After the Roman circus
When the smoke finally clears from the gangsters war in the Middle East, and when the women and men who fought this war — either for Mr Bush's imperial pretensions or Mr Hussein's pathological desire to overshadow Nasser — return home, they will face an international economy sliding into depression. War has brought a temporary popularity to conservatives and social democrats in power. What will they have to offer when the Roman circus is over?
More importantly, what will we have to offer? Does environmentalism have anything to offer on the issue of unemployment and the decline in the standard of living? Would it not be logical and reasonable for environmentalists to argue, within the framework of their critique of contemporary society, that the general decline in the standard of living is a good thing? These are questions that we have failed to confront and discuss. Can we avoid doing so any more?
Entire suburbs are being devastated by the financial and economic crisis that is now facing us. Widespread poverty is a real scenario for our society. I sincerely hope that Green Left will devote much more space to the questions of poverty and unemployment in future editions. In the 1980s those on the left spent too much time pandering to the environmentalist agenda without understanding the depth of the differences that existed between left and green. Paradoxically, we failed to respect environmentalism by not critically engaging it.
I hope the Green Left will encourage a critical dialogue between environmentalists and socialists on the related issues of unemployment, poverty and decline in economic growth. As the "Save Australia" movement has shown, the Right has had no trouble in mobilising those affected by the economic crisis. Have we on the left become so preoccupied with green issues or with a flirtation with social democracy that we have effectively marginalised the everyday, life sustaining concerns of working people? The suburbs may not be as romantic as the forest, but it is where our movement lives ... or dies. Our readiness to be distracted may be fatal.
Jeff Richards
Prospect SA
Thank you for the Gulf War issue of GLW. Almost all of the issue was interesting, refreshing and relevant.
However, there is one error that is glaringly relevant and I would have thought avoidable by a newspaper seeking to establish credibility. The error I speak of is the quotes at the bottom of page 2, where a casualty figure of 300,000 is given for
the war.
Such a figure would include the 3000 odd daily sorties over the 7 day period killing 15 people for every individual sortie. At this rate the population of Iraq (about 15 million) would be totally gone in about 50 weeks. These estimates which are for deaths only seem a little on the high side as the injuries from bombing would no doubt be greater than double the deaths. Thus 300,000 deaths presumably entails 600,000 injuries of various magnitudes. This would mean that about 1 million (or 1 in 15) Iraqis would have been directly injured in this conflict in the first week alone. After 15 weeks at the same rate, presumably all Iraqis would have been injured or killed.
It is unlikely that even Baghdad would claim these sorts of casualty figures.
Iraq is a nation that is still predominantly rural, military targets are usually (though not always) discrete from settlements making a figure of 15 deaths per sortie unlikely, especially since not all sorties result in weapons delivery or have offensive intent.
Regardless of this, which I interpret as an uncritical acceptance of unsubstantiated estimates, I welcome your newspaper as filling a long empty gap in the Australian media.
David Gordon
Glebe NSW
[This refers to the special broadsheet published before the first issue of Green Left. An article in it quoted a former West German air force general and member of parliament as saying Iraq had suffered 300,000 deaths in the first week of bombing. — Editor]
Excellent cartoons
Congratulations to the Green Left Weekly for allowing more of us to see more of the excellent cartoons of Heinrich Hinze.
Many green and red activists in Canberra, as elsewhere, have long regarded Hinze as the best progressive cartoonist in Australia, while his 1986 "Solidarity is the Key" poster must stand as an all time classic, still much sought after (how about GLW doing a reprint some time?).
It's great to know that especially newer and wider layers of progressive activists nationally will have more opportunity to appreciate and be inspired by Hinze's work.
Kristian Whittaker
Hugh Sainty
Gail McNamara
Canberra