London bombings I
I logged on to the Green Left Weekly website today for the first time. It was my husband who suggested I look at it.
I live in Adelaide but am English. I lived for 10 years in London before leaving in May 2003 to move here, as my husband is Australian. While in London I used the tube every day to get to work.
Last Thursday night when I heard the news from London it was with a sense of inevitability, the day we had all been waiting for. And the strange thing is, instead of being happy to be so far away, I found myself wanting to be there with my dear friends. None of them, thankfully, were involved, but I feel so far away from the people I love the most.
Since Thursday, I have read various UK websites reporting the events and am horrified at the lack of perspective reported in the English media (and the Australian, which in comparison to the UK press is pathetic).
The more I think about it, the more it is so plain and simple to me — unless the illegal occupations of Palestine, Afghanistan and Iraq are addressed politically, there will never be a resolution to the thousands of needless deaths which have occurred in the last few years (and beyond), both in these countries and subsequently in the US, Bali, Madrid and London. And the only way for this to be addressed is for people to think outside of their own lives and put pressure on their governments.
The reason for me writing is to express excitement that there is something else I can turn to which is reporting the kind of news which makes my heart beat a little faster, that there are people who are thinking like myself and my husband. That the real issues are being reported. And from reading and becoming educated with facts and figures, I will be able to debate a little more eloquently with people I meet to try and get them to think more deeply about who they vote for, and to ask them to consider the other side of the story rather than the propaganda we are fed by our politicians and newspapers.
I am nine-weeks pregnant and perhaps this is making me think a little more clearly about the world we live in. I don't want my child to grow up in fear, grimly accepting the way things are. And I don't want to do that either.
I am looking forward to attending some of the GLW events and meeting like-minded people, and I hope my small contribution will make a different to the future.
Anne Winter
Adelaide
London bombings II
Regarding the proposal for all Australian persons to have an ID card because it would help control of terrorism: I view that proposal as rubbish. Heaven forbid that the government try to explore the reasons why people resort to blowing themselves and others to kingdom come.
I was curious and fascinated to see on TV the PM displaying great Christian values by going to church with the Bush family. As I recollect, the leaders and supporters of South African apartheid were all great church-going Christians, born to rule.
The bombings in London (and other parts of the world) also show that the US policy, supported by the British government, is not making the world a safer place. George Bush always claims that his aggressive policy toward Islamic countries in the Middle East will make the world safer, more democratic and freer. On the contrary, there is now more violence and terrorist attacks in the world.
Is the US and British policy toward the Islamic world wrong? Because they have failed to prove that their policy will make the world a better place?
Do not surrender to terrorism, but maybe it is time to try another approach toward the Islamic world, in full mutual respect, in order to make Muslims more democratic, educated and prosperous.
Warren Wood
Taylors Beach, Qld
Libraries
Not long ago, I wrote to our State Library in Hobart, with a request that they might find room to display Green Left Weekly in the library foyer on the ground floor, along with the other state newspapers and nationals. I pointed out that I was finding that GLW seemed not to be widely known here at all; that it didn't seem to be available at newsagents and — as far as I knew — was sold in Elizabeth Street Mall and other city sties, distributed at rallies and that was about all.
There should hardly have been a need to emphasise its importance in a country where few appear to read other than the popular press and at least the library agreed that it was a significant paper.
GLW is displayed in the library's reference section, but the point I wanted to make was that there are hardly likely to be many requests for a paper of which there is little or no awareness!
I did write twice, but on each occasion was told that the policy did not reach to the extent of displaying in the foyer anything other than state and national papers; in addition, there was not room (I do not believe this). I should have thought that a case could be made for the consideration of this paper as a "national".
I cannot but feel that the public is being seriously deprived, and that the library policy is, at best, short-sighted and at worst, guilty of deliberately withholding information.
Alas! I wonder if more favourable responses have been forthcoming at other state libraries.
Barbara Hargrave
Kingston, Tas [Abridged]
Nauru detention
I apologise for not letting you know about my coming to Australia and hope you know my situation and forgive me. It's one month that I'm living in your community in the peaceful environment in Melbourne and wish you accept to my solidarity with you.
While I was in Nauru detention, your weekly articles were the source of awareness for me to focus on reading and gave me more strength to be hopeful of being released from that awful conditions.
I really love your articles and now know more about the outside world and events.
Aslam
Endeavour Hills, Vic
From Green Left Weekly, July 27, 2005.
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