Flag burning
As the author of the article "Invasion Day focuses on stolen wages" in GLW #654, I would like to admit to a glaring omission. GLW readers who attended Invasion Day in Brisbane would have noted that the article did not contain mention of the burning of the Australian flag by Wayne Wharton. This was my error, and as it turned out, an error of some magnitude. The mass media jumped onto the flag burning immediately, televising it on the evening news, and the Courier-Mail had coverage of it the next day. This sparked off a debate, with the RSL chiming in with their usual call to ban flag burning.
I wrote the article a few hours after the event, before there had been any mass media backlash, which occurred in subsequent days. At the time of the flag burning I was gathering my scribbled notes and preparing to march, as the official speakers for the rally had concluded. Still, the flag burning should have been duly reported.
I am sure Wharton had the support and sympathy of almost all the crowd (and a significant section of the general population) when he angrily announced words to the effect that "everything done to the Aboriginal people was done in the name of this flag".
At a time when the Australian flag has been flown by Australian soldiers invading and occupying Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as being used by ultra-nationalist lynch mobs on Sydney beaches, we need to defend those who conduct Australian flag burnings. The burnings symbolise their opposition to the litany of unspeakable crimes committed by the Australian government, from 1788 to the present day.
Adam Baker
Clayfield, Qld [Abridged]
Schafik Handal
Schafik Jorge Handal, leader of El Salvador's leftist FMLN (Farabundo Marti para la Liberacion Nacional) party, died from a heart attack on January 24 after returning from the inauguration of new Bolivian President Evo Morales.
The 75-year-old former guerilla and Communist Party leader was a well-known social fighter throughout Latin America. Handal participated in the discussions for peace during El Salvador's 12-year civil war and ran for president in 2004.
Commandante Handal was honoured and praised by delegations from all around Latin America, who had arrived in the capital San Salvador to say their final goodbyes to Camarada Schafik. His farewell mass was headed by Monsignor Gregorio Rosa Chavez, who was a close friend of Oscar Romero, the assassinated archbishop of San Salvador, who was murdered by a government death squad financed by both the Reagan and Bush senior administrations. The attendance for the event was
over 100,000 people.
Commandante Handal formed part of the FMLN General Command during the war resistance against the US-supported government. He was born of Palestinian parents who migrated to the department of Usulutan. At the age of 14 he joined the Salvadoran Communist Party which, along with other political organisations, brought down the military dictatorship of Maxmiliano Hernandez Martinez.
Schafik Handal, loved by the people of El Salvador, will always be remembered for keeping true to his ideology, his good humour and for being a charismatic leader who defended the interests of the people who continued the struggle against imperialism and the neoliberal system which has always favoured the oligarchy. The people of El Salvador will miss Commandante Handal. La Lucha Continua!
Alexis Ramirez
Melbourne
Iran
France, the United Kingdom and the United States of America are calling on Iran to halt its nuclear research program. This call is so hypocritical as to be laughable. These three countries all have nuclear power stations, nuclear weapons and nuclear research programs. None of them has taken Pakistan or India to the United Nations Security Council but both of these countries have ignored the Non-Proliferation Treaty. What is the difference? Iran has major oilfields.
Now France is making threats that can only be interpreted as threats to use nuclear weapons against countries supporting alleged terrorists. How many innocent people would one nuclear bomb kill? And how many terrorists? The obvious target is Iran, run by fundamentalists who will ignore these threats. Or Syria.
What a disaster could ensue if a nuclear weapon was dropped on an Islamic state. Far better to at least investigate the peace offer from Osama bin Laden than to widen the war.
Col Friel
Alawa, NT
West Papuan asylum seekers
Questions I think need to be asked of Howard and company: Why are the 43 West Papuan asylum seekers being locked up, why on Christmas Island, and when will they be brought to mainland Australia?
Stephen Langford
Paddington, NSW
Nationalism
In her article "Racism, education and the national anthem" (GLW #654), Mary Merkenich clearly shows how our path of nationalism, racism, prejudice has been led by our political leaders to the detriment of our society's values.
On the front cover of our local newspaper (Northern District Times) last week, John Howard proudly stated how "being Australian is based on an ethos of mateship, loyalty and volunteer service". What a hypocrite!
His ruthlessness and nationalistic arrogance shows just how far from the truth this now is. His leadership has seen policies introduced that have imprisoned asylum seekers in extremely harsh and cruel conditions; policies designed to divide our society, to pit mate against mate and employee against employer, employee against employee; now we see how the welfare to work legislation alongside the IR legislation will force the unemployed, disabled and single parents into entrenched poverty, forced into the lowest paid jobs with effective marginal tax rates of up to 70%. This is what our pathetic nationalistic pride brings us. This is what we should be proud of — or so we're told by Howard and company.
Under the harsh and ruthless iron-fisted rule of this current government, being Australian is now based on the "ethos" of absolute ruthlessness, absolute greed, selfishness and prejudice. Mateship, loyalty? Hardly! Care, support, kindness, compassion — the very things our society used to be proud of — are now a thing of the past.
Now with this soon to be highly nationalistic "education" within our schools, greed, ruthlessness, selfishness and prejudice will be justified, and required to be Australian — an Australia I am increasingly ashamed to be a citizen of.
Gregory Rowell
North Ryde, NSW
From Green Left Weekly, February 8, 2006.
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