Cargo cult
Is Sydney 2000 the ultimate in cargo cults? You can feel (and hear) the anticipation that riches and honours will fall out of the sky on us — when the only assured reality so far is a 2 or 3 billion dollar bill and a lowering of the standard of living — increased inflation; less monies for roads, health, schools and community services plus increased charges and taxes, and that's just if the Olympics breaks even.
Will Homebush mausoleums become Sydney's Wailing Wall?
Robert Wood
Surry Hills NSW
Vietnam
A recent news report stated that, "A US official said President Clinton would soon renew the trade embargo on Vietnam because of human rights concerns, despite Hanoi having co-operated with efforts to account for missing US soldiers". Their pursuit of revenge stems from an obstinate refusal to forgive the victory by a nation of poor peasants over the world's greatest military power.
Meanwhile half the world is wooing Vietnam, anxious to take advantage of outstanding trade opportunities. BHP has recently signed a billion dollar oil contract, and the ANZ bank has opened a branch in Hanoi.
In World War 2, 78,000 US troops were missing in action, in Korea 8000, in Vietnam 2,273 less 1,101 known dead, the Vietnamese missing in action was 200,000! While the Americans dither over the sham MIAs other countries are benefiting from trade with a lively nation of 72 million. President Mitterrand has asked the US to stop the embargo on Vietnam, and the French Embassy in Hanoi reported that France's financial assistance this year will increase by 500 million francs.
Vietnam's poverty is slowly but steadily disappearing, whilst there is still a long way to go there are positive signs of an improvement in the quality of life of all its people. In May this year I went to Vietnam mainly to study its progress in relation to health and education. Itineraries were prepared at my request to include visits to schools, a University, teachers training college, the Vietnam Women's Union, an orphanage, kindergarten, and the Hanoi School for the Blind.
It was a pleasure and a privilege to be among a warm, friendly and hospitable people who are justifiably optimistic about their future. 36,000 Vietnamese have returned home and they are returning at the rate of 1500 a month. Were there any beggars? Yes, I saw four in Hanoi, two in Ho Chi Minh city — and well over 100 in London!
Norman Taylor
Adelaide
Freud-e-gate
Father of modern psychiatry Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) was unable to find a physical explanation for many of his patients symptoms, so he proposed that they were the imaginary symbols of sub-conscious psychological problems.
However I suspect that most of his patients were women who wore the then fashionable whale bone corsets which would have caused a multitude of real symptoms by compressing internal organs and disturbing their function.
Therefore, modern psychiatric theory is probably based on some mistaken assumptions. When corsets faded out of fashion early in the 20th century Freud may have noticed less severe symptoms and realized his error, but concealed it to preserve his professional reputation.
That would have been the most successful and scandalous cover-up in human history.
I note that Freud's ideas evolved from experiments by the French physician J.M. Charcot, who according to contemporary paintings, used women who wore corsets to induce and demonstrate attacks of hysteria.
M.A. Banfield
Modbury SA
Mabo poster
What sort of message is the principal and her assistant principal trying to send to the teachers and adult migrant students at Cabramatta when they will not permit a "100% Mabo" poster to be displayed on a staffroom door?
A Thailand travel poster is not tampered with but a "100% Mabo" is torn off the door the minute the assistant principal returned from her long service leave.
In the Year of Indigenous People, putting up a 100% Mabo poster is the least one could do at an English learning centre, isn't it?
Whatever happened to freedom of speech?
Mary Lee
Chippendale NSW
Cartoons — 1
As an anarchist I have to say that I was not in the least offended by the "sleeping-in" cartoon. I think the reaction to it shows not only an "atrophy of the sense of humour", but advanced "chip-on-the-shoulder-ism", traces of the "I'll attack my allies because my enemies won't listen to me" syndrome, and, worst of all, confirms that to some extent Robert Hughes is right in his assessment that being "politically correct" has become a kind of dogmatic extremism. Not to mention the cartoonist's right to freedom of expression.
What does irritate me, though, is something like the Noam Chomsky review (91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly 22-9-93). The last two reviews of Chomsky I have noted in 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly have both contained a paragraph toward the end which more or less states that while Chomsky may be right about just about everything else, he is, of course, wrong about the Bolsheviks. Aaarghhh!
I'm not going to suggest that this kind of pushing-a-line in reviews is due to any kind of conspiracy. Obviously, you print what gets written. But when is the traditional left going to lose this awful millstone of sentimental attachment to a bunch of bureaucratic centralists (at best!)?. Chomsky, at various times in his career, has gone to great lengths to point out the similarities of the ideologies of "Marxist-Leninism" and "Liberal Capitalism" with regard to their deeply rooted elitism and distrust of the unfettered masses ability to make the "right" decisions. He has done this as thoroughly as anything else he has done in his career. The best synopsis of his arguments is probably to be found on pages 45 and 46 of his book Necessary Illusions, which should be, I think, required reading for Marxists! It is curious, in fact, how thoroughly un-Marxist all these "It was all Stalin's fault. He did it!" analyses really are. What, with no institutional structure or ideological paradigm to help him?
In my view the traditional left's failure to completely renounce Bolshevik strategies has helped to cripple the left generally, and until such time as the DSP announces a public meeting on "Lenin's role in the Construction of a Totalitarian Bureaucracy" in its "Great Mistakes of the Left" series, will continue to do so. If you won't listen to me, I refer you to chapter 9 of book 3 in Ante Ciliga's The Russian Enigma. Ciliga was a member of the Yugoslav Comintern and actually worked, and was eventually imprisoned, in "revolutionary" Russia. The chapter is entitled "Lenin, also ...":"... it was, you (i.e. Lenin) thought, better that the bureaucracy should be the ones to bend the neck of the masses than to see again the former exploiters ... It is possible that the bureaucracy considered the matter important, but for the masses who bowed their heads it mattered little ..." Exactly!
Bill Doyle
Semaphore SA
Cartoons — 2
Just as Vicki's previous self-righteous cartoon was read by many as a gratuitous attack upon anarchists, her latest attempt at humour ("Armchair activist", 15/9) may also be read — by its (unfortunate?) positioning — as attacking/undermining the credibility of Stafford Sanders and the community radio movement: "all they do is talk."
The editorial responses to criticism by me (8/9) and by Val Plumwood and Sean Kenan (22/9) disingenuously evade the substance & effectively reduce us to being either humourless or pedantic (or both?): the GLW has yet to publish the cartoon I contributed, as a "right of reply", presenting an anarchist attitude to sleeping in; and the response to Val and Sean avoids their critique of the GLW's anti-lumpen orthodoxy.
If the GLW wants to be "democracy in print" (15/9) it needs to practice what it preaches & to accept contributions from a wider range of activists. For instance, if the GLW wants to embrace social critiques that "liberate the obvious", such as Chomsky's, it needs to move beyond their character-armouring of unreconstructed Bolsheviks like Phil Shannon (22/9). Chomsky's libertarianism is essential to — rather than a "glitch" upon — his analysis of US foreign policy, of mainstream versus radical media, & of the failure of the Bolshevik revolution. (On the latter see Brinton's The Bolsheviks & Workers' Control — available at Jura & Black Rose, but not — yet? — at Resistance.) The destruction of hierarchical power is fundamental to the construction of democracy, whether in a social movement or in its media.
While I agree with Tim Anderson about the dangers of an "open" inquiry into the Hilton Bombing (22/9), I think it's nevertheless crucial to support an inquiry into the role of the security forces around the bombing. Many of us believe the reason why any Hilton inquiry is risky is — as Tim says — because the security forces are desperate to deflect accusations against them ... and why would that be? Surely all the more reason to push for an inquiry with specific terms of reference that target them.
(The Justice Campaign for Hilton Bomb Victims meets monthly; contact Terry Griffiths, 6218019).
Peter McGregor
Leichhardt NSW
PS Why is it that since my previous letter (8/9) my sub to the paper doesn't arrive until the following week? I used to get it on a Wednesday.
Also I would appreciate your returning the anarchist poster please.
[Your cartoon/poster was published in the previous issue. It has also been returned. I couldn't return it before it was printed. I don't know why your postal service has deteriorated: 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ doesn't manage Australia Post. Maybe the postie slept in. — Editor.]
Appeals Court
I see there is a vacancy in the 3-person NSW Appeals Court, part of the NSW Supreme Court. The "court's executive committee" must choose between Roger Gyles QC and Mr Terry Cole for the spot made vacant by the retirement of Judge J. Cripps.
Roger Gyles, who is supposed to be a millionaire developer, has just sat on the NSW Liberal Government's Royal Commission into the Building Industry. The Commission, which found nothing new, cost NSW taxpayers' a cool $21 million. It was part of ex-premier Greiner, and the New Right's all-out assault on Trade Union Awards and workers' rights.
Roger Gyles launched tirade after tirade against Trade Unions and Trade Unionism. Finally, he said that "the corruption and violence" in the industry, did not involve Building Workers Industry Union officials, but will he proceed against bosses who employ thugs and bashers? No. The Olympics is here and the "concert of ideologies" has commenced.
What of the Appeals Court? The NSW Government will want a fast track system for developments and tourist infrastructure. Those nasty irritants of community opposition to the billionaires' bulldozers must be bypassed. Isn't this the Government that intends to liquidate local councils?
Blue Mountains residents know that Peter Roach, who proposed a crocadarium on Boddington Hill between Bullaburra and Wentworth Falls, is going to the Appeals Court. He is appealing orders from the NSW Environment Court that he, and ex-mayor and developer, Ralph Williams, must clean up a large area of bush they bulldozed in December, 1992, against Blue Mountains Council's instructions. The community is hard against this zoo on the edge of the Blue Mountains National Park, and the Blue Mountains Council is hard against it.
The community hopes that Roger Gyles QC, whose impartiality was tinctured by his political connections in the Royal Commission, is not chosen for the Appeals Court, as the fine hair of judicial discretion may waver in the prevailing Olympic wind.
Denis Kevans
Wentworth Falls NSW