Write on: Letters to the editor
Referendum
I am perturbed about "invisible ink" on thumbs of "those who have voted" in East Timor.
How will the illiterate people vote? Signing a cross? In Nicaragua I thought they (the illiterate) voted by pressing thumbs in invisible ink and then the ink disappeared from their voting paper, before their vote could be counted, and 5% of the total vote was lost by the Sandinistas.
Right or wrong?
The USA supplied the ink.
Wentworth Falls NSW
Legalised theft
The Howard government is refusing to make employers set up fully funded trusts guaranteeing that workers are paid out fully their holiday pay, long-service leave and redundancy pay when companies go broke.
It claims this would be a "drain on business cash flow". But using money which legally belongs to workers as part of their award entitlements in this way is theft.
Insurance analysts Benfield Greig commissioned by the NSW department of industrial relations say workers entitlements could be protected at just 70 cents a week for each worker, paid by employers.
There are now 3000 workers owed $30 million after companies have folded.
Peter Reith says: "Never forget which side we're on. We're on the side of making profits. We're on the side of private capital."
Balmain NSW
NOWSA debate
Banning, harassment, intimidation and accusations. These were some of the unfortunate highlights of the 1999 NOWSA Conference with the theme "Fight for a feminist revolution, Smash patriarchy". More aptly, the conference should have been called: "NOWSA Collective fights for anti-feminist counter-revolution, Smash feminist solidarity".
Before the conference began various members had been expelled from the collective for being "racist" (in reality for making administrative mistakes, disagreeing with identity politics, being a Resistance member or not attending every collective meeting).
The conference agenda was highjacked by a section of the NOWSA collective, a Melbourne based campus clique whose politics are characterised by a deep seated fear of open discussion and democracy. Collective members used authoritarian and emotional means, such as "guilt tripping" and "public shaming", to stifle debate, misrepresent contributions form the conference floor and twist arguments that presented a different viewpoint to the one supported by the collective.
A climate of fear, guilt and hysteria permeated the conference, with many participants feeling silenced. It became obvious that the collective's agenda centred around blaming the conference participants (400 women, many of them active in student, feminist and anti-racism campaigns) for the existence and perpetuation of racism.
By the end of the conference everybody was a "racist": for daring to disagree, for wanting to talk about transgender issues, for being a member of a socialist organisation, for being born white.
I congratulate everybody who dared to speak out in this climate of intimidation. It was those women who kept to their feminist principles of solidarity and unity of action who were the true inspiration of the conference.
Melbourne
[Abridged.]
Dissent
I am a working-class subscriber to your publication and find it a great restorer of "the balance" in light of the profit-driven, pro-corporate mass media.
I read your "write on" column every week and can't help observing that there is a vivid absence of opinion that dissents any of the Democratic Socialists' culturo/political agenda. Every letter seems to exude a positiveness towards your cause.
I could assume that your reader base is confined to socialists (like myself), but being inherently cynical, I'm led to presuppose that adverse submissions are omitted in favour of more favourable articles.
Kim Bullimore (GLW, August 4) in "Free market speech isn't free" wrote: "The general notion of freedom of speech assumes that every individual or group has access to the means of expressing their ideas".
Is it simple rhetoric when your weekly articulates its liberal democratic intent? Even the bourgeois newspapers occasionally print "subversive" offerings from the public.
Am I way off the mark? Please allay my fears by at least printing this letter.
Manly NSW
[Abridged.]
[Green Left's policy is to be a forum for green and left discussion. The only letters excluded because of their political content are those that are openly anti-green or anti-left (not that we get many of those). — Ed.]
Denigrating women
Every year on campuses throughout Australia, Blue Stocking Week is organised. This is a week aimed at raising feminist issues and the struggle of women to gain access to higher education.
In Hobart this year, the Tasmania University women's collective has come up with the idea of organising a "Reclaim the Nightie" night, in which women will put on their nighties and head off to the Uni bar.
It is appalling that, in the context of the oppression that women face and the ever-increasing attacks on women's rights, the women's collective can promote such an idea. Not only does the event make a mockery out of Reclaim the Night — a night when the feminist movement mobilises against rape, sexual assault and domestic violence — it demeans women, reinforcing sexist stereotypes.
Women's oppression is a serious reality which requires serious campaigning and a serious approach to building a women's liberation movement. Given the attacks on women's rights and the education system, women's access to higher education is becoming increasingly restricted. This needs to be highlighted during Blue Stocking Week (along with a whole range of other issues, such as access to abortion, child-care, employment).
Women's collectives should play an important role in the women's liberation movement. What is needed from these collectives is not events which make a mockery of women, but serious, committed campaigning aimed at raising awareness on campus and convincing women of the need to be active in the feminist movement.
Tasmania University Resistance Club
Hobart