Human Rights in China: Olympic movement should bow its head in shame over worsening human rights record of China.

The US State Department has got off on the right foot under Clinton by telling China its human rights record stinks. Of course her first visit to China did'nt put human rights front & centre in terms of the bilateral relationship, and you would not expect that from a first visit by a new administration. However, Clinton has signaled human rights will be taken seriously by the Obama administration, most particularly at home where the US needs to model what it preaches abroad.

China reacted badly to the State Dept report as expected, denouncing US human rights violations, which it has to be said have been many over the period of the Bush administration.

The cynical disregard for human rights underlying the Olympic movement's dalliance with this regime beggars belief. I can still hear commentators banging on about 'children being fed' and a 'stellar economic performance', justifying repression and brutality on a wide front. Apologists for totalitarianism eventually have their collective noses rubbed in their own excrement - for instance, where was that economic miracle when 20 million people were recently made jobless and forced to return to rural squalor? Where are the worker protections? Where are their human rights?

Australian Federal politics - some gratuitous advice for the Liberal Party

While you keep banging on about jobs, desperately trying to make political mileage out of economic harsh times, you reveal yourselves to be opportunistic buffoons and should stay in opposition.

Your 'work choices' fiasco further 'casualised' and 'atomised' the workforce, leaving many workers more vulnerable to an economic downturn. Do you actually think the electorate has already forgotten your policy hubris in this area?

On carbon trading you are equally challenged, with various rumps of your party so confused on the subject of climate change it runs like a french farce.

You need to take a constructive role in this time of national insecurity or you will be condemned to opposition for a long time!

Your current leader thinks he should be PM yesterday without doing the hard yards, and he has never been a team player! Good luck and good night!

Plaudits to a great blog - Road to Surfdom is winding up

I was saddened to click to the Road to Surfdom blog and find a post informing us of the winding up (temporarily I hope) of this great blog.

My blinkered efforts on behalf of refugees and other belaboured souls have trailed off since the election of the Rudd govt, which has a notional grasp on the universality of human rights, something the Howard govt singularly failed to understand.

I felt at the time of starting my blog that the mainstream media was largely inept in its analysis of human rights violations on Howard's watch. Although most bloggers with a political bent wear their hearts on their sleeves, they have battled to fill a vacant lot abandoned by media insiders in their slavish determination to be paid up members of the political club.

As Tim puts it so eloquently:

"The fact is, Australia’s mainstream media is moribund. Although there are great journalists and other contributors out there, the institution itself is stuck in a hopeless, self-serving, tenured cul-de-sac and is failing in its job to properly inform, discuss, debate and entertain. Not to mention, reinvent itself. The form is dominated by a handful of insiders who have grown so content with their own lot that they are immune to sensible criticism and lack the self-awareness to reassess what it is they are doing. They are supported in this self-satisfied loop by a political class that is happy to exploit the status quo, feeding them leaks and other tidbits to keep the whole charade ticking over in such a way that nothing really changes.

The narratives, the memes, the discussions of our political and social life are set in concrete and endlessly recycle. We have learned to accept the daily, largely manufactured, controversies of political and social discussion in lieu of genuine examination. The same voices — and there are only about 20 of them — continue to define what is important or useful or worthy of discussion and the few organs of the mainstream media keep churning them out. Their lack of seriousness is only matched by their lack of courage."

I'm a bit late but bon chance Tim in your next endeavours. Thanks for your brave insights comrade.

Beautiful NZ - images for the soul

I have recently been in picturesque NZ. What a fabulous feast for the eyes and the bruised soul. I decided to go the black and white route as brilliant colour shots abound and the stark contrasts of B & W speak to me of mystery and the unknowable...

Alert & Alarmed: Human haemorrhoid calls PM Rudd a toxic bore, polls suggest public contemplating painful surgery!

And as for that other Corey, I loved this piece in the SMH!

Kraken is back from extended hols!

A tale of a humanist who loves books - Looking for a Good Book - a memoir of a life spent in Australia and Papua New Guinea

My earliest memories of my father are permeated by books. They were an integral part of the daily rhythms of his life. Books arrived constantly in boxes or cardboard sleeves, by ship and by air to our tropical outpost [in Papua New Guinea]; they were forever being stacked or rearranged in hall cupboards as protection against the ubiquitous threats of pests and damp. During his waking hours he was happiest musing over book catalogues or perusing the literary gold within his latest acquisition. It was a highly infectious affliction that he willingly passed on to his son. [Looking for a Good Book] is his 'tale of a gentle madness', written by my father during his sixties and seventies, the story of a book collector thrown hither and thither by tumultuous events beyond his control.

To set the scene of a quest for the roots of 'madness' like no other, the author dwells on several dramatic episodes from history (the battles for Troy, Gallipoli and the Aztec empire) that cast light on the sometimes fickle nature of literary records of human folly, frailty and fragility. He ponders the vital role chroniclers of history and creative writers perform in enriching our appreciation and understanding of past events. We are taken on a whimsical exploration of the 'anatomy' of collecting, and asked to consider the pathology of this 'madness' through the lens of anthropologists, psychologists, logisticians and historical informants.

The author was born in Victoria in 1919. The memoir casts back over his childhood in Golden Square and Eaglehawk in the Bendigo region. He remembers key influences on his early development as a reader and on his lifelong passion for book collecting. He left school at thirteen to work in a series of jobs in rural Victoria, joined the YMCA, and enlisted in the Australian Army in 1941. I once asked him whether his parents collected books. He replied they had none but the family next door lent him books. This part of the tale provides a snapshot of growing up in a small rural Victorian township in the 1920s and 1930s. We are told of his apprenticeship as a butter maker, membership of the YMCA, and aspirations to become a journalist. His increasing interest in and knowledge of writers and books is woven into all aspects of retelling his story: 'The progress from a desire to read, to a similar urge for ownership, indicates the affliction is now gathering momentum'.

The author describes the years following his demobilisation, during which he gained admission to the University of Adelaide under the Commonwealth Reconstruction Scheme. On completion of a Diploma in Social Science he joined the colonial administration in Papua New Guinea as a junior education officer. In preparation for his colonial service in early 1949 he was admitted to the Australian School of Pacific Administration (ASOPA) located in Sydney. His association with the school lasted for 24 years, both as a student and later as a sometime lecturer. The first-hand account of studying at the ASOPA is a highlight of the memoir.

In late 1949 the author began his long career in Papua New Guinea, where he quickly climbed through the ranks to serve with distinction in a number of positions including Executive Officer for Social Development and Director of Child Welfare. He describes journeys into isolated areas, indigenous communities he visited, his appreciation of the work of colleagues and his own role in key actions of the Australian colonial government. Writers on PNG are canvassed, several of whom were personal acquaintances of the author. He retired from the PNG administration in 1973. In 2000 he received recognition for his contribution in a 25th Year of Independence award from the Government of Papua New Guinea.

My father survived wartime injury and illness and dangerous journeys in post-war PNG, and throughout his long and eventful life, books have remained a passion. In this book he tells us of his philosophy of book collecting, the methodology he applied in putting his collection together and historical antecedents to his 'madness'. The book finishes as he started, with my father musing on the nature of this affliction. He quotes Holbrook Jackson to advise fellow travellers about the joys of reading and collecting books. The rich and varied library he has collected is a fine testament to his continuing search for a good book.

‘Looking for a Good Book’ by Reginald Thomson. Order your copy [hardcover, 152 pp, $20 including postage] by contacting me by email: thomwil@homemail.com.au

Following is a recent review posted by Keith Jackson on his website, PNG Attitude:

"Reginald Thomson has written a book about books or, to be more precise, about his love of books.

Coincidentally Looking for a Good Book (Copyright, Brisbane, 2008) comes from the same publisher who brought us Gail Burke’s Meeting the Challenge.

While, unlike Challenge, this is not a book solely about PNG, it contains much that offers fresh insights into life in PNG between World War II and Independence. Which is not easy given the body of expatriate literature, published and unpublished, about the then Australian territory.

Reginald lived in PNG from 1949-73, beginning his career as a teacher and ending it as a distinguished public servant in the exacting post of Director of Child Welfare.

The central characteristic of Looking for a Good Book is the quality of the prose and of the extensive literary and life experience of the author. This, in short, is a book to read in phases – first for the savouring and then retained on the shelf for the occasional foray.

Reginald Thomson was born near Bendigo in Victoria in 1919. He left school at 13 to work for the YMCA and enlisted in the Australian Army in 1941. The book describes his Army training and his initial war service in New Guinea and at Balikpapan on Borneo.

After World War II, Reginald took a Diploma in Social Science, soon moving on to ASOPA. In the introduction to the book, his son Dr Mark Thomson writes: “The firsthand account of studying at ASOPA is a highlight of the memoir.” I agree. This is historic stuff and the cost of the book (just $20 including postage) is worth these reminiscences alone.

If you’re looking for a good book, Looking for a Good Book is for you. It is a well written and acutely recalled memoir. And underpinning everything is the author’s obsession with books. Made all the more poignant, as many of us who found ourselves in far flung parts of PNG would understand, by the largely unacknowledged part that books, precious books, played in our lives."

Human rights in Australia: Time to review mandatory detention of asylum seekers

ABC news reports "Australia's human rights commissioner Graeme Innes is urging the Federal Government not to use the new immigration detention centre on Christmas Island."

Australia continues to disregard human rights in the treatment of asylum seekers. The government is detaining new arrivals on Christmas Island in a facility that has the hallmarks of a prison.

The usual suspects come out of the woodwork to brand these people 'queue jumpers' etc, to justify their treatment as criminals or 'illegals'. We should have a clear position on this question, requiring the government to treat new arrivals humanely and to counter attempts by politicians, media and other commentators to demonize them for political and other purposes.

The ghost of the Pacific Solution and the shop of horrors that was the Howard Govt's refugee program still lingers in the corridors of power and will not be exorcised until these horrors are revealed and the true mentality behind their prosecution is exposed.

It is time for the ALP to review its mandatory detention policy and wring the necessary changes. A public information program to explain the reasoning behind the changes, including Australia's obligations under international refugee and human rights instruments, could usher a new awareness of our collective standing and responsibility as a defender of human rights.

SBS Documentary - The Edmund Rice Centre's "A well-grounded fear"

I have just posted the following comment on the SBS website chatroom on this excellent doco:

"Thank you for your documentary. I was a witness to much of the 'process' associated with the Nauru detainees as a member of the DIMIA coordinating committee for the Nauru detention facilities. I have been raising concerns about the violations perpetrated by the Howard Govt since early 2005 through my blog at http://seekingasylumdownunder2.blogspot.com/
I have written three times to Sen Evans in his capacity as Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, seeking a judicial inquiry into the refugee policies of the Howard Govt. On the 3rd occasion I received the standard perfunctory reply from DIMC stating everything is now hunky dory on the human rights front and that an inquiry would be inappropriate. I suggested terms of reference for the inquiry. One of my suggested areas of investigation was the "wrongful repatriation of asylum seekers (a particular concern of the UN Committee against Torture)". My ToR were, of course, much broader in scope because I hold strong views that the mandatory detention policy should be investigated and that those responsible for human rights violations held accountable, mainly to ensure it can never happen again."

It is time to pursue these issues more forthrightly. Politicians and public servants must understand the inviolable nature of human rights and that their systematic violation diminishes us all.