Write on: Letters to the editor
Racism
GLW (January 20) quotes Acting Queensland Premier Jim Elder, commenting on a 14-year-old Aboriginal girl being locked up in a police watch-house for a week, saying "The simple solution is don't break the law". I sent him the following letter:
"Congratulations on your fine comment about locking up a 14-year-old girl in an adult police watch-house for a week. You remind her not to break the law.
"Now that's what I call a perceptive, humanitarian observation. For two centuries the law has kept the Aboriginal people in poverty; now with a jail occupancy rate several times that of whites; until recently with an infant mortality of 'Every Second Child' (the name of Dr Kalikerino's book); unemployment at three times the national average and life expectancy of barely half of the non-indigenes.
"I forget what party it is you belong to, Mr Elder. But I'm sure Pauline Hanson and John Howard would welcome you to their front bench.
"As your solution to the plight of Aboriginal people is so simple it shows how stupid are Hawke, Keating, the Governor-General, Baptist Minister Tim Costello and most far-sighted humanitarians who believe our original inhabitants are the worst oppressed section of Australia's population."
Kelvin Grove Qld
[Abridged.]
East Timor
Col Friel (GLW #345) gives us a good (and short) letter [about East Timor's right to self-determination], but short measure on facts.
Sadly, betrayal of friends is not criminal — c. 1942, after Pearl Harbour, Japanese killed maybe 40,000 civilians in East Timor who were hiding and sheltering defeated Australian Troops (also invaders!). We said: We will never forget you"! We did. We have. That shit Whitlam shared Timor Gap oil with Indonesia, i.e., a typical politician in Australia's most despicable act ever.
Do we have anything else Indonesia might like to share? The most overpopulous Islands in world are nearest neighbour to most underpopulated unfrozen Continent in World. We only invaded Vietnam to curry favour with Yanks — to ingratiate ourselves and obtain an Ally should we need protection next century — and it was our longest war.
Indonesia's Masyumi
I've normally got a lot of respect for GLW, especially the likes of ASIET's Max Lane — despite not agreeing ideologically. There's often sound reporting — some much better than the vastly richer resourced "mainstream". Strong, well-reasoned arguments also.
But some of Max Lane's latest pronouncements leave me wondering. Max recently labelled Indonesia's 1950s Muslim Masyumi party "elitist", and not mass-based. In the only genuine elections Indonesia ever had — in 1957 — Masyumi won the largest vote of any party, far outstripping the vote for Indonesia's Communist Party, which came fourth — i.e., last.
If GLW has any commitment to the truth, surely you should publish this fact.
Surry Hills NSW
Iraq
The obsessive demonisation of Iraq by the U.S. and the U.K. seems set to continue, denying to that country any possibility to resume its appropriate place in the world community.
Means must be found to end this intolerable persecution of Iraq.
During the Spanish Civil War, 1936-39, an International Brigade was formed to defend the Spanish Republican Government against General Franco and his Nazi and Fascist co-belligerents.
An International Brigade comprising Muslims and non-Muslims and individuals of various persuasions must now be established to demonstrate to the U.S. and the U.K. that they are acting not only against the Iraqi people, but against their own citizens and world opinion as well.
Toowong Qld