The Digger No.42 March 1975

W h a t is fem inism ?

ISSUE NO. 42, MARCH 11 - APRIL 9, 1975.

40 CENTS

GRIM PREDICTIONS

Michael Zerman

Pages 6&7

..♦or maybe Queensland’s w ill get us the

uranium

in

end

BLANK PAGE FOR ISSUU VERSION ONLY

Page 1

Car exhausts and aerosol sprays Either they’re frying us, or we’re freezing up

by Alan Roberts W hat d o fly sp ra y s k ill? Just in sects? O r have w e b een e ffe c tiv e ly sq u irtin g d ea th all o v e r o u ise ly e s?

T his is th e ir o n ic p o s s ib ility raised b y s o m e w o r k d o n e re ce n tly o n a e ro so l sprays and th e e a rth ’s o z o n e la y er. I f this w o r k is c o r ­ r e ct, th e n w e ’ve b e e n tearing d o w n o u r o n ly barrier against d e a d ly solar ra ys, o f th e u ltra -v ib let ty p e . A n d it w ill b e sm all c o n s o la tio n t o e n d u p w ith th e b e st suntan in th e m o rg u e .

B ut th is is o n ly 't h e la test revela tion o f th e d am ag e w e m a y foe u n w ittin g ly d o in g t o th e c lim a tic c o n d itio n s w e n eed f o r survival.

What are we doing to the earth’s climate? Are we heating the earth up? Are we bringing more rain in some parts and less in others? If so, who is benefiting and who is suffering?

A century ago, questions like these would have sounded just a little bit megalomaniac. Humanity’s power to affect the climate just didn’t seem that great. But it is quite certain that today we are changing the climate; the only uncertainty lies in just hou).

Over industrialised areas o f thou­ sands o f square miles, we are tapping such sources o f power that our heat input to the atmosphere is starting to rival that o f the sun itself. The burning o f fuels in power houses, factories and cars is continually jpumping carbon dioxide into the air — which now contains aboujt ten per cent more o f the stuff than it did in 1900: The various methods o f agri­ culture — ranging from mechanised ploughing to slash-and-burn clearing o f land — are pouring out dust and smoke, thickening a dust blanket to which factory chimneys add pollu­ tion.

The scale o f these activities is now large enough to affect the earth’s heat, balance significantly. This heat balance — and the ground tempera­ tures it results in — comes about very simply: the sun pours heat energy onto the earth, the earth reflects and radiates some o f it back iqto space, and the difference goes to keeping the earth warm. But there are some tricky sides to it.

First o f all, how much heat the earth reflects back depends on what it’s made of. Ice, obviously, is a very and neither were many other people, good reflector; bitumen surfaces perhaps an indication o f the nearly make bad ones. So ice tends to pro­ 1000 unemployed in a small city o f tect itself — to ward o ff the heat that 17,000 people. However there were would otherwise melt it. drinkers there who gave me names But this means that we have the o f streets in which some miners lived. makings o f a ‘positive feedback’ Fred K erfoot is the union dele­ mechanism — which can be trans­ gate. At the moment he isn’t working lated here as meaning ‘the worse it is at the mine because his left arm was the worse it is going to get’ . For blasted in an explosion. He told me suppose the earth’s surface cools how the company, which is trying down just a little, so that the ice at to liquidate rather than- pay the the Poles is able to creep a little fur­ towards the equator. $70,000 owing in severence and holi­ ther down day pay, is a subsidiary o f an appar­ Then, because o f the extra ice cover­ ently profitable parent company: “ If age, the earth’s surface will reflect a we didn’t have the union we would be ratshit.”

When I mentioned his accident he considered himself lucky to be alive, and told me o f the other two nien who were killed in the mine in 1956 and others who have died from or been crippled by lung cancer.

Cliff Beaultitude is the union se­ cretary and he doesn’t Want to say much till after the conference in late February.

The miners produce between 500 and 700 tons o f coal a week, and at $14.60 a ton that leaves plenty o f Every year hundreds o f children money over after the $5000 weekly escape from our Institutions but no­ wages bill has been paid. body seems to know the reason. It’s For the two weeks the miners my opinion that no-one in the worked in, the Northern Rivers System cares.

County Council agreed to go on The System includes you the read­ buying the coal, thus ensuring their er and I the writer. wages. The remainder is being held in And how can we care when we are a trust fund; so the work-in has pro­ continually kept ignorant. vided at {east two weeks extra work State Public Servants are not and the possibility o f getting some allowed to tell us what they are doing holiday and severence pay.. or, what they are instructed to do.

Most o f the miners see the solution But are we, the People, interested? in getting another management, al­ The State isn’ t the only organisation though they are adamant that the looking after the deprived children o f mine runs better without manage­ our neighbours.

There arq many ment. They do n ot1see long term children being neglected in Religious workers’ control o f the mine as a Institutions as well. possibility at the moment.

It makes me wonder whether these The company apparently feels that workers are one sort o f parent at although the mine is paying, it is not work in the Institutions and another paying enough; or, in the words o f when they get home.'

Fred Kerfoot, “ they milked the mine and now they want to throw us on The writer was once thoroughly the dump.”

Institutionalised and to this day still

W ork -in at the

N ym boida pits

By Warwick Pierce Driving east from the Northern Tablelands o f NSW, Nymboida is at the end o f a dusty flint gravel road.

The road descends by an infinite number o f turns through failed dairy farms, past failed timber mills and deserted houses intertwined with sub­ tropical rainforest. Nymboida is not really a town but a ribbon o f about 20 houses along the road which funs in the middle o f a broad river valley.

It is in this town, past the sign to the rubbish dump, that one o f the most accomplished industrial actions o f the year took place, when 35 workers at the Nymboida coal mine took control o f the mine for two weeks after being dismissed on Feb­ ruary 14. The barefoot owner o f the only garage and shop in Nymboida was the first person I spoke to when I arriVed in town. “ Where’s the mine?” “ Do you want to buy it?” she replied laconically, and talked to me about the weather. About the mine she suggested that I talk to Billy Thomas* ten miles down the Grafton road. “ You can’t miss it.” I did.

Billy Thomas lives with his wife and kids in a new weatherboard house they built themselves. Next door is the slab hut they used to live in.

Billy has worked at the mine since 1949 and is high spirited about the tactic o f working in. “ We’re doing our part, but we ,want to know what the company is doing to save the mine. We’re hanging on like flying foxes.” He showed me recent copies o f Common Cause, the journal o f the Miners’ Federation, which featured front page stories about the work-in: “ It needs a crisis like this for you to fully appreciate the union.”

Billy Thomas pointed out that when they had been sacked they did not get the holiday and severence pay to which they were entitled. I learnt from Billy the names o f some other miners who lived in Grafton, and the two pubs they could be found in. The miners were not in the pubs,

bit more heat; so it will get colder; so the water even nearer the equator will freeze — that is, the polar ice will creep down more; so still more heat is reflected, more water freezes . . .

And o f course, it works out the other way to o : the more the ice melts, the more it’s going to melt.

One model o f the earth’s climate gives this result: because o f the feedback effect, a rise o f less than half a degree Centigrade in the sur­ face temperature would melt the south polar ice completely.

Would this bother us much? Judge for yourself: if the Greenland ice cap melted, it would raise the level o f the world’s seas by over 20 feet.

(Just one foot would wipe out Venifce.)

Even short o f such a disastrous melt, a change in the spread o f the ice caps could cause violent upsets in the world’s weather. As some leading weather people have summed it up: “ The most sensitive surface state appears to us to be the ice and snow, particularly Arctic sea ice, because o f the large change o f albedo (i.e. ref­ lectivity) accompanying a change in its area and the relative ease o f modi­ fication . . . The empirical models suggest that a small change in mean air temperature or in solar radiation reaching the surface could result in considerable expansion or contrac­ tion o f the ice pack — a climatic change o f great significance to human life.” / This was one o f the conclusions reached in, the R eport o f the Study o f Man's Impact on Climate, spon­ sored by the Massachussetts Institute o f Technology (published under the title Inadvertent Climate Modifica­ tion, M.LT. Press, 1971). Another ‘sensitive’ factor the SMIC report treats is the role o f the carbon di­ oxide (CO 2 ) in the atmosphere.

There’s not much o f this gas abound - less than one part in three thousand by volume — but it is Cru­ cial to our well-being. The key fact here is that the kind o f heat put out by the sun is different from the kind o f heat radiated back by the earth.

(This is obvious enough — th'e sun puts out much o f its heat as visible,

LETTERS

Address tó: P.O. B ox 77, Carlton , Vic. 3053

Letter to the blind

‘short-wave’ light, while the earth changes this into invisible, ‘lo n g -, wave’ , or infra-red, radiation before sending it back into space.)

We are lucky enough to have an atmosphere which discriminates against this long-wave stuff and sends much o f it back to the earth, al­ though it has been almost ‘ trans­ parent’ to the heat in its visible-light form, as it came down from the sun.

The result is that the atmosphere acts like a blanket keeping us warm — and it does so very efficiently.

Without this atmospheric blanket, the earth’s surface temperature would drop by about 14 degrees Centigrade.

One o f the most important parts o f the air for this ‘blanket effect is that comparatively rare carbon di­ oxide. The more there is o f it, the more heat will be stopped on its way to outer space and sent back down to earth. Or: the more carbon di­ oxide, the hotter it will get.

We’ve already stepped up the amount significantly; the best predi­ ction is that another 20 per cent will be added by the end o f the century.

The SMIC report’s conclusion: “ Doubling o f the C 0 2 concentra­ tion could effect an increase o f the temperature near the surface by about 2 degrees Centigrade, while the increase from 320 to 370 parts per million expected by the year 2000 A.D. could result in an increase o f the temperature by 0*5 degrees Centigrade.”

Is this what we have to fear — warming up, ice melting, drastic weather changes? Maybe not. Maybe the trouble is quite the opposite.

The atmospheric pollution, for in­ stance, in the form o f dust and smoke particles. Here the main effect is probably to cut down the hea( in­ put from the sun — and so bring about a codling o f the earth’s surface.

Reid Bryson, director o f the In­ stitute for Environmental Studies at the University o f Wisconsin, believes that this has in fact happened over recent decades, and beaten the in­ creased C 0 2 effect so that a net codling has resulted.

The main damage due to the increased CO2 , he thinks, may not lie in overall warming, but in something quite different and much more immediate: the dry-weather pattern seen in recent years over large parts o f the world, extending from the Sahelian region o f North Africa which has experien­ ced a massive and apparently per­ manent drought, accompanied by massive starvation, right through India and on to China.

The mechanism is a little complir

cated, depending on the fact that the C 0 2 layer warms the surface more than the upper air, and thereby changes the distribution o f rainfall.

If Bryson is right, the horrors o f thé Sahelian drought — reducing the nomad Touaregs, for example, to the squalor o f refugee tents — were con­ tributed to, if not initiated, by the chimneys and car exhausts o f the affluent West.

when trying to communicate with the young. And if that’s a fair state­ ment, what can be said to or o f the Public Seryants presently trying to understand and help the Institut­ ionalised Grown Ups out at Pentridge.

What they need now and in the immediate few months would "be any one or more o f the following: 1. truck or bus mechanic 2. electrician 3. carpenter 4. expert on tropical agriculture, particularly expert in improvising inexpensive transitional improve­ ments 5. builder with knowledge o f con­ crete blocks or brick construction

If you the People o f the People, for the People, by the People aren’ t gonna be with the People, then the writer may have to find another, but obviously better way o f writing to blind people.

Name Supplied Melbourne, Vic.

bears the scars.

Two young guys that I picked up o ff the streets the other night had de­ cided to go AWOL from *a Boys Home.

From these two 14 year olds I learnt the System has improved, but 'slowly.

It has improved materially in that they are fed better and more oppor­ tunities are available for them to take their respective educations further.

But I can still see no evidence o f troubled kids being understood and, understood for the sake o f, others following.

I have a personal theory that these so-called misfits and outcasts are j Having spent some days over New really experts that we, the so-called | Year in the Trobriand Islands and grown-ups, can actually learn from. establishing contact with the What adult would approach a Kabisawali movement, I have just youngster on this basis? received a call for solidarity from A person who hasn’t lived behind John Kasaipwalova. The fruits o f the walls, bars and other “ Bricks” o f social revolution are in danger o f Law must find it terribly frustrating being lost.

Trobriands need

tradespersons

You will notice a theme o f uncer­ tainty in many o f the statements above, with lavish use of- ‘ probably’ and ‘may’ and ‘could’ . This correctly indicates our present state o f know­ ledge about the global effects o f human activities on the climate. The SMIC report abounds with admissions o f ignorance in some o f the most vital fields: . “ Insufficient knowledge o f the optical and chemical properties o f the particles . . . Insufficient obser­ vations o f the radiative properties o f polluted atmosphere . . . not now possible to provide a comprehensive explanation for the observed ozone distribution ; . . without additional research and monitoring programs the scientific community will not be able to provide the firm answers which society may need . . . ” There are no grounds for blaming the scientists involved, who are, doing their competent or sometimes even brilliant best. We should point the bone rather at the values which guidé the allocation o f finance qpd re­ sources in this society. At a time when millions were lavished on giant accéleratprs to pin down more pre­ cisely the properties o f subatomic particles, no grants were made to de­ termine just how much ozone in the air above us was shielding us from the sun’s destructive ultra-violet rays.

(Let us not even speak o f the billions spent on the development o f weapons systems . . . ) Speaking o f ozone, let’s go back to our opening point: aerosols and the Ozone layer. Ozone is a form o f oxygen, the vital breathing element in the air. But where ordinary ox y ­ gen has its atoms hooked together in pairs, ozone is made up o f triplet atoms; and this difference is very im­ portant when harmful ultra-violet (short-wave) light tries to pass through. Ordinary oxygen lets it through easily; ozone — even a little bit o f it — will absorb it and make it harmless.

Even though the ozone layer is very thin, it protects all animal life on earth from these damaging ultra­ violet rays (which are thought to cause skin cancer if increased in in-

tensity even alitile bit). So anything which threatens the ozònp layer automatically threatehs humanity.

Just in the last year, disturbing evidence has emerged that the layer is threatened from an unexpected quarter: aerosol sprays.

The recipe for making an aerosol spray is simple. Take a tin o f insect spray or deodorant or shaving cream, force inside it some gas under high pressure, and fit a finger-operated valve at the top. Just one precaution; make sure your propellant gas doesn’t react chemically with your product.

The most popular propellant is Frèon, which is highly inert — i.e, it reacts with practically nothing, so that the contents won’t be contami­ nated. But it is this very inertness which is the trouble, for it means that, once released, the particles o f Freon will hang around for a long time, and eventually drift upwards into the upper atmosphere.

This happens to be where the ozone is. It also happens to be where the undiluted sunlight is, in its full strength before it is weakened by passage through the thicker.air be­ low. And Freon, so inert down at the earth’s surface, can now be broken up; and unfortunately, what it gets broken up into can attack those ozone atom-triplets and eventually change them into ordinary old atompairs — i.e., ordinary oxygen. And ordinary oxygen just lets that harm­ ful ultra-violet through.

The work to date suggests that enough Freon has been squirted into the air to make a significant differ­ ence to the ozone layer. Whether enough ozone has been destroyed to harm humanity’s health is still in doubt; but it becomes well-nigh cer­ tain before long if the use o f such sprays grows at the present rate.

Even the tentative data we have now justifies an immediate ban on the manufacture and use o f these sprays. But large amounts o f capital are involved here; what’s your guess as to the time it will take to get such a ban?

Despite the uncertainties rin our knowledge o f what we’re doing to the only earth we’ve got, the heat energy and dust particles and gas pollutants and Freon continue to pour out into the atmosphere. Let people boast to you as much as they like about the Gross National Pro­ duct this system can turn out, and the staggering array o f consumer pro­ ducts it has devised, and so on; but never let them tell you that it’s a system that makes sense . . . Or that we can’t make a better one.

Folksingers

Would you be so kind as to allow me to use the letters columns o f The Digger to pass on a message to that fine band o f scruffy subversives commonly known as folk song writers.

For some years now the Newcastle Trades Hall Council May Day Com­ Any or all would be welcome. The mittee has attempted to encourage movement is building a guest accom o­ in some small way this noble art by dation for any such tradesperson to sponsoring an annual folk song prize. spend, say, two to four weeks, partDue to an even bigger response time •teaching and passing on the last year, and the winner, Michael elements o f looking after “ Western” O’ Rourke (formerly o f St. Kilda) basic machinery. pissing o ff and leaving no forwarding address, the committee has increased Book-keepers and accountants are the prize money this year to $100 equally welcome to help improve and $25. knowledge o f simple business prin­ Entry forms are available by ciples. writing to the May Day office Trades The local opposition is busy organ­ j Hall, Union Street, Newcastle 2300.

If Mick O’ Rourke is cultured and ising competitive enterprises, under­ intelligent enough to be a Digger mining the social revolution in the reader, the committee will come Trobriands by exploiting the techno­ good with his dough, should he con­ logical backwardness o f many in the tact us and perhaps give the Digger movement. a shout for passing on the good oil.

Steve Cooper, Ross Walters AMWU Commonwealth Research (Newcastle May Day Committee) Centre, Hamilton, NSW. 126 Chalmers Street, Surry Hills, NSW 2010 More letters page 10

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THE DIGGER

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NEW P R IC E

RESE IN The latest postage rise puls up the posted cost by six cents a copy. That makes an extra 78 cents for a year, which means M:: new subscription rale is $6.00 fo r 13 issues, or $12.00 fo r 26 issues.

We don 7 like it either and we're trying to w restle-the PMG into a belter deal.

EARTH NEWS W h ite desire Playwright Tennessee Williams sued to prevent a prominent black actor from playing the lead part o f Stanley Kowalski in his play A Street Car Named Desire. The suit in a West German court resulted in the judge deciding it was alright for a black man to play the role, provided he wore white make-up.

—Georgia Straight

Sexists, you’re next Ten Somalian men were publicly shot by firing squad on January 22 for agitating against the government’s decree granting equal rights to wo­ men, according to an Associated Press dispatch from Mogadishu, the capital. The ten were found guilty on charges o f exploiting religion to cause national disunity and o f sub­ verting state authority, particularly by attempting to arouse opposition in mosques to the equal rights law.

23 other men were sentenced tc terms o f 17 to 30 years imprison­ ment on the same charges.

—New York Guardian

D eafened Eskim os Replacement Qf dog sleds with snow-mobiles, and the use o f hunt­ ing rifles, may have contributed sub­ stantially to the partial hearing loss o f 85 per cent o f the adult Eskimo pop­ ulation in the Baffin zone o f Northern Canada.

So concluded Dr. J.D. Baxter and his colleagues at McGill University after conducting a study o f 3770 Eskimo people o f all'ages. They also foujidna high percentage o f Eskimo children (about 18 per cent) suffering from: middle ear disease and loss o f hearing, possibly associated with the increased use o f dry pre-fabricated housing which reduces humidity and thereby interferes with normal nasal secretions that would otherwise help protect against Eustachian tube in fection in the Arctic cold.

—Georgia Straight

D olefu l office

To: Subscriptions The Digger P.O. Box 77 Carlton 3053.

Name:

Address:

Postcode: I enclose $p.00/$12.00 for 13/26 issues o f the four weekly Digger.

Please make cheques or postal orders payable to Hightimes Pty. Ltd. and cross them not negotiable.

March 11 — April 9

The Digger has an even wider circulation than I imagined. So wide, in fact, that an article which appeared in the last issue (“ What a Hassle” by Dolores Day) found its way myster­ iously into the very building, the very office that it was describing: the Unemployment Benefits Office on the ninth floor o f the Australian Government Offices, Melbourne.

Several photostated copies o f the article were circulated among high and low ranking members o f staff.

The immediate result was an out­ raged furore that the activities o f that office had been ‘ exposed’. The subsequent result (approximately half an hour later) was that the television cameras and the news-hounds rolled in to cover the scene; and they have been relentless in their coverage ever since.

The following day, two people working for the Unemployment Union, (see Digger no. 40) were in the building handing out leaflets publicising the rally in* the City Square on February 14 (which, by the way, was poorly attended . . . and the masses o f unemployed were conspicuous by their absence). They were very soon told by a senior employee o f the Department to vacate the premises. As they were leaving the building they ¡ passed several members o f the constabulary in uniform on their way upstairs.

This must have been the one time that the Department didn’t rely on the Commonwealth police who are always present in the building, ready to deal with any tricky situation.

The situation on the ninth floor has remained much the same in the past month except that the number o f people registering complaints has dwindled. Understaffing still seems to be the major problem. Under a previous system, clerks worked two weeks behind the counter then two weeks elsewhere. The shift is now monthly with a review after two weeks. The reason given for this is that the directors want only the

most efficient clerks working behind the counter. An admirable concept, except for the fact that working behind the counter dealing with com ­ plaints eight hours a day in several different languages that you don’t understand is a job involving an extraordinary amount o f pressure and is considered to be a shit job; a job you cop when y ou ’re a junior Clerk and which you get out o f as soon as you can. On top o f this, most clerks, at present, are working a large amount o f overtime to catch up with the backlog. Much muttered complaining goes on amongst the staff but when meetings are held to discuss conditions everyone clams up; fear o f the sack looms large.

It seems obvious that twelve or more clerks handling the complaints and getting regular tea and lunch breaks ’ would work much moreefficiently than seven or eight over­ worked clerks whose physical well­ being is constantly threatened either by irate customers or the strain o f having worked a high pressure job for too long. It might alleviate the unemployment situation slightly too.

Expanding C h ile LAN-Chile airline has opened a new South Pacific route to Australia via Fiji. The inaugural flight carried cargo from Punta Arenas to Sydney.

The company is also to begin regular flights to the Philippines, and may shortly extend its network to include Hong Kong and Japan.

—Latin America

Junta torture Columnist, Jack Anderson, has dis­ covered that a 31 year old American woman was “ brutally tortured last month by Chilean Air Force officers in an insffct ridden prison” — yet the US State Department has failed to even protest the incident.

According to Anderson, art teach­ er, Amy Conger, was arrested on October 11 last year by the Chilean police. He states she was “ threatened with death, forced to ride naked through the streets, and thrown on a bed and threatened with rape” .

Anderson adds that the woman was catapaulted down stairs while blind-folded, deprived o f ; water, de­ nied sleep and forced to stand until she was exhausted.

All this to folrce her to sign a false confession. She finally signed after threats o f being transported to an infamous torture centre where prisoners have been known to have been subjected to electric shocks, stretched on a rack and immersed in human excrement.

After signing the confession, Amy Conger was released to US State De­ partment officials who have not so much as requested an apology. In­ stead the US government is planning to give Chile aid to the tune o f $85 million.

—Zodiac News Service

7000 years after in D hofar The following document is the translation o f an interview with Liberation, the French radical news­ paper, given by Heini Srour, an Arab film-maker. She recently re­ turned from Dhofar, a liberated area in the Persian Gulf area, where she has filmed The Hour o f Liberation Has Struck.

Although Britain officially with­ drew its “ operational forces” from the Gulf in 1971, it continues to supply; the puppet government o f the Sultan o f Oman with arms, officers and training.

The US is also supplying military aid to Oman, (see “ CIA’s Veiled Arabian Activities” , Digger no.41) In Oman’s Dhofar province, an area about the size o f Scotland, armed struggle has been waged since June 1965 by the Popular Tront for the Liberation o f the Occupied Arab Gulf. The liberation struggle in Dhofar threatens not only the Sultanate as a whole, and therefore the ‘stability’ o f the entire Gulf area, but one o f the richest sites o f imperialist investment, and the

B ook on the C obb source o f the capitalist world’s most vital asset — oil. * * * Liberation: What struck you most about the liberated zon e?

Heini: What impressed me most was the maturity o f men and women on the women’s question. From the outset women rejected a ‘ stagist’ approach and demanded that the Front (PFLOAG) abolish the Mahl (dowry), polygamy and repudiation.

(In Arab cultures a husband can unilaterally terminate a marriage).

For centuries women had been treated as commodities to be bought and sold. With the outbreak o f armed struggle the women took part, pro­ viding hiding places and food , and passing on information. At first, in the camps o f the revolution only six out o f three hundred political and military trainees were women; by 1971 they represented half. All trainees left to become part o f the leadership, without discrimination.

They have just formed the Omani Women’s Union, a pressure group for women’s self-development.

Liberation: How does the ‘femin­ ism' o f the men Work out in prac­ tise?

Heini: Let me situate that within my own experience as an Arab mili­ tant.

I have been an active militant in the Arab world for ten years, both directly and in support com ­ mittees. Ten years ago when we wanted to form a women’s study group in Lebanon our male political comrades soon managed to dissolve it, under the pretext that it would be more efficient if integrated into the wider m ovem ent.. But “ integra­ tion” for them meant disintegration for us. My experience o f the women’s question within political groups has been fairly bitter. In political cells any discussion o f the women’s ques­ tion is absolutely taboo: verbal terrorism! Other “ priorities” always crop up! And whatever you do the question can never be raised. Ob­ viously their practise is male chauvin­ ist and sexist, but in their theory too the women’s question is con­ spicuous only by its absence. That is to say, men may be atheists«; marxists etc. (and this is very good for someone whose culture is feudal) but they nevertheless find it quite

normal to cloister their sisters and then marry them o ff at random.

And always you get the same answer: “ All right, so we’re marxists, but we’re still part o f this society” or else “ We were brought up the same as everybody else; you ’re not born a revolutionary, you have to change” (they’ve been saying that for the last ten years) or “ Yes, but we have had harems for 7,000 years, we have dominated women for 7,000 years, and we can’t just change and abandon our beliefs, our education, our consciousness overnight” . They just avoid the whole issue.

Liberation: And what about Dhofar?

Heini: For the first time in my life I saw men who, despite a tribal and feudal education which had taught them to despise women, had decided to give up their male privi­ leges — a situation very different from the Middle East where there is an atmosphere o f “ moral terror” against feminism.

In Dhofar this moral terror is applied to male chau­ vinism. One o f the Twenty Five political lessons you are given when you enrol in the people’s militia or the people’s army is, about wo­ men’s liberation.

It is ' radically approached, and is treated along with Imperialism, the People’s War etc. It says that “ the man who is not a feminist is not a revolutionary” full stop! Why isn’ t he a revolu­ tionary? Because if we fight, if we give martyr’s blood, it is not to build a society where one half o f the population oppresses the other In the liberated regions when a wo­ man learns Arabic (women usually speak only their local unwritten dia­ lect) the military leader is proud o f her, and says: “ She is brilliant, she has made great progress” .

Liberation: Isn’t that a paternal­ istic attitude?

Heini: Not at all; they really are proud. One day I was relating to a comrade on the central committee my bad experiences with the Arab Left. I was asking him, “ How did you come to have feminist men?” “ I don’t understand,” he replied. “ If you are a revolutionary it follows that you are a feminist.” “ No it doesn’t,” I said. “ One o f the leftist men in Beirut told me: “ If my sister’s behaviour brought disgrace on the family I should kill

Published by High Times Pty Ltd, 3 5 0 Victoria Street, North Melbourne, Vic. Printed by, Peelprint Pty Ltd, Peel Street,

The, most elaborate and up to date collection o f Ron C obb’s cartoons has just been released by “ Wild arid W ooley” publishers, Sydney at $5.00. This book holds remarkably high quality prints o f all his famous drawings, including some previously unpublished in Australia and several drawn for Digger during his 1972/3 trip. During his recent visit for the b o o k ’s release we organised with Cobb the printing o f his new cartoons in Digger on a regular basis. her to save the family’s honour.

Liberation: Did 'you find the w q Otherwise I would lose my political men o f Dhofar reluctant to talk? credibility in the village.”

Heini: No, the women are spon­ “ And what did you ‘d o?” asked taneously more revolutionary. It’s the comrade. not that the theories which the “ I struggled and struggled for women put into practice are more ten years, but I didn’ t get anywhere; vanguardist, but that, in my view, in the end, as I was alone, I just they work according to a quite dif­ shut up.” ferent dynamic. There is simply this This answer drove him mad, and egalitarian spirit in the people’s army his reaction to it was both the — there is no rank, no hierarchy — worst and the most terribly beautiful and this operates in the women’ s moment o f my stay in Dhofar. “ You favour. Wherever there is a hier­ shut up?” he screamed. “ You shut archical structure women are kicked up?” I was afraid that they would to the bottom o f the ladder. refuse me permission to shoot the Liberation: What sort o f specific film; I was politically categorised; problems have women got? this was the end. I knew moreover Heini: Sometimes they come and that the Dhofaris, out o f courtesy, say to you: “ This lesson about w o­ never lecture you for advancing ideas men’s liberation — it’s fine in theory which they consider false. They pre­ but when we attend military training, fer to remain silent, and one merely our muscles don’t obey any more, senses their disagreement. But on we are not equal, it’s not true.” this occasion the comrade from the Then a discussion starts where it is Central Committee really flipped. explained that if women are not He dropped his machine gun and equal it’s not a product o f nature yelled: “ You shut up? Why on earth but o f cultural conditioning. For did you com e to the liberated zone centuries they have been cloistered, then? You are a bourgeois woman. playing domestic roles; so that in You are neither a worker nor a public life, or in production they find farnier:woman. You claim to be pro­ their muscles atrophied completely. gressive, but if you don’ t fight for If they train they become more the things that concern you directly, energetic, stronger, more lively. And how are you going to fight for the with the passing o f generations w o­ workers and farmers that you have men will certainly become as strong never even known? How are you as men. There is no such thing as going to fight for them when you “ human nature” . give up your own principles? Don’t Dhofar is a “ tribal” society where call yourself a radical. You have “ I” does not exist. People identify ‘ studied, you have travelled. Arep’t with the tribe, the collective — which you ashamed to see that the old in Dhofar now means the Revolution. nomads who live here in their huts The Dhofari people are stoical in are more progressive than you, when the extreme. They live with bullets it comes to women’s liberation?” inside them which they’ve been un­ What was obvious to the Dhofaris able to remove. When they are in­ was barely comprehensible to me, jured they carry on walking. When coming as I did from the Arab women deliver their babies they do world, from class society. I have it on their own, without the help been able to walk 400 kilometres, o f doctors or midwives. They are not spend three nights Without, sleep, even helped by other women. eat once a day and still cope both * * * emotionally and physically because o f the feminist attitude o f the sol­ diers o f the people’s army. Once “I f we must name a human being for instance when we were caught in whom all forms o f oppression in a bomb attack I felt sure we and exploitation are accumulated in were all going to be burnt alive with any class society, we shall call this napalm. I was literally sick with human b e in g ‘ Woman.’ ” fear, but the people in the escort ‘The success o f any revolution must pretended not to notice. In the be measured by the degree o f wo­ Lebanon they would never have for­ m en’s liberation. ” gotten, I can assure you. They would —Texts from the PFLOAG in Dhofar have said: “ You were shit scared; we saw you; you are a coward.”

—P eople’s News Service

March 11 — April 9

THE DIGGER

Page 3

T im o r: 3 0 0 0 Indonesian troops are at our border!’

by Grant Evans

Indonesian attitude to Eastern Timor.

Gough Whitlam is responsible for In June last year Ramos-Horta, a the menacing Indonesian invasion leader o f the Revolutionary Front threat to Eastern (Portuguese) Timor. for an Independent East Timor It was only following l^hitlam’s visit (FRETILIN) visited Jakarta and re­ to Jakarta in September last year that ceived assurances from Adam Malik, Indonesia began to take a more aggres­ the Indonesian Foreign Minister, that sive stance toward the political devel­ Indonesia would respect the right o f opments in the island. During his Eastern Timor to independence, and visit Whitlam made a “ gentleman’s indeed welcome it. agreement” with Suharto that it This attitude changed rapidly fol­ would be better for all concerned if lowing Whitlam’s Jakarta visit. Im­ Eastern Timor was integrated with mediately after his talks with Suharto the western half o f the island already radio Kupang, situated in the capital under Indonesian rule. o f the Indonesian half o f Timor, Only ten years ago, presumably began beaming broadcasts across the in his more fiery and youthful days, eastern half o f the island attacking Whitlam said that Australia wouldn’t FRETILIN as “ communist” , and the have a friend in the world if it sup­ Timorese Democratic Union (UDT) ported the Portuguese domination o f gs “ worse than the Portuguese fas­ East Timor. At that time the Labor cists” , claiming that it would be best Party was also committed in its for Eastern Timor to unite with In­ programme to the liberation o f Tim­ donesia. or (see ‘ First stop on the route to Throughout October and Novem­ dope and riches’ , Digger 34). ber bizarre stories about Chinese cbmFollowing eacn o f his overseas »munist agitation in Eastern Timor junkets, Whitlam never tires o f re­ and about a Chinese communist gen­ peating that Australia has a new eral flying into the isalnd via Can­ standing in international affairs, es­ berra to direct operations began to pecially amongst the ‘ third world’ appear in the Indonesian army news­ countries, because o f its support paper Berita Yuda. Similar stories for the self-determination o f the appeared in Sinar Harapan a large weaker and poorer nations o f the Indonesian daily. world. It seems, however, that this Atrthe end o f November Adam < policy begins and ends about 500 Malik, using the regulation Alice in miles o ff the Australian coast.

Wonderland logic o f the Indonesian Of course the ALP have said that dictatorship, said there were only they support self-determination for two options for Eastern Timor: one, Eastern Timor and that they will re­ to go with Indonesia, the other to spect the wishes o f the majority stay with Portugal. But as staying there (what else can they say!). But with Portugal would mean the con­ by their action, or should we say in­ tinuation o f colonialism (which is in­ action, they have effectively given imical to the Indonesian regime) the Indonesia an open go. Even with re­ inference is that East Timor should ports o f an imminent invasion integrate with Indonesia. o f Timor making headlines in This, finally brought forth some the daily papers over the past few response from Australiá, and the Min­ weeks the Labor Government has ister for Foreign Affairs, Senator chosen to remain silent, and not issue Willisee, simply said he disagreed. a warning to Indonesia. When chal­ Malik then denied what he had said. lenged in parliament about Timor Then the Indonesian press went Whitlam chose to remain silent. completely silent on the issue over December and January, until Janur INDONESIAN PREPARATIONS. ary 28 when a small editorial com ­ ment in Sinar Harapan stated once Figuring out the machinations and again that it would be best if East backstabbing that goes on amongst Timor went with Indonesia. the Indonesian gonerals is a tricky That was the lull before the • business. And it is difficult to say storm: definitely who is behind the invasion In the last week o f February the preparations for Timor, or who would Indonesian press suddenly erupted get the kudos if such an invasion took with hysterical reports about a place. We can, however, isolate four “ leftist takeover” in East Timor. The distinct but cumulative phases in the ' official government newsagency,

A ge reported from Dili that one o f the traditional chiefs had been arrested in Eastern Timor because he had been sending recruits across the border (“ refugees” from “ leftist terror” ?) He had done this under in­ struction from four Indonesians who could only have been intelligence agents.

And what kind o f capital will the Indonesian military make o f his arrest? It’s the old double-headed coin trick — if the chief manages to send trainees over into Indonesia, then well and good. If he’s arrestedthen it’s simply another example o f leftist suppression o f the democratic wishes o f the Timorese people. After all, the Indonesian press has the support o f the majority o f people in East Timor.

For me that’s all the levels tied together, and as far as I’m concerned that means invasion, no matter who denies it.

WHO CARES?

There are only 2000 troops in Timor to resist an Indonesian invasion. The Timorese only have their spears and

Antara, claimed that “ de facto au­ thority has been practically taken over by leftist groups who are using

Playground takeover in R edfern

by Martin Mowbray Douglas Street lies in darkest South Sydney, the municipality with the smallest amount o f open space in -NSW, and with the lowest aver rage incomes, the highest proportion o f unemployed and factory workers and the highest proportion o f blacks and migrants.

Rachel Forster Hospital, in the heart o f Redfern, is doing its bit to keep up the imbalance.

In September last year, a letter and a petition were sent by the residents o f Douglas Street asking that the Rachel Forster Hospital’ s land, unused for 40 years, be made into a playground for the 85 kids that live in the street. The request was merely for use o f the land until the hospital wanted it for some­ thing more constructive and healthy than a defacto garbage dump.

Among the ten members on the hospital board who received the let­ ters were Ladies Stephen and Macarthur-Onslow, and Vincent Fairfax, along with Mrs W.H.Cullen, OBE. These aristocrats were too busy with their social and charitable engagements to take the time to reply.

The hospital told South Sydney Council that it was indeed consider-

ing “ appropriate utilisation” .

So appropriate, rumor had it, that a carpark (with “ Doctors Onl^” signs?) would be built.

In any case, a new and more effective fence was a certain response to the residents’ approach; the con ­ tractors checked the area out.

Seven months after the most rea­ sonable o f requests was made, it was absolutely clear that the only chance locals had fo r justice was to take the business into their own hands.

Residents o f the immediate and surrounding areas planned for two weeks in the middle o f February.

A rough lay-out Was drafted, with sketches. The idea was firstly to have the area take rapid shape for political purposes, (press to photo­ graph, council and hospital to see), and secondly to still leave plenty for the kids to do themselves.

Lots o f material had to be located — timber, bolts and nails, sand and cement, bricks, wheelbarrows, and garden and building tools.

Firms provided a lot o f these free. The rest was openly appro­ priated from generous organizations such as the Public Transport Com­ mission.

On Takeover Day, Saturday Feb­ ruary 22, the kids were up early

and out in force to help flatten the old fence and distribute leaflets around the neighbourhood. They had been primed by Julie, Marie and John, activists living in their street whom they had gotten to know very well.

Their parents, nearly all Greek and Lebanese, joined in the takeover.

The Press and the Council were informed o f what was going on.

Soon the former wasteland was cleared o f garbage and transformed into a playground and a park. The wholehearted community activism and spontaneity was the best thing that’s happened in South Sydney for years.

Even the police, in the face o f it all, refrained from taking direct or intimidatory action.

Stung by the peasant uprising the General Medical Superintendant o f the hospital, J. T. Clift,'hastened to the site, arrogantly dispensed threats in unintelligible legal jargon and stormed off.

Later a large sign was displayed warning against trespassing on the land that had not been used for two generations (and priced, inci­ dentally, at $600,000 an acre).

Clift summoned the hospital board members from their residences in Double Bay, Bellevue Hill, Vaucluse* and Camden to a special meeting on February 26. Three ward alderpersons were invited, but no residents.

The takeover had attracted so much publicity that the hospital was compelled now to turn the “ park” over for the council to manage.

This was done reluctantly with much hypothesising about the role o f “ un- desirables” who don’t respect the “ proper channels” .

It was a clear victory for the residents.

Council has responded to pressure to consult the neighbourhood over what else is to be built and on management.

Final Health Commission blessing is required and it is proposed that the hospital will be able to resume the park at a month’s notice. But Douglas Street is now a different place both physically and in its spirit. The people will have a say in the future.

intimidation and threats against its opponents. Meanwhile in a situation leading to an absolute power take­ over by the communists . . . the Gov­ ernor o f Portuguese Timor has re­ cently issued a permit to the ' FRETILIN* party to purchase arms.”

A few days later, on February 27, Antara claimed that a “ hateIndonesia” campaign inspired by communists was creating an “ explo­ sive’ ' situation in East Timor. It claimed that hundreds o f people had fled the colony into Indonesia in face o f “ terror1inflicted by the left­ ists” . It said the pro-Indonesian party APODETI, had borne the brunt o f these attacks.

cal denial o f any Indonesian inten­ tion to invade by the Indonesian Am: bassador to Australia (March 6) which received widespread publicity in Melbourne was a carefully timed sedative to fears o f invasion in Australia.

Looking at it this way the Indon­ esian propaganda campaign has been running like clockwork. Firstly get everyone to believe that you are go­ ing to invade — let them get used to the idea — relax them with a tension easing statement, and by the time you invade people will be asking why you didn’ t move earlier.

If you don’t believe in the “ war o f nerves” approach then one can construct a scenario which gives a real basis to the psychological cam­ paign.

At the beginning when Indonesia, like everyone else, knew very little about what was happening in Timor it took a “ soft-line” approach. When it began to realise that the indepen­ dence movement in Eastern Timor meant business they took a closer look at the situation. Any slightly left leaning party like FRETILIN viewed through the eye o f a para­ noid Indonesian General1can easily be seen as a potential, if not real, communist threat. The result — worry; about what was happening in Timor, and about what neighbours like Australia would do if you tried to do something about it.

At the same time the Jakarta paper New Standard, sponsored by General Ali Murtapo, President Su­ harto’s top national sicurity adviser who is supposed to be handling the Timor issue for the Indonesian gov­ ernment, made the strongest Indon­ esian claim yet, based on geographic and ethnic ties, on Eastern Timor.

Like Antara it expressed fears o f a communist takeover; “ The area which is small and weak will easily fall prey to power plays o f the great powers. The adoption o f integration into Indonesia might be the best sol­ ution for the implementation o f the decolonisation.”

On March 2 Adam Malik said: “ The Indonesian government will not stand back if the people o f Port­ uguese Timor are subjected to Whitlam didn’t seem too con terror” . The Indonesian press have cerned, so you begin a propaganda also accused the Portuguese o f not campaign aimed firstly at trying to carrying out their original de­ influence the ideas o f people in colonisation plans and o f making a Eastern Timor. And to some degree secret agreement to hand over power this worked. The people in Timor I by mid-year to a “ left-leaning” pro­ talked with were worried about how visional government in Timor. Malik Indonesia would react to any de­ rejoined that if Portugal did not cisions they made — whether it be carry out its promises then “ at some inside Timor or in terms o f inter­ national relations (see “ Timor: Half time we would not be able to stand it”, an island up for grabs” Digger no.

Meanwhile “ top secret intelligence1 38). But at the same time nearly everyone I spoke with didn’t want to reports reaching Canberra {Age,. Feb­ go with Indonesia. ruary 28) claimed that Indonesian Also while I was there journalists military forces were preparing to in­ from Sinar Harapan were in Eastern vade East Timor. “ Indonesia is ; Timor. They had obviously been planning to launch an amphibious briefed to expect APODETI to be assault against Dili, the capital o f the strongest party, which it isn’t. It Portuguese Timor, and a parachute iS an extremely small party. They attack on the Baucau airfield” . found that FRETILIN was one o f the strongest parties and growing Wi l l t h e y o r w o n ’ t t h e y ? stronger.

It was following their visit that So far this could be seen, maybe, as simply a fairly superficial propa­ the reports o f Chinese communist ganda campaign merely reflecting the generals etc. were filed in Jakarta. waxing and waning o f levels o f para­ This is the scenario: the Indon­ noia within the Indonesian military esian government was worried that dictatorship. Some columnists have the situation could j e t “ out o f hand” . begun to say that people are getting Ali Murtopo, who masterminded the a Tittle too excited over the whole take-over o f Irian Jaya (west New issue and have produced reasons why Guinea) recommends that they make the Indonesians won’t invade, like contingency plans and begin to move it’s the typhoon season the laws up and prepare troops “ just in case” . o f nature won’t have it. The categori­ Two months o f silence while you

Because I was in Timor briefly last year I was interviewed by a radio journalist who asked me “ who cares about what happens in Timor” . I answered, “ firstly, the Timorese.” He seemed puzzled by the reply — almost “ what have they got to do with it, after all we’re in Australia aren’t we?”

It seems that few people outside Timor care about what happens to the 650,000 people that live there.

The Portuguese certainly don’t seem to care. The Portuguese minister for Co-Ordination o f Overseas Territories was reported to have said on the radio programme Ne*ws in Asia (March 2):. “ Nothing is happening to disturb stability in Portuguese Timor.

The Indonesians have denied that they are planning military action. But somebody who plans military action always begins by denying such inten­ tions.” How right, but how cynical.

Some people have claimed that Indonesia’s neighbours in the ASEAN group would be disturbed by any Indonesian military excursion.

First point; none o f these nations, Grant Evans Malaysia, Singapore or the Philippines Katana knives. are reknowned for their support for independence movements. Secondly, in the Philippines there is a Muslim force fighting for independence in move your troops, and thenrtfte the island o f Mindanao. The Marcos propaganda begins.in earnest. regime has nO interest'in supporting This may seem a bit fantastic, but an independence movement in this other reports to date would seem to region. confirm such a scenario.

Like Portugal, Australia has taken Firstly, I had private communi­ a cynical attitude toward the future cations from Jakarta which claimed o f Eastern Timor. But not only this, that in early November 100 army reports I have recieved from Can­ troops and 100 airforce troops had berra also indicate positive sabotage been moved into Lom bok with by the Australian government o f any orders to infiltrate to Timor. When attempt to help the people o f Eastern Ramo-Horta was in Australia in early Timor.

December he said there was an When Ramos-Horta was in Aus­ unusual number o f Indonesian tralia in December he tried to “ tourists” coming to Timor. arrange for a parliamentary dele­ Then, recently, what has been re­ gation to go from Australia to Timor, vealed is that Indonesian marines which would have implied some sort have been carrying out amphibious o f political recognition o f what was landing exercises; it has been con­ happening in the island. Foreign firmed that a military intelligence Affairs Minister Willisee visited each team, working under the code name MP interested in going and dis­ OperaSi Kom odo, is at work in couraged them. The delegation still Timor; and the most dramatic recent hasn’t come off. I have also heard development has been that the press unofficially that the foreign affairs has been banned from visiting Indon­ department conspired to keep the esian Timor and the surrounding In­ Darwin-Timor air-route closed for as donesian islands. Also that the In* long as possible after cyclone Tracy. donesians were rebuilding the roads It has just re-opened after two and a in Western Timor which led up to the half months. border with Eastern Timor.

Australia would not intervene mil­ But the most alarming report itarily if the Indonesians invade — arrived from Ramos-Horta in Dili and it is worth pointing out that just before we were due to go to there are only 2000 Portuguese press. The telegram read: “ Indon­ troops on the island, and any invasion esian troops, about 3000 are in bor­ der military exercises. Urge UN super­ would be both cheap and easy.

Strong diplomatic pressure might vision. Our position is independence avert an invasion, and re-opening the or death. Shalom.”

Australian consulate in Dili would be I rang Horta in Eastern Timor by one important step. If a parliamen­ radio-telephone immediately follow ­ tary delegation could be got o ff the ing the invasion reports here. (Dar­ ground that would be another. win is Timor’s main link to the out­ But Indonesia is the important side world and they were cut o ff by cornerstone o f Australia’s imperialist cyclone Tracy for the month o f Jan­ foreign policy in Asia, and the gov­ uary. Contact with the island is still ernment which is in charge of.this very limited.) They knew nothing policy is unlikely to tread on the about the invasion reports that had toes o f the Indonesian dictatorship been appearing in Australia (another for fear o f jeopardising it. What are indication o f the isolation o f this the lives o f 650,000 people when island) but what he did relay about what has been happening inside East you ’ve got higher things in mind . . . ?

Timor was critical.

Timor is not going to turn commu­ On the day the invasion reports nist. There is no political terror by appeared in the Australian press the the left in Timor and the proIndonesian consul in Dili had boasted Indonesian party has ne support that he could call in Indonesian whatsoever, but it seems the real troops within 48 hours. Hardly stan­ facts o f the situation have little to do dard diplomatic protocol. Within two with Timor’s fate. days the photos on the display board Until the Indonesians begin re­ outside the Indonesian consulate in porting what is taking place in East Dili had been replaced by photos o f Timor accurately (and they do know Indonesian military hardware. Two what is going on as the journalists days later this display had been from Sinar Harapan I travelled with wrecked . . . by whom is the question. found out, much to their disappoint­ It could easily be claimed that it was ment), and until they open up Indon­ by the consulate people themselves. esian Timor and the surrounding is­ After all an attack on a consulate is a lands to journalists then you can be pretty serious affair. More left-wing sure the invasion is on. terrorism?

We may not be able to muster up I know this is starting to sound a Spanish civil war type International like a Dick Tracy story b u t . . . .

Brigade to go and help the Timorese, Further reports from Eastern Timor but at the very least we can apply all also show the activity o f Indonesian the pressure that we can on the intelligence agents. On March 4, Labor government to take a prin­ Michael Richardson o f the Melbourne cipled stand on the issue.

Page 4

THE DIGGER

March 11 — April 9

even a tmy earth tremor in the next The Committee recommended a ten years, let alone the next 200,000. year-long enquiry to “ examine and A tiny earth tremor is millions o f tons report upon the full implications o f o f rock shifting a few feet. Concrete the decision to mine and export and metal coffins would be crushed Australian uranium” in light o f the like eggs. potential diversion o f bom b mater­ Underground burials are no good ials by official and unofficial terror­ anyway because there’s water pretty ists, the radioactive. waste storage well everywhere down there, and el­ problem, and so on. iminating water seepage over immen- •• Victorian Socialist Left delegates, sely long time periods is impossible.

George Crawford and Ian Cathie said Water carrying radioactive shit could there should be a moratorium on ex­ end up anywhere on the globe, caus­ port until the enquiry was finished. ing the inevitable plague o f leukemia, Whitlam mesmerised the ignorant radiation sickness (that kills in rough­ uncommitted delegates with stories ly two weeks), and massive random about the Nuclear Non-proliferation “ For 15 years the atomic energy mutation o f all life in its path.

Treaty and the International Atomic industry has been stockpiling its highEnergy Agency, and how these organ­ Dr. Temple, now Associate Prof­ level wastes in the hope and belief izations keep uranium under control, essor o f Chemistry at Sydney Uni­ that some method would be found which they don’t. versity, is still telling people what’s for dealing with them before the Countries like Australia that ratify wrong with nuclear power. problem became acute. Now the sands the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty This year Temple sent the follow ­ have run out and no practical altern­ ^NPT) agree to let the International ing message to the Australian Labor ative to the original tank storage has Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in­ Party conference at Terrigal. It was been found.” spect all works set up on national to be read to delegates during their The principle o f nuclear power is territory to deal in nuclear technol­ debate on whether Australia should that uranium atoms with unstable ogy . . | but that doesn’t stop full ac­ go for the money and the prestige o f nucleii are forced to break up, giving cessory nations from expanding un­ o ff huge amounts o f heat which is the being a uranium supplier, or do some­ supervised nuclear technology. Full thing responsible instead. energy used to make electricity. You accessory states can sell fissionable have td keep the process happening “ There are many eminent and wellmaterials (the nuclear fuel) and tech­ in a cooled b ox or it just keeps get­ informed scientists in this country nology to a non-state non nuclear ting hotter until, y ou ’ve got molten and overseas who believe that nuclear party like multinational corporations uranium. When uranium decays, in power is too hazardous for the hum­ which currently have more plutonium this case forcibly, it gives o ff its an race to use it on a large scale to than there is in all NATO nuclear neutrons. Some o f these tiny elec­ supply future energy needs. warheads. trically uncharged particles shoot into Instead o f endorsing the whole­ What’s more, the IAEA inspect­ other uranium atoms breaking them sale export o f uranium for power gen­ ions don’t include indigenous fission­ up so that they shoot out their' neut­ eration, and the idea o f setting up a able materials and technology in non­ rons, and so on. One result o f this uranium enrichment plant in this accessory states such as India. clear weapon power, and apart from the fact that this power belongs to the world’s great consumers and war­ riors, who control the smaller nuclear countries’technology and money, and apart from the fact that reactors are energy consumers in the period it takes to establish them efficiently . . . there’s the problem o f nuclear waste. Waste that is so far indestructable and more dangerous than any other garbage yet invented.

In 1958 Dr. R.Temple, then an o f­ ficer at the Australian Atom ic Energy Commission said:

Connor hands over uranium ; we’ll get it back as fall-out “ The Conservationists rriounted a major campaign at Terrigal to try and get a halt called to uranium development. Friends o f the Earth, the Conservation Foundation and others distributed quantities o f well-prepared literature, and managed to hold a meeting in the main conference hall after the first session at which a film and lecture were given about the dangers o f nuclear materials. And then, in the minerals "arul energy session, Vic­ torian delegates spoke in some detail against uranium develop^ ment. But again Mr. Connor just steamrolled his way through.

It was not an impressive performance in matching the detailed case put forward by the conservationists but given the general ‘let’s get behind the Government’ sentiment, it was quite good enough.”

— The National Miner February 10, 1975 Nuclear weapons being the ul­ timate expression o f power on this earth, the things that go into mak­ ing nuclear weapons are the ultimate resources to have.

Australia is one o f less than twen­ ty countries currently producing ur­ anium, the fuel for nuclear power.

Digging urani îm ore out o f the mountains is only useful if you sell it to countries that generate nuclèar power, and 70 per cent o f the world’s nuclear generating capacity is in the USA, the rest mostly in western Eur-

ope and Japan. In other words, sel­ ling uranium means fueling the al­ ready disproportionate power o f the rich nations.

Where nuclear reactors have been sold to poor countries like Brazil or Indonesia, they are used to make the power that makes things like cars and air conditioners. Everyone pays for the reactors though, through taxes, through giving over their land and safety for the plants, and these dues , go to the rich nations. The General Electric and Westinghouse companies

Socialist Left on the run from Terrigal

W h a t’s left o f the A L P

by Grant Evans

vention into the branch to dissolve its executive.

The Socialist Left The coriference at Terrigal was seemed to be at the crossroads then the signal for a full scale retreat and were faced with the option o f by the Labor Party. In the months staying in or getting out. But the leading up to the annual ALP federal disastrous DLP split o f the mid­ conference the ‘Whitlam Government’ fifties still hangs like a nightmare has been steadily offloading all o f in the minds o f the ALP members, the planks which formed the basis and so the SL decided to stay. o f its platform in 1972.

The wisdom o f this decision is Like routed South Vietnamese now being seriously questioned. soldiers the ALP conference delegates George Crawford, the Federal Se­ scrambled behind Gough Whitlam cretary o f the Plumbers and Gasto declare their unity in the face fitters’ Union and Socialist Left dele­ o f rising worker militancy and eco­ gate, emerged from the conference nomic decomposition in Australia. bewildered: “ I can’t understand why In the words o f a leading trade union the complete platform o f the ALP official the time had come for a ‘ historical compromise’ . (In the post- j has been reversed. I made the point at Terrigal that I could have been Nixon period a retreat can never at a conference o f the Liberal Party.” be called a retreat, nor a sell-out a sell-out).

Bill Hartley has been a member The conference was set up and o f the Victorian ALP executive for stage managed by and for Whitlam, ten years now and an active member but much to his chagrin a few o f the Socialist Left. I asked him if ‘stirrers’ managed to get past the Crawford’s statement meant that the bouncers at the door.

Socialist Left saw the ALP as little The Victorian Branch o f the ALP, better than the other conservative and its Socialist Left faction in par­ capitalist parties: “ In some senses ticular, have had a continuous run­ yes. George Crawford could have ning battle with Whitlam since 1967. even gone further than what he said In 1970 Whitlam tried to wipe out at Terrigal and said that there are the Socialist Left by Federal inter­ some things which the ALP is pre­

sell 80 per cent o f reactor com pon­ ents sold around the world.

You pay so that you become de­ pendent on the sellers for the elect­ ricity that your nation’s urban elite consumes.

This is not a situation unique to nuclear power, but nuclear power is claimed by those who have a stake in it to be better than other sources o f energy. In fact the economies o f the industrialized nations, let alone the non-industrialized and starving count­ ries, will not be saved by Australian uranium.

Single nuclear reactors are sup­ posed to produce more energy over their productive lifetimes than the energy put into preparing the fu e l, and building the reactor. In fact the speedy nuclear reactor construction programs will cause energy deficits.

Dr. John Price, formerly o f Monash University, and now with Friends o f the Earth in London, claims that to build the number o f reactors neces- sary to replace and augment current power suppliers, would consume more oil than there is available in the world.

But apart from the fact that nu­ clear ppwer is inseparable from nu­

pared to commit ltselt to on paper that not even the Liberal Party would openly commit itself to .”

The Victorian branch o f the ALP is one o f the strongest and so pre­ viously the left has been able to wield a lot o f power in the party.

But Terrigal showed that this power has been drastically reduced. On the crucial vote o f Government power over prices, incomes and interest rates the left was overwhelmed by 41 votes to 5.

Bill Hartley sees two reasons for this loss o f support: “ There was a loss o f support for the left but there was also a re-definition o f the left, a process which started at the time o f Federal intervention. I think that Terrigal showed that when there is a choice between political power and expediency in a crunch situation then people quickly forsake a left position. This also says something about the type o f party the Labor Party is and the nature o f social democratic parties.”

The second important reason was the role o f Cairns, who swung solidly behind Whitlam and wheeled on the left. “ If one went into Jim Cairns’ political background,” continued Hartley, “ there was* nothing terribly surprising about Terrigal. He has taken a humane stand in a number o f foreign policy areas, notably Viet­ nam. But if you look at his econ o­ mic works, for instance Tarrifs and Planning, you will see that Cairns’ has never been very hostile toward the private sector. He said a few months ago in New York that he has never, gone on record as opposing the activities o f the multinational corporations — it was more a case o f what they did than what they were. Those who saw Cairns as the

the audit supervision o f the IAiSA from mining centres in Australia after appropriate mining and environment­ al impact surveys.” So what?

On the move for an enquiry Con­ nor was even less reassuring. “ I don’t mind an enquiry, but not one that causes unreasonable delay and holds Australia up to ridicule,” he said.

The ALP delegates voted for Con­ nor’s line, with the Queensland and South Australian delegates voting against their state executive policies which oppose uranium export. Vic­ torian and Tasmanian leftwing del­ egates were alone in voting against the Connor plan.

. Queensland ALP ¿tate executive leader and chairperson o f the Science and Technology Committee, Jack Egerton, said he was in agreemfent with everything Crawford said in opposing the plan, but then voted against Craw­ ford’s amendment. Connor has since made Egerton:: a director o f Mary Kathleen Uranium.

What the ALP has done is promise to sell Australian uranium so Aust­ ralia can buy oil in the years to come when power sources will increasingly fall short o f the demand, worldwide.

In this decision they have rejected a chance to start now on a power plan that might work. Like banning uranium export or development here as a power source, and building an energy conservation program in Aust­ ralia.

The alternative to oil is not uran­ ium, it’s in a change to a society Plutonium and other long-lived radioactive isotopes are produced in a reactor when where production is removed from uranium is used overseas. Plutonium must be isolated absolutely from the living world the hands o f individual capitalists to for 300,000 years. The Maximum Permissible Inhalation Dose is 0.00000065 grams; one where planning allows the use o f the Body Burden allowed is one-tenth o f that. Projected production every year in ecologically sound forms o f energy the U.S.A. by the year 2000 is 5,000,000 pounds. Presently, there are no permanent — wind and water energy for example. methods o f coping with this. Australia’s 300,000 tons o f uranium if used in American Connor got his way with the ALI* reactors will produce 310,000 kilograms o f Plutonium, and if used with Breeder reactors conference, and there’s plenty o f mon­ as well, 1,800,000 kilograms. ey and paranoia in the parliamentary opposition and in the business com ­ chain reaction is a waste that is a mish­ country; I believe this conference munity to fuel the plans. What he And even a full accessory to the mash o f unstable radioactive elements. should press for a public enquiry into doesn’t have yet is union co-operat­ treaty can opt out just by claiming ion. the relationships between social is: Some o f those radioactive waste extreme national contingency.

Some American unions have been sues and the supply and demand o f elements will become stable in a Whitlam ranted about concern for campaigning for a moratorium on energy.Such an enquiry should seek the environment and the righteous­ fraction o f a second. Some will nnt. atomic power plants, and at a meeting evidence from as wide a range o f ness o f the IAEA, but he did not stop emitting deadly radioactivity o f Australian unions to discuss uran­ people as possible, including engin­ while they regain stability, for deny the IAEA’s impotence in the ium mining on December 5 ,1 9 7 4 it eers and scientists from Universities, matter o f nuclear waste storage or 200,000 years. was recommended to the ACTU exec­ reactor safety. and should not rely solely on the em­ No-one knows how to stop prod­ utive that: “ Pending adoption o f safe ployees o f State and Federal instrum­ ucing radioactive waste from nuclear As a nearly-full accessory to the procedures acceptable to the Trade entalities or their public services” . reactors — it’s intrinsic to the pro­ treaty Australia has to abide by only Union movement for the treatment The ALP decided instead to go cess — and no-one knows how to the minimum conditions — selling o f radioactive materials and for the along with Whitlam and minerals and speed up the deadly stabilizing time only to countries that accept IAEA disposal o f waste products in such a energy minister Rex Connor’s plan o f that waste. safeguards. But India proved that manner that will not harm the ecblto sell uranium.

What Dr.Temple said 17 years ago with Canadian information, locally ogy and endanger present and future Connor said Australia had a moral still holds. Every nuclear reactor built and maintained reactors, and generations, this meeting o f unions makes this poisonous garbage and no- obligation to provide energy resources with uranium supplied and audited convened by the ACTU for the pur­ to Australia’s major trading partners. one knows what to do with it. One under IAEA supervision, a nuclear pose o f considering the development, The conference re-affirmed its op­ reactor in one year’s operation as a bomb can be made. mining and treatment in uranium position to nuclear power in Australia, power station makes more radioact­ Whitlam said the IAEA would ac­ but in giving in to the Whitlam-Connor count for “ every l^ist milligram’ * o f 1 industry requests the ACTU Execut­ ive Wkste than all the nuclear bombs export plan, it committed Australia ever let off, by a factor o f hundreds uranium. This is untrue. Their analysis ive to place a black ban on the dev­ elopment, mining, treatment and ex-' to participation in nuclear power and or possibly thousands. allows a one per cent latitude and a port o f uranium excepting that quan­ nuclear weapons production in a Currently the waste is packed in report to the US Congress added “ the tity needed for medical research a n d /, world that literally can’t handle it. very complexity o f the (accounting) concrete and metal boxes, then stor­ or treatment.”

For Whitlam it’s the biggest thing ed in silos awaiting an answer. process invites tampering o f a kind The other chance to attack the his government has done — making If the number o f reactors is doub­ which defies detection.”

Connor program is the forthcoming uranium the replacement for sheep, led every two and a half years, which In fact, the international smugg­ Environmental Impact Statement and wheat and beef as Australia’s buying it will have to be if nuclear power is ling trade already has dealt lots o f Public Hearings on the Ranger uran­ power on the world market. to take over where and when oil nuclear fuel. The Kerr-McGee Cim­ ium mine, which will be the first test It is the biggest thing any Aust­ leaves off,'there’ll be tons o f this arron plutonium fuel facility in the for environment minister, Dr. Moss ralian government has done — as a shit that nobody knows what to do USA had 60 pounds o f plutonium Cass’s new legislation. contribution to the orgy o f life-de­ with. unaccounted for at one stage in 1974.

At Terrigal Connor said, “ I have a struction in which industrialized One idea was to send it to the sun Nine pounds is the most needed to conscience to o ” . states are engaged. in rockets, but one rocket failure and make a crude bomb.

Whether he has a social conscience the fallout would kill unpredictable There are now 26 countries with The uranium debate at Terrigal is another matter on which it would millions o f people and other animal began with presentation o f the Science access to uranium, reactors and plut­ be absurd to take his word. and plant life. And rockets fail onium — the physical precondition and Technology Committee report There’s too much at stake to bel­ regularly. for nuclear weaponary. There are ten listing the problems involved in the ieve Connor and Whitlam.

Another idea was to pack it in plutonium producing states not yet global nuclear fuel cycle. It conclud­ concrete arid metal coffins and bury fully covered by IAEA safeguards. ed that “ it may be in the light o f the it, but there’s nowhere on earth Minister Connor said that Aust­ above that Australia’ s uranium should — Compiled from information sup­ where we can be sure there won’t be ralian exports will proceed “ under not be used for power generation.” plied by Friends o f the Earth.

doyen o f the left have seen his actions at Terrigal as a sudden be­ trayal. What you can say about Cairns is that the support that he has been able to gain on non-economic issues has allowed him to play a Trojan horse role on economic ones. Of course this too accounts for the isolation o f those few left wingers at conference. Cairns took a lot o f formerly left people with him.”

Jean McLean, also a long time activist in the Socialist Left, remarked that the members o f the ALP have become very much part o f “ middle class society” . “ When I looked around at the delegates at Terrigal I saw a group o f people who are now very far removed from the base which they came from, whether it be the trade union rank and file or from among its officials. They are afraid o f pushing for socialism because they are afraid it might affect their personal well being” .

Since the conference the Socialist Left has been attempting to rally the left forces in the party in Victoria and has produced a statement attacking the Terrigal decisions. It says among other things: “ The party has never been a socialist party but decisions enshrining the private enter­ prise system into our constitution, thus giving it like meat pies and sauce, football and a Holden car, a permanent place in Australian so­ ciety, has taken the party beyond the fears o f even the most timid reformist. In short, what idealistic force there is left in the Party has been dealt a savage blow.”

If the ALP has never been a socialist party, and in fact ¡sheading rapidly in the opposite direction, why stay in it? “ This question has

been asked about the Socialist Left for a long time,” answers Hartley. “ We! decided to stay in the party following intervention rather than forming a separate Victorian socialist party and now I’m not so sure that the decision was a correct one.

The ALP still has the reputation o f being the mass based working class party and some people see it as the most effective place for action in that respect. If you can stay in the ALP and be free to agitate outside then there’s little to lose from staying in it. For instance in 1972 we were able to oppose the referendum for prices and incomes power. That policy has changed and technically if there was another refer­ endum now we would have to take the position o f the Labor Party.

We would be bound to .support Labor Party policy which would lead to a wage freeze. In things like that, o f course, the Socialist Left would go its own way even if it meant being thrown out o f the ALP.” It’s always been a bit hard to grasp what the Socialist Left is on about. Many o f them seem to be sincere socialists but they are heaviliy involved in a party which they admit has never been socialist. Presumably they hope by some miracle to ultimately change the ALP into a socialist party or at least a significant section o f it. This idea has been tried many times before both here and overseas, but never once has it succeeded. The strategy runs some­ thing like this ( and Bill Hartley repeated it to me): as capitalism inevitably goes into >some sort o f social and econom ic crisis, especially when a Labor Party is in Government, then the declining standard o f living o f the workers tends to strengthen

the social base o f the left (the worse things get, the better things get type thesis). Consequently the left becomes strong enough either to transform the Labor Party into a socialist party through the obvious bankruptcy o f traditional reformist policies, or becomes strong enough to split from the main party and form a strong and large genuine socialist party.

But there is one major snag to this strategy; it never woyks according to plan, and Terrigal seems to con­ firm this. In the face o f an econom ic crisis and worker militancy the Labor Party closed ranks against the left a>nd opted totally for policies which defend all the sacred institutions o f capitalism and moreover attacked worker militancy as the major cause of Australian capitalism’s present problems.

In the light o f the historical evi­ dence maybe you could conclude that there is a masochistic personality type with suicidal tendencies amongst the people who make up the Socialist Left. And that could well be true, but there is an underlying political unity between the ALP left and ‘the others’ in the party, and that is their committment to parliamentary politics. The time honoured West­ minster system which enshrines the right to individual freedom. As Hart­ ley says it, the Socialist Left has the perspective o f a parliamentary road to socialism “ but it should be complemented by outside action” .

B u t. . . Jim Cairns says exactly the same thing.

Revolutionary socialists who have chosen to stay outside o f the Labor Party because they see work within it as futile have always argued that a parliamentary road to socialism is

impossible (and the events in Chile would appear to confirm this). They have argued that you can’t take over a state which has been con­ structed precisely for the defence o f capitalism . If you try to use the state against capitalism it will ultimately either rebound on you or force you to com ply with the wishes o f capitalism — and this is what is happening to the Labor Party. Jim Cairns has even admitted as much (see “ The Econom y is in a Pickle” , Digger no. 36), but uses it as an apology for the Labor Party’s course o f action.

A totally new state and social order has to be constructed, say the revolutionary socialists; one where people have direct democratic control over their lives, where they live and where they work, and one which is cemented together by a revolutionary culture. This means that political priorities lie outside o f parliament.

But, reply people like Cairns and the Socialist Left, people are apathetic so what else can we do? It’s the old round trip — people haven’ t changed so how can we change.

Ultimately it’s an excuse to keep on doing what one’s doing rather than figuring out how to change things in a radical way.

Oddly enough it is precisely out­ side o f the parliamentary arena that the radical policies o f the Socialist Left have their greatest effect. This was shown immediately following the Terrigal conference when the Victorian Trades Hall Council over­ whelmingly carried a strongly worded resolution rejecting any attempt at wage restraint and attacked the re­ treat by the ALP at Terrigal. And surely there’s something to be learned from that.

March 11 — April 9

THE DIGGER

By Rosalind Delmar Feminism raises the spectre o f the old sex war. The feminist becomes the figure o f the castrating woman. Feminism creates divisions where none were before. It is, after all, disturbing to think that perhaps we might not be living “ happily ever after” .

The feminist, in the descriptions o f anti-feminists, often suffers from psycho-sexual problems; she is misguided, unhappy and wrong and takes put her own personal inadequacies on the male sex.

Feminism is the political move­ ment o f wohien produced by the contradiction between men and w o­ men. It is women’s response to their own oppression. The real power and privilege which men have over women produces the political movement o f feminism. Women’s politics in the past 150 years has taken various forms and had a diverse history.

There was feminist agitation at the time o f the French Revolution.

Olympe de Gouges produced a D ec­ laration o f the Bights o f Women: she was shortly to perish on the scaffold.

Women were prominent in the Paris Commune and demanded the right tc organise separately. German women in the nineteenth century, faced by a law which made it illegal for any woman to join a political organis­ ation, formed friendly societies to subvert the law. In England working women formed political clubs and their own trade unions. They were often banned from male trade unions, and if allowed to join, ex­ cluded from the right to be elected to office.

The women’s movement in Eng­ land, like the American movenjent, united on the demand for the vote — the basic right o f any citizen in a lib­ eral democracy. They compared their struggle to previous suffrage move» ments, and when they faced the vio­ lence o f the state, being forcibly fed in prisons, felt themselves the inheri­ tors o f the struggle at Peterloo.

The American movement was founded when female delegates were excluded from the World AntiSlavery Convention-held in London in 1840. They fought for the emanci­ pation o f the slaves, certain that when this came they themselves, slaves too, would win new rights.

When these were denied them, they turned bitterly to their own struggle for the vote. But the American move­ ment is now as politically distant from the American suffrage move­ ment as the black American move­ ments are from the Anti-Slavery movement.

1 Feminism has historically been heterogeneous. Differenfstrategies have been put into practice and de­ bated.

The Anglo-American movement produced what can be called “ Liberal

Page 5

D.H.Lawrence attacked it, Women’s Weekly mystified it, but it's a question only a feminist can answer

What is feminism?

Feminism” : it was a feminism which tried to manipulate the possibilities o f the political system o f the ruling class in order to gain new rights for women and to ameliorate women’s conditions. Betty Friedan’s National Organisation o f Women is a modern example.

There were two main strands in liberal feminism. One was equal rights feminism, which understood the women’s movement as essentially a struggle for the recognition o f equality o f opportunity with men, for equal rights irrespective o f sex — the problem for them was one o f dis­ crimination backed up by the weight o f habit arid custom, which legal equality could overcome.

The second was social feminism.

The social feminists dedicated them­ selves to educational reform, philan­ thropic activity like the temperance movement and religious work. They established nursing and teaching as female professions, and believed that women had unique qualities, usually connected to their maternal vocation, which if socially mobilised would make the world a better place to live in.

Where the liberal feminists in England took, their inspiration from John Stuart Mill’s On the Subjugation o f Women, socialist feminists have fol­ lowed the analysis o f Frederick Engels’ The Origin o f the Family, Private^Property and the State.

Engels set himself the task o f ana­ lysing the cause o f women’s oppress­ ion in the light o f the scientific method discovered by himself and Marx. His fundamental argument was that women’s oppression co­ incided with the development o f pri­ vate property, and that once the structure o f private property was abolished, the pre-conditions for women’s liberation would be esta­ blished.

He tried to establish that the fun­ damental cause o f women’s oppress­ ion was in the division o f labour between men and women'. At a spe­ cific point in time, he thought, there was~a development outside the home (where the man worked) which which gave men the econom ic power which Would allow them tq subjugate the. woman, and the world o f the

E G O IS M

u Come here, Dora! I wants you!” “ Thank you, Eric; but I wants myself!” home.

Recently, within America, a new analysis o f the structures o f women’s oppression has been developed by the radical feminists, i'hey argue that' the subjugation o f women involves not just an econom ic oppression which has to be overcome, but also a psychological and biological oppress­ ion which must be overcome. There­ fore to concentrate narrowly on the question o f econom ic oppression is inadequate. The development o f a radical feminist analysis has made a profound impression on the politics o f modern feminist movemerits.

It seems clear that in countries, where the two demands for women

which arose out o f Engels’ analysis, and have been since adopted by almost every socialist movement — women’s entry into social production arid the socialisation o f child-care — women are still oppressed. Indeed, these devices have not even led to the abolition o f that sexual division o f labour which was, for Engels, the root o f the matter. The concrete meaning o f those demands is that women now do socially what they previously did privately. Where child­ care facilities have been set up, women run them; where canteen facilities ■ have been initiated, women work ip v them. fry A■ The sexual division o f labour with-

in the family has been strengthened and complemented by a sexual divi­ sion o f labour on a social scale.

Engels’ view is an anthropolo­ gist’s view. He reaches his con­ clusions after studying anthropologi­ cal texts, and much o f his work is based on the researches o f Lewis Morgan. Claude Lévi-Strauss, the French anthropologist, in The Family, which is a critique o f as­ pects o f Morgan’s work (in Man, Culture and Society, ed. H. Shapiro, OUP) describes the sexual division o f labour as “ nothing else than a device to institute a reciprocal state o f de­ pendence between the sexes” . The only “ solid ground” for this division

Rules for an intellectual discussion or Verbal self-defence:

“ you’re just saying that because you’re frustrated”

By Donna Allen Sometimes a person says they want to try relating to you as an equal. But before long they have said things which show they can't.

You haven't the heart to tell them this truth because itw ill hurt their feelings, and th eyd id mean well.

(The exten t o f the hurt is revealed by their response to you r pointing out what they have said: not just the hurt look in their eyes but a back­ lash o f irrationality, phony defen­ sive arguments and, if hurt badly enough, future avoidance o f you.)

So if you love them, you p rotect them from the truth; if you don't, you avoid, them. Either way, you des­ pair o f ever having an equal relation­ ship when you see that you yourself are unable to point out to them where they go astray and begin to abuse you intellectually.

Can't there be some rules o f be­ haviour that two people who gen­ uinely want to correct bad habits could agree upon to prevent their falling into this stupid behaviour pattern?

An intellectual conversation is an exploration o f ideas in a permissive atmosphere uninhibited by either dis­ approval or condescending approval.

Both parties should feel free to express ideas still tentatively held, knowing that they may revise them later in the course o f the conver­ sation, or thereafter.

An intellectual discussion assumes, indeed it requires, your belief that the other person is fully as capable as you o f thinking logically (Webster's says that intellect is the ability to reason) and also that he or she is being as honest and sincere in the ideas being expressed as you are when you say yours. Without this mutual respect fo r both ability and ' sincerity, no intellectual conversation can occur. Mutual respect is the very definition o f equality.

The rules rrtust p rotect this mutual, respect and at the same time allow a simple and continuous test o f the equality, to assure that you accord the other person nc less respect than you believe should be accorded to you . by employing the invaluable “ reversal o f roles" test fo r determin­ ing equal treatment.

Imagine a conversation between two people who call themselves rad­ icals, u)ho wan\to reject stereotypes & practice equality because they

believe they have this mutual respect fo r each other.

Female: I suggest four rules to assure that we treat each other equally in intellectual discussions.

Male: Good. But you can’t dic­ tate the rules.

Female: ^top! I didn’t say I would. I said “ suggest” . O f course we would both have to agree to the rules, or it won’t work. Besides I re­ sent your implication that I would try to force something on you. Sup­ pose I accused you o f trying to force me into something?

Male: I’d say you didn’ t trust me. that you were being too sensitive, i th a t. . . I agree. Not very respectful.

Bad start. Worse still, I haven’t even heard the rules yet and I’m deciding they’re probably something I can’ t accept. That’s pre-judging without the evidence. Pretty anti-intellectual.

Maybe even male chauvinistic.

Quick, what are the rules?

Female: The first mle is that we must believe each other.

If something seems strange or is not clear, ask for more evidence like, “ Why do you think so?” or “ How do you answer people who say such and such?” . \ Male: Well, asking for evidence is intellectually sound — and also respectful. That is, it assumes I be­ lieve that you have evidence no matter how whacky your idea may sound. If I don’t have that much re­ spect for you I shouldn’t be trying to carry on an intellectual discussion with you. So o f course I’ d believe you. If I didn’t it’ d be like calling you a liar. Why do we need such a rule?

Female: Well, suppose we start a conversation about politics and I say I’ m not a Marxist.

Male: Oh, that’s ridiculous. You must be. If you are a radical, you have to be a Marxist.

Female: You don’t believe me.

Male: No, I don’t. Nobody else would believe that either. . . All right. I see I’ m violating rule one already. Reversing the roles, I cer­ tainly wouldn’t want to have to prove to you that I wasn’t lying be­ fore we could even get started in a conversation. Okay. What’s rule two?

Female: Rule number two is . . .

Male: But just the same, I can’t get over that, not a Marxist. You must be kidding. Deep down inside you really are one and just don’t

want to admit it.

Female: Rule number two is that neither person must attribute an ulterior motive to the other person by psychoanalysing him or her.

For example, such as saying, “ Well, maybe you think you aren’t a Marxist, but deep down inside you really are and just won’t admit it” .

Male: Rub it in. But I hate to give up the privilege o f finding that re­ gardless o f what you áre saying, you really agree with me deep down in your psyche. It’s such a neat way o f putting you down when I dorr’t want

to hear your reasons. I can pretend you don’t have any.

Female: Yeah. I sympathise with you. Think o f all the psychoanalysis you’ll have to give up: “ Y ou’re only saying that because y ou ’re not in a good mood today” or “ because your background is thus and so” or ^because you really want to be a man” . I love that one. Lots more: “ Aren’t you being melodramatic?” “ Something must be eating you .” “ Y ou ’re mad at me because I didn’ t do something or other” or “ Y ou’ re mad at me for some reason I can’t

to force you into saying you are one.

I learned that from Joe McCarthy. It worked good for him, too.

All right. What’s rule three? I haven’t struck out yet.

Female; Rule three is that we must give up our compulsion to pass judgement on each other's ideas.

If we want the other person’ s opinion, we can always ask for it. Or the other person can ask “ Would you like to hear what I think o f that?”

That’s the courteous and respectful way to conduct a conversation, and it allows freedom for both to try out ideas that may turn out to be halfbaked.

An intellectual discussion should be exploratory for both people. It can very profitably be entirely ques­ tions and answers.

Male: But what if I ask if you want my opinion and you say no, and then you talk all night?

Female: You can go home early or not come back next time, which is what you should do anyway if I’m not saying something worth listening to. / Male: Are you sure you didn’t think up these rules just to get a chance to monopolise the conver­ sation without giving me a chance to answer?

Female: Aren’t you violating rule two?

Male: Now, wait a minute. I’ m not attributing an ulterior motive.

Y ou ’re just being oversensitive.

Female: Rule number fou r is that yoti have to be willing to admit when you are wrong ■— instead o f cover­ ing up with an attack. An apology clears the air and confirms agreement on disputed points so that the con­ versation can go on. Otherwise, I will start censoring what I say so as not to offend you. That would immedi­ ately end any intellectual discussion.'

Male: All right. I slipped that | I think, and you better believe it. time. Sorry. But you have to admit j Otherwise, there’s no point in our that everyone talks that way. I guess talking about anything. there aren’t many intellectual dis­ Okay, I agree. Just a little obser­ cussions between people whatever vation, though: the psychoanalysis their sex. gimmick is very useful, and it always Female: The rules will work for works on you. You start defending any two people who want them to. yourself and forget all about what Also they show whether people you were trying to prpve. Not very really respect each other as equals. respectful o f course. ' Male: Say, wouldn’ t it be really I suppose I think you can’ t have weird if I end up having a more in­ , any good reasons for not being a tellectually stimulating discussion Marxist. Or if you do, I don’t want with a woman than with a man? to hear them. I’ d rather use social I Female: Groan! pressure through a little name-calling —Columbus Freepress figure out” . That one really psycho’s me to be irrational. » And more: “ You can’t admit you ’re wrong” . “ Y ou’re just trying to get me to agree with y ou .” “ That’s what all you women think.” “ Aren’t you being ultra-sensitive?” “ Y ou ’re just saying that because you ’re frustrated.” I could go on.

Male: Please don’t, I more than get the point. Besides I certainly, don’t want you invading my privacy with your amateur psychoanalysis.

If I have a secret reason, it’s my business, not yours. I’ll tell you what

o f labour is, he writes, “ the woman’s biological specialisation in the pro­ duction o f children” . The radical feminist analysis explores this “ solid ground” .

The unity o f the contradiction which holds men and women to gether is not, they argue, the division o f labour, but the system o f repro­ duction. Men seized control not just o f the means o f production, but also women. Women can therefore only be liberated when they overcome the biological determinants o f their oppression.

It is now possible to see the first glimpses o f the technical pre­ conditions for this. Developments in hygiene and nutrition have meant that it is no longer necessary for women to produce six or eight child­ ren in the hope that two will sur­ vive to adulthood.

Developments in birth control have made it possible for women con­ sciously limit their number o f preg­ nancies. And progress has at last been made towards the reproduction o f the human species in extra-uterine devices.

For the first time there is the pos­ sibility that maternity will become an option for all women, rather than a vocation they are trained for. The de­ mand that maternity be an option rather than a socialduty for women was part o f the free love debate which accompanied the early femin­ ist movement. Today, the right to free contraception and abortion on demand is inscribed on the banners o f every women’s movement. What was denounced 50 years ago as a “ bourgeois demand” , has at present been shown to have a genuine mass appeal.

However, there is no reason why within present institutions, genetic technology should not be used as a further instrument o f wom en’s oppression.

Theinstitution o f the family has been built up around the system o f reproduction. Analysis o f the family has been the pivot o f the analysis o f women’s oppression.

Women and men are prepared for very different biological and social functions by the very process o f “ humanisation” in the family. Differ­ ential development provides the psy­ chological basis for women’s oppress­ ion in all forms o f social life by pro­ gramming the female to passivity, submission and emotional depend­ ence, and the male to self-assertion, domination and independence. This personality difference between men and women assures the male a priv­ ileged position in all form s o f social life, quite apart from the privilèges that result from particular forms o f property.

The importance o f this process o f the formation o f the individual hu­ man being has drawn the attention o f the women’s movement to Freud. As with Engels, the new feminists have enjoyed a polemical relationship to Freud, and their work is sometimes rejected outright. But a study o f the structures o f the unconscious and

o f the work o f psychoanalysis is as important to the development o f a scientific theory o f wom en’s oppres­ sion as is the study o f the econom y and o f the works o f Engels and Mane.

Another new feature o f m odem feminism is its analysis o f ideology.

American feminist groups started to discuss the visible manifestations o f women’s day to day oppression. This led to a critique o f ‘ male chauvinism’ : the ideology o f male domination.

The way in which male chauvinism was discussed and expanded was in terms o f individual personalexper*. ience.The possibility o f using person­ al experience as the raw material for a re-analysis o f women’s condition was put into practice in what are usually called “ consciousness-raising” groups. Within these groups women explore their own oppression and dis­ cuss male chauvinist practice; outside the groups they combat male chauvin­ ism where they find it — in the home, in the streets, at work. But, o f course, if the analysis o f women’s oppression remained at that level it would be as ideological as its enemy. What has evert more recently emerged is the concept o f ‘sexism’.

What ‘sexism’ fundamentally in­ volves is the complex unity o f the four distinct levels o f women’s op­ pression — biology, the unconscious, the econom y and ideology. It is a structure which exists in most known forms o f society, although its form can vary from one society to another.

The basic institutions o f sexism are the family and the system o f sexual differentiation which is produced by the socialization process.. This system o f sexual differentiation confines w o­ men to a social position determined by their ‘ natural’ biological function, by econom ic, ideological and psychic means. The family reproduces this system from generation to generation and will continue to do so until w o­ men organize to abolish it.

Modem feminism insists, as did historic feminism, on the need for separate women’s movements in order to combat women’s specific oppression.

This does not mean that these move­ ments should not enter into alliances with other movements in order to achieve common goals. It is clear that the abolitiort o f all forms o f private property is a precondition for w o­ men’s liberation, since women them­ selves are a form o f private property.

Women therefore have an interest in uniting with revolutionary work­ ing class movements in order to ab­ olish private property. But the abol­ ition o f private property does not automatically entail the abolition o f male privilege and male domination which is the ultimate political aim o f women’s liberation. To achieve this . ,a united women’s movement is need­ ed, which mobilizes women on the basis o f their own oppression, and which is held together by the pol­ itical solidarity o f women — “ sister­ h ood” — capable o f unlocking and overthrowing all the structures which imprison women.

— From 7 Days, March 1972.

IN T E R N A T IO N A L W O M E N 'S YEAR The Australian Government has established a National Advisory Committee for International Women’s Year 1975 to advise it on themes and activities. The National Advisory Committee has adopted the following objectives for the year: • Changes of attitudes— institutional changes may not be as bene­ ficial unless fixed on real and thorough-going attitude changes in the society. This refers not only to the way men see women but how women see themselves.

• Areas of discrimination and suffering— areas of discrimination in our society need to be isolated and a concerted attempt must be made to solve the problems this creates or at least point the direction which possible solutions may take.

• Creative aspects—the year is seen not merely as designed to overcome disabilities but also as emphasising and giving oppor­ tunities to the creative aspects of women.

Applications are invited for the following position in the Secretariat which has been established to service the Advisory Committee.

S E N IO R PROJECT O FFIC E R $14,144- 14,695 (C la s s 9 ) , Third D iv isio n DUTIES: Administer a program to focus people’s attention on sexist attitudes in the community and development of more enlightened community attitudes. Arrange preparation and publication of pamphlets, brochures, articles, etc. Qualifications: Appropriate to the duties of the position. A depth of understanding and sensitivity of problems facing women.

The position will be required until approximately March 1976 and an officer selected will be engaged as a temporary employee of the Australian Public Service.

This position is located in Canberra and the successful applicant may be granted assistance with removal and housing.

Applications should be sent to: The Secretary Department of the Special Minister of State CAN BER R A, A.C.T. 2600

by 20 March 1975.

The National Advisory Committee wants to receive suggestions for themes and activities or areas of distress or suffering, from both individual women or women’s groups.

Please write to them C /P.O. Box 1210, CANBERRA CITY, A.C.T. 2601.

Marxist and feminist for years.

Rose Creswell is in a similar posi­ tion to Meaghan and Mary and says “ people, especially desperadoes, are happy about the possibility o f the wave because they’ ll die. They aren’t going to knock themselves off. If something external does it it’s better.”

Both Meg and Mary have talked to a fair few people about the wave — Meg has been discussing it with friends for many years. She says that a lot o f her revolutionary and “ left over hippy” friends are into it. She describes the latter as “ people for whom nothing has changed since 1968 — people thinking o f joining Zen monasteries in Japan. They’re into it because it’s a whole new impetus.”

PACIFIC OCEAN FLOOR

'

HA

siAW OxW »

Basically the people who are into the wave fall into two categories.

The Desperadoes who like the idea o f annihilation. They are cynical about the world getting any better and make an unhappy adjustment to Western Civilization. They lead a fairly suicidal existence and generally drink a lot — the Kamikaze set.

The Mystics. These people have been into magical ideas and spiritual powers for some time. Many o f them too have given up on the Old World.

Their alternative is “ to turn your back on Western Capitalism and its products” and to attempt to live self-sufficiently in the country.

Both groups contain formerly active revolutionaries.

Given that there’s a chance o f the wave coming but that it’s only a possibility among possibilities, why are some people so excited about the wave? What’s in it for them?

What is the appeal o f catastrophic devastation?

How do they envisage the world after the wave?

One thing that excites both the ‘ desperadoes” and the “ mystical femi­ nists” is what they see as the wave’s potential to produce a complete break with decadent western civili­ zation and all that this implies both personally and politically.

Breaking with the old culture means different things to the two groups.

Mary and Rose talk o f sitting on the Sydney Harbour shoreline at Watsons Bay and drinking cham­ pagne when they hear that California has gone. They are attracted by the prospect o f no future hassles, no need to work, and nothing to be done about it. They believe there will pro­ bably be no way to get out since the routes out o f Sydney will be chaotic.

They look forward to the guilt-free expression o f all their repressed de­ sires for 36 hours before the wave, and then on to annihilation.

Mary says she feels both excite­ ment and fear about the wave. On the one hand it is a release from the old grind but also when she had the “ vision” she thought, “ I don’t want to die” . “ People love forthcoming disasters . . . it’s like being a child, you can just enjoy it. You have both fear and bravado. I am haunted by fear o f the world as I was as a child — it’s like when I heard God saying

ravaged by plagues and famines sought a New Jerusalem, a new world with a comfortable place for themselves in it, a land flowing with milk and honey.

In America the Red Indians per­ formed Ghost Dances to hasten the end o f the old world as predicted by prophets. The earthquakes envisaged were to assure the end o f the white world, leaving the Indians to enjoy the new world. Ten thousand Guiana Indians who adopted such a belief system killed each other to be re­ born white.

In Nuigini, since colonial invasions began, Cargo Cults have existed.

Melanesians believe that flames or boats will deliver the cargo (white men’s goods and civilization) over­ night. The new society so found will (a) place blacks on top (b) make blacks equal with whites (c) cause whites to vanish or (d) turn blacks white. Christianity has been blessed with many heretics who have tried to bring the year o f the apocalypse for­ ward — Levellers, Anabaptists, Mor­ mons, and the Jehovah’s Witnesses among others.

Some sociologists claim that Christianity itself began as a millenarian cult amongst dispossessed groups in Palestine, made insecure as a result o f the Roman occupation.

More recently groups have predicted the end o f the world by flood, leaving the faithful to be rescued by flying saucers. Rennie Davis, a one­ time U.S. radical and now a Divine Light Mission member, stated, “ a great wash will sweep the planet.

Those who have the Word will be saved and those who don’ t will not pass through this time.”

October 1974 spelt the end, according to the Divine Light Mission; many members holed up in the Houston Astrodome waiting for the wash to pass over. It did.

Since 1966 the Watchtower Society tipped northern autumn 1975 as the year o f the big shake-out, leaving only the Jehovah’s Witnesses to en­ joy an idyllic 1000 year reign o f Christ on earth.

These days many people find western capitalism no longer satisfies their needs. Western scientific and pragmatic attempts to cope with the world have failed them. It is not surprising that people are attracted to the simple solution o f its destruction by natural disaster. If the wave comes, then, as Meg says, “ it will put an end to all this inward-looking stuff — it takes the weight o f self-importance o ff you, so you can forget politics and trying to live alternate lives and not being a sexist. . . ”

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Pacific Ocean floor, with thé Circum Pacific Ring o f Fire

‘ Depart from me, you are cursed into everlasting flames that were created for Satan and his angels.’ ” Rose hopes for annihilation but is frightened that her friends may desert and go to the mountains and she’ll be left alone at Watsons Bay with the champagne.

Meaghan thinks most Australians would go psychotic if the wave came. “ I would rather be wiped out than see what happens after it.”

Gale, Sue and Di envisage chaotic times. They hope to get to the coun­ try or the mountains and to defend themselves from the take-over by male culture which they confidently expect. “ In Darwin women were treated like chattels. Women would have to be strong and independent to survive. At present Law and Order controls men’s barbarism. After the tidal wave the army will invade and attempt to enforce military rule.”

The wave introduces to the be­ lievers practical questions such as whether women should arm them­ selves. They argue that women should form all-female groupings to defend themselves. “ It will be like a return

to matriarchies where women had their settlements and men were out­ siders — marauders” , they say.

(Elizabeth Gould Davis in her book The First Sex, argues that this was the pattern for society in prehistoric times.) “ Women will realize their potential in the country, freed from the bullshit and products o f male culture.”

Gale said that she was puzzled that there were a few men who were “ getting out” o f Western Culture, who had realised the facts about the wave. Sue commented, “ They’ re sur­ vivors. There are men who want to be peripheral — who want a mother.

They will obey women.There are men like that, who want women to organise their lives and will accept it” .

The women wave-believers say the whole business o f the tidal wave will supersede arguments about “ condit­ io n in g ” . It is at this point that their analysis becomes a somewhat warped version o f what is commonly under­ stood by “ feminism” . They see the sex-role conditioning theory as nothing but a convenient excuse be­

hind which men can hide, a no­ responsibility plea. “ Men can’ t change,” they pessimistically declare. “ Men can’t be classless. They naturally use hierarchy and force. The only solution is for them to go away.”

The believers say that “ western male culture” is in decay. They have no faith in the possibility o f changing the world before the next 20 or 30 years when we will be devastated by ecological crises. Although the degree o f devastation and chaos the wave will bring frightens them, they see it as a “ quicker release” than fight­ ing for revolutionary change in the system, or the unending task of trying to change men. They think the wave might be “ the only way” .

Kate Jennings remarks, “ It’s a typical 1970s mentality. In the 60’s people had great causes and didn’t worry about the end o f the world.”

The end o f the world is a perennial theme. The Upanishads, Vedas, and Institute o f Menu mention an eternal succession o f catastrophes — in which the world is overwhelmed by water, and ectopyroses — in which the core o f the world is dissolved by fire.

The Christian tradition turns the periodical disaster into a once-only affair. Christ’s second coming ends history — that blood-stained chron­ icle o f bummers — and ushers in the millenium. The wicked are purged from the world. The good, the meek, inherit a thousand year reich with Jesus as benevolent Fuehrer.

Dr Norman Cohn has shown that in the middle ages the millenial myth was important in mobilising Christian hordes to commit atrocities on Jews, landlords, infidels and so on.

Nowadays, millenarianism is used to describe groups o f people who believe in the apocalypse. The destruction o f the old world, they say, will come relatively shortly and cannot be averted by human agencies.

Apocalyptic beliefs have gained most popularity amongst dispossessed peoples on the frjnges o f mainstream society. The uprooted poor and itinerant workers o f the middle ages and tribes displaced by foreign in­ vasions had no method o f coping with mainstream society or were unable to improve their lot in the old society. People constantly

U K A L K A D O O N 3 8 2 B o u rk e St., M e lb ou rn e. 3 0 0 0

travel TRA VEL THE STUDENT WA Y TRAVEL AUS! 84 Cleveland Street, Chippendale, NSW. Ph.: $98.3719 220 Faraday Street, Carlton, VIC. Ph.: 347.8482

Marxist and feminist for years.

Rose Creswell is in a similar posi­ tion to Meaghan and Mary and says “ people, especially desperadoes, are happy about the possibility o f the wave because they’ ll die. They aren’t going to knock themselves off. If something external does it it’s better.”

Both Meg and Mary have talked to a fair few people about the wave — Meg has been discussing it with friends for many years. She says that a lot o f her revolutionary and “ left over hippy” friends are into it. She describes the latter as “ people for whom nothing has changed since 1968 — people thinking o f joining Zen monasteries in Japan. They’re into it because it’s a whole new impetus.”

PACIFIC OCEAN FLOOR

'

HA

siAW OxW »

Basically the people who are into the wave fall into two categories.

The Desperadoes who like the idea o f annihilation. They are cynical about the world getting any better and make an unhappy adjustment to Western Civilization. They lead a fairly suicidal existence and generally drink a lot — the Kamikaze set.

The Mystics. These people have been into magical ideas and spiritual powers for some time. Many o f them too have given up on the Old World.

Their alternative is “ to turn your back on Western Capitalism and its products” and to attempt to live self-sufficiently in the country.

Both groups contain formerly active revolutionaries.

Given that there’s a chance o f the wave coming but that it’s only a possibility among possibilities, why are some people so excited about the wave? What’s in it for them?

What is the appeal o f catastrophic devastation?

How do they envisage the world after the wave?

One thing that excites both the ‘ desperadoes” and the “ mystical femi­ nists” is what they see as the wave’s potential to produce a complete break with decadent western civili­ zation and all that this implies both personally and politically.

Breaking with the old culture means different things to the two groups.

Mary and Rose talk o f sitting on the Sydney Harbour shoreline at Watsons Bay and drinking cham­ pagne when they hear that California has gone. They are attracted by the prospect o f no future hassles, no need to work, and nothing to be done about it. They believe there will pro­ bably be no way to get out since the routes out o f Sydney will be chaotic.

They look forward to the guilt-free expression o f all their repressed de­ sires for 36 hours before the wave, and then on to annihilation.

Mary says she feels both excite­ ment and fear about the wave. On the one hand it is a release from the old grind but also when she had the “ vision” she thought, “ I don’t want to die” . “ People love forthcoming disasters . . . it’s like being a child, you can just enjoy it. You have both fear and bravado. I am haunted by fear o f the world as I was as a child — it’s like when I heard God saying

ravaged by plagues and famines sought a New Jerusalem, a new world with a comfortable place for themselves in it, a land flowing with milk and honey.

In America the Red Indians per­ formed Ghost Dances to hasten the end o f the old world as predicted by prophets. The earthquakes envisaged were to assure the end o f the white world, leaving the Indians to enjoy the new world. Ten thousand Guiana Indians who adopted such a belief system killed each other to be re­ born white.

In Nuigini, since colonial invasions began, Cargo Cults have existed.

Melanesians believe that flames or boats will deliver the cargo (white men’s goods and civilization) over­ night. The new society so found will (a) place blacks on top (b) make blacks equal with whites (c) cause whites to vanish or (d) turn blacks white. Christianity has been blessed with many heretics who have tried to bring the year o f the apocalypse for­ ward — Levellers, Anabaptists, Mor­ mons, and the Jehovah’s Witnesses among others.

Some sociologists claim that Christianity itself began as a millenarian cult amongst dispossessed groups in Palestine, made insecure as a result o f the Roman occupation.

More recently groups have predicted the end o f the world by flood, leaving the faithful to be rescued by flying saucers. Rennie Davis, a one­ time U.S. radical and now a Divine Light Mission member, stated, “ a great wash will sweep the planet.

Those who have the Word will be saved and those who don’ t will not pass through this time.”

October 1974 spelt the end, according to the Divine Light Mission; many members holed up in the Houston Astrodome waiting for the wash to pass over. It did.

Since 1966 the Watchtower Society tipped northern autumn 1975 as the year o f the big shake-out, leaving only the Jehovah’s Witnesses to en­ joy an idyllic 1000 year reign o f Christ on earth.

These days many people find western capitalism no longer satisfies their needs. Western scientific and pragmatic attempts to cope with the world have failed them. It is not surprising that people are attracted to the simple solution o f its destruction by natural disaster. If the wave comes, then, as Meg says, “ it will put an end to all this inward-looking stuff — it takes the weight o f self-importance o ff you, so you can forget politics and trying to live alternate lives and not being a sexist. . . ”

Subscribe to

Magazines

fro m C hina

PEKING REVIEW weekly $3 pa* CHINA PICTORIAL monthly $2 p.a.* CHINA RECONSTRUCTS monthly $1.80 p.a.

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Pacific Ocean floor, with thé Circum Pacific Ring o f Fire

‘ Depart from me, you are cursed into everlasting flames that were created for Satan and his angels.’ ” Rose hopes for annihilation but is frightened that her friends may desert and go to the mountains and she’ll be left alone at Watsons Bay with the champagne.

Meaghan thinks most Australians would go psychotic if the wave came. “ I would rather be wiped out than see what happens after it.”

Gale, Sue and Di envisage chaotic times. They hope to get to the coun­ try or the mountains and to defend themselves from the take-over by male culture which they confidently expect. “ In Darwin women were treated like chattels. Women would have to be strong and independent to survive. At present Law and Order controls men’s barbarism. After the tidal wave the army will invade and attempt to enforce military rule.”

The wave introduces to the be­ lievers practical questions such as whether women should arm them­ selves. They argue that women should form all-female groupings to defend themselves. “ It will be like a return

to matriarchies where women had their settlements and men were out­ siders — marauders” , they say.

(Elizabeth Gould Davis in her book The First Sex, argues that this was the pattern for society in prehistoric times.) “ Women will realize their potential in the country, freed from the bullshit and products o f male culture.”

Gale said that she was puzzled that there were a few men who were “ getting out” o f Western Culture, who had realised the facts about the wave. Sue commented, “ They’ re sur­ vivors. There are men who want to be peripheral — who want a mother.

They will obey women.There are men like that, who want women to organise their lives and will accept it” .

The women wave-believers say the whole business o f the tidal wave will supersede arguments about “ condit­ io n in g ” . It is at this point that their analysis becomes a somewhat warped version o f what is commonly under­ stood by “ feminism” . They see the sex-role conditioning theory as nothing but a convenient excuse be­

hind which men can hide, a no­ responsibility plea. “ Men can’ t change,” they pessimistically declare. “ Men can’t be classless. They naturally use hierarchy and force. The only solution is for them to go away.”

The believers say that “ western male culture” is in decay. They have no faith in the possibility o f changing the world before the next 20 or 30 years when we will be devastated by ecological crises. Although the degree o f devastation and chaos the wave will bring frightens them, they see it as a “ quicker release” than fight­ ing for revolutionary change in the system, or the unending task of trying to change men. They think the wave might be “ the only way” .

Kate Jennings remarks, “ It’s a typical 1970s mentality. In the 60’s people had great causes and didn’t worry about the end o f the world.”

The end o f the world is a perennial theme. The Upanishads, Vedas, and Institute o f Menu mention an eternal succession o f catastrophes — in which the world is overwhelmed by water, and ectopyroses — in which the core o f the world is dissolved by fire.

The Christian tradition turns the periodical disaster into a once-only affair. Christ’s second coming ends history — that blood-stained chron­ icle o f bummers — and ushers in the millenium. The wicked are purged from the world. The good, the meek, inherit a thousand year reich with Jesus as benevolent Fuehrer.

Dr Norman Cohn has shown that in the middle ages the millenial myth was important in mobilising Christian hordes to commit atrocities on Jews, landlords, infidels and so on.

Nowadays, millenarianism is used to describe groups o f people who believe in the apocalypse. The destruction o f the old world, they say, will come relatively shortly and cannot be averted by human agencies.

Apocalyptic beliefs have gained most popularity amongst dispossessed peoples on the frjnges o f mainstream society. The uprooted poor and itinerant workers o f the middle ages and tribes displaced by foreign in­ vasions had no method o f coping with mainstream society or were unable to improve their lot in the old society. People constantly

U K A L K A D O O N 3 8 2 B o u rk e St., M e lb ou rn e. 3 0 0 0

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THE DIGGER

Page 8

March 11 — April 9 Most o f ns have been on trains with a loquacious drunk, sitting rigid, look ­ ing out o f the window, hoping to Christ he doesn’t talk to me. In fact, the first bloke I approach — a middleaged wage plug — not only wouldn’t talk to me, but refused to acknow­ ledge my existence: he went on reading his paper without flinching.

Mandy Martin Though when I was leaving the carriage he shot out suddenly with: | “ How do you know there’s going to be train cuts?” “Department sources and the union”, I replied. He just sniffed and went back to his paper.

It’s also physically difficult to talk to people on a train at night. Thè noise is deafening. “ One thing I noticed” , observed my travelling com ­ panion, “ the first and last blokes you actually talked with, had no trouble hearing you. Ypu didn’t have to re­ peat yourself like with the others. ‘ From which I figure, either they talk a lot on trains, which is un­ likely,, or else they work with noisey, heavy machinery ^and are used to talking above the noise.”

Sure enough, the first bloke was a printer at the Herald, and the last bloke worked in the railways’ shunting yard.

Needless to say, none o f the passengers I talked to knew o f the proposed cuts.

So m uch for the last train to Blacktown Sydney's late night train services are due to be reduced in May. Hall Greenland talks to the drivers and the passengers on the late night trains . *

*

*

It was train driver Bob Simpson, who lives around the corner, who tipped me o ff about the suburban train cuts signed, sealed and deli­ vered for May. “ They’re going to increase the morning and evening peak-hour ser­ vices and cut down on the off-peak on es—especially the late night trains. “ The new time-table will be geared to your 9—5 Liberal Party­ voting workers. “ It’s your long-haired kids from the western suburbs who come into the city for a night out, who won’t be able to get home in future.”

The drivers almost unanimously agreed to the cuts at the end o f January. My neighbour thought they did this because it would mean more normal working hours for them. “ For example, a driver who now has to start a shift at 2.28a.m. w on’t have to start til five o ’clock under the new time-table. And that’s just about a day job .”

I couldn’t see how anybody could see that as a “ day jo b ” . But threequarters o f the drivers are originally from the bush — often from dairy farms where milking starts at four in the morning.

Bob says he’s typical. One day in winter' twenty years ago, he’d had enough o f the rain and shit on his father’s dairy farm. “ So I put on the only shorts I had with only one cheek out o f the arse and hitched across to Lismore to join the railways. The next day I hitched to Casino for my medical, and two days later, I was on a train to Newcastle to start in the yards there. “ The railways were about the only alternative employment there was for country blokes. Years ago my father had supplemented his income by working as a fettler under another name.”

Noel Cox, the assistant secretary o f the drivers’ union, the Australian Federated Union o f Locomotive Enginemen, thought there was an­ other reason for the drivers’ accep­ tance o f the late night cuts. “ Up to last year we had no records o f drivers being bashed or mugged — with thé exception o f a

driver who was stabbed 18 months ago.. .. ;' f “ Since Christmas w e’ve had three drivers bashed in the early hours o f The morning — one at Central, an­ other at Sydnham, and the other at Erskinville. They were either on their way to or from work. “ Vandalism’s always been a prob­ lem. I can still remember driving the first train out o f Hornsby depot, whose job it was to pick up from the side o f the road all. the train-seats people threw out o f the train the previous night. Seats are screwed down now, but that doesn’t stop some. “ But this hooligan bashing busi­ ness is a new development and the drivers don’t see why they should have to take risks.”

Drivers are prudential people.

Bob’s been with the railways twenty years — which is something like the average for a driver. He spent ten years working through 'the grades waiting for vacancies to occur, then eight years driving steam trains, and the last two on electrics.

The drivers’ training is almost feudal. After 12 months with the railways, an intending driver takes an exam on his knowledge o f the “ safe­ working catechism” and becomes an “ acting fireman” . He then waits until a vacancy appears in the. firemen’s ranks, and if he passes a two-hour verbal exam, he becomes a fireman.

After another two years he can then go to “ acting drivers’ school” for two weeks and if successful there — more two hour verbal exams — he becomes an acting driver on “ slow” trains. He must then wait for a vacancy to appear in the drivers’ ranks and after more exams, can becom e a driven Until recently there used to be another higher classification: driver special class. They were the aristo­ crats who drove the inter-city exr presses.They drew salaries not wages, got a pink pay-slip and not a blue one, got three dollars a week .more than an ordinary driver, eight sickies instead o f six and got to go to the transport officers’ picnic rather than the men’s.

Bob served part o f his time with a special class driver. “ When we stopped for the .night, I used to fill his pipe and make him a cup o f tea. We thought, the world o f doing that, because we thought: a lot o f those old blokes.” Would he do it now? “ Pig’s fucking arsehole, I would.”

Adelaide railway workers finishing a night shift cleaning interstate trains.

The AFULE recently convinced, the Public Transport Commission to extend the training period for an acting driver by twelve months. Why? “ Well I don’t like to say it” , said Noel Cox, “ but the type o f young bloke we’re getting today is not as good as in the old days.”

The drivers protect their position ferociously. Up til recently, guards used to take over the driving o f trains if the driver fell sick. In the last couple o f years, the drivers have struck a number o f times to have this practice abolished completely. “ The position was being abused” , explains Noel Cox, “ the guard would not just drive to the next station, but drive the train for the whole roster.”

But for a freakish accident last year, the drivers would not have accepted the union-sponsored com ­ promise that guards be able to drive the train to the next station if some-

thing happened to the driver. “ What happened was that a brick was thrown through a driver’s win­ dow ” , says Noel Cox, “ and he was blinded by the shattering glass and all that blood. The guard drove the train to the next station and got an am­ bulance. The surgeon at the hospital said if it’d been twenty inimités later the driver would have been perma­ nently blind. “ So I said to the blokes that if you got your way, that guard would not have been able to drive the train and one o f your mates would have been blind. That swung it.”

So last Tuesday night, a friend and I got on the 1.49a.m. to Black­ town, to find out what its passengers thought o f waiting for the 3.15a.m. diesel train in future. (Little did we know then, as the cab driver told us on the way back to the city, “ a diesel ran out o f fuel just the other week, stopped dead between Flemington and Lidcombe” — which is about half way to Blacktown. “ The railways are getting worse and worse, you know” , said the cab driver. “ Fancy a train running out o f fuel. You wouldn’t read aboikt it.” )

The Public Transport Commission notified the x\FULE o f its proposed train cuts in January. Part o f the story the PTC . told the union was: “ The 1.49a.m. North Sydney to Blacktown will be cancelled, but an extra two car diesel will depart Sydney at 3:15a.m. for Blacktown.”

Nineteen men and a woman got on the train at Central. I was toey for some reason — later* when talking to passengers, questions about ‘ muggers’ just popped out without me thinking.

That was probably it.

Plus the nervousness at breaking that cultural taboo that people don’t talk to each other on trains.

M iddle class drug addicts come out

by J.J. McRoach N o w th a t th e great m arijuana m ail o r d e r ca m p a ign c o n d u c t e d b y th e S o u th A ustralian D o p e S m o k e r s ’ U n io n has ce a se d activities fo llo w in g th e b ig b u st (see D ig g er N o .4 1 ) , a n d th e U n io n m e m ­ bers have d u g in an d are b u sily p rep a rin g p ro-m a riju a n a e v id e n ce f o r th e c o u r t case w h ich th e y , w ith o p tim is tic fe r v o u r , b elie v e w ill cau se a b re a k -th ro u g h in A ustralian d o p e la w r e fo r m , th e tim e is rip e t o sit b a c k a n d evaluate th e real e ffe c t s o f this ‘ n o t o r io u s e s ca p a d e ’ . with dope, so that rapidly politically Certainly, in Australia, the Union oriented smokers, while continuing has created the first campaign to to smoke the drug, shifted their effect national repercussions, and activism into the more important apparently this success is injecting causes. enthusiasm into campus organisations The first middle wayer to enter which, during the past couple o f the scene and ‘revolutionise’ the dope years, have been relatively ineffectual; movement was Keith Stroup, now director o f Norml. Stroup, a young, However, American dope lobby­ middle class, dope smoking lawyer, ists would be horrified by the DSU’s became involved in the movement tactics. when defending a busted friend. He In the States the dope reformers approached Playboy, but received have adopted pragmatic middle class only $5,000. He then brought the means to combat the marijuana laws. rights to the legendary thirties dope The ‘ freak’ organisations, unable to horror movie, R eefer Madness and gain momentum or success, have screened it on campuses, received given way to ‘middle wayers’ (al­ more funds from Playboy and built though the middle wayers readily admit that freak tactics payed the j up the now powerful Norml.

Norml’s first tactics began in way in the sixties) and lobbyists are court. Their lawyers energetically how dominated by powerful organi­ contested every dope case, no matter sations such as Norml, the Playboy funded group, and Amorphia, origi­ how small, challenging search and seizure procedures, and in every way nally. a freak organisation which possible binding up courts with funded itself through the sale o f lengthy cases. So that gradually word joint rolling papers, but which, in ’ 73 seeped from the courts to law en­ replaced its upper echelon with forcement agencies riot to bring in moderates such as Gordon Brownell, the single joint busts, then to forget former aide in Nixon’s White House and member o f California’s Republi­ about ‘lid’ busts (lids being roughly , the U.S. equivalent tp the ounce) can Control Committee. and so on.

Middle wayers claimed that the The freakier dope groups attacked smoke-ins o f the sixties helped to consolidate smokers but also pola­ Norm! for becoming ‘straight’ ,' but Norml’s growing list o f successes and rised various social elements and the freaks’ growing list o f failures shifted the emphasis o f law reform began to shape the pattern of from a civil issue to a confusing lobbying. cultural confrontation.

They also The middle wayers defended their claimed that the consolidation o f tactics; arguing that to change laws) freak smokers didn’t achieve much.

The converted preached to the con­ legislators are more easily impressed verted. While dope initiated the first by the middle class and if that hedonistic forays into street politics, means a conservative front, then a the issue failed to gain momentum conservative front is proffered. They simply because dope isn’t as serious an also felt that eventual legislation can issue as, say, war or famine. A certain only be achieved incrementally with amount o f self-indulgence and dilet­ decriminalisation being the first step.

It didn't take the middle wayers tantism was (and still is) associated

long to dominate the reform machh4 nery — even the freakier elements began gradual public relation changes, particularly dope dealers. In Boulder, Colorado, the Reputable Dealers’ Association advertised on radio as a public service informing smokers o f the current quality and fair price o f (jope available.

In Florida, the Gainsville Mari­ juana Dealers’ Association made cash gifts to a Jerry Lewis telethon and funded a scholarship. The Broward County Marijuana Dealers’ Associ­ ation donated $2,000 toward a child’s heart operation. (This prompted the local sheriff, who presumably enter­ tained a penchant for puns, to state: “ Y ou ’ve got to admit that some o f these marijuana dealers are good guys.

Their hearts are in the right place.” ) The middle wayers plunged on, achieving incredible triumphs. Their most significant media victory occur­ red through the strange conversion o f a most unlikely person, Dick Cowan, who, when*1 originally approaching Norml. introduced himself as “ from the Committee to Re-elect the Presi­ dent (N ixon)” and was laughed at.

The week before Cowan’s appearance a narc had attempted to penetrate Norml, so naturally they were on guard. The fact that Cowan had also applied for a position in CREEP and had been personally interviewed by Spiro Agnew didn’t help. But Cowan persisted and became totally com ­ mitted to the cause.

He submitted an article to the conservative but extremely influential3 National Review.

The publisher,I William F. Buckley, very anti-dope, f read the article, boarded his yacht, sailed outside the three miie limit, smoked a few experimental joints, mulled over the situation, returned to the shore with a new attitude and printed the article as a cover story entitled ‘ American Conservatives Should Revise Their Position On Marijuana’ and subtitled, “ The Time Has Come: Abolish the Pot Laws” .

The next victory was the reduc­ tion o f Texan dope penalties, from two years to life for any amount (the severest penalty at that time in the world bar the Peoples’ Republic o f

The second bloke I approached was a regular. “ This is my train” — real definite about it. He went to Blacktown and got home by cab from the station at 3.15. If he had to wait for the 3.15 diesel in future, then he wouldn’t make it to Blacktown til 4.30 (provided it didn’ t run out o f fuel), and he’d have to walk a mile home. “ There’d be no taxis then.”

He could get a paper truck — he was a printer }f -b u t he didn’t like the idea. “ I suppose I could skip o ff early and get the 5 to 1, but I don’t like leaving the other blokes with the work, and I like to nip into the Graphic Arts Club for a beer or two before I catch the train.”

I asked him if any railway officials had ever asked him how the train cuts would affect him and he replied “ no, never” .

Later as I walked past him out o f the carriage, he reached out to touch my coat and said with a “ you ’ll-besweet” wink: “ Don’t worry, if a rail­ way inspector gets on I w on’t tell him I told you .”

The next two looked like Chinese junkies — terribly emaciated and sleepy. I woke one o f them with my spiel to be told that they travelled home to Blacktown every Tuesday night on this train. ‘'How will cutting out this train affect y o u ? ” “ We’ll come home in my utility instead.” “ Why don't you use the utility now ?”

He shrugged his shoulders and dropped back to sleep — which I suppose is the answer.

The next passenger turned out to be a young Canadian in Sydney for

LETTER S FRO M

PAGE

blasts

The outrageous illegality o f th€ DSU’s exercise inhibits politicians from endorsing their activities, yei this tactic was really the only way tc capture the public attention — remember the average ocker’S love/ hate admiration o f ‘stirrers’ .

The DSU’s big chance is to launch a monumerita) court case with the hope that strong middle way elements, civil rightists,f etc., will surface as the wrangle escalates.

The DSU has constantly reiterated that it has pjenty o f evidence about South Australian police corruption, brutality, falsifying o f evidence and dope dealing. If they concentrate on this angle and take advantage o f the Current climate set by the Melbourne police corruption probe now in full swing, plus the recent ill-fated Sydney police corruption expose (temporarily set back by the murder o f orie o f the movement’s main organisers) and also the recent internal police investi­ gation prompted by the DSU in Adelaide, they could create a backlash o f middle class indignation.

However, whatever the result o f this case, the DSU have put dope reform on a strong footing and( the movement can now develop and mature.

Feedlack

1

Q ld F M

China where it’s three years to death for possession o f any amount) to possession o f two'ounces or less as a “ low misdemeanour” with penalties o f ,up to $1,000 and/or six months’ imprisonment.

Then marijuana was decriminalised in Oregon and recently the new Governor o f California won office with marijuana law reform on his ticket.

And now, in ’75, the middle I wayers are confident o f widespread décriminalisation following the fall from grace and power o f the dope smokers’ most formidable enemy, Nixon.

But back to Australia, where apathy persists and where no active I middle wayers have surfaced.

The DSU certainly has the full backing o f all smokers but in many areas this support is practically use­ less, with smokers voicing their approval and then disappearing into the dopey depths o f their living room closets. Getting smokers to Sign petitions is difficult — particu­ T larly in the wake o f publicity that the drug squad have found files listing all people who requested mail order dope.

On Friday night I also caught the 1.49a.m. train to Blacktown. This time there were over 80 passengers, mostly young people and at least a dozen ,young women travelling alone or in a group without males. Also on this train were a couple o f blokes who live on the trains and in station waiting-rooms.

The next passenger said he was a businessman going home to Liver­ pool. “ O f course” , he insisted, “ I’m not a regular train traveller.”

Though he sometimes took this train home at night. “ Usually I take a cab from the city” , he told me. “ You won't be inconvenienced by train cuts then?” “ Well, probably. You see I sometimes get this train. Yes, you could say it was an inconvenience.”

He wanted to know the reasons for the cuts — this was the first he’d heard o f it. He didn’t think saving money was a good enough reason — “ the railways are there to provide a service, and I would say there’s quite a few passengers on this train every night” .

The drivers talk in stage-coach terms even now. The railway track is referred to as ‘ ,the road” ; you don’ t put your train away at the end 6 f a shift, you “ stable” it; and meal­ times are referred to as “ crib” , which is what the stage horses’ feed-box used to be called.

The latest time-table cuts are taking us back to that era if you live in Sydney’s western sprawl and haven’t got a car and want to travel late.

C O N T IN U E D

------ ----- J p ----------- -

5000 tons o f fibre and seed

ten days, who in answer to my will-the-cuts-inconvenience-you ques­ tion, said in a slow twang: “ Probably not as I’ll be back in Manitoba by then.”

The last bloke was on his way tq Toongabie. About twice a month he had to work back and took this train. Waiting for the 3.15a.m. on those occasions would mean he got home tw o hours later. No railway people had ever asked him about cuts. “ And I work for the railways.” ,Up to him, nobody had said they were worried by the chances o f being mugged. “ I don ’t usually worry” , he said. “ It seems if you let them go, then they don’t worry you. “ But the 12.23 on Saturdays is bad. I must say that I’ve been on when they’ve stopped the train and called the police. These hooligans don’t to m e in ones and twos, they come in one dozen and tw o dozen, you know.” “ Have you got the 12.23 lately?” “ Not for 18 months. I make a point o f not catching it, you see.”

The 12.23 will not, by the way, be subject to any cuts.

My friend and I got out at Lidcombe — 13 stops from Central.

There were still 16 on the train as we pulled into Lidcombe. Five got o ff — 3 to change trains — and three new passengers got on.

The University o f Queensland Students’ Union is awaiting govern­ ment approval for an F M licence after its successful experimental broadcasts during Orientation Week.

The station — 4ZZ-FM — will be Australia’s first FM station aimed specifically at a young audience. It’s format will be much the same as Sydney’s rock station 2JJ (see “ And in the big city, an outbreak o f radio mania” Digger no. 41) except that there will be a greater accent on Community Access during off-peak hours.

Some o f the established radio stations in Brisbane do not seem to be very pleased by the possibility o f a group o f students having their very own radio transmitter. Even though the existing stations broadcast on the AM band - 1- and hopefully will stay there — it is rumoured that the AM stations are lobbying against 4ZZ-FM in Canberra.

If the licence is granted the station plans to begin broadcasting to the Brisbane metropolitan area in June.

It is expected to have a high degree o f editorial freedom within a struc­ ture ;hat will include an editorial guidance group elected by the stu­ dent body.

As an adjunct to the broadcasting of. rock music, 4Z Z intends to promote concerts featuring the best o f Brisbane groups and other Aus^ tralian musicians.

4ZZ-FM has already created a lot o f interest in Brisbane, and if it goes to air with a mixture o f rock, al­ ternative news and community access, there may well be some stirring in the City o f Sleep.

Well, hère I am, it’s 6 pm but I’ m not eating tonight, I’ m writing to The Digger because I know full-well that no other paper would print the following emotional release.

Here we all are, five years into the swinging 70s the trendyness o f being a gay libber fizzled out last year, the more socially acceptable trendyness o f being a women’s libber fizzled several years before so where does that leave me? Sure my sympathies still lie whole-heartedly with Women’s Liberation and although I’m as straight as they come I literally grab hold o f gay guys that pass on the street to tell them how wonderful they are and to entice them on to further victories with encouraging slogans. “ Be Gay — Be Proud.”

You know, I’ m still the Bob Dylan fan I was back in ’ 66 and the times are still changin’ , but the only differ­ ence is that now I’ m in a position to help them change. Hell! don’t ask me how I intend to do that* but as soon as I know for sure I’ll be oqt there, handing out leaflets up on my soapbox in the Domain a mass o f limp-wristed gays following behind in tight trousers, and butch ......ladies bearing their tattooed arms and un­ supported boobs.

Anyway this is a plea to all o f you Digger readers out there, honeys you ’re the masses, if you ’re ignorant the masses are ignorant, if you ’re proud, the masses are proud. My next ten years o f life depend on what you scream in the streèts, and what you print in your newspapers and what you protest about. And probably most important, my potential child­ ren depend on what you fight for in your wars.

Just don’t clam up now, people need you tp love ’em a bit (and that doesn’t mean screwing!) And I need you especially if you ’re liberated or gay.

In Anticipation of: Feedback PLEASE!!!

Avril Halliday Sydney, NSW.

SCORPIO 422870

Adelaide Alternative Community Telephone

24 H rs

THE DIGGER

March 11 — April 9 From the start it has been o b ­ vious that there are more reasons for the sackings than the econom ic need to reduce the workforce. A flam­ boyant female shop steward, Edie, has flaunted her militancy at the bosses since the factory opened, winning better conditions and wages.

Now that there’s a recession, the management has decided to make an all out attack on the workers’ strength so that they can more easily refuse wage demands and retrench workers when they wish without resistance.

They sacked all seventeen women there and said in a hand-delivered letter to some men: “ It is hoped that by retrenching the ladies now, it will not be necessary for retrenchments in the future.” This ruse had the. desired effect on most o f the male workers, but over-all it backfired.

The Everhot dispute..........

I f w e sack th e w om en n ow , there w on ’t be any sackings later

by Rose McGinley

Since February 24, ten women sacked from Everhot, a stove factory in Bayswater, Victoria, and men striking in support, have been maintaining a picket at the factory gate. Equipped with beach chairs and sun hats, thermoses and eskies, they appear to be relax­ ing in the sun. But this is not so. They are all tense in their deter­ mination to strangle the company until they get their jobs back.

When some vehicle approaches, the joking stops, a couple o f picketers run in front o f it and someone goes up to, the driver to explain. Usually the driver turns away, but now and then there is argument: some drivers feel personally responsible for delivering the goods.

Once, in the early hours o f the morning, a couple o f semi-trailers, lights on high, sped through the gates.

An hour or so later, they took o ff from the other end o f the factory grounds and tore through the gate again — anyone standing in the way would have been pulped.

The women are all a little sur­ prised at themselves: “ I would never have thought a month ago that I’d be out here doing this” , said one. The company gave no warning o f the retrenchments; in fact it promised before Christmas that it would not consider ^such a move until at least March. .

Various wonfens’ groups and the government Committee on Discrimi­ nation in Employment attacked this blatant discrimination againstwomen.

The press also took a great interest, arid in the main managed to sensa­ tionalise and distort the facts. Mean­ while a Victorian Chamber o f Manu­ facturers’ heavy has been with the management nearly every day. This person’s arrogant and4 bullying manner is well known and laughed at in the Bayswater area. The bosses have played dirty throughout the dispute. With the backlog in orders for Everhot stoves, the transfer o f work to their Port

Political approaches to herstory Hidden From History,

by Sheila Rowbotham. Published by Penguin Books Australia, 1975. Recommend­ ed price $1.95.

by Pat Thomson

So you start o ff with Engels and a totally uncritical outline o f his theory o f the development o f the family. Then you dash o f f a section on the way witches and midwives were persecuted by patriarchal feudal society.

Hats o ff to Sheila Rowbotham and her wonderful card index system!

Now this line o f arialysis belongs Here we have every woman’s guide to the brand o f feminist herstory to all the readily available secondary that seeks to demonstrate the op ­ V sources on women in English history, pression o f women in every day neatly arranged in chronological or­ life outside o f political groupings. der, with no big words, and no It deals with women in mental in: heavy analysis. Save yourself the -stitutions, in art and literature, with trouble o f reading Strachey, Pankwomen as mothers and the role o f hurst, Mitchell, Pinchbeck, Ramelthe family, and with dominant stereo­ son et al; just buy this attractive types. Rowbotham starts o ff Using little volume and be instantly in­ this line o f analysis but when she formed. passes the Industrial Revolution, she I In attempting to cover 300 years is primarily concerned to examine o f history, the first problem that the development o f the Women’s anyone would strike is that there Suffrage Movement, and the various isn’t very much material available women’s Labour movements. By con­ on pre-industrial Revolution England centrating on this material, all o f and, by comparison, there is a vast which can readily be found in the amount on the Victorian period. works o f many established historians,

Sheila Rowbotham

HIDDEN FROM HISTORY 300 Years of Women’s Oppression and the Fight Against It

Hidden From History is a study of the changing position of women in England over the three hundred years between the Puritan Revolution and the 1930 s. Sheila Rowbotham show s that while the development of capitalism brought new relationships of property and domination, men continued to own women long after they themselves ceased to be the property of other men.

0 14 070096 X

$1.95

Recommended price only, not obligatory.

Published by Penguin Books Australia Ltd. Available from your local bookseller or newsagent.

and by neglecting the growing litera­ ture on the general condition o f women, (with the notable exception o f the chapters on birth control), she clearly opts not for “ hidden” history, but for “ misinterpreted” her­ story. She actually consults few o f the primary sources available to her, which could more correctly be called “ hidden” , since they are available only to academics engaged on re­ search.

What the blurb enthusiastically calls “ attempting a fusion” between the two types o f material on women in this period o f history, results in an uneasy alliance which does justice to neither position. Feminist her­ story is given a pretty poor run, and in the remaining sections on the development o f the organised Women’s Movement, Rowbotham makes several glaring ommissions.

She polemicises in the last chapter on the need for Socialist Feminism, but she actually does little to achieve a socialist ferpinist analysis, save by

Page 9

Melbourne plant, the fact that the guards are being paid for a 24 hour watch and men are working overtime, it is clear that lack o f work was not a major factor in the sackings. The fact that their last offer was for a few women to be re-employed part time, but definitely not the shop steward, has shown how much their fear o f Edie is behind it all.

The bosses also tried to enlist the aid o f the police. While some women were talking at another factory, and only a few women workers and supporters were maintaining the picket, the management decided to break the picket by sending a truck

through. When the women linked arms in front - o f the truck, the, police said, “ Don’t be silly girls,” and threatened to arrest them all.

But when a couple o f hundred male workers in boiler suits appeared through the trees to help, the cops claimed they didn’t want to take sides, made one more pathetic at­ tempt at intimidation by taking the names o f those they thought were the leaders, and then retired to their cars behind some trees on the other side o f the road.

Some weeks later, when a couple o f men striking in support o f the women were beaten up by the wor-

kers still on the job, the police said, “ You were looking for trouble and you found it” .

By this time men inside who had accepted the sackings were now wor­ king overtime and doing the women’s jobs. At the beginning they offered to give up their jobs to women who could prove to them that they had special hardships. The women re­ soundingly rejected this proposal, saying that they were not interested in taking other peoples’ jobs and that they didn’t think that women any more than men should have to plead special hardship to get a job. These men also tried visiting the homes o f women, with private offers from the company. They'm ade direct threats to male workers sympathetic to the picketers. It is worth noting that the men who withstood the threats and picketed with the womei\ were pre­ dominantly migrant.

Although the women and riien outside had stuck to ¡their stand o f all back or none, the Amalgamated Metal Workers’ Union représentative, in his ‘higher’ level negotiations with management in «the city, managed to toy with a number o f compromises.

(Actually, the union was in a tricky positiori since a narrow — some say rigged — majority o f workers had voted to accept the sackings. On principle the union was supporting the ‘ minority’.) On Thursday, Feb­ ruary 20, the union representative convinced the women to lift the picket as the management claimed th a t-on ly under these conditions

the structural juxtaposition o f some o f the feminist material with the so:called socialist material.

This is not gobd enough. She does not explain the differing ideo­ logies o f the working class and middle class sections o f the movement, if indeed it can be regarded as one movement because she does not look at the different relationship these two classes had to the changing economic structure.

She has to devote separate chap­ ters to trade union and suffrage activity, which do not satisfactorily show where the two differed, and where they overlapped. It is import­ ant to know how much o f the organised activity was based on the grounds o f women’s comm on op ­ pression, how much activity was geared to specific class demands (education for middle class women, and the right to join a male trade union for working class women), and how much were women o f one class acting on behalf o f the other class’s interests.

1L She does not ’ clearly explain the debate on the relationship between Socialism and Feminism that raged from the time o f Wollstonecraft onwards, nor does she devote any space to the actions and ideas o f the real Socialist Feminists: she quite ignores the existence o f the widespread Female Radical Clubs, and gives little space to the pioneer-

ing tactics o f feminist community work done by the East End AnarchoSyndicalists and Sylvia Pankhurst.Nor does she understand the role o f the state in capitalism.

The development o f the Welfare State; the transition from free enter­ prise capitalism where Britain “ ruled the waves” , to a highly competitive nation state with sophisticated re­ pressive, co-opting, and conditioning apparatuses happened in the same time period as the development and subsequent collapse o f the organised Women’s Movement, and it would be ridiculous to assume that the two were unrelated.

How did the state * co-opt the Women’s Movement? , How did the Women’s Movement act in ways which helped to form the state as it is now in Britain? What is the .relationship between the growth oi anti-feminism and the requirements o f the labour market? Rowbotham pays these vital questions little atten­ tion, and describes events rather than developing a rigorous analysis .

The reason why she virtually omits these, or deals with them in a cursory fashion, is implicit in her method. If she had looked at history in the way Marx did, not necessarily in chronological fashion, she would have a d e a r political purpose for the writing o f the book, viz, not purely and simply to assert women’s place in history, but rather to develop the

theory o f the Women’s Movement now in order to enable the movement to act effectively for political, eco­ nomic and social change.

Where are the political implica­ tions o f Hidden From History? The Women’s Movement must understand its herstory in terms that will help it now. Jean Chaneaux, author o f histories o f China and Vietnam, calls this “ looking from Present to Past.”

There is a striking similarity be­ tween the token but necessary poli­ tical concession o f the vote, which got everybody back into the partici­ patory democratic structure, and the symbolic and ideological concession o f International Women’s Year. If we were to start from this point and ask why did the Women’s Move­ ment get bought o ff with the vote because we don’t want to get bought o ff now, then we would be approach­ ing our herstory in a useful political way.

It is a pity that Rowbotham did not do this with the material she was considering, because she, could have done much to advance the theoretical and thus the tactical position o f the movement today.

We do not really need another pleas­ ant book to read on the bus; we must know what happened to us in history, just as we must under­ stand our specific position in society today, in order to remain a viable and vital political force.

Sacked women workers explain their case to men workers who had sided with tke boss.

H ow the A B C and M elbourne’s com m unity sabotaged access radio

by Greig Pickhaver On September 23 1974, Cabinet announced the first steps towards the introduction o f public broad­ casting in Australia.

The Music Broadcasting Societies in Victoria and N.S.W, were given the go ahead to broadcast fine music on F.M. Adelaide University was given an unrestricted A.M., license. The A.B.C., that well established “ public broadcaster” was given two new A.M. outlets, one in Melbourne and one in Sydney. Later that nionth it was announced that the Sydney station would sport a rock ’ n roll format while the Melbourne station would handle the hot potato “ access” .

These assurances were taken serious­ ly.

On October 14, a public meeting endorsed the principle o f collective control, approved the formation o f the Interim Management Committee (Ì.M.C.), and asked the A.B.C. not to make any decisions Until the committee had done its work. The Assistant General Manager (Radio) Keith Mackriell said at this meeting, “ There is a great deal o f merit in having a situation in which control should be substantially invested in the individuals and groups who wish to participate” . Encouraged by pro­ gress the I.M.C, organized another meeting for a fortnight later. One hundred people showed up to hear a senior A.B.C. executive, Peter Dell, state “ that the idea o f management o f the station being in the hands o f people outside o f the A.B.C. is ipevitable” . He thought it would only need pressure on the A.B.C. manage­ ment. The size o f the I.M.C. was expanded from 10 to 16.

A.B.C. executives met early in October with representatives o f com ­ munity groups wanting access. The representatives were chosen firom groups who had made submissions to the Media Department or to the various radio enquiries the Govern­ ment had organized in the past two years. This meeting established the.

Meanwhile the Senate Standing Interim Management Committee for Committee was hearing from the the access station. The organizations represented included the Australian j A.B.C.’s General Manager about the Performing Group, the North Mel­ access station’s “ balanced content” and that the same “ good taste and bourne Residents’ Association^ the standards” o f the ordinary A.B.C. Alternative Radio Association, WEL, programming would apply.. So the the Migrant Workers Conference, the upper reaches o f the A.B.C. were Italian Committee o f Co-ordination and the Community Radio Fede­ making decisions about the station. ration. The mandate o f the group By the' time the next public meet­ was to establish the basis- o f an ing was called on November 18, the access station on collective control tune had changed. Mackriell pre­ by community groups and individ­ sented a report which stated that uals. Membership o f th e' collective the station would be’ subject to was to be open to anyone who I the Broadcasting and Television Act, wished to participate. thè laws o f libel and the “ good taste” mentioned above. More im­ The A.B.C. executives at this first portantly, from what he said, it was meeting indicated that the nature obvious that the I.M.C. would only o f the station was wide open. The be an advisory body. The A.B.C. technical facilities and advice would wanted the controls. But the heat be provided by the A.B.C. Every­ was really put on when the I.M.C. thing else was up for discussion, was told to come up with a realistic especially the question o f control. starting date or “ there might not

be an access station” . The committee coughed out April 2 1 9 7 5 ‘and the position was to worsen.

At a meeting in December, the I.M.C. was informed o f several points the A.B.C. Commissioner had decided about the station. These included a starting date sometime in February.

Access was to be offered on the A.B.C.’s terms, and the community could liaise with the station’s, manage­ ment. The A.B.C. backed down on its promises to pay for a conference on access radio and the publication o f a booklet.

All this was announced to the I.M.C. at the meeting; it was not until a month later, January 20, that the committee received any­ thing in writing. Apparently,, the A.B.C. executives couldn’t make up their minds what should go in the letter. The, Melbourne Age, ran a story, on January 16, about the difficulties the I.M.C. were having and this may have prompted the A.B.C.’s pen hand.

radio was now reduced to a bunch o f community groups desperate to get on air to blow out “ four letter words” . The community groups were now being run down by the A.B.C. as slowing processes and a general hindrance to A.B.C. plans.

The meeting in February fell into line behind the nine who remained.

The positions o f the seven who had withdrawn were declared vacant.

Nine folks stepped up to fill the vacant chairs. The point that with­ drawal is not resignation, and the issues that caused the situation were lost in the shuffle. The station will go ahead now with only token com ­ munity representation. It is under­ stood that thq station will be housed in Cyclone House, Hardware Street, and initially go to air nightly be­ tween 6 11 pm with music, if nothing else is available.

The Interim Management Com­ mittee was at fault because it re­ fused to discuss wider issues. Motions and proposals were often contra­ When the letter finally arrived,- dictory, woolly, inconsistent. At one it caused seven o f the sixteen mem­ stage, they advocated independent control with listener participation bers o f the I.M.C. to withdraw. as long as this would be in com ­ They would rejoin the committee pliance with the Broadcasting and if it no longer co-operated with the Television Act and the laws o f the A.B.C. By this stage the A.B.C. had land.

This is impossible! The Act is already decided on fine details with­ a protector o f monied media m ono­ out taking any notice o f the I.M.C. polies and would need radical change The budget for the station($60,000) to come at independent control. was half that o f the Sydney rock station. The A.B.C1 was going to The I.M.C., like a rudderless ship, save money by ripping o ff the Mel­ was outmanoeuvred and manipulated bourne “ amateurs” . by the A.B.C. The community groups The A.B.C. refused to delegate failed to identify, acknowledge and build upon common interests. If responsibility to the community groups for the now access segments community control is to mean any­ o f the station’s format. Mackriell thing, specific and concrete defini­ was quoted in the Age before the tions need to be developed, along­ February meeting as saying, “ We side a critique o f the existing power would carry the can if there was structure. Getting true access radio something defamatory . . . We would is going to be a battle against en­ not. just give over funds to say a trenched power, just like every other consumer group, who got stuck into meaningful social change.

G.M.H. on air” . His view o f access

would they negotiate.

While the pickets were off, enough steel for three months got through the gates and the company came up with the following offer: * four part-time women to be re­ employed for 20 hours each; * remaining women to be re-emp­ loyed gradually as vacancies occurred on the basis that the union choose one and the employers choose one from the group retrenched; * no other workers to be taken on until all women have been given a chance to resume; * the men who had returned to work and been sacked to be re-employed if they stated they had been discrimi­ nated against.

Later they said that they would employ Edie only if the men inside agreed which o f course they didn’t The women are at present picketing again.

One might ask what the AMWU’s policy on retrenchments is.

The women were prepared to extend their rallies for support from other wor­ kers in the area, to spread the fight.

They considered that if they won their struggle against retrenchments it would set a precedent in the Bayswater area. They were prepared to picket until they were all back.

The AMWU seemed to think the sooner the whole thing was settled the better. In the union’s opinion each isolated shop should only worry about its own problems. The Everhot dispute has been an eye-opener for workers.

C om in g out, ready or n ot!

On International Women’s Day, March 8, the Australian- Women’s Broadcasting Cooperative (AWBC) went to air with a new weekly radio programme on ABC Radio 2. It’s called The Coming Out Ready Or N ot Show. The orientation is simply ‘coming out’ in the widest sense, articulating problems facing women in •our society, and celebrating women’s contribution and achieve­ ments as artists, workers, mothers.

The programme is the outlet for the co-operative endeavours o f the ABC women workers who responded to a management memo asking for suggestions for International Women’s Year.

Instead of. the anticipated ‘special’ but ‘occasional’ womenoriented programmes; the staff de­ manded the responsibility for seeking out and fostering the talents o f the many women in the ABC and for. providing a regular women’s time slot.

After meetings, with Keith Mac­ kriell, the head o f ABC radio, their demands have Jargely been melt — approval o f the proposal, air time, space requirements, salaries for full­ time co-ordinators, training opportu­ nities . . . ahd a somewhat bludgeoned budget.

Until now, all kinds o f opportu­ nities open to male staff have been denied many o f the 3,000 strong female staff. Those women who don’t join the organization in specialist positions — as journalists, broad­ casters, researchers, etc. — have pre­ dominantly typing or clerical duties.As far as creative Opportunities, it’s generally been, as the song goes, a “ . . . Man’s maq’s world! . . .” You notice it most in the areas o f tech­ nical operations.

Many ABC women have welcomed the establishing o f AWBC. Already some 126 women have shown interest i in getting training in basic broad­ casting skills — the use o f tape recorders, script writing, etc. The ABC Training School is helping with this and those interested women and men with professional broadcasting experience are volunteering assistance.

Self-help workshops have become a common event at lunch times and after work. With AWBC opportunities comes healthy ambition from the typing p ool: “ I can learn more about areas I’ m not involved in with my particular job. With training I feel I can apply for vacancies in the orga­ nization. I couldn’t normally consi­ der that,” said one.

AWBC looks like a promising point o f departure for the ABC; with co ­ operative decision making, generous information flows, self-help and the enhancement o f equal opportunities.

ABC women are not likely to forget this taste o f participation. If the programme only survives the year, the consequences are unlikely to be an amnesiac return to uncreative roles.

ABC TV women are mobilizing and making it too. Their proposals include workshops and responsibility for putting one episode o f all major series on your screen, as well as specials. And it’s a happier arrange­ ment financially than if a specific regular programme outlet was sought for television.

There’s a mutter in the ABC patch and it’s mounting . . . 97, 98, 99, 100 — on March 8, 5 o ’clock, you ’ll hear it: “ Ready or not, here we com e!”

THE DIGGER

Page 10

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N o Federal tickets o ff during the Federal intervention campaign: Joe Owens and other executive members in NSW believe that the reason for this is that; The NSW Builders’ Labourers are Gallagher did a deal with the MBA — flexing their collective muscles again. drop o ff permanency and we’ll help An exuberant meeting o f some each other in getting rid o f the NSW 2000 NSW BLs — and the office staff leadership.' o f their union — swept through a strong resolution at Sydney Town Hall Along with permanency a building programme is needed to minimize on Thursday February 27. The state­ the construction o f massive office wide stoppage on that day was called by the executive at the behest blocks which lie empty around the o f workers o ff Concrete Construct* cities o f Australia as tax dodges and increase what the NSW BLF calls ions7jobs, who had been out for al­ “ socially necessary construction” — most a week over issues related to schools, cheap and durable housing, the intervention by the Federal Sec­ hospitals, kindergartens and so on. retary Norm Gallagher into the NSW They believe that the time is now branch. The dispute over Gallagher’s right to implement such a program. intervention, and the assistance he’s An obvious area where this work getting from the Master Builders’ could begin is in W oolloom ooloo, a Association, weren’t the only matters traditionally ALP, inner city working to be discussed at the stoppage. Also class suburb. The Federal government on the agenda were unemployment came into office promising to put and permanency in the industry, and money into ‘The L oo’ — renovate the national paid rates award. the houses there and make them The meeting filled the ground floor and overflowed into the upstairs available at cheap rents. There is $17 million which is reportedly avail­ seats. State Secretary, Joe Owens, able for work to begin immediately sweating heavily under the heat o f on W oolloom ooloo. Owens said, television lighting, began by report­ “ we believe that the financial and ing to an appreciative crowd on material resources should be used. where the National Paid Rates Award negotiations were at. A total o f We believe that the greatest pressure $11.80 straight increases by Septem­ possible should go on the Federal ber 1, and an increase in height government to put that money in money with all labourers on site for a socially useful contract o f getting the same amount as the homes for the people. It would also workers on the highest floor. But supply a lot o f people with work” . what really brought the house down On the attempted takeover o f was the introduction o f paid sick the NSW union, Owens said federal leave, until this time an unknown officials o f the BLF have repeatedly for BLs. As o f March 1 they will refused NSW officials’ offers o f open have five days annually. discussion o f the whole intervention The policy o f permanency in the issue. industry is an urgent priority, said “ We’ve asked them to a mass Owens. First introduced in 1973, meeting to put their case and let the the pressure on the employers for workers decide. They’ve refused, * permanency in the industry dropped We’ve offered, and still do, to run an

Viri Perez- - 4 me only union where a migrant can be proud to hold a ticket

THE RECORD COLLECTOR Now a Marxists chin is a wondrous thing all ginger fuzz and acne & a Maoist Mouth could House a House but what it says is hackney

And as King o f the Left it’s a darn good bet that old Mao Tse Tung on one thing is Hung he thinks he’ s Greggy Young For the Tops in Pops & Propaganda Pamphlets: H O C O L L E C T O R - T W O SHOPS: CNR. T O O R A K A N D D A V IS A V E N U E , SO O T H Y A R R A . 267.1885, ANC 710 G L E N F E R R IE R O A D H AW THO RN . 819.1917.

election in NSW and let the workers decide through the ballot box.

They’ve refused.”

The resolution put forward was that the executive 1. Calls on the Federal body to meet with NSW to settle the dispute.

Failing this, ask Hawke and the ACTU to call a meeting o f Federal and State officials; 2. Calls on the MBA to meet with NSW officials and discuss unemploy­ ment and the setting up o f pick-up centres; 3. Calls on the Federal government to state its attitude on permanency and to give some attention to the public sector, especially W oolloo- * m ooloo; and for the government to declare a moratorium on rents, rates, hire purchase for the unemployed and to increase social.services; 4. Calls for the immediate reinstate­ ment o f Concrete Construction work­ ers and for the right o f the NSW branch members to have priority for | jobs; 5. To enforce these points, a strike, starting from this meeting, with a further ipeeting to be held on Tues­ day (March 4).

The possibility o f scab labour moving on to strike-bound job sites causes a number o f workers to fear — with justification — further unemployment, severe hardship for the strikers’ families, and even a lock-out in the industry like the one which occurred during the struggle over The Rocks in 1973. Mick Macnamara, ex-secretary o f the NSW branch, voiced these fears when he moved an amendment to this resolu­ tion, urging a return to work and a round-table discussion with Gallagher and all others involved in the dispute.

But a surge o f determination in the meeting supported the resolution as fit stood: “ I’ d rather starve than take out a federal ticket” , declared one member.

An unusual amount o f patient trouble was taken to make clear to members the complicated procedure o f voting on amendments: the executive and the interpreters — Italian, Spanish, Greek and Yugoslav — went through it time and again, and the vote — one o f the most important decisions the BLs would ever have to make — was taken.

Confusion and a division was called for. ît was a clear win for the original resolution; through it went with its fourth clause intact. The strike was on. The last and mightiest cheer o f the morning would have drowned out a jackhammer.

Macnamara conceded defeat and called on those who’ d supported the amendment to join him at the union office next morning and set up vigi­ lante groups to ensure that no jobs were working during the strike. * * * The BLs met again five days later, on March 4. The bosses had refused to budge on any o f the issues and there was no joy to be found in Canberra. Gallagher was sticking to his1guns. So the 1,500 BLs at the meeting decided their strike would be so much wasted ammunitipn, time and money if they went back now.

With Mick Macnamara seconding the resolution this time round, the motion to continue the striké was carried with less than 100 against.

A further meeting will be held the following Monday.

Many migrant BLs spoke: one spoke twice, in English and Italian.

Viri Perez said, “ The NSW branch o f the BLF is the only union in Aust­ ralia where a migrant can be proud to hold a union ticket.”

We were tired Here’s a quibble about a mistake/ misprint/hasty scissor snip in my article on the Experimental Film Fund retrospective. (“ 100s o f Flicks” Digger no. 41.)

I did not say hor did I mean that people could help distribution “ by writing to theatres and demanding that they show local films as about how oil companies are kind to fish, etc.-. That sounds like some kind o f highly obscure put-down.

The idea that I was trying to pass on was exactly the opposite; that people could ask to see local experi­ mental films as supports instead o f the documentaries about oil com ­ panies, paper mills and mongolian minipg projects that bore everyone to death.

I’ m not being grouchy. I ' know last minute articles are hell and the mistake could have been my typing in the first place; but I’ d like to see it corrected because the Film Co-op was very helpful in providing the information for the rest o f the article.

Meaghan Morris Glebe, N.S.W.

Mitchell Faircloth

Oliver Strewe

by Sandra Zurbo

Country music king loses his queen ' The album opens with the bright “ Old Man From The Mountain” where Hag is warning a woman friend to: “ get rid o f Joe the grinder” because “ the old man from the mountain is coming home” . Roy Nichols, lead guitarist with the Strangers plays a nice break and at one point imitates the screech o f a fiddle. And there’s a saxophone— a new inclusion for Hag­ gard — but it’s safely countrified and retains that straight-backed feel where notes are chosen rather than swept along. ^ “ Things Aren’t Funny Anymore” starts with a slow, ponderous piano that foretells the sort o f song that Kris

by Alistair Jones Kristofferson and Rita Coolidge sing together — slow, slightly mournful, Merle Haggard is one o f the kings almost wistful. As if they’ve just ac­ o f country and western music. His cepted something heavy. Things have right-wing political views have kept come to an end between two people. him alienated from urbanites. His Things aren’t funny anyniore. ‘‘ Okie from Muskogee” song sent the “ White Man Singin’ The Blues” is dope culture flying. Merle has a strong dramatic voice that means what a short, simple acoustic song — almost a country blues and one o f the best it sings. He has been in and out o f moments on the album. The drum­ jails for most o f his life, and was ammer’s brushes match the acoustic ohg the audience o f prisoners that listened to Johnny Cash at San Quen­ strum and there’s some dobro,and nice harp. “ I’ m the son o f a gamb­ tin jail. ler who’s luck riever came/ And a Merle and his band, The Stran­ white man singin’ the blues.” gers, have just released their thirtieth All the songs are fine examples o f album. Hag is a legend all right. This their type. “ Holding Things Together” album has more variety than his other recent albums. And the Strangers is the sort o f song that Tammy Wynnette might sing; it has some rolling sound as sweet as ever holding their place alongside Bob Wills’ Texas Play­ pedal steel and some tastefully simple piano. The song tells estranged wife boys as the finest in country playing.

Alice that Hag can’t go on alone hold­ ing things together, when it comes to raising their children. And there’s a daughter’s birthday that Alice for­ gets but Hag posted a present signed “ love Momma” some days earlier.

Whew! “ To the Seashores o f Old M exico” is something o f a Ronald Biggs song.

Hag is running from a Tuscan jail stretch to Mexico to give things time to blow over. He loses his money but in Mexico a young signorita falls in love with the “ gringo” and Hag gets what he needed most. The lone fug­ itive needing love is a strong theme in Hag’s work.

Then comes the gentle Lord “ Don’t Give Up On Me” where Hag is the wandering pilgrim only halfway home. He’ll make good some day. “ King Without a Queen” says that riches ain’t gold and silver. It’s hap­ piness. Hag places all his treasure be­ fore his precious queen. What good is treasure and a kingdom without a queen. “ If you ’ve ever lost a loved one, you ’ll know what I mean” . His ran o ff with someone else.

The final track is one o f the three not written (or co-Written) by Hag­ gard., It asks, if an angel falls and says she’s in the m ood for “ a drink and maybe then so me...” , Hag doesn’t care what her name is, he’ll “ o b ­ lige” her. Magnanimous. Why not he asks. It seems that these people need something to do with their nights.

Fade out with the saxophone There you have the sentiments o f the album. The exquisite patronage o f the strong man bending to share and give his life will doubtless draw groans o f horror from non-country-music addicts. But the deft playing and Hag­ gard’s rich voice make the album something o f a musical feast. * * *

to express yourself on. He has a soft spot for bluegrass music, and a wide range o f musical tastes.

Alan and his brother Russ have been playing in country music circles for years. I think they com e from Shepparton originally. Their band — the country music industry’s choice for best band — includes pedal steel, bass and drums as well as the brothers on guitars and banjos.

The “ Hawks” are a polished out­ fit. G ood entertainers that step for­ ward for solos, wear matching suits and play tight. They have appeared in commercials (remember the beer adverts on TV).

This “ best o f” album is a budget priced record ($4.98) assembled by their record company, Fable. It has 16 tracks including “ Catfish John” , “ Chattanoogie Shoeshine B oy” , “ Eighteen Yellow Roses” , ‘‘ Molly Breen” , “ Restless Soul” (by Diane Hawking), “ So Near and Yet So Far’ (by the brothers), “ Wild Colonial Boy” and “ The Melbourne Cup” .

Many o f the tracks are orchestrat­ ed with strings and trumpets which tends to push the fine guitar work back a bit. * •* * If you listen to radio 3DB Mel­ bourne during the day you might catch “ Gotta Get Back To Tam-; worth” by the Promised Band. The other side, a speedy version o f “ Blue Moon Of Kentucky” (with banjo pickin) is better according to their record company. The Tam worth song was put on the A-side to coincide with the Tamworth Festival and Mu­ sic Awards. If you didn’t make it to Tamworth, and can’t soak up the nos­ talgia, the record is a medium paced slightly piaintive country-rock song written by Johnny Chester.

The Promised Band, who will have an album soon, consists o f Pete Hayes I first met Alan Hawking when I Harold Frith, Bernie O’ Brien and took an old guitar out to his house in Bundoora Melbourne to see if he could Doug Wallace. All experienced play­ make it work again. He did (very well) ers. Pete, and his brother Mike, are renowned as bluegrass players and during the course o f a few visits from their days as the Hayes Broth­ he showed me some o f his extensive collection o f guitars and banjos, play­ ers. Pete has played in a variety o f situations including the HSV7 “ Pent­ ed a bit and swapped favourite guit­ house Club” orchestra. arists. He once said that he thought the guitar was the perfect instrument

/

March 11— April 9

THE DIGGER

T ina and Ike’s eyeball plucking music

by Terry Cleary

mercy practice their surgery.

“ Say, man, where’s the beads, the shades, the fuzzy hair and shoulder bags?” the welcoming press at Tullamarine airport’s VIP room may well have asked as Tina Turner made her entrance, dressed corpfy — but so demure — in a starchy crisp safari suit. More Lana than Tina, she claisped a glass-eyed koala, one o f Tulla’s m ock marsupials, guaranteed to scare those cute and cuddly little Aussie kids shitless, and on which customs narks, in their wisdom and

Ike sat grey and diminutive before the giant Melbourne tv cameras and camera operaters; and though, closeup, he seemed made o f some lovely rubbery stuff, he didn’t exactly come acorss as the fuse to the Ike and Tina Turner Explosion. The press confer­ ence was perfunctorily completed when a blow-up photographer' straddled the exhausted trio, bleating his rat-tat-tat “ big smile” blurb, and Ike’s black bead stare was eclipsed only by the furry jig-saw grin on Australia’s national creature.

Concert night we arrive early to excercise squatters’ rights on Meldrum’s press seats. He arrives late and sniffs contemptuous and imperious.

A good start!

Now, no lone railway commuter with any soul at all hasn’t at some time felt the undeniable compulsion to roar, gleeful, full throat and music hall lusty when their train speeds through a tight tunnel. And tonight under the cover o f Stylus’ 50 mega­ ton amps I give in to this nameless but thrilling urge with abandon in

Page 11

tuneless yodel and bellows to this already excellent, group.

The Explosion is presently on stage sans Tina and the Ikettes, but lead by Ike, now in red velvet, seven feet, tall and all but strutting and bristling. They jump into some super full brass introductory stuff that tilts the audience noticeably from upright.

And then the Ikettes blast in.

Three besequinned, beautiful, bewigged and madcaj>ped song and dance spitfires. They burst across Festival Hall, the definitive double hungers in searing syncopation, so you could happily believe yourself in the corner phone box, a captive audi­ ence to the entire cast o f the Leaping Senegal National Ballet.

“If you think in terms o f energy returns for the dollar you pays the man, the Ikettes probably deliver more ergs, BTUs, Plaxograms or wahtever, than Tom Paxton, D ono­ van and Ray Columbus entiere ex­ pend with their lawn mowers during a whole year. So when Tina hits the stage it’s like a whack over the head with a 100-watt light bulb. She’s the Tina Turner in the flashing red metallic skirt (that incaiidescent rem­ nant from the Ursula Andress She or Gog,and Magog movies) sparingly splashed across this (if anybody cares) mother o f four.

First it was Ike, now the Ikettes,

who suffer the perspective warp.She’s seven feet two and way up front.

She flashes, an amplified Bengal tiger, and a curvilinear temple dancer, she swoops random, one mike then another, a mad Olympic slaicm champ, to land a broken banshee delivering her own searing stamp on soul.

And an old chicken farmer squin­ ted and raised a wrinkly hand to his brow and said “ Marsha Hunt is cherubic” .

Calls for encores at cold old Festi­ val Hall are not always comfortable for everyone. Some audiences are dutiful, others patronising, some just plain greedy, but at least they’re in­ variably rowdy.

When Tina sang her final encore “ River Deep” (naturally), a great frog o f emotion prised its way thick in certain throats and languidly ex­ tended a sinuous rubbery finger to pluck the backs o f certain eyeballs to set them glistening.

Now the old tin shed was strange and still and tense with a ringing quiet o f a drummer’s cymbal. With the magic waning you hurry home, ^blinking quickly, to grab “ River Deep” ,"»slip it on the turntable to remember. But somehow overnight, your Blaupunkt Quad Stereo has come down with a curious crystal set complex. It’s not the same somehow. And only time can fix it.

From ‘The Office Picnic ’ , wowing them at Melbourne's Play box

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A L A C A R T E M ENU *50$ ST Y LE

. A S SW EET A S Y O U A R E (Unreteattd 1962 Decca Demo Recordings) TH E B E A T L E S . . R E N A IS SA N C E M IN S T R E L S VO L. 1 (Live at Carnegie Hall, Feb. 9,1964) THE B E A T L E S . . R E N A IS SA N C E M IN S T R E L S VOL. 2 (Studio material from Let It Be era) THE BE A T L E S . R E N A IS SA N C E M IN S T R E L S VOL. 3 (1969 studio album) T H E B E A T L E S . . B A C K IN 1964 A T T H E H O LLY W O O D BOWL (Live album 23-8-1964) . L A ST L IV E SHOW -SHEA S T A D IU M THE B E A T L E S THE BEATLES . L IV E FR O M G E R M A N Y (1966 concert & Top of the Pops Interview) THE B E A T L E S . . T O KYO , 1966 (Concert at Budo Kan Hall, July 2,1966) THE BE A T L E S . . M O R E G ET B A C K SE S S IO N S (Un­ released studio material) . M A R Y JANE (Studio material & BBC THE BEATLES Broadcasts) B U F F A L O S P R IN G F IE L D . . . ST A M PED E (Live material from 1967) E R IC C LAPTO N . .. L A Y L A L IV E (Live concert recorded Nov. 20,1970) C RO SBY, ST ILLS, N A SH & Y O U N G . . . W OODEN N IC K E L (Live at Big Sur Festival, 1969) C R E E D E N C E C L E A R W A T E R R E V IV A L . . R E V IV E D (Live in San Francisco, 1971) BOB D Y L A N . . STEALING.(Studio material from 1961, 1963 & 1965) BOB D Y L A N . . R O Y A L A L B E R T H A L L (Recorded in London with The Band, May 1966) BOB D Y L A N . SE E M S L IK E A F R E E Z E O U T (Live & studio material from 1962-65) BOB D Y L A N . . W H ILE TH E E S T A B L IS H M E N T B U RN S (Live in New York 1963, Dublin 1966) . BU RN SO M E M O RE (Live in U.K. 1966 BOB D Y L A N & a medley of songs from 1962) BOB D Y L A N . T A L K IN ' BE A R M O U N T AIN M A S S A C R E PICNIC BLU ES (Studio material 1961)

BOB D Y L A N . .. JOHN BIR C H SO C IE T Y B L U E S (Studio & live, 1961-1964) LET M E DIE. IN M Y FOOTSTEPS (Studio recordings 1961) BOB D Y L A N . . . D O N ’T L O O K B A C K (Soundtrack from 1965 English film-tour) BOB D Y L A N . . C E R E M O N IE S O F THE H O R S E M A N (Studio album of rare songs) BOB D Y L A N . . O D E FO R B A R B A R A A L L E N (Studio recordings, 1963) BOB D Y L A N . . BOSTON, 1974 (Live on stage with The Band) double album T H E G R A T E F U L D E A D . . . H IGH T IM E IN A N O L D TOWN (Live In Chicago, 1971) jIM I H E N D R IX . . . L IV E E X P E R IE N C E (1967 & 1968 live material) JET H RO T U L L . . . M Y GOD! (Live on stage 1969 & two studio songs) L E D Z EP PELIN . . . M U D S L ID E (Live in Canada, 1971) L E D Z EP PELIN . . . L IV E ON B L U E B E R R Y H IL L (1970 concert, double album) L E D Z EP PELIN ... B 0 N Z 0 5 B IR T H D A Y P A R T Y (Double album recorded 31-5-1973) L E D Z EP PELIN . . . L IV E IN S E A T T L E (Double album) TH E M A H U V IS H N U O R C H E S T R A . . . B U N D L E D SUNS P R A Y D E M IS E (1971 concert) JONI M IT C H E L L & JA M ES T A Y L O R . . . IN P ERFEC T H A R M O N Y (Live on stage, 1971) V A N M O R R ISO N . . . V A N TH E M A N (Live album recorded 1970) PIN K F L O Y D . . . O M A Y Y A D (Live album recorded in 1970) PIM K F L O Y D . . L IV E A T TH E F IL L M O R E W EST (1971 concert) P IN K F L O Y D . IN C E L E B R A T IO N O F T H E CO M ET (Live in England, 1972). ROBO T L O V E (1973 live album) P IN K F L O Y D THE WHO . . D E C ID E D L Y B E L E A T E D RESPON SE (Live at the L.A. Forum, 1973) F R A N K ZAPPA $ TH E M O T H ER S . . . S A F E M U F F IN S . . . .

(Live in London, 1971) BOB D Y L A N . . .

HR W e are mail-prder specialists and offer a very fast service for your oraeTs; Payment must accompany your order and can be in the form of cheque, postal note or money order. Single albums are $5 and double albums are $8. Postage is 50 cents per record anywhere in Australia and $1 per record for New Zealand customers (airmail). W e guarantee the safe arrival i>f all records ordered. If interested send for our complete cetelogue of 300 titles in stock. Wholesale informetion is aveilable to record dealers.

BYO

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