Indigenous whaling
An article from Hour magazine reproduced in Green Left Weekly #336 has raised the issue of indigenous whaling rights and the part they play in the wider struggle for indigenous autonomy and emancipation.
The Makah Indians in Northern Western USA intend to resume whaling next month. Whaling was traditionally a part of their economy and culture but has been denied to them for the past 80 years.
The article, and presumably the Green Left Weekly editorial collective, seems to believe winning back the hunt is a significant advance and will enable this Indian nation to regain a sense of dignity and purpose.
This I believe is mistaken and overlooks the real causes of Makah destitution, in particular the chronic unemployment and racial discrimination they face in their daily lives.
In any case, the kill with its overtones of blood ritual, warrior glorification and male supremacy is only one aspect of Makah culture.
As tribal elder Dottie Chamblin has observed, "It was a tradition of the Maul to make baskets and travel into the mountains to harvest wild berries yet no one seems interested in reviving this tradition".
Perhaps it is high time traditions of this nature were revived. They possess job creation potential, are humane and contain essential elements of ecological sustainability.
This whole issue I believe is an important one and should be raised in our discussions to establish our concepts of an ecologically sustainable economy and nationalisation strategies relating to it.
St Marys NSW
Conservative attack of feminism
In a report on the NUS women's policy conference, "Fem X" ("Fem X goes conservative", Green Left Weekly, October 7), Emma Murphy claimed "many of the views and policies put forward ... were very conservative". She invoked opposition to sado-masochism and the claim that prostitution is exploitative of women as examples of this conservatism.
Her authority for this claim (and the only view represented in the article) was Melbourne University welfare officer Catherine Lawrence. Catherine is entitled to her views, but it is hardly reasonable to conclude that, because feminists who disagree with her pro-sex industry stance were also vocal at Fem X this represented a conservative shift. After all, it was Catherine who invoked a liberal choice argument and rejected an analysis along the lines of gender oppression.
Radical feminists will continue to speak out against practices which harm women, such as men's systematic abuse of women in prostitution. A more sophisticated analysis of power and how it is exercised in our society is necessary to do this. It is the retreat to individualist arguments manifested in Emma Murphy's article which constitutes the real conservative attack on feminism.
Clifton Hill Vic
Palestine
As a Palestinian Australian, I find Adam Hanieh's writings from Occupied Palestine are becoming emotional, irrational, harsh and completely detached from the reality of Israel's occupation and the enormous difficulties the Palestinian Authority is facing.
It is a pity to see Adam focusing on and criticising the Palestinian Authority more than even Israel as if the mainstream media's pro-Israel coverage is not enough. There are heaps of materials Adam could cover on Israel's crimes, racism, oppression etc. as well as the tremendous difficulties the Palestinian Authority is facing, which the mainstream media never touches and one would expect alternative media such as Green Left Weekly to cover.
He clearly is more careful with his words when speaking of Israel than he is when speaking of the Palestinian Authority especially when he reports on October 7 that "a mass transfer of Palestinians — although supported by some Israeli political forces — would be impossible in the current situation".
With such friends, who needs enemies.
Hall ACT
[Abridged.]
NT statehood
It didn't take long for the Northern Territory establishment to snap into defensive action after the shock loss of the referendum question on statehood.
The draft constitution is safely back in the hands of the politicians from whence it came, still unsullied by democratic principles. Now the reserve troops from Central Australia are rushing in to defend the right-wing "in the name of democracy".
Not in the spirit of democracy, evidently, else the outcome of a referendum would be binding on the government of the day.
Alawa NT
Patron saint of mass murderers
Pope John Paul's "beatification" of Cardinal Stepinac, the Roman Catholic Church's leader of Nazi Croatia, in World War II is the single grossest political act of the Papacy in recent times. Pope Pius XII (Cardinal Pacelli) collaborated with, and succoured Fascist, Nazi and Ustasha (Croatia) regimes; but he did this with practised Vatican secrecy, and through Papal legates, like Franz Von Papen, the Hitler "Government's" legate to Pope Pius XII.
In this case, under the banner of "anti-Communism", which was Hitler and the Nazis' own banner, the current Pope has endorsed policies of mass murder, mass torture by the Croatian Ustasha and Government during World War II. Was it 500,000 Serbians murdered? 200,000 Jews "exported" to Auschwitz? Who was counting anyway?
This act, which has been timed to coincide with US Imperialism's "strike" on Serbian targets and is the fanfare for a new Ustasha crusade against Serbia, re-ignites formally, the flames of the Crooked Cross (Swastika) in Europe.
While Bishop Juan Jose Gerardi Conevera in Guatemala, and Archbishop Romero in Nicaragua, were murdered by fascists and the CIA, without an angry word from his holiness, Cardinal Stepinac is elevated to sainthood, to be the first beatified, patron saint of mass murderers of humanity on earth.
Allambie Heights NSW
[Abridged.]
'Populate or perish' propaganda
It would seem that the multinationals have unleashed their propaganda machine, trotting out Malcolm Fraser, Bob Hawke, Kim Beazley, Jim Soorley and, of course, your mate and mine, John Howard, to push the old "populate or perish" line. Even when we were silly enough to reluctantly go along with that sentiment we suspected that the saying should have been "populate and perish", but, back then my parents, and their generation, still believed the government worked for us and wouldn't lead us astray.
These days we know that's a pipe dream! We know the Malcolm Frasers of the world are firmly under the influence of the rape and pillage interests and promote population growth in order that multinationals will have plenty of customers to which they can sell their inferior goods at huge mark ups. These they produce out of poor quality materials and generally are shoddily or unhygienically manufactured by a third world, dictator-run, slave labour pool.
Since our population has become excessive, we have seen working conditions, hard won by workers when we had almost full employment and business had to pay them what they were worth, thrown out the window. Workers forced to submit to urine tests and other indignities, just to hold a poorly paid job!
Please, Mal and company, crawl back into your holes, even though Australians were conned into electing one of the major parties again, I don't think we're still stupid enough to buy the huge population fairy tale!
Canungra Qld
Correction
Correction to our letter published in last issue's Write On. Jabiluka Ploughshares' web site address has changed. The correct address is <http://www.freespeech.org/ploughshares>.
Darwin
Jabiluka and the ISO
During our October 14 Sydney organising meeting for a Jabuiluka Action Group rally on November 6, I proposed that we invite a Resistance high school activist to speak. This was based on the high profile, militant mobilisations against racism organised by Resistance in recent months. All of these demonstrations strongly took up the demand to stop the Jabiluka mine.
Although they said they agreed with inviting a high school activist to speak, the ISO vehemently opposed any mention of the name Resistance on the JAG platform. They argued that Resistance uses rallies for "self-promotion" and that they would "veto" any attempt to mention Resistance's name.
Not only were they parroting the rantings of the conservative, red-baiting elements of the campaign, the ISO also displayed astounding hypocrisy. At a JAG meeting only two weeks before, they voted for a motion to support the right of any organisation to campaign on Jabiluka. One of their members made a fiery speech about how Resistance's rallies against racism were "absolutely brilliant".
Rozelle NSW
[Abridged.]
Euthanasia
Reporters asked Mr Kim Beazley what he thinks about euthanasia. He replied: "I've been around in public policy long enough to know that if you actually legalise something like euthanasia, exactly what the pressures will be on old people.
"As a humane society, what we ought to be about is caring for people in extremity and giving them the most comfortable extension of their lives we possibly can.
"If you've got something around like legalised euthanasia, you won't bother."
He's right, isn't he?
Mildura Vic
Pinochet and Thatcher
That Pinochet is in trouble is good news and very much overdue. Baroness Thatcher will be upset, but she would, wouldn't she! No doubt many of her supporters will be, including some of the British working class who, like some willfully ignorant Chilean workers, have yet to understand what a tyrant Pinochet was. So long as he put a smear of jam on their bread, nothing else mattered.
This applied also to the semi-illiterate in Britain, unable to understand that the Falkland Islands (or Malvinas) 400 miles from Argentina, should not be held by Britain 7000 miles away.
Thatcher's aim was to be re-elected at any cost. If it included the loss of British and Argentinean lives, so be it. Didn't someone say that war is politics by other means? She was helped by the many who were unable to confront the task of thinking for themselves.
How refreshing and unusual to see the prospect of Pinochet being punished for his many crimes against humanity. His friend Thatcher provides a reminder that people are known by the company they keep!
Adelaide