NUS
Arnaud Gallois' letter (GLW March 11) ignores the main point about NUS and student movement strategy. Of course it is welcome that through NUS a national campaign has been initiated, and all the left should help build it. But NUS has not campaigned beyond a tokenistic level in the nearly five years of its existence.
It is also far from certain that this campaign will be well coordinated, sustained, or won't be unduly narrowed because of its focus on Austudy. It was clear at the March 26 rally in Sydney that the ALP used the tenuous threat of a loans scheme as a diversion, and that this focus was one reason for the smaller turnout than Melbourne or Brisbane.
As for Resistance being ignorant of events in NUS since 1987, this is like claiming that you have to have been part of the ACTU bureaucracy to know anything about the Accord. Accounts I've received from delegates to NUS conferences repeatedly tell of constitutional squabbles, sordid factional deals, decreasing democracy, and little or no time spent on discussion of campaigns.
Left Alliance and others have turned the tactical question of organisational forms into a long-term strategy of building and attempting to capture NUS. The priorities of building a left wing — campaigning at the grass roots level for women's rights, environment, international solidarity and other issues as well as education — have inevitably suffered. The ALP bureaucrats and careerists have gained at the expense of the movement.
Sure, let's demand NUS launch a national campaign for free and accessible education, but if this doesn't work, (and it hasn't so far) let's be confident enough to try different tactics. It's time the left stops pandering to those who are not our allies and begins to discuss the ways to take the movement forward.
Nick Fredman
Sydney
[Edited for length.]
Confronting Racism
With the result of the whites only referendum in South Africa, a serious concern of immigration to Australia must be addressed. Gerry Hand, the federal Minister for Immigration must ensure the extreme racists from South Africa, don't sneak into Australia.
Though many people reside in South Africa, they hold passports of foreign countries to hide their identity.
When the South African cricket team came to Perth, the changing of the flags meant WA's premier, Carmen Lawrence, now took up the flag of apartheid; that's bad enough with her governments approach to juvenile crime.
Clarrie Isaacs
President Aboriginal Government of Australia
Save your sole
So, my old mate Anthony Hayes has decided to dabble in a little "theory" (Write On, GLW #47). But Anthony, a word to the wise: don't get mixed up between your newfound theory and reality — for there's little common ground there, mate.
You say "the vast majority of workers who are militants or socialists support the ALP." Really? Now we know this is drawn from your theory, as nobody in the workforce would make such a claim. The "vast majority of workers" (ask one), let alone the most conscious, despise the ALP, although many may vote for it as they see no alternative at the moment.
However, in New Zealand where NewLabour has emerged as a left (albeit reformist) alternative, workers have dumped the Labor Party at the polls.
"The task facing the left today is to rebuild socialist politics and organisation by ..." — by calling for a vote for the ALP over the DSP! Well, bravo! Well done Anthony!
Sectarianism has always been a comfort to those not up to reality. Likewise, adapting "to the political situation as it exists" is the hallmark of an opportunist.
I'm afraid, Anthony, you'll wear a good many shoes out wandering between the two in the unreal world of the ISO.
Frank Noakes
Perth
Violence at AIDEX
In a recent article in Nurrungar News, newsletter of the Anti-Bases Campaign in SA, and reprinted in 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly (26 February), Chris Hannaford claims the demonstration against the AIDEX arms fair snatched "defeat from the jaws of victory".
Prior to AIDEX, Chris argues, the peace movement's lobbying "had the militarists on the back foot". The opportunity to capitalise on this went begging as "verbal violence against police" triggered the degeneration of the protest into a distracting confrontation between police and peace activists.
As an analysis of the AIDEX demonstration Chris's brief article trades on many of the myths (dare I say lies?) churned out by the Canberra Times: that protesters provoked the police and were responsible for the violence at the blockade; that demonstrations like AIDEX simply undermine the peace movement's responsible lobbying efforts.
And indeed we need to expose them as myths. Two years of lobbying had completely failed to shift the Labor government from its support for AIDEX. To believe that lobbying alone could achieve success is to treat Australian militarism as an irrational policy that the government could easily abandon (once it was given the right argument) rather than as something built in to the drive of the Australian ruling class to assert influence in its regional "backyard".
The AIDEX protest was a recognition of the need to move beyond lobbying if AIDEX was to be shut down.
The blockade was an attempt by ordinary women and men to oppose the mass violence of modern militarism and was met with the mass violence of the state's police. Here was the real violence, not the efforts of protesters to protect one another or maintain their ester's "verbal violence" with the physical brutality dished out by the police is double-speak of the highest order.
Chris's failure to distinguish between the two threatens to restrict the peace movement to ineffective and elitist media stunts (no "ferals" here please), all in the name of "non-violence".
None of this is to argue that there are aren't issues to critically discuss about AIDEX: how do we best fight sexism in a peace camp; how do we build a mass action that can involve people who are not able to be involved in confrontationist actions? But we can't begin to discuss these things if people contributing to the debate are still at the stage of simply reworking the media's myths.
To turn Chris's slogan around, the women and men protesting at AIDEX snatched effective political action from the jaws of tokenism. Their mass blockade and determination to protect the blockade from police violence scored a small but significant victory against arms bazaars and the rotten system that creates them. Some of us felt the effect of that victory, a mood of resistance, at the Melbourne demonstrations against George Bush.
The price the AIDEX demonstrators paid for their victory was a full serve from the police and media. It's about time the peace movement's press acknowledged the violence suffered by its own.
David Pope
International Socialist Organisation
Adelaide
Verbal violence
Gerry Harant's letter (GLW 18/3/92) filled me with anger and frustration. I was at last's year's AIDEX protest and I am compelled to say that the verbal violence exhibited by some of the protesters gave the police the excuse to drop the facade of public servants doing a job and wade in, boots and all, to perpetrate brutality on a largely peaceful group of persons engaged in exercising their democratic rights.
On the Thursday, most people had left to return to their own parts of the country. The Adelaide contingent were due to leave by bus at 7.00 that night. Late on Thursday afternoon the news flew about the campsite that off duty police would be returning with crowbars etc. that evening to clear the site of the "vermin" in the shape of protesters. By this time, there were very few left, and understandably, these few were highly concerned, there being children among the numbers.
Also, by this time it was unsafe for any protester to be alone in the vicinity, so two of us set off for the local phone box to inform the local Community Radio station of this latest threat. On the way to the phone, we passed a protester (male), who was abusing the police and passers by through a megaphone. At this point in the proceedings, I felt that there was no need for this kind of irresponsibility as it only endangered those few people who were remaining on the final night, largely unprotected. I remarked to my (male) companion that if this person was still masturbating via the megaphone on our return then I intended to confiscate it.
We made the call and returned to the campsite, once more passing the person. Speaking with him was a young mother. She was er the safety of others and to please stop this unproductive nonsense. The man was refusing in an amused sort of way. Rape takes all forms of manifestation.
At this stage, I intervened, pointing out that he was due to climb safely aboard his bus within an hour and had he not thought of the consequences that his actions might bring on other people. He told me, smirking, that if I couldn't cope, then I shouldn't be there in the first place. Fortunately for him I am basically a non-violent person, because I was sorely tempted to slap him! Instead, I confiscated the megaphone.
Violence is violence whether physical, verbal or psychological. The only difference is degree. By falling into the trap of fighting fire with fire we lose the respect and support of the general public who are largely influenced by the falseness of the media and who do not need any action from us, the "Peacemakers", which will reinforce those lies.
We want people to join us. Alienation of the general public via irresponsible violence sets us all up for failure.
PS — The megaphone got safely home.
Wendy Joseph
Hillcrest SA
[Edited for length.]
Pal more expensive
Dick Nichols claims in "The Active Unionist" supplement to 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳, No. 48, that items such as Pal which currently have a 20% sales tax will fall in price by 5% under Hewson's 15% GST.
Not so! In fact in most cases, depending on the retailer's percentage mark up, items with a current sales tax rate of 20% will actually cost more under Hewson's 15% GST regime. This is because the GST is calculated on the retail price whereas the current sales tax is calculated only on the wholesale price.
For example, an item which has a pre tax wholesale price of $10 would cost $12 wholesale post tax. The retailer then adds her mark up which, for a small business, is typically 50% to give a retail price of $18. With a 15% GST the pre tax retail price would be $16 ($10 plus $6 mark up). After adding 15% tax the actual retail price would be $18.48 — the equivalent of a wholesale tax of 24%!
Dick Nichols is not the only commentator to apparently not appreciate the difference in method in calculating GST and sales tax. This was evidenced by the number who claimed that Keating was matching Hewson when he reduced the sales tax on cars to 15%. In fact Keating's car tax is significantly lower than Hewson's — Ferraris and their like excepted.
John Kerley
Belgrave Vic