Correction
A small typing error crept into my article about Paul Robeson in GLW #317 and, unfortunately, I can't blame the sub-editing; it was all my own work. As stated, Robeson was the first artist to sing at the Sydney Opera House, to the construction workers. However, it was in 1960, not 1969 as my sloppy typing had it.
Sydney
India nuclear tests
India's decision to resume nuclear testing is as regrettable as the international howl of protest is hypocritical. While the CTBT bans nuclear tests, it exempts virtual testing at which the Western nuclear powers excel.
There are no signs that the nuclear powers (including Israel) have the slightest intention of giving up their nuclear arsenals, or that Australia is willing to come out from Uncle Sam's nuclear umbrella. Remember Australia's sanctions against New Zealand when that country banned US nuclear warships?
If we were really serious about nuclear disarmament then a first step might have been banning nuclear states from the Security Council. A second step might have been reigning in weapons sales and nuclear exports by the advanced countries. Canada sold India its CANDU reactor which uniquely allows plutonium to be withdrawn without shut-down so it is easier to make bombs.
The world now faces the real possibility of a nuclear arms race in the sub-continent and elsewhere caused by our intransigence and hypocrisy. The recent rebirth of the Nuclear Disarmament Party is both prescient and tragically necessary.
(Canberra Programme for Peace) and
Dr Michael Denborough
(Nuclear Disarmament Party)
[Abridged.]
Racist bookshop closed
The working-class community of Fawkner and organised anti-fascist activists have successfully defeated National Action. During the last week of April, the fascist recruitment centre and book store located in Fawkner closed down. National Action left town without even paying rent.
Fourteen months of militant demonstrations, concerts, public meetings, poster runs, leafleting, graffiti clean-ups, educational workshops and the distribution of over 12,000 anti-fascist broadsheets built the well organised united front that finally shut down the latest attempt by the fascist National Action to set up a base in Melbourne.
Campaign Against the Nazis has called this a serious victory. But it was built on other hard fought and hard won victories against National Action in Melbourne. In 1993, the Anti-Fascist Alliance drove National Action from Northcote. In 1994, Brunswick Against the Nazis caused National Action to be chased from the Brunswick Town Hall under a hail of horse dung and militant chants, protected by the police.
This time National Action were better resourced and more dangerous, doing their very best to introduce racist violence and division among working people. Campaign Against the Nazis recognised their strategy as an attempt to stop working-class communities from standing together against the economic hardships they were experiencing.
Rather than adopting a policy of "ignore them and they'll go away", the Campaign adopted a strategy of requesting support from unions, community groups and left wing political organisations, to develop a militant campaign of confronting Nazis and fascists where they organise. The campaign's success shows that communities will resist fascist groups, and that fascists can be driven off the streets when working people organise.
There are still the "respectable" fascists to be confronted, like the Citizens Electoral Councils based in the working class suburb of Coburg. And there are racists like One Nation. There is still the Australian government which promotes genocidal policies against Aboriginal people. And there is still the possibility that National Action or some other Nazi splinter group may rebuild and resurface in Melbourne. Campaign Against the Nazis will continue the fight against fascism in all its forms.
Manrico Moro
Campaign Against the Nazis
Brunswick
[Abridged.]
John Pilger
It would be great to be living in an Australia where a million copies of John Pilger's brilliant book Hidden Agendas were sold. It is an incredibly inspiring read. As the fascinating outline on the back cover states in part, "Hidden Agendas will change the way you see the world". Green Left plays no small part in its consistent pursuit of this aim.
If John Pilger visits the US, I would fear for his safety in that gun-ridden country where he is no doubt regarded with malevolence by the government as the man who knows too much. There are others possessed of much knowledge, but without his courage or literary talent. It's a steal at $20, and on the last of its 610 pages he writes, "The fight has only just begun". How right he is. By the way, the book concludes with an invaluable 76 pages of notes and an index. Altogether a brilliant achievement.
Henley Beach SA
Telstra privatisation
This is an ordinary Australian's (a self-funded retiree "part-pensioner") thoughts on the latest Liberal Party efforts to divide the haves and have nots further.
Our PM's cynical move to sell the balance of Telstra could backfire. There must be a minimum of 6 million voters who have paid rentals on their phones for 20, 30, 40 and in my case, 50 years, and because of circumstances, are unable to buy back the system they have already paid for.
Now Mr Howard and his cronies are starting a campaign to guarantee that country people will be protected etc. Any one with half a memory can remember a certain Treasurer let banks run free (deregulated them), and warble the promises made to him by the banks that no one will be worse off, people will get better service etc. Tell that to the country people - which country towns have a bank?
Pay as you go taxpayers without a family trust fund or the capacity to negative gear, and unable to afford Telstra shares, will be doubly disadvantaged.
Mr Blount, CEO of Telstra, told investors in New York that the total sackings/retrenchments by June 2000 would be 25,552. The ordinary taxpayers will suffer if even half of the retrenched 12,776 are unable to obtain work, and particularly as the ANZ will retrench another 600, and the National Bank 5000. Work will be hard to find.
The great phone robbery is nearly as bad as the great land robbery, converting leased land to freehold. Mr Howard, the Telstra sell off is not good for all Australians. If Telstra continues to make $3.5 billion each year, over the next 20 years it could provide $70 billion to all taxpayers, and be a permanent asset for all Australians.
Richmond Vic
[Abridged.]
Richard III
Your article "Why Bother with Brecht" could well have read "Why Bother with Shakespeare".
The play Richard III, which is touched on in the Brecht article, is acknowledged, even by ardent supporters of the Stratford myth, to have the "fingerprints" of the playwright Christopher Marlow all over it.
Further, Richard III is a shoddy piece of propaganda derived mainly from the writings of Thomas More, a loyal Tudor propagandist, who was about five years old at the time Richard lost his crown at Bosworth.
Historical accuracy has been subverted to blacken Richard's name. In one part of the play Richard is supposed to have murdered the Duke of Somerset at the Battle of St Albans in May, 1455. As Richard was only two years old at the time this is quite a feat. In addition there is solid evidence that the Stratford Shakespeare couldn't even read or write let alone compose some of the greatest works in the English language.
The "works of William Shakespeare" are merely a composite of the works of literary men of the day that had to be cleared of the rigorous censorship of the late Elizabethan period. Shakespeare, working in London theatre circles, had his name attached to the plays cleared by the censor. Thus, by this strange quirk of history, the astute, but illiterate Stratford businessman became the greatest writer in the English language.
Mareeba Qld