Larvatus Prodeo

Supplementary to Cristy’s post below, I popped along to the annual Jessie Street lunch today. Always a wonderful event, this year former high court justice Mary Gaudron delivered one of the most powerful addresses I’ve ever heard. Weaving her way between the universal declaration of human rights and the Australian constitution, she found her way to the black hole that is Guantanamo Bay, from which she moved to this country’s detention centres. She concluded with a ringing call for the centres to be shut down, as the parliament’s packed dining room rose in a standing ovation. The experience of the speech was, as Jessie’s daughter said in the formal thanks, “mind blowing”. There were a few media types in the audience, so there may be some coverage tomorrow. As I don’t have a copy of the speech (yet), much less Mary’s intelligence and learning, I can’t see any point in taking comments. However, I did pop out to have a smoke on the balcony with this amazing woman, and can share an image of my personally signed program.

Update: Story here.

That’s what I feel about Iraq, and I don’t need links on this. I just say that as a blogger, who doesn’t follow the conflict in great detail. I read the main press, watch the contours out of a corner of my eye, and sometimes closely follow a narrative within the big story, or a totem event. What underpins my conclusion? Not much, beyond my gut feel that this many people cannot be murdered in vain, except this. Well before the war, I was persuaded by Phillip Knightley’s essay, based on his book on Lawrence of Arabia, and this passage in particular:

… the author Said Aburish said to me recently: “If you think Saddam Hussein is a hard man to deal with, just wait for the next generation of Iraqi leaders.” In view of Saddam’s ruthlessness in dealing with the Kurds in Iraq, his war with Iran and his invasion of Kuwait, it is hard to conceive that there are younger Iraqi leaders who believe Saddam has not been tough enough, and that, although the United States has the most powerful armed forces in the world, Americans do not have the stomach for the sacrifices an all-out war in the Middle East would entail. These young Iraqis take the Islamic long view of history, which suggests that the Middle East never favours the foreigner and always takes its revenge on those who, like the British and Americans, insist on seeing the region through their own eyes … Whether we accept that Saddam Hussein poses a threat or not, and whether this threat is so great that we can justify attacking Iraq again, we should first ask the crunch question: if the new crusaders defeat and occupy Iraq, what then?

Indeed.