Abortion debate
With regards to the article "Harassing us into submission" (GLW #810), what is interesting in this debate, or lack thereof, is that at no time is there dialogue on when life actually begins. This would then determine whether a termination is appropriate or not.
There are a number of possibilities here. Life could begin at conception, at birth or at 3 months, as indicated by some religious groups. It could begin when the heart first starts beating, or when the brain first starts to be formed, as is suggested medically.
We all hold differing opinions on this issue, and perhaps there is no definitive determination. What is lacking in this debate is a respect of those differing positions, and possibilities. The right-to-lifers and the religious fraternity, argue their position as if they were correct and that their opinion is the only possibility. Of course it isn't.
Though I have a different position to most of my colleagues, that life begins at conception, I don't feel that it is my place to dictate to a woman, or family, deciding for them what they should or should not do with regards to a pregnancy. And it is that position that is lacking in this matter.
Respect of differing views; open and reasonable discussion that is based on science and medicine; not religious fanaticism. That is why I fully support Socialist Alliance's position on this matter, even though I hold a totally different view.
Gregory Rowell
North Ryde, NSW
Racism is the issue
For the premier of Victoria, John Brumby, to claim a racial conclusion cannot be drawn from the recent assault on a Melbourne taxi driver [The Age, Sept 26] shows that the problem of racism starts in state parliament; not just the streets of Melbourne.
Racism, Mr Brumby, is expressed in the way a city is organised as well as through random individual acts of violence. Racism, Mr Brumby, cannot be excluded from assaults on cabbies simply because a taxi driver in Melbourne is likely to be of Indian ethnicity, quite the contrary.
When a city exploits a race of people in a systemic way then it has to be considered likely that acts of violence against subordinate groups are indeed motivated, consciously or subconsciously, by racist ideology.
Indian students are exploited in the private education market. They are forced to pay fees that are much higher than fees paid by locals and often paid to service providers whose only concern is for maximum private profit.
Melbourne has a division of labour based on ethnic lines: in which Indians and Africans work predominantly as taxi drivers and in other low-paid, low-status employment.
The history of Melbourne, Mr Brumby, and its growth and prosperity, has been sustained by racism: the exploitation of migrant labour and international students.
John Glazebrook
Endeavour Hills Vic
Australian gov't helping Tamil persecution
Recent (14/10/09) blanket coverage in the Australian devoted to asylum seekers glossed over the main point. Why are men, women and children fleeing Sri Lanka? It's not because they want the adrenalin thrill of risking life, limb and capture while spending days at sea in barely seaworthy vessels.
These people are fleeing a humanitarian crisis in Sri Lanka, which has been orchestrated by the government of Sri Lanka and motivated purely on ethnic grounds.
Around 300,000 Tamils, roughly the population of Canberra, remain under military rule in camps, which lack basic food, shelter and health requirements. NGO and independent media access to the camps is heavily restricted.
People smugglers are the middlemen, and not the root cause of why people are desperate to escape persecution, hunger and an uncertain future. They are however a convenient bogeyman for the Australian Government to apportion blame as it seeks to preserve its "warm diplomatic relations" with Sri Lanka.
Through its silence and apathy, the Australian government is helping condemn thousands of Tamil Sri Lankans to an uncertain and grim future.
Dr. Sam Pari
National Spokesperson
Australian Tamil Congress
War is peace
Consult UNICEF and you will discover that 338,000 under-five year olds in occupied Afghanistan die each year, 90% avoidably and due to non-supply of life-sustaining food and medical requisites unequivocally demanded of occupiers by Articles 55 and 56 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War.
Thus 0.9 x 338,000 = 304,000 under-five year olds in occupied Afghanistan die avoidably each year due to US war crimes under Obama. That's 304,000/365 = 833 per day or 833/day x 262 days = 218,000 since Obama has been in office.
By this utterly disgusting decision — awarding a Nobel Peace Prize to Obama who has killed more than 200,000 innocent infants in occupied Afghanistan alone (so far) — the Nobel Peace Prize Committee is saying, like Big Brother in George Orwell's "1984", that "War is Peace".
Of course, Obama is a relative newcomer to the mass infanticide in occupied Afghanistan (and occupied Iraq, occupied Palestine, occupied Haiti, occupied Somalia and north west Pakistan).
The committee overlooked the lengthier participation of Bush, Blair, Brown, Harper, Merkel, Sarkozy, Howard, and Rudd in the mass murder of Muslim Asian children.
Dr Gideon Polya
Macleod, Vic [Abridged]
The ethics of corporate journalism
This is not a letter against Zionism (although I could write one); this is a letter against the ethics of mainstream corporate journalism and journalists.
I have before me a copy of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies' At the Board, which I received as part of the Australian Jewish News. It is volume 2 of 2009 — I got it a couple of weeks ago.
At the Board has an article, "Senior journalists visit Israel". The trip was, to them, free. The journalists (and I use the word loosely) are:
Paul Sheehan, Sydney Morning Herald "senior writer";
Janet Albrechtsen, Australian "senior writer";
Jacinta Tynan, Sky News journalists; and
Peter Charley, SBS TV Insight producer.
Tom Allard of the SMH has been in a previous similar article.
What gets me is that none of these "journalists" have, to my knowledge, declared the free trips in the media in which they work. Surely a travel writer would have to.
Is this not a scandal? Does it say something about the mainstream media that this is obviously not a scandal or even an eyebrow raiser?
Stephen Langford
Paddington, NSW