The Hammered Festival takes place in Brizvegas this weekend. The event celebrates the birth of a (misunderstood) dead, foreign, incestuous, coprophiliac dictator in 1889 and the 20th anniversary of the Hammerskins Down Under. An assortment of neo-Nazi pinheads will be gathering somewhere in the city to get drunk, sweaty and shirtless and sing along with a bunch of racist, sexist homophobic nerds. The Festival generated some heat a few months back and in the days prior two news items: a short piece on JJJ’s Hack and an article in Fairfax.
(From) Aotearoa/New Zealand (to Sweden)
‘Right Wing Resistance New Zealand’ (RWRNZ) is the name indefatigable Mormon racist Kyle Chapman has given to one of his newest organising projects. To celebrate WPWW Day — aka the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination — Kyle and some 80 or so of his followers marched through Christchurch. The relative degree of success experienced by the group, along with its snazzy name, has generated some online support, with Right Wing Resistance X springing up in several different countries including Australia. In Sweden, RWR recently attended a rally called by neo-Nazis belonging to the National Democrats.
two men and a woman in black bomb jackets and inspects the fountain in the square. Peter Kremer says he leads the Swedish part of a new right organization.
– We are from the Right Wing Resistance. We belong to the extreme right. What we stand for? To preserve the white race. You will hear of us.
Peter Kremer says that they support the National Democratic Party demonstration. That he “knows all” in ND. He says:
– The problem is immigration. Those who bear the greatest responsibility is our Prime Minister who allowed that we get all the crap here. The government is in charge. There is no liability. Just scoop up with immigrants and then they do not take care of the problem. I’m so sick of this shit.
…Bara några minuter senare kommer två män och en kvinna i svarta bomberjackor och inspekterar fontänen på torget. Peter Kremer säger att han leder den svenska delen av en ny högerorganisation.
– Vi är från Right Wing Resistance. Vi tillhör extremhögern. Vad vi står för? Att bevara den vita rasen. Ni kommer att höra talas om oss.
Peter Kremer säger att de stöder Nationaldemokraternas demonstration. Att han “känner alla” i ND. Han säger:
– Problemet är invandringen. De som bär största ansvaret är vår statsminister som har tillåtit att vi får in all skit här. Regeringen är huvudansvarig. Det finns inget ansvar. Bara ös in med invandrare och sen tar de inte hand om problemet. Jag är så less på den här skiten.
RaHoWa!
Canada
Canuckistan is the only other place on this bright green globe where WPWW Day was publicly celebrated this year, with tiny rallies in Edmonton (Alberta) and London (Ontario). A month later, and some of the boneheads belonging to the Canadian branch of ‘Blood & Honour’, including Kyle McKee, have been arrested and charged with assault.
On March 24, two males were attacked and assaulted late at night outside of a Mill Woods liquor store. One of the males was assaulted with a bottle of liquor.
The attack occurred on the heels of a White Pride Rally held in Edmonton on the same day. Just after noon, between 15 and 20 balaclava-wearing demonstrators belonging to the group Blood and Honour began marching along Jasper Avenue waving a huge white flag that read “White Pride Worldwide.”
The funeral last month of murdered Chilean Daniel Zamudio attracted thousands of mourners.
Daniel Zamudio, 24, was beaten on March 3 during a six-hour ordeal. Pictures released by his family show the attackers beat the openly gay man in the head, burned him with cigarettes and carved Nazi symbols and slogans on his body. He died from his injuries 25 days later. The four suspects who have been arrested in the case are thought to belong to a neo-Nazi group. Aged 19 to 25, they deny allegations of attacking Zamudio and of being neo-Nazis.
Sounds familiar.
Germany
German hackers driving the virtual panzers behind #OpBlitzkrieg have been interviewed by Brian Whelan for The Local. Or one of ’em, anyway. The naughty German’s hackery-dackery-do has really annoyed some, “so much that messages have been posted on the right-wing Altermedia site offering a reward for any information about the identity of the hackers”. (Chances are, those responsible will much moar likely be unveiled by the German state and/or Interpol than via Altermedia.) According to the Anon hacker: “Operation Blitzkrieg was founded in February 2011 and went public in May. We have access to many fascist email accounts we haven’t released yet… For a while we will gather that data and when we have what we want, we will release it for the public. Expect us!”
Shazam!
Norway
Deeply patriotic Norwegian Anders Breivik has gone on trial for mass murder. Or for seeking to protect Norway from the Mulsamic invaders. Or something. Guy Rundle (Crikey, April 17, 2012) reckons that, while Anders may have a bit of roof damage, his murderous rampage can only really be understood by reference to his political environment.
From relentless attacks on Roma people in eastern Europe and Italy — now state-sponsored by the Northern League and Hungary’s Jobbik party — to the “Casa Pound” neo-fascist groups in Italy who attack, sometimes lethally, isolated African migrants, to neo-Nazi attacks in East Germany, homophobic attacks in Poland, and menacing “demonstrations” by the EDL in the UK, Breivik’s targeted, lethal attacks swim in a sea of violence, much of it fuelled by a calculated right-wing hysteria pumped out by “respectable” authors such as Mark Steyn and Daniel Pipes.
Oddly enough, ‘casapound’ was the handle adopted by former Patriotik Yoof Leauge spokesd00d Luke Connors; the crazy-talk about Mooselems saturates online social networks as well as the rhetoric of large segments of the Australian far right (tho’ the Australian Defence League is pretty much pants at the moment).
Despite police harassment, on (Sunday) April 15, several hundred anti-fascists marched in Bialystok. The rally was called in response to recent fascist violence. According to ZSP Warsaw:
On the night of April 8-9, a band of fascists in Bialystok went on a spree of violence, attacking people in some clubs, screaming about killing gays and leftists. Some people were stabbed, one guy was beaten to death. Many of the attackers were related to the group Blood and Honor. In response to this, antifascists called for a mobilization on April 15. As there are not many in that city, they asked people from Warsaw to support.
A jealous lover of human liberty, and deeming it the absolute condition of all that we admire and respect in humanity, I reverse the phrase of Voltaire, and say that, if God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish Him.
I think one of the more interesting aspects of the conference was the attendance of a small group (apparently from Dandenong Mosque) of protesting Muslim men. In and of itself, this incident wasn’t that remarkable. After all, atheism is a damanable crime in the eyes of some religiously-minded folk, whether Muslim or Christian or neither (and Christians too expressed vocal opposition to the Convention). But three things make their shouty noteworthy.
First, the reaction to it — especially the decision by two same-sex couples to kiss in front of the protesters — prompted some disco on my Twitter account. Secondly, the incident raises the question of the political flavour of the GAC, especially in light of Jeff Sparrow’s argument concerning ‘The Weaponization of Atheism’. Finally, the protest, Jeff’s writing (and of course much other commentary) and the content of the GAC itself begs the question of whether or not there are, in fact, any particular political implications associated with or proceeding from atheism, whether ‘New’ or ‘Old’.
Go To Hell!
So, to begin with, here’s the text of the placards that the protesters waved:
• Al-QURAN The FINAL TESTAMENT ISLAM The Only Monotheistic Religion
• Athiesm [sic] is the CANCER Islam is the ANSWER
• Christopher Hitchens FINAL DESTINATION > HELL FIRE
• Atheism is humiliation of reason ISLAM is the only SOLUTION
• Every creation has a CREATOR
• Atheism is a Mental ILLNESS We are the Son’s of ADAM Not the Son’s of APES
• Message to INFIDEL Ayaan Hirsi Ali BURN IN HELL FOREVER
• Atheism = HELL FIRE Islam = PARADISE
• MOHAMMAD P.B.U.H. the LAST & FINAL Messenger of ALLAH
• THERE IS NO GOD BUT ALLAH
Among the few chants I was able to hear and understand were ‘Allahu Akbar!’ (‘God is great!’) and ‘Christopher Hitchens, burn in Hell!’
Now, on the one hand, I’m not rationally convinced that God exists, let alone is great and so big, so absolutely huge, so strong and, well, just so super, that He requires constant reminders of same; on the other hand, I doubt even if he were still alive, Hitchens would mind being condemned in this fashion.
So, in response to Twitter critic Benjamin Solah’s observation that “Muslims are hardly the people to target” and that a protest outside of the GAC may be considered appropriate “given the Islamophobes and pro-war, pro-torture figure-heads inside”, I think it would be more accurate to observe that: a) on this occasion, it was a small group of Muslim men who had elected to target a gathering of atheists, and; b) their reasoning, rather than animated by a concern for ending state violence or promoting, say, the UN Convention Against Torture, was entirely religious, condemnatory and triumphalist.
The Four Horsemen
Be that as it may, The Four Horsemen Three Horsemen (and One Horsewoman) who spoke at the Convention do express the opinion that while Islam, like other religions, is fundamentally flawed, the nature of its doctrines pose particularly serious problems for liberal society/Truth, Justice, and the American Way. This analysis is contained in numerous equine productions; the filmed discussion between Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens in September 2007, later released as The Four Horsemen, is a case in point.
Gathered together at the New York apartment of the Drink-Soaked Ex-Trotskyite Popinjay For War, at one stage in the discussion, Daniel Dennett asks his fellow riders what they consider to be their priorities in terms of combating irrational belief. He then suggests that they look at Islam. “Is there any remote chance of a reformed, reasonable Islam?”, he asks. Dawkins reacts by expressing some confusion over Wahabbism and its relationship to Islam; Harris states that the religion is in fundamental opposition to modernism, while Hitchens points out that there have been Islamic regimes, in the past, which have been relatively liberal. He then adds that, like all religions, there is a totalitarian impulse in Islam, one which is compounded by the fact that it claims, unlike Christianity and Judaism, that it is — as the sign carried by one of the Muslim counter-protesters read — THE FINAL TESTAMENT. And an end to inquiry is an end to freedom.
For Jeff Sparrow, this concentration upon Islam — and the policy recommendations which would seem to flow from it — is deeply objectionable. Thus “Today, we can identify an atheism that’s not so much militant as weaponised – that is, deployed, all too often, in the service of the extreme Right… [in] arguments for war and state repression, tricked out as scepticism”. As Jeff notes, these arguments were often deployed with great relish by Hitchens, as in the case of this tribute (Adam Shatz, ‘The Left and 9/11’, The Nation, September 5, 2002) to the use in Afghanistan of cluster bombs by the US armed forces:
If you’re actually certain that you’re hitting only a concentration of enemy troops…then it’s pretty good because those steel pellets will go straight through somebody and out the other side and through somebody else. And if they’re bearing a Koran over their heart, it’ll go straight through that, too. So they won’t be able to say, ‘Ah, I was bearing a Koran over my heart and guess what, the missile stopped halfway through.’ No way, ’cause it’ll go straight through that as well. They’ll be dead, in other words.
Further: “Cluster bombs are perhaps not good in themselves, but when they are dropped on identifiable concentrations of Taliban troops, they do have a heartening effect” (‘It’s a good time for war’, The Boston Globe, September 9, 2002). Jeff also draws attention to another of Hitchens’ speeches of November 2004, of which Mike Ludders (Columnist Hitchens lectures on political dissent, The Kenyon Collegian, November 18, 2004) wrote:
Hitchens unequivocally endorsed the recent siege of Fallujah, saying at the podium “the death toll is not nearly high enough … too many [jihadists] have escaped.” He continued on this path for some time, later saying that his “hatred” of fundamentalists, whom he characterized as being the majority of anti-U.S./U.K. forces in Iraq, is “much more pure, much more rational, and much more enduring” than their hatred for him or the West. Hitchens elaborated that this was because “[the jihadist’s] hate is irrational, it’s at all of life. He wants to destroy his own and others[.]” Hitchens contrasted this with his sentiment to love his own life and respect those of others, which he said “will more surely see me through” than the rage of the enemy.
Jeff also points out that such attitudes are shared by two other mounted scholars: Sam Harris and Ali Ayaan Hirsi:
Sam Harris… thinks that atheists have a special insight into the war on terror, which should, he says, [be] understood as a conflict against ‘a pestilential theology and a longing for paradise’. Most liberals, he continues, fail to understand ‘how dangerous and depraved our enemies in the Muslim world are’. Indeed, ‘the people who speak most sensibly about the threat that Islam poses to Europe are actually fascists.’
‘We are at war with Islam,’ she says bluntly. ‘And there’s no middle ground in wars.’ ‘All Muslim schools. Close them down. Yeah, that sounds absolutist. I think 10 years ago things were different, but now the jihadi genie is out of the bottle.’
Now and Then
In seeking an explanation for the emergence of this New, ‘weaponised’ atheism, Jeff argues that “a comparison with the past is instructive”. By way of illustration, in the late nineteenth century, things in Melbourne — the location of the 2012 Global Atheist Convention — were very different. At that time, he relates, Christianity dominated public life, and atheism was a minority doctrine adherence to which entailed real risk of persecution; like Islam today, atheism was “organizationally and socially a fringe sect, proselytizing ideas that the mainstream found foreign and threatening”. But atheists also cultivated allies among the poor and, having disassociated itself from the liberal, elitist vision of men like Symes, became more strongly linked to the labour movement, anarchism and socialism: “In a few decades time, the Russian revolution cemented an association between atheism and social reform, to the extent that, for many reactionaries, ‘godless’ and ‘commie’ became almost synonymous”.
In essence, then, where atheism once formed part of a broader radical arsenal, it is now an elite pursuit, and reflects the interests of those who usually propagate it: an educated, white, male population, not only content with secular authority but seeking its extension and amplification on a global scale. By force, if necessary, but (of course) only in self-defence, and always at the behest of locals (especially women).
In terms of political prescription, then, The New Atheists would appear to depend upon a belief in the work of social scientists such as Samuel Huntington. Unlike a good natural scientist, however, his theses regarding The Clash of Civilizations™ are seldom put to the test by these scienticians, and the means by which (religious) ideology is given expression left largely unexamined. That is, whereas these members of the atheist calvary are happy to denounce religious belief as stoopid, and the behaviour of religious folk stoopid to the same degree:
The traditional Left approach to belief begins with a recognition that religion is not simply a set of ideas. Religion is a cultural identity; it’s also simultaneously an aesthetic, a system of feeling, a guide to social and sexual conduct, an organizational framework and many other things besides. These different functions contradict and complement each other in all sorts of ways.
That’s why the same holy texts can, in different social settings, give rise to entirely different behaviours and attitudes; it’s why both the Anabaptists and Pat Robertson can claim inspiration from the New Testament.
And so on and so forth. Further: “Even put as schematically as that, the argument suggests a particular political response. Atheists and others seeking to fostering secularism in the Arab world might do so by, first and foremost, ending the military interventions that have brought so much suffering.” As Chomsky puts it:
The U.S. has always supported the most extreme fundamentalist Islamic movements and still does. The oldest and most valued ally of the U.S. in the Arab world is Saudi Arabia, which is also the most extremist fundamentalist state. By comparison, Iran looks like a free democratic society – but Saudi Arabia was doing its job. The enemy for most of this period has been secular nationalism. U.S.-Israeli relations, for example, really firmed up in 1967 when Israel performed a real service for the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. Namely, it smashed the main center of secular nationalism, (Gamal Abdul) Nasser’s Egypt, which was considered a threat and more or less at war with Saudi Arabia at the time. It was threatening to use the huge resources of the region for the benefit of the population of the countries of the region, and not to fill the pockets of some rich tyrant while vast profits flowed to Western corporations.
Q. Is it racist to argue that the social emancipation of the Muslim is the emancipation of society from Islam?
Bonus Said!
See also : Jeff Sparrow, Unholy Enthusiasm, Meanjin, Vol.69, No.1, 2010 | #atheistcon, War and Words, April 18, 2012.
PuSsY RiOt is a kick-arse group of anarchist/feminist/punk malcontents from Russia. Formed in October last year, their creative acts of resistance to the plutocracy in that country has made them, like so many others, targets of state repression.
Currently, three alleged members of the group–Maria Alekhina, Ekaterina Samucevich and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova–have been arrested, charged with “hooliganism”, remanded in jail, and face up to a further 7 years imprisonment if found guilty.
Their crime?
To allegedly take part in the following prank (February 21):
On April 19 the trio are in court in Moscow; April 19 is also a global day of protest. In Melbourne, supporters are being asked to rally on Friday, April 20 from 4pm outside Parliament House. Feel free to bring musical instruments and brightly coloured balaclavas, or make your own at the event, courtesy of Craft Cartel. MC Izzy will be blasting out hip-hop beats during the balaclava making; speakers include Karen Pickering (Cherchez La Femme/Slutwalk Melbourne), Marisa (Anarchist Black Cross Melbourne), Dale (3CR Girls Radio Offensive) and a glittering array of others, with MC Sean Bedlam.
On the April 16 episode of Q&A, Australian Attorney-General Nicola Roxon, in response to a question regarding ASIO spying on coal protesters, revealed that there are “a growing number of links across some sort of groups who are anarchist, others who meld into some religious, sometimes, and intent with committing a terrorist offence that might link in with other protest groups”.
Catfish?
Tony Jones:
But just to confirm, you’re saying ASIO proactively is not allowed to go and visit people it potentially thinks might commit a crime? Nicola Roxon:
It can proactively visit people within its remit: politically-motivated violence, espionage, counter-terrorism… Tony Jones:
Coal protesters who say they might break the law, is that in that category? Nicola Roxon:
It depends what… I think there is always going to be a boundary. Peaceful protest is one thing, and sometimes peaceful protest can break the law, but there is also a lot of industrial sabotage, which gets to a point where it is actually the commission of quite a serious crime. So there might be people who were involved in that, and I would expect that the contact if there was any of that behaviour, would be police, both state and federal, rather than ASIO. But there may be people and unfortunately we do see a growing number of links across some sort of groups who are anarchist, others who meld into some religious, sometimes, and intent with committing a terrorist offence that might link in with other protest groups — you do see a little bit of merging, but there are a lot of people who are involved individually in those that cause and intend to cause absolutely no harm, and would have no reason to fear that ASIO is in any way monitoring what they were doing.
Update : A small group of maybe 25 or 30 Muslim protesters rocked up to the Convention on Sunday, chanting and waving signs and condemning those in attendance to Hell. They inspired these two men (“Adam & Steve”?) to kiss.
Briefly:
Peter Singer‘s presentation was fairly standard, essentially liberal (& even idealist) account of human history, w reason as handmaiden to progress & state as progressive social formation (accompanied by various other problematic claims); Leslie Cannold provided some useful infos re Constitutional law & religion (ie non-/separation of church+state) in Australian context w appeal for political engagement; Dan Barker was amusing, personable & gently subversive; Political Panel was OK (v ABC) but sadly lacked genuwine fire-breathing anarchist (“God being everything, the real world and man are nothing. God being truth, justice, goodness, beauty, power, and life, man is falsehood, iniquity, evil, ugliness, impotence, and death. God being master, man is the slave.”) w seemingly most outspoken member being self-confessed & altogether chirpy Xtian Marion Maddox; Daniel Dennett was funny & philosophical (& obv addressing a much wider audience) but towards end compressed a series of arguments & concepts (esp inre epistemology) into too-brief a passage of time; AC Grayling was AC Grayling, meaning I still dunno what’s next for atheism; Lawrence Krauss was neat — & I feel like I now got moar bRanes (cf. Singer) merely having had the opp to listen to him — but otoh could have been making it all up AFAIK; Geoffrey Robertson was… Geoffrey Robertson, & v good on Catholic Church v Catholic children (note to self: read his book on subject); Ayaan Hirsi Ali articulated familiar critique of North African/Middle East politics (& I think prolly managed to induce some white liberal guilt at the same time) but mostly ignored historical context & finally; Richard Dawkins celebrated intelligent design (as part of wider attempt to problematise language) but I still fail to see why Professor fails to appreciate the vast literature on moral philosophy…
CONFIDENTIAL police reports have detailed the suicides of at least 40 people sexually abused by Catholic clergy in Victoria, and have urged a new inquiry into these and many other deaths suspected to be linked to abuse in the church.
In a damning assessment of the church’s handling of abuse issues, the reports say it appears the church has known about a shockingly high rate of suicides and premature deaths but has “chosen to remain silent.”
Written by Detective Sergeant Kevin Carson, the reports state that while conducting lengthy inquiries into paedophile clergy, investigators have discovered “an inordinate number of suicides which appear to be a consequence of sexual offending”…
In any case, the call for some kind of government inquiry into Church abuse and its effects has been made many times in the past — in fact, for almost the last two decades. In other words, since the early- to mid-1990s, during which time Cardinal Pell was famously photographed (August 1993) lending his support to paedophile priest Gerard Ridsdale outside Melbourne Magistrates Court — a comradely act which Pell is yet to live down.
In Ireland (see also : Philadelphia), the investigatory response by government has seemingly been quite thorough, and therefore quite distinct from that of governments in Australia, and especially Victoria. On the other hand, only one or two MPs (the Member for Oakleigh, Ann Barker, and Greens MP Colleen Hartland) appear to have registered public concern, and the great mass of Catholics in the state are silent, as is the clergy (with one or two exceptions). In terms of authorising a genuine inquiry then, and in the absence of significant public concern, the main consideration for the Baillieu government will presumably be not wanting to alienate the Church or conservative opinion. Further, given only marginal public concern, it would seem that only marginal political advantage would be obtained through paying such matters serious attention. Finally, such an inquiry risks uncovering misdeeds in very high places…
Unfortunately for both Church and State, the Cummins Report (of the Protecting Victoria’s Vulnerable Children Inquiry) — intended to examine general conditions faced by vulnerable children rather than Church abuse specifically, and tabled in Parliament on February 28 — made numerous recommendations, among them:
48. A formal investigation should be conducted into the processes by which religious organisations respond to the criminal abuse of children by religious personnel within their organisations. Such an investigation should possess the powers to compel the elicitation of witness evidence and of documentary and electronic evidence.
The most recent major case involving a Catholic paedophile was that of Robert Best. In May last year it was publicly disclosed that “Best was found guilty at trial of 21 charges, including the rape of a nine-year-old disabled boy, and later pleaded guilty to a further six”. (Best is currently appealing against the 21 charges.) His conviction was of course a public relations nightmare for the Church, requiring significant and ongoing additional expenditure on top of the massive sums already invested in his legal defence. Broken Rites:
When Best’s lawyers suddenly lodged Best’s guilty plea in court on 30 May 2011, the Christian Brothers Order was ready with a public statement which it immediately sent to media outlets. The Order issued the statement through a public relations firm that handles publicity for the Catholic Church in Melbourne. The statement said that it was being issued on behalf of the Christian Brothers Oceania (that is, Australia and the Pacific). It said:
“The Christian Brothers Oceania have offered a sincere and unreserved apology to several former students sexually abused by a member of their Order.
“It was revealed in the County Court of Victoria this afternoon that, as a result of trials lasting over several months, Christian Brother Robert Best was found guilty on several counts of sexual abuse involving a total of eight complainants and pleaded guilty to several such counts in relation to a further three complainants…”
The statement gave the phone numbers of the church’s public relations firm, where the media could make any further inquiries.
The apology was specifically limited to those complainants who managed to convict Best in the 2010-2011 trials. The apology did not mention the victim in the 1996 conviction and it did not extend to any other boys who had been harmed by Best.
Of which there have almost certainly been hundreds.
In general, like any smart businessmen, Church authorities have sought to minimise or avoid legal liability and fiscal responsibility for their company’s crimes. (The legal status of paedophile priests has effectively been that of independent sub-contractors.) Thus the processes which the Catholic Church instituted in Melbourne (1996–) to address child sexual assault by its priests are widely-acknowledged (outside of the Church) as being flawed, at least in terms of obtaining justice for victims. The outcome for the Church, however, has been relatively positive, with the details of many cases effectively suppressed and at relatively low (financial) cost. (For most of its existence, the so-called Pell Process (‘Melbourne Response’) capped compensation claims at $50,000. From 1996 to 2002, the Pell Process paid 126 victims a total of $3 million, an average of $24,000 each.) Further, the Church has typically conducted vigorous legal defences of alleged paedophiles — a fact which, when combined with the fact that such cases are notoriously difficult to prove in court, makes for a pretty neat bulwark against accounting for all the dead bodies.
Chrissie Foster writes (Hell on the Way to Heaven, Bantam, 2010, pp.149–150):
By the mid-1990s, although many people had tried, no-one in Australia had ever successfully sued the Catholic Church. One particular solicitor… was David Forster. He tried to take the Church to court with civil claims of negligence and found it extremely frustrating.
‘The difficulties are enormous’, Mr Forster expressed in 1996. ‘There’s an argument being run by the Catholic Church lawyers that the Church doesn’t exist as a legal entity. That’s the legal position. They’re not a company; they’re not a registered incorporated body in the usual sense. It’s saying it’s above the law and [with] that approach it’s acting as though it’s above the law.’
The lawyer and many other solicitors could see no way around it. ‘What the Church is effectively saying to victims is sorry… we’re sorry it all happened, we know it happened but we’re not going to pay any damages, we’re not going to be responsible for it.’
And that was why the Pell Process was so effective for the Church. So many victims felt compelled by impossibility of choice to take whatever one-off payment the Church panel offered, even if it did stipulate it was ‘for any amount of abuse, by any number of priests for the rest of their lives’.
See also : Suffer the Children : Sexual Abuse and the Catholic Church (August 5, 2011) | The Case Of The Pope (Terry Eagleton’s review of Geoffrey Robertson’s book of the same title, The Sydney Morning Herald, October 1, 2010). *Australian readers seeking support and information about suicide prevention can contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Suicide Call Back Service on 1300 659 467.
Assuming God or a bus doesn’t strike me down between now and then, I’m gonna go to the 2012 Global Atheist Convention this weekend. In preparation I’ve been reading and watching some stuff about atheism, or to be precise The New Atheism™. Most recently, Jeff Sparrow’s article The Weaponization of Atheism (Counterpunch, April 9, 2012). It’s a neat article and includes one or two things that kinda struck me — not like a lightning bolt cast by an angry God but more like… I dunno, a gentle tap on the shoulder from a friendly cat or something.
First, money. To be precise: a) “These days, it is religion, not atheism, that correlates with poverty” and; b) “There’s an obvious rightward dynamic in tremendously wealthy authors ([Sam Harris‘s] fee is $25,000 which includes airfare.’) regaling audiences of the well-educated and the well-to-do about the ignorance and stupidity of immigrants and the poor”.
Secondly, history. Or rather, Jeff’s thesis regarding the political divorce of The New Atheism of the early twenty-first century from the atheism of late nineteenth century Melbourne. (See also Gary Bouma.) In essence, the movement from left to right.
I don’t have the time or the inclination to explore these and the other questions Jeff raises now, but I’ll probably return to them later: that is, after the show. Briefly: I’m not sure the relationship between wealth and belief is at all straightforward, tho’ certainly anybody seeking to hold the Catholic Church to account for the rape and sexual assault of children by some of its clergy will be forced to agree that the Church’s apparent prosperity is seemingly impossible to ascertain legally. Secondly, if the atheist agitators of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries advanced a broader and more radical critique of Australian society, they were also able to draw upon a combative labour movement, a movement which is as absent in reality now as God was in their imaginations then.
Oh, and the episode of Q&A in which Pell battled Dawkins for ideological supremacy? Apart from displaying Dawkins’ ability to put the fear of God into those of us who find laughter refreshing, it naturally brought to mind the name of another holy man: Father Gerard Ridsdale.
In the meantime…
Why have a Global Atheist Convention? asks one of its chief organisers, David Nicholls; Jason Ball on 3CR is what happened when Dr Cam, John Safran and myself invited the Convention’s media guy on to ‘The SUWA Show’ to talk about celebrating reason; Sam Harris on Economics reveals more about Sam’s view that, inter alia, taxes should be raised on billionaires; Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching (London Review of Books, Vol.28, No.20, October 19, 2006) is where (former?) Marxist and cultural theorist Terry Eagleton takes Richard Dawkins to task for the er, philistinism on display in The God Delusion (Bantam, 2006) while finally a radical critique of religion is available in Ken Knabb’s 1977 essay The Realization and Suppression of Religion and more specifically of Islam in Al-Djouhall’s The Misery of Islam (1989).
[Below is a contribution from a health worker addressing negotiations between the Health and Community Services Union (HACSU) (a Victorian branch of the Health Services Union (HSU)) and the Baillieu state government regarding a new Enterprise Bargaining Agreement (EBA) for workers in the public health sector.
As noted previously, the HSU, its current and former leadership, is today in the news for all the wrong reasons. Otherwise, note that in February in Greece, Kilkis General Hospital was occupied by workers. On February 26, the Hospital’s General Assembly issued a statement which read in part:
“This occupation is not only about us, the physicians and the workers at the Kilkis Hospital. Neither is it only about the Greek National Health System, which is collapsing, indeed. We are in this fight because what is in real danger now is the human rights and our lives. And this threat is not against just a nation, or against a few countries, or a few social groups, but against the low and middle classes in Europe, America, Asia, Africa, in the whole world. Today’s Greece, is tomorrow’s picture of Portugal, Spain, Italy and the rest of the countries worldwide.”]
WTF – What The Fuck?
My workplace is awash with radical fervour right now.
Actually, no it isn’t.
Apparently, I’m The Hard-Hitting Union Guy at my workplace. If true, this is an indictment on the state of collective action at the clinic where I work, as I mostly post faxes the union sends and forward their emails to a mostly disinterested staff.
Mostly.
For the last seven months, the Health and Community Services Union (HACSU) has been negotiating on behalf of its members with the Baillieu government for a new Enterprise Bargaining Agreement (EBA), arguing for more than the offered 2.5% pay “rise” (which is really a pay cut given that the current rate of inflation is 3.6%) and better working conditions for nurses and allied health workers across the entire mental health sector. (As opposed to management claims for conditions such as split shifts and worker redeployment to other locations without notice.) HACSU tells its members that they’ve been “fighting” for them and have covered the legal aspects of the industrial action with Fair Work Australia. In my view, this union-run EBA campaign exemplifies the key failings of Australian unionism. In the following article I articulate some of the reasons why I think this, and argue for the need to facilitate actual workers’ control of our workplaces.
The ANF and Mental Health Nurses
In March this year, the Australian Nurses Federation (ANF) concluded six or so months of negotiations. It obtained the same employment conditions that HACSU is still bargaining for.[1] A decisive factor in obtaining this outcome was nurses taking “unprotected” industrial action. These actions supplemented the failing, formal negotiations conducted by the ANF with the government.[2]
Now, if you believe what HACSU state secretary Lloyd Williams had to say about the matter, HACSU was working rigorously alongside ANF throughout this period. This display of solidarity has not, however, been reciprocated now that the ANF has concluded negotiations for its membership, many of whom are employed in the mental health sector. In other words, the ANF finished negotiations without ensuring its entire membership was included in the agreed settlement. Indeed, allied health workers (such as Occupational Therapists and Social Workers) had no idea about what ANF’s success meant for them. This may seem like a strange statement — why would nurses’ bargaining relate to allied health? — but the perception among workers in the sector has rightly been that ‘we’re all in this together’ and precisely because we service the same or similar cohort: the acutely unwell.
I don’t know for sure, but I presume that the ANF was negotiating in regard to awards that do not cover mental health (for nurses). I do know that many nurses in my workplace felt stiffed when it was brought to their attention that the ANF’s so-called “victory” constituted no such thing for them. It’s certainly hard to see how concern for all nurses affected by Baillieu’s unreasonable proposed conditions is being practiced here, and the ANF does not appear to support HACSU’s EBA campaign in any meaningful way at present, despite it mirroring their own. This further demonstrates a lack of solidarity for allied health mental health workers who, again, service the same cohort but in a different manner and not necessarily in the same locus (ie. community clinics and “Thomas Embling”, the prison/hospital/psych ward).
HACSU and HSU – East
To further complicate matters in the sector, confusion reigned last year when HSU–East actually settled negotiations with the Baillieu government, most notably accepting the proposed 2.5% pay rise over the next four years, reportedly for fear that continuing to argue for a greater — and entirely reasonable — pay increase could somehow lead to further loss of pay. This has greatly hampered mental health nurses’ and allied (mental) health workers’ access to reasonable pay increases and work conditions, as the Victorian Hospitals Industrial Association (VHIA) opportunistically took this poorly-represented union’s settlement and ran with it all the way to Fair Work Australia (FWA) (which arbitrates industrial negotiations such as the present EBA one).
Consequently, HACSU and the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) repudiated HSU’s involvement in EBA negotiations specifically, and their capacity to represent allied health workers in mental health in Victoria more broadly.[3] Thus, many workers who had been keeping HSU staff in good coin for no good reason were stiffed. In fact, all of us workers were stiffed by their actions because it’s made it that much more difficult for our representatives in HACSU to argue our case: I had confused staff asking me what this all meant, both when HSU settled for a terrible EBA but also when the ACTU barred them from the bargaining table. Fortunately, HACSU has been successful in repealing HSU’s settlement through FWA.[4]
Now, as if all this wasn’t bad enough, the HSU has been suspended from the ACTU due to alleged misappropriation of members’ funds and other corrupt practices.
What I conclude from all this is that, whatever their historic role, unions in general have become yet another bureaucratic layer between workers’ efforts to attain greater control over their workplaces and the state. Unions attempt to justify lining their coffers with workers’ money to suit their own cushy ends by complying with increasingly mediated and bureaucratic means of negotiating with employers. FWA arbitration, for example, requires unions to apply for “protected” industrial action, rather than workers directly fighting for better conditions. It’s hard to see how such complicated arrangements are in the interests of workers, who are understandably confused by all of these machinations and who meekly vote “yes” to whatever resolutions they’re spoon-fed at union rallies.
This is not how I define industrial democracy.
Where it’s at
HACSU is now repeating the process undertaken by the ANF in an effort to force through the conditions they’d like to see in the EBA: namely, by conducting work stoppages. However, HACSU doesn’t want workers to “disadvantage” patients and so the stoppages will be two hours long and will roll out variously at different mental health wards and clinics around Victoria. This seems backward to my mind. In reality, it’s the state that’s responsible for adversely affecting patients by a) woefully under-resourcing the mental health sector and b) attempting to stiff workers out of reasonable pay increases and working conditions. Taking such a softly, softly approach and suggesting to workers that we don’t want to inconvenience or place the health and welfare of our clients at risk induces workers to accept the blame for an unacceptable state of affairs in the mental health sector.
Regardless, on the 18th of April, St Vincent’s Mental Health wards and clinics will stop work at 9am and again at 3:30pm for two hour periods. Workers will don their orange campaign t-shirts and walk out on the job to rally out the front of the acute inpatient service at 64 Nicholson St, Fitzroy: it would be nice to see some black-and-red in amongst the crowd.
The slogan for the HACSU EBA 2011 (sic) campaign is, “WTF – Where’s The Funding?”.
Due to popular demand, I thought it was about time I updated Trot Guide — “an overview of the current state-of-play on the Australian far left” — for the year 2012.
In truth, there’s not a great deal to add to the record since I last formally updated the Guide (December 21, 2009); few if any new groupuscules have emerged in the interim. Indeed, it will be my sad and solemn duty to remove a large number of Cheap, Proletarian, Wholesale-Prices-Straight-from-the-Lock-Up Mini-Vanguards from the redlist. On the other hand, I also have the opportunity to survey the wreckage that is the far left in Aotearoa/New Zealand, as well as link to a small range of historical dox which make for great spotterly reading.
First, the losers.
Gone… But Not Forgotten “Your role is finished and you may go where you belong — to the garbage pit of history!” ~ Trotsky (attrib.)
1. Committee for a Revolutionary Communist Party in Australia
2. Communist Left Discussion Circle
3. Communist Party Advocate(s)
4. Democratic Socialist Perspective (DSP)
5. Direct Action (DA)
6. International Socialist Organisation (ISO)
7. Leninist Party Faction (LPF)
8. Marxist Initiative
9. Marxist Solidarity Network (MSN)
10. National Preparatory Committee of the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Australia
11. New Era Communist Party of Australia
12. October Seventh Socialist Movement
13. Revo Australia (Revo)
14. Socialist Action Group (SAG)
15. Socialist Appeal
16. Socialist Democracy (SD)
17. Socialist Labor Party of Australia (SLP)
18. Workers’ League (WL)
19. Workers’ Power (WP)
Undead… Undead?
1. Internationalist Communist Affiliate Network (ICAN)
“Over the weekend of July 10-11 [2010] the Internationalist Communist Affiliate Network (ICAN) held its first round of formal discussions. Six comrades attended the meeting held at Black Rose Anarchist Library and Bookshop in Newtown, Sydney.” AND THEN THEY DISAPPEARED.
2. World Socialist Party of Australia
The WSPA continues to maintain a PO Box in Richmond; I continue to fail to remember to write it asking for confirmation of its continued existence.
Alive and Kicking!
1. (Alliance For) Workers’ Liberty (AWL)
The AWL, like most of the other groups listed below, is part of an international or in this case bi-national (Australia + UK) network. A Trotskyist organisation, the AWL in Australia’s tiny membership seems largely confined to Sydney.
2. Communist League (CL)
I used to think that the CL was either a myth or simply the name the indefatigable Ron Poulsen liked to travel under when contesting his local election. But then I spotted several CL members in Sydney late last year and The Militant subscription renewal drive of February 11–March 18, 2012 attracted no less than 15 supporters, thus confirming the CL’s continuing historical mission.
3. Communist Party of Australia (CPA)
The CPA is The Stalinist Party Formerly Known As The Socialist Party of Australia (b.1971), having assumed the name of the CPA (1920–1991) back in 1996. Peter Symon was General Secretary from 1971 until his death in 2008; whether or not his replacement Hannah Middleton will last as long as Peter did is obviously unknown at this stage. The CPA recently formed The Communists (previously, The Communist Alliance) in order to contest elections, regularly participates in the ‘International Meetings of Communist and Workers’ Parties’ and publishes the weekly The Guardian in addition to the journal Australian Marxist Review.
4. Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist) (CPA-ML)
A 1964 split from the CPA and a product of the fractious Sino-Soviet relationship, the CPA-ML continues to produce a monthly newspaper titled Vanguard. The party is inclined to look favourably upon China and its Chairman, and once exercised some real influence in a select few unions, but this seems to have collapsed completely since the 1980s. See ‘Anti-Revisionism in Australia’ for more on origins.
Both the CPA and the CPA-ML are responsible for producing a good number of tiny splinter groups, all of which seem to have joined Stalin and Mao in permanent retirement from worldly affairs.
5. Freedom Socialist Party (FSP)
Feminism + Trotskyism = Freedom Socialist Party. The FSP is based in Melbourne and maintains a shopfront called Solidarity Salon on Sydney Road, Brunswick.
6. Progressive Labour Party (PLP)
Formed in November, 1996, the PLP preceded the Socialist Alliance by some five years (and succeeded the Rainbow Alliance by a similar margin). Sadly, it seems to have enjoyed only a brief moment in the sunshine, and to have been largely eclipsed by it when SA formed in 2001. Further, while the PLP has a website, it hasn’t been updated in some years, and I can detect few other signs of life. Nonetheless, the Party held a ‘National Conference’ in 2007, and also issued a newsletter in February 2010, so I reckon it’s in.
7. Resistance
Nominally independent yoof wing of SA.
8. Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP)
The young, angrier and much smaller kid sister to SA, the RSP formed as a split from the DSP shortly before it liquidated into SA, and brought together the ‘Leninist Party Faction’ (expelled from the DSP in May 2008) with the tiny, Melbourne-based grouplet variously known as the ‘Marxist Solidarity Network’ (from July 2006 after its initial expulsion from the DSP) then the ‘Marxist Study Network’, ‘Direct Action’ and (briefly) the electoral platform ‘Community & Workers’ First’. The RSP publishes a monthly magazine named Direct Action, which was the name of the DSP newspaper prior to it becoming Green Left Weekly (now the weekly newspaper of SA) and is also the title of the IWW’s irregular publication.
SA has contested a number of elections in the last decade to no great effect, the single exception being elevating Sam Wainwright to local council in Fremantle. Recently, SA has formally subscribed to ‘eco-socialism’ (tho’ with some minor opposition). Ironically, former DSP member Paul Howes (now Secretary of Australia’s Worst Union) has been insisting that The Greens are the real watermelons. Finally, while the DSP was known for singing the praises of Castro’s Cuba, SA has established a strong relationship with the Chavez regime in Venezuela.
10. Socialist Alternative (SAlt)
Formed in 1995 as a split from the International Socialist Organisation, over the last 15 years or so SAlt has built itself into the largest party on the student left, and now claims to be the largest far-left group in Australia full stop. As well as publishing a monthly, in 2010, SAlt launched a journal, Marxist Left Review.
12. Socialist Party (SP)
The Committee for (A) Workers’ International (CWI), of which SP is the Australian expression, is strongest in Melbourne, where the SP has begun the long, slow, painful process of transforming the Yarra Council into the Yarra Soviet. (In January 2011 Steve Jolly (2004-) was joined by Anthony Main on the council benches.) The Socialist is the SP’s monthly newspaper.
13. Solidarity
The Official IST franchise Down Under, Solidarity formed in February 2008 via the amalgamation of the ISO, SAG and Solidarity (also the title of its monthly zine). Recent months have witnessed a bitter battle with erstwhile comrades SAlt for the hearts and minds of unimelb students. Tom O’Lincoln’s ‘Marching Down Marx Street: The International Socialists in Australia, 1972-92’ provides a neat history of the Cliffite Tendency in Australia.
14. Spartacist League of Australia
Experts agree that The Sparts are The Best. Wanna Know Moar? Spartacist Class Series / Why China is Not Capitalist / Saturday 30 April, 3pm / New International Bookshop, Basement / Trades Hall, corner Victoria and Lygon Sts / Carlton / Information and readings: (03) 9654 4315 / [email protected]/.
15. Trotskyist Platform (TP)
TP formed in mid-2005 when the former editor of Australasian Spartacist split. Based in Sydney and unlikely yet to have reached a double-figure membership, TP is given big ups by unaligned travelling communist ‘Paul Justo’.
Aotearoa/New Zealand
The North Island of New Zealand combines natural beauty with city style in a mild climate; the South Island of New Zealand is full of some of the most spectacular scenery on Earth. The beauty and splendor of New Zealand was certainly exposed to the world in the Lord of the Rings series, and from the famous Milford Sound to the bubbling thermal springs, New Zealand is still forming beneath our feet.
But what of its far-left?
1. Communist League
The Communist League of New Zealand closely resembles the Communist League of Australia, both in terms of being a satellite of the SWP (US), obscurity (it has no independent web presence) but also persistence. Thus it ran two candidates in the 2011 general election and received 80 votes. Otherwise, the Permanent Revolution Group (New Zealand Section of the International Bolshevik Tendency), wrote in The Bolshevik (No 1, April 1993): “In New Zealand the SWP has an affiliate called the “Communist League” (CL)—known until 1989 as the Socialist Action League (SAL)—which shares its politics in every respect.”
2. Communist Workers’ Group of Aotearoa/New Zealand
The CWG is “committed to building a new communist international to lead workers to the revolutionary overthrow of global capitalism. Until March 2010 a member of the Internationalist Leninist/Trotskyist Fraction (FLTI). Now in a Liaison Committee with the Humanist Workers for Socialist Revolution (US).” Publish the bi-monthly Class Struggle.
3. International Bolshevik Tendency (IBT)
Derived in large part from the Spartacists, the IBT formed in 1991 as the fusion of several tiny Trotskyist satellites, including the ‘Permanent Revolution Group’ of NZ. The IBT modestly notes that it “is conscious of its responsibility as a bearer of the historic lessons of the workers movement, codified in the early years of the Communist International and the subsequent struggle of the Left Opposition under Trotsky, to preserve and carry forward the Bolshevik tradition”. In this context, a bloke called Bill Logan is either a Hero or a Villain.
4. International Socialist Organisation (Aotearoa/New Zealand)
The ISO closely resembles SAlt in Australia; it derives from but is not formally a part of the Cliffite tradition. Based in Dunedin, the ISO publishes Socialist Review.
5. Socialist Aotearoa (SA)
Socialist Aotearoa was founded on May 1, 2008 by former members of Socialist Worker after the latter decided that RAM was a Good idea. (Turned out it wasn’t.) The decision to form SA prompted the WPNZ to write a letter. Each month SA publishes Anticapitalist. And ah, yeah.
6. Socialist Appeal
Oddly, followers of Ted Grant–as The Marxist Voice of Labour & Youth–have better luck in Aotearoa/New Zealand than they do Australia.
7. Socialist Worker (Aotearoa)
Socialist Worker, like Socialist Alliance in Australia, recently plumped for eco-socialism, a formal decision taken at its January 2012 conference. As a result SW has passed on, is no more, has ceased to be; the party has expired and gone to meet its maker. A stiff, bereft of life, it rests in peace. Long live the Eco-Socialist Network!
8. Workers’ Party of New Zealand (WPNZ)
“The Workers Party of New Zealand is a socialist political party active in campaigns nationwide.”
Bonus!
Reforging the Communist Party of Australia Weekly Worker
No.135, March 21, 1996
Marcus Larsen of the Communist Party Advocates reports on its conference in Australia
Over the weekend of March 9-10 a meeting was held in the Australian industrial city of Wollongong. The meeting resolved to form an organisation, Communist Party Advocates, with, as our founding principles state, “the central aim of reforging a Communist Party in Australia.”
The formation of CPA is important in that it is a beginning to the long and arduous process of reforging a revolutionary party in Australia after the Communist Party of Australia succumbed to its long, inexorable process of liquidation in 1990. The meeting was attended by people from Sydney, Melbourne, Wollongong and Perth which is giving us an important national identity in our embryonic stages. People attending came from a variety of backgrounds, with Party and non-Party histories and experience in the trade union movement, the unemployed workers’ movement, the women’s movement and the student movement.
Importantly, the CPA is struggling to provide a nexus, an organisation and theoretical focus which is not based on any particular sectarian world outlook. As our basic principle states: “CPA aims for the unity of communists at the highest possible level and struggles against all forms of sectarianism and opportunism in the revolutionary and workers’ movement. Our goal is to unite all pro-Party forces into the one organisation.”
The meeting heard a political report from comrades from Wollongong on the process of liquidation of the old CPA, as well as a history of the unemployed movement in that city.
This was followed by a theoretical opening on the Communist Party, and the first day concluded with discussion on an opening on capitalism and class composition in Australia.
Day two discussed an opening on debates around the materialist conception of history and concluded with discussion and debate on our strategic perspectives, our structures and the content of our basic principles.
The major organisational question we are now facing is that of centralisation versus federation. The founding meeting agreed to allow the existence of ‘autonomous’ cells to operate under the guidelines, not of a central leadership, but of our basic principles. This creates a definite tension amongst people in the organisation as to whether we move immediately to a centralised form of organisation (my preference) or whether we continue along a federalist line.
In my opinion, the best way to form a centralised leadership would be to take one of the local cells to become a national leadership, for it is essential that our new organisation adopts a national identity. If we move along in a ‘federalist’ manner, or in the manner of the ‘Marxist circle’, we are in constant danger of slipping back into the marsh of liquidation. Our other debates – on rules, our mass work, our immediate strategic objectives – are in my opinion linked, but are secondary to this question.
However, we have learnt the first lesson – that it is impossible to be an individual communist. We are slowly moving to an understanding of what it means to be a pro-Party formation in a period of liquidation.
As well as our organisational questions we will embark on developing mass work.
Initially, we are working towards the formation of a united front defence of the Maritime Union. This union, with a militant history on the waterfront and in shipping, is in the front line against the new conservative Liberal government. The Liberals’ attack on the Maritime Union is as strategically important to the ruling class in Australia as was the attack on the NUM for the British ruling class. We are proposing that localities form Maritime Union defence committees which are based on rank and file support for the wharfies and seamen in the upcoming confrontation on the waterfront.
As a pro-Party grouping in formation, we welcome contact with the Provisional Central Committee of the CPGB. In the pages of our forthcoming journal, The Communist Advocate, and in the pages of the Weekly Worker, we hope to maintain healthy debate and polemic that is in both our interests and in the interests of reforging the world communist movement.
[Update (September 1, 2016) : This post has been edited. In August this year, The Rumjacks released a new album, Sleepin’ Rough, and are currently on tour. Their return has sparked some controversy in the music press, and the band has published a statement on their website in response. You can read it here.]
A few days ago (April 5) Frankie McLaughlin, vocalist in Sydney band The Rumjacks, was apparently found guilty at Penrith Court House of assault and was sentenced to 16 months prison.
Last month, The Rumjacks were the first band to be signed to the ABC Music’s new imprint FOUR | FOUR.
ABC Music has always strived to be a very diverse label, with FOUR | FOUR being yet another step in that direction. As Head of ABC Music Robert Patterson says, “In essence, FOUR | FOUR represents music that, at its core, is as simple as a 4/4 time signature… It’s music that moves people in a fundamental way. The imprint’s first signing, The Rumjacks, typifies what FOUR | FOUR is all about – honest music making with a no-nonsense directness and immediacy that connects with the listener from the first moment.”
So yeah. Men assault. Even men who play in punk rock bands. (Previously, a frustrated and “hungry” local punk rocker broke the nose of a 7-Eleven staffer because the victim struggled to understand which pie he wanted.)
Update (April 9, 2015) : The Rumjacks have issued the following statement:
In light of recent events concerning band member Frankie, we have decided to take an indefinite break.
As a result all upcoming gigs and recording plans have been cancelled.
We refute any suggestion that we condone domestic violence. It is an abhorrent crime and its perpetrators should be dealt with under the full extent of the law.
We thank all of our fans worldwide for their support over the years.
Two Greek anarchists are making molotov cocktails. One says to the other: "So who will we throw these at then?" The other replies: "What are you, some kind of fucking intellectual?"
