Freedom Socialist Bulletin • Number 37 • Winter/Spring 2007

Your Say

The Freedom Socialist Bulletin welcomes your letters and campaign reports. Send contributions to PO Box 266, West Brunswick Vic 3055, Australia.
Email: freedom.socialist.bulletin@ozemail.com.au
Contributions may be edited for length.

"One State solution" is unpopular

Alison Thorne's review of Antony Loewenstein's book, My Israel Question, was very comprehensive and included some political points which could well have been part of the book.

However, the one-state solution, had it been pushed by the discussions in the book, may have hindered the book reaching as wide an audience as it has done. The one-state solution has been very comprehensively documented and researched by Virginia Tilley's book of that name, One State Solution. Her analysis succinctly presents the view that this will ultimately be the only solution, one which at the moment is singularly unpopular to the Israelis and the Palestinians.

A major flaw in the review is getting Uri Avnery's name wrong. Had it been wrong once, one might have concluded that it was merely a typographical error, but to get it wrong twice is just a mistake. Although Avnery's politics still support the existence of a state of Israel, his opposition to much of what Israel is doing in the name of world Jewry is worthy of consideration.

Debate has continued about Israel/Palestine and the possible solutions to this genocidal disaster, and the book has certainly opened up debate to people whose minds are tightly closed by Zionist ideology. We have to hope that there will be more people of the ilk of Loewenstein, Finkelstein, Chomsky, Fisk, Pilger and Tilley, whose views will ultimately prevail over the imperial power control of the Middle East.

Mannie De Saxe
Preston South, Vic

More Iraq coverage, please
Please renew my subscription. I very much enjoyed the article "A unionist's thoughts" (FS Bulletin # 36) and particularly the critique of nationalism on November 30th at the MCG. Brilliant! The piece that followed on the history of New Zealand was also very useful and powerful.

I am puzzled about why there was no mention of the war in Iraq. Howard continues to try to take advantage of divisions in the international workers' movement. What was missing from the protests on 15th and 16th February 2003 was quality, certainly not quantity.

I recently had a story about the need to continue efforts to strengthen the ties between the union movement and the antiwar movement published, along with a photo, in Japanese in the weekly publication, Kakehashi, which means "the bridge.'

Alan Woodcraft
Booragoon, WA

Pearson wrong on housing
Noel Pearson just keeps getting worse! Last February he called for public housing to be scrapped. He argued this, because "it robs people of incentive to take responsibility for their own homes."
This wealthy blackfella called public housing "passive welfare" and argued that it should be replaced by a move to a property market based on private ownership. Pearson advocated that those who want a bigger house can save and purchase one where they want, instead of just sitting around and waiting for a house to be allocated to them!

Noel seems to have forgotten his roots. Now that he's got money and can buy houses wherever he chooses — as other millionaire Blacks can — he is arguing that all must follow his example.

When we all have equity with his life opportunities — not to mention the government contracts and contacts — only then, will we be able to afford to emulate him!

It is amazing how blackfellas with a quid claim to have the answer to everything for people who have none of these assets.

Noel Pearson should go lobby his mates for something worthwhile. We need jobs, schools and hospitals. We need sovereignty, a treaty and social justice.

Noel Pearson and John Howard both have the same manic solution to the problem of the poor. They want us all to "buy" a house and a Holden and become magically transformed into middle class liberals.

Ray Jackson
President, Indigenous Social Justice Association, NSW

Austin Unfair Dismissal
In Freedom Socialist Bulletin # 34, we published an article about the campaign to resist the unfair dismissal of Robert Austin from RMIT. Austin and his supporters in the Defend Our Universities (DOU) Committee fought tenaciously. We publish their final assessment of the outcome below.

The dispute over the political dismissal of Hispanic Studies academic, Dr Robert Austin, from RMIT was settled via Unfair Dismissal legislation in the Australian Industrial Relations Commission late last year. The terms are confidential; though management tactics ensured that a full hearing was impossible. Background information and space for comments will remain at the Defend Our Universities web page http://www.defendrobert.blogspot.com

The unqualified victory within reach was stifled by weak union officials afraid of a fight, careerist climbers willing to do the bosses' bidding, and pseudo-Left academics immune to solidarity but not witchhunts. These groups — crucial to the Howard agenda of silencing academics, demonising labour activists and decimating student unions — ultimately served an administration eager to please its honorary curriculum consultant, Herald Sun columnist, Andrew Bolt who, to quote John Pilger, is among that "group of white supremacists who buzz around the Murdoch-dominated press and radio talk-back hosts."

However, one year on, the gains in this dispute, though limited, show that decent-minded and committed supporters of public higher education, working together, can influence the political struggle to reclaim our universities as open democratic spaces, where full student participation and intellectual diversity overcome the ignorance, fear and conformism promoted by the mainstream press, multinational capital and neocon managements.

Defend Our Universities Committee

Help fight sexual harassment in Malaysia

In April, I was sexually harassed on my third day at a new job. I made a report to the management the same night and to the police the next day. I am fighting to make an anti-sexual harassment campaign, on both a national and international level, so that women and men will be aware of what is happening around them daily — and not tolerate it.  

People can be biased and blame the women victims. They would change their minds if ever their wives, daughters or mothers were sexually harassed.

I want more people to be outspoken about sexual harassment and report it to the authorities. One of the local daily newspapers in Malaysia reported on 21 March 2007 that the Ministry of Human Resources records only about 2% of sexual harassment cases in Malaysia. This data cannot be accurate. Workers are suffering in silence, because they are ashamed and afraid to lose their job.

There is a mechanism, called the Code of Practice for the Prevention and Eradication of Sexual Harassment, to combat sexual harassment at the workplace. However, only 1%, or a mere 4,500 employers out of 400,000, have so far adhered to it. Therefore, I also want to campaign for the code to be imposed by the Malaysian government on all employers in order to protect all women at the workplace.

I invite anyone interested in the campaign to email me at vosh76@gmail.com and spread the word.

Nadura Binti Kamarulzaman
Malaysia