Democrat policy
Peter Anderson's article "Democrats' policy: How much of an alternative?" (GLW #71) is a welcome addition to the debate on alternative politics in Australia.
However, Anderson's criticisms are baseless. "Getting to Work" the Australian Democrats' economic policy does not, as suggested, mitigate against the Democrats' long held commitment to the environment, the disadvantaged and progressive movements.
On the contrary, coupled with the Australian Democrats' extensive policy statements, "Getting to Work" builds on a radical reshaping of Australia's social, cultural and economic life in a sustainable and effective manner.
In criticising the Democrats' advocacy of increased productivity, Anderson fails to identify the dramatic shift in definition.
"productivity does not mean consuming ever increasing quantities of renewable and non-renewable resources, but using less and deriving greater benefit from this use."
Green, just, sustainable and socially sensitive, the Democrats' definition of productivity requires the development of a totally new paradigm for economic action. A paradigm established and built upon by "Getting to Work."
In their chapter "The Nature of Work and Employment" the Democrats are the only Party who have identified and called for further examination of the questions relating to work and its value, nature and character.
In challenging the notion of work as paid employment, the Democrats' have identified the fundamental inadequacy of equating work with financial security.
The changes associated with the implementation of "Getting to Work" are far reaching and prophetic.
The Democrats have sought to address the world's contemporary problems in creative and stimulating ways.
Democrats continue to work on the pivotal issues facing us, protecting our environment, developing sustainable living patterns, equitably redistributing wealth, addressing disadvantage and sharing our resources with developing communities in solidarity and partnership.
As long as the Democrats continue to do this then they remain a credible, dynamic and progressive alternative.
Joseph O'Reilly
Clifton Hill Vic
Angry
Reading Rosemary Evans' letter (Write On, GLW #73) made me very angry. Her attempt to condemn Desiree Washington, raped by Mike Tyson, as not an "innocent and suffering victim" flies in the face of all the women's and progressive movement have been doing to try to change outdated, backward, regressive, stereotyped and hugely damaging attitudes about rape. Her argument is easily construed as suggesting that Washington "deserved it". Indeed, "what did she expect" are Evans' own words.
Her indictment of the young woman caters to all of the worst myths of this horrendous crime: that she asked for it, that she failed to protect her own "reputation". And, further, that Tyson's "invitation to bed" justified any further actions on his part, including rape, simply because Washington had gone to his room.
No matter what Desiree Washington did, where she went, at what time and with whom, she did not deserve or ask to be raped. In fact, isn't it time we learned the lesson that no-one ever deserves to be raped. Ever.
We need to demand women's right to go out, to see people, to have a good time, to walk home at night, to go to work, to be in their homes, to get "invitations to bed" — without the fear of rape. Invitation is not synonymous with coercion.
Kath Tucker
Sydney
Blame the victim
Rosemary Evans' letter in GLW 73 shows how prevalent the blame the victim mentality still is in our society.
Every survivor of rape is innocent. Rape can happen to any woman, regardless of age, sexuality, ethnicity, class or so called beauty. As has been highlighted recently in David Goldie's TV series Without Consent, rape is about power and humiliation, not about sex.
Regardless of the time, place and other circumstances, the key thing that any woman "expects to happen" is to have her choices and wishes respected. The question of Washington's "reputation" is irrelevant. No woman should have to justify her sexual activities — whether she be "innocent schoolgirl", "beauty queen" or sex worker. Rosemary Evans seems to subscribe to the outdated "damned whores and god's police" ideology.
Her ideas reinforce the myth that women's oppression is caused by women. Her argument only hinders the struggle for women's liberation.
Natasha, Sean, Terese, Josie, Freya, Ana, Nathan, Philippa
Brisbane Resistance
No excuses for rape
I write in regard to the letter (Write On, 30/9/92) by Rosemary Evans regarding the rape of Desiree Washington by Mike Tyson. It's my opinion that this letter misses the point entirely; if there is any criticism that ought to be made of Carolyn Beecham's "picture" of Ms Washington as "innocent" it should be that any character" is entirely beside the point.
If Desiree Washington had been a prostitute by profession, who had arranged a meeting with Tyson at his flat, for paid sex, and if at any point in this meeting she changed her mind for any reason and said so, it would still have been rape.
I'm tired of reading that such and such a victim "should have realised" or that she led the poor man on to believe he'd get some and he couldn't handle the disappointment, or couldn't control himself. I'm tired of reading interrogations into the victim's lifestyle ad infinitum. Sexual experience, not to mention sexual desire, when they are attributed to a woman, seem to be seen as excuses for the inexcusable behaviour of men who violently sexually assault.
What if she did think she wouldn't mind "a bit" either? Is that criminal?
If men are so uncontrollable, it sure is weird how they wait until they know they'll probably get away with it, and even spend time planning and engineering such situations.
There are no excuses for forced intercourse and violent sexual assault of any kind, least of all the character of the victim, so let's cut the crap for once.
Alex Rhodes
Brunswick Vic
'War on drugs'
An open letter to the gay and lesbian communities:
It's happening again! Mardi Gras, Sleaze and over the spring and summer lesbians and gays are being harassed on the streets by police with the excuse that we are the "Mr Bigs" of drugs.
It has happened before. Operation Noah just before the 1992 Mardi Gras party was not an accidental date. Lesbians and gays are finding ourselves now on the frontlines of the farcical war against drugs, and we are one of the main targets.
The claim that the war against drugs is aimed at the big suppliers, and the individual users will be left alone, is a blatant lie. This is a war against individual users and small-time using dealers and another excuse to attack lesbians and gays.
In Europe gangs of neo-Nazi thugs are currently viciously attacking injecting drug users. Drugs are being used as an issue to legitimate violent action on the streets by these thugs, to legitimate racism and xenophobia, and in this country homophobia. The anti-drugs campaign seeks to create a witch-hunting regime of terror.
The police blitz on drug use is not about drugs. It is about the rights of lesbians and gays. Drugs are merely a cloak being used to allow attacks on lesbians and gays. The response to these attacks include demands for:
- The immediate legalisation of all illegal drugs.
- The use of drugs should be an informed choice by individuals and not enforced by law.
- End discrimination against injecting drug users and other illegal drug users.
- The anti-drug campaigns and the so-called "war on drugs" must stop. It is a farce and a cloak for attacks on democratic rights and can not be tolerated by any supporters of democracy. Stop police attacks on our democratic rights!
Chris Jones
Sydney
Immigration debate
The debate on immigration and population levels has certainly stimulated some interesting responses. As my opinions seem to have raised the most ire I will deal briefly with those points of consequence.
In GLW #70 Reihana Mohideen says "... there is an international economic and social order" — in fact economic and social orders range from subsistence farming and feudalism to high technology capitalism and military dictatorships.
She repeats the statement that exploitation of the Third World is the cause of overpopulation but produces no logical sequence of events from one to the other.
Tom Flanagan makes at least one sensible statement, we should be "... working relentlessly to take political power from the capitalist ruling class ...". Without political power the environmentalists will achieve only the crumbs of success that political parties are prepared to throw them for electoral advantage. Not only that, the green movement must develop a political and economic philosophy that takes account of the ecological effects of economic and political actions. No such philosophy has yet been developed.
Jorge Jorquera in GLW #71 states that "the main ecological problems faced in Australia have nothing to do with population". It is people who pollute and destroy. I repeat that the key issue facing "environmental and left activists" as Mr Jorquera describes us is achieving political power.
Mr Jorquera believes that Australia could perhaps support ten times its present population. Perhaps he should look at our water resources, the availability of land for housing and the present rate of land degradation etc.
If Teresa Dowding does not think that an increase in food supply contributes to population growth she will have ample time to cogitate on the effects on population levels of a reduction in food with Somalia.
Two points should be made: we can only sustain our present life-style with a much reduced population and, very importantly, human beings are not the only species that require living space.
C.M. Friel
Alawa NT
Limit population now
Reihana Mohideen and others who adopt an either/or stance on the population/social and economic factors causing our environmental mess, refuse to face up to stark reality.
In advocating an expanded immigration policy these people ignore one vital question: what if a more equitable distribution of the world's economic and social order is not achieved in the near future?
Most environmentalists realise that if the present economic and social status quo is not radically altered very soon, to have continued to expand our population in the blind belief that this will somehow be accomplished will spell disaster for us all.
Time is of an essence. We have, at most, ten or fifteen years, and there is at present no indication whatsoever that global social justice and the economic status quo are about to be addressed. Every country and government in the world is committed to the insanity of economic growth, unduly influenced and held to ransom as they are by the Trans-National Corporations. It is these same corporations who now own half of Australia and who wish, for their own vested interests (profits) to see an expanded population in Australia.
They care not that this will lead to an escalating and irreducible foreign debt, or that an ever increasing proportion of our population will be at the lower end of the socioeconomic scale, with our indigenous people, Los Angeles style, at the very bottom.
Consumption, population, social and economic reform, debt relief, and disarmament must all be dealt with simultaneously and immediately if we are to survive.
Just in case this is not accomplished in time, it might be wise to limit our own population now.
One final remark: the persistent, straw-clutching and idiotic cries of "racism" emanating from the pro-immigrationists does little to further their cause and should be abandoned forthwith if they wish to retain any vestige of credibility.
Diana Evans
Balwyn Vic
[Edited for length.]
Genetic engineering
In response to the article on genetic engineering (September 2), it was great to read a piece written from the opposing perspective to that normally presented in the media. The article outlined many of the concerns with genetic engineering from health and environmental problems to third world exploitation.
As someone very concerned with the environmental and social impact of genetic engineering (particularly in agriculture and food supply), I have been involved in Friends of the Earth which has now formed an anti genetic engineering collective. Being involved in a grass roots community group such as Friends of the Earth is a direct way in which members of the community can come together and respond to the issues raised in the article.
Often as individuals without scientific or economic backgrounds it is hard not to be overwhelmed by the scientific information and jargon and the monolithic size of the commercial interests involved in the research and development of genetically engineered organisms and products. So a larger group is always more able to overcome isolation and actively campaign to oppose the introduction of unsafe or unethical products.
Louise Macdonald
Friends of the Earth, Fitzroy
Bosnia
Congratulations on Dave Holmes' solution to the Bosnian crisis: send arms to Croatia and Bosnia! (GLW No. 71) Not of course Australian arms, as you strongly campaigned against AIDEX and Australian export of arms. So let the Yanks or the Brits do it. "Ethnic cleansing" is a Serb crime. Similar actions by Croats, Muslims, etc, reported in the daily press are best not discussed. I don't know whether Holmes represents your Left face or your Green face: in any case, his face should be red!
Henry Zimmerman
Lower Templestowe Vic
Milosevic and Bosnia
The article by Dave Holmes on Bosnia (GLW, 16/9/92) is decidedly one-sided and I would suspect distorted in favour of support of the mainstream media monopoly. Such partisanship and alliance to the dominant Western interests on Bosnian conflict is scarcely to be expected from a "progressive" weekly paper that brands itself as left.
What remains of a left movement that supports embargo and stranglehold of the major imperialist powers, through the UN disguise, upon a poor, small state like Serbia?
Holmes hypocritically ignores that Tito was a Croat and that Yugoslavia was statistically saturated with Croat and Slovenian managers whether we investigate the former state bureaucracy, the army, industry and finances, or Tito's immediate ruling clique. Franjo Tudjman, the Croatian president, was a former Yugoslav general.
There is a marked conspiracy of silence concerning Western interference in Yugoslav internal affairs, and provocation of national animosities rooted directly in the present economic relations. Nothing is said about the role and promises of the Western bankers, to Muslim, Slovenian and Croatian leaders of "better" business deals if they help procure "independence" to their respective nations. Why were Slovenia and Croatia allowed to retain the strongest industrial base, highest living standards of all Yugoslavian republics, if the Serb oppressed" them?
The often parroted "ethnic cleansing" has largely originated from the Orwellian Ministry of Truth. It is a borrowed jargon of capitalist press for the simple reason that it gravely offends against the bourgeois worship of private property. The article simply ignores that Serbs have also lost property and industrial capital in Croat and Muslim controlled regions. It also ignores the fact that all Bosnian Serbs have unanimously boycotted referenda on Bosnian independence and statehood. Serbia and Milosevic should help Bosnian Serbs in their civil war for the same reason that Australia did always help Britain and Americans in their wars. Apparently Holmes does not recognise the right of minorities for self-determination — in all states — not to be the subject of tyranny by the majority.
Western imperialism does not want to see small, poor states, with strong military traditions, aspire to a relative economic self-sufficiency and escape the clutches of the Western banking and trade. Milosevic enjoys support of the Serbian industrial workers and, so far, his government was not overenthusiastic to surrender workers to free market conditions as far as Yeltsin, Hewson, Keating or Tudjman might be willing to do.
Justin Starchevic
Plympton SA
[Edited for length.]