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Decade frist!
Onya!
Pedantic “decade doesn’t start until next January 1″ nit-picking frist!
A selected list of Wikipedia articles that are approximately the same length as the entry about Lady Gaga’s 2009 single Paparazzi:
Nuclear Fission
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Linguistics
Pennicilin
Chimpanzees
The entry about the actual photographers known as Paparazzi is significantly shorter.
So, Mercurious @ 4,
What precisely does this mean for 21st century Western civilisation?
a) There is a very loquacious Lady Ga Ga fan out there; the song is ambiguous; a lot of people out there can’t understand it?
b) In the 21st Century there are people out there who still read Samuel Taylor Colleridge; or were scarred for life as children after they read the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner; Romantisism still thrives, in a much bigger way than the Romantics ever thought possible.
c) Some people are really heavily into : i) language; word games; linguistics is a very complicated discipline that requires a very lengthy article to explain it.
d)Some people haven’t heard of pennicilin resistant diseases; or those diseases haven’t reached Australia yet; or mould is a fascinating phenomenon.
e)Darwin wins.
Okay. Did anyone watch the 2009 Walkleys Awards for Excellence in Journalism? No? Well, I was outraged. None of my favourites got an award – and this was a year in which Tracy Grimshaw got one! So I was thinking maybe we could have our own people’s choice awards for journalism right here at Larvatus Prodeo. Nominations could start today and be announced later in the month (eg Australia Day). You can make up your own category.
Lemme start:
AWARD FOR BEST POLITICAL SATIRE:
Annabel Crabb
AWARD FOR CUTEST POLITICAL COMMENTATOR ON TV:
David Speers
Peter Van Onselen
AWARD FOR THE MOST PARTISAN COMMENTATOR:
Kerry O’Brien
Andrew Bolt
AWARD FOR THE BEST PORNSTAR SOUNDING NAME:
Okay, this one is not my idea. Metafilter community weblog came up with this one during the last election campaign and said that George Megalogenis had won this category two years in a row. But I like
David Speers
Peter Van Onselen
… yes, again!
BEST POLITICAL COMMENTATOR
Laurie Oakes
Peter Hartcher
BEST ECONOMICS COMMENTATOR
Michael Stutchbury
Okay, over to you …
Paul, I think it actually signifies (f): that Wikipedia is much closer to being the real-world incarnation of The Hitch-hikers’ Guide To The Galaxy than Douglas Adams ever dreamed possible.
Big difference in world outlook between Mark@2 and Mercurius@3. One congratulatory and the other (tongue in cheek?) nitpicking.
I must admit to feeling somewhat grumpy today which is prompting my response to several posts here.
Let’s put in a plug for The Year of the Pedant since under that heading I can take issue with Mercurius@4 (“penicillin”) and Paul Burns@5 (“Coleridge” and “romanticism”). Proof indeed that grumpiness is an aid to spelling and a cure for grumpiness.
Sasha@6 – Are you having a laugh with your nominations? Quite a few of your choices are not fair commentators but are cemented on right-wingers now doing the bunny hop to the tune of Mr.Rabbot and his Bugs Bunny crew. Can I suggest another category called “Who is making more sense” and I’ll nominate Lady Ga Ga in front of most of those commentators.
As for the 21st Century – I’ll take Hanrahan’s view “we’re all rooned”.
This internet decade
Happy New Year to everyone here! May you all enjoy good health, prosperity and peace in 2010.
(Paul Burns — yeah, “Ancient Mariner” is one of the first things I can remember reading on my own as a kid. In a big, oversized, illustrated edition. Gadzooks. Maybe it explains a lot!!)
El Oso, okay maybe a little bit. I shouldn’t objectify journalists. They are people too. Maybe. I s’pose I thought there ought to be a readers’ review of their work though given some of the outcome of the peer review thing. But if you abstract from my comments about David Speers and Peter Van Onselen, the others are serious nominees. I would add George Megalogenis to the A list – one of the finest journalists in the country right now. This could be a serious topic if people wanted it to be. Up to you whether it is or not and whether you want to play along.
PS And now for something completely different. Since we’re all looking forward to this year’s election campaign as much as I’m looking forward to my next pap smear, I thought a preview of the types of TV ads we are likely to see accompanying the ETS debate are in order.
Preview of ETS/election campaign
The Government (a young Kevin Rudd?)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqJO8HwxTkg&feature=related
Coalition
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Si-htSSHxsE&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTjuo-8cPfg&feature=related
PS El Oso, you may be right but I get the feeling that your nominee is no lady!
el oso @ 8,
Both were typos. Now, if I wuz hand-writing I wouldn’t make these mistakes, but I’d also be illegible – ie my handwriting would be illegible.
j_p_z,
Love Coleridge. All of that lot, actually. Byron has fascinated me for eons.
(Confession – I’ve actually managed to read 3/4 of Don Juan. (I didn’t have to study it so I didn’t finish it, but at least I started it.)
The big discvery for me was Browning. (I presume he is a Romantic, though he’s a little later in time.)
el oso @8, speaking of pedants of the year, I think Hanrahan’s words were ‘We’ll all be rooned’.
Well, phuck me gently with a chainsaw! Why? Okay, there are a couple of reasons. 1) Nobody’s engaging with me on who rates as Australia’s sexiest journo. What’s wrong with you people? Apparently you’re too cerebral to consider such base polls. Much better to show off that you went to a Victorian Age Prep School that subjected you to a diet of an Ancient Old Fart and a closet gay guy. Bravo! Although I too was subjected to many emotional scars up on Gregory Terrace, Spring Hill, I was – like – 16 or something before I was subjected to the dead poets. Not 5. At that age, it was Tintin comics, I’m okay, you’re okay, Where the Wild things Are and a Bad Child’s Book of Beasts. Clearly, even then I had issues but learning the Ancient Mariner by rote – which is really all a child can do at that age – is not one of them. Hell, I couldn’t even understand what the old fart was on about when I was sixteen. But there was something about an albatross I think. Something bad. But the symbolism was lost on me and most of my single sex school sisters – who were much more interested in digging a tunnel from our school to our brother school down the road than the musings of a couple of drugged up old poets. Seems like nothing much has changed in my case! You guys are above stuff like that? More power to you! Or whatever …
Bites tongue off and spits it out.
A few thoughts: hawtest journo: still Emma Alberici for me.
Also,my daughter was given a “best of 2009 hitz” CD of very mainstream stuff – and Id never heard any of the songs in 2009 – like, ever.Not even once.Which either demonstrates good taste or really having gone over to Radio National age bracket.
Anyhoo, she relates to it like any 5yo shoulg – in a happy boppy uncritical way. We’ve had to play it in the car a few times driving home to Melbourne. In sum, I conclude:
Dont mind the Black eyed peas offering “going to be a good night tonight”
Hate this egregious idiot called Lady Gaga. we saw her clip which was also in the CD. What sort of demented dimwit produces a clip in which she dances on crutcches out of a wheelchair?
Secretly like Guy Sebastian lightweight 60s-esque effort “do you like it like that”
Hate twhatever lightweight has rehashed love is a battlefield theme. Once was already too much,
The rest just pass by unnoticed like background muzak at a Telstra store. Cue, at 41, my first genuine “young people dont even know what music is” moment.
Lefty E, I agree. If there ever was a female journo to turn me gay, Emma Alberici is it. Very hot. Bravo! Is there a male journo that would make you think about switching teams? So many choices. Only one on my list…
BTW Rolling Stone magazine agrees with your assessment about the last decade of “music”. Of the top 500 albums for the past five decades, I think only about three of them came from the last decade – and that’s saying something because the 90s left a lot to be desired too. Yes, we have reached a new low in “music”. I think all the music over the last decade has shown is that the drugs the Goths took in the 80s didn’t stop them from breeding. Anyhoo, let’s hope things pick up from here. It’s almost like a dare, isn’t it? But if the best the decade can show in music is Radiohead and Jay Z, I think we’re in trouble. Let’s hope that chicks with dicks do not dominate the next decade. I’m not hopeful though.
PS I don’t mind the Guy Sebastian song either – but my guess is that’s because it really fits the 80s genre anyway. It’s not typical of it’s time.
LE – it’s taken you to 41 to have that “young people dont even know what music is” moment? Your kids must be younger than mine.
Must make more effort to filter out my kids music when I sync the ipod – that’ll do as a New Years Resolution.
HAving said that I don’t subscribe to the music nowadays is crap meme – there are lots of good bands around now, you just have to look beyond the “gretaest hits 2009″ albums. Try here for starters.
Funny thing is, rf, my sons and I have surprisingly similar musical tastes (except for rap. Can’t come at it.)
They like a lot of my really old shit, and I like a lot of their not quite so old shit. I never would have heard Sonic Youth, Faith No More, Beck, Jim White, etc, without them.
@17, Lefty E, I wonder what the Best Hitz of 1973 would have sounded like! (ie when I was 5 not 41).
Here’s the top 100!
http://www.musicoutfitters.com/topsongs/1973.htm
Ps. I reckon #85 is the best one!
When it comes to music I think I’m old. Dylan, The Beatles, Leonard Cohen, Donovan, Cat Stevens, etc. (Not helped by having gone partially deaf over the years, so that I find it difficult to appreciate anyway because I can no longer hear it properly. And, I don’t like heavy metal and find rap mostlyincomprehensible. Some of the poetry’s okay.) Still, I quite enjoy what I pick up on LP with the earphones.
hmm the link gremlins strike again.
This is the real internet decade.
I dunno Mark -I reckon there’s more than the gen-gulf to the worthlessness of some modern pastiche muzak. Though anyone who would argue that its much the same phenomenon could probs point to early 70s bubblegum pop – which was pretty crap tooo (except for the Archies classic)
PS I like 85 too, and 9 (in a like-hate sort of way)
I can’t believe #100 only scraped in. Was this a honky-listeners-only list?
Jes’ p.Floyd @92! Mustv been dremin’.
God, I remember hearing that stuff on the radio at the time. Most of it was shite, in accordance with Sturgeon’s Law.
How can you not like a PM who does something like this?
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/kevin-rudd-writes-book-for-kids/story-e6frf7l6-1225815619569
@26 – With you on #9, LE.
Rest in peace Vic Chesnutt, who I thought could survive anything…
A spare and stripped down version of Panic Pure:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ho4ERNrM0OA
“And so all you observers in your scrutiny
don’t count my scars like tree rings.
My jigsaw disposition, its piecemeal properties
are either smoked or honey cured by the panic pure.”
From 2009, Vic called this his breakup song with death. damn:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4Z-kjr4BLs
from Patti Smith:
“I flew around a little room once.” A line from Supernatural.
He was just that. He possessed an unearthly energy and
yet was humanistic with the common man in mind. He was
entirely present and entirely somewhere else. A mystical
somewhere else. A child and an old guy as he called himself.
Before he made an album he said he was a bum. Now he
is in flight bumming round beyond the little room. With his
angel voice.
–Patti Smith dec 25 2009
from Jem Cohen:
The most important story to report now is not Vic’s death but a life and work overflowing with insight, humor, and yes, resilience. This, after all, was the man who wrote: “I thought I had a calling, anyway, I just kept dialing.” Sixteen extraordinary albums, five in the last couple of years; countless live shows so powerful and sublime they deeply altered the lives of those on the stage with Vic and those looking up, yes up, at him. The second most important story here has to do with a broken health care system depriving so many of the help they need to stay around and stay sane, and a society that never balks at providing more money for more wars but fights tooth and nail against decent care for its citizens. Vic’s death, just so you all know, did not come at the end of some cliché downward spiral. He was battling deep depression but also at the peak of his powers, and with the help of friends and family he was in the middle of a desperate search for help. The system failed to provide it. I miss him terribly.
Jem Cohen: Filmmaker / North Star Deserter producer
Paul,
The only thing is that Kidds will probably need a Phd in English Literature before they’d be able to comprehend Rudd’s book.
Nevertheless I thought we could have a “name Kevin’s Children’s book competition at Gutter Trash…
Feel free to swing past with some suggestions. There’s an awesome and yet unclaimed jackpot country & western CD up for grabs!!
http://guttertrash.wordpress.com/2010/01/03/name-that-book-competition/
That’s awesome, Paul.
Re: “the list” — yep on #85, but where’s the love for #97?
Apropos of nothing in particular, I came acorss this charming little piece on contemporary meat handling practice in the USA …
Would you like Ammonia with that?
I updated the story featuring that debate/interview between myself and
Andrew Fraser I mentioned a few weeks ago. I have included the full
transpcript (warts and all) or all threeYouTube Videos. I have also added a
Table of Contents and other supporting documents as well as links to other
articles. The story is Anti-privatisation candidate
confronts Queensland Treasurer”.
#68 FTW!!!
I never go to MacDonalds. Most of my friends’ kids have been trained not to eat there. And I understand Big Burger is even worse, from someone who was silly enough to try it. Still, its worth spreading around, Fran.
(And People worry about what’s going to happen in the 21st century?)
Unfortunate turn of phrase when we are talking about salmonella and e-coli O157:H7
It’s times like this that I feel glad of being vegetarian.
It’s times like this I’m glad I cook my mince properly.
I’d like to think that Paul @ 30 was sincere when he asked how can we not like KR?
Reb’s response @ 33 is barely kinder than the miserable mouthing off in comments at the News site. For all his brains and political nous there’s something childlike and irrepressible about Rudd. I can imagine him and Therese at home enjoying their pets as we all do. Writing a story about them would be a fun way to occupy his mind on a long flight, or whatever. Lucky him to be able to find a publisher and a co-author with the profile to help him market it for a worthy cause.
Re mince neither my cat nor my dog will have a bar of it either in pet packs or when I very occasionally buy some for us to take to barbecues. They obviously have a nose for contamination. For years now when having to be polite at other peoples’ barbies I’ve quietly discarded the rolls and eaten the sausages and hamburgers plus lots of onions and salad, mainly because of all the chemicals used in the processing of flour. Maybe from now on I’ll nibble on carrot sticks and focus on the wine. With BYO I know the stuff I drink is preservative free.
PS Fran,I’ve enrolled in an on-line mind training course recommended by Doidge. Low cost and a lot of fun. This is the third day of my NY resolution to work on building new neural pathways. Woke up this morning with vivid dream recall (unheard of for me!) of getting my daughter to help me with parking arrangements for some new friends coming to visit. She and I very easily re-arranged the kerbing on the corner of Lefroy and South streets here for easy drive up simply by bending down and pushing the steep kerbing along round the curve and higher up into Lefroy where it dovetailed nicely with the footpath there. I really appreciated how our city engineer had conceived and built in this flexible feature of road design just for people like me!
It’s time missed? loud and often but 26 by a country mile.
Patricia WA,
I was sincere. If I was being scarcastic I would’ve made it a bit more obvious.
Top songs of 1973 includes:
2001 Also Sprach Zarathustra by Deodata. This totally blew me away the first time I heard it which was I think when I first saw Being There. Other than that I would say that at least 25% of those tracks are classics. Money by Pink Floyd, even Daisy a Day. And Ramblin’ Man … brings a tear to the eye. Yes, pop has eaten itself.
“sausages and hamburgers”
err … I would have thought that the traditional view of sausage composition would have sent you screaming for the exit if you find bread rolls offensive.
Patricia WA
I’m thrilled to hear that you are getting something positive out of your course. Be sure and keep us informed of how this works out for you.
PatrickB you give me pause for thought. I think my daily efforts years ago in trying to overcome a general addiction to white sugar and white flour products left me either unaware or unwilling to explore the toxic potential of the occasional tasty social sausage. There are no easy exits from family barbecues.
Thanks Paul. The tone of my comment was poorly pitched. Opinion on anything the PM does is so cynical and critics always on the look-out for mud to throw. Even LP lefties find any excuse to question how genuine he is. I think his popularity which puzzles some is partly about his straightforwardess. The Tin Tin analogy was the closest the cartoonists came to his character. It’s not used much these days. If he really was all spin I think the last thing he would dream up is a children’s story about Jasper and Abby. It leaves him so open to ridicule and could easily be a flop.
well, I’m deeply disturbed by the murder of this Indian student.
I’m with the Indian government here – we simply aren’t doing enough about this. Some things we need to face up to
- There’s clearly deep seated racism behind this violence, and its just childish of us to get defensive about that
- Victoria is worse than other states, and I suspect thats because you never see the police anywhere. I know Im from QLD, (and therefore used to an inappropriate Franco’s Spain type model) – but Victoria must have the the most invisible police force in the western world. They’re just never on the beat.
- WTF are is VICPol doing about the rash of people with knives? Its just unacceptable.
- There needs to be some grassroots school/ community, interventions about this.
- And Australia need to f*cking wake up about this. Its ugly as sin, it IS about racism in the community, and our inaction IS making us look like 19th century throwbacks – the indifferent white colonialists of the pacific.
LeftyE
The evident solidarity you want to express with people of ostensibly sub-continental origin in Australia at a time when they have adequate grounds to feel elevated consern at their personal safety is admirable. Whether these attascks are racially motivated or not, the clear perception of them is that they are, and in matters such as this, perception is reality. Something needs to be done to allay the well-founded fears of the people of sub-continental background in Australia. What that something is of course, is harder to specify.
I do take excpetion though to your claim that
Firstly, as I said, it’s by no means clear what kind of action would be effective. One could advocate far tighter police-state-style intervention (and that does seem to be the gist of your pitch in your comparative analysis with Queensland) but even allowing that this would be good, it’s not clear exactly what precise resources you are wanting to bring to bear.
Likewise, it’s not at all clear to me that there is any significant animus out there in relation to sub-continental people. While there way well be small cohorts of marginalised youth bearing tribal-style animus towards them that would hardly say much more about Australian society as a whole than that that it had failed to sufficiently address social disadvantage and that predictably, this had played out in anti-scoial behgaviour directed at other relatively vulnerable people. Sweeping attempts to attribute ethical perfidy at the bulk of Australia seems sharply misplaced. I don’t doubt that a consensus embracing nearly everyone exists that such attacks are reprehensible, and perhaps as importantly, reactionaries and xenophobes are especially fond of “law and order” and cracking down on “dangerous youth”. Their misgivings about “the youth of today” would be as least as great as about Australia’s broader ethnic composition.
well Fran, i think “what precise resources you are wanting to bring to bear” is clear enough – just normal policing. I can honestly tell you I was living in Melbourne for 3 years before I even saw a copper on the streets. They just dont do much street work down here as far as i can see. as anyone who knows me from QLD will attest – Im hardly pro boys-in-blue by instinct. thats how bad it is here in Melbourne.
And I dont think I agree about OZ in general: I concur there’s not notable anti-subcontinent sentiment in particular, but there IS a lamentable “there’s nothing wrong with us” self-satisfied laziness, in the face of mounting evidence. How long does this go own before we accept that anti-Indian/ Pakistani violence is just an empirical fact now? Whether or not we feel there’s a distinct ideological element on the streets?
What evidentiary standards would suffice for you to accept that the claim that attacks on people of ostensibly sub-contintental origin was so predisposed was refuted/not made out? Conversely, what specific evidence do you have that such attacks are predisposed by the indifference or cognitive dissonance of the rest of us?
“What evidentiary standards would suffice for you to accept that the claim that attacks on people of ostensibly sub-continental origin was so predisposed was refuted/not made out?”
You might have to rephrase that one.
“Conversely, what specific evidence do you have that such attacks are predisposed by the indifference or cognitive dissonance of the rest of us?”
The fact that this is now objectively a serial problem with repeated assaults on Indian nationals, and very little has been done, despite the Indian government now being at the point of imposing higher level travel advisories. There’s also been a regrettable sense of blaming the victim in the official responses – “they’re walking in the wrong areas etc”. I’m sorry, I didn’t realize we had no-go zones where there is no law.
And as someone who works in universities, Id also describe “pastoral care” (for want of a better word) of international students as negligent at best.
And back to you: given the events of the last year or two, can you really blame the Indian students association (and the Indian government) for being up in arms? What sort of proofs would you like to demand of them at this point?
Oh, I just remembered…someone on here [I think] wanted some Cavalo Nero seeds, ie: Tuscan Black Kale. I can’t remember who it was, but I have collected the seeds now and I probably have enough for a few people. For those that don’t know, it’s a fairly hardy brassica [will tolerate heat as well as frost apparently], that can be used like a loose-leaf cabbage. It’s even quite decorative in a potager type garden.
http://www.selectorganic.com.au/content/seeditem.asp?id=1023§ion=1
In case you are hippies…er…I mean concerned individuals… I got the original seedlings from a certified organic supplier and I don’t use herbicides or artificial fertilisers in my veggie garden.
Anyway, I don’t want to put my work email up on a site I can’t edit, so if you drop me a line at the following address with your details, I’ll get the seeds in the post this week: saintfurious[at]gmail[dot]com If you are worried about sending your address to some weirdo on the net, then I can send the seeds ‘post restante’ to your local post office…haha, do people still do that?… I remember post restante from my first o/s trip it seems so quaint now *sigh* I do sometimes miss those days.
I will probably sow the seeds for my brassicas in early feb. They seem to do best when they have some warmth at the beginning and then develop their full flavour in the cooler months. Here in Adelaide [coastal] the plants seem to do fine in summer and will last for several years, but I noticed the older they are the more susceptible to pests they become. Plants in their first year, seem to be bomb-proof.
This year I will also grow some Purple broccoli and some Cavalo Romanesco, which again is both pretty and yummy..check out the geometry of those swirling florets:
http://www.ubcbotanicalgarden.org/potd/romanesco1024.jpg
Happy gardening folks.
Yes, it was pretty ugly.
You say the attacks are racially motivated. What evidence would be needed to satisfy you that this was not the case? e.g allowing for all other factors, the rate at which those of apparent sub-continental origin was nor statistically different from the rate of attacks on others
You quote me:
then respond:
I’m still not getting the causal link you assert between the presenting problem [assaults on Indian nationals] and the attitude of the wider community. Both Julia Gillard and John Brumby have spoken up. A task force has been put in place. While there is controversy about the extent to which there is a racial components, there is consensus that more needs to be done to address the problem. If there is indeed a racial component in these attacks their persistence could simply reflect the fact that such patterns are hard to deal with because unlike street muggings –where you can blitz problem areas or maybe target known offenders, you can’t realistically escort Indian nationals everywhere. Purely opportunistic attacks are difficult to crack down on. It could also be that once disaffected people get it into their heads that Indians can be attacked, their pre-existing anomie takes that form. With the best will in the world, breaking that patytern is not something you could hope to do quickly, and yet one that idea is established, the public narrative will be ready to map all incidents into that particular framework.
It’s not for me to “blame” anyone. I acknowledged that their anxieties were reasonable. It’s a plausible inference that they are being singled out, and certainly not easy to refute. Being entitled to hold a reasonable fear of harassment and a desire for action to be taken to mitigate your risk does not however recommend responding in a way that exaggerates it, or tries to assert that nearly everyone in a position to act is simply looking the other way or getting defensive, especially if this claim is spurious. At the very least, they ought to be sure that there is some measurable basis fior entertaining such a belief, and that making such claims doesn’t set up the kind of “us and them” context in which bigots are enabled.
I teach in Sydney at a substantially multicultural school. We had, during the Cronulla riots a substantial population of middle-eastern descent — many of them Lebanese Muslims. Post the riots kids who had spoken of themselves without ethnic reference or who would wear “Aussie” sports paraphernalia stopped doing so and began talking about “the Aussies” in the third person and “the Lebs” as them. Girls who had ostentatiously not worn the hejab, began wearing head coverings. Kids who had played handball and touch footy or simply sat together on the silver seats began eyeing each other suspiciously. Children asked me if I was on the side of “the skips/Aussies”. The Indians/Nepalese/Tibetans/Bangladeshis/Pakistanis at school looked on in bemusement even though one of the victims turned out to be a Bangladeshi who looked similar enough to attract the attention of a passing violent bigot as “a Leb”.
Luckily it all blew over pretty quickly.
You seem to be saying you want active policing — and personally, I have no problem with that. But suppose despite active policing, people including Indians continue to be attacked? If attacks on everyoine, including Indians decline by 20% over a significant period, what, if anything, would that show?
One of the interesting features of the article you linked to was that a friend had offered him a lift which the victim declined. Presumably, he had not felt unsafe or he’d have accepted it. This doesn’t square with the idea that all Indians believe they are unusually at risk of attack.
hmm, I should have probably put the seed post in the other saturday thread…oh well, since I’ve already interupted the flow of this thread….I spent the weekend perusing the Adelaide festival program, and I’m kind of disappointed.
Coincidentally, I heard an interview with Steele Hall on the radio this morning and he talked about the political decision of including WOMAD in the program which denies a festival director the chance to make his [and one assumes, her] own decision about a large chunk of the festival program. This was interesting to me because I think Grabowsky has delivered a fairly uninspired musical program. Or maybe I was spoilt by what Laura Donaldson offered at the two Melbourne Festivals that I attended in 2007 and 2008?
Adelaide’s program this year looks like a festival by numbers. And yes, there is still plenty to enjoy, I love the Necks, and we were overdue a tour anyway so I’ll go to Food Court because their other performance clashes with Pavement at Thebbie. I’ll probably go to the Chamber singers at the Cathedral, but I’m fairly sure the same venue hosted a very similar performance last festival. Ditto Wayne Shorter, where the last festival was Ornette Coleman – he was great, and I’m sure Shorter will be too, but it’s a little bit ’samey’. And I’m sure the full orchestra doing Mahler will be magnificent, [I'll be at Dinosaur Jr that night]…the premium seats were sold out before the program was even printed….hmmm…it’s at the Entertainment centre and those premium seats cost less than a general admission to most rock shows there these days, which kinda reinforces my perception from last year that the Festival just become a way of subsidising elite arts, without necessarily supporting anything that is genuinely creative or new, or something we may not have seen in this city before.
Has the next director been announced yet? I hope it is someone innovative.
LeftyE has been busy on blog sites today, as Gautam Gupta (Indian Students Association & taxidrivers disputes)has also hit the airwaves. Claims made about statistics of assaults on Indians increasing are not borne out by evidence to date and repeatedly making the claim does not make it true. LeftyE can you point us to some solid data which might allow us to understand how you have come to interpret the events in the way you have? I’m also from Melbourne and your claim about police presence here is not borne out by my own experiences either of working late in the city and western suburbs or travelling by public transport.
well, el oso, i have been busy, yes. You can pretend this isnt a huge diplomatic issue with India, but Im afraid it is. Student enrolments have dropped 20%. Time for us to wake up to this.
“are not borne out by evidence to date”.
Repeating this claim does not make it true, El Oso. The spolc paper cited on pol bludger (if you actually go read it) doesnt actually make any comrative test, and I quote: “In this respect, they may not have been significantly different to other victims of similar crimes; other international students, and other Australian residents. But there is no firm data to test this claim.”
And moreover it notes “Crime statistics in NSW and Victoria do not routinely record the race or ethnicity of victims of crime (NSW Bureau of
Crime Statistics and Research, 2009, and Victoria Police, 2009).
So on what possible basis do you suggest the claims are “are not borne out”?
However, it does note 14 separate assaults on Indian students in a two-month period alone, May-June 2009.
“I’m also from Melbourne” No offence, but that may actually be a limitation on your experiences of adequate community policing. Have you ever lived in another jurisdiction? I have, and its light-on down here in Vic.
“Student enrolments have dropped 20%.”
LeftyE I hear this figure used regularly on ABC. What they fail to mention, in what is actually a fairly small drop, considering the publicity these terrible assaults have received both here and in India, is the closure of many dodgy education providers.
The government has also clamped down on ‘get in free immigration cards’ for those prepared to sign up for cooking and hairdresser courses etc. Policy unwisely introduced by the Howard regime and now reversed, likely to lead to enrolement drops. Just sayin’.
Applaud the closure of dodgy colleges Joe2. Too many were just fraudulent permanent res visa producers.
But I can assure you the drop is across the board, colleges and unis – my own uni has been rebudgeting around it since late last year.
Sure, LeftyE, but another factor to take into account is the GFC. Many families may have decided they just cannot afford to support their kids education in Australia. Like I said, I was quite surprised that enrolement numbers had only dropped 20%.
I think there is a good deal of racism involved in these attacks but it is not the only factor. Indian permanent residents and students are easy targets for theft and exploitation because they are doing the hard yards in crappy, exposed, employment positions to make ends meet.
Think poorly paid night shifts, casualistion, sales positions reliant on lousy commissions and various other rip offs. It is a rough scene at the bottom of the food chain and it does not necessarily matter what colour your skin is. Just how desperate and maybe angry you are.
Sure Joe2, but that’s all part of it of the wider picture – dodgy employers getting around IR regulations by employing international students in unsafe environments and times. Many are breaching their visas by working so much, but need the cash, and are ripe for exploitation: employers know they cant and wont dob them in. As we all know they are disproportionately Indians (as opposed to east Asians) in 7/11s and fast food joints.
Im not sure that’s a whole different thing to racism. Im thinking Latinos in California – its an emerging racial underclass.
Do people who beat up dark skinned people really bother to find out their country of origin? I can imagine some of the mindless drug or drink sodden thugs of the kind who once used to target gays happening on stray coloured individuals in lonely places late at night. The idea that their specific ethnic and national group is being attacked, suggests paranoia on the part of Indian students inflamed by the media on the subcontinent. As Joe2 says there are so many factors contributing to this, particularly the casual employment of Indian students in late night shifts. Opportunity on the one hand and vulnerability on the other, rather than zenophobic inspired planning would account for many of these attacks. Surely if there were an intelligence of however low a level operating here then evidence some sort of organised gang activity would have emerged before this.
Still perception is everything and the MSM here hasn’t helped state and federal governments deal with the diplomatic and business fall-out. Hasn’t anyone been encouraged to research this and tease out some facts? Or do we have to wait a year or more for publication of a thesis?
The police chief keeps claiming that many assaults are purely opportunistic thefts. I had the horrible experience, on the train, of witnessing a semi-pissed anglo stand over two white others because he liked the look of their flash mobile phones.
And I have also been quite verbally harassed, more than once, by individuals obviously from the subcontinent, who despite my polite “not interested” refuse to take the message that I do not want to change my fecking power/phone carrier.
On my Google Search page there is a computer graphic commemorating that extraordinary nutter Isaac Newton. It an apple falling of a tree. I’ve been trying to catch it (the apple) with my cursor (it only happens when you open the page) but I haven’t succeeded yet.
Thanks, Paul. I was wondering about the apples.
They’ve gone now, btw.
DI (nr) @ 66,
For some peculiar reason at first I thought it was a falling cherry, then a berry off a mistltoe branch. Finally I got so curious I clicked on the damn thing to find out what it was supposed to be all about. It was at that point I discovered it was a very badly drawn apple and had something to do with Newton and the theory of gravity.
“Police are reluctant to draw a racial link to the murder, even though Mr Garg was not robbed and his belongings were left scattered the park where he was murdered.”
http://www.theage.com.au/national/please-help-me-im-dying-pleaded-knife-victim-20100104-lq5p.html
Hardly an opportunist theft then.
This is all compounded by the the failure to address the Indian students concerns attacks at all initially – and then to take them seriously beyond that.
And the general rise in knife crime is also disturbing.
Since we are doing speculation …
Amongst the possessions found scattered about, it doesn’t make clear that there was anything that would have been of interest to an opportunist mugger. Was there money? An iPod?
Another possibility is a shakedown gone wrong — the victim is confronted, perhapos by someopne with a substance-absue problem, money is demanded with menaces but the victim has no/little money, the victim resists and the knife is used.
The article notes that at the time this Indian student died, there was another non-Indian in the hospital suffering from multiple stab wounds. Not being Indian (or hapeening to have died), he fit less well into the narrative and was thus less newsworthy, but his circumstance undermines the view that Indians are being singled out or that becoming a victim is the result of indifference/cognitive dissonance amongst politically influential sections of Australia.
It my impression that our streets, especially our city streets and parks are a much less safer place to be on than they were some twenty odd years ago. There are more outbreaks of mindless, and, I suspect, not always alcohol fuelled violence; a “knife-culture” has obviously developed; when I was a young man, it was un-Australian to attack some-one with a knife, indeed, it was un-Australian to kick some-one when they were down, or use a broken bottle in a fight. If you were going to have a blue, you did it with your fists and that was all – no eye-gouging, no biting, (biting and scratching and pulling hair was the way women fought).
This spread of street violence exists in the country as well. Twenty years ago one could wander around Armidale all hours of the night and the only people who would bother you were the cops. Nowadays, if you did that you’d just be asking to be bashed.
Lefty, I can’t help thinking this poor fellow got caught up in the increased deadly violence and he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, with tragic results. And, he just happened to be Indian.
So far as violence is concerned, while we might have disapproval and recognition of private violence within the home, and thus less of it, in terms of public violence, we’re much worse than we were now than probably at any time in the post-war period.
“And the general rise in knife crime is also disturbing.”
Yeh, what is that all about? Likely people are carrying them, as well, because they feel the need to protect themselves. I even noticed, on a television report, an individual from the Indian community explaining why they now need to protect themselves in this way.
LeftyE, the police now have powers to randomly check for knives. That is sign that they are on the job. Let’s just hope it does not become a tool to hassle the usual suspects.
There are interesting features about the alleged upsurge in assaults against Indian nationals:
1. Indians have never been the victims of racist rhetoric in Australia, unlike Aborigines, Jews, Irish, Chinese, Japanese, Arabs. If there were some specific hatred of Indians, you would expect to see it reflected in racist rhetoric. On the contrary, Indians have enjoyed a level of esteem that would be envied by members of many other groups.
2. A casual perusal of the names of the victims indicates that they are overwhelmingly Hindu. Are there few Muslim Indians in Australia? Or Sikhs? What explains the preponderance of Hindus? Moreover, do street thugs discriminate between Indians, Sri Lankans, Bangladeshis, Pakistanis? Are members of these non-Indian communities not being molested in the streets? If this is true, then it is a strange phenomenon.
3. Does some profile exist of the assailants? The hidden assumption is that they are white. Is this true?
Good points Katz. I find myself particularly disturbed by this murder – perhaps because I have a few Indian students exactly the same age, doing exactly the same jobs to get by here. In general (with many exceptions of course), they aren’t quite as wealthy as some of the east Asian students and tend to work more. I acknowledge that there is a rise in knife crime in general, above. I think it interesting that VICpol acknowledges that too, but spends an awful lot of time poo-pooing the idea of racially motivated violence.
On your points:
1. I agree historically (barring some 1890s outbreaks of concerns about Indian “coolie” labour) – but I think what is new is that Indian/ sub-continental nationality students are dominating the visible underclass of cheap urban labour (24 hour convenience, fast food, taxis). I wonder if that has made them a target for resentment among unemployed youth from permanent resident populations.
2. I dont know – of course 80% of Indians are Hindu so perhaps its just numerical, I know of at least one Muslim Indian students group.
3. I agree the hidden assumption appears to be that they are white – I dont know why though. But its equally interesting to note the presumption that the actions of another ethnic minority would not be a reflection on “us”, or our society. Which of course, it still would be…
And I will be quite surprised if this unfortunate matter will receive the same heightened response in the Indian media and demands by External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna to do something about it.
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/990105/man-extradited-to-nsw-over-wifes-death
LE, my point 3 wasn’t intended to be exculpatory.
If the perceived pattern of attacks is true — Hindu Indians, but no one else from the subcontinent — then we are looking the product of a sensibility that is more refined than that of your common Anglo/Celt bovver boy.
Such a perception may be the first step toward combatting the problem, which we as an entire community own.
Sure Katz, and I didnt take your point 3 that way in any case.
I agree if there is a racialised pattern of violence, I would agree its unlikely to be targeted at Hindu Indians – but would be general across all sub-continental groups. Im thinking here, eg, of the reports of Sikhs who were attacked in Australia after 9/11 – mistaken for Muslims.
My guess is Indian Hindus just happen dominate the whole category here in AU.
The other interesting feature of the story is this:
If the information on the nature of the wound is correct, then Mr Sandeep is correct. This is by no means a frenzied attack, usually characterised by a sequence of messy more or less random stabs.
The blade has been driven into the victim sharp side uppermost and then drawn upward in a single, powerful movement. The person who did this is both expert and enjoys doing it. Again, not the work of a street thug and possible the work of someone who works alone.
Several other attacks have been by drunken hoons in a pack. This one is different.
Very different. Not frenzied, and death the objective rather than a side-effect of theft gone wrong or a simple love of ultra-violence. This is a person who has been shown how to kill a man and set out to do so.
I had a coffee with a visiting New Delhi businessman just before Christmas. He said that all his friends were extremely worried about him visiting Melbourne and that it was seen as an extraordinarily dangerous place.
I think that there has been a noticeable change in the number of Indian students doing menial work. This is something which seems to have happened rapidly over the last few years. But we can’t know whether this was racially motivated, or a case of wrong place, wrong time.
Perhaps not surprisingly, Wikipedia has a well maintained entry on attacks on Indians in Australia.
The discussion page is very revealing.
There are always other bizarre possibilities – perhaps we are seeing religious fanaticism transferred from the sub-continent to here – hindus vs sikhs, muslim extremists vs hindus…. It only takes one nutter striking a few times with vicious intent and then the old hammer and nails syndrome comes in to explain the usual statistical scatter of attacks on Indians in Melbourne.
Re the man with the hammer syndrome the more I see high level Indian politicians protesting publicly about the Australian failure to deal with racist attacks targeted at their nationals the more obvious it is that they are delighted to have the issue to huff and puff over. Whether there’s another agenda re uranium? or cricket? whatever, the Indians are clearly enjoying their new status as serious players on the world stage whose grievances must be addressed.
Julia Gillard’s conciliatory comments today were mixed with reference to the risks of meeting violence anywhere in the world. I’m not sure what it’s like today, but in the seventies and eighties I travelled alone extensively in India and felt, if anything, safer than in most western cities.
Malcolm Fraser: Grandfather Of Pacific Solution.
Did anyone see this in The Guardian Dec 30 and Yorkshire Ranter ?
Malcolm – I’m shocked!
“The blade has been driven into the victim sharp side uppermost and then drawn upward in a single, powerful movement. The person who did this is both expert and enjoys doing it. Again, not the work of a street thug and possible the work of someone who works alone.”
Soooo. …. A Jack the Ripper type figure?
If this is not mis-reporting, its very alarming and there is a very crazed killer on Melbourne streets targeting Indian students.
I can see why the police are playing it down.
Baraholka@82 I heard Malcolm Fraser on Aunty explain that the Thatcher plan was news to him.
He mentioned that while it is possible she considered the island solution, she never asked him or his government about it. I cannot find anything online with his response.
That’s a shame because he was quite firm about his non-involvement and it is obviously a critical element to the story; maybe clearing him from the kind of claim you appear to be making.
On the radio this morning I heard some Indian politician accusing Simon Crean of all people of calling “the racist murder” of Indians in Australia “hysteria” and said that this attitude was about Crean having his head in the sand and not being able to handle the truth. As the matters are serious here I’m going to resiting the impulse to do satire.
The salient point to recognise is this. Whether it turns out that ostensible race is a factor in some of the incidents in which ostensible Indians have suffered or not, the key question is surely “how should one respond”? If race is not a significant predisposing factor, a strategy taking that as its starting point would likely prove ineffective in reducing injury to Indians and so drumming up fear that Indians are at elevated risk compared with others here in Australia would be a very poor strategy.
The fact remains that the murder rate in India is more that double the murder rate here and so one less we have clear data that Indians here are at a higher risk of harm than in India the cautionary on Indian travel would be misplaced.
One might add also that there is clear evidence that ostenisble non-Indians travelling in India are at elevated risk of harm when in India. This is hardly surprising. People who can afford to travel to India are likely to be wealtier than average Indians. One may presume they are highly likely to be carrying valuables. They are less likely to know the ‘lie of the land’ or have ready access to assistance. And they are visible. It would be surprising if they were not seen as good targets by criminals. One could call this “racist” but really, it’s criminal opportunism in which an ethnic variable (looking like you’re not from around here) is a predisposing factor.
I’d like to know more about these attacks on local Indians, but I can’t help wondering why a disproportionate number of them seem to be in Melbourne, if this really is a racially-forced phenomenon. You’d think this would be about the same in all comparable areas of major Australian cities since all the major cities have significant communities of ostensible Indians. Perhaps there is in Melbourne a group of people who bear Indians particular animus, or think them soft and desirable targets but damning a whole country as racist towards Indians on this basis seems both wrong and antithetic to good governance.
The British Government Archives must be in error then.
You miss his point completely, Baraholka@85.
Mal does not deny that Maggie may have contemplated sticking some Vietnamese on a purchased island. Just that she never went so far as to sound out that crazy idea with him. If you wish to presume he is bullshiting. Fine.
I happen to believe what he was saying is true, in this case.
The papers, released at the National Archives today, show that [Margaret Thatcher's] reluctance to take in any of the Vietnamese boat people led to her making a proposal to the Australian prime minister, Malcolm Fraser
Do you have the link to what you presumably quote from, Baraholka@87?
Link is @82
If Thatcher did go ahead and proposition Fraser on this matter, Australia’s cabinet papers don’t appear to reflect any Cabinet discussion on the matter.
What is the source of Lee Kwan Yew’s alleged objection to the alleged scheme?
If it is true that Lee stated an objection, then Thatcher’s scheme escaped her nasty little brain in some form or another and was not merely a germ of her selfish, ethnocentric imagination.
I read that Lee Kuan Yew’s objection was that the island might prove to be competitive with Singapore financially. Another little SE Asia powerhouse.
When did he say it, who did he say it to, and how did he get his meaning across?
OK Baraholka@89. I thought you may have breaking news from The Australian National Archives which supported your imputation, and a second hand report from The Guardian, that Fraser was some how involved in mad Maggies island Vietnamese dumping plans.
I repeat, Fraser has denied it. Sure, it would be interesting to see the original British documents. As it is, Mal does not seem to be getting a fair go here in what may well just be a false interpretation of the original source by the reporter. And as usual, your arguments are running around in circles.
Hey Joe2,
Relax mate.
Perhaps you are correct and the British Cabinet papers are incorrect.
If, as it seems, its not in the Aussie Cabinet papers, it would appear Mad Maggie mentioned it to him in private, possibly with the Cabinet Secretary present, (which is how it may have initially got on the record.) Mal probably gave her an exceedingly polite response as he saw no reason why a rich and civilised Aussie grazier should bother getting in a dispute with a bourgeois shop-keeper’s daughter who had got well and truly above her station, and held the usual lower middle class English prejudices. One can imply with confidence from the ex silento argument in the Aussie Cabinet papers that Mal never had any intention of exceeding to Thsatcher’s brand of British neo-colonialism.
Hell, he didn’t even get us involved in the Falklands War. If Howard had been PM we would have still been there!.
Paul, it is sad that Aunty seems to have failed completely to properly report the part of Malcolms interview, where he spoke of this matter, though the British story has been fairly widely circulated.
From memory he simply said something like “it was all news to him”.
Baraholka, I am relaxed I can assure you.
Thatcher, Fraser and Lee probably chatted about Thatcher’s Reffo Island at the Lusaka CHOGM Conference, August 1979.
Fraser, doubtless, promptly forgot about it but Lee was concerned enough to complain to Thatcher about dangers to Singapore’s national interests.
Probably, this proposal was discussed in British Cabinet both before the CHOGM meeting when Thatcher signalled her intentions to her Cabinet colleagues and after the meeting at Lusaka, when Lee sent Thatcher away with a flea in her ear.
That’s how colonialism ends, not with a bang but a whimper.
From what I recall, the British polity was greatly exercised by the prospective handover of Hong Kong to the [communist] Chinese, and the potential for a wave of emigration from HK when the Chinese [communits] marched in.
So to the British, the exodus from [communist] Viet Nam may have been more of a prelude to and presaging of future potential difficulties, than the grim aftermath of a long war and Western defeat.
I’m only hazarding a guess.
The aftermath of colonialism might not always be a whimper…..
There’s a lot in what you say, Ambi.
It’s hard to imagine Thatcher getting so exercised about a small number of Vietnamese refugees landing in Britain.
Thatcher’s Reffo Island may well have been her attempt to set up a Pacific Solution for the feared HK exodus of which you speak.
I wonder if Lee also perceived the connection…
As I recall, the proposal was to purchase an Island from the Philippines. Was Marcos consulted prior to Thatcher’s meeting with Lee and Fraser?
Just imagine the shit going down if the yanks had won in Vietnam and the refugees were commies. Magnanimous Mal, then? I think not.
Katz’s construction @98 seems very plausible
Baraholka, I constructed @98 and still believe Fraser had no inkling of this stuff.
The documents themselves can be downloaded from the National Archives, if anyone wants to have a look:
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documentsonline/details-result.asp?Edoc_Id=8307493
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documentsonline/details-result.asp?Edoc_Id=8307494
They’re free, although you have to add them to a cart and pay £0.00 for them. And they’re 30Mb PDF files, with something like 600 pages in total, and not OCRed so you can’t search them quickly.
I had a quick look through (quick because I’m supposed to be doing 1935 not 1979) but couldn’t find where Fraser is supposed to have rejected the refugee island idea, or where Lee did. Most of the documents relating to Australia seem to be about our desire for a preliminary meeting of Western ministers in London, before a UN meeting on the issue. But as I say, I only glanced through and could easily have missed something.
I did find this in PREM 19/130, part number 2, page 100, a record of a meeting between Thatcher and Lee Kuan Yew at 10 Downing Street on 20 June 1979:
So it looks like it was originally Lee’s idea, which he was only lukewarm about and later seems to have gone icecold on. No response from Thatcher is recorded.
Oh, and Fraser’s denial is here:
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2009/s2783193.htm
Thanks Brett.
So, Mal actually said, “I have absolutely no recollection of it whatsoever”. I cannot imagine why he would want to cover something like this up, as he did not even suggest the idea. No skin off his nose.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Moai_Rano_raraku.jpg
I think people always prefer a deeper conspiracy than the most obvious conclusion.
“I think people always prefer a deeper conspiracy than the most obvious conclusion.”
A Memphis moment perhaps? What ? When ? Where….?
Latest news on the Sea Shepherd. The Japanese whale miners have sunk one of the protest vessels, cracking two ribs of one of the crew. In this act, they have the benign neutrality of Australia, whose government is allowing the Institute of Cetacean
ResearchHarvest to charter a plane to monitor the location of the protestors.In solidarity I’ve sent a $100 donation to http://www.seashepherd.org and would encourage others to do likewise.
How unkind to resurrect the curse of the missing trousers, Murph. First they were nowhere to be found, now the bastard things just won’t die.
Thanks Brett.
This looks like good example of how most government decision making is done — arse backwards.
Lee flew a kite. The word “best” looks like a British Civil Service interpolation. Lee probably recognised that no ex-colony in his region would think of selling an island to anyone, especially at the behest of the British. Colonialism was severely on the nose in the region at the time, especially in the aftermath of the Vietnam War.
Then one of two things happened: Thatcher didn’t actually get Lee’s joke and took Reffo Island as her opportunity to be seen as a strong presence in the world.
Or
Thatcher actually didn’t do anything. But some lazy journalist has half-read these documents and has constructed this shock/horror story out of a few misread scraps.
Politicians and journalists deserve each other.
Mal has suffered some undeserved collateral damage over this farcical exercise.
Was looking for somewhere to post that as well Fran
Already a contributor, hopefully there will be a big response after this, in kind, and words to the Japanese embassy, government etc
How come it isn’t a crime for a country’s nationals other than Australians to use Australian airport facilities to spy on events in Australian territory. This whaling by the Japanese in Oz territory is one occasion where Keven Rudd really does have to pull his finger out and DO something, not just have another enquiry/investigation/report/commission/statutory authority/government department look into it.
But he won’t.
The Japanese have sunk that beautiful catamaran? Bastards! (Not that the beauty is the issue.)
Thanks for the URL, Fran. I’ll be sending them money too.
Back to Thatcher’s Reffo Island scheme, I wrote to the author of a companion article on the Guardian piece which includes the same exchange between Thatcher and Fraser and asked him for a file reference.
The companion article is “Papers released under 30 year rule reveal full force of Thatcher’s fury” by Alan Travis http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/dec/30/30-year-rule-thatcher-papers-released.
Mr Travis provided the file reference: CAB 148/183. Here is what he said:
CAB 148/183 is not yet in the ‘Documents Online’ section of the British National Archives which means you have to order a hard copy. I have done so and the cost appears to be zero.
As to Fraser’s denials, well maybe he has forgotten the conversation. I did assume from the Guardian report that Fraser had agreed with Thatcher only for Lee to block the idea, but other constructions are possible. Given Fraser’s record of humanitarian liberalism I was surprised that it appeared Fraser had agreed to Thatcher’s scheme, hence the ‘Mal – I’m shocked’ at the end of the post.
After scanning through the PREM 19/129 and 19/130 I agree given that Fraser let such a large number of Vietnamese Refugees into Oz it is unlikely that he would have agreed to a solution such as Reffo Island.
So Mr. Fraser, sorry for my hasty conclusion that you agreed to a forerunner of the Pacific Solution.
***
One interesting aspect of this scheme is how it grew as pressure mounted. Thailand and Singapore represented that Vietnam would simply herd the whole ethnic Chinese-Vietnamese population into Thailand if other nations did not accept the Boat People. i.e. Vietnamese Communist govt. was ethnic cleansing and wanted to destabilise the region. Malaysia towed a vast number of refugee boats into the ocean of which half sank. Result 50% of Vietnamese boat people drowned. China took in excess of 200,000 refugees, so did the United States.
Indonesia and Malaysia delayed setting up processing centres on their island, so someone proposed that the UN pay for the development of those facilities and then someone (prob. Thatcher) proposed the UN buy an Indonesian or Phillipine island perhaps as a result of Lee’s comments noted above (I’ll go back and get the details exact if anyone is interested).
Later this turned into Thatcher’s proposal to Fraser.
You can also registerr to become fans of the Sea Shepherd on Facebook.
Good work, Baraholka. But I’d be surprised if TNA will send you hardcopies (or even digital copies, if they are not already scanned) for free — I’ve ordered from them before and they charged an arm and two legs. It might be that they will estimate the price for you for free
But please let me know if I’m wrong, because I’ll be going to town at the British taxpayers’ expense!
Brett,
What you say seems likely. The website says the estimate will be available in ten working days, so I’ll get back to you.
Brett,
I’ve had a good look at what the BNA have to offer on the eighteenth century.(Can’t speak with any authority on any other period. The few things I wanted on the Brisbane Line, copies of which were in AA a decade or more ago were mysteriously closed for seventy years and no amount of pleading could get them opened.[I was able to apply for and have opened all the closed files of Australian origin in AA, NLA and AWM.But very few of British origin. Well, that’s water under the bridge.) Not a lot available directly for free download on-line. Fortunately for me, the US Government seems to have done a lot of the work on the British Navy during the American Revolution and published it in the various volumes of the Naval Documents of the American Revolution, including relevant extracts from ships logs. Still, there may be some letters I’d like to see, especially, just to see if I can get a feel of how the writers thereof actually felt at the time. Much of what I want has also been published by the Navy Record Society, and can still be purchased on-line so I’ve been lucky there too.
I would imagine, apart from postage costs, they’re no more expensive than AA, though I haven’t checked out photocopying costs yet. One can apparently order them on line from British Archives if you know the file references, which, fortunately I do.
I gather there’s much more 20C stuff open and purchasable, from my brief perusals of their website.
Fans of the British National Archives:
Copying is not free. Here is their response to may requests for documents in the relevant CAB file, for which I gave a precise date and description of content and persons involved:
Estimate number:
Thank you for contacting the National Archives with your request for an estimate for the cost of copies of records.
We are able to spend up to twenty minutes attempting to identify the material specified by you in up to five records, in order to estimate the copying cost. Our preliminary examination shows that your request would require a longer search than this, so we are unable to proceed.
Have a good one and a great day as well.
Gawd,Baraholka, that’s disgraceful. Thanks anyway.
Mr Travis was kind enough to contact me again with an updated file reference:
PREM 19/2 is the file related to Mrs.Thatcher’s visit to Australia in May 1979 and other correspondence with Fraser. It is also not in Documents Online.
Meanwhile I note Fraser’s denials of knowledge of the proposal come in two versions:
In version 1, broadcast on the ABC December 31 2009 he said “It might not be accurate”
In version 2 published in The Age of December 31 he said ”I’ve got absolutely no recollection of it. ”
I am not convinced Fraser knew nothing but I am fairly sure he didn’t entertain the proposal seriously. I’ll leave this as a backburner project and try and find someone who has read the relevant files from the UK and Oz.
Not “two versions”, Barholka.
Just the same consistent position, which for some reason known only to yourself, you do not believe.