to match our contributions, for a total of $60 billion. For too long, we have been penny-wise and pound-foolish when it comes to addressing the weapons proliferation threat. We urgently need to strengthen these programs in order to defend America.

The next President will have to show leadership in other ways to mobilize the world into a global alliance to defeat terror.

We and our partners must commit ourselves to using every relevant capability, relationship, and organization to identify terrorist cells, seize terrorist funds, apprehend terrorist suspects, destroy terrorist camps, and prevent terrorist attacks. We must do even more to share intelligence, strengthen law enforcement cooperation, bolster efforts to squeeze terror financing, and enhance our capacity for joint military operations – all so we can stop the terrorists before they strike at us.

The next President will also have to attack the roots of terror. He will have to lead and win the struggle of ideas.

Here we should have a decisive edge. Osama bin Laden and his allies have nothing to offer except deceit, destruction, and death. There is a global struggle underway between peace-loving Muslims and this radical minority that seeks to hijack Islam for selfish and violent aims, that exploits resentment to persuade that murder is martyrdom, and hatred is somehow God’s will. The tragedy is that, by its actions, its unilateralism, and its ill-considered war in Iraq, this Administration has empowered radicals, weakened moderates, and made it easier for the terrorists to add to their ranks.

The next President will have to work with our friends and partners, including in the Muslim world, to persuade people everywhere that terrorism is wholly unacceptable, just as they are persuaded that slavery and genocide are unacceptable.

He must convince Muslims that America neither threatens nor is threatened by Islam, to which millions of our own citizens adhere.

And he must show by words and deeds that America seeks security for itself through strengthening the rule of law, not to dominate others by becoming a law unto itself.

Finally, the struggle against terrorism, and the struggle for a better world, demand that we take even more steps. The strategic map of the world has never been more complicated. What America does, and how America is perceived, will have a direct bearing on how successful we are in mobilizing the world against the dangers that threaten us, and in promoting the values that sustain us.

Today, billions of people live on the knife’s edge of survival, trapped in a struggle against ignorance, poverty, and disease. Their misery is a breeding ground for the hatred peddled by bin Laden and other merchants of death.

As President, I will work to narrow the now-widening gap between rich and poor. Right now, the United States officially contributes a smaller percentage of its wealth to helping other nations develop than any other industrialized country.

That hurts America, because if we want the world’s help in confronting the challenges that most concern us, we need to help others defeat the perils that most concern them. Targeted and effective expansion of investment, assistance, trade, and debt relief in developing nations can improve the climate for peace and democracy and undermine the recruiters for terrorist plots.

So will expansion of assistance to fight deadly disease around the world. Today, HIV/AIDS is the leading cause of death in many places. We still are moving too slowly to address the crisis. As President, I will provide $30 billion in the fight against AIDS by 2008 – to help the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria meet its needs and to help developing nations meet theirs.

Fighting poverty and disease and bringing opportunity and hope is the right thing to do. It is also, absolutely, the smart thing to do if we want children around the world to grow up admiring entrepreneurs, educators, and artists rather than growing up with pictures of terrorists tacked to their walls.

We can advance the battle against terrorism and strengthen our national security by reclaiming our rightful place as a leader in global institutions. The current administration has made it almost a point of pride to dismiss and ridicule these bodies. That’s a mistake.

Like our country’s “Greatest Generation,” I see international institutions like the United Nations as a way to leverage U.S. power, to summon warriors and peacekeepers, relief workers and democracy builders, to causes that advance America’s national interests. As President, I will work to make these institutions more accountable and more effective. That’s the only realistic approach. Throwing up our hands and assuming that nothing good can come from international cooperation is not leadership. It’s abdication. It’s foolish. It does not serve the American people.

Working more effectively with the UN, other institutions, and our friends and allies would have been a far better approach to the situation in Iraq.

As I said at the outset, our troops deserve our deepest gratitude for their work to capture Saddam. As I also said, Saddam’s apprehension does not end our security challenges in Iraq, let alone around the world. Violent factions in that country may continue to threaten stability and the safety of our personnel.

I hope the Administration will use Saddam’s capture as an opportunity to move U.S. policy in a more effective direction.

America’s interests will be best served by acting with dispatch to work as partners with free Iraqis to help them build a stable, self-governing nation, not by prolonging our term as Iraq’s ruler.

To succeed we also need urgently to remove the label “made in America” from the Iraqi transition. We need to make the reconstruction a truly international project, one that integrates NATO, the United Nations, and other members of the international community, and that reduces the burden on America and our troops.

We also must bring skill and determination to a task at which the current administration has utterly failed: We can and we must work for a just and lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

Our alliance with Israel is and must remain unshakeable, and so will be my commitment every day of our administration to work with the parties for a solution that ends decades of blood and tears.

I believe that, with new leadership, and strengthened partnerships, America can turn around the situation in the Middle East and in the Persian Gulf. I believe we can defeat terrorism and advance peace and progress. I believe these things because I believe in America’s promise. I believe in our capacity to come together as a people, and to act in the world with confidence, guided by our highest aspirations.

Again and again in America’s history, our citizens have faced crucial moments of decision. At these moments, it fell to our citizens to decide what kind of country America would be. And now, again, we face such a moment.

The American people can choose between a national security policy hobbled by fear, and a policy strengthened by shared hopes.

They must choose between a go-it-alone approach to every problem, and a truly global alliance to defeat terror and build peace.

They must choose between today’s new radical unilateralism and a renewal of respect for the best bipartisan traditions of American foreign policy. They must choose between a brash boastfulness and a considered confidence that speaks to the convictions of people everywhere.

I believe we will again hear the true voice of America. It is the voice of Jefferson and our Declaration of Independence, forging a national community in which “we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor”.

It is the voice of Franklin Roosevelt rallying our people at a moment of maximum peril to fight for a world free from want and fear.

It is the voice of Harry Truman helping post war Europe resist communist aggression and emerge from devastation into prosperity.

It is the voice of Eleanor Roosevelt insisting that human rights are not the entitlement of some, but the birthright of all.

It is the voice of Martin Luther King proclaiming his dream of a future in which every man, woman and child is free at last.

It is the voice of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton bringing long-time foes to the table in pursuit of peace.

With these legacies to inspire us, no obstacle ahead is too great.

Our campaign is about strengthening the American community so we can fulfill the promise of our nation. We have the power, if we use it wisely, to advance American security and restore our country to its rightful place, as the engine of progress; the champion of liberty and democracy; a beacon of hope and a pillar of strength.

We have the power, as Thomas Paine said at America’s birth, “to begin the world anew”.

We have the power to put America back on the right path, toward a new era of greatness, fulfilling an American promise stemming not so much from what we possess, but from what we believe.

That is how America can best lead in the world. That is where I want to lead America. Thank you very much.

 

Hyena 2. Martin Davies image. www.daviesart.com

“After reading Chris Baker’s “View from here” I was inspired to write to Webdiary. His insight into how Australians are changing – overweight, overworked, scared – can be summed up in one word – AMERICAN. That is what Australians are becoming.” Petrina Goksan in the USA

After reading Chris Baker’s View from here I was inspired to write to Webdiary. His insight into how Australians are changing – overweight, overworked, scared – can be summed up in one word – AMERICAN. That is what Australians are becoming.

 

Being Australian and having moved to California three years ago, I was overwhelmed at the cultural difference to Australia.

After living here a short time my husband and I referred to Americans as “confidently stupid”. After a time, we realised that the “confidence” is actually a cover up of their insecurity and fear – fear of losing their jobs, fear of not being able to afford medical treatment, fear of not being able to afford to send their kids to college. These are the fears of the majority.

For the minority who have the money, they fear is losing it!!

The “stupidity” is actually ignorance, based on the propoganda that is fed them from all directions – the news media, blockbuster movies, their politicians and, most importantly, from advertising.

That’s what it’s all about here, advertising – getting the consumer to buy more of what they don’t need.

Being brought up in Australia, whenever you wanted to abuse someone for taking advantage of other people, you called them a “capitalist bastard” – the ultimate insult Well, in America if you call someone a “capitalist” it’s a very positive and honourable thing. They are the epitomy of what America’s about, making money.

Is that really what’s happening to Australia? Are Australians getting caught up in the illusion of Capitalism? There is no doubt that our Prime Minister is – why else would he sell the soul of our country to the Americans to fight a war in Iraq that was totally self-serving for the American capitalists with vested interests in weapons, oil, construction and all else associated with the billions of dollars that have been spent and will be spent?

For those of you who don’t know what capitalism in the raw really looks like, I’ll tell you. It’s dark and it’s ugly! It takes away all things that makes humans humane – tolerance, trust, generorsity and compassion. Everything comes at a price and the trick is that it is presented in such a way that you pay freely.

For those of you who think that you are not conforming to the dictatorship of capitalism, think about this. Have you ever bought something that you really didn’t need just because it felt good? Do you have a creditcard? Do you feel envy of someone else’s possessions or lifestyle? This is where it all begins, and once started it NEVER ends!

We need to start thinking like Australians again. We are a country of many cultures and many religions and this is something I’m very proud of – this is who we are. We are tolerant, we are trusting, we are generous and we are compassionate – and most importantly, individually we can make a difference.

So don’t let anyone tell you differently. Wake up and smell the wattle!

 

Martin Davies image. www.daviesart.com

Mark Latham said some shocking things last week if you’re a member of the political establishment, but if you’re a long-suffering voter you might feel Christmas has come early.

Hiya. Here’s today’s Sun Herald column.

 

No spin, come and see the real thing

G ‘day. Mark Latham said some shocking things last week if you’re a member of the political establishment, but if you’re a long-suffering voter you might feel Christmas has come early.

For a start, he professed pride in his government education and pledged to send his sons to a government school too, as good an indication as any that he’d put our money where his mouth is if he became prime minister.

“I want the same opportunities for my little boys that I’ve been lucky enough to have,” he said. “There’s nothing more powerful for our society than a good government school for people who come from a humble background.” (Disclosure: I attended the Slade Point State Primary School in North Queensland and The Gap State High School in Brisbane.)

Then he said he’d like our head of state – now the Governor-General – elected by the Australian people, because “I believe in the dispersal of power; opening up democracy for greater public participation”. Crikey!

You won’t believe this one either, but he also vowed to return to grassroots campaigning. You mean, actually talk to real people where they live instead of running around staging picture opportunities for the national media? I’d like to see that.

Sydney artist Robert Bosler recently wrote An artist’s blueprint for a Latham win for my Webdiary. Artists think differently to most people – I reckon it’s because they feel significant mood shifts before us plebs. He reckoned Latham’s election was profound for all of us: “We wake up now in a totally different country than we have done for seven years of a dominant Howard.”An artist’s blueprint for a Latham win “Two people who wake up each day to this totally different world are Mark Latham and John Howard. How each of them responds to their new world will create the new road map for our country’s future.” His tips for Latham are:

 Remember you don’t have to do too much. “He must not get swept up in other people’s energy or ideas. To win, he must remain himself,” wrote Robert. He’s done that so far, for sure. His language and his style are open, honest, and – what I like most – he says publicly he’s open to persuasion, thus bringing us in on his decision-making. For example, he said of Labor’s refugee policy: “I’m open to any process that helps me to learn, to listen, to build my understanding of these issues.” It’s as if he’s asking us all to have a chat about the things that divide us and see if we can’t reach an agreed position.

 Never forget you’re a winner. “He must, daily, feel and enjoy his own winning nature,” wrote Robert. He doesn’t act like a loser so far, does he? He announced during the week that he’d move his family to Canberra if he won the top job, and save us the cost of Howard’s Sydney residence to boot!

 Keep your sense of humour. “Mark’s laugh so far has been positively wicked. It’s the laugh that brings out the spirited mischievous schoolboy in us if we are male, and the laugh that puts a mother’s hand to her brow as she faithfully prepares the next load of mud-splattered washing, along with a ‘What am I going to do with you’ comment,” wrote Robert.

That sense of humour must mature now he’s leader, but he’s kept it so far. I liked this line, when asked how his assault on a taxi driver compared to Andrew Bartlett’s touch-up of a Liberal senator : “I wish I had a dollar for every time that one’s been asked,” Latham said, rolling his eyes.

 On days it all gets too much, say nothing. “His minders will be screaming at him: ‘You must speak to the media or they will tear you apart’. He must let the media do just that,” Robert wrote. He reckons this approach will create a vacuum which Latham can fill when he’s ready, and thus reset the agenda his way.

Latham’s relaxed refusal to bite at the Government’s barbs is a good example, as was his public apology to Malcolm Turnbull over a defamation allegation, clearing the decks on his own terms.

 Stay the real thing, please. “We’re going to go on a roller-coaster ride with him, but isn’t that what life is, in truth? We’re going to laugh with him, shout at him, wonder with him, grow thoughtful with him. Mark has to be comfortable with how we respond to that human intimacy. We are not used to naturalness or intimacy in a leader now and Mark must prepare for our response to it. This way, he stays natural, and he stays the real thing,” Robert wrote.

I had a debate with a Labor numbers man about this in Canberra. I said the strategists shouldn’t ask Latham to argue for things he didn’t believe in. “I’ve had to do that more than once, and so will he. That’s politics,” he replied.

I think he’s wrong on this one. Latham has shown so far he’s ready to listen and to be convinced. But if he starts lying, he’s finished. We’ll see through it and be so disappointed we’ll write him and Labor off. We’re tired of spin politics. We’re ready for the real thing.

 

Hand in prayer. Martin Davies image. www.daviesart.com

“I reflected on how much I dislike and disagree with where our PM, John Howard, has taken this nation in the last seven years. It is not the world I want for my son. When I talk to other parents, they privately share the same concern. So what stops us all from changing the way it is? Nothing!” Peter Funnell

On Wednesday I picked my son up from school, his last day for the year. It’s a good school with dedicated, concerned and hardworking teachers. The Director of the infants school is a class act – she preparing these little people to have their heads up and looking forward confidently to next year, the next step in their young lives.

 

I was reminded recently that when ships were prepard for long voyages, they were said to be “Outward Bound”. This little school and it’s staff place great emphasis on equity, good manners, respect for others, firm but fair discipline, development of personal responsibility and self discipline, the quest for knowledge and the need for community at all levels. Parents don’t have the option to opt out.

This day, the children had a “uniform free day”, but it looked the same to me. The children though it was a great concession. It was a joyous scene – children running everywhere, a party, parents who could get time off work, grandparents and neighbors living near the school (whom we frequently inconvenience). Simple and uncomplicated and very real!

Before I left, my son’s teacher gave me his end of year report and a mass of work completed by my son (much of the artwork now adorns our hallway). It had been a good year. The report was a window into our boy, in an environment where we are not readily to hand to lean on or put things aright or correct him. It was insightful and valuable. It was obvious how much they valued him, with all his strengths and irritations and undeveloped potential. He is “Outward Bound”!

And so it would have been for every parent. Our “Director” handed parents a note with the report, encouraging us to engage with our child in the holidays, giving us pointers for our child that will help him next year and reminding us that “they are not little for long, so enjoy every moment with them”. I looked at the playground mayhem and it was hard to hold back a tear.

So many thoughts raced through my mind – a collection of my concerns for our nation, our people and those on this planet with so much less. Funny whats set you off.

We are so bloody lucky to have grown up in Australia. Why are we doing so much to stuff it up? How very stupid we are, I thought to myself – and what am I doing about it?

What sort of end of year report would we get? Not too so good.

Webdiary has had a good year. So many good contributions and a willingness to question and challenge it all.

The year has closed on Latham becoming leader of the Labor Party. A real chance of going forward with hope. A real chance of changing the awful descent into the mean spirited, selfish, user pays, divisive society that we have become courtesy of the Howard years and Howard’s way.

Living in this nation is not easy, material, moral or ethical – it’s increasing hard and for no gain.

I had got the point that I thought it would never end, that I was out of step with the majority of Australians – certainly those that voted again and again for a Howard Government. It’s been a hard couple of years and I wondered and still wonder what they (Howard et al) will do next.

But Latham’s resuscitated my hope. I’m feeling desperate, so may be I’m an easy touch. So what. What he says is good. The last two Webdiary entries hit the spot, No spin, come and see the real thing and Wake up and smell the wattle!

I want to feel as confident and be as trusting of my Government and our nation’s future as I do when I am standing in the playground of my son’s little school. I wish every Australian could feel that way.

I looked at my son and his friends playing and I thought of all the kids and families in detention centres awaiting decisions on their immigration status. I have always had a strong position on border protection, but been repelled by the way many of these hapless people have been treated while in our care. When I discovered how bad it was, I could hardly believe this was Australia.

I have been outraged by the lies and deceit in “children overboard” and SEIV-4, and acknowledged the horrible suspicion that our Government has been involved in the deaths of many in SEIV-X.

I stuck firm with strong border protection. I have shamed myself, because I hardened my heart to their plight, and it was exploited by the Howard Government. I have no one to blame but myself for my stupidity. The end does not justify the means.

I listened, transfixed to Father Brennan’s address to the National Press Club, skewered by his clear thinking and courage of his convictions. They should have been mine. I would have him take my confession now. I will seek another way to deal with this issue and it will not be Howard’s Way!

I did not want us to be at war with Afghanistan or Iraq. I am proud of what we did in East Timor and the Solomons and Bali. I do not want to be a vassal of the USA, no matter what the perceived consequences.

I am very worried by the perceived necessity to give ground on critical civil liberties through greater powers to ASIO or any other Government authority or agency.

Where is our democracy heading? Why do we have a large surplus? Why are we reducing services to the community and placing ever increasing liabilities on charities? Why are we so easily convinced that we do not need to assist and protect those in our society with less or have fallen on hard times? Why do we have to insist they work for society’s assistance and in so doing, make life that bit harder for no gain? Why do we insist on slamming our young Australians with a dreadfully crippling debt for undertaking higher education, when the debt we seek is their duty to excel in service of the nation? Why are we so closed fisted with the aged in our community? Why do we tolerate a health care system that diminishing rapidly in its ability to service the nation and ensure that those with money will get the treatment and those without will suffer? Why cann’t we say sorry? Why have we pursued global economic objectives at the expense of those who produce in our nation? Why are we so deaf to calls to take rapid and radical action over an ever increasing and threatening array of environmental issues? Why don’t we ensure that the Australian film industry is preserved and developed and that our stories, our way, are told? What’s our story lines? Why, why why?

I reflected on how much I dislike and disagree with where our PM, John Howard, has taken this nation in the last seven years. It is not the world I want for my son. When I talk to other parents, they privately share the same concern. So what stops us all from changing the way it is? Nothing!

Smell the wattle – that’s going to be my call for 2004. No more spin, no tolerance for it, no more cheap and dirty tricks – just the real thing! You can’t do much with hope, but you can do nothing without it.

>Well done with Webdiary Margo. At times I have thought it is the one place that I could seek truth and solace. All the best with the book, Xmas and New Year.

 

Martin Davies image. www.daviesart.com

“Obviously, my perspective of Australia is filtered by time and distance, and maybe my view is coloured by the emotions of flight and nostalgia: the baggage of immigrants and exiles. But I believe that my view, like those of the other million Australians who live overseas (that’s a diaspora the size of Adelaide), may contribute something worthwhile to our national introspection. The view of Australia that I have as I write here in Hong Kong may be clouded by many personal feelings. However, it seems that my view is shared by many others. And sadly, this view seems to do neither Australia, nor its people, justice.” Expat Chris Baker

G’day. Webdiary will sign off next Friday until the end of January so I can write my bloody book. Latham’s elevation has thrown yet another spanner in the works and I’m a in a bit of a panic, but what’s new? Heh Polly Bush, I hope you can come up with your anual Pollywaffle awards before deadline! I’m angsting over a Latham column for Sunday’s Sun Herald at the moment, but was struck by an email from expat Chris Baker. He wrote:

 

I am Australian freelance writer and educator living in Hong Kong and I’ve written a piece on international pereceptions of Australia. I argue that in the three years since Australia secured an incredible amount of international goodwill with the 2000 Olympic Games, we have squandered much of the enviable cachet associated with the brand name ‘Australia’. As a result of our policies on asylum seekers, the war in Iraq, our diminished interest in our neighbours and our disregard of international covenants, the international perception of Australia is no longer one of a country that prides itself on its tolerance, openness and fair play.

The article is not simply a narrative of Australia’s diminished international goodwill. It is also a very personal account of the things that I love and miss about my homeland: the sound of laughter in people’s voices; the easy mix of the urban and the natural, and all the things celebrated on the day the 2000 Olympics began. Its my conclusion that the view which much of the world currently has of Australia, does neither the country, nor its people, justice.

So here’s the take of Chris, on Webdiary debut, on us.

***

The view from here

by Chris Baker

�O wad some power the giftie gie us, To see oursel’s as others see us.� Robert Burns

On 15th September, 2000, like millions of others around the Globe, I was deeply moved by the spectacle, beauty, wit, and inclusiveness of the Opening Ceremony of the Sydney Olympics. When a statuesque Cathy Freeman, the ceremony�s archetypal goddess, invoked the elements of fire and water to preside over the evening�s climax, I was, like most other Australians, moist-eyed and speechless.

In its evocation of the wild magnificence of our natural environment, the dignity of our indigenous people, the diversity of our cultural heritage, and the exuberant creativity of our artists and performers, the Opening Ceremony was an unqualified triumph and cleverly projected an image of Australia that broke far beyond the stereotypes of a sports-mad nation. The ceremony proclaimed an image of Australia that was enviable from many perspectives and self-confidently asserted that we were fit but sexy, playful but sophisticated, technically savvy but happily self-deprecating.

Intoxicated by the effortless brilliance and cultural depth of the occasion, I congratulated myself on how clever and wonderful and lucky I was to be an Australian and to be able to claim some cultural ownership of these dazzling, golden, remarkable few hours.

The following morning, I swaggered into work and like a proud parent waving a child�s Straight A report card and idiotically reminded the international group with whom I work with here in Hong Kong that I was an Australian.

They generously agreed that the previous evening had been an incomparably wonderful show and suggested that the three hour ceremony (and its years of planning and millions of dollars) had bought Australia a lifetime�s supply of goodwill and the sort of positive brand recognition that public relations gurus and advertisers rarely dare to dream of. Asians and Westerners alike, had, it seemed, been suddenly, but most definitely, seduced by the word �Australia�.

In the three years since the Sydney Olympics, the brand name �Australia� seems to have lost some of its enviable cachet. If anecdotal conversations with the Chinese and International communities of Hong Kong are any indication of the global perceptions of our country, the reservoir of goodwill also seems sadly depleted.

Many of my friends and colleagues in Hong Kong delight in visiting Australia. They express a deep affection for our country, and many have strong personal or professional ties to Australia. However, in the last year or two, many of these people have also been asking me some shockingly pointed and challenging questions. Sadly too, the tone with which they ask these questions resembles the tone of an addled, disappointed teacher whose Straight A student has suddenly become the class bully.

Some of their questions are focused on specific domestic or foreign policy, while others are more general lobs at Australian �values�. Why does Australia imprison refugees in the desert? Are Australians frightened of Muslims? Is Australia really racist towards Asians? Why did Australia support the war in Iraq without the support of the UN? Why did Australia close its Parliament to the public during the visit of George W. Bush? Why does Australia admire its sportspeople more than its thinkers? Why aren�t teachers respected more in Australia? Why did Australia ban the movie �Ken Park� (which ironically was screened here uncensored and without much comment the same week that half a million people took to the streets to defend civil society and free speech)?

Most of these questions have left me absolutely gob-smacked. Initially, I was affronted by these prickly political and cultural probings, believing that they were simply borne of cultural misunderstandings and of stereotypes based on the international press� gloss of complex national issues. However, as I reflect more deeply on the salience of some these questions, I now view them as the legitimate enquiries of curious but emotionally removed cultural observers. Furthermore, I am now starting to ask myself many of the same questions.

To provide a coherent, let alone persuasive response to questions such as these requires much thinking on the spot, especially when they are casually asked over the photocopier or on a bus ride home. I have stammered lame replies such as �we�re really not racist� or �the Australian Government does not always speak for the Australian people�, but increasingly I find myself reluctant to defend our country with such platitudes. Instead, I prefer to look to the Australian press and to the international media for ammunition with which to counter my friends� and colleagues� good-natured but merciless interrogations. What I find in our press is generally not helpful.

In most Australian newspapers, I see little deep and thoughtful debate of the bi-partisan political support of the forced detention of people fleeing torture and trauma in countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Algeria or Kosovo. Nor do I see much consternation at many of the practices associated with this forced detention. Why, for example, wasn�t the use of water cannons to �control� detained refugees in Woomera a national scandal?

I also see no outrage at the Federal Government contracting out the running of its detention centers to companies such as Wackenhut Inc, a multinational private security corporation that also owns Third World utilities, banks and factories and whose Board of Directors has included a former special agent of the FBI, and a former Under-Secretary of the US Air Force. I have seen no irony expressed at the image of boatload full of Australian sheep (a �sheep of fools�?) not being able to find safe haven in Middle Eastern ports.

I see no studied or serious cultural unpacking of what it says about Australia that its most popular television program in 2003 was about home renovation. Yet I do see almost daily references to �Our Nic�, to Kylie, and to our sports people.

As I read the Australian media, I ask myself whom most Australians might regard as the nation�s prized intellectuals. Who are our cultural heavyweights and our social visionaries? Who are our contemporary dissidents, our satirists, our polemicists?

The international media seems an equally barren source of ideas for supporting my defense of Australia�s international prestige and goodwill. Asian English language papers such as the South China Morning Post, The Straits Times, The Jakarta Post and The Nation have all pitched stories that paint Australia as suspicious of Islam, intolerant towards Asia and Asians, and subservient to the foreign policy aims of the United States.

Does this anecdotal evidence from the press of our closest neighbours (and some of our key trading partners), suggest that like America, Australia is becoming internationally resented?

Is Australia represented more favourably in the media of its �allies�? Not much, it seems. The BBC World Service�s reporting of Australia in 2003 has focused on cricket matches and the Rugby World Cup, Australia�s participation in the �Coalition of the Willing� and the odd story or two about a crocodile hunter.

In the American press and in globally distributed publications such as the International Herald Tribune, little, if any reporting of Australia actually occurs, even though purportedly we are the United States� �staunchest ally�. A search of �Australia� in all the New York Times� 2003 headlines yields just six news stories related to our domestic politics or foreign policy (compared to seven stories about Australian tennis). To supplement its one hard news story about Australia every two months, The Times also features several stories about traveling and dining in Australia: a �good value� tourist destination where the Green Back still enjoys a favourable exchange rate.

Excluding references to our exported entertainers, our holiday spots, our low costs and good exchange rates, and our sporting achievements, we generally don�t seem to rate much of a mention in the rest of the English speaking world.

Australia, however, does seem to be increasingly talked about in non news media publications. A quick glance of the titles of some of Amnesty International�s recent reports on Australia reveals that the word �Australia� has been collocated with phrases such as �Shirking responsibility�, �Picking and choosing human rights standards� and �Offending human dignity�. Similarly, the United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights has urged the Australian government to ensure that detained asylum seekers �enjoy a secure legal status and humanitarian assistance in accordance with international law� while Human Rights Watch has criticized Australia’s �failure to tackle human rights issues�.

Is this the press that we want to have, and is the image that we sought to project to the world on that September night in 2000? Rather than projecting an image of tolerance, openness and fair play, we suddenly seem to be a belligerent international pariah with a deteriorating human rights record.

From where I look, the view of Australia is not rosy. I believe that the international criticism and indifference that we are receiving is not only valid, but also necessary. To my eyes, we�re not living up to the image that we projected 3 years ago, nor are we living up to our promise as a dynamic, sophisticated, generous nation that is compassionate to the human dramas in other parts of the world.

There seems to be have been little rigorous domestic debates on issues such as our international good standing, our obligations as good global citizens, and the need to honour international covenants on issues such as greenhouse emissions, border controls and human rights. There also seems to be little domestic concern that our regional goodwill is withering. If international criticism or indifference does not arouse concern for how we look to others, what will? Are Australians aware that we�re not universally loved and respected and that people in other countries� unemotionally associate us with words such as �racist� and �repressive�?

Obviously, my perspective of Australia is filtered by time and distance, and maybe my view is coloured by the emotions of flight and nostalgia: the baggage of immigrants and exiles. But I believe that my view, like those of the other million Australians who live overseas (that�s a diaspora the size of Adelaide), may contribute something worthwhile to our national introspection.

I see Australia in many of the same ways that I see my family and friends. Like the daily personal emails that keep me abreast of what is happening in the lives of loved ones, my daily visits to the Australian press give me a general sense of what�s happening �back home�. But obviously, since I�m no longer living in Australia, many of the nuances of the country�s changes pass me.

When I return every six months or so, I not only notice taller teenage nephews, hair on babies� heads, or recently formed crow�s feet on relatives� laughing faces. I also notice changed details on Australia�s beautiful, diverse and sun-damaged face.

Australia looks older (fatter around the hips and a bit overworked) but I�m not sure if it looks wiser. It looks more affluent but I�m not sure if its smile is as generous as the one I left. It�s more sophisticated and wears a cosmetic sheen, but I�m not sure if this sophistication includes a worldly sensibility that makes it aware of what�s happening in other chic (and not so chic) parts of the world.

Australia is definitely more of a homebody and despite a decade of unprecedented positive economic indicators, it seems more scared of its neighbours, reluctant to go outside and disinclined to invite the new bloke in for a drink.

I like to think that that I�m not an expat �knocker� -a breed of �er� nouns that is on a par with �wankers� and �dobbers�- but no doubt some people who read this will react by saying �if you don�t like Australia, why don�t you stay in Hong Kong�. Unlike the many people who are currently in Australia�s detention centres, I had the luxury of choosing the circumstances and timing of expatriation, and hopefully, I will likewise be able to choreograph the happy occasion of my repatriation. I can indeed stay away, or if I so choose, I can also come home.

The point is I do like Australia. It�s the place of my birth, and it�s my childhood, my education and the bulk of my adult life. Australia is more than a word on the front page of my passport. It�s where most of my family live and friends live and the sum of many things physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual that create my inner landscape. I love the sound of laughter in people�s voices; the easy mix of the urban and the natural and all the things that we so grandly celebrated on the day the 2000 Olympics began.

The view of Australia that I have as I write here in Hong Kong may be clouded by many personal feelings. However, it seems that my view is shared by many others. And sadly, this view seems to do neither Australia, nor its people, justice.

 

Martin Davies image. www.daviesart.com

“If you want to meet certain people, if you want to get a job overseas, if you want to get a post-doc overseas there are only a few universities that matter. Recently, I went to a function at my old university residential college. I spoke to some of the first year law students. There may be roughly the same number of students in first year, but after you take into account the foreign students and the full fee paying students, there is a small handful country kids in first year, there is a small handful of state school and systemic catholic school kids in first year. Country kids and state school/systemic catholic school kids may be going to university, and that may be a panacea to the policy makers. But they ain’t going to Sydney University.” Therese Catanzariti

Therese Catanzariti, an expat lawyer in London, tells head of the university vice-chancellor’s committee Professor Derek Schreuder, interviewed by John Wojdylo in Community is not Communism: The new university battleground explained, to get real about equality of opportunity in higher education. It’s an insider’s response to his claim that access to higher education is getting more, not less, equal.

 

Professor Deryck Schreuder may trumpet that the participation rate has doubled, but where are the participants going?

I studied economics and law at Sydney University in the late 1980’s. I was from the country. I did my HSC at a small country Catholic school, and survived five years of university on Austudy and student jobs.

There were quite a few of us country kids doing economics/law. There were quite a few state school and systemic catholic school kids doing economics/law. And we did OK.

I later worked at a large commercial law firm, was awarded a scholarship to study at University of London, and went to the NSW Bar. Several of my colleagues are now partners at large commercial law firms, senior policy makers, diplomats, merchant bankers, and successful suburban lawyers.

You can be diplomatic, politic or polite Or you can be blunt and honest. I am under no illusions that some of the successes we had were in large part because we went to Sydney University.

That’s not a criticism of the quality and application of the students at other universities. That’s not a criticism of the quality and rigour of the curriculum at other universities. That’s not a criticism of the quality and commitment of the staff at other universities.

Its just that if you want to meet certain people, if you want to get a job overseas, and if you want to get a post-doc overseas there are only a few universities that matter.

Recently, I went to a function at my old university residential college. I spoke to some of the first year law students. There may be roughly the same number of students in first year, but after you take into account the foreign students and the full fee paying students, there is a small handful country kids in first year. There are a small handful of state school and systemic catholic school kids in first year.

Country kids and state school/systemic catholic school kids may be going to university, and that may be a panacea to the policy makers. But they ain’t going to Sydney University.

I recently heard a colleague explain that the purpose of some of the regional universities was to provide graduates to go and work in the suburbs and in the country. Has anyone explained that to the bright eyed and bushy tailed kids who think that going to Lismore or Armidale is the same as going to Sydney?

Australia is in danger of creating a two tier system of universities. One for the toffs. One for the rest of us.

I think HECS graduate tax was a good idea. It didn’t stop me going. And I paid it when I reaped the rewards of my privileged education. I think all Australian students should have that opportunity.

A society should not guarantee equality of outcomes. However, even Milton Friedman agreed in his book “Free To Choose” and even George Bush’s voucher system for public schools have as their core that a society should guarantee equality of opportunity in education.

It’s a tough choice, who is best to lead the Labor Party now. Now it’s down to two a choice must be made. As I write, Kim Beazley has the numbers and the game looks over. I’ve just seen Simon Crean in the chair for the last time in question time. His remarks before question time, on the team belief in our Davis Cup team and the wonderful role Hazel Hawke plays in Australian life in “turning adversity to advantage” was elegantly pointed. It was the best question time I’ve ever witnessed, on both sides, and the most united and focused I’ve seen Labor since it lost office. Crean and Latham left together, heads close.

The choice is incredibly important. Bob Carr put it best when he said late last week that even Liberal voters wanted Labor to get its act together, because a democracy needs a strong opposition.

I decided who I would support if I was in caucus on Sunday, after reading this email from artist Robert Bosler, a regular Webdiary contributor, and reading Latham’s policy priorities if he became leader – tackling child poverty, early childhood education, protecting our culture and our prescription drugs by not giving away our sovereignty over these matters in the proposed free trade agreement with the United State, and re-starting the Republic debate. In contrast, Beazley said nothing about policy, just like he said nothing about policy in his challenge against Crean.

Robert has an exhibition of his work in the IBM building at Darling Harbour, where Fairfax is housed in Sydney.

I left a copy of Robert’s email at Mark Latham’s office after question time:

***

Hi Mark. I thought you might be interested in this email from a Webdiary reader, artist Robert Bosler. Well said, I thought. Good luck tomorrow,

Regards

Margo

Robert Bosler, Sydney, artist

Dear Margo,

May I give a rugby analogy for the current situation Labor is in? Nowadays I live for art, and strive for beauty ( I have an exhibition currently in your building there: just colourful, happy little pieces where I tried to give energy to something simple), but years ago rugby was my passion and in many ways I’m glad of it:

Many times in a game over the years we were way down on points, with not much time to go. At times like that, it was obvious we were going to lose. As a team, we were faced with several options. We had several options because we also had several desirable outcomes. In truth, winning the game wasn’t the only desirable outcome available. Captains playing the game the world over are well aware of this situation. The crowd does play a part in your thinking. You are representing their interests, as well, and the honest admission is you do have some part of your mind concerned for how you may appear to them. You have future games to consider; and there are as well behind the scenes political issues that bear upon the current predicament. The signature style of a captain is portrayed brightly by the captain’s response to all these conditions in that situation.

We had a club ethos built on success. We were fortunate in that we understood winning, and winningness melded our psyche. Other clubs were not so fortunate and we could smell it deep within them.

Because we were a winning club, during those back-against-the-wall situations we chose the one option that would deliver us the only chance of a win. It didn’t always work, and often enough it sent us further backwards on the scoreline. But in that situation, of having very little time to go, and you are way behind on points, there is only one option to take if you are to win: and that is to do something radical.

You had to take a chance.

I get goosebumps now thinking about it.

Let me share the other alternative: which was to play percentage football and minimise the loss. You accept that you are beaten – even though there is time on the clock, and you have the players – the option of no-mistake football to see the time through and live to fight another day, another time, is seductive. What is devastatingly seductive about this choice is that you, personally, while on the field, don’t have to stick your head up and have a go – you can make yourself invisible along with the rest of your like-minded teammates. Under this alternative, the other team won’t score any more points against you, but you will not win the game.

That wasn’t our ethos. We played to win. We loved our history. We stood for the winningness of rugby.

A radical decision, under pressure, with limited time, means only one thing: courage. Sorry, two things: courage and belief. Or does one of those come from the other?

It meant that you had to make the decision, in the deep recesses of yourself, that you would be the person to stick your head up and have a go. You, personally, were going to take the risk. The utter joy, and the goosebumps I still have, come from feeling the power and the knowingness that every other person in your team had made exactly the same decision.

What you stood to lose was more than the game if you chose the radical option. You stood to look like a proper dill. Each person knew that. You also stood to lose by far more than the current loss you were facing. Each person knew that, too.

But you did it. You took the radical option.

You didn’t always win. But you did always grow.

The other team would sense that you had all made that radical “do or die” decision, and already your chances for winning had grown, right there and then. And the crowd sensed it too; and even though the risk remained, you had their intense interest and their energy if not their support.

And amazing things would happen: people in your team would all of a sudden accomplish things you never thought they had the capability of doing. The game would light up. Known achievers in the other team would begin making mistakes – mistakes you never thought they could ever make. You saw everything in a new light: the tired and the meek in your team became torch-holding warriors, their faces shining with newness and the passion for the future, held freshly possible in their hearts and their hands. If you did get the chance to go yourself, and go you did, and there beside you would be the person you needed: the right person. And only in that split-second snapshot would you realise that person was always going to be the right person to be there for you, and you would see the delight of destiny on their face as they knew it too. If you didn’t get the chance to go yourself, you did not feel like you were yourself, you were, for those moments that mattered, your teammate, as that very teammate went fearlessly into the fold driven by some untold carriage of spirit – and you were that person, every fibre of your being felt the pain and the power of your teammate’s effort. That it was you or them never mattered.

But what did you win, on the occasions of taking the “do or die” option?

You won more than the game. You won, again, the right to represent the game, and you won once again the reason for the game to be played amongst humanity.

You won the future, also, for those of all ages who aspire.

Labor, the call is yours.

Robert Bosler

PS: Margo, not that it matters except I guess as small point of credibility, but in relation to my last email: our club was the record holder of the most successive premiership wins in Australian history.

 

Urban folk, by Martin Davies. www.daviesart.com

‘In the modern politics practised by the conservatives, campaign strategy has to be watched more closely. That’s because the actions of a few are starting to endanger our society. Their actions are tearing apart Australia’s social cohesion.’ Craig Emerson

Labor’s spokesman for industrial relations Craig Emerson gave this speech to the National Union of Workers in Melbourne on November 14.

 

I�m here today to talk about an unusual topic for one of these gatherings. But it is a topic that is vital for us to address if we are to have a proper contest of ideas at the next election � if the next election is to be about the nation�s future.

Politicians don�t often venture to comment on campaign strategy. It�s meant to be an invisible art, practised by a few experts and not of much interest to those outside politics. But in the modern politics practised by the conservatives, campaign strategy has to be watched more closely. That�s because the actions of a few are starting to endanger our society. Their actions are tearing apart Australia�s social cohesion.

Let me give you an example from a sport we all know at least a bit about � boxing. As much as it may not always look like it, boxing has rules. One of the most important rules in boxing is that you can�t hit below the belt. It�s there for a good reason. For one, it�s pretty unpleasant for the person who�s fighting fair, but for another, it would end most bouts straight away � no contest, no skill, no sport.

Well, I�m here to tell you that our political opponents have form in this type of dirty boxing. John Howard, Philip Ruddock, Amanda Vanstone, they all keep a close eye on the ref, and the moment he�s not looking, they deliver the low blow or lift the knee.

And if we don�t want the politics of ideas to become history in this country, we have to stop the cheating and see how they go in a fair fight.

I�m talking about that phrase you might have heard a bit lately: �wedge politics�.

Few Australians outside the world of professional politics understand what the term �wedge politics� actually means. But it is important that they do understand � because it�s playing an increasing and damaging part in the conduct of election campaigns. Only by fully understanding it can we stop it.

In essence, �wedge politics� is simple. It involves:

� Picking fights on divisive issues like race, sexuality and welfare and forcing your opponents to defend the minority;

� Pushing national security issues to the top of the political agenda and calling into question the patriotism of your opponents; and

� Using dirty tactics to divide your opponents from their major public supporters.

Ultimately it comes down to this: splitting the nation in two and picking up the bigger half.

These are the tactics the Liberals imported into Australia in the lead up to the 2001 election. Now they�re at it again, casting around for a racially or socially divisive issue.

It�s obvious that the Howard Government�s strategy for the next election is to distract people from their highly unpopular domestic agenda through dirty wedge politics.

The Government knows that the Australian people will never support their plans to destroy Medicare, massively increase university fees and make Australia a more unjust, unfair and unequal place.

I want to use this opportunity today to remind the Australian media and alert the Australian people to the fraud that the Howard Government will attempt to foist on the Australian people over the coming months.

It is my belief that only by confronting wedge politics head on can we ensure that the tragedy of the 2001 federal election � which John Howard grabbed through a shameful campaign of dog whistles and lies � is not repeated in the 2004 federal election.

I want to spell out John Howard�s long and consistent record of playing vicious and divisive politics, suggest some issues that we should all look out for between now and the next election, and state how I think we can defeat wedge politics and return our elections to what they should be � a contest of ideas and policies about how to take our nation forward.

HOWARD�S RECORD

John Howard has a long and consistent record of wedge politics. He�s never been �honest John�. We sometimes forget that the term was originally meant to be ironic.

In fact, John Howard�s whole career has been a sequence of probes to find the one issue with the power to incite the needed degree of resentment and fear in the Australian electorate.

When his probes found the issue of race 2001 he drilled down and sucked dry the well of fear and hatred.

FIRST GO AT RACE POLITICS � 1988

John Howard first tried to elevate race to the top of the political agenda in 1988. It�s important to recount the history of that story and the lessons Howard learned.

On 15 May 1988 Howard made a press statement calling for a �full and open debate on the direction of Australia�s immigration policy�.

As he intended from the start, it sparked off a fierce and hostile debate in the community about the level of Asian immigration. During the course of the debate, Howard called explicitly for Asian immigration to be slowed down.

In August, the then Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, put a motion to the parliament denouncing Howard�s views. While the Liberal Party voted against the motion its then Shadow Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock and a number of other Liberal Party MPs crossed the floor and voted with the Government.

With his moral authority destroyed, Howard�s leadership collapsed soon after.

Howard learned the key lesson from this episode: appeals to xenophobia must be implicit, never overt. A veneer of respectability must be maintained at all times.

SECOND GO AT RACE POLITICS � 2001

When Howard got the opportunity to use xenophobia as an electoral issue again in the 2001 federal election, he got it right. The Tampa episode wasn�t just a lucky break for John Howard. It was the pay-off from a search for the ultimate wedge issue that had taken up the whole of his second term.

His first term had of course been marked by his aggressive use of the Native Title issue � displaying false maps in support of his assertion that indigenous Australians would make Native Title claims over most of Australia.

Between 1999 and 2001 an increasingly desperate Howard had been trailing badly in the polls and began thrashing around for wedge issues to deflect attention from his unpopular policies:

� In 1999 he set Tony Abbott against �job snobs� and Jocelyn Newman against �lazy single mothers�.

� In April 2000 he allowed his then Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, John Herron, to stir up anti-indigenous sentiment by denying the existence of the stolen generation.

� In the same month, he let Alexander Downer attack the United Nations, pandering to far-Right views that its human rights agenda was too dominated by flaky, unelected (black) African Nations. Howard reinforced this himself with a speech to the UN General Assembly in New York in September.

� And in August 2000 he tried to appeal to social conservatives by introducing a bill to deny single women and lesbians the right to access IVF treatment.

It was a consistent strategy � which a senior coalition figure admitted at the time was derived directly from American-style wedge politics.

Throughout that term Howard�s pollsters and strategists were testing which wedges would work and where his Rottweilers should be directed.

All of this was happening against a backdrop of increasingly strident anti-refugee sentiment within the electorate. In April 2000 nightly news bulletins began carrying images of asylum seekers rioting in the Woomera detention centre.

Philip Ruddock moved to exploit the issue and fan the flames of resentment. He warned of four million potential refugees being smuggled around the world. He claimed that whole villages of asylum seekers were on the verge of arriving to spread TB. He started calling them �queue jumpers� and he accused them of demanding luxuries denied hard working Australians.

As the election approached, political pollsters of all parties started to identify a profound lack of interest in politics and party policies. Few issues connected. But one issue stood out. Focus group participants � especially those most affected and annoyed about the GST � were consistently venting their hatred of asylum seekers.

Few remember, but even before the Tampa arrived the Liberal Party had started distributing leaflets in marginal seats highlighting the Government�s strong stance against refugees and detention centre inmates.

But it was the arrival of the Tampa that gave the issue the sense of drama it needed to achieve critical mass. Howard � who had been preparing for such an event – saw an opportunity for a populist campaign, and the rest is history.

Of course, concern about asylum seekers and cultural difference has always been present, beneath the surface of Australian politics.

But this time there were two new factors: a desperate John Howard who was already predisposed to exploit race as an election issue; and a sophisticated Liberal campaigning machine that had learnt the art of successful wedge politics from George Bush�s chief strategist, Karl Rove, and his Republican masters.

As a reward for his success, John Howard was elected as President of the International Democratic Union (IDU) � the union of the world�s right-wing political parties� and the only union he�s ever supported!

It was telling that when John Howard went to Washington in June 2002 to address the IDU he took his chief strategist, Lynton Crosby, who was introduced to President Bush as �the Karl Rove of Australian politics�.

Howard�s actions in turning back the Tampa sent a message that was ostensibly about border protection and stopping terrorists entering Australia, but there is little doubt that it was really the same appeal to prejudice he tried in 1988.

In a revealing aside during the 2001 election, he claimed to Paul Kelly that he regretted his Asian immigration comments in 1988, condemning them as � in his own words – �clumsy�. Sharp observers will note the careful words � not �wrong�, not �racist� – just �clumsy�. The John Howard of 2001 had learnt how to make racial appeals much more dexterous (or Textorous).

Howard�s strategy in the 2001 election campaign is familiar to all students of political campaigning. It was the same strategy employed by George Bush Senior in the infamous 1988 US Presidential election campaign, and was derived ultimately from Nixon�s famous �Southern Strategy� of the 1968 and 1972 elections that used appeals to prejudice to split the Democrats� blue-collar base from its growing white-collar wing.

Political junkies know the story well: the Bush campaign, well behind in the polls against the Democrat Michael Dukakis, made aggressive use of Willie Horton, a black prisoner who raped a white woman while on a weekend prison release program. Horton’s case and his image were used in Bush campaign advertisements, ostensibly to paint Dukakis as soft on crime, but in reality to profit by inciting racist sentiment against him.

Like most racial appeals, this one�s greatest strength was its deniability. The Bush campaign publicly insisted it was about crime. But no one was in any doubt about the real dog whistle at the core of the strategy.

HOW WE STOP HOWARD SUCCEEDING AGAIN

The good news is that there is a good chance that the wedge strategy of John Howard will not succeed again � but only if we�re prepared to call a spade a spade.

I did that this time last year and was condemned for it. I�m back � but am laying out the analysis to back up my claim.

Recent research shows that covert appeals to prejudice tend to work only when they are allowed to remain covert. They lose their effectiveness when they are called for what they are.

An important new book by US political scientist Tali Mendelberg, The Race Card, analyses George Bush Snr�s tactics in 1988, and uncovers a paradox. She shows that although Bush ended the primaries behind Dukakis in the polls, his numbers soared in June with his first mention of the Horton story. In October, when the Horton message reached its greatest intensity, Bush pulled ahead decisively. Soon after race entered the discussion, however, Bush’s ratings began a steep slide.

In the end, of course, Dukakis lost the election. The debate about race came too late to completely undo the effect of the Horton message.

What made the difference? Mendelberg reminds us that on 21st October 1988, former Democratic presidential hopeful the Reverend Jesse Jackson attacked the Bush campaign for conducting a racist campaign with Willie Horton. Bush�s numbers began to slide. Mendelberg offers and then proves a theory that once explicit, a racial campaign falls in upon itself. Unfortunately for Dukakis, a few weeks were not long enough to get him back into the race.

Mendelberg has two prescriptions:

(1) political candidates can turn an implicit racial campaign into an explicit one by calling it what is; and

(2) the counter-claim must be broadcast and debated to encourage voters to re-evaluate the issue.

That�s why it is so important for journalists and commentators to call a spade a spade when it comes to race-based campaigning.

The George Bush campaign didn�t work twice. Bush tried it again in 1992 against Bill Clinton, but it didn�t succeed � because it had already been exposed by journalists and Democratic politicians as the naked appeal to race that we all, deep down, knew it was.

That�s why it is so important that John Howard�s wedge politics are denounced as the appeal to prejudice that they are. Being up front is the only way to head them off and restore integrity and policy debate to our political system.

A CITIZEN�S WEDGE WATCH

It is in that spirit today that I want open a discussion among the press and the people about the campaigning tactics now being employed by John Howard to prepare the ground for the next election.

We know what the likely issues will be. Some have already begun to be pushed by John Howard.

Refugees

Just last week the Government used the arrival of 14 refugees on Melville Island to reintroduce regulations to excise 4,000 islands from Australia�s migration zone. The Government would have us believe we�re being overrun by 14 Kurds and that to repel the invasion we have to remove 4,000 islands from our migration borders.

Listen to Minister Vanstone�s rhetoric:

�Fourteen today, it might be 1400 tomorrow. What would people then say?�

It�s a naked appeal to fear and xenophobia. Let�s say so, loud and clear.

I applaud the recent editorial in The Australian newspaper warning Howard that he won�t get away with a Tampa 2. The same newspaper editorialised against Howard�s cynical manipulation of the original Tampa incident, only to make him Australian of the Year. Let�s hope The Australian�s latest warning is reflected in its news pages.

And let�s hope television news bulletins reflect the growing cynicism about Howard�s shameless manipulation of a few asylum seekers arriving by boat. Terrorists like Willie Brigitte have plenty of money. They don�t have to risk a long, hazardous boat trip. They arrive by plane, equipped with tourist visas issued by the Howard Government.

Anti-terrorist Laws

At every step since September 11, Labor has gone out of its way to be bipartisan on national security, and to find the right balance between defeating terrorists and defending the rights that we are fighting for.

Despite this, John Howard repeatedly refuses our offer of bipartisanship because his real objective is clear � to paint Labor as weak on terrorism. It�s a disgraceful slur and an attempt to question the patriotism of Labor members.

I well remember TV news bulletins carrying pictures of one of Howard�s Rottweilers, Peter Slipper, saying – on the day that Labor voted down a bill that would have legalised murder by authorities boarding vessels in Australian waters – that Labor MPs were traitors to their country. Voters got the message loud and clear. Howard never repudiated Slipper.

The Willie Brigitte fisaco has demonstrated the incompetence of the Howard Government, not any inadequacy of the current anti-terrorism laws that give ASIO stronger powers than the FBI or MI5. But Ruddock immediately called for stronger ASIO powers. Tougher laws wouldn�t have stopped the Howard Government issuing a tourist visa to a terrorist.

By calling for yet more anti-terrorism laws when it is failing to use the laws at their disposal, Howard and Ruddock are seeking to capitalise on anti-Muslim sentiment, especially in Western Sydney.

It�s dirty wedge politics, playing on anti-Muslim prejudice. Let�s say so, loud and clear.

Gay marriage

In August the Prime Minister raised the issue of gay marriage in a direct copy of a tactic used the previous week by George W Bush.

Here�s what he said:

�Marriage� is about children, having children, raising them, providing for the survival of the species.�>/I>

Even though legislation is both unnecessary and hasn�t got a chance of passing the Senate, don�t be surprised if John Howard introduces a bill into the House before the election to ban gay marriage.

It�s a direct appeal to prejudices against gays, lesbians and single parents. Let�s say so, loud and clear.

CONCLUSION

In the search for votes, the rights of the unemployed, the rights of minorities and the rights of genuine refugees, come last. It�s the action of gutless bullies. It�s government by focus group. And it�s the ultimate surrender of moral and political leadership.

Is this the sort of political system we want? Where a political party seeks to set Australian against Australian, to exploit race as an election issue, to tear apart our social cohesion for its own electoral survival?

Anyone can win a boxing match by punching below the belt. But a referee won�t let a boxer get away with dirty tactics. It�s got to be the same in politics. It�s up to those who believe in a proper contest of real ideas and not cheap prejudice to call John Howard and his team on every low blow.

Let�s see how they are on the real issues. What have they got to fear from a fair fight?

Our elections should be a contest of policies, unclouded by bigotry or racism. And for that to occur, the media must not condone John Howard�s wedge tactics again.

When the wedges are hammered into Australian society, Howard as wedge-master should not be lauded by the media as a ruthlessly brilliant politician, as he was for his manipulation of the Tampa. The media must be prepared to call a spade a spade.

Instead of being praised as a political genius, Howard must be condemned for his lack of real leadership, his immorality and his destruction of social cohesion in this country.

Let�s keep American-style wedge politics out of Australia and make the Tampa election an aberration never to be repeated.