What the Fuck is going on in Australia?

I keep getting asked to comment on what is going on in Australia, but my response is a) WHAT is going on in Australia? I mean, when TNT Magazine rang me to comment on whether I thought the British view of Australia was outdated; wanting me, I suspect, to trash the old routines of cork hats and bbqs, in favour of the new sophistication on show at, then upcoming, Australian Film Festival in London, I was non-plussed. Yes, the British view of 'Oz' is outdated - and it varies interestingly according to how alert to racism people are: black friends agree its the new apartheid, white friends want to move there because of Neighbours. But my second response is b) I've been away 14 years, please go read some of the people writing about Australian politics who are there today. There is no excuse for cork hats, crappy movie reruns, or uninterested dismissal. Settler colonialism is rampant, the frontier is being remade. You can read whatever Pilger will come up with in his cult-journalist persona, and that would not necessarily be wrong, but you could more usefully follow the discussions of the people who tread the paths that cult-journos will not even find out about until they have their cheques signed and broadcast slot assured. So, have a look at Ange's stuff here and Ben here where there is at least an attempt to work out what the fuck is going on in Australia.

From the second of the above links, Ben writes, in his third(fourth) instalment on the present 'troubles':

exceptions (iii)

to discipline the colonised
There have been sporadic reports of resistance to the intervention by people in “affected areas”. Some have responded by saying these reports are further efforts to besmirch the image of Indigenous people, while others have viewed the media as suppressing stories of resistance and refusal as part of the corporate media’s agenda to deny the existence or significance of such struggles. It is genuinely hard to get a picture of what people are doing in response, and many of the forms of response and resistance will undoubtedly remain invisible to me and maybe to the intervening authorities. Will any leak in visibility or declare themselves as a rupture of compliance and a smoothly managed takeover?

Other themes I want to develop:

Purpose and form of the the NT intervention : a re-imposition of capitalist social relations - most centrally, in relation to property/ land and wage-labor/work - through government control of consumption (where and on what welfare can be spent), distribution of commodities (control of stores, policing of alcohol), reproduction/welfare (control of services, community organisations etcetera through the new “managers” powers to take over at will any uncooperative organisations), labour (work-for-the-dole in places of extremely high unemployment making the bulk of the population conscriptable into the work of the intervention itself and anything else). Managed through every type of coercion available to the state - dependence on welfare, the use of police, potential of child removal, imposition of forced labour.

Origins of the NT intervention: not out of nowhere in response to any report, but developed over time by elites such as, but not limited to, those supporting and working in the Cape York Institute, promoting quasi-neoliberalising but statist experiments in management of the Indigenous and the neo-lumpen proletariat, to be integrated into general strategies for the reproduction (and expansion) of capitalist social relations. A conservative Third Way, intensive state management combined with the imposition of money-as-command. Moral panic over child abuse as a tactic for imposition integrated into the agenda enough to maybe appear a response.

POSTED BY theoryoftheoffensive ON 08.30.07 @ 4:39 am

Sarawak Sights Rights and Might

Rio Tinto is raising money to buy Alcan (no debt crisis for the fat cats then), and there are rumblings about a plan to build a smelter in Sarawak, in conjunction with the chief minister of that jungle paradise (oops, I meant logging and mineral-extraction opportunity). I quote from the Herald Tribune of 7 August 2007. "Rio Tinto will hold a 60 percent stake in the venture to be known as Sarawak Aluminium Company. The remaining 40 percent will be owned by Cahya Mata, in which the family of Sarawak Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud is a key shareholder".

OK, then how strange is it that Bakun Dam issues suddenly wash downstream (Bakun electricity will power the smelter). You can read between the lines in this press release that arrived today from Suaram [MYKAD is the curiously named Pass Card/Identity card of cyber-Malaysia - old visions from Mahathir dreams come true]):

Press Statement: 24 August 2007

SUARAM DIRECTOR DENIED ENTRY INTO SARAWAK
MYKAD IS AN ACCESSORY OF A MALAYSIAN POLICE STATE

Dr Kua Kia Soong, a director of SUARAM was denied entry into Sarawak at 9pm, 23 August 2007. Kua, who is also principal of the community-funded New Era College, was on his way to officiate the graduation ceremony of teachers who have attained the New Era College Diploma in Education at Kuching and Sibu.

After screening Kua’s MyKad, the immigration officer at Kuching airport informed him that he had been refused entry into Sarawak because he is on the “blacklist for involvement in anti-logging activities”. From the computer reading of Kua’s MyKad, the officer also knew that Kua is a former member of parliament.

Dr Kua has been an active campaigner against the Bakun Dam project and was a member of the fact finding mission to enquire into the conditions faced by indigenous peoples displaced from the Bakun area to Sungai Asap resettlement camp in 1998.

This action by the Sarawak state government is a gross violation of Malaysians’ right to freedom of movement in their own country. How can we celebrate fifty years of independence when our state governments can arbitrarily decide to deny a Malaysian the sovereign right to move freely in their own country?

More insidious is the way the new Malaysian identity card ‘My Kad’ has become the accessory of a Malaysian police state. This is a most serious abuse of Malaysians’ human right to privacy. It is clear from this incident that the My Kad is now used to store updated information and to be used arbitrarily by the authorities without any explanation being given. The immigration officer had at first refused to divulge the reason for refusing entry to Kua. The reason was only forced out of the officer through persistent demands by Kua.

In recent years, Kua has been going in and out of Sarawak using his old identity card without being refused entry. Clearly, the new “smart” My Kad carries an entire dossier about every Malaysian and has given authorities new resolve to settle old scores!

This incident shows that all information about Malaysians is used interchangeably between federal and state governments. For certain, all government departments have access to MyKad dossier about every Malaysian. Is this dossier also available to banks and credit companies? Who decides? Do we know?

As we reach the 50th anniversary of independence, we grieve the death of our right to privacy and the coming of age of a Malaysian police state. We baulk at the fact that one who cares for the forests, resources and indigenous peoples of Malaysia can be cast out of a Malaysian state while tycoons and politicians who rape an entire forest are feted as “towering Malaysians” and patriots. This brings to mind Samuel Johnson observation that “Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel!”

Suaram condemns the Sarawak government for this arbitrary exercise of state power to refuse entry to a Malaysian who has been actively concerned to protect Sarawakian forests, resources and indigenous peoples’ rights.

Suaram calls for an explanation from the federal government regarding the information about Malaysian citizens that have been encoded in the My Kad and the extent of interchangeability of this information with other authorities and bodies.

Suaram calls on the Malaysian people to demand accountability from their government regarding the invasion of their right to privacy and an end to the makings of a police state in Malaysia.

I have more on Bakun (from Left Curve 23 1999 'Resettling Bakun: Consultancy, Anthropologists and Development'
and more on Rit Tinto to post later, but start here.
.

1857.org.uk

Here is again the 1857 site, which now carries videos from the Manchester conference which are great - informative discussion of links between 1857 and imperialism today (oil, Iraq [EIC was in Basra from 1863], definition of terrorism, evaluations of Marx as journalist of 1857 etc). There is a good two hours to watch, but its informative and worth the time.

Check here for:

*The Historical Significance of 1857 by Kalpana Wilson (South Asia Solidarity Group. Speach in 1857'
*Nick Robins in 1857's 150 years anniversary in Manchester by 1857 committee
*Q and A 1 in 1857's 150 years anniversary in Manchester by 1857 committee
*Folk Songs of 1857: D. Ajaz, (Author Kaal Bolaindi - folksongs sung today from the 1857 uprising in Kaal Bolaindi - folksongs sung today from the 1857 uprising
*Iraq-East India Co. (1763-Factory established in Basra) to Halliburton by Hani Lazim
*Q and A 2 in 1857's 150 years mnniversary in Manchester by 1857 committee
*Ayesha Siddiqa Speech in 1857's 150 years anniversary in Manchester


Older comments here and article here.

No Justice for Menezes

Here is a taster (links not imported) from Lenin's Tomb... It really is worth going to visit to follow the linkings:

"From the second Menezes was murdered, the police have pulled every means to protect themselves. They have lied about the circumstances of the shooting, they lied about who knew what and when, they lied about and smeared Menezes, they threatened a whistleblower. They sent the killers on a paid holiday, and then the CPS refused to prosecute. Now, the IPCC has produced/leaked its report, after having been altered due to legal threats from the police. ...

The IPCC's report focuses on the aftermath of the shooting, rather than the shooting itself: it is about the issue of who knew what, and when. Its conclusion gives Sir Ian Destroy The Brain Instantly Utterly Blair a free ride, insisting - quite incredibly in my view - that he was ignorant of what had really happened, despite several of his subordinates knowing exactly what happened. AC Andy Hayman is said to have lied to his boss about whether the victim was known to be among the four suspects, thus withholding information that he would certainly have to provide very soon, and that the Commissioner could certainly get from someone else in the organisation. No serious person could believe this. Hayman appears to have been behind a number of decisions, including the issue of a misleading press release on the day of the shooting, despite the fact that it had become clear before the release was issued that the dead person was Menezes and that he was not a suspect. Undoubtedly there was attempted deceit from top to bottom, but this inquiry has presumably done what it was supposed to: handed the public and the Menezes family a single head, for one part of the crime.

No criminal charges have been brought, there has been no public inquiry, and there is to be no change of policy. And this is important: the whole point behind the police's outrageous conduct during this affair has been not only to defend the institution, but also to ensure that the policy is not questioned. Every bit of quackery from Ian Blair, every obnoxious intervention from 'experts' like Peter Powers, every diversion and red herring, has been pushed with the specific intention of maintaining the police's range of extraordinary powers. And of course, only months after the shooting, the police were permitted to use shoot-to-kill in domestic and stalking cases. The team that killed Menezes would strike again. And let's not forget that another victim of police shooting has been calumnied as a terrorist who was actually shot by his own brother, and as an evil paedophile. Anyone can be shot at, slandered, lied about, beaten, tormented - anything to keep that fucking policy in place.
..."

Full post here.

More Menezes here.

Hitchings

This is for the very wonderful Camille and Nick:

Derrida, in his last interview, added a parenthesis as the text was going to press:

"I just mentioned 'secularism'. Please allow me a long parenthesis here. It is not about the veil at school but the veil of 'marriage'. I unhesitatingly supported and endorsed with my signature the welcome and courageous initiative taken by Noel Mamere, even though same-sex marriage is an example of that great tradition inaugurated by Americans in the nineteenth century under the name of civil disobedience: not defiance of the Law but disobedience with regard to some legislative provision in the name of a better or higher law - whether to come or already written in the spirit of the constitution [Mamere presided over the first same sex marriages in France - relieved of his duties, unions annulled by the courts, vive la republique!]. And so I signed in this current legislative context because it seems to me unjust for the rights of homosexuals, as well as hypocritical and ambiguous in both letter and spirit. If I were a legislator [JD!], I would propose simply getting rid of the word and concept of 'marriage' in our civil and secular code. 'Marriage' as a religious, sacred, heterosexual value - with a vow to procreate, to be eternally faithful, and so on - is a concession made by the secular state to the Christian church, and particularly with regard to monogamy, which is neither Jewish (it was imposed upon Jews by Europeans only in the nineteenth century and was not an obligation just a few generations ago in Jewish Maghreb), nor, as is well known, Muslim. By getting rid of the word and concept of 'marriage', and thus this ambiguity or this hypocrisy with regard to the religious and the sacred - things that have no place in a secular constitution - one could put in their place a contractual 'civil union', a sort of generalized pacs, one that has been improved, refined, and would remain flexible and adaptable to partners whose sex and number would not be prescribed. As for those who want to be joined in 'marriage' in the strict sense of the term - something, by the way, for which my respect remains totally intact - they would be able to do so before the religious authority of their choosing. This is already the case in certain countries where religiously consecrated same-sex marriages are allowed. Some people might thus unite according to one mode or the other, some according to both, others according to neither secular law nor religious law. So much for my little conjugal paragraph. It's utopic, but I'm already setting a date!"

There are some problems still - why anyone should be forced, by reasons of administrative necessity, to get the state involved in their relationship is beyond me, but nevertheless, with Derrida on his last legs, he's still tripping up the legislators in a elegant and amusing way. This excerpt is from a La Monde interview of August 19 2004, translated as "Learning to Live Finally: the Last Interview" pages 43-44 (2007 Melville House Publishing). [See also a, b, and c for all my Derridizations - though Bad Marxism has three chapters of critique too].

Antonioni

Eli Wong has done a great job in acknowledgement of Antonioni's passing, with some must see clips to boot. See here.