Chirac I
@letter = President Jacques Chirac of France said, he will not budge from his decision to resume nuclear testing in Moruroa Atoll. The only other known creature with a reputation to never change its mind and stick to its position no matter what, is the donkey — no matter what pressure you put on it, it will not change or budge.
@letter = To express our anger and frustration (it's very bad for our health to keep it inside), I ask that everybody in Australia (and the Pacific region) send to Elysee's Palace in Paris, a beautiful parcel containing donkey dung, wrapped carefully in aluminium foil and decorated with the blue, white, red ribbons, in the colours of the French army flag.
@letter = The less daring can send only pictures of donkeys; it will make sense it the middle of flood of parcels. Maybe the parcels will pollute a little bit of his breakfast of hot croissants.
@letter = We can also write letters to Keating urging him to stop the sale of uranium to France. Australian uranium is better of in the rocks of the mines than poisoning the world.
Solange
Barossa Valley SA
Chirac II
@letter = Ambassador Dominique Girard
French Embassy
@letter = I request you test the Chirac hypothesis; namely that the detonation of nuclear weapons at Moruroa will have no adverse consequences.
@letter = Firstly, place the nuclear bomb in the hole.
@letter = Lower Chirac into the hole until he is in contact with the bomb.
@letter = Detonate the bomb.
@letter = Ask Chirac if he can still sustain his hypothesis.
Dr John Tomlinson
Brisbane Qld
Chinese nuclear tests
@letter = The hypocrisy of your newspaper takes my breath away. On the one hand, you call for sweeping action against the French, while at the same time utterly ignoring the fact that the Chinese exploded a nuclear bomb several weeks before the French announcement.
@letter = Your inability to even mention Chinese nuclear testing, let alone condemn it, is absolutely appalling. Your two-page article (GLW, July 26) condemns the French for nuclear testing. Your "model motion" even contains the extraordinary line: "It will jeopardise the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty by providing a convenient excuse for other nuclear powers to follow suit".
@letter = The French are not providing the convenient excuse; instead they could use the excuse that no one cares about the Chinese nuclear tests, so why should they stop the tests? But instead of attacking the Chinese and calling for industrial bans on all Chinese goods and services, you let them get away scot free.
@letter = By not even mentioning the Chinese nuclear tests, you are implicitly supporting the right of nuclear powers to test their bombs. By focusing on the sole nuclear power that tests outside its borders, you are implicitly supporting all other nuclear powers that tests on their home soil, like the United States, Russia, and of course, China.
@letter = Lift your game, and condemn the Chinese now!
Andrew Wynberg
Canberra ACT
Money and power
@letter = I understand the Aborigines in South Australia say there should be no Royal Commission into their religious affairs and are now protesting at their failure to get it stopped.
@letter = Contrast this with corruption charges against Carmen Lawrence: she with money, position and power. The government pays her legal costs and makes repeated attempts to stop the inquiry. Now she is talking of going to the high court. One wonders in the sad story of the Penny Easton affair if justice is of any consideration at all.
@letter = Listening to the rumpus going in the West Australian Liberal Party and the doings of one Noel Crighton-Browne seems to me, a perfect fit for the description "power without glory".
Jean Hale
Balmain NSW
West Papua
@letter = Indonesian expansionism and colonialism in East Timor is very well documented but the genocidal actions of Indonesia in West Papua receive no publicity.
@letter = The main agent of this genocide is the transmigration program, where large numbers of Indonesians from the densely populated rural areas are encouraged to migrate to relatively undeveloped areas in Borneo, East Timor and West Papua.
@letter = These migrants, acting in good faith in the belief that they are simply moving from one part of Indonesia to another and with the dream of a better life, are displacing the indigenous peoples from their traditional lands. These displaced people are faced with the choice of starving or becoming low paid or unpaid labour for the colonisers. Their traditions and cultures are lost by the severing of their relationship with the land.
@letter = Any resistance to this process is brutally suppressed by the military.
@letter = In West Papua the freedom fighters are poorly armed, lack medical supplies and find their food sources destroyed and their supporters dispersed by the military and forced to take refuge in Papua New Guinea.
@letter = Very little sympathy and assistance are received by the PNG Government owing to the undue influence of the Indonesian military.
@letter = We should not forget, when we object to human rights abuses in Bosnia, Tibet, Burma, and other safely distant countries, that we have, right on our doorstep, a process of displacement, genocide and destruction of culture in a most brutal manner, similar to the European invasions of North and South America and the Australian continent.
CM Friel
Alawa NT
Men and health
After reading Malcolm Tyler's letter (GLW #196), I remain unclear what he objects to in my review of Bob Connell's book Masculinities (GLW #194).
Tyler states that Connell and/or myself are "behind the times" and "missing several points".
The only point he mentions specifically is men's health. He says: "Men's health is now an important issue and the attempt to revive old myths that 'men are doing okay and are benefiting most from the health system etc' are rubbish".
The unwary reader may assume that the section in quotation marks comes either from Connell's book or my review. This is not the case.
While Masculinities does not focus on health issues, Connell does acknowledge that men's health is a problem. On page 51, he says: "One of the few compelling things the male role literature and Books About Men did was to catalogue problems with male bodies, from impotence and ageing to occupational health hazards, violent injury, loss of sporting prowess and early death. Warning: the male sex role may be hazardous to your health."
It is true that men's health is an important issue that has often been neglected. Perhaps Malcolm Tyler, instead of just complaining that others ignore the issue, could put forward his own ideas on the subject?
Chris Slee
Melbourne