Illawarra Unity - Journal of the Illawarra Branch of the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History

Modernity’s Discontents: Esmonde Higgins and James Rawling as Labour Intellectuals

Terry Irving — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 14:17:20 PST

In the first half of the twentieth century, two young men from different backgrounds broke with the ruling culture in Australia and became labour intellectuals.2 Why did this happen? Was there some disruptive element in their early engaement with ruling ideas – perhaps in their family life – that made their defection possible? And how did the break occur? Was it due perhaps to a moment of intellectual enlightenment, in which powerful new ideas captured the mind, or did it also involve a coming together of history and biography, a moment of concentrated exposure to modernity’s discontents at the same time as disorienting personal crises? Further, in their commitment to communism, how did they understand their political practice as intellectuals? And how should we understand it? Did it draw on their previous training and experiences? As intellectuals they were ‘modern’ men, but what kind of modernists were they?

Illawarra Unity: Editorial & Contents 2012

Anthony Ashbolt — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 14:17:19 PST

“Some will rob you with a six-gun, And some with a fountain pen.” (Woody Guthrie) This year marks the one hundredth anniversary of Woody Guthrie’s birth. Guthrie sang for the people of America and the world, for he was both a patriot and an internationalist. He honoured the working man, the outcast and the refugee. He sang of ruthless bosses and a system designed to crush the hopes of ordinary people. He also sang of dreams and desires for a better world. His great song “This Land is Your Land” was sung at Obama’s inauguration by Pete Seeger, Bruce Springsteen and others. Their version included the often missing verses about unemployment and private property. Sadly the spirit of the song was not taken up by the Obama administration and the system in America remains a plutocracy rather than a democracy. Sadder still, Obama has become yet another President of War, issuing executive orders authorising even the assassination of American citizens. Drone attacks on “terrorists” and civilians have grown dramatically under Obama’s watch and guidance. Drone warfare, in a sense, is his preferred method of killing – perhaps a chilling way to put it but we should not put a smile button on high-tech murder. Meanwhile, as traditional means of war have yet to be made redundant, America’s military presence on Australian soil will increase, letting our neighbours know yet again what the term “lackey of Yankee imperialism” actually means (apologies to those who recoil from nostalgic leftism).

Obituary - Vale: Michael Callaghan – Artist – Raconteur – Reader – Collector – Pleasure Seeker – Holder of Hearts

Nick Southall — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 20:26:32 PST

On 19 May 2012 after many courageous years of struggle against illness and pain, managed with stoicism and panache, Michael Callaghan died at home, as he wanted, in the country – peacefully and in his sleep. The following weekend he was farewelled by many of his family, friends and comrades. They remembered an intelligent, vibrant, witty, cool, and charismatic man. At times a man of few words and at others a great story teller and conversationalist, Michael made an art of cutting through the bullshit and telling it as it is. He did not suffer fools gladly; in fact he couldn’t see why anyone would suffer anything gladly. Michael’s art was an outlet for his anger and affection; a weapon to expose and denounce oppression and a tool to help sustain and build the communities struggling for a better world. He drew to him many talented and dedicated friends, with whom he shared his many gifts and achievements. During his final difficult years Michael was greatly supported by his devoted wife Bronwyn. While constantly struggling with his deteriorating health he continued working and planning future exhibitions right to the end.

Obituary - Jeff Shaw QC: A Tribute

Mairi Petersen — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 20:21:18 PST

Jeff Shaw was born on October 10 1949 and died on May 10 2010. He was given a State Funeral on May 19 2010. He is survived by his wife Elizabeth and sons James and Jonathon. Jeff was a son of the working class. His mother was a secretary, and his father was a printer, and a real stalwart of the Printing Trades Industries Union. He was a Labor Party member and activist from a young age but he was more interested in the ‘bigger picture’- the philosophical arguments – than the corrupting quest for ‘getting the numbers’ to get a seat in parliament. He was ideologically of the Left, and fiercely committed to traditional Labor values.

Review - Penelope Debell, Red Silk: The Life of Elliot Johnston QC, Wakefield Press, Kent Town, South Australia, 2011

M. Donaldson — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 20:16:20 PST

Penelope Debell is a very fine writer and a keen researcher, and she has drawn upon Elliot Johnston’s own extensive personal papers, on conversations with him and with many of his family and friends, and on files held by the biographers’ new best friend, ASIO, which had surveilled Elliot for 40 years. The result is an extremely well-written and lively account of how and why Elliot became a Communist, the first (known) member of the Communist Party of Australia (CPA) to become a Queens Counsel, and later a Justice of the Supreme Court of South Australia.

Resisting Corruption

Brian Martin — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 20:06:31 PST

What can you do when corrupt operators come after you, trying to discredit, threaten or even assault you? Insights can be gained by looking at the usual tactics used by powerful perpetrators of unjust acts. They regularly try to reduce public outrage. Consider torture, something widely condemned throughout the world but still practised in many countries. Governments that instigate or sanction torture can use five types of methods to reduce outrage, as did the US government over the torture at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, exposed in 2004.

Equality, Social Inclusion and School Funding

Anthony Ashbolt — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 20:06:30 PST

Private schools are, by their very nature, exclusive. Public schools, in contrast, must cater to all. Now some private schools are still more exclusive than others – Abbotsleigh, Knox Grammar or St. Josephs are part of an elite club to which the Catholic parish school does not belong. Yet, where once there was sectarian and even class division in the ranks of private schools, there is now a unified voice. That is what guaranteed public funding of private schools has produced. Many of you will recall that some of the loudest voices against government funding of private schools in the 1960s were spokesmen for the elite Protestant schools, church leaders frightened of the Catholic hordes who would be granted access to some social wealth if Government was to prop up the parish school. When Whitlam brought in generous school funding, however, a gravy train beckoned and the elite private schools jumped on board. Paradoxically, as greater levels of funding have shifted to the private school sector, the social divide has become much starker than it was in the 1960s. One of the reasons that Australia is a less equal society than it was in the 1960s is the shift from public to private schools aided by Government policy spawned under the false rubric of choice.

Notes on Radicalism

Rowan Cahill — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 20:01:37 PST

Questions frequently asked when introduced as a co-author of Radical Sydney (2010) are: “What is radicalism?”; “Is radicalism dead?”; and specifically with regard to Australia, “Where is radicalism today?”. Often, it seems, the unstated, implied premise behind some of these questions is that radicalism once was, but is no more, a questioning underpinned by senses of defeat, confusion, with a hint of nostalgia thrown in.

Unemployment in the Illawarra Region: Understanding its Historical Trajectory and Legacy

Scott Burrows — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 19:56:35 PST

This article examines the historical trajectory of unemployment in the Illawarra region. As part of this analysis, aggregate employment levels are contextualised within the framework of local economic conditions and industry. While the levels of unemployment in the ‘bitter years’ of the Great Depression were high, the region’s unemployment woes were most acutely felt during the early 1980s when unemployment skyrocketed due to severe economic contractions within the region’s largest employer, BHP. More recently the impacts of the global financial crisis have led to stymied economic growth with unemployment remaining higher than state and national averages. At the time of writing, further job losses are occurring within local industry and the usual policy approaches by government to address declining competitiveness and profitability remain at best, temporary. The article concludes by considering the legacy of unemployment in the region and prospects for the future.

Bohemians, Bridges and Bolsheviks: Radical San Francisco Before Flower Power

Anthony Ashbolt — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 19:51:26 PST

San Francisco is not America; it’s what’s left of America. It’s the Great Wall of China of America’s forgotten promises! Here in San Francisco have gathered all of society’s children, space-age dropouts from the American dream, Horatio Algers in reverse, descending from riches to rags and gathering now on the corners of Grant and Green in their beads and spangles and marijuana smoke to watch the entire structure crumble. (Jerry Kamstra, The Frisco Kid)

Jim Hagan - A Personal Memoir

Glen Mitchell — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 15:14:42 PDT

Jim Hagan joined the History Department at the then Wollongong University College in 1966. Those qualities that he sought to develop in his students were present, however, long before he took up this appointment. And to understand what he did at Wollongong and why, some explanation of his life before Wollongong is important.

The songs of Don Henderson

Maurie Mulheron — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 15:09:10 PDT

A few years ago at the National Folk Festival, the Don Henderson Project was launched to collect and preserve the songs of a remarkable figure of the Australian folk-music movement. The result is a new two-CD collection, The Songs of Don Henderson. One of the project’s aims was to ensure that new generations of singers and songwriters were aware of the many songs Don left behind after his death in 1991; songs that spanned most of his working life from the late 1950s until the late 1980s. And it was largely his working life that provided the rich material that inspired him to write in a style that might be compared to the legendary Woody Guthrie but which probably owes as much to the traditions of Paterson and Lawson.

Review - Ill fares the land

Anthony Ashbolt — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 15:04:03 PDT

Putting aside for a moment his wonderful autobiographical reminiscences in The New York Review of Books, this is Tony Judt’s last major work. And it is an extended essay of immense significance. It constitutes a clarion call for the resuscitation of a genuine social democracy committed to equality and social justice. It is simultaneously an appeal to resist the fetishism of “small” government, the deification of budget surplus, the pathetic passion for privatization, the capitulation to markets whose freedom is measured purely by profits. We need, argues Judt, a commitment to the commonweal, a shared goal rather than one divided into special interests and identities, a public sphere that is vibrant and egalitarian.

Review - Of human right & human gain: peak labour organisation in the Hunter Valley of New South Wales, 1869-2000

Mike Donaldson — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 15:04:01 PDT

Of Human Right & Human Gain traces the development from 1869 to 2000 in the Hunter Valley of the oldest continuous peak union organisation in Australia. This is a story well worth telling and decades of meticulous research by Rod Noble mean that it is told very well. Since its inception and currently, the principal role of the Newcastle Trades Hall Council (NTHC) is “to act as a collective industrial, political and community authority for its affiliated unions and the broader labour movement”. Early industrial issues of concern for the NTHC in 1885 and proximately usually involved pay and conditions, industrial legislation, union demarcation, health and safety particularly in the mining industry, shorter working hours and a rejection of dependence on organisations in metropolitan Sydney. And by the 1930s, the NTHC had established a pattern of support for equal pay for women, Aboriginal rights, public education, jobs, control of planning and development, housing, price control, public ownership, peace and disarmament.

Review - Radical Sydney: places, portraits and unruly episodes

Maurie Mulheron — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 14:59:02 PDT

If so much of Sydney’s physical space was saved in the 1970s by Jack Mundey and the NSW BLF, then much of its historical record has been preserved in this fine book by Terry Irving and Rowan Cahill. It’s an ambitious but successful attempt to trace our radical roots from the arrival of the first Europeans through to the present day.

A radical history book: how we came to write it

Terry Irving — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 14:42:33 PDT

Rowan Cahill and I have lived with the idea of this book since December 2001, when Ian Syson, an independent publisher from Melbourne, suggested to us that we might write about Sydney for a series of books on ‘radical cities’ published by his 59 company, Vulgar Books. The organizing idea was a walking tour of about 50 places associated with radical events or people in the city, each site identified on a map, described in a short slab of text, and illustrated by two images: one of the site as it was at the height of its radical notoriety and another as it is today. The first in the series, Radical Melbourne, had sold a couple of thousand copies and Ian was anxious to capitalize on this success.

Public education and the public good

Anthony Ashbolt — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 14:27:43 PDT

When Julia Gillard became Minister for Education and Everything Else That Moves, as well as de facto Prime Minister, she expressed a desire to have a conversation about school funding. This politics of inclusion (social inclusion is one of her many portfolios after all) was short-lived and it became clear that conversation was code for acceptance of the status quo. So Julia went off and had a conversation of her own with utopian dreamers whose vision of the good society revolves around testing regimes, job credentialism, disciplinary control of schools (particularly teachers), and whose heights of ecstasy are only achieved when public schools are closed down at a rapid rate. Their concept of worth, of good, is thoroughly corporatised and their utopia, of course, thus a nightmarish dystopia. That a social democrat, one who had genuine egalitarian tendencies, can become captive of such narrow thinking speaks volumes about our times. Gillard is now part of a political machine that grinds on relentlessly and strips policy-making of critical thought, rendering it ultimately an instrument of bureaucratic apparatchiks some of whom look and sound strangely like Godwin Gretch. Poor old Gretch, you see, is simply the embodiment of a soulless Public Service whose master in reality is the corporate dollar. Patients running the asylum becomes the order of the day not an aberration.

A new look at "Waltzing Matilda"

Doreen Borrow — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 14:27:40 PDT

For more than a century the song “Waltzing Matilda” has been sung by Australians at many gatherings the world over. It has become the unofficial National Anthem of Australia; in fact many would prefer it to the present National Anthem. Little thought has been given to its content that amounts to nothing more than the glorification of a brutal crime committed by three troopers and a member of the landed aristocracy.

"Never neutral": on Labour history / radical history

Rowan Cahill — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 14:23:26 PDT

Eric Fry, one of the founders of the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History (ASSLH), wrote about radical history in the ‘Introduction’ to his neglected Rebels & Radicals (1983). The book is not listed in Greg Patmore’s comprehensive listing of labour history publications (1991), rates no mention in the 1992 tribute to Fry’s work edited by Jim Hagan and Andrew Wells, and receives only brief mentions in the Labour History tribute issue to Eric Fry and fellow ASSLH pioneer Bob Gollan (2008). Arguably with good reason, since the book was exploring a different way of writing dissident history, one not in accord with the traditional practice of academic labour history as it developed in Australia, but in accord with the “broadness of scope and orientation” of labour history envisaged by Fry and Gollan as early as 1961 in the early days of the ASSLH.

Boycotting Israeli apartheid: practical and ethical questions

George Bisharat — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 14:19:10 PDT

George Bisharat is Professor of Law at the University of California’s Hasting College of the Law in San Francisco. He is the author of amongst other things, Palestinian Lawyers and Israeli Rule: Law and Disorder in the West Bank. Professor Bisharat was brought to Australia by the Coalition for Justice and Peace in Palestine. This address, delivered on May 13, 2010, was sponsored by the School of History and Politics, University of Wollongong.