Robert Stewart Culbard

Before we moved to Northampton, England, my family and me lived and worked in the inner city of Melbourne.  The church for which I had ministerial oversight was called the Prahran Community Baptist Centre. The area in which the church was located was a mixture of small urban terraces in narrow streets, high rise public housing and a busy commercial centre, along with some very up-market housing in rather more grand tree-lined avenues.

The church community was small but it served a larger and wider mixed population, from a busy children’s programme to worship, educational and social ministries for young adults, families and elderly citizens. It comprised a balanced population of local persons and those who commuted from elsewhere in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne. The centre-piece of the church’s work with and for the local community was a provision we called “Mum’s Mini-mart”. The oversight of the programme was with my wife, Vicky, but also well supported by my mother and father and was always attended by our three children.

Mum’s Mini-mart was essentially a market in which was sold all manner of donated personal, household and leisure items. It took place in the church hall once per month. It had practical support from a substantial proportion of the church membership. A valuable adjunct to this programme was the provision of a food parcel service. Persons within the local population were able to obtain a food parcel from the church whenever it was required. Donations of food items and money for this programme came from the church and other donors. A local bakery supplied much appreciated bread and other bakery products after shop closing hours each Saturday.

Persons who used this service were, of course, those who were less fortunate in terms of their household incomes – single parents, the unemployed (including young people), persons on a limited state pension and the chronically sick. Few questions were asked, no genuine request was ever refused, and there were very few instances where moral matters ever impeded the service that was offered. The portions in the food parcels were generous.

It is with great interest, therefore, that I have been following the present conversation in the media about government cuts to welfare benefits and the idea that has been sold to the British public that there is “a whole class of scroungers which prefers to scrounge around on the sofa all day, watching telly, smoking spliffs and drinking lager”. This perspective is strongly criticised by the Anglican priest Giles Fraser who, in a weekend newspaper article, argues against those, in government and the media, who hold the view  that such a “lazy and dissolute brigade have been taking the piss out of the rest of us, insulting hard-working families everywhere”. He takes issue, therefore, with those who consider that there is “a moral case to cut welfare benefits in order to re-establish a culture of personal responsibility”. This process implicitly regards people on welfare benefits as being feckless.

In recent days, a counter argument has been launched by a significant group of powerful people in the established churches in the UK – including archbishops and bishops, other church leaders and those who face parish life working at the coal face of British society. Such persons are rather uniquely positioned to see and understand the effect that financial cuts are having on the ground – perhaps better placed than those wealthy persons who sit on both sides of the Westminster divide, or the group of, predominantly, Old Etonians who plan economic policy for the Conservative Party.

What is making these church leaders so bloody angry is that the reality of what is happening with the social fabric of British society is not being acknowledged by the politicians, especially those responsible for government and the care of the British people – surely a first concern of peoples’ government. So too, the anger felt by the clergy is shared with a wider section of the nation’s population but not, evidently, by the right-wing press that maintains the defence of extreme austerity measures by its continuing attack on those who are, supposedly, using and abusing the system. The “scrounger” tag, it seems, is a way of blaming the poor for being poor!

It is significant that, in all the time that Mum’s Mini-mart was in operation in the Prahran Community Baptist Centre, no one who ever used this service, either to buy an item or obtain a food parcel, was ever regarded as a “scrounger”. Indeed, from memory over the dozen or so years of the programme’s operation, that term was never heard from either the church community or from the general community. It was recognised that, even within a generally affluent society as the one that existed then (and now) in Melbourne, there are those who are victims, those who, for a variety of reasons, cannot attain or maintain the levels of affluence enjoyed by the majority.

Seemingly in response to what the church leaders have stated, David Cameron, the British Prime Minister, has said that his is a moral vision too. However, it has never been, and could not be, the task of the church “to poison the wells of public sympathy” by smearing vulnerable people as cheats, ostracising the economically disenfranchised, and further suppressing the voice of the politically powerless. Yet that seems to be acceptable to Cameron and his government – as recent government statements, legislation and policies would suggest.

Referring recently to flood relief in the south-west and east of England, the Prime Minister said that “money was no object”; it seems that it is an object when it comes to hunger relief. There were many who volunteered for the task of easing the effects of flooding in the rich West Country and Thames Valley; yet there is derision for those who set-up, manage and assist with food banks in the less affluent areas of the UK. The government talks of weaning people off welfare dependency; but, when it comes to, amongst others, bankers, professional footballers and the owners of the gambling and money-lending industries being weaned off their excesses, the silence of government is deafening.

The argument is always that the “market” must be protected. So much for Cameron’s idea of the “big society”! This once-noble idea simply comes down to the present reality that it is the “big” people in society that must be aided and protected; the “small” people, the majority, can be lied to, bullied, impoverished and overwhelmed. Once again, we are seeing the “them” and “us” society developing in front of our faces. It would appear that the ideological direction and policy strategy and implementation programme of this present government is actually encouraging a dependent society, a society for which it shows little genuine sympathy – its real priorities are with the “deserving affluent”.

I have a nephew who works with the London Fire Brigade. I doubt that anyone would have the audacity to say to him that people light fires in order to make fire brigade workers dependent? When was the last time that giving a tax cut to wealthy people, or increasing the cost to the nation of having a monarchy, was regarded as making them (the rich or the royals) dependent, as if the minute you help someone you run the risk of making them dependent? When was the last time we heard any form of real criticism for those who strive to make themselves rich, even absurdly so?

A Jewish moral teacher once said that “the poor will always be with you”. He stated this not because he was lamenting the fact or because he believed that the poor were lazy or parasitical, but because he knew that there would always be the equivalent of people who would not have paid employment, or who would be working for low wages, in part-time or zero-hours employment, subsiding the rich with inflated home rentals and governments that will stigmatize the poor and the powerless in order to justify their ideological prejudices or maintain their privileges and those of their supporters.

It was always understood by those who volunteered their services to help with Mum’s Mini-mart, that the service was designed only to give emergency help. It could never cope with a crisis outside of its immediate community. The preservation of local dignity was its focus. Preserving the dignity of a city or a nation is the task of local and national government. This is as true for a nation’s poor as it is for any other section of society. The Guardian journalist, Jonathan Freedland, recently wrote, “there is less shame in claiming a nationally mandated benefit than in going to a church hall, being handed a food parcel and having to nod and say thank you.” Mum’s Mini-mart understood that, even as it nodded back in empathy and practical support.

The welfare state was inaugurated not to encourage dependency by the British people, but to ensure that the nation’s people were cared for in times of need or emergency. Whether brought about by government policy or otherwise, surely we live in such times.

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She had been with us since the turn of the century. All three of our children were very fond of her, even though at times she seemed to be from another planet. She demanded attention late at night and early in the morning, and often during the day. At times it seemed that she had an insatiable appetite, but her favourite tucker remained those crispy and tasty bites.  I speak, of course, of our cat, Ember.

Her name was derived from the streak of colour she had on the back of her neck – more pronounced when she was a kitten. It was the colour of a fire’s dying embers. Her temperament never lost its association with a fire!

Sadly, last week the fire went out of Ember’s life. She disappeared overnight and when we found her the next morning she was dead – curled-up in her normal and comfortable sleeping position, but cold and wet, and lying on her favourite chair in the corner of the back garden. Her death was most unexpected.

A wise old woman once told me that a person’s character can be judged by how they treat old people and animals. Well, I have never been accused of ill-treating old people, though some have tried my patience and kindness (and, no doubt, vice versa) and, since as early as I can remember, the families to which I have belonged have never been without an animal pet (or a goldfish). Dogs and cats there have been in abundance. Many have died; others have been given to new owners as my family have moved to other cities and continents.

Ember was the last in a long line of cats that we have loved and cherished. It is doubtful that she will be replaced, either in our affections or by acquiring another pet. Glenn, Corinne and Darren, each in their own way, will feel her absence when they visit the family home.

Ember is buried in a quiet corner of the front garden in our Northampton home. There is a garden figure over the burial spot. Attached to the figure is a poignant poem written by my wife, Vicky. More than any other description, it most excellently captures the feline essence of whom and what Ember was and what she meant to us:

EMBER

Black and sleek and wide, wild-eyed,

Silent mover in the shadows and dark.

White bibbed, white socks with glistening fur,

You have left us with your mark.

Mistress of your own destiny,

Stroke but do not stir!

A single minded, quite daft pussy,

You now go down in family cat lore.

We will remember your freaky behaviour,

Your temper was renowned!

String to chase and vacuums to fear,

We will hold you forever dear.

Ember: 2001-2014

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The British government recently succeeded in passing a piece of legislation commonly known as the “gagging bill”. After some toing and froing involving both houses of parliament, the bill conveying this legislation was eventually passed owing to a tied 145-145 vote in the House of Lords. When such a result happens, it is procedural to pass the bill.

Apart from their personal reading and research, readers may be aware of the progress of this vote from information I have passed-on from my source at the lobbying group 38 Degrees. The bill will place restrictions on groups, political or otherwise from speaking-out against projected government legislation prior to elections – including the UK government elections in 2015.

This bill was opposed by hundreds of groups within the UK on the grounds that it placed undue and unnecessary restrictions on public discussion and debate and is, therefore, anti-democratic. That the bill was eventually passed was due primarily to the support given to it by the Conservative Party in both houses of the British parliament.

It is ingenuous, if not downright disgraceful, that David Cameron, the leader of the Conservative Party and the British Prime Minister, recently labelled both the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties as being “enemies of democracy”. Why? Both of the latter has used their democratic privilege under parliamentary law and procedure to use procedural means to kill-off a private member’s bill that would have authorised an EU referendum. David Cameron’s outrage was not, it seems, assuaged by the fact that he very likely knew that this would be the outcome of his Downing Street desires!

What incensed the Conservative Party was the fact that it had “unveiled plans to overrule the House of Lords – through the rare act of invoking the Parliament Act.” In itself, this was legitimate, but it was halted in its tracks due to a further piece of parliamentary procedure. The Prime Minister told a BBC reporter that “We (the government, but not the Liberal Democrats, therefore, the Conservatives) will use every tactic possible to give the British people a referendum.”

It would seem at least a little hypocritical that Cameron and his party are happy to use “every tactic possible to give the British people a referendum”, insisting that it is their right to have one, but will do everything in its power to gag debate and discussion by the same people prior to an election! I suppose that, in the long run, it comes down to which way political parties and governments wish to manipulate the law, parliamentary procedure and the people that a government is meant to faithfully represent.

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It is not only British authorities who are engaged in chicanery.

It is reported that Australian authorities have approved plans to dump 3m cubic metres of sediment in the Great Barrier Reef marine park. This action is part of the plan to create the world’s biggest coal port. The purpose of the port’s expansion is bring-in up to $A3bn extra each year through increased coal exports. It seems that agreement for the scheme to dump its rubbish in the reef has been given by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority.

This is the prevailing situation, despite the fact that conservationists have warned that “dumping the waste could smother corals and sea-grasses, and hasten the demise of the World Heritage-listed reef, which is considered to be in poor health.” The reef is already facing pressures caused by climate-change, land-based pollution and damage from the crown-of-thorns starfish. It would seem that approval was given in large measure because it was considered that the scheme would “contain development to existing ports, and the reef and sea-grass meadows would still be protected.” There is more than a whiff of inconsistency and contradiction in these explanations.

Another player in the drama, the North Queensland Bulk Ports Corporation has opinioned that the flora and fauna are unlikely to be damaged by the dumping and has argued that “disposing of the soil on land would be more environmentally damaging.” Earth to earth; ashes to ashes; dust to dust – soil to soil? Surely a strange argument, from whichever perspective, except from the point of view where large amounts of money are to be had. More than that, the marine park authority is being investigated for its links to the mining industry. Do I detect a gaffe somewhere?

Richard Leck, of the WWF Great Barrier Reef Campaign, said: “This is a sad day for the reef for anyone who cares about its future.”

Greenpeace has said that any dumping of soil on the reef would be “an international embarrassment.” A spokeswoman, Louise Matthiesson, said: “We wouldn’t throw rubbish on world heritage sites like the Grand Canyon or Vatican City, so why would we dump on the reef?”

Felicity Wishart, of the Australian Marine Conservation Society, said: “Most Australians will be shocked and angry at this decision by the marine park authority and (Conservative federal government) minister (Greg) Hunt to allow dumping of dredge soil in reef waters. People expect them to defend the reef, not approve of its destruction.”

Australia remains a rich country largely because of its mineral exports to such other countries as China. But surely there is a limit to the greed and avarice of those involved in the mining industry and those in government, in Australia as elsewhere, who seem to believe that government and the welfare of the people is only about economics?

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On a number of occasions and in response to criticism of his thirteen years as the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair has repeatedly responded by saying  that “history will judge me, or that he is “prepared to be judged by history.”

It would appear that he is not the only one whose final recourse is to appeal to history. On the other side of the world to where Tony Blair exercised authority, as well as in his own country, there are other authorities and authority figures who may well need to respond in the same way. Who knows how unkind history may be?

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This is the third of a trilogy of articles about the events commemorated on the consecutive dates, 25-27 January. The first event, remembered on 25 January, was the anniversary of the birth of the Scottish poet, Robert Burns. The second event, commemorated annually on 26 January, was Australia Day. In this article, I will be focusing on the “Holocaust Memorial Day”

A relevant article in Wikipedia reminds us that “27 January is an international memorial day for the victims of the Holocaust, the genocide that resulted in the annihilation of 6 million Jews, 2 million Gypsies (Roma and Sinti), 15,000 homosexual people and millions of others by the Nazi regime and its collaborators”. The United Nations resolution that designated this event came in 2005, the same year that marked the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps and the end of the Holocaust.

The Day of Remembrance for the victims of National Socialism was established in Germany in 1996. In the UK, the Holocaust Memorial Day has been observed every 27 January since 2001.

The UN resolution establishing 27 January as International Holocaust Remembrance Day was an initiative of the State of Israel and urges every member nation of the U.N. to honour the memory of Holocaust victims, and encourages the development of educational programs about Holocaust history to help prevent future acts of genocide. It rejects any “denial of the Holocaust”, condemns all manifestations of “religious intolerance, incitement, harassment or violence against persons or communities based on ethnic origin or religious belief.”

The essence of the text lies in its twofold approach: one that deals with “the memory and remembrance of those who were massacred during the Holocaust”, and the other with “educating future generations of its horrors”. The Holocaust commemoration is, therefore, more than remembrance. It is essentially to do with human rights and the lessons of the Holocaust must be applied to today’s world – and in all parts of that world. All nations must strive to ensure that all peoples enjoy the protection and rights for which the UN stands.

It is this context that on-going opposition to racism and anti-Semitism should be seen. Recent development in Hungarian politics and on an English football field remind us of this.

The third largest political party in Hungary, the far-right Jobbik party, has recently demonstrated its overt racism. Having a fondness for garb and insignia that is reminiscent of the pro-Nazi and ultra-nationalist parties of Hungary’s past, Jobbik wishes to confine Hungary’s Roma minority, a favourite Jobbik target, to ghettoes. Not surprisingly, Jobbik also considers Jewish people to be a “security risk”. Indeed, there was a recent call in Hungary’s parliament to “tally up people of Jewish ancestry”. The call came from Jobbik’s deputy leader in the Hungarian parliament!

It is, therefore, not to be ignored that the leader of this movement has been in the UK recently, seeking the votes of Hungarians resident in this country – no doubt bringing with him the evangelistic doctrines of prejudice and hatred and the threat to the human rights of both Roma peoples and those of Jewish ancestry – in Hungary if not in the UK. It is from within this context that we can also not ignore the appearance of the quenelle in an English football stadium.

I refer, of course, to that much-discussed gesture by the West Bromwich football player, Nicholas Anelka, as he celebrated scoring against West Ham in a Premier League game a few weeks ago. He has since been charged by the Football Association. The full significance of the quenelle gesture may have been lost on a British audience, but the match was being shown in France where it would have been much more familiar.

One commentator had this to say about the matter: “The quenelle is deliberately vague, a kind of repressed Hitler salute. It is designed to dodge the full ‘Sieg Heil’, while still offering the thrill of breaking the supposed taboo on anti-Semitism.” Anelka’s defence was that he was simply showing solidarity with his mate, Dieudonne M’bala M’bala, a man described by one writer as a “pseudo-comedian and demagogue”, “whose act is drenched in anti-Jewish racism.”

It has been further said that Dieudonne “Understands something comprehended by all anti-Semites, that for anti-Semitism to win, the Holocaust itself must be defeated, its place in the collective memory destroyed.” One defence of the staging of the quenelle is that it is merely an anti-establishment gesture, a protest against the system. A real problem with this view is that the favourite places for this kind of demonstration have included synagogues and Holocaust memorials, and have been accompanied by anti-Semitic oratory.

From another perspective, it might be suggested that Dieudonne and his followers subscribe to that most ancient of anti-Semitic myths, that is, that the world is run by a Jewish conspiracy.

The free movement of people brings the equally free movement of ideas, whether that is the neo-fascist platform of the Hungarian Jobbik party or the quenelle gesture of French mates. That is the nature of the global village. But that is also why nations need to constantly remember and adhere to the reasons why the UN initiated the International Holocaust Remembrance Day. This 27 January event commemorates the fact that all peoples, without exception, deserve the protection afforded by human rights and justice, as well as the freedom to live without being victimised by any form of prejudice.

These principles need to be constantly remembered and practiced by those who watch, play and administer the people’s game – as well as by the political classes.

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In my previous blog article, I mentioned three recent and consecutive dates that commemorated specific events in the life of three different communities. In the 25 January article, I wrote about the Scottish poet, Robert Burns, and the importance of Burns to contemporary Scots. In this, the second of a trilogy of related articles, I wish to speak about 26 January and the celebration of “Australia Day”.

Australia Day is the official national day of Australia. It is celebrated annually on 26 January. It marks the anniversary of the 1788 arrival of the First Fleet of British ships at Sydney Cove, New South Wales, and the raising of the Union flag at that site. Wikipedia has this to say about the commemoration: “In contemporary Australia, celebrations reflect the diverse society and landscape of the nation, and are marked by community and family events, reflections on Australian history, official community awards, and citizenship ceremonies welcoming new immigrants into the Australian community”.

However, for some Australian, Australia Day is a day of mourning. I speak, of course, of the Indigenous Peoples of Australia, the Aboriginal people who populated the continent for many thousands of years prior to its “discovery” by Europeans. According to the historians, it is these people whom directly felt the consequences of foreigners invading their land: wars and massacres; land removed from tribal ownership; “honorary white” status for the purposes of fighting for the British Empire; forced off the land and into missions; neglect of education; communal misery.

According to Nakkiah Lui, an Aboriginal woman in her late 20’s, Indigenous Australians do not celebrate the coming of the tall ships to Botany Bay. As she tells the story, Aboriginal people mourn the white Europeans’ declaration of terra nullius (empty land), the colonisation of the sunburnt continent and the effects of genocide that persist even to this day (as the Australian journalist, John Pilger, has recently argued in his documentary film Utopia).

Nakkiah Lui is also a TV and theatre writer and winner of the Balnaves Foundation Indigenous playwright award. In a recent article she said that, “We mourn while the rest of the country celebrates around us. Protesting against Australia Day is nothing new – it is an ongoing fight for recognition of what has been happening to us for more than 100 years.”

Nakkiah Lui has been protesting since she was two years old – she is now 28. She can remember getting huge cheers from non-Aboriginal people who supported the protest marches in Sydney when she first started. However, she is sceptical if that kind of support would exist now, as she wonders “if our red, black and yellow Aboriginal flags would be welcome among the union jacks and south crosses”.

To my understanding, the contemporary Australia Day commemoration is a day when most people just want to celebrate the place they call home, to be part of a community and to guide Australia into the future. As one of the people, Nakkiah Lui asks the question, “So why can’t we celebrate this on a day that includes all Australians?”

Why not, indeed? In contemporary Australia, surely this question is axiomatic.

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 On three recent and consecutive days I have had reason to ponder the events commemorated by each of these days. The days in mind are the 25-27 January. In the first of three short articles, I will write about the event commemorated by 25 January.

For persons of Scottish descent, 25 January is very special. It celebrates the birth in Dumfries, Scotland, in 1759, of the man whom many consider to be the nation’s premier poet, Robert Burns. The celebration of this event  include various happenings, for example, the traditional ritual feast where that peculiar Scottish delicacy, the haggis,  is piped in, addressed, sacrificed and served, as part of the “Burns Night” festivities.

To the Scots, Robert Burns is not just a poet, or a myth. He is many things – “Oor Rabbie, your Rabbie, a’body’s Rabbie”. Whatever your viewpoint, Robert Burns may be respectable or bawdy; a sentimentalist or a revolutionary; a patriot or a pietist.

Liz Lochhead, the national poet (or makar) of Scotland and to whom I am indebted for the finer details of this article, considered that “Burns did – with great conviction – inhabit many apparently contradictory personae”. In the year which will see the people of Scotland vote in a referendum for the country’s independence from the UK, it is, therefore,  interesting to speculate as to which way, if he were alive today, Burns would vote?

Despite thinking that such a question is a bit daft, it is the gut feeling of Liz Lochhead that Robert Burns would vote a resounding “Yes” to it. Burns was “a libertarian, a democrat, a lover of freedom and autonomy, a revolutionary and a romantic”. Such a person would, of course vote for independence. Come to think of it, I see something of myself in this description; perhaps that is why, if I was able to vote in the 2014 referendum, I would also vote “Yes”!

It seems to me that a “Yes” vote indicates many things about the people of Scotland: an identification with roots not shared by the rest of the UK; a powerful impetus towards cultural and political autonomy; a mature desire to come of age as a nation; to take responsibility for themselves and assume a more personal, nuanced and focused role in the world.

I am a Scot by birth, but not now resident in Scotland (a blessing to the people of Northampton, England). Consequently, I am not permitted to vote in the referendum. However, it is my gut feeling that, if independence from the UK for the Scottish people does not take place in 2014, the matter will not go away. The question, and the process to which it leads, is inexorable.

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A resident Australian friend of mine recently sent me an email that showed a map-picture of Australia. Inside the boundaries of the Australian continent was placed a map of Europe – including the UK. All of Europe was able to be placed inside Australia. Even if the Scandinavian countries, as well as those countries that stand between Europe and Russia, for example, Belarus and the Ukraine, were to be included, Australia would still be bigger than all of this.

People I speak to are surprised to learn that, not only does Australia have sun, surf and sand, it also has snow. More than that, the size of the Australian Alps, where snow and the snowfields are generally to be found, is more extensive  than the whole of the European Alps (though not as high). So, it is only a matter of time before Australia adds to its tally of medals won at the Winter Olympic Games. Australia also has a larger collection of indigenous animals, for example, the well-known duo of the kangaroo and the koala, than any other country in the world; not to mention the most venomous snakes, spiders and jellyfish. I could go on, but the reader follows the trend!

With the above facts and figures in mind, is it any wonder that, though I am not an Australian by birth, having grown-up, played sport (including Australian Rules football at school and university), studied and worked there, I still call Australia home! Sharene, the first-born daughter of Vicky (my English wife) and me, is buried there, as are my father and mother. I have a brother and sister-in-law residing there and, as they are great-grandparents, their large and lovely family as well. So too, my sister and her daughter live in Australia and, along with the friend whom sent me the email mentioned earlier, I have a number of other friends who live in various parts of Australia (who also send me emails).

So, the reader will appreciate my Australian roots and the genuine pride I have in the country – especially after the recent Ashes cricket series! However, everything in the Australian garden is not rosy.

In 1985, the Australian journalist, John Pilger, made a film about his homeland’s mistreatment of its Indigenous Peoples – the Australian Aborigines. The film was called A Secret Country – as was the book about the film. In this film Pilger suggested that, with respect to the Aboriginal peoples, Australia was effectively running an apartheid regime. In 2013, nearly thirty years later, John Pilger made another film about Australia. It is called Utopia and was recently shown on commercial television in the UK. The film covers much the same ground as did the 1985 film, though it has been described as “less subtle and more angry” than its predecessor as “nothing much has changed”.

The economic miracle that is Australia is reasonably well-known. The country has not suffered as much as its competitors in the recent world-wide recession. This situation is primarily due to the richness of the continent’s mineral resources. Experts in the field of Australia’s economy consider that the mining of these minerals is making billionaires out of those who own the mining companies and wealthy people of the shareholders of the same, as well as providing the Australian government with valuable dollars. The mining of the mineral resources is, of course, taking place on land claimed by the Australian Aboriginal peoples as tribal land.

It is a thesis of John Pilger’s film that, despite this wealth from native soil, the Indigenous Australians are worse off than many other peoples living in developing countries! It is quite apparent that the Indigenous Australians are not benefitting from the utopia resulting from Australia’s mineral wealth. Indeed, the “utopia” of the title is an irony, but it is not Pilger’s. It is “an Australian irony – the name of one of the poorest and most desolate areas of the continent, 200 miles north of Alice Springs”. The film, scrupulously observed and annotated, as always, by Pilger and his crew, reveals the disgraceful living conditions of the Aboriginal people of this region.

As revealed by this film, John Pilger does not hold back from his near-bludgeoning of government officials for their complacency and deceit with respect to the state of affairs affecting the Indigenous Australians. This situation includes  the incidence of trachoma amongst Indigenous Australians (amongst the highest in the world), their housing and health care, accusations levelled against them of numerous local paedophile rings, the imprisonment of Aboriginal people  at ten times the rate apartheid South Africa imprisoned black South Africans, the sterilisation of  Aboriginal people, and the removal of babies and children from their families.

So too, as one commentator notes, “The Australian war memorial in Canberra has blanked out any reference to the frontier wars between the white settlers and the Indigenous Australians that went on for the best part of 150 years; not a single dead Indigenous Australian from that era gets a mention”, a period of time that the historian Henry Reynolds saw as “the greatest expropriation of land in world history”. A former Aboriginal concentration camp on Rottnest Island, near the West Australian coast, has been turned into a luxury hotel and spa-resort, without any mention of the ruination and death of many Indigenous Australians which took place there.

It would seem that John Pilger’s 1985 film and the “gentle persuasion” attempted since then to juxtapose what he calls “the wealth and complacency of white Australia with the poverty and degradation of the Indigenous Australians”,  has not, as yet, managed to convince large sections of the Australian population. Therefore, the anger expressed by Pilger in the film. Somewhat apologetically, one of the guides used in the film says, “I guess Australia isn’t ready to confront some parts of its history.”

This seems something of an understatement! After nearly 250 years, many Australians – those who have a long family history in the country, those actually born in Australia or those who arrived there as immigrants – can still say, “Not yet”!

John Pilger left Australia in the sixties, when he was in his 20’s. He has travelled the world since then, but clearly feels the shame of what his country has done to the Australian Aboriginal. I may not have been born in Australia; I may not be now living in Australia, but I am not immune from the shame Pilger feels at the ongoing mistreatment of Australia’s Indigenous Peoples.

“Australia’s true history is never read, But the blackman keeps it in his head” (Anon.)

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In the interests of both history and drama, I recently watched the commercial television programme of The Great British Train Robbery. The programme, coincidentally, was shown during the same week that saw the death of one of the robbers of the Royal Mail train in 1963, Ronnie Biggs.

The “Great Train Robbers” got 30 years imprisonment for the audacious stealing of £2.6m from the London-bound Royal Mail train.

Those who watch television, read newspapers or books, or simply listen to the general conversation, will know that bankers misappropriate billions of pounds from every one of us and, even yet and perversely, still receive their extraordinary bonuses and avoid jail sentences.

Are British citizens any less important than the Royal Mail? What a strange world we live in.

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For years British government ministers and intelligence chiefs have denied involvement in a practice that became known as “rendition”, the abduction and torture of terrorism suspects. This practice drew major public attention following the events of September 11, 2001, in the United States of America. Governments in both the USA and the UK have been evasive over the issue of rendition.

The extent of evasion can be seen in the actions of Jack Straw, the foreign secretary under the last Labour government – at the time when most of the abuses occurred. He went so far as to tell the Commons foreign affairs committee that “any suggestion of UK involvement in rendition was a conspiracy theory”. What was it about “many a true word…”? It was Straw, moreover, who had further suggested that “the law might be amended to allow suspects to be rendered to the U.K.”

Following a recent and damning official inquiry into the matter of rendition, the Gibson inquiry concluded that the government and its intelligence agencies had, in fact, been involved in rendition operations, in which “detainees were kidnapped and flown around the globe.” So too, the British government knew that the detainees were being mistreated but had colluded in their interrogation. This was meant to be a British government response to the so-called “war on terror”  (a term increasingly being used to describe any form of violence at odds with government policy or with which it seeks to justify overseas military intervention or action by intelligence agencies at home or abroad).

 Sir Robert Gibson, a retired appeal court judge, and Dame Janet Paraskeva, a government official, were the compilers of the Gibson Report. The report was completed nearly 18 months ago, but has remained unpublished while its authors’ resisted government attempts to censor their work. Many questions were raised by the report. However, the enquiry and its investigations, and the many questions so far raised, have now been handed-over by the government to the intelligence and security committee (ISC). This is a secretive cross-party body that is supposed to provide oversight of the security agencies. The hand-over smacks of government subterfuge.

It is reported that Gibson enquiry members were “disappointed” at this government move, and there is a distinct lack of clarity as to whether the public will ever hear about or see the outcomes of any questions raised by the inquiry. It would appear that there are some things we are not meant to hear of or know about. Which individual or group, however, has the right to determine this?

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It is reported that a man named Robert Brown, 58, an accountant living in Jersey, has been granted permission to seek judicial review of a refusal to allow him access under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to documents he says show there was a “secret judicial process for sealing royal wills”.

Brown claims he may be the illegitimate son of the late Princess Margaret and that he needs to see the contents of the wills of the current Queen’s sister and mother. The royal wills were drawn up around the time of Margaret’s death in 2002 and sealed to keep their contents secret. Robert Brown is of the opinion that the royal wills could be a major part of the proof that Margaret hid a pregnancy in 1955 and he is her secret child.

Brown’s original legal challenge was branded “scandalous and irrational” by a previous court of appeal ruling. However, a high court hearing in London has concluded that there were “compelling constitutional reasons to allow Brown’s legal challenge to go ahead”, as the case gave rise to “important points of principle and practice for open justice and the public interest”.

Of his claim to royal parentage, Brown has said, “Hopefully I am not a nutcase. Either I am right or I am wrong.”  Nutcase or not, it is not wrong that Robert Brown has the right to know his origins – royal or otherwise.

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Is he a patriot or a pariah? These are but two options open to public opinion about Edward Snowden. The reader will recall that Snowden is the former employee of the United States intelligence service who leaked documents to some of the leading newspapers on either side of the pond.

Snowden’s actions led to all kinds of government and security services’ recriminations and responses, including the seeming need “to prove one’s patriotism before discussing intelligence information, being visited by the police, being brought before government committees or having one’s computer taken away or smashed-up by state-employed technicians”. In particular, The Guardian newspaper came in for severe government and other newspapers’ criticism for its publishing of some of Snowden’s revelations.

Now, the 300 page report into the revelations in  The Guardian about the USA National Security Agency – commissioned by President Obama and recently published – is, according to the newspaper’s editor, Alan Rusbridger, “wide-ranging, informed and thoughtful.” Moreover, the editor considers that the report, far from blaming journalism for “dragging the subject into the open; celebrates it.”

In recent months, since the Snowden revelations, intelligence chiefs have been warning of the dangers of making public what, in their view, should be known only to intelligence and security agencies. The report, however, makes it abundantly clear that it is in the public interest for journalists to venture into the territory once thought only the preserve of such as MI5, MI6 and the USA National Security Agency.

Therefore, “intrusions in to private lives using almost-Orwellian technology, is almost certainly unconstitutional”. The systematic and hi-tech collection and retention of personal data on virtually every single citizen is an “indiscriminate and arbitrary invasion of the lives of ordinary citizens no matter what basis such an invasion is given”. As well as the issue of civil liberties, there is also the matter of the damage that “unconstrained espionage can cause to trade, commerce and the digital economy.”

The panel of experts who published the report commissioned by Barack Obama said that “it will not do for the press to be fearful of, intimidated or cowed by government officials.” Furthermore, if they are, it is “We, the People” who will suffer. Some of the report’s concluding remarks point out that “Part of the responsibility of our free press is to ferret out and expose information that government officials would prefer to keep secret when such secrecy is unwarranted.”

We, the People, need to know.

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This is the time of the year when media presenters and programmes, journalists, authors and historians, and perhaps you and me, look back over the year that has gone in order to be reminded of those who are no longer with us. Those who have died.

There have been several personal friends and former colleagues, in Australia as in the UK, who did not survive the year, but who will always have a place in the memory and my gratitude at having shared some of their lives, something of themselves, with me.

Of course, there have been others who have died who found fame, if not always fortune, in sporting, academic, literary, cultural, etc., pursuits and whose lives intersected with mine only in terms of my personal interests. One of these persons was the popular British musician and composer, Sir John Tavener. He just happened to be born in the same year as myself – a  rare distinction!

Probably the best known composition of John Tavener is The Protecting Veil, a work that has been described as having “an instant magnetism, at once gentle and compelling”. The title refers to the Orthodox Church’s celebration of a 10th century vision when in Constantinople the Virgin Mary appeared and cast her protecting veil over the Christians who were being attacked by the Saracen armies.

I find the music to have moments of genuine gorgeousness and real romanticism, even considering its highly dubious historicity and theological tendentiousness.

Much of Tavener’s musical creativity and output was inspired by religious faith and belief. However, it has been said that “many of his works held an appeal for audiences that did not necessarily identify with contemporary music or the theological values from which he started”.

Whilst his family background was Christian Presbyterianism, Tavener’s music contained, amongst other religious influences, elements of Islam, Sufism and Buddhism, and he seems to have had a fascination for Roman Catholicism. He also converted to the Russian Orthodox Church. His spirituality was most eclectic.

The year 2000 was one of the most memorable in John Tavener’s life.

In that year he was awarded a knighthood, a festival of his music at the Southbank Centre, London, and the first performance of the work entitled Fall and Resurrection. In this music Tavener explored the “characteristic themes of the end of the world and paradise”, as he pushed the boundaries of his musical vision further to the east and eastern religions. According to the beliefs of his religious faith, in death he will have discovered something of the latter exploration, if not the former.

The direction of John Tavener’s music attracted many fellow travellers and dedicatees, notably Charles Windsor. The Fall and Resurrection was, in fact, dedicated to the Prince of Wales, with whom Tavener formed a lasting friendship. Prince Charles apparently became a generous supporter of Tavener’s music, especially his musical exploration of the “universalist” approach to religion – a quest the two men shared, though perhaps approaching from  different directions.

It is no mere coincidence that Charles Windsor, the heir to the British throne, has expressed a desire to be the “champion of all faiths”, as well as the head of the Church of England.  His interest in Tavener’s music, especially, reflects such an aspiration.

However, it is open to conjecture if Charles Windsor would, or could, follow John Tavener into the musical mysteries of such composers as Boulez, Cage, Ligeti and Messiaen – all of whom, it is said by the experts, to have influenced Tavener’s musical progress and left their footprints in his output. The Prince of Wales may have modernist tendencies in some things, but is trenchantly traditionalist in many others!

Perhaps the final word about this iconic British musical figure comes from his personal musings on his Requiem, a musical offering commissioned to celebrate Liverpool as the European City of Culture in 2008 and written when Tavener had been told that he was under a sentence of death through persistent ill-health.

“The essence of the Requiem,” Tavener explained, “is contained in the words ‘Our glory lies where we cease to exist'”. In an obituary, the music critic Michael J. Stewart said that, for Tavener, life “is a story about a ‘journey’ and becoming ‘one with God'”. This quest is reflected in all of Tavener’s music familiar to this writer, but especially in the Requiem – an engaging, haunting and mystical musical score.

The veil has fallen on the life of John Tavener, as it has for many others – both known and unknown to me.  The essence of what was each of these persons has now become ‘one with God’, returned to the universal elements, the raw material and primeval force of nature.

Each one has left their imprint on the everlasting memory; some will remain indelibly in my memory.

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The present British government, a coalition between Conservatives and Liberal Democrats and dominated by the former, is arguably the most ideologically driven in living memory. Nowhere is this more obvious than in its economic policy.

The Chancellor, George Osborne, is in the process of shrinking the state to pre-1948 levels, that is, before the rise of what became the United Kingdom’s welfare state. “Welfare spending can’t be excluded from the difficult decisions,” the chancellor told a hearing of the Treasury select committee focusing on the recently-delivered autumn statement.

It would seem that the chancellor’s policy is one of more poverty, worse public services, further privatisation and protection for the wealthy.

In his autumn statement on the British economy, Osborne took every opportunity to laud the government’s view that austerity was working: welfare spending was decreasing, there were more jobs in the private sector and record numbers in employment. So too, opinion polls were suggesting that the British public is even more convinced of the need to balance the government books.

Each of the foregoing items is open to debate and what was not emphasised, of course, was the reality that spending cuts are far from over – they will likely continue well into the next parliament.

Whitehall departments will be further squeezed so that by 2018-19 the government will be smaller than at any time since at least 1948. Spending on day-to-day government items, investment in infrastructure and debt interest will all be reduced. The real earnings of many British workers will take up to a decade to make up for lost ground; the public sector will be hugely reduced.

The bulk of vast reductions in the budget deficit will occur through cuts in spending rather than increases in taxation.

Larry Elliot of The Guardian, recently wrote, “But the shrinking of the state is also a political choice”. In his autumn statement, George Osborne “announced fresh cuts in government departmental spending and a cap on all welfare payments other than pensions and jobseekers’ benefits”, and “the autumn statement includes plenty of giveaways – on fuel duties, marriage allowances and school meals – that will have to be funded out of smaller Whitehall budgets.”

Osborne says that he wants “a government that lives within its means in a country that pays its way in the world”. His way of ensuring that the books balance “involves pouring money into property speculation rather than productive investment, and by locking the UK into a low-productivity, low-investment, low-wage economy in which poverty rises and public services deteriorate”. 1948 does not seem so far away after all.

George Osborne, and many of his governmental colleagues, likes to draw the distinction between “scroungers” and “hard-working families”. He is seemingly oblivious to the fact that many of these oft-mentioned hard-working families “rely on welfare – in the form of in-work benefits – to top up their poverty wages”. It is clear from opinion polls that British voters are unhappy about falling living standards – perhaps the same people who agree, rather bewilderingly, with the government’s austerity policies.

The outcome of the next election in 2015 may depend on the British public making the connection between government policies and the state of their finances. Time will tell.

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In a message to mark the Roman Catholic church’s day of peace, Pope Francis has called for countries to shrink the gap between rich and poor, some of whom he said were getting only “crumbs” (from the rich man’s table?). The pope said that huge salaries and bonuses were symptoms of an economy based on greed and inequality.

He focused on the financial and economic crises gripping many of today’s nations, as well as the quest for satisfaction, happiness and security in excessive salaries and immoderate consumption, all of which he believes is “out of place and out of proportion to the principles of a sound economy”. He feels that there is a timely need to rethink “models of economic development and changes in lifestyles”.

The pope’s message was impressively entitled “Fraternity, the Foundation and Pathway to Peace”. As well as offering an opinion on economics, the message also attacked injustice, human trafficking, organised crime and the weapons’ trade as obstacles to peace.

All very true, but is it not also true that, historically, the Roman Catholic church has been involved, directly or otherwise, with some of the very things he now attacks. Is it now a case of critique, remorse and apology?

To his credit, however, Pope Francis has urged his own church to be more fair and frugal – and less pompous! This may be a start, but…time will tell.

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