Marooned Westerners
The racist "white Australia" immigration policy was once described as "Westerners marooned on an Asian island, crying out for reinforcement". The current view in 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ of the green movement that immigration should be stopped seems to be a case of an elite group of marooned Westerners crying out to be left alone. It's a particularly selfish twist to the slogan "Think globally, act locally".
This view presents a simplistic and narrow argument on the causes of environmental problems, and in the case of C.M. Friel (Write on, September 2), to the problems of poverty: "until global population is curbed ... there is no chance of a fairer international economic and social order".
Friel also states that "we do not have a global political or economic system". There is no global governmental apparatus, but there is an international political and economic order. It's called capitalism/imperialism. An essential part of this system is the exploitation of the South by the North. This exploitation is the chief cause of poverty in the Third World — and hence also of "overpopulation".
Similarly, blaming immigration for environmental problems ignores the most important causes of environmental degradation. Roughly two thirds of the economy in Australia is privately owned. Resources are allocated by private corporations on the basis of what is most profitable. In this equation the environment has very little, if any, value.
It's profitable to pollute, rather than introduce non-polluting technology. It's profitable to pollute because corporations aren't held accountable by Labor Party or Liberal Party capitalist governments.
The powers that be always try to find scapegoats for social problems. Immigration is a convenient scapegoat for unemployment. This has led historically to a racist and xenophobic social outlook, the fortress Australia mentality. While the post World War II migration and the student radicalisation of the '60s helped break this down somewhat, there have been concerted attempts to whip it up again.
Those in the green movement who are against immigration are most likely non-racist in their attitudes. But in arguing against immigration you have to take responsibility for the social dynamic that position creates, and who you are allying with, even unwittingly. If you blame immigration for a problem which has far more fundamental and complex causes, you're falling into the trap of scapegoating migrants.
Reihana Mohideen
Chippendale NSW
[Edited for length.]
Blame the victims
Re letters to Write on by C.M. Friel, Diana Evans, and David Kault (GLW #69):
Friel argues that high population growth rates in the Third World are caused by "improved food supply", "improved medical care", religion and irresponsibility or ignorance. This is a classic example of blaming the victims.
Does Friel actually propose to reduce already inadequate food supplies and medical care or to forcibly control people's religion and fertility? By refusing to recognise the existence of a global economic system, he fails to see that this is also a system of social exploitation. It is only by eliminating this exploitative system that global ecological sustainability can be achieved, in part by raising people's material security and scientific understanding to the point where they themselves can act to ensure this.
Evans argues that we should "both learn from and emulate Aboriginal land management practices", ignoring the link between those practices and the communal life of mutual support led by Aboriginal people. She and Kault propose that "Australians" should live more frugally (or reduce "profligate consumption"), without asking who it is that is not living "frugally" or what causes "profligate consumption" such as military expenditure, advertising, excess industrial capacity, overproduction of goods and duplication of services.
Evans writes that "it is time Australians considered ... how many people we can safely and sustainably accommodate". Possession, it appears, is nine-tenths of the law. By what right do "Australians" (who? and also, how?) take to themselves the decision of who can or cannot come here now, when ecological sustainability is clearly a question of global importance?
Jonathan Strauss
Perth
[Edited for length.]
Environment and borders
"Serious environmentalists" see population as "the greatest threat to future generations". (Diana Evans, Write on, GL #66. C.M. Friel and David Kault express similar views.)
Their arguments fall down on two key points.
Firstly, the global ecological crisis won't respect Australia's borders. (Australians didn't release all the CFCs and other ozone destroying chemicals responsible for the southern thinning of the ozone layer.)
Secondly, we can stop immigration and reduce total consumption and still have an increasingly destructive impact on Australia's environment from within our "borders".
This reveals the fallacy of applying the concept of carrying capacity to human society. As if it doesn't depend upon the way we interact with our environment!
Researching a range of pollutants in the 1960s, U.S. ecologist Barry Commoner showed that the ecological impact of production for a given level of consumption increased dramatically in his country in the two decades following World War II. More polluting processes were used to satisfy the same needs because these processes were cheaper. Under capitalism companies are driven to maximise profits.
The key strategy is not to defend (capitalist) Australia from the rest of humanity. The key strategy is to assert social and therefore environmental priorities over the profit motive of capitalism.
This means working relentlessly to take political power from the capitalist ruling class and place it firmly in the hands of society as a whole.
Only then can calls for big cuts to military spending, debt the third world be more than empty words.
This is all a bit harder and more complex than closing our borders, but if we really are serious environmentalists it is exactly what we have to do.
Tom Flanagan Chippendale NSW
[Edited for length.]
Two laws
Robert Wood received over payments of $23/week from the Department of Social Security. His wife received Kay $19/week. Over a five-year period this added up to about $10,000. Discovered in 1989, they had agreed to repay the money.
By 1991, with almost $1000 returned, the police, acting on a complaint, laid charges. Pleading guilty, both were eventually sentenced to 1 year jail.
Western Australia is also the home of WA Inc, the inquiry that has highlighted just how some of the rich high flyers have misused millions.
Now to me this seems a fair bit more than $23 a week. Yet the Woods ended up in jail.
Fortunately for the Woods, on their appeal they were released after spending six weeks in jail.
Stephen Robson
Perth
Midford
In an interesting sidelight to the recent Midford dispute in Wollongong, five former staff members i.e. not members of the union, have complained about not receiving any of the $400,000 payout won from the Gazal Corporation by the Textile Clothing and Footwear Union.
The five claim that they are owed $40,000 in entitlements from Gazal, compared to the $560,000 owed to union members. While these staff members never joined the union and did not participate in the workers' fight to make Gazal pay, they expected the union to share their payout with them.
Furthermore the five claim to have confidential information about the financial dealings of the company that could assist the union to pursue the outstanding money owed to workers. However they have decided not to pass this information onto the union because they are angry about being excluded from the payout won by the union.
It makes one think again about the value of unions, doesn't it?
Leslie Warne
Wollongong
Cuba
It is sad to see Jeff Richards (GLW #68), a declared supporter of the Cuban revolution, advocating the tired old line of political pluralism as the only way to be taken seriously. Rather than cite details of the Allende experience in Chile, I feel the underlying assumption that equates pluralism with political freedom must be addressed. This misconception is usually espoused from conservatives eedom and pluralism with capitalism.
While Cuba's Communist Party would certainly win a multi-party election, this is hardly sufficient cause for doing so. Even more certain would be its popular victory over, let's say, a "Unite with the US" party, but why present the US with a legitimate channel through which to escalate their destabilisation and undermining of this socialist example? No action could "imperil the revolution" more so than the advent of political pluralism, itself contradicting the express will of the overwhelming majority of citizens who endorse Cuba's constitution.
To acknowledge the admirable social gains made by the ongoing revolution in Cuba, yet somehow separate these from the one-party system which saw them become a reality, is a curious twist of logic. Similarly, the civil organisations which provide popular participation for workers in all aspects of life, are inexorably linked to this alternative model of democracy. To imply that political plurality means political freedom is the real joke. It can only serve to marginalise increasing numbers of people from the decision making processes by promoting the division of a people already united in their desire to continue the revolution.
Gail Reed also cites the broad internal recognition that Cuba's system of participatory democracy — Peoples Power — needs improvement, but notes again that the vast majority advocate changes within the framework of the prevailing single party system.
Tom Griffiths
Newcastle
[Edited for length.]