The Australian government and media response to the Zimbabwean election highlights not all democratic outcomes are held in the same high regard. There is no question that Mugabe and Zanu-PF have long passed their used by date and squandered numerous opportunities to improve the lives of the people they have governed since 1980. Mugabe led the fourteen year guerrilla war for majority rule that was conducted against the Rhodesian government when the white dominated government declared unilateral independence from Britain in 1965. In the 1980 election Mugabe overwhelmingly won the presidency and Zanu-PF swept all before them winning over 95% of the parliamentary seats. The expectations created by this historic victory were never for filled by a government that was more interested in exercising and maintaining power to enrich themselves and their immediate supporters, than governing for all Zimbabweans.

The same parallels can be drawn with the fate of the Palestinian people. Dispossessed by the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation was formed in 1964 to fight to create a state for Palestinians. Fatah, a Palestinian political group formed in 1956, greatly influenced PLO policy and strategy. The formation of the Palestinian National Authority in 1994 saw Yasser Arafat, who’s name was synonymous with the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, elected as President of the Palestinian Authority in 1996. Fatah won an overwhelming majority in the Parliamentary elections.

The same expectations that were raised by the election of Arafat and Fatah were, as in the case of Mugabe and Zanu-PF, squandered by a government that was more interested in exercising power and maintaining its authority by enriching its supporters than governing for all Palestinians. The Palestinian people, forced with the choice of continuing to support a corrupt government or turning to a more radical alternative, elected Hamas in Parliamentary elections that were held in The Palestinian territories in 2006.

All hell broke loose when Hamas was elected to power in what were described by all observers as free and fair elections. The west refused to accept the peoples will and the new government has been ostracised by Australia, the United States and many European powers.

It seems that in Australians eyes not all parliamentary elections are equal despite new governments been freely given a mandate by the people to rule them. Unfortunately whether we accept the peoples will or not seems to be more dependant on the new governments policies mirroring our governments policies than respecting the results of all free and fair elections.

The problems electricity distribution companies have had coping with the damage caused by this weeks storms highlights one of the hidden costs of privatising essential services. Privatisation may initially seem an attractive proposition to governments faced with fiscal problems but when disaster strikes the short sightedness of their actions becomes apparent to everyone.

Private companies are in the business of generating profits for their owners and major shareholders. Those companies, especially those that are publicly listed, face bankruptcy if they can’t generate ever increasing profits. Profits are made by increasing costs to consumers, increasing demand, reducing staff, keeping maintenance to a minimum and not replacing infrastructure. If no major disasters strike, customers are not aware of how vulnerable the system is.

Once a disaster strikes, privatised companies do not have the resources or capacity to cope with the damage. More workers they are able to deploy in the field come under increasing pressures to cut corners to get the job done, putting the safety and lives of workers on the line and calling into question the quality of the work that is carried out in these circumstances.

In an era when the focus will be on decreasing energy production and more unpredictable weather events will occur as a result of increasing greenhouse events, it makes absolutely no sense to keep essential services in the hands of private companies. The events surrounding the storms that swept across Victoria and Tasmania highlights the difference between a customer and a citizen. Customers of privately owned companies, as people have seen over the past few days, are relatively impotent when dealing with private corporations. Citizens of states, who’s essential services are held in public hands, have both parliamentary and extra parliamentary options to pursue to put pressure on governments to ensure that whatever the circumstances, services are maintained.

I don’t normally comment on articles from the Medical Journal of Australia, but this years 3rd of March edition had an interesting paper by a team led by Professor Kevin C. Rowley. The authors of the paper looked at the long term health consequences of Aboriginal people living in outstations. In a ten year follow up study they found that Aboriginals living in outstations had far fewer health problems than Aboriginals living in urban centres.

I found this study interesting because many people in government have been calling for an end to outstations for years claiming they are cultural zoos and ghettos. Their solution to the “Aboriginal problem” is to bring groups in from the outstations and force them to live in centralised communities where its much easier and less expensive to provide neglected and needed services. Decentralised aboriginal communities are not cultural zoos, Professor Rowley’s research has shown that the best health outcomes are found in outstation communities. The outstations had relatively low rates of obesity, hypertension, diabetes, strokes and kidney failure.

The lower than expected morbidity and mortality rates among Aborigines living in outstations in the Northern Territory is due to increased physical activity, reliance on traditional diets, limited access to alcohol and drugs in outstations, a real connection to land, and a resultant sense of purpose and pride. It doesn’t take a team of Rhode Scholars to reach these conclusions. Anybody who has followed the history of the outstation movement would know that those living in outstations left the centralised Aboriginal communities to escape the problems associated with these communities. The irony is that the very movement that has delivered such good Aboriginal health results is the very movement that will be dismantled if conservatives within the Rudd Labor government continue to use the outstations as the whipping boy for the failed Federal government intervention in the Northern Territory and the rest of Australia.

I’m sick and tired of front page newspaper articles bemoaning the tactics of the privately owned banks “Home owners held hostage by exit fees” (Sunday Age 6/4). Its not news that banks are in the business of squeezing the last drop of blood from customers. What is news is the impotence of the Federal government when faced with the predatory practices of the privately owned banks. The rot began when the Hawke Labor government sold the Commonwealth Bank. Customers not only lost the implicit government guarantee they enjoyed when the Commonwealth Bank was owned by the Federal government, they also lost the only protection bank customers had from the predatory practices of the privately owned banks.

While the Commonwealth Bank was held in public hands, the privately owned banks thought twice about implementing new charges or increasing current fees and charges. Faced with the very real possibility that a publicly owned bank wouldn’t follow suit and they would lose customers they thought long and hard before introducing new fees and charges.

Poor old Wayne Swann’s response is akin to fighting an out of control bushfire with a wet sugar bag. Competition doesn’t come through government regulation, monopolies are experts at circumventing government regulations.

Competition in a banking sector dominated by privately owned monopolies comes from the establishment of a new peoples bank. Ironically the sale of the Commonwealth Bank, for the proverbial thirty pieces of silver by the Labor government, removed the only real competition banks face in a deregulated environment. Wayne Swann would have a far greater impact on the unacceptable behaviour of the private banks if he started talking about establishing a new peoples bank. Faced with the spectre of some real competition it wouldn’t be long before papers like The Sunday Age would be full of stories about the struggling privately owned banks.

Little has changed in Indonesia since Suharto the butcher was forced to resign the presidency. Smarting from their loss of East Timor, worried about calls for independence in West Papua and concerned about the possible fragmentation of the Indonesian state any sign of dissent is quickly squashed.

In 2007 Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was embarrassed when secessionists in Maluku, in the countries east, unfurled their flag at a ceremony he was speaking at. Twenty protestors were arrested and charged with treason. This week they were all found guilty of treason and were sentenced for periods ranging from ten to twenty years in jail for participating in a peaceful protest. The leader of the group, Johan Teterisa, was sentenced to life for waving the groups flag at the rally.

The harshness of the sentence highlights the Indonesian governments concern at the activities of secessionists in the country. Made up of thousands of islands spanning diverse cultures and speaking a myriad of languages, the Indonesian state has always used violence to maintain control. The sentences dished out to these activists stands in sharp contrast to the sentences meted out to Islamic fundamentalists who have freely used the bullet and the bomb to spread their message.

The Indonesian government turns a blind eye to fundamentalist activity because it does not threaten the integrity of the state. Separatist movements on the other hand pose a direct threat to the Javanese domination of the Indonesian state. The difference between Suharto and Bambang Yudhoyono is reforms have made it more difficult for the Indonesian Military to deal with secessionists and separatists in the time honoured way – dragging them from their homes and shooting them. Today separatists and secessionists involved in public protests are sentenced by the courts to long sentences to discourage others from following their example.

I tend to see these European thinkers as just the continuation of a stream of human thought that has existed since the beginning of time. The conflict between authoritarian and libertarian elements in society began when a ruler imposed their will on the community by force. Civilisation has been marked by the centralisation of both power and wealth. Security has been bought at the expense of our freedom. Spontaneous insurrection has through the ages brought many a tyrant to his knees. Both the words anarchos (without rulers) and tyrant (oppressive ruler) have come down to us from Ancient Greece.
The cuniform inscription is the earliest known written appearance of the word "freedom" (ama-gi) or liberty. It is taken from a clay document written about 2,300 B.C. in the Sumerian city-state of Lagash. Rulers are a relatively new phenomenon in human history. Living in a harsh environment human beings needed to co-operate to survive. Everybody had to pull their weight for the group and the individual to survive – all for one and one for all.

Hereditary rulers can only survive in a society that is able to produce value surplus to its immediate needs. The growth of villages, towns and cities is a relatively new development in human evolutionary history. The craving for freedom, self-organisation autonomy and independence are human characteristics that have given humans the evolutionary edge they now enjoy. Philosophers and thinkers who have successfully packaged these universal human traits into political, social, cultural and economic philosophies that challenge the idea that we need rulers to survive are reclaiming a common human heritage that is a birth right that we don’t have to sacrifice to enjoy the benefits of civilisation.

Thanks to Louisa for asking the question “Who the thinkers behind anarchism were?”
If you have a question for the Anarchist Question and Answer segment, email it to anarchistage@yahoo.com
or mail it to : PO Box 20, Parkville 3052, Australia.

When Australians voted to form a federation in 1901 the key to the constitution was left in the hands of parliament. In Australia only parliament has the constitutional power to call a referendum, the people have no role in the process. Australians history of rejecting referendums is, to a large degree, based on their concerns that a significant number of the questions that have been put to them would if they had been passed increased the power of parliament and the state at the expense of the people.

One hundred and eight years later the Australian constitution is in urgent need of reform but no satisfactory mechanism exists by which the constitutional log jam can be shifted. In Switzerland and many American states the people, not parliament, hold the key to constitutional change. If ten percent of the electorate sign a petition stating they want a particular question put to the people, a referendum must be held to decide if the constitution will be changed.

Giving the people the power to initiate referendums – citizen initiated referendums, broadens political debate and involves people in the political process. Increasing disillusionment with parliamentary democracy is directly related to the fact that people know their input is restricted to giving a signed blank cheque to a parliamentary representative to make decisions for them for the next three to four years.

Faced with increasing complex questions and decisions about the type of society we live in, it makes no sense to continue to leave the decision making process in the hands of a minority in a period when we as a people need to tap into the collective wisdom of the country as a whole.

The Ballarat Reform League was the political organisation that was created to represent the interests of the Ballarat miners. It was formed at a mass meeting held at Bakery Hill in Ballarat on the 11th November 1854. The meeting made the following demands :

1. Full and fair representation
2. Male suffrage
3. The removal of the property qualifications for Members of the Legislative Council
4. Salaries for members
5. Shorter duration of parliament

The League also demanded the immediate abolition of the diggers and store keepers license tax and an immediate change in the management of the Goldfields with the disbanding of the Gold Commissioners.
Things came to a head at the meeting of the Ballarat Reform league that was held at Bakery Hill on the 24th November 1854. The meeting was attended by many miners who were armed because they feared an immediate attack from the authorities. Among the many resolutions passed one caused consternation in government circles.

“That this meeting protests against the common practice of bodies of Military Marching into a peaceable district with fixed bayonets and also against any force, police or otherwise firing on the people without the previous reading of the Riot Act; and that if government officials to act thus unconstitutionally, we cannot be responsible for similar or worse deeds from the people”
This resolution was viewed as a call to armed rebellion by the authorities.

The Ballarat Reform League was based on direct democratic principles, decisions were made at mass meetings and delegates were appointed to carry out these decisions. To many of the Ballarat miners and shopkeepers the League encapsulated their hopes for a new Australia, free of the strictures of the old.

The Ballarat Times wrote :

“The League is nothing more or less than a germ of independence. The die is cast, and fate has stamped upon the movement its indelible signature. No power on earth can now restrain the united might and headlong strides for freedom of the people of this country, and we are lost in amazement while contemplating the dazzling panorama of the Australian future. We salute the league, and tender our hopes and prayers for its prosperity. The League have undertaken a mighty task, fit only for a great people - that of changing the destiny of the country. The League does not exactly propose, nor adopt such a scheme, but knows what it means, the principles it would inculcate, and that it will eventually resolve itself into an Australian Congress."

Independent newspapers played a pivotal role in the Eureka rebellion. The statement that appeared in the Ballarat Times in November 1854 would never appear in the corporate owned media and the government gelded ABC in 2008 in Australia. Faced with the same situation they would be calling for the home grown “terrorists” to be shot on sight.

Source material for article : The Eureka Encyclopaedia – Justin Corfield, Dorothy Wickham and Clare Gervasoni - Ballarat Heritage Services ISBN 1 876478 61 6

“True imaginations foretold the facts of the future. Jonah Lehrer has in this handy polemic married art and science. He claims human beings are not just a sum of their parts, we are not just a bag of salty water. Sitting in a neuroscience lab performing repetitive experiments trying to discover what we are, test tube and pipette in one hand and Proust in the other, Leher began to realise that artists had, through their personal experiences, discovered generations ago what we are discovering in the laboratory today.

Walt Whitman, George Elliot, Auguste Escoffier, Marcel Proust, Paul Cezanne, Igor Stravinsky, Gertrude Stein and Virginia Woolf are dissected, their psychological entrails inspected and their essences distilled in the pages of Proust Was A Neuroscientist. Lehrer has cobbled together a plausible chronicle that examines the substance of feeling, the biology of freedom, the essence of taste, the method of memory, the process of sight, the source of music, the structure of language and the emerging self in the chronicles of the lives of eight gifted Europeans.

Proust Was A Neuroscientist is an interesting but an unconvincing read. It reminds me of those books that put disparate facts together to support a preconceived idea. Science and art are not mutually exclusive or interconnected, they are ways human beings try to make sense of themselves and their universe. Lehrer’s thesis is not new, what’s new is his attempts to select artists who through their work have reached scientific conclusions before the scientists devised experiments to confirm those conclusions. Science, as it must, lays behind human experience. It reduces human knowledge and experience to reproducible equations.

Proust Was A Neuroscientist is not an easy book to read. Its ironical that a book that highlights art has trumped science relies on science to drive the author’s message home.

At forty dollars for a hard cover copy this book is not cheap. If your interested I’d wait for the inevitable soft cover edition before I part with my hard earned pennies.

If your local bookshop doesn’t have a copy try the publishers

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
222 Berkley St Boston
Massachusetts 02116 United States

www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com

Happy esoteric reading.
Thanks to Brian from Clifton Hill Melbourne, Australia for lending me his copy of the book to review.

A photograph in the newspaper of Turkish and Greek Cypriots streaming across the border that had opened for the first time in 35 years, jogged some forgotten memories. It was 1974, possibly 1975 maybe 1976, an old Greek Cypriot couple lived across the corridor. They must have been in their sixties, they shared a bedroom and a kitchen, no pictures on the walls, they had nothing they could call their own. I can’t remember how we started talking, but it soon became apparent they knew no one in Brisbane, refugees from Cyprus, they had each other and nothing else to show for their years on this planet. They mentioned they’d left everything behind, as they fled from the northern Turkish section to the Greek sector. Cyprus is only a sixth the size of Tasmania, in the 1970’s it was divided into two parts, a Turkish speaking and a Greek speaking part. Thousands of people fled with only the clothes on their backs across to the north and the south. The blame for the division of Cyprus into a Turkish and Greek sector can be laid at the feet of the Greek Colonels who seized power in Greece with the full backing of the United States government.

The Turkish government, concerned about the Colonels’ intentions, invaded Northern Cyprus to protect their interests in the region. The locals the meat in the sandwich in a dirty little confrontation that has spread over three decades. I thought about the old Cypriot couple a few months ago when I saw a multicoloured woven bedspread on a patients bed. It was exactly the same one I had bought from the couple over thirty years ago. He was an out of work tailor, she sewed bedspreads by hand, I didn’t need a bedspread but bought it to help them out. I don’t know where it is now, I assume it was lost in one of the many moves I’ve been involved in.

It’s a pity its taken thirty five years for the borders to reopen. The old couple would be dead now, I assume they never went back and are buried somewhere in Brisbane. I don’t believe they ever opened that tailors shop they’d dreamed about.

There wasn’t much need for tailors in Brisbane in the 1970’s and 1980’s, I’m sure I wouldn’t be as cheerful as they were if I’d lost everything and had been forced to start from scratch on the other side of the world when I was thinking of retiring. On second thoughts, they’d escaped with their lives and had each other in their old age. A sense of place, culture, language, material goods mean nothing if you’re not alive to enjoy them. No wonder they were happy to have the opportunity to start again.

Anarchists in Indonesia have been able to organise since the overthrow of the Suharto regime. They have recently established an Anti-Authoritarian Network in an attempt to support each other and co-ordinate activity. Students make up the bulk of the movement, Anarchist activities have a toehold in central Java, their involved in farmers struggles in South Celebes and student activities in Medan in Northern Sumatra.

Currently the movement is concerned about the fate of seven students from HKBP NOMMENSEN University – a Batak-Protestant Christian University in Medan in Northern Sumatra. Problems started in August last year when a simple dispute about student participation in orientation activities spiralled out of control when over 20 students were expelled for urging others to boycott orientation week. The University was occupied in October 2007 in an attempt to force the University authorities to reinstate the students. In February 2008, seven members of the Nommensen Discussion Group who were involved in the occupation were arrested for property damage.

Jhoni Walinton Butarbutar, Chandra Manurung, Bernard Simaremare, Bernard Marpaung, Horas Simanjuntak, Joshua Nababan and Dian Sinulingga are still in custody on property damage charges. The possibility also exists they may be charged under Indonesia’s harsh subversion laws. The Anti-Authoritarian Solidarity Network (Solidaritas Anti- Otoritarian) is calling on activists to contact their local Indonesian Embassies and consulates to raise the plight of these seven students, call for their release from jail and the dropping of the charges they are facing.

To find out what’s happening to the Nommensen seven email :

affinitas@riseup.net
arm_da_spirit@yahoo.com

Information about the growing anarchist movement in Indonesia can be accessed via :

http://xtanpahirarki.blogsome.com
http://pembebasantotal.wordpress.com
http://jakarta.indymedia.org
http://kerahputih.net
http://otonomis.org
http://anarchoi.gudbug.com
http://pustaka.otonomis.or

Thank you for the many e-mails and phone calls coming in, especially those looking to find out how everything is going. There are too many to respond to individually so instead I am working hard with Kristin to try and get the web site up and running so that everybody can visit the site and see the updates. I can tell you that I am averaging 70km's per day and that at the end of each day (so far) I am so tired I feel like doing little else! (apart from eating that is!)

This leg of the tour has been pretty tough simply because of the mountain ranges. In the last week I have had a 340m altitude ascent in just over 3..5km distance, a 260m ascent over 6 km's and a 361m ascent over 9km's and it hasn't ended yet. There is another 200km's of similar terrain from Eden through to Tathra and Uladulla. Can't wait! Temperatures during the 260m ascent peaked at 37 degrees and this combined with heavy smoke from CFA 'burning off' from the night before made the ride incredibly difficult. As for the endurance, (Paul you were definitely right!) breaking through into the mental toughness is the key, but that barrier is tough to get through! 280km's over four days is my maximum to date but that will increase no doubt when I get on flatter ground. On the positive side, there is some simply stunning scenery through here that you just don't get to see the same way when you are driving a car, it is stunningly beautiful!

I have lots of pictures to put up on the site along with commentary. People are donating money as I go and others have incrediblr stories of their own, so hopefully you'll get to read all about it shortly. It doesn't look like the Weekly Times article went in but we are checking to see what happened, will let you know when we find out. Kristin's performance on the ABC 774 Derek Guille show went extremely well with people as far away as Mallacoota contacting her by e-mail to find out if she would be performing there. Well we are in Mallacoota now and she did perform to a very large audience last night, not surprisingly people are blown away by her music and have been snapping up CD's at a ferocious rate!. Tonight will be my turn at Cafe 54 (the restaurant that hosts the musical strum club jam session) to have a brief talk about 'For Blokes Sake'. Anyway gotta go so that's all for now.

Cheers - Andrew & Kristin

SEME ANARCHICO Vol.29, No. 11 APRIL ’08 Periodico di Pensiero Anarchico, Fedio Razzi, C.P 168, 5 30 34 Colle Valu’Elsasi, ITALY.

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Easter Monday 20 – 04 1908

COMMEMORATION - SUNSHINE DISTRICT HISTORICAL SOCIETY

3.00pm Sunday 20th April 2008-04-06
SUNSHINE STATION – Melbourne Bound Platform

Write to:

AKIN SARI, c/- Port Phillip Prison,
P.O. BOX 376, Laverton 3080,
Melbourne, Victoria, AUSTRALIA

Akin Sari a 29 year old Turkish political refugee who was granted political asylum in Australia has been sentenced to 2 years & 4 months imprisonment for offences related to his involvement in the G20 protests in Melbourne in November 2006. Akin has already spent 7 months in prison awaiting trial & sentencing. He has been set a minimum 14 months sentence. Akin will have to serve the maximum sentence of 2 years & 4 months if he fails to obtain parole in October 2008. Keep his spirits up, write to him today!!

“We swear by the Southern Cross to stand truly by each other & fight to defend our rights & liberties”

NOMINATION CLOSE – 31st OCTOBER 2008

Send in one nomination or as many as you like. Send us the following information:

• The name of the person nominated
  
  
• A few sentences outlining why they should receive the award
  
  
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• The person you nominate can be a public figure or somebody only known to a few people.

SEND YOUR NOMINATIONS ASAP TO

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or email your nomination to anarchistage@yahoo.com

“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 122 Paid Up Members)

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.

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A growing number of doctors are ordering unnecessary tests and even performing unnecessary surgery, according to the watchdog on abuse of the Medicare system. In its latest review, the Federal Government's Professional Services Review has reported "disturbing cases" of pathology and diagnostic imaging tests being ordered by doctors without any clinical basis.
The report also found a rise in inappropriate practice in skin clinics, including doctors removing benign lesions, performing skin repairs of marginal benefit to patients and claiming lesions were bigger than they really were when billing Medicare.
Doctors were ordered to repay Medicare a total of more than $1.7 million in the 2006-7 financial year. The figure in the 2005-6 year was $1.3 million.(The Age)

A Victorian judge has described a 13 year old girl as a "willing party" in sex with a man over twice her age.County Court judge William White also described the girl as "compliant" when sentencing 28 year old Nicholas Reuben. Reuben was caught after he began chatting on the internet with an undercover police officer pretending to be a 14 year old girl. He offered the officer an iPod and a mobile phone if she would have sex with him. Police seized his computer and found 2000 images of child pornography, including naked pictures of the 13 year old, as well as a DVD with about 100 child-pornography films. Legally, children under 16 are considered unable to consent to sex.(The Age)

Four Victorian MPs cancelled their appearance at a show put on by a group persecuted in China, after being told they should do so by the Chinese government. The performance of traditional Chinese dancing and music includes many performers who are exiles from China and followers of the persecuted Falun Gong religion. China's Melbourne Consul-General Liang Shugen wrote to Victorian MPs advising them that "in view of the good relations between China and Victoria it's my sincere hope that you will not attend the performance and will also avoid any future contact with Falun Gong and its affiliates." Organisers say that four MPs who had already accepted their invitation to attend cancelled without explanation after receiving the letter.(The Age)

QUOTE OF THE MOMENT - "While there is a lower class, I am in it. While there is a criminal element, I am of it. While there is a soul in prison, I am not free." - Eugene Debs.