Vegetarianism
Dave Riley's article "Does Meat Make the Meal?" (GL 11/8/93) skimps on the truth about vegetarianism. It isn't just getting the meal that's a political issue, it's what happens to the animals who get turned into the meat that matters as well. The misery and suffering that millions of animals endure is perhaps the most compelling argument there is in favour of a meatless diet — and Riley ignores it completely.
He gives the impression that the pigs people eat, for example, spend contented lives roaming idyllic farms eating yams and apples to the benefit of us and the environment. On real farms, though, a pig's life is one of unmitigated frustration, stress and pain. They are fed antibiotics and growth promotants, they are tethered and kept in pens, their tails and teeth are mutilated and they go lame. To be a vegetarian, whatever else it may be, is to boycott cruelty.
Becoming vegetarian is also the responsible thing to do if you are concerned about environmental despoliation. Eating animals is unconscionably wasteful. Only 12% of the plant protein fed to a pig, for instance, is converted to animal protein (for beef cattle the figure is a mere 4%) and the pollution problems are enormous: 33, 000 cattle (one feedlot) produce as much raw sewage as a city of half a million people — that's 65 truckloads a day!
And to say eating meat has had "no major physical consequences" on people's health in a country where heart disease is the leading cause of death is just too hard to swallow.
If you are serious about doing something for your health, the environment and the animals who suffer to "make the meal" then put your money where your mouth is and go vegetarian.
James Thomson
Adelaide
Israel and Palestine
Philip Mendes claims ("Write On", GLW 113) that in our article on "Palestinian self-determination and Zionist colonialism" (GLW 111), we "advocated the destruction of Israel and the elimination of its population."
It's certainly true that we advocated the destruction of the racist, Israeli colonial settler-state and its replacement by a united, democratic, secular Palestine. However, we did not advocate the "elimination" or eviction from Palestine of the Hebrew-speaking population that presently dominates the Israeli state.
The claim that advocacy of the replacement of the exclusively Jewish state of Israel with a democratic, secular state amounts to a call for the eviction from Palestine of its present Jewish inhabitants, is a standard piece of Zionist mystification. It is designed to confuse and obscure the real issue in the Zionist-Palestinian conflict.
As we noted in our article, "the real issue in the Middle East is not whether or not the Israeli Jews can live there, but whether they have the right to dispossess and oppress another nation", i.e., the Palestinian Arabs. The source and instrument of that oppression is the existence of a "Jews-only" state in Palestine.
Mendes argues that our support for the PLO's goal of a democratic, secular Palestine ignores the "fact that the PLO itself recognised Israel and endorsed a two-state solution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict as far back as 1988". Mendes seems to believe that the PLO's call (which it adopted as far back as June 1974) for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in any part of Palestine liberated from Zionist control, invalidates our argument that the full national rights of the Palestinian Arabs can be realised only through the dismantling of the Israeli state. However, these are not mutually exclusive positions, as Mendes seems to think.
The demand for an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza does not negate the goal of creating a democratic, secular state in all of Palestine. It is a transitional step toward it.
That is precisely why the Zionist leaders are adamantly opposed to the so-called "two-state solution". They recognise that the establishment of a democratic, secular state (in which Jews would have equal rights with non-Jews) in any part of Palestine would undermine the central ideological mechanism through which they maintain support from Jews in Israel and around the world, i.e., the false idea that the democratic rights of Palestinian Jews can be upheld only through the existence of an exclusively Jewish power structure in Palestine.
As for Mendes' attempt to shift responsibility from the Israeli government to the right-wing Lebanese Falangists for the massacre of up to 3500 Palestinian (and Lebanese) civilians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps on September 16-18, 1982: The subsequent Israeli official commission of inquiry found that then Israeli defence minister Ariel Sharon bore "personal responsibility" for the massacre.
The Falangists were armed and trained by Israel, and they were transported into the camps by the occupying Israeli army (which had surrounded the camps and refused to let any of the refugees leave). Not only did the Israeli army commanders and their superiors in Tel Aviv know what the Falangists were doing in the camps, they approved the Falangists' "mopping up operation" weeks before it was carried out.
Sean Malloy and Doug Lorimer
Sydney
General Haig
Bill Hayden says General Haig was "one of the great knuckleheads of World War One", but the British Government did not think so. They gave Haig an ex gratia reward of a hundred thousand pounds sterling for services rendered, at the end of what Ho Chi Minh called "the Great Slaughter".
Denis Kevans
Wentworth Falls NSW
Nuclear waste
I am writing on behalf of the Environmental Youth Alliance (EYA) of Toowoomba to express our concern about a Nuclear Radioactive Waste Facility to be built in Salt Shed Forest, near Esk.
It is stated in national and international documents that nuclear waste needs to be stored in a dry climate away from water catchment areas, to be stored in an area of low population and to be stored at a geographically and seismically stable site.
This proposed facility does not meet any of these criteria. These must be met so all life forms do not live under the threat of radiation related diseases, which include cancers, leukaemia, genetic deformities in children and deaths.
To put such a facility in an area of mapped geographical faults, in the Wivenhoe Dam catchment (S.E. Queensland's water supply) and where so many people live is completely irresponsible. Four earth movements measuring greater than 4.0 have been recorded in the area.
Creeks from the site flow into the Wivenhoe Dam and through produce and livestock farms. This water is used for irrigation. Produce from the Esk area goes to Brisbane markets. Foods under real threat of nuclear contamination include watermelons, pumpkins, potatoes, onions, tomatoes, exotic fruits and meats.
We congratulate and support Desiree Mahoney, spokesperson for Communities Against Radioactive Dumps and the members of CARD for doing such a good job. Thank you.
We hope that the politicians of Queensland act wisely and do not build that the Esk Nuclear Radioactive Waste Facility.
We need and must have a nuclear free future.
Judi Radel
Environmental Youth Alliance
Toowoomba
Cartoon
Now I can be as sectarian as anybody, but I do realise it's a weakness. So I'm puzzled and disappointed at the blatantly anti-anarchist cartoon on 11 August ("Was going to be an anarchist but slept in!") I gather it's a repeat? due to popular demand or to an editorial policy?
We all know the GLW has connections with the DSP, Resistance, the Environmental Youth Alliance, etc. But one of the strengths of the GLW has been its attempt to be more than the voice of just these organisations: and the range of sponsors and contributors is evidence of the success of that attempt.
For instance, consider the article by Oz anarchist Will Firth — in the same issue as the cartoon — on the diverse opposition within Germany to Berlin scoring the Olympics. I wonder if Will slept in?
Then there's the ads, "If you value a free press", quoting John Pilger and many others emphasising the need for alternative media, something the anarcho-syndicalist Noam Chomsky also stresses in the video Manufacturing Consent: media that empower the disenfranchised to speak for and represent themselves, rather than being spoken about/represented by others — by professionals, experts and/or self-appointed leaders.
It's understandable that events involving the DSP, Resistance, etc., regularly feature as news stories, or in the Action Updates. But why don't stories about other struggles score on the GLW's news values and get on its agenda? Given homelessness is such a major problem, why didn't the GLW report on the suspicious arsoning of the long-term Childers St Theatre squat in Canberra? Or on the violent — by police — eviction and arrest of twelve squatters from Direct Action Against Homelessness in South Sydney? (Or DAAH's previous successful squat of University of Sydney-owned houses? Arundel St.? Could it be that both squatting struggles do involve anarchists, and don't involve members of the DSP, EYA, etc? And why hasn't GLW reported on the recent arsoning of the Black Rose Anarchist Bookshop? (King St., Newtown)
It's not easy to sleep in when you're either homeless and/or the cops are kicking in the door ... but don't get me wrong, anarchists do believe in sleeping in, and probably more than a lot of activists.
Libertarian hedonism is part of the anarchist heritage — the search for pleasure rather than obedience to duty: if we can't dance/sleep in/etc. we don't want to part of your revolution (thanks Emma!)
If the editorial policy "GLW — it's your (sic) paper" is for real, I request you publish this letter together with the accompanying cartoon [below] of the anarchist attitude to sleeping in.
Peter McGregor
Leichhardt
[The cartoon in question, like virtually all cartoons we run, arrived unsolicited in the mail. Readers can judge for themselves whether it is really "anti" anarchists who aren't suffering terminal atrophy of their sense of humour.
[Readers sometimes assume that we have a vast network of journalists and are therefore able to report on almost anything. We don't. The activities of most people/groups get reported in rough proportion to how much they write about what they're doing. The one article we have run about DAAH is one more than they have sent us, so they're not doing badly. — Ed.]
Koala Foundation
There is growing concern over the activities of the Australian Koala Foundation (AKF) being expressed by grassroots groups up and down the East Coast. We know what the AKF doesn't do.
The AKF doesn't fund koala hospitals or carers.
The AKF doesn't fund acquisition of habitat. (We've lost count of how many groups have asked the AKF for funds to acquire sensitive habitat.)
The AKF doesn't fund or take legal action to save the koala habitat.
The AKF doesn't recognise the effects of logging on koala habitat in the North East and South East forests.
The AKF doesn't fund community groups.
The AkF ignores the failure of governments to set up properly enforced management plans, and the need for legislation to protect koala habitat.
The AkF believes the issue of whether Victorian koalas should be culled or not "should be discussed behind closed doors."
Ms Tabart is on record at the AKF conference this year saying that "the AKF wanted to be patent the word KOALA so whenever it was used, the AKF would get royalties."
So what is the Australian Koala Foundation doing?
The AKF wants to set up a Koala Atlas using donated software to map sensitive koala habitat along the Eastern Coastline which they will sell to Councils.
Why are they duplicating work being carried out by the National Parks and Wildlife Service? For whose benefit?
This year Brownies all over Australia raised $60,000 for the AKF. School children throughout the country have sold gum leaves and worked had to raise funds for the AKF.
The AKF has done a great job marketing the koala, in chocolates, on rice packets, dolls , souvenirs, selling its logo to business. In fact marketing seems to be the primary focus of the Foundation.
The AKF needs to be held accountable to the public for its funds, its focus and its direction.
The koalas are too important to be left to a high profile Foundation which on the face of it, is cashing in on the koala not only in Australia but internationally.
There is no evidence that the AKF has saved one square inch of habitat anywhere, much less responded to requests for help which would have directly and immediately saved koalas at risk.
Sue Arnold
Co-ordinator
Autralians for Animals
Byron Bay NSW