Write on: Letters to the editor
East Timor
Marcus Larsen's latest on East Timor (GLW #388) at least has the merit of displaying Larsen's unspoken assumptions. How, he demands, can the Democratic Socialist Party call for armed intervention in East Timor and oppose it in Kosova? The answer is not "inconsistency", but the indisputable observation that the situations were quite different.
US imperialism intervened in Kosova for its own purposes, with the intention not only of disciplining its ally Milosevic, but of preventing Kosovan independence. Far from saving Kosovar lives or preventing "ethnic cleansing", the air-war increased the killing and the displacement of civilians.
Australian imperialism resisted military intervention in East Timor because of its concern to maintain a strong Indonesian army; it took mass protests to force the Howard government to intervene. The objective effect of Interfet's presence has been to stop the killings and forced deportations, and to open the road to the independence for which East Timorese voted.
Larsen obviously doesn't think any of these facts are relevant. For him, it's sufficient to proclaim "principled anti-imperialism"; the mere phrase automatically requires one to oppose Interfet.
That is neither anti-imperialism nor Marxism, but a parody of them. It converts slogans into a substitute for thought.
Sydney
Christianity
Nick and Kate Carr's article entitled "Why God hates homosexuals and women" (GLW #388) was theologically shallow and politically foolish. It began by criticising Christianity and then veered wildly off to have a go at the Old Testament. The entire religious justification for celebrating the birth of Jesus is that his teaching overthrew the oppressive sections of the Old Testament law.
Right-wing and left-wing Christians are sharply divided on the relevance of teachings such as Leviticus in which homosexuals are definitely condemned — along with dwarfs. If Nick and Kate care to look they will see that many people fighting to overthrow capitalism worldwide are Christians and their article contributed nothing to their struggle or to helping to see that revolutionary socialists are their natural allies.
Springwood NSW
Juvenile executions in the US
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the UN Convention on Rights of the Child both forbid the execution of those who were juveniles at the time of the crime.
The USA is a party to both these international treaties yet continues to violate both by executing those who were children at the time of the crime.
Most US death penalty states allow the killing of 16 and 17 year olds. Some government officials have called for the execution of children as young as 11. Judges and governors in death penalty states are voted in on the grounds that they will execute.
The USA is supposed to be a world leader. Does this give it the right to violate international law? Is the rest of the world going to stand by and allow this practice to continue? Is the rest of the world aware of what is happening in America? Does anyone care? What can we do to stop the execution of children in the USA?
Mornington Peninsula Vic
[Abridged.]
Equal rights
Yes, I do agree that special services be available for women, i.e., a women counsellor on university campuses for women to discuss their private issues, but I firmly believe that the same service be available for men.
An article in "and ain't I a women" proposed that having a special men's counsellor for men, like there is for women, is sexist. I ask the author, has she experienced men's problems, emotional and environmental?
The proposals that men do not suffer problems emotionally and if any problems are experienced [they] are caused by men themselves support an outdated and barbaric way of thinking. I revel in the current advances of women's liberation but I believe that there should be a movement of uniting all people, whether they be male, female, heterosexual or homosexual. Remember, you cant spell equality without equal.
Perth
[Abridged.]
"Illegals"
When people try to send "illegal immigrants'"' back to places such as Afghanistan, Indonesia, Somalia and Sri Lanka etc., I think of my father who fled Poland in September 1939.
Lithuania accepted him. With Poland taken, he no longer had proof his life would be in danger — at least not of the kind that Ruddock requires.
Proof only came with the war almost over. By this time, 69 million people had been butchered due to their heritage. My father's grandparents were among them. If Ruddock had been in Lithuania in '39, my father would have been sent back to face the gas chambers.
To send the boat people back would mean at least some shall return to their death. For this reason, I wholeheartedly support your organisations' protection of these vulnerable people and their rights to stay.
Before Lithuania fell, a Japanese official forged visa papers enabling my father to escape again. Under Ruddock's legislation (supported by the ALP), Sugihara would, if caught, have been liable to be jailed for up to six years.
Strathfield NSW
WTO
Our growth-and-export-mad politicians should take note of the massive demonstration against globalisation outside the World Trade Organisation meeting in Seattle recently.
While the AFL-CIO part of the demonstration was probably orchestrated by the US Government as part of the coming presidential election campaign, most of it was largely a grassroots objection to current economic policies and theories, particularly the theory of continual economic growth.
The theory that production must be for profit and that the environment can be destroyed with impunity providing there is a dollar in it is also unacceptable to an increasing number of people, in particular those workers whose jobs have been exported and those whose working conditions and entitlements are being continually reduced by one-sided, contract and workplace agreements as a result of that globalisation, as in Australia.
Alawa NT
Tour of Duty
I hear a rumour that Yothu Yindi, Midnight Oil and Cold Chisel were out of the running for the Tour of Duty concert; banned by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade for political reasons (CC for a song about Vietnam). It would go a long way to explaining the relentlessly mainstream 'non-political' choice of acts.
And what is our government doing to have the East Timorese hostages returned from Indonesia? Maybe it can take some time off from persecuting legitimate refugees, to do that.
We need more pressure on Howard and company to do the right thing by the East Timorese, and to stop giving the wink and the nod to the Indonesian military.
Viva Timor Lorosae!
secretary, Australia East Timor Association (NSW)
Sydney