Fifteen minutes later, after courageous resistance by the pikemen, over 30 miners lay dead on the battlefield, many were wounded and their tents were blazing. During the next 3 hours, the police and to a lesser degree the soldiers were involved in an orgy of looting and murder which saw bystanders, some up to a kilometre from the stockade, murdered and their goods and gold looted.

Since 2002 the Anarchist Media Institute has held the Reclaim the Radical Spirit of the Eureka Rebellion Celebrations in Ballarat at the very spot the battle took place. We have held these celebrations to reclaim the radical spirit of a pivotal event in Australian history that has had its radical content ripped out in the telling and retelling of a story that has been rewritten and sanitised to meet current political conditions.

Eureka was more than an armed rebellion. It was more than a struggle for parliamentary democracy. The Eureka oath which was taken by over 1,500 miners at Bakery Hill on the 29th of November 1854 encapsulates the essence of Eureka – “We swear by the Southern Cross to stand truly by each other and fight to defend our rights and liberties”.

153 years later, we celebrate the radical elements of the rebellion - Direct Democracy, Direct Action, Solidarity and internationalism – ideas that are as relevant today as they were 153 years ago.

I was disappointed to learn that once again nothing apart from the Anarchist Media Institute Reclaim The Radical Spirit Of The Eureka Rebellion Celebrations will be held in Ballarat on the 3rd of December – the day the rebellion occurred. The Ballarat City Council – a council that is keen to cash in on the Eureka story – doesn’t even fly the Eureka flag on the main flagpole on City Hall on the 3rd of December. Even on the 150th anniversary celebrations, the Australian flag, not the Eureka flag, flew from the main flagpole on Ballarat’s City Hall. Despite letters from the Anarchist Media Institute to each Councillor asking them to fly the Eureka flag from the main flagpole this year to mark the Eureka rebellion, not one councillor bothered to acknowledge, let alone reply to our letter.

Any suggestions that the Ballarat City Council should declare a public holiday on the 3rd of December to allow the people of Ballarat to publicly mark the Eureka rebellion, sends the Council into a apoplexy. If the people of Melbourne enjoy a public holiday to celebrate a horse race on the first Tuesday in November, why can’t the people of Ballarat and Victoria enjoy a public holiday to celebrate what most historians acknowledge as the birth of democracy in Australia?

We encourage Australians from around the country to join us at 4am at Eureka Park in Ballarat on the ground the rebellion took place, and became involved in a series of activities that will take participants from Eureka Park to Bakery Hill to retake the Eureka oath.

At 10.30am, 6 recipients of the Anarchist Media Institute Eureka Australia Day Medal – one of whom has travelled all the way from Darwin to accept the medal - will be presented a Eureka Australia Day Medal at Bakery Hill for devoting their lives to the struggle to improve the lives of their fellow citizens. We will then march through the centre of Ballarat to the old Ballarat cemetery to pay our respects to the soldiers and miners – workers at either end of bayonet, who lost their lives at the Eureka stockade 153 years ago.

We will then walk back to the old Ballarat cemetery through the centre of Ballarat back to Eureka Park for a very late lunch and conversation. JOIN US AT 4am ON MONDAY THE 3RD OF DECEMBER (Corner Stawell And Eureka Streets Ballarat). Reclaim The Radical Spirit Of The Eureka Rebellion to remember the past, understand a present and change the future.

The Alternative Liberal Party (A.L.P.) does not pose any challenge to that small section of the community that owns the means of production, distribution and exchange. The Rudd Labor government’s main task is to manage labour for capital. The changes to industrial relations laws made by Hawke and Keating set up the building blocks for Howard’s hated WorkChoices legislation. If Rudd thinks the there is no difference between labour and capital, and public and private, the Australian people are in for a real shock.

The struggle has not changed, what has changed is the way the ruling class imposes its will on the Australian people. The election of the Labor government follows the pattern that occurs when people begin to challenge the assumptions this society is based on.

A change of government adds a new bright shinning coat of paint to the political landscape; it doesn’t change the political landscape. Significant change to the political landscape occurs when people organise and demand change; it doesn’t come through the ballot box or by ‘working up the right channels’.

I am sure Peter Costello and Mark Vaile would be singing another tune if the Coalition had won. I am pretty sure they would have put any thought about making heaps of money or spending more time with their family on the backburner, if they were still in government.

Politicians shouldn’t be able to retire on a whim. If they want to retire on a whim, they should have to pay for the cost of holding a new election. I am sure the political Prima Dona’s who can’t bear the thought of doing the hard work required of them in Opposition, would think twice about retiring, if they had to pitch in to pay for the cost of a new election.

It is an insult to the electorate when politicians retire because they can’t be bothered serving the people who put their faith in them. Parliamentary elections are essentially an act of faith. When electors give a mandate to a candidate to make decisions on their behalf, it is not too much to expect their parliamentary representative will keep their end of the bargain. For a politician to resign because things have not gone their way is a slap in the face to all those electors who put their faith in that particular candidate.

In no other situation are people who profit from crime, are able to keep their ill gotten gains except in the gambling industry. State governments addicted to gambling revenue, are loath to pass legislation to force casinos and pokie venues to pay back money that has been defrauded. In many cases, it was obvious that the person gambling could not have legally obtained the money they were gambling with. In some of these cases, casinos went out of their way to offer inducements to these gamblers to continue gambling, although there was real doubt about where the money they were gambling with had come from.

The introduction of ‘compulsory electronic player cards’ may help to detect problem gamblers, but it does not tackle the issue of payment of money back to people who have been defrauded. It also does not tackle the issue of families who have lost everything because of a partner’s gambling problem.

If legislative steps were taken to force casinos and pokie venues to pay back the money used by gamblers who use money they have defrauded to gamble, and compensate those families that have suffered major losses because of a member’s gambling problems, it would not take long for the gambling industry to identify problem gamblers and refer them to the appropriate sources for treatment.

The people of Arnhem Land have a history of centuries of yearly contact between Makassans who sailed to Arnhem Land - that is enshrined in rock art, bark and ochre painting. The Makassans procured and treated trepang (sea cucumber) for the Chinese markets. Both groups share hundreds of similar words in their languages and were engaged in complex trading relationships that involved Aboriginals assisting the Makassans in harvesting trepang.

The relationship between the Makassans and the Aboriginal people of Arnhem Land was not just a commercial one; it involved social and cultural ties. Aboriginal men and women often travelled back and forth between the two communities. Aboriginal women entered into marriages with Makassan men, further cementing this important relationship. Today, many families still have relatives living in both Roti and Arnhem Land.

Unlike Europeans, the Makassans respected Aboriginal sovereignty and did not colonise Aboriginal land. Although the South Australian government banned the Makassan trepang trade in 1906, trading continued well into the 1930’s. After the end of World War Two, a cultural conduit that had existed for centuries was suddenly transformed into a moat. The Makassans continued to fish in what they considered to be traditional fishing areas, despite Australian attempts to stop them by confiscating and burning their boats and arresting crews. The mouse and cat game continued for decades until the area became a militarised moat patrolled by Customs and the Australian Navy.

The cultural and social connection between both groups has been revitalised over the past two decades. Families that have been separated for decades have made contact; cultural and social exchanges have occurred and continue to occur. Cultural and linguistic similarities continue to exist.

To dismiss the three families that have arrived as economic refugees is wrong. They make the salient point their despair is directly related to successive Australian governments’ destruction of a mutually beneficial relationship that existed between the Makassans and the Aboriginal people of Arnhem Land for centuries before the European colonisation process began.

It is logical they have made representations to the people who have destroyed the way they have made their living, to help them re-establish themselves in Australia. If placed in the same situation, we would expect the same.

The greater the concentration of wealth, the greater the amount of power individuals are able to exercise in a capitalist society. Monopolies are the eventual product of an economic system based on private ownership. Governments regularly pass laws that attempt to curb the formation of monopolies, as governments recognise that the activities of monopolies need to be regulated.

Anarchists are anti capitalist because you cannot create a society without rulers within a capitalist framework. That does not mean that anarchists believe property should be owned by the State. Putting the ownership of property in the hands of the State does not solve the problem of access. Anarchists oppose both private and State capitalism. This does not mean that anarchists oppose the notion of private property. While you need to use property, that property is yours. Once you no longer need access to that property - that property goes back into the common pool so it can be used by somebody else who needs to use property.

A simple way to look at the problem of access to property is by looking at what happens in a capitalist society. Although an individual can own hundreds of houses, they can only sleep in one bed at a time. In a capitalist society, we accept individuals who own property do not necessarily use that property. In an anarchist society, while you are sleeping in a bed, any other beds you may have used in the past go back into the common pool. Ownership is based on use, once you no longer use something, its ownership reverts back to the community and somebody else is able to use what you no longer need.

Political reforms have always been dependent on grass rot activity - the greater the pressure, the greater the reforms. Rudd’s quip that the struggle between labor and capital, private and public are old struggles, gives an insight into the way he is thinking. New Labor has a lot in common with Blair’s New Labor in England. The language may have changed, but the role of the Labor Party in a period when political momentum for change has bumped the Labor Party into power, is to manage working people’s demands for change on behalf of capital.

WorkChoices is a very nasty piece of legislation; how far the Labor Party will go to change it, will depend on grass root activists keeping the momentum for change going. Whether indigenous Australians will ever achieve justice in this country will depend on the activities of grass root activists. Whether any real action is taken against global warming and the growing inequalities that exist in this country is dependent on grass root activists keeping up the momentum for change.
Ultimate political authority rests in the hands of a politicised population. The push for change has always come from the grass roots. To allow the momentum for political reform to pass into the hands of a Rudd led Labor government is a recipe for maintaining the status quo.

It is easy to dismiss the group as a bunch of cold blooded murderers, arsonists and thieves, but their behaviour tells another story. The Van Diemens Land Aborigines knew what was in store for the Victorian Aborigines. Survivors of a 33 year war in Tasmania that saw the Aboriginal population reduced from over 10,000 people to a little under a 100, they knew how to use firearms and how to survive in the bush. Their struggle was carried out with a great deal of compassion. The Tasmanians believed that by taking up arms against the squatters, they would be able to ignite an Aboriginal revolt that would drive the invaders into the sea.

The way they conducted their guerrilla campaign highlights they had motives that went far beyond survival and vengeance. They collected and stockpiled firearms where ever they could; they stockpiled food, they burnt down the houses they raided driving the squatters in the Port Phillip region back to Melbourne. They understood the only way to drive the squatters out of the country was by using their own weapons against them. Their struggle was a compassionate one; women and children and many of the squatters were spared. The killing of the 2 whalers was clearly a case of mistaken identity, as they were believed to be a party that was chasing the Tasmanians. Those squatters that were wounded were injured in the heat of battle and were not killed.

The Tasmanians capture only occurred as a result of the help of local Aborigines. The colonial authorities had a great deal of difficulty finding black trackers, as the local Aborigines supported the Tasmanians war against the squatters. On several occasions, the Tasmanians were helped by local Aborigines, and on one occasion local Aborigines were involved in the attack on a hut. Ironically, the local black trackers who were lured into the hunt with promises of guns and goods received neither once the Tasmanians were captured.

The story of Tunnerminnerwait, Maulboyheenner, Pyterruner, Truganini and Planobeena is story of revolt, armed resistance and survival. It is a story that is as pivotal to the creation of 21st century Australia as Gallipoli and Kokoda were. To acknowledge Gallipoli and Kokoda and ignore their struggle is our loss as a people and a nation.

LEST WE FORGET

To say I was surprised by the quality of a few of the tracks is an understatement. The Bard writes his own music and songs, trying to make sense of the world in his own way. Stephen Whitehead (The Bard) touches on issues in his songs that are universal. The 5 preview tracks explore subjects that range from the futility of the legal battles involved in child custody battles, to unrequited love, to the environment, to a track about meaningful conversation and a song about the struggle for independence and freedom.

Stephen Whitehead’s songs have to a significant degree been influenced by the music of the 60’s and 70’s. He has created his own personal style that he successfully uses to tackle universal issues that never change, to issues that are currently important.

Heartbeat Records is not some giant multinational company. They are located in Ballan in regional Victoria – about 30kms from Ballarat – not exactly the nerve centre of the music industry. Technological innovations have made it possible for good music to be produced anywhere. Imagination, effort and talent - no longer has to be drained of its content in a studio system run and dominated by transnational corporations.

Of the 5 preview tracks, the two I found most interesting and satisfying were ‘IF ONLY’ – a song about unrequited love – had a quality about it that will ensure it won’t disappear when the album is released. ‘BE ME’ – a song of independence, freedom and the right for the individual to be themselves, also had a quality about it that will ensure it will be played for years to come.

Over to you now… The World Wide Web makes it possible for you to do your own listening and form your own opinions in your own home. Try ‘The Bard’ – you will be surprised.

www.TheBard.com.au

heartbeatrecords@mysoul.com.au

P.O. BOX 67, Ballan 3342, VIC AUSTRALIA

Tel: 0432 528 634

Thanks To ‘The Bard’s’ Manager - Gabrielle Whitehead - For Sending Me The Preview Copy Of ‘In A Golden Dawn’

Things did go better with coke when cocaine, not caffeine, was the secret ingredient. The Inuit in the Artic region feasted on magic mushrooms in spring, experiencing the delights of becoming one with the Godhead. Concerned about the long dark cold winter, they collected and froze their urine so they could chomp into a cube or two and relive their out of body experiences during winter.

In the 21st century - the impatient - use manufactured drugs and natural substances to converse with their Gods. More patient souls shun drugs and find their God by starving themselves, sitting on a bed of nails, eating special foods, repeating the same phrase over and over again and last but not least using physical exhaustion to experience their Gods.

Add to this cocktail - dreams and mental illness - and you soon understand why the yearning to escape our physical limitations plays such an important role in the life of the individual and the community. It is easy to extrapolate that all visions and hallucinations are a product of the mind, not a supernatural event. Despite our knowledge, a nagging doubt still exists in most people’s minds when it happens to them.

The moment between sleep and waking can play tricks on people. As thoughts cascade through their heads - that shadow in the corner of the eyes - is it just a shadow or a lost relative or an evil spectre come to pay them a visit? The mind’s eye – the gateway to hell – inner peace and understanding - or - natural selections - salve for the pain of human existence?

The problem with Australian politics is that real power does not lie in Parliament; it lies in the boardrooms of national and transnational corporations. The convergence of political opinion and policies during this election campaign has occurred because the major political parties realise they need to sing a pro corporate tune in order to win the election.

Parliament no longer represents the interests of the Australian people. Its ability to make decisions is compounded by the power that small section of the community, that owns the means of production, distribution, exchange and communication, is able to exercise over Parliament. The inability and unwillingness of 21 million people living in a continent in the midst of an economic boom to tackle childhood poverty and homelessness, highlights how little power parliamentarians are able to exercise.

The biggest losers during this election campaign are the Australian people. Faced with a choice between political parties with similar policies, an increasing number of electors are treating this election with contempt and disdain. Many will not vote, others will vote informal, while others may cast their vote for a minor party or an independent.

Irrespective of the election result, the need for radical parliamentary reform is urgent. Unless reforms are introduced that give the Australian people, not the corporate sector, ultimate political authority, more and more Australians will refuse to participate in a process that is democratic in name only.

This passage, from John Donne’s 17th Meditation, is one of the most famous in all literature. Virtually everyone is familiar with it, especially in its heavily digested form “Ask not for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” And everyone instinctively recognizes that it expresses a noble sentiment. Few people, however, give much thought to it; and the ones who do probably decide that it doesn’t have literal significance, consisting merely in a string of poetic metaphors. After all, how could another man’s death really “diminish” me? In what possible sense could his misfortune be mine too? This misunderstanding in itself justifies a re-examination of the passage. But particularly in our troubled era, our age of universal atomization and apathy, it is imperative that we understand what Donne meant. Maybe then we’ll appreciate the terrible moral implications of interpersonal atomization.

Donne embellished his thought by invoking God, but that isn’t necessary. In any case, God is dead. (He was one of the unfortunates killed in the French Revolution) The real meaning of the passage—or the moral meaning; there are others—is that what happens to other people has metaphysical implications with respect to the value of my own life. For other people are me, in some sense: they are self-conscious like me, they have a sense of self like me, they inhabit the same world I do. What happens to them could have happened to me, and sometimes inevitably will happen to me. Their mortality is my mortality, because our essence is the same. They are me transposed in space and time, me in a different consciousness and set of circumstances.

- CHRIS WRIGHT ccwwgd@umsl.edu

UMANITA NOVA Vol 87 No.33 EL 21st OCT 2007, Settimanale Anarchico, C.50 Palermo 46, 10152, Torino ITALY.
Tel/Fax : (011) 857850
Mobile : 338-6594361
Email : fat@inrete.it

THE BEACON, OCT 07, Journal of the Melbourne Unitarian Peace Memorial Church, 110 Grey St, East Melbourne 3002, AUSTRALIA. Tel: 03 9417 4178 FaxAnswering 03 9417 4178 – 10am-3pm Weekday Servives 11am Sunday

• 4.00am - Dawn ceremony - Eureka Park at the Eureka Memorial

• 6.00am - Breakfast Eureka Park (bring your own food and drinks)

• 10.00am - March from Eureka Park to Bakery Hill to reaffirm the Eureka oath

• 10.30am - Presentation of Eureka Aust Day Medal at Bakery Hill

• 11.30am - Walk to Old Ballarat cemetery to pay our respects to all those who died in the Eureka battle who are buried at the cemetery

• 12.30pm - Walk back to Eureka Park through the centre of Ballarat

• 1.30pm - Late lunch and conversation at Eureka Park - (bring your own food and drinks)

• The name of the person nominated

• A few sentences outlining why they should receive the award

• A contact address for the nominee (We need to contact them if they wish to receive the award)

• The person you nominate can be a public figure or somebody only known to a few people

P.O. Box 43, Clunes, 3370, Victoria AUSTRALIA

andrewpstretton@yahoo.com.au

“SEDITION – Conduct or speech inciting to rebellion”

SIGN THE SEDITION CHARTER ONLINE - www.seditioncharter.org

If you’re computer literate and many of us are not, write to us for a copy of the Sedition Charter, at :

P.O. BOX 5035,
ALPHINGTON 3078,
MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA

Terrible things happen when good people do nothing. Openly defy this government’s attempts to muzzle and intimidate opposition to their neo conservative authoritarian agenda – SIGN the ‘Sedition Charter’ TODAY!

THE POWER OF RECALL – Electors having the constitutional right to recall parliamentary representatives in between elections

CITIZENS INITIATED REFERENDUMS – The people having the power to initiate constitutional change through referendums

DIRECT DEMOCRACY – Electing delegates with limited mandates, to co-ordinate decisions that have been made by the people, not electing representatives to make decisions for us.

(We Currently Have 118 Paid Up Members)

JOIN US THIS WEEK :

Wednesday 11.30am – 21st November 2007
Corner St. Kilda Road & Flinders Street, Melbourne

DIRECT DEMOCRACY NOT PARLIAMENTARY RULE - www.rulebythepeople.org

An anarchist analysis of local, national & international events. Tune into your local community radio station to listen to the Anarchist World This Week. If they don’t broadcast it, ask them why not! If they’re one of the 150 community radio stations around Australia that are affiliated to the National Community Radio Satellite, they are able to broadcast the Anarchist World This Week.

2BAY, 2BBB, 2BLU, 2DRY, 2HOT, 2OCB, 2WOW, 2XX, 3CH, 3CR, 36CR, 3MGB, 3REG, 4NAG, 4RRR, 5BBB, 5RRR, 6YCR

MULTI-COLOURED GLOSSY A3 POSTER AVAILABLE FOR 20 50c STAMPS.
(Price includes packaging, poster in secure cylinder and postage anywhere in Australia)

‘LIFE WASN’T MEANT TO BE EASY’

553 St. Kilda Road, Melbourne (outside US Consulate)

Email : womenforpeace@optusnet.com.au
Web : www.womenforpeace.org.au

Feminine opposition to weapons manufacture war and mans destruction.

Call Shirley on 0417 456 001 for further information

5.00pm FRIDAY – 23rd NOVEMBER 2007

Victorian State Library Steps

Swanston Street, Melbourne

Speakers: Robert Richter QC, Michael Long, Dean Mighell, Father Bob Magquire

** Have some room in your car? **

An Anarchist Age reader from Silvan and another Anarchist Age reader from Cranbourne need a lift.

Write or email us with your contact details & we will pass them on

P.O. Box 20, Parkville 3052
Email: anarchistage@yahoo.com

KRISTIN RULE – The Unconventional cellist

info@theunconventionalcellist.com

P.O. BOX 43, Clunes, Victoria, 3370 AUSTRALIA

Please send AKIN SARI A POSTCARD OR LETTER OF SUPPORT TODAY!

Write to:

AKIN SARI, c/- Melbourne Remand Centre
P.O. BOX 500, St. Albans 3021
Victoria, AUSTRALIA