Migration

 

It's a long time since I've heard Gaelic spoken in a church, gentle reader, but I had that experience on Sunday.

The last time was August 1980, when my bride and I were visiting the Irish Republic and we went to mass in Cork. Forty five years is a long time, and viewed from the perspective of the marches a few weekends ago, we've actually gone backwards in this country in our views on migration.

Yesterday was celebrated as Migrant Sunday in our local parish, and speakers of different languages, all migrants, read the prayers of the faithful in their own tongues. 

Thus we heard Irish, Spanish, Swahili, Pidgin, Vietnamese, Tagalog, Fijian, Arabic, and Bahasa Indonesian. 

The fact that one of the speakers was native Irish, and physically indistinguishable from the bulk of the population was especially significant. 

My father, a descendant of Irish migrants used to describe being called a "dirty little tyke" as he was horse whipped by an Orangeman in Warwick back in the day.

This in a relativelly conservative regional city like Toowoomba, could be considered remarkable, but it isn't. These people are members of our community, welcomed and contributing. Unfortunately migration is frequently used as a dog whistle by those who are happy to use fear and bigotry as their ticket to political influence. 

That was very clearly demonstrated in the recent marches.

Perhaps our Filipino parish priest expressed it best with a garden metaphor. 

He noted that the magnificent floral displays witnessed in our carnival of flowers are comprised of a wide variety of diverse blooms, and this diversity is largely responsible for the spectacle. 

Same Same, But Different (USA & Australia)

Pic courtesy EF.com

I'm surprised, gentle reader, at the outrage generated by the speech given to the United Nations by the incumbent POTUS.

We share democratic values with the Americans, but we certainly don't share democracy. About a third of them don't vote, and those that do are often pretty ignorant of anything beyond their district.

Nothing expressed on that occasion at the UN should come as a surprise to anyone who understands the USA. It's revealing to look at a few statistics gathered recently about American culture. They explain the bizarre platform that drives what currently masquerades as the GOP.

Gallup Polling indicates that 67% of Americans identify as Christian. Of those, 33% are Protestant. Of those calling themselves Christian, the Pew Centre found in 2021 that within Protestantism, evangelicals continue to outnumber those who are not evangelical.

Currently, 60% of protestants say "yes" when asked whether they think of themselves as a "born again" or evangelical Christian, whilst 40% say "no" or decline to answer the question.

Now Evangelicals hold pretty rigidly to some core concepts. They include a belief in divine healing, and by a wide margin, evangelical leaders surveyed reject the idea that human beings and other living things have evolved over time due to solely to natural processes.

As recently as 2005, the issue of the teaching of Creationism in public schools was before the courts in Louisiana. It was declared unconstitutional, but recent surveys show that between 12 and 18% of high school biology teachers teach it as a valid scientific alternative, or give mixed messages by endorsing both Creationism and Evolution.

In other words, a fair slice of US voters, particularly in the South, have been taught anti-scientific theory at school.

So Americans are prone to accept a range of simply preposterous notions because they basically know no better. Twenty-three percent of Americans have never left their shores, and as a consequence have little understanding of foreign cultures or value systems.

There are other more pragmatic reasons for the dissemination of the opinions expressed by the POTUS. They include the necessity to gain and hold attention, the capacity to pick up on prevailing social anxiety, and a mercantilist view of the world.

All of these factors coalesced on September 23rd. They revealed the gulf between the values held by mainstream Australia, and those who elected the 47th President.

Such an individual would never be elected in this country, due to the strength and stability of our democracy. We have, in this country, the blessed trinity which underpins it.

This blessed trinity includes first of all, compulsory voting, introduced in 1924, obliging governments to deliver ballots into every citizen's hands. which ensures complete civic participation, legitimacy, and majority consensus. 

Then there is preferential voting (1918) which eliminated vote-splitting, ensured representative majoritarian electoral outcomes, responded to popular preferences, and encouraged policy dialogue amongst both niche and broad political interests.

The institutional element of this trinity is the Australian Electoral Commission (1984), which professionalised and depoliticised electoral management, provided impartial electoral management, and maintains voter rolls and facilitates fair redistributions.

None of this should be taken for granted. If ever it is, we would deserve the dysfunction and chaos we observe across the Pacific.

It's an Ill Wind

 

Pic courtesy Military History & Heritage Victoria

Australians called up during the second National Service scheme (1965 -72) have been to a large extent whitewashed out of our history. 

Those 15381 who served in Vietnam have to some extent been redeemed by a cultural shift assisted by the Welcome Home March in October 1987, and John Schumann's "I Was Only Nineteen", albeit fifteen years after the last of us left Vietnam. Better late than never, I suppose.

The forty thousand plus who did not serve in Vietnam have never really been recognised nor adequately compensated, but there is a smaller cohort who did contribute significantly to the peaceful independence of Papua New Guinea in 1975.

These were the "Chalkies", or Nashos who were called up as teachers, assigned to Education Corps, promoted to rank of sergeant, and shipped to New Guinea to teach Papuan members of the Pacific Islands Regiment. The rapid promotions put many regular soldiers' noses out of joint, but these men did a low key but significant job in enculturating unifying values into members of what is arguably the most significant institution in PNG.

Remember that native Papuans come from very different environments in that country and speak 840 living languages which makes it the most linguistically diverse country on the planet.

Into that diverse mix were sent over three hundred young Australians, who had worked as teachers for twelve months post call up and were then conscripted and trained as members of one of the most effective jungle fighting armies in the world. They were tasked to create and provide a meaningful and relevant curriculum to Papuan soldiers.

Given the peaceful outcome of PNG  independence, despite dire predictions of conflict such had developed in ex colonies such as Kenya, Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) and Angola, that contribution should be recognised, fifty years down the track.

As a personal note, if I had been allocated to Education Corps, which as a teacher was my preference, I may have spent the rest of my brief and unspectacular army career contributing something useful.

I should, I guess, be grateful I got home from Vietnam in one piece, unlike two hundred other Nashos killed, and thirteen hundred significantly wounded.

Remember the Chalkies.

It's an ill wind. 

 

As It Was For So Many

Reposted from Australian Peacekeeper and Peacemaker Veterans Association -

Some stories are written in the quiet ink of ordinary life. Others are cut short by the fire of history.

Private Ian William Kingston’s story belongs to the latter.

He was just twenty years old when he was killed in action in South Vietnam on 3 September 1969. A soldier of the 6th Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment (6RAR). A son of Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. A young man whose life was taken before it had truly begun.

Before the Army gave him a number, Ian had a home. Born in Nambour on 27 April 1949, he grew up under the sun of the southeast coast. He worked as a bank officer, his future shaped by routine, community, and the ordinary promise of a young life.

But like more than 63,000 others, his future was decided by chance. The birthday ballot called his number. The Army called his name. And the quiet order of his life was replaced by the chaos of a jungle war.

In May 1969 he joined 6RAR. Within weeks he was thrust into Operation Lavarack, where the battalion fought 85 separate contacts in just over a month. For a young conscript, it was a brutal baptism of fire.

On 3 September 1969, three months into his tour, Ian Kingston was killed in action in Bien Hoa.

He never returned to Nambour. He never finished the life he had only just begun.

Ian’s story is not just that of a soldier. It is the story of a son, a friend, a young man taken too soon. A life redirected by the lottery of marbles, ended on foreign soil, and remembered still.

Because some stories remind us that the true cost of war is not measured in battles won or lost, but in futures that never had the chance to be lived.

Lest we forget.

Rod Hutchings

Australian Peacekeeper and Peacemaker Veterans Association

An Ongoing Tragedy

 

                        Pic courtesy Norwegian Refugee Council

I've avoided blogging about Israel and Palestine, gentle reader, because it's difficult to see through the avalanche of propaganda from both the Israelis and the various Palestinian spokespeople.

Digging for the facts behind this conflict (which in its current form has endured for my lifetime - I was born in 1947, one year before the state of Israel was founded), is not straightforward, but I'll give it a shot.

The British, through the Balfour Declaration, published in November 1917, proposed the development of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. It's worth reproducing the text - 

His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.

Note the reference to the civil and religious rights of "existing non-Jewish" communities in Palestine.

The British had captured the territory from the Ottomans, and the Australian victory at Beersheba was a turning point in  this campaign. Success at Beersheba was a significant moment in the broader Sinai-Palestine Offensive, which continued for almost the entire duration of the war, and which had begun in January 1915 with the Ottoman raids upon the Suez canal.

So you could say, gentle reader, that Australia has an historic stake in the Middle East. 

The British terminated their mandatory power (granted in 1922 by the League of Nations) in 1947, and the UN General Assembly recommended partitioning Palestine into two states - one Arab and one Jewish. The two-state solution is hardly a novel idea.

The Arabs rejected the plan, but the Israelis ostensibly accepted it, and declared the independence of the State of Israel in May 1948 at the end of the British mandate.

The situation collapsed into civil war between the nascent state of Israel, and bordering Arab countries. During this conflict, 700,000 (about 80% of the Arab population) were driven out of territory won by Israel and weren't allowed to return. The Arabs called this event the "Nakba". Starting in the late 1940s, about 850,000 Jews, mostly from the Aran world, immigrated to Israel.

All of these facts of history simply underline the irreconcilable differences between the Israelis and the Palestinians, and don't provide much hope for peace.

Based on my lived experience, the situation has the smell of Vietnam about it. Around that conflict, we saw the great powers pick a side and prolong the conflict until it had killed 57,000 Americans, 521 Australians, and millions of Vietnamese. The Americans attempted to bomb their way to victory. That didn't work. The Israelis seem to be doing much the same.

The USA seems to back Israel come what may, but most of the free world, including Australia, has not lined up with them. 

I can see no resolution. In a perfect world, a stabilisation force would be sent to control the Gaza strip, and the Israeli settlements would be terminated, as they are a form of trickling invasion, but the likelihood of this is impossible.

And the military incursion will continue, Israeli soldiers and Palestinian civilians will continue to die. 

Perhaps the only possibility of peace resides with the collapse of the Netanyahu government. 

  

Fitout Progressing

Politics is depressing, so I'm blogging about cars....

Lost and Found - An Ancestor

 

Kate Ryan's name on the Erin Go Bragh's passenger list

Like most us when we retire and have time on our hands, I've done some basic research on ancestry.

What I know is that my father's family descends from Irish immigrants, and what my father and his family believed is that they came out in the mid eighteen hundreds at the height of the Irish potato famine. 

The enduring family story, handed down by my father, was that one ancestor (presumably named Whittaker) arrived on the migrant ship, Erin Go Bragh, and subsequently married a fellow passenger, a Kate Ryan, and settled in the Drayton area. 

The problem is that there is no documentary evidence of this, as a search of the passenger list of the Erin Go Bragh, the boat my dad assumed brought him here, did not show a Whittaker. There was, however, an eleven year old girl, called Kate Ryan, on board.

One of my nephews who was also curious, did some research through Ancestry.com and came to the same conclusion, i.e., that there was no marriage between Kate Ryan and any fellow passenger.

This left an intriguing puzzle. Who was this original arrival, and when did he get here?

A different nephew who lives now in Singapore, has discovered a newspaper report which at the same time deepens the mystery, but sheds new light on the original family story.

This story, in the Toowoomba Chronicle on 31st August 1897, reports the death of a George Whittaker, (born 1837 in Kilkenny, Ireland) who was apparently my father's great grandfather. Dad's father was also called George, and according to the report, had six sons and three daughters. One of the sons was called John, which may explain a family tradition of naming the youngest son John, with no second name.

My dad was called John (always abbreviated to "Jack"), and had no second name, which always seemed curious to me.

The family belief that does stand up is that a Katherine Ryan, was aboard the Erin Go Bragh when it arrived in Moreton Bay on August 2nd, 1862. The passenger list does indeed identify a Kate Ryan who was eleven years old on arrival.

Whilst this report debunks the belief that the original Whittaker was aboard the Erin Go Bragh when it arrived in 1862, It does not dismiss the possibility that  George Whittaker married Kate Ryan. 

Back then, it would not have been out of the question for Kate Ryan to be married at age seventeen, which would have been 1868, by which time George Whittaker would have been thirty one. Family history has it that Kate was working as a housekeeper in a presbytery, and if the local priest was supportive, such a marriage would not have been unusual.

The new mystery is how George Whittaker arrived in Australia in the first place.

Obviously, further research is necessary.

And that's just my father's side....