Rowan's Rave - June 2005Extracts of 'Rowan's Rave' by Rowan Cahill. Sydney Branch, Labour History News Bob Gould reckons he’s the ‘Two-million dollar man’, which is what he estimates ASIO has spent compiling its huge Bob Gould dossier, which stands, to the end of 1970 at least, at some 3300 pages. A few years ago Bob thought it time he wrote his memoirs, using the ASIO material as a source material. After all, the Australian publishing world is littered with the bland memoirs of people whose only excitement has been the innards of the ALP; Bob thought his grasp on political reality at least had meat on it. So he got to work and out poured the words, tens of thousands of them, an output too big for a book, almost an encyclopedia full. And it was something other than autobiography, occupying ground somewhere between autobiography-political commentary-historical analysis-political agitation. Rather than consign it to the bottom drawer and the land of ‘might have been’, Bob has put a lot of this stuff online at Ozleft (members.optushome.com.au/spainter/Ozleft.html). It is worth a visit, and worth reading. Bob has developed an engaging form of political-historical discourse, drawing on his vast experience as a committed leftist and activist. It is wordy, combative, powerful, take-no-prisoners commentary, reflective, often insightful, sometimes generous, ranging freely between the past and the present, often illuminated by fragments of autobiography, always drawing on his voluminous and careful reading of Australian political and cultural history. Once you accept that Bob has created his own Gould-genre, it becomes intoxicating.
Bob apparently has little time for his former 1960s comrade John Percy, whose latest book (Resistance: A History of the Democratic Socialist Party and Resistance; Volume 1: 1965-1972) is critically reviewed by Bob on the Ozleft website. Regardless, and despite its partisan nature, John’s book is worthy of attention for its account of radical Sydney in the 1960s and early 1970s from the point of view of those activists, their activities often overlooked by writers on the period, who went on to create what is now known as the Democratic Socialist Perspective. Available from Resistance Books, PO Box 515, Broadway, NSW, 2007; cost $29.95 plus 10% extra for postage.
Former Communist Party of Australia leader Laurie Aarons died in February 2005 at the age of 87. He was the subject of numerous newspaper obituaries. A moving celebration of his life was held at the Gaelic Club (Sydney) on Sunday April 3. In all that was said, and written, it was left to the magazine of the National Archives, Memento (May 2005, Issue 29), to record Laurie’s unique contribution to Australian historical studies. In 1983 the Archives Act came into operation, requiring ASIO to release material in its possession to the Archives. But ASIO liked its secrecy and treasured its files like a miser. It was Laurie who sought significant access to ASIO material, who pushed the Act to its limits, and legally compelled ASIO to part with material it sought to keep out of the public domain. Laurie helped test the strength of the Archives Act to the benefit of all researchers. As Memento records, he ‘blazed the trail for many later researchers and journalists wanting access to ASIO records’.
Veteran Cold War apparatchik Peter Coleman threw some sniping words at a recent article by Michael Wilding. Target was Michael’s article ‘Something Better: Reflections on Fundamentalism, Revolution, Loss of Faith’ published in Griffith Review, No.7 (2005). That the Cold War wordsmith, who has laboured in the past on interests close to the hearts of the CIA and ASIO, chose to target this article, speaks volumes. Check it out; Wilding has produced one of the year’s best pieces of left writing, drawing on his interests in seventeenth century English radical literature, Australian radical literature, and relating these to the business of being radical in a time of apparent conservative ascendancy and triumph. Mature and wise stuff, reason enough for conservative hacks to try and discredit it.
Wayne Ward is a former Australian seaman and trade unionist. In retirement he has written a novel titled The Last Seaman, about seafaring on the Australian coast, as seen through the eyes of his main character Marty. Starting in Melbourne during the Cold War days of the Menzies government and coming through to the 1980s, the novel is a huge read, some 600 pages. Class politics mix with real people, mix with closely detailed accounts of maritime life and culture, mix with fiction, to tell a story about maritime life from the viewpoint of a rank and file seaman/unionist. Ward began his writing career during the Cold War, taking notes at shipboard union meetings, then expanded to knock out stories for magazines like Man, Adam, and Esquire. The Last Seaman is a self-published volume, and went into a second printing, having sold out in Newcastle, apparently beating local sales of the Da Vinci Code. Limited numbers of the book have been produced; try your local branch of the Maritime Union of Australia for a copy (cost is $25).
Later this year Nathan Wise will address the Sydney Branch ASSLH on a topic close to his research interests. Nathan hails from Wollongong University where he did his BA (Honours) on Australia and WW1, examining the adventurous expectations of Sydney private school boys entering WW1, and the realities of their war experiences. Currently engaged in Phd research at UNSW, Nathan is fashioning a social history approach to WW1 military service, treating soldiering as work and the army as an employer, and examining the ways in which civilian attitudes to work carried over into war service. The questions and lines of investigation he is pursuing may well dramatically challenge many popular ideas about WW1 and the Anzac tradition, especially the sort nourished by John Howard and his armchair warriors. Meanwhile readers can sample Nathan’s work in the Wollongong University online post graduate journal Alpheus (March 2005), in his essay titled ‘Different Worlds, Different Lives: Social history approaches to histories of the military’. Also, catch him at the National Labour History Conference.
Vulgar Press (Melbourne) has just launched the novel Black Diamonds and Dust (rrp. $25 plus $5 postage) set in Newcastle, Australia, during the 1890s and 1890s. It is a coal-mining novel telling the story of miner Edmund Shearer, his family, and the mining community they are part of. Variously tragic, humorous, joyful, symbolic, the novel is ultimately an uplifting story of reconciliation, and the ideas that nobody is irredeemable and no society has to remain the way it is. Author Greg Bogaerts hails from Newcastle, and has variously worked as a schoolteacher, taxi driver BHP labourer, and solicitor. This is his first novel. Contact Vulgar Press at PO Box 68, Carlton North, Victoria 3054.
Available in July is Uncharted Waters, by Queensland based historian and activist Greg Mallory, with a Foreword by Jack Mundey. Mallory examines the political ideas behind two major Australian trade union campaigns, the Pig Iron Dispute (1938) and the Sydney Green Bans movement of the 1970s. He uses these as a springboard to promulgate ideas about trade union social responsibility and its current and future relevance. For information contact Greg at 0407 692 377, or gmallory@vtown.com.au. Copies should be available at the National Labour History Conference, Sydney, next month.
Australian accounts of the 1960s and 1970s by people who were close to
the radical action is scant, often leaving the void to be filled by people
who, ideologically driven, emasculate the period’s political lessons
and neuter its historical significance. Not so a new book A Turbulent
Decade: Social Protest Movements and the Labour Movement 1965-1975,
edited by Beverley Symons and Rowan Cahill, which will be
launched during the National Labour History Conference. Retailing at $20
a copy, the book is a collection of talks and papers that were part of
a similarly themed Conference held by the ASSLH Sydney Branch a few years
ago. The contributors, all veterans of the period 1965-1975, recall and
reflect upon the turbulent decade; the focus is Sydney and New South Wales,
and a great deal that is new is added to the public record. A Turbulent
Decade will no doubt be profitably mined by future researchers interested
in the period. Previous Raves:At the age of 81, Howard Zinn maintains a hectic public schedule of talks and appearances as he campaigns against the aggressive global policies of the Bush administration. Zinn is an American teacher, academic, writer, historian, activist, author of the seminal A PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES (1980). In the movie GOOD WILL HUNTING Matt Damon's troubled genius character tells psychologist Robin Williams that Zinn's HISTORY "will ….knock you on your ass"; and small wonder, for it tells a dissident story of America from the viewpoint of the men and women absent from official records, those like Zinn himself who was raised in the slums of Brooklyn. Zinn worked in shipyards before WW2, then spent the war as a bombardier over Europe. Participation in some notorious bombing raids on soft civilian targets turned him into a passionate opponent of war. This edge was sharpened by post-war doctoral studies, work in Atlanta's black universities, early involvement in the civil rights movement, and in the anti-Vietnam War movement. Zinn detests politicians like George W. Bush, Tony Blair, John Howard, who have never seen the face of war close up, yet who are so gung-ho when it comes to manufacturing death and destruction. An entertaining, accessible, lucid writer, Zinn has a great deal to say about the craft and role of history from below, and history as an instrument for peace and social justice. Much of this is available on the internet. Check him out on the Z Net site at www.zmag.org/weluser.htm, and the 'official Zinn site' at www.howardzinn.org ****** THE ILLAWARRA BRANCH (ASSLH) has plotted a Walking Tour through Wollongong, visiting significant labour history sites. The Tour can be arranged through the Branch (contact Neville Arrowsmith on 02 4284 3781) or on a self-conducted basis. The key to the Walk is a $2.00 booklet, available from the Illawarra comrades, or at the Wollongong Tourist Information Office. The walk begins and ends at the Miners Monument in front of Wollongong Council Chambers, makes its way to the 'new' lighthouse, then back through the CBD, taking about an hour, though school groups have taken up to three hours. An excellent initiative that has generated positive comment and newspaper interest. ****** Recent reading has included UPSTAGED by Michelle Arrow, published last year by Pluto Press in conjunction with Currency Press. It is an excellent, impressive, thorough piece of research, delivered in what is, for the most part, a conversational tone and style. The reader is invited into the text, and serious issues are covered in a non-ponderous manner. Michelle's subject is the flourishing world of Australian drama and theatre between the 1930s and the late 1960s, a period largely written out of Australian cultural history because it was a female dominated era with a Left awareness and orientation. Hopefully, thanks to Michelle's efforts, Australian cultural historians will no longer be able to perpetuate the myth that during this time nothing of consequence happened in the world of Australian theatre and drama. Beyond this, UPSTAGED is a thoughtful and passionate account of the complex politics of cultural creation and recreation, and the ways in which great slabs of human experience can be marginalised or ignored by historians and cultural myth-makers. Copies are available through Currency Press for $29.95 (paperback), see their webpage: www.currency.com.au ****** THE AUSTRALIAN RAILWAY STORY PROJECT is a notable, interesting, creative undertaking. Next year (2004) railway enthusiasts aim to commemorate the 150th anniversary of steam railways in Australia. They plan to publish a book telling the Australian railway story through the eyes of writers, poets, and song writers who have variously observed and celebrated the Australian railway experience. An impressive register of material has been compiled, involving the Bush Music Club, the Australian Bush Association, the Railway Historical Society, and the Rail, Tram and Bus Union. Of interest to labour historians in particular are sections planned on Radical railway people and events, the nature of railway work, Workshop employees, and the Depression experience. For further information contact Brian Dunnett on 96689051 or bdunnett@ar.com.au According to former Quadrant editor Robert Manne, Keith Windschuttle's new book The Fabrication of Aboriginal History "is the most reactionary book to be taken seriously in this country for many years' (Sydney Morning Herald, 30 December 2002). In an earlier Herald piece he described Windschuttle as having once been "a radical Marxist, blind to the murderous nature of communist regimes" (16 December 2002). While finding merit in Manne's appraisal of Keith's new book, I bridle at the description of the former Leftist by the former Rightist. During the mid-sixties through to the early 70s, Keith and I were colleagues and friends; I cannot recall the political blindness Manne refers to. Keith was influenced by New Left ideas, and by the dissenting liberalism of American journals like The New York Review of Books. As a teenager he was influenced by the New Deal progressivism of John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath. There were other influences too, and somewhere along the line Keith permanently borrowed my copy of Norman Mailer's Advertisements for Myself. No matter what Keith might now confess, and Manne surmise, I cannot recall the born-again Rightist as having been some sort of political dupe, some sort of Stalinist apologist. Readers interested in the political and intellectual journeys of Keith
Windschuttle should read Bob Gould's lengthy essay "Deconstructing
the sixties and seventies. An open letter to Keith and Liz Windschuttle".
This interesting critical essay has been circulating in pamphlet form
since early 2000, and is now on the Net at OZLEFT, the Australian left
discussion site, Working Lives http://www.econ.usyd.edu.au/wos/workinglives is a new website edited by Mark Hearn, operating out of the Department of Work and Organisational Studies at the University of Sydney. Basically the site aims to bring biography back into the Australian labour history fold, having been nudged aside over decades by theoretical practices that tend to regard human beings as something other than discrete flesh and blood characters in real space and time for whom industrial and political concerns are integral, related parts of a lived human and social experience. Five papers are currently on the site, and others will be added in time. For me the standout is the Progress Report by John Shields and Andrew Moore on their Biographical Register of the Australian Labour Movement. Eleven years in the making so far, the Register is slowly moving towards completion. Two-thousand entries will comprise the finished product, and eleven entries, all females, are included in the Report, giving a clear idea of what the completed project will look like. It is not too early to suggest that the completed Register will become a valuable national reference tool, a lasting testament to the vision, skills, faith, diligence, sacrifices, fund-finding-initiatives, and inspired tenacity of compilers Shields and Moore. My favourite books by Eric Hobsbawm are The Age of Revolution (1962) and Bandits (1969), both of which added to my political and historical understandings, and helped my teaching. I thought his international best-selling history of the Twentieth century Age of Extremes (1994) was overshadowed by pessimism. Now aged 85, Hobsbawm has published his autobiography Interesting Times (Allen Lane, The Penguin Press). The book traces his life from birth in Alexandria in 1917, through a cosmopolitan childhood, arriving in England orphaned in 1933, and his subsequent development as an enduring, innovative, and influential Marxist historian. Critics hoping for some sort of apology from Hobsbawm for remaining a member of the British Communist Party from 1936 through to the wind up of the Party in 1991, and for being an unrepentant communist, will be disappointed. Hobsbawm looks back on his life "in amazement rather than regret that not only I but humanity have made it through the past hundred-odd years". Congratulations Terry Irving and Lucy Taksa for the publication of their
research aid Places, Protests
and Memorabilia. Subtitled "The Labour Heritage Register
of New South Wales" the book is a pioneering list, with brief explanatory
notes, of historical sites, buildings, documents, and memorabilia relating
to the labour movement in NSW. All too often in Sydney, labour movement
sites, and historical materials, are demolished, destroyed, or lie neglected
in suburban garages; there is a sense in which the labour movement's past
does not exist in a physical way. While the labour movement has exercised
a powerful and profound political and cultural influence upon the city,
there is precious little evidence of this physically; for example there
is no dedicated labour movement museum, or even a dedicated part of a
museum, unlike in other world centres. For all intents and purposes Sydney
physically represents the triumph of capitalism and big money, and the
labour movement is invisible. What the Irving and Taksa Register powerfully
illustrates is the extent to which the labour movement has been a vital
and dynamic feature of the political and cultural life of NSW, especially
Sydney, and serves notice that it is time a serious effort was made to
preserve the remaining heritage and make it visible. This sort of preservation
and visibility helps provide an emotional link with the past, which in
turn helps shape the way we understand, and act in, the present. Copies
of the book are available from the Industrial Relations Research Centre,
University of New South Wales, Sydney, 2052, at $30 per copy plus $5 postage. |