Trump in Drag

Pic courtesy The Australian

Last Wednesday we saw Pauline Hanson front the Press Club.

She was given a free pass to talk for almost twice as long as most speakers, and we were exposed to all the ugliness of her grievance politics.

She abused journalists, trotted out a range of the same cliches that she's been whining about for over thirty years, and continues to be unable to pronounce the name of our country. That ought to tell you something.

But to me, the most alarming feature of her address was its resemblance to the style and delivery of Donald Trump.

First of all, like Trump, her style is incoherent and aggressive. Her delivery was peppered with half-truths, insinuations, and condemnations.

It was an appeal to the darker sides of our national characteristics, those of xenophobia, arrogance and paranoia. The Australian values of tolerance, a fair go, and generosity didn't get a guernsey.

And her speech was replete with figures which, when subject to analysis, are largely confected.

She said - 

Again, the 2021 census showed that 1 in 4 people, 23% speak a language other than English at home, the most common being, Mandarin and Arabic.

Then -

How can you generate social cohesion if people can’t speak the language? In that same census, 872,000 people self-reported, as speaking English “not well” or “not at all.”

When this is examined, there is a clear inference that 23% of people who speak a language other than English at home are a problem. She tries to conflate bilingual Australians with non-English speaking Australians. Whilst she doesn't explicitly state it, her followers will conflate the two sets of statistics. It's not what she said that's the problem, it's what her followers heard. That's classic dog-whistling.

Then there was this -

Forty-three per cent of low-income renters were experiencing rental stress. Up to 3.2 million people in Australia were at risk of losing their home, and we know that around 130,000 Australians are sleeping rough every night.

She provided no definition of "low-income renters", nor did she reference her figures. Then she said - 

According to official data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics  7,600 people sleep rough on any given night across Australia. 

This figure represents roughly 6.2% of the total homeless population, which exceeds 122,000 individuals. It looks as if she's done some more dodgy conflation, inferring that all people classified as "homeless" always sleep rough. Again, she talks about two separate sets of statistics, and uses the breakdown of one set, then applies them to both. She doesn't do this explicitly, but the inference is enough for many of her followers who can't see past the confected outrage, to wrap them up together. 

Again, her statistics are dodgy, as is the notion that there is a direct connection between the homeless crisis and immigration. It simply doesn't add up. She confuses common sense with ignorant assumption, and encourages her followers to do the same.

She talks about the Salvation Army's Red Shield report, and lists a series of figures from the respondents to that survey. Again, she neglects to mention who those respondents were. The survey pool was a total 4400 respondents across the country. The respondents were vulnerable community members who had accessed the charity's Emergency Relief services (such as Doorways services) within the prior 12 months. So again, she's referencing 4400 people from a population of 28 million.

She then goes on the quote percentages from this group of 4400 people, and pretends to apply it to the total population. Again, she doesn't explicitly do this, but leaves it to her supporters to join the dots, even though what they will come up has only a casual relationship with the truth. This is textbook Trump.

 Food insecurity is unacceptable in a country like Australia, but with a population of 28 million, it's nowhere near the crisis that her dodgy statistics imply. Most of what she says is skillfully designed to generate outrage, and outrage plays well with semi-literates on social media. It feeds the algorithms, puts money in the pockets of big tech, and contributed in no small measure to the popularity of Trump. 

Trump's relationship with Musk puts the social media-populist politician relationship in stark relief. Hanson's relationship with Rinehart is a horse of a similar colour. Many billionaires are quick to chum up with politicians that can get into a position of power, and legislate to enhance their portfolios. Besides, Rinehart's father was renowned for his answer to what he called the Aboriginal problem, He advocated that indigenous Australians should be bred out by doping their water supply to make them sterile.

Much of what I see in Hanson resonates with my lived experience in the sixties and seventies. The injection of fear into our political culture at that time had me sent to a futile war as a conscript. The fear was communism, used by a lazy Coalition government. The political manipulation of that fear went close to costing me my life, and it killed a couple of my mates. 

Hanson sells fear of Muslims, Asians, and Aborigines. Selling fear to gain power is often catastrophic. A quick scan of twentieth century history reveals this solid truth. 

Australian voters woke up by 1972, but much harm had been done by then. Let's hope they wake up to Hanson a bit sooner.

She resembles, after all, Donald Trump in drag.

Advice for the Troops

 

When I was on the way to Vietnam on the HMAS Sydney in February 1970, we were given a pamphlet outlining how we were expected to behave as soldiers in our interactions with Vietnamese civilians.

We had very little contact with civvies, except on leave in Vung Tau, so it wasn't all that useful, but coming across this little piece of history online the other day, reminded me that the military did make an effort to provide some factual information for its soldiers.

In the fact sheet above, issued to American GIs in World War Two, the military explained the phenomenon of fascism, the ideology that these same GIs were fighting.

Taking some of that advice, and applying it to the current situation under the Trump administration, is a revelatory exercise. 

The Fact Sheet #64 was entitled "Can We Spot It?"

The second paragraph begins with - 

Any fascist attempt to gain power in America would not use the exact Hitler pattern. It would work under the guise of "super-patriotism" and "super-Americanism". 

Trump's slogan is "Make America Great Again". 

It goes on to list three fascist aims -

1. Pitting of religious, racial and economic groups in order to break down national unity - In the United States native fascists have often been anti-Catholic, anti-Jew, anti-Negro, anti-Labor, anti foreign-born"

That is a pretty accurate summary of what is happening in the USA now, where members of minority groups are being taken off the streets into detention. It has an application in this country as well, when you look at the hate that is daily posted on social media, usually referring to Indigenous Australians, Muslim Australians, and Asian Australians. It's the bread and butter of One Nation.

2. Fascists cannot tolerate such religious and ethical concepts as "the brotherhood of man". Fascists deny the need for international cooperation. 

This has a very familiar ring when Trump's railing against globalism is considered.

3. It is accurate to call a member of a communist a "communist" - Indiscriminate pinning of the label "Red" on people and proposals which one opposes is a common political device. It iis a favourite trick of native as well as foreign fascists.

This labelling is used with boring frequency. It has the advantage for the neo-fascists in this country and abroad in that it removes any possibility of debate. The label is enough. It is particularly popular on social media, as it operates as a type of shorthand which suits those who are too lazy or ignorant to describe what they actually object to. 

My father fought fascists in World War Two, a war in which forty thousand Australians died.

The ignoramuses who post about the communist menace have short memories, or no understanding of history.

"Peace" in our Time

 

Pic courtesy NYT.

We're being bombarded with media (both mainstream and social) about the arrival of "peace" in the Middle East.

When you've lived as long as I have, and observed the history of that part of the world, the notion that there is now "peace" is greeted by at the least incredulity, and at the most derisive laughter.

I am the same age as the state of Israel, after all.

Granted, credit should be allocated to Trump, as he seems to have driven much of the negotiation. His financial connections in Saudi Arabia though his son-in-law have no doubt greased the palms of the oligarchs that run the show in that country, and his family businesses will no doubt benefit from the reconstruction benefits and the contracts they generate.

He needed them to be onside, and along with the Qataris, the Egyptians and the less compromised Europeans, in the end they were.

He is, after all, in the same business as Osama Bin Laden.

Let's identify what has actually changed after the agreement.

First, and most critical, the Israelis aren't continuing to kill scores of Gazans using air-delivered high explosives daily. I have personal experience as a conscript, of being on the receiving end of misguided ordnance. It was a long time ago, but it's not something you forget. To be delivered from that is, I suppose, a kind of "peace".

Second, the living hostages have been released, along with thousands of Palestinians imprisoned by the Israelis. 

And there is hope of something more permanent. Excuse my cynicism, but I'll believe it when I see it.

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. 

History Rhyming in Images

 

Los Angeles 2025

This post, gentle reader, is a montage of images.

Half were photographs taken in Europe during the second world war.

Auschwitz 1944

The other half were taken in Los Angeles during the last couple of days.

Los Angeles 2025

They're posted without comment, except to point out that in each case one minority group was targeted by government.

Berlin 1943

Warsaw 1942

Los Angeles 2025

During World War Two those targeted were Jews.           

During the last few days, the people targeted are undocumented immigrants.

You can come to your own conclusions.....

Oh Canada!

 

Pic courtesy Rosa Miranda Sauret

In the light of Trump's recent postings on social media about Canada, it's worth recalling, gentle reader, one significant historical element of US-Canada relations.

I'm writing, of course, about the tens of thousands of draft dodgers that travelled north to Canada during the war in Vietnam, between 1965 and 1975.

One estimate puts the number between 30,000 and 40,000. 

What is interesting about this history is that it seemed to have no effect on US-Canada relations. When you think about it, that appears odd. After all, the northern escape continued unabated for ten years, and these men whether they were draft resistors or deserters, were clearly in breach of the law in the USA.

Yet Canada accepted them as immigrants and made no attempt to determine their reasons for crossing the border. This turning a blind eye arrangement was accommodated by both Canada and the US, and it's interesting to consider the reasons for this.

One rationale is that the USA had much greater concerns when it came to international relations in general and relations with Canada in particular, so long as the number of war resisters could be contained, and they didn't want to rock the boat by making an issue of their treatment.

Strangely perhaps, draft and military offences were not included in the Canada-US extradition treaty. Basically, even if the US authorities had wanted to take action, they could do nothing providing Canada accepted these young men as immigrants, and indeed Canada did.

In any event, President Gerald R Ford granted an amnesty programme for draft evaders in September 1974, requiring them to work in alternative service occupations for periods between six months and two years.

Later in 1977, Jimmy Carter fulfilled a campaign promise to pardon any draft evader who requested one. I have no idea how many took advantage of this, although a figure of 556 is floating around in the archives.

This 2018 Canadian study (in French and English) by Luke Stewart provides useful background.

My only comment about Trump's offer would be that whilst travelling, I have mistaken a Canadian or two for an American and received a thorough telling-off for doing so.

One young woman said "That's the worst possible insult you could offer any Canadian! The basis of our identity is that we are NOT American."

An Gorta Mor and Remittances

 

Erin go Bragh - Image courtesy Ireland Reaching Out

Just the other day, gentle reader, I stumbled on an Irish history website which included an essay about remittances sent from the USA during An Gorta Mor (the Great Hunger, the irish famine). 

It was written by Dr Ciaran Reilly, historian at Maynooth University. 

The article reports that in 1851, Lord John Russell, then British PM, claimed that more than 1.5 million pounds had been sent to Ireland as remittances by new emigrants who had arrived in the USA. A survey of Irish newspapers from the late 1840s and early 1850s confirms this, with almost daily reports of people emigrating once they had received the remittance money.

I also remember reading about these remittances on my visit to Ellis Ireland's immigration museum a few years ago on a visit to New York. 

Ellis Island Immigration Museum

The process was not confined to the USA, with a mention in the article of letters received from Melbourne containing amounts ranging from fifty to five hundred pounds.

I knew from my own family history that my ancestors traveled to Moreton Bay on the Erin go Bragh during a voyage in 1862.

The Erin go Bragh was one of thirteen ships which transported people from Ireland to Australia under the Queensland Immigration Scheme. This scheme was established by Bishop James Quinn and assisted by Father Patrick Dunne with the aim of assisting Irish immigrants to make the arduous journey to Australia where it was hoped that they could start a new life of prosperity.

Remittances were used less frequently in Australia (or as then, the colonies of Moreton Bay, New South Wales and Victoria), but they did exist. I have no idea of the mechanics of this, or how the postal services worked back then to keep the funds secure.

If anyone reading this understands the process, please enlighten us in the comments.

Hysteria in Politics

                        Image courtesy The Guardian

No doubt, gentle reader, you're acquainted with the recent media about the High Court decision releasing detainees from indefinite detention.

In summary, that decision ordered the release of stateless detainees as it ruled that politicians don't have the constitutional power to punish. The High Court found that punishment is the role of the courts, not parliament.

That principle is nothing new, but as a consequence of political decisions (supported by both major parties) hundreds of these people were in indefinite detention. Whether or not indefinite detention can be supported morally or legally is not the issue. The High Court found that it was illegal, and for what it's worth, I regard it as morally indefensible. In any event, they had to be released, and they were.

The people caught up in this were stateless, and the reason they remained in detention was that no country would accept them. Some of them had committed serious crimes, and all of those had served sentences as a consequence. Some had committed no crime, but they were deemed to be of poor character. Those who had been convicted of serious offences had served their time. If they had been Australian citizens, and not stateless, they would have been released into the community, just as thousands of other ex-prisioners are annually.

The opposition has lapsed into hysteria around this issue, in an attempt to make political capital, as fear of refugees has always been a politically powerful meme, and has worked well in the past.

They seem to have forgotten that the legislation that the High Court deemed unconstitutional was strongly supported historically by the Coalition, and that it had been introduced for political reasons which were, as it turns out, found to be in breach of the Australian constitution. 

Nevertheless, Dutton and fellow shadow ministers have been doing the rounds whipping up hysteria. The irony, of course, is that it was legislation introduced by the Keating government, and amended in 2001 by Howard's cabinet at the height of the Tampa incident. A further irony relates to the fact that Dutton has always been prominent at exploiting law and order issues for political capital. 

It will be interesting to see if the Coalition cooperate with Labor in instituting new legislation that puts these non-citizens back in detention.   

Whether they do or not makes no difference to the fact that indefinite detention, as a concept in a civilised society, is morally bankrupt.

 

The Media Megaphone

        Image courtesy Medirect

The State of israel was proclaimed on May 14th 1948, so that makes it one year younger than I. 

Since that time, there have been eighteen different episodes of conflict that Wikipedia classifies as "wars" involving Israel and its neighbours, including Six-Day war in 1967 and the Yom Kippur War in 1973. There have been many other episodes besides these two which resonate in my memory, but many of them have rumbled along in the background without making the news, routinely killing and maiming the participants. 

In the course of these wars or skirmishes, around eleven thousand members of the IDF have been killed, and approximately 4000 Israeli civilians have also died. During the same period, reliable statistics recording Palestinian casualties have not been kept, but some data is available since 2008 indicating that over 120000 have died. This figure does not include those killed by the current Israeli activity in the Gaza strip.

The war in Vietnam was the first conflict televised daily into western living rooms, and many historians insist this exposure of the horrors of war to everyday citizens was largely responsible for the loss of support in both the USA and Australia which began to decline measurably in 1968. 

This pattern of weariness with the conflict does not seem to have been reproduced in the Middle East. Those wars have endured throughout my lifetime. Perhaps we have become accustomed to them. I doubt that the people involved (Israelis and Palestinians) have.

And this tolerance for the slaughter by both sides, gentle reader, is a conundrum that I can't get my head around. Both sides of the conflict use the media megaphone to advance their respective causes. All this seems to achieve is division on the streets of our capital cities, and political point scoring. 

Perhaps it's time to try a novel approach. Rather than using confronting imagery as a means to attract eyeballs and clicks, both corporate and public media could agree to help resolve conflict or at the very least, move it from a violent to a non-violent phase.

This, of course, will never happen so long as the media is conceptualised as a market, and the story will need to be sold to the highest bidder.

Winning Friends and Influencing People (Not)

 

                                             Image courtesy NDTV

One of the most enduring memories of my service in Vietnam is the experience of being on the wrong end of a misdirected artillery strike. In May 1970, during operations with 7 RAR, American self-propelled M110 howitzers firing just on dusk from the Horseshoe sent two salvos into our night platoon harbour which went within a whisker of cleaning us up. Fortunately they landed in front of our position, and the shrapnel went forward, away from us. The worst we endured were the seconds of sheer terror as we heard it coming, and the shards of split timber from the trees it hit flying about.

Fortunately we were on stand-to and hadn't put sentries out at the time, as any digger out in front of the position would have been mincemeat. The fact that we discovered later that the gun crew was high on marijuana at the time didn't improve our lack of respect for Americans in general, and US artillery in particular. They had forgotten to check the position of "friendlies" and we were ambushing a track junction. The Yanks were firing H & I (harassment and interdiction) missions and this same track junction was a juicy target. 

I mention this to explain that I know what it feels like to be attacked with high explosives designed to kill and maim. The last few seconds involve an eerie whistling sound that I can still hear, fifty-three years after the incident.

Imagine the terror of civilian populations subject to this hi-tech carnage daily and consider how they might react.

There's plenty of history. Let's examine World War Two, gentle reader. First there was the London blitz, and then the area bombing of the Ruhr, and cities such as Hamburg, Dresden, and Cologne. Earlier in the war, the Japanese bombed Chongqing in China a total of 268 times in an effort to terrorise the population. Our own country was bombed on 19th February 1942, when Darwin was attacked, and Broome followed on 3rd March the same year. Neither the Londoners, the residents of these German cities, or of Chongqing or Darwin became enamoured of those doing the bombing. In fact, the civilians involved typically got behind their armed forces after these incidents. 

The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki cost about ninety-four thousand deaths. This loss of life was justified by the Americans using the argument that it saved hundreds of thousands of GIs who would have died in a conventional maritime invasion of the Japanese homeland. Hiroshima nd Nagasaki stand out because of the use of nuclear weapons, rather than the number of civilian casualties, which were actually less than those resulting from the fire bombing of Tokyo. This justification has been disputed by some historians who claim that the Japanese surrender was precipitated by the Soviet declaration of war two days after Hiroshima and one day before Nagasaki.

Between 1965 and 1970, the Americans dropped 2,756,941 tons of ordnance on Cambodia, destroying most of the minimal infrastructure in that country, and terrorising the population. There is a strong argument that this terror drove the population into the arms of the Khmer Rouge, and the killing fields followed as a direct outcome a few years down the track. After patrolling in areas of Phuoc Tuy where B-52 strikes had been conducted in 1970, and coming across the vast overgrown craters left by these raids, I can well understand the reaction of any civilian population to indiscriminate bombing, and the desperation they must have felt.

Then there was the "shock and awe" unleashed by US forces on Iraq in 2003. It was followed after the American withdrawal by the rise of ISIS, which reached its zenith in 2015. That was twelve years after "shock and awe". The Killing Fields were perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge between 1975 and 1979, ten years after the bombing. These are two very similar examples in recent history of the long-term outcomes of attempting to bomb a population into submission. The result in both situations seems to have been the rise of the most evil of terrorist groups. 

Now we are seeing the Israeli bombing of Gaza. Let's hope that the outcome will not be the strengthening of the existing Hamas hold on the Palestinians. 

One thing I am sure of, gentle reader, is that the residents of Gaza will not feel any sympathy for the Israelis killed and captured on October 7th. Getting bombed has that result. If history is a guide, the bombing will have a long term effect that will remove any likelihood of peace in the Middle East in my lifetime. 

Bombing people does not win their friendship, nor does it ever influence them to hold a favourable view of those responsible. That simple and understated historical message seems to have completely escaped the military leaders involved.

 

Same Old....Same Old

 

Image courtesy Vietnam War Cartoon exhibition

The recent report from Department of Home Affairs Secretary Mike Pezullo is a timely reminder of the Coalition's default position on the use of the politics of fear.

To quote Craig Emerson in this piece from Pearls and Irritations - 

The Liberals have form when it comes to demonising outsiders. If it wasn’t the ‘‘commos’’ coming down through Vietnam to attack us in the 1960s, it was ‘‘too much Asian immigration’’ in the late 1980s, the asylum seeker boats of the 2000s allegedly carrying terrorists, the African gangs preventing Melburnians from going to restaurants in 2018, and the asylum seekers in 2019 who would kick Aussies off hospital and public housing waiting lists if they were medically evacuated from Christmas Island.

The "Reds under the bed" schtick of the fifties and the sixties worked very well for a while in that it kept DLP voters terrified enough to give their preferences to the Coalition, which led to our commitment to Vietnam, and the loss of blood and treasure that followed. 

And yet, incredibly, Morrison was prepared to reprise it in a last desperate effort to cling on to power. This, from an ex-minister for Immigration and Border Protection who would respond to any inquiry about boat arrivals and turnbacks with the "on-water matters" cliche. The new Leader of the Opposition is a serial offender when it comes to resorting to the frighteners. Maybe it was something he learned as a Queensland copper. 

China's system of government is anathema to Australians, but demonising it is scarcely going to convince the Chinese to abandon it. There are many countries with authoritarian administrations worldwide, but spruiking about the "drums of war" is childish. Managing our relationship with China is best done with deeds, not words, and it has nothing to do with jeopardizing national security in a cheap attempt to scare voters. As Emerson points out, we don't have to kowtow or sacrifice our sovereignty to acknowledge the economic and military power of China.

Perhaps the results of the recent federal election indicate that Australians have begun to recognise a dog-whistle when they hear it.

The Outrage Factory

 

Pic courtesy junkee.com

I've been around long enough to recognise a political stunt operating as a classic dog-whistle.

(A dog-whistle, gentle reader, is a political message, predicated on fear and/or ignorance, that appeals to a very easily outraged segment of the population).

These dog-whistles are routinely trotted out around election time. Examples are the "reds under the bed" meme (which got us into the tragic mess that was Vietnam) and the "boat people are Islamic terrorists" meme which got a real go on after the Tampa incident. Both had the desired political outcomes, and 500 Australian diggers, and who knows how many genuine refugees have paid the ultimate price. But that's OK - it worked...

The Coalition (first under Menzies, and since, Howard and Morrison) have turned the strategy into an art form. They're used by both sides of politics - remember Mediscare? Labor, however, seems to have some qualms about the morality of their use. Perhaps ignorance is the factor. Many Coalition voters are hopelessly thick when it comes to their knowledge and understanding of history.

The latest dog-whistle is focussed on gender and sport. A Liberal candidate has made some pretty disgusting statements about kids with gender dysphoria. She apologised (sort of), but the front page news her words created have opened the issue up to the usual suspects.

The funny thing is, whilst most Australians aren't OK with young men playing women's sport, it's not actually happening. I have not heard of one situation in kids' sport in this country where it is an issue. It is in elite sport, but even then, is largely symbolic.

The point is, for children, the only real harm that can derive from a gender mix (and then only in contact sport) is the risk of injury when stronger and heavier kids are mismatched with small undeveloped children whatever their gender. This mismatching is a very old issue.

When I played schoolboy rugby league in North Queensland over sixty years ago, the code got around it by setting up weight divisions. Hence I played in the pre-metric 7 stone 7 team.

That way, injuries were kept to a minimum. It was managed with the minimum of fuss.

The same issue popped up in GPS rugby union about ten years ago with the influx of big strong (and agile) Pacific Islander kids who were a real risk to the smaller non-Islander players predominantly because of the physical difference. The GPS competition did nothing about it, because the Islander kids often made the difference between winning and losing in the competition.

The bottom line is, that confected outrage generated in the parents of aspiring athletes has been well and truly exploited by the Coalition just prior to the upcoming election.

There is really nothing new in this. And what also is not new is the harm they cause. Have you looked at the suicide rates of kids with gender dysphoria recently?

Comments closed.

What Goes Round.....

Image from Queensland Government Archives

Between 1863 and 1904 about 60,000 Pacific islanders were transported to the then colony of Queensland, where they were put to work creating sugar plantations. The Islanders were generally coerced to board the traders' ships, and were often paid in trinkets for their labour, because, as one prominent blackbirder was reported as saying - "These people are savages and have no understanding of the value of money".

The mortality rate for these Islanders was about 30%, not dissimilar for African slaves to the Americas. You can read the history and make up your own mind as to whether these men were conscripted labourers or slaves.

By the 1870s, "recruiting" of South Sea Islanders had become an established industry with labour vessels from across eastern Australia obtaining Kanakas (the term used for South Sea Islanders, a term now considered offensive) for both the Queensland and Fiji markets. many of these people came from the Solomons.

Legislation was passed to end the South Sea Islander labour trade in 1890 but it was not effectively enforced. Eventually, the Pacific Island Labourers Act 1901 (part of a larger White Australia Policy), made it illegal to import South Sea Islanders During the period when Blackbirding persisted, thousands of these workers died, either on the voyages to Queensland, or after arrival, often as a consequence of diseases and the conditions.

As a child growing up in North Queensland in the fifties, I went to school with the descendants of these people, some of whom remained after the trade was outlawed, and made lives for themselves in the areas where sugar was grown. They were usually pretty good footballers. Mal Meninga was one notable example.

A memorial has been built at Corser Street, Polson Cemetery, Point Vernon, in Hervey Bay, to commemorate this dark history.

It's hardly remarkable, in the light of this history, that the people of the Solomons (or at least their government) aren't head over heels in love with Australia. Perhaps this history is one of many factors which conspired to encourage the Solomons to sign a security agreement with China.

Somehow, in the middle of the controversy and outrage, these events have been completely forgotten by most Australians.

I very much doubt the Solomon Islanders (and many other descendants of the Islanders who were indentured from other parts of the Pacific) have forgotten them.

Kilcullen on Ukraine and Other Things

 

Pic courtesy Wikipedia

Dr David Kilcullen is a commentator for whom I hold a great deal of respect, if for no other reason that he called the invasion of Iraq "f**king stupid".

History, of course, proved him correct.

I'll depart from the usual convention that I follow on this blog, gentle reader, and simply link you to a recent  podcast of a talk that Kilcullen had with Peter Jennings of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, rather than sharing my own (comparatively uninformed) opinion.

It's well worth a listen. 

History Doesn't Repeat - But it Rhymes

We're downsizing and moving house, gentle reader, and during the process I unearthed the pictured front page of the Toowoomba Chronicle of Wednesday, March 19th, 2003. It was, in a "special war edition", reporting Bush's ultimatum for Saddam Hussein to leave Iraq prior to invasion by the Coalition of the Willing. My youngest daughter had been given a school assignment to complete on the report, and she had kept it.

It got me thinking.

Almost nineteen years to the day later, another military invasion has taken place, this time the Russian Federation has embarked on a "special military operation" in the Ukraine. 

Both operations were sold to the population of their respective countries as exercises in liberating an oppressed population, and the militaries involved used overwhelming force. Remember "shock and awe"?

Operation Iraqi Freedom turned out to be probably the greatest strategic blunder made by western governments this century, and its aftermath let to the development of ISIS, years of suffering for millions of Iraqis, and an enormous cost in blood and treasure paid by the countries involved. 

Australia sent troops, an action which I protested by refusing my Anniversary of National Service medal at the public presentation timed to garner support for Howard's decision. For us, it wasn't without a cost. Two Australian service personnel died in the conflict between July 16th 2003 and July 31st 2009.  

The same relatively small price is not being paid by the unfortunate Russian soldiers involved in the current debacle. They seem genuinely bewildered by the reception they're getting from the Ukrainian people. The same hostile reception wasn't evident in Iraq initially, but by 2014 it was present in spades. Funny that, the idea that a population objects to their national sovereignty being removed by a foreign military presence. The Vietnamese, as I recall, had a similar reaction over fifty years ago.

So what do we learn from this sad historical symmetry?

One universal truth is that the military industrial complex, whether it is the product of a constitutional republic like the USA, or an autocracy like the Russian Federation, thrives on warfare, and its default position is always kinetic.

It also creates enormous suffering for the innocent. As this is written, the quantum of displaced Ukrainians approaches 3.6 million. The invasion and destabilisation of Iraq resulted in 9.2 million refugees.  

As an aside, we've just heard that 450 asylum seekers held in detention are being released to move to New Zealand in a deal struck nine years ago. Apparently focus groups are telling the Coalition that the fear and loathing they exploited to use boat people as a lever to hold on to power has receded. Boat people are no longer political collateral, and the threat of the urban Independents looms large in some of the blue ribbon Liberal seats. 

The historical rhyme emerging here is the willingness of the Coalition to use individuals as political currency with no reference to Christian ethics. This from a Prime Minister who makes frequent reference to God.

In 1965-72 the collateral were conscripts. In 2001 - 2022 they are refugees. History rhymes....

     

It Takes One to Know One

Pic courtesy The Mercury News

One little recognised fact about the recent history of Ukraine is that Paul Manifort, who chaired the Trump presidential campaign from June to August 2016, was influential in grooming the corrupt Viktor Yanukovych who became, in 2004, president of Ukraine after an election fraught with electoral fraud and voter intimidation.

Yanukovych fled to Russia in 2014, after a popular uprising when his government was deposed after signing an economic agreement with the Russian Federation. It has become obvious given the history since 2014, that the last thing the Ukrainian people want is closer alignment with Russia.

Further background includes the fact that in January 2020, the US Government  Accountability Office, a non-partisan watchdog, concluded that the White House broke federal law by withholding Congressional approved military aid to Ukraine. This was after Trump unsuccessfully pressured the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, to dig up dirt on Jo Biden's son in the lead up to the 2020 presidential election. 

Putin and Trump have, over the years, set up a sweet mutual admiration society.

On the  Clay Travis and Buck Sexton show last Tuesday, Trump said in reply to a simpering question -

  

“I went in yesterday and there was a television screen, and I said, ‘This is genius. Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine … as independent. Oh, that’s wonderful. So Putin is now saying, ‘It’s independent,’ a large section of Ukraine. I said, ‘How smart is that?’ ”

At the G 20 summit in November 2020, Putin praised Trump thus - 

"This was a really big contribution toward restoring the U.S. economy, and thus restoring the world economy."

It takes one liar very little time to recognise and understand another. 

Trump has used complete fabrication to gain and hold attention over and over again. The best most recent examples were his birther narrative, and more recently, the fraudulent election lie.

Putin has wheeled out allegations of the genocide of Russians in Donetsk and Donbas, and claims that the Ukraine government is controlled by NAZIs. The first claim has been completely discredited, and the second so bizarre as to be laughable, given the fact that the president is Jewish.

Yet, both Putin and Trump share the characteristic of setting up a simple and fearful lie, and despite all the evidence of the facts, sticking to it.

Both are megalomaniacs, likely psychopaths, and both have done enormous damage to their respective countries. Putin has begun to destroy the Russian federation's economy, and Trump has destroyed faith in the democratic process in the USA.

They understand each other very well.

 As the cliche explains, "It takes one to know one".

Comments closed.

Cannon Fodder

Russian captives (423rd Yampoli MRR* Unit 91791)

The Russian Federation's assault on the Ukraine has shocked and horrified the western media.

Most of the outrage has been directed at the disregard shown by the Russian government and military towards the Ukrainian people, and it is difficult for outsiders in the west to accept this behaviour in the twenty-first century.

It is, unfortunately, nothing new. The 2008 Russo-Georgian war has much in common with the current situation in the Ukraine.

This war displaced a 192,000 people including both Ossetians and Georgians, and it has so much in common with the Ukrainian conflict, including a Russian push for access to warm water ports, Russian fear of a state on its periphery seeking NATO membership, and the protection of Russian speaking enclaves as justification for military intervention. 

Prior to both the Russo-Georgian and Ukrainian conflicts, the Second Chechen War set a template of sorts, with the added complication of the involvement of Islamic militants. The Russian soldiers involved in these conflicts are as much victims of the wars as the unfortunate civilians caught up in them. Estimates of Russian casualties in Chechnya vary between 7500 (official Russian figures) and 14000 (Committee of Soldiers' Mothers). 

It should be remembered that many of these soldiers are conscripts. As of 2021, all male citizens of the Russian federation aged 18–27 are subject to conscription for one year of active duty which may include operational service. 

Soldiers returning from Chechnya have exhibited a disorder called CS (Chechnya Syndrome) which resembles the post Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan PTSD plaguing American and Australian returnees. All of this will no doubt be visited on Russian veterans of the Ukraine conflict when it is finally resolved.

Perhaps their situation may offer, in some perverse manner, a ray of hope towards the end of the conflict. How will the Committee of Soldiers' Mothers react to body bags being repatriated to Mother Russia in 2021?

Perhaps the deployment of mobile crematoriums with the units involved in the Ukrainian operation indicates that Putin is worried about backlash. 

As a footnote to this tragedy in Europe is the support for the Russian action displayed by the far Right in the USA. 

We live in strange times.

*Motorised Rifle Regiment

Comments closed.

The Djoke

 

Pic courtesy Youtube

Back in pre-Fitzgerald days in Queensland, police talked about being in on the “Joke”. That particular joke concerned police corruption.

Now we have a new running joke about the issue of an unvaccinated tennis player. You know the story. His visa was cancelled, he then won a court battle overturning the original decision, and the matter is going back to the federal court as this is written.

There seems to have been very poor communication between Tennis Australia, the Victorian State government, and the Australian Border Force.

In the end, the decision to withdraw a visa rests with the Minister, and he has made his position clear.

It’s very hard to avoid the cynical conclusion the Morrison government is exploiting what was probably a monumental stuff-up and turning it into a political opportunity. It smells a bit like the Tampa incident. The bulk of voters probably couldn’t care less about whether this particular celebrity goes or stays, but they are fed up to the back teeth by exceptions made to said celebrities.

I well remember what my daughter went though last year when she was trying to get home. Apart from anything else, it cost her a great deal of money, and for a while, rendered her homeless, relying on the generosity of friends. Federal government decisions limiting the numbers of returning Australians completely wrecked her plans. She was an Australian citizen and was fully vaccinated. Djokovic is an alien, and unvaccinated. Obviously, there is one rule for elite athletes, and another for the plebs.

As a parent, I went through this ordeal with her, as did tens of thousands of others. We have good memories and can’t abide exceptions being made on the basis of celebrity status.

It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good, and at least Australians have been reminded of the plight of thousands of people in detention who happen not to be celebrities.

What happens to Djokovic is neither here nor there, but the whole hairy chested border control narrative exposes the level of opportunistic cynicism characterising the current government.

The joke is on the Australian electorate.

Update: The deportation stands, which seems to be OK with most. 

Good News and Bad News

Pic courtesy Al Jazeera

Some elements of the old joke hold in relation to Afghanistan, but the good news pales somewhat in relation to the cost of the twenty year commitment.

We lost forty-one Australian soldiers, and that will always be the greatest cost. The damage done to all who served there, and the aftermath of the defeat also comes at enormous cost.

Vietnam veterans are only too familiar with that.

Frankly, the reputation of the US is neither here nor there. That reputation was permanently damaged in March 2003 when the Neocons invaded Iraq on a lie in order to "get square" for 9/11. What was David Kilcullen's reaction?

There has always been something entirely childish about US responses to terrorism, which in the final analysis, ensures that it will continue to be a problem into the future. Arrogance and ignorance creates its own issues.

All presidents since Bush have been trying to extract the US military from Afghanistan, and it would not have mattered in the long run who was in the White House when it happened. The fact that the deal that Trump "negotiated" included no consultation with the people or government of Afghanistan is more than a little responsible for the chaos we have seen during the last week or two.

But there is some good news.

No more American or Australians will die in Afghanistan.

The Afghanistan we know now is a very different country from what it was twenty years ago. There is a generation of young Afghans who have known a different experience. 

Afghani women know a different way of life, and most young women have had some experience of schooling.

How these changes will play out will depend on a whole heap of imponderables, most of them poorly understood by westerners. 

There is very little we can do about it, so pragmatic optimism is as viable as despair.

What is absolutely essential is that we don't treat Afghanistan veterans in the same shabby manner as Vietnam veterans were treated, until they took reconciliation into their own hands with the 1987 Welcome Home march.

The other essential is that we treat Afghan refugees as generously as we treated the Vietnamese in the late seventies and early eighties. Since the poisonous atmosphere created by the Tampa incident in August 2001, I sincerely doubt that possibility.

The Graveyard of Empires

Pic courtesy Britannica.com

The news emanating from Afghanistan lately has a familiar ring.

 The same cadence emanated from Saigon on 20th April 1975.

There are some similarities when the situation is compared with Vietnam. Each conflict persisted for more than a decade, the most powerful military in the world has failed in its attempt to stabilise each country, and locals who supported the West's commitment are now in fear of their lives.

Both countries were utterly devastated by the conflicts. In the case of Vietnam, the best figures indicate that over 2 million civilians were casualties by 1975, and over 562,000 Afghans have been killed and about 6 million have fled as refugees since 2001.

Both countries were cockpits during the cold war, with the Russians invading Afghanistan on Christmas Eve, 1979, and the Americans deploying into Vietnam most significantly in 1965 after the Gulf of Tonkin incident.

The proxy wars fought were similar in nature and outcome, with the Americans supporting the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan, and the Russians the Communists in Vietnam.

There are also some significant differences.

The outcome for the Vietnamese was unification under a culturally Confucian style of Communism, but for the Afghans, although it is not yet resolved, the likelihood of a cohesive central government seems remote.

If history is a guide, and the country returns to default mode, a series of tribally based spheres of influence, competing with each other in a deadly struggle for land, wealth and raw power seems the most likely result.

The Talibs will have their work cut out trying to establish a national government.

Afghanistan has defeated both colonialism and enduring central governance for centuries.

The Duke of Wellington, who knew a thing or two about military attempts to establish empire, spoke in the House of Lords in 1838 condemning the British invasion of Afghanistan saying that the real difficulties would only begin after the invasion's success, predicting that the Anglo-Indian force would rout the Afghan tribal levy, but then find themselves struggling to hold the terrain of the Hindu Kush mountains. 

He noted that Afghanistan was a land with no modern roads, and called the whole operation "stupid" given that Afghanistan was a land of "rocks, sands, Deserts, ice, and snow".

I've blogged before about the difference in scale between the Australian casualty figures in Vietnam and Afghanistan, but this difference probably matters little in terms of the individual grief shared by their friends and families.

Whether our involvement in these wars was ill-advised or not, they died in the service of our country and should be honoured for that. Unfortunately, the enduring controversy about the behavior of Special Forces in Afghanistan has put at risk the reputation of those involved. They deserve better, just as those returning to Australia after Vietnam deserved better.

Whether the same honour is due to the politicians who committed them to both conflicts is another matter entirely. 

Given the history of well-intentioned, but ham-fisted attempts to impose Western-style democracy on a pair of countries whose cultural history would indicate that it was an impossible task, these governments were either completely ignorant or more focussed on domestic politics than the welfare and collective freedom of Vietnamese and Afghans.

You decide...

Comments closed.