Jim McIlroy, Brisbane
Sam Watson, prominent Aboriginal activist and Socialist Alliance member, slammed as "racist clowns" the members of the Australian army who were revealed in the November 11 Courier Mail, standing behind Aboriginal soldiers in a menacing manner. This was part of a perverted initiation stunt against the Black recruits, shortly before they were to leave for overseas duty four years ago.
The victims of racist abuse at Lavarack Barracks in Townsville are now preparing to launch a civil lawsuit against the army over this and other acts of "barstardisation".
Three years after the photo was taken, one of the Indigenous soldiers taunted at Townsville barracks tried to hang himself, just days before the incident was investigated by the army brass. Meanwhile, the white platoon commander who had arranged the stunt was elevated through the ranks.
Remembrance Day, November 11, is supposed to be a day to remember those who died in battle, Watson said. "Instead, we open our morning newspaper and we are immediately confronted by a colour photo of a squad of our crack troops of today, dressed in the appalling costume of the Ku Klux Klan. In the aftermath of the US Civil War and right through to recent times, the KKK was responsible for the death, torture and terrorisation of thousands of innocent men, women and children whose only crime was the fact that their skins were a different colour.
"The Courier Mail article informed us that this macabre and perverted parody is not an uncommon practice within our armed forces and such behaviour has not only been tolerated in the past, but even rewarded with promotion ... [These same soldiers] are certainly going to be involved in combat situations in the Iraqi theatre, alongside African-American soldiers whose grandparents may well have been hapless victims of the original KKK in the Jim Crow states of the deep south.
"This fascist hooliganism is an appalling travesty and cannot be tolerated. Such behaviour must be punished and banned, and the perpetrators drummed out of our armed forces.
"This trend to marginalise and dehumanise people on the basis of race or ethnicity has become too ready a currency within the national debate. It is a legacy of that horrific Hansonite platform concerning 'political correctness' and the need to uphold 'freedom of speech'. People must be made to acknowledge that with any freedom there is also responsibility. Freedom to speak out without fear of censure must also be accompanied by a need to respect others and to be sensitive to their feelings and to their own situation."
From Green Left Weekly, November 17, 2004.
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