not the motorcycle diaries

“And so, if part of my task here is to do justice, not only to my topic, but to the person I am sketching for you, the person around whom so much has been said, the person whose self-description and whose decisions have become the basis for so much … theorizing, I must be careful in presenting these words. For these words can give you only something of the person I am trying to understand, some part of that person’s verbal instance. Since I cannot truly understand this person, since I do not know this person, and have no access to this person, I am left to be a reader of a selected number of words, words that I did not fully select, ones that were selected for me, recorded from interviews and then chosen by those who decided to write their articles on this person for journals (…). So we might say that I am given fragments of this person, linguistic fragments of something called a person; what might it mean to do justice to someone under these circumstances? Can we?”

“I do not know how to judge that question here, and I am not sure it can be mine to judge. Does justice demand that I decide? Or does justice demand that I wait to decide, that I practice a certain deferral in the face of a situation in which too many have rushed to judgement?”

- Judith Butler, Undoing Gender, p.68, p.71

“It is also extremely pleasurable to be the object of Guatemalan solidarity work: to be the addressee of testimonial (…). Being hailed, or called out in this way functions like a seal of approval in these days of intense critique of the white first-world I-eye. Recourse to the politics of solidarity can offer a space of innocence for the gringa, a site cleansed by good intentions and activist “politics”, from which we can still speak unproblematically of the Other”.

- Diane Nelson, A Finger in the Wound: Body Politics in Quincentennial Guatemala, p.57

Watching the advert for this album flicker limply across the television screen numerous times recently, I have cursed the general halfarsedness of it all. As it happens, Long Sunday agrees with me - quoting Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong, who contributes a version of ‘Working Class Hero’:

When asked why they chose the song, frontman Billie Joe Armstrong said, “We wanted to do ‘Working Class Hero’ because its themes of alienation, class, and social status really resonated with us. It’s such a raw, aggressive song — just that line: ‘you’re still fucking peasants as far as I can see’ — we felt we could really sink our teeth into it. I hope we’ve done him justice.”

Yep. It’s all about doing justice to John Lennon [and other nostalgic memories of Real Social Change]. Glad we’ve got that in perspective.

In related news, isn’t the outline of Australia rather ubiquitous at the moment. The clearly defined border radiating fear of fuzzy, undefined, can’t-quite-put-your-finger-on-it ‘somethings‘ that may or may not constitute an ‘emergency‘. The lack of detail which reveals the detail that may or may not conglomerate with other details to form what may or may not turn fear into terror. Terror which will threaten The Australian Way of Life, threaten the wholesome Aussie family; the kind where parents, at the behest of other totally groovy Adults, sit down with Young People in a straightforward and totally cas’ manner (a scenario so familiar, of course, as to be thoroughly unlampoonable).

With thanks to az.

Alice town camp raids claims are “baseless and untrue”: AFP

By Amy McQuire

NATIONAL, August 24, 2007: The Australian Federal Police (AFP) have dismissed allegations that AFP officers have been conducting house raids without warrants in the town camps of Alice Springs as “baseless and untrue”.

The claims were made in an email to ABC TV’s 7:30 Report program and courtesy copied to other media, including NIT, by Jennifer Martiniello from the Australian Centre for Indigenous History.

The email has been widely circulated throughout Indigenous networks.

It has also been picked up internationally, with co-leaders of the New Zealand Maori Party Tariana Turia and Dr Pita Sharples today issuing a media release in response, stating that the “violation of Aboriginal rights” has “moved to a new level”.

In the email, Ms Martiniello appealed to Prime Minister John Howard to explain why the AFP had allegedly been involved in “house to house raids” in the town camps.

Ms Martiniello also alleged that every Aboriginal child living in the town camps had been photographed without consent and claimed the homes of two senior women had been raided by police because they had protested against a uranium waste dump on traditional lands.

A spokesperson for the AFP today rejected the allegations.

“The AFP can confirm that these allegations are baseless and untrue,” the spokesperson told NIT this morning.

“The AFP has not conducted search warrants on town camps anywhere in Alice Springs or the Northern Territory, as has been alleged.”

The Tangentyere council’s family services manager John Adams also backed the AFP, telling NIT yesterday that he “hadn’t heard anything about the raids”.

But Mr Adams said that while there definitely hadn’t been any raids by the AFP, he could confirm that Northern Territory Police had been “actively using their powers” in the town camps in the wake of the Commonwealth’s NT Indigenous intervention.

“There have been issues with local police cordoning off town camps and doing DVO (Domestic Violence Order)* sweeps,” Mr Adams said.

“To do that they close off the town camps and do a house by house.”

Ms Martiniello yesterday conceded there could have been a misunderstanding.

“I got the information from a meeting 40km north of Alice Springs where there was a number of people there, some of them residents of the town camps,” Ms Martiniello told NIT yesterday.

“Several of the women who toured the major cities protesting against uranium waste dumps were also there.

“What I was told was that the Southside camps had been targeted for raids and for surveillance and they were expecting that the Northside camps would be targeted the following week.

“It was definitely the AFP who raided the woman’s houses (who were protesting against uranium dumps)… but in the town camps, it could have been the NT police. That wasn’t clearly identified.”

But Mr Adams said allegations that either the AFP or the NT police had been conducting house raids were “completely wrong”.

“I can say that the NT police have been vigorously pursuing these matters, especially now, and they are very keen at the moment,” Mr Adams said.

“While they aren’t overstepping their legal powers, they have been very vigorous and are doing everything they can.”

A spokesperson for the NT police this morning declined to comment on allegations of house raids by AFP officers.

Online, (alongside NIT’s satisfying call out for letters to the editor!), here.

And I’m not convinced. I never am when I hear police, Australian Federal or otherwise, use words like ‘actively using their powers’ (especially when those powers are executed in the name of ‘exceptional’ or ‘emergency’ circumstances), and ‘vigorously pursuing matters’. ‘Cordoning off town camps’, and ’sweeping’ houses in vigilante militia style doesn’t fill me with confidence either. I have been a witness to numerous DVO related investigations, and they have never had that character - due, er, to the invasive and traumatic effect on ‘victims’.

*DVO, I assume, refers to the Northern Territory’s Restraining Orders.