Thank you
The honourable Philip Ruddock, the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, has described detainees hurting themselves when some people from the community try to access the detention centre. This is absolutely untrue.
The reality is, people are living long time in detention, with uncertain future. We are bearing unannounced punishment, which is inhuman. The current government treats detainees like animals in the zoo.
We think the zoo is better than detention. Everyday, many people visit the zoo, but here in detention the people are not allowed to visit us, because the government built centres in remote areas which are difficult to access.
These detainees who are trying to hurt or kill themselves — the responsibility goes to the immigration minister, not to common Australian people who are helping detainees.
We are thankful to those Australians who believe in humanity and take care of innocent people. Your solidarity and sympathy with us, we don't have the words to describe your efforts for us. We will never forget your struggle for us.
Detainees from Port Hedland Immigration and Reception Processing Centre WA
'Scholarly history'
I refer to Philip Mendes' letter (GLW #495). Mendes uses criticism of a boycott call to criticise propagandist history as against scholarly history and proceeds to propagate a "history" even Israel's Zionists would have trouble mouthing.
In two decades of political life, I am yet to come across Mendes' fantastic categories of "good" and "bad" states. This obviously is a derivative of his equally fantastic strawman "good" and "bad" peoples. Claiming complexity in the Middle East is no excuse for concealing basic facts or parading imagination as history.
Let us look at Mendes' "scholarly history": "Israel is a comprehensive nation state formed on a democratic basis", "Israel was created specifically as an affirmative action project to compensate Jews for their horrendous experiences of racism culminating in the holocaust". To all of those labouring under the delusion that nation states are historically evolved categories, this is indeed revealed wisdom. Never mind the contradictory logic of the statements.
As for compensation for racism and the holocaust, never mind the facts that the Zionist colonisation started in the 19th century with the leaders collaborating with German, Russian, Turkish, British and French imperialisms in turns. Or the fact that there was no anti-Jewish pogroms in Palestine. Are we to imagine that Hitler was an Arab war lord, that Jews have to be compensated with Palestinian land?
As for the South African connection, never mind the fact of the Africa-Israel Investments formed in 1934 to help colonise Palestine, or the fact of the US underwriting the existence of Israel to the extent of $5 billion every year.
And coming to the "democratic basis" of Israel, as far back as in 1923 sections of the Zionists themselves were impatient with that hypocrisy. Mendes' may wish it away, but here is what Vladimir Jabotinsky (ideological leader of Sharon) had to say: "All colonisation, even the most restricted, must continue in defiance of the will of the native population. Therefore, it can continue and develop only under the shield of force which comprises an iron wall through which the local population can never break through. This is our Arab policy. To formulate it any other way would be hypocrisy." (The Iron Wall, 1923).
Lest Mendes accuse me of distortion and quoting out of context, I am quite prepared to send GLW, the entire text of Jabotinsky's article as well as articles of other Zionists to show their support of European imperialism, and calls for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
Narendra Mohan Kommalapati
Spence ACT
Genocide
"Israel was created specifically as an affirmative action project to compensate Jews for their horrendous experiences", asserted Philip Mendes (Write On GLW #495).
The above perceived concept of "compensation" is the most illegitimate and violent aspect in justifying the disenfranchisement of a nation in terms of the needs of Zionist indoctrination. At the same time, bear in mind that the disenfranchisement, or more precisely, the premeditated mass murdering of the Palestinians, carefully was plotted well before the genocide of the Jews.
As evidence, here is what the Austrian journalist Theodore Herzl, known as the "father of Zionism", wrote in his diaries: "Supposing, for example, we were obliged to clear a country of wild beasts, we should not set about it in the fashion of fifth-century Europeans. We should not take spear and lance and go out individually in pursuit of bears; we would organize a grand and glorious hunting party, drive the animals together, and throw a melinite bomb into their midst."
An undiplomatically formulated embodiment of Zionist program of genocide was in 1896. Can it be legally perceived as "an affirmative action ... to compensate Jews for their horrendous experiences"? In other words, genocide; wiping a country off the map; and committing inhumanities can all these be compensation?
Worse still, the reality is that, the so called "affirmative action" and "compensation" have been extracted by brute force at the expense of Palestinians' innocent blood.
Vic Savoulian
Mt Druitt NSW
Telstra
It is good that the Greens have rejected Bob Brown's proposal to trade off the full privatisation of Telstra against promises of forest protection. These promises could easily be broken once the sale went through. (Remember the hollow promises of more money for environmental protection that persuaded some environment groups to support the part-privatisation of Telstra.)
At the same time, we have to recognise that the part-privatised Telstra already operates like any capitalist company in its disregard for workers and consumers.
Simply defending the status quo is not sufficient. We have to start raising the issue of re-nationalisation and link this to the idea that industries such as telecommunications should be run for people's need, not for profit.
Chris Slee
Melbourne
From Green Left Weekly, June 19, 2002.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.