an open letter to the Legislative Council

Remember the Stop and Search laws I mentioned a few weeks ago? Well, here’s how you can have your say and someone else has already done the hard work for you. This is not mine, a dear friend Wray Kay forwarded it to me, but I understand it was written by a friend of hers, Ben. (If that’s you let me know where to send the link love.) I thought it was worth sharing. When pollies are swamped in faxes, snail mail and phone calls and their servers struggle with emails they have to pay attention. Make your voices heard, Perth readers.

 Dear Ministers,

 I write to you with regard to your upcoming vote on the Criminal Investigation Amendment Bill 2009.

 This legislation, which will grant to police unprecedented powers to ‘stop and search’ members of the public without reasonable suspicion or permission, has been widely condemned—both by members of the voting public, and those in the legal profession.

 The proposed legislation violates fundamental principles of liberal democracy—not least of which the presumption of innocence, which has been a corner-stone of our justice system for centuries, with good cause.

 We all understand the desire for security in our community, however we must ask ourselves how much of our hard-earned civil liberties we wish to sacrifice to this end.

 As Benjamin Franklin wrote: “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety”.

 The ‘Northbridge problem’ is a difficult one and we will find a solution to it eventually—but this is not the answer.  Witness the environmental protesters being issued Move-On Notices in Bunbury on 20 October—these notices were designed to protect people in Northbridge, yet they were ultimately utilised to undermine the democratic right to protest.

 Is this the legacy we want to leave our children? And is this the reason our war veterans fought the fascists—so our freedom could be given away again with the stroke of a pen?

 This weekend the Australian newspaper described Western Australia as the “worst offender” in the nation when it comes to the undermining of citizens’ rights.  Do you want to be remembered with the same distaste as Joh Bjelke-Petersen?

 This is a crucial time in our state’s history, one of incredible expansion and sudden affluence.  Accordingly, social problems have developed.  However, we must find real solutions.

 I urge both sides of politics, as well as members from minor parties and independents, to vote ‘NO’ on this legislation.  Let’s work together to find real solutions.

 Regards,

The email and postal addresses of the Legislative Council members are here. Or just write to your local member.

making hay while the spotlight’s elsewhere

So Labor has been busy while the Australian Liberals (if you’re overseas that’s our conservatives) went into a spectacular collapse today. While we were all glued to the ongoing train-wreck in the Tories’ camp, two, rather contradictory other things happened. (And yes, I’m as cynical about the timing as you are.)

Labor quietly announced it would not overrule legislation in the ACT that allows same sex civil unions.

A Labor led Senate Inquiry into marriage equality released a report recommending the bill not be supported.

The report is worth a read. But here’s the Cliff’s Notes: The committee received more than 28,000 submissions to the inquiry, 82 from organisations and individuals representing organisations, 4943 from individuals and variations on 12 different standard letters. Of them about 11,000 were in favour of the Bill, and about 17,000 were opposed. More than 2,500 individuals who submitted to the inquiry cited religious and moral reasons for their opposition to the Bill.

Personally, my standout headdesk moment was this submission that suggests there is no “right” to freedom of sexuality:

4.39 The ACL questioned exactly what ‘right’ the Bill was seeking to effectuate and highlighted that the Bill’s supporting documentation indicated that the amendments were designed to recognise ‘freedom of sexuality’ as a fundamental human right:
It is not at all apparent where such a ‘right’ originates, as it is nowhere established in foundational international human rights instruments… As well as being seriously flawed in law, recognising freedom of sexuality as a fundamental human right is a potentially dangerous objective of this Bill.

Ultimately, the conclusion the committee came to in the report seems supportive of same sex relationships, just so long as same sex relationships are fundamentally set apart from every other relationship, and possibly spat on for good measure:

5.12 The committee has much sympathy with the views put by those in support of the Bill, and in particular the importance of supporting same sex attracted people, who have suffered considerable inequality over many years, to prosper on an equal footing with heterosexual Australians. The committee hopes that its recommendation to review relationship recognition arrangements, and implement a nationally consistent framework for relationships, will promote this outcome.
5.13 Furthermore, the committee considers the current policy in relation to Certificates of Non Impediment to Marriage to be inappropriate in all the circumstances, and to warrant reversal. All other things being equal, same sex couples proposing to legally marry overseas should not face administrativen hurdles imposed by Australia.
5.14 While the committee agrees that the current definition of ‘marriage’ in the Marriage Act 1961 is appropriate, other types of relationships play an important part in Australian society and deserve recognition. For this reason, the committee’s recommendation not to alter the definition of marriage should not be taken as a lack of support for same-sex couples. However, the committee considers that the current definition is a clear and well-recognised legal term which should be preserved. The committee recommends that the Bill not be passed.

Sounds like a politically expedient result to me. (And the whole, we won’t make same sex marriage legal here, but we won’t prevent you from getting married elsewhere – does that sound a bit like “get the fuck out” to you or have I been reading the same few paragraphs too many times?) “Politically expedient” basically sums up everything that happened in politics today. You know, I voted for Rudd because I thought Labor would be different. I thought it would be less about pandering to the bigots and xenophobes and bullshit lipservice that Howard was about on immigration, climate change, the fucking Northern Territory Intervention and same sex marriage. Sadly, the more I see of this new 21st Century Labor, the more I see that they are the same shit in a different bucket. That’s politics. Bunch of fuck-necks the lot of them.

There are rallies for marriage equality all over the country on Saturday. In Perth, if that’s where you happen to find yourself, it’s outside London Court at 2pm.

signs that humanity can’t be all that bright

So I went out and saw District 9 last night. I would have liked to give you a review of it and have a good discussion with the blogosphere about its treatment of race and whether it is epic fail (I suspect it is). Unfortunately, I spent most of the film looking at the wall because the director, in his wisdom, decided it would be brilliant to film it almost entirely on handheld camera. So basically all I can tell you about the film is that accents and giant robot suits are kind of awesome but everything else made me want to vomit (including the black vomit).

So I can’t talk about the film. What I will tell you is that people who make films and TV shows like this need a good talking to. Let me put it to you simply: trying to interpret a world that swirls, shifts and bounces unsteadily in front of your eyes is difficult, to say the least. So, the human body edits that shit out. The brain cleans up the data your eyes receive to help you understand it. Not only does it put it the right way up for you, it also creates a composite of the snippets of information your eye receives as it shifts about minutely to create as clear as possible a three dimensional idea of the world. This is important when you try to hunt buffalo without getting eaten by lions, drive a car, push your kid on the swings, fight aliens and, um, walk around. It would be very difficult to accomplish any of these things if the world actually looked how District 9 looked to me last night. So it’s not realism, it’s a gimmick. Furthermore, no matter how good your story, how brilliant the acting, how clever the writing – if you make me want to throw up, I’m not going to watch, I’m not going to suggest other people watch, I can’t review it well. There’s something to be said about people who find it “artistic” or “edgy” to intentionally distort their own product. What’s the phrase I’m looking for? How about “crap-filmmakers”. That’ll do.

Moon, on the other hand, is brilliant, classic sci fi. I suggest you see that one instead.

Update: I’ve tried to avoid anything spoilery in the post in case you still want to see the film. But there will be spoilers in the comments. So consider yourself warned.

on calling it rape

I posted on rape and consent earlier in the week off the back of some comments made by WA Police Commissioner Karl O’Callaghan. Today I stumbled on this excellent post that I recommend you all read. The author uses some survey based reports to develop the conclusion that not only are the majority of rapes perpetrated by someone the victim knows, those people are also more inclined to rape and they are also more inclined to be violent in other ways, such as hitting their partner or children. That is the portion of society that needs to be targeted. According to the author removing repeat rapists from the population would result in a quarter drop in violence against women and children. And the author makes the brilliant point that women have done all they can with regard to stopping rape. Now it’s up to men.

This was the part that stood out to me:

We need to revoke the rapists’ social license to operate. We need to stop asking, “why do we think he didn’t know she wasn’t consenting,” which is the first question now, really. First as a cultural matter — leaving the legal matter aside — we need to adopt the stance that sexual interaction ought to always be had in a state of affirmative consent by all participants; that anything else is aberrant. If someone says, “I was sexually assaulted,” the first question should be, “why was a person continuing with sexual activity when zir partner did not want to?”

This is what it is: real rape happens when the attacker is drunk and the target is drunker and alone and isolated. That’s rape-rape. If he gets away with it, it will be, on average, rape-rape-rape-rape-rape-rape. If we refuse to listen, he can continue to pretend that the rapist is some guy in the parking lot late at night, when it’s actually him, in our friends’ bedrooms half an hour after last call. If we let that happen, we’re part of the problem.

Go to Yes means Yes and read the post. Now.

Update: Oh, for the love of all that is holy: Schoolies’ secret shame: they were raped. (Via Hoyden.)

dispatches from the front lines

Last month four women, Venerable Ajahn Vayama together with Venerables Nirodha, Seri and Hasapanna, were ordained as Theravadan Buddhist nuns here in Perth. According to this post at Perthindymedia,  there is a belief that the bhikkhuni lineage stopped about the 12th Century, after which no new bhikkhunis could be ordained. There is some discussion on the subsequent punishment of Ajahm Brahmavamso, who ordained them, here.

There is an (audio only) discussion about the ordination of the nuns at the Buddhist Society of WA site. Here is the abstract:

Ajahn Brahm shows how this is a case study in how to make a courageous decision in Buddhism, and in life. The four factors or advices in making a right decision, the four agati, are: not out of selfish desire, not out of ill-will, not out of delusion and the greatest of all, not out of fear.

We will be judged by our success in making this decision work. The only difference between men and women is what we add on to the human being. You are a Bhikkhu or Bhikkhuni first, and then a follower of a particular tradition. Now we need to give our support to the nuns, so that the seed sown this week will thrive and help to spread the Dhamma worldwide.

I’m not entirely sure what kind of discussion to give this because I don’t know a lot about this particular community. However, when I was emailed about the ordination I couldn’t not post about it (thanks to Brett Lyle). It is a fight for equality on a front that I may not be familiar with, but it’s the same fight accompanied by the same pushback. The four women and the community that supported them are to be congratulated on their courage and determination. From what I can tell Buddhism has a lot of egalitarian elements based in the notion of gender inequality as being an obstacle to enlightenment. However it seems at the higher levels of achievement there is still discrimination within it from the familiar playbook of the kyriarchy. And then, although I realise we’re talking about non-Tibetan Buddhists, I found this from the Fourteenth Dalai Lama:

Warfare has traditionally been carried out primarily by men, since they seem better physically equipped for aggressive behavior. Women, on the other hand, tend to be more caring and more sensitive to others’ discomfort and pain. Although men and women have the same potentials for aggression and warm-heartedness, they differ in which of the two more easily manifests. Thus, if the majority of world leaders were women, perhaps there would be less danger of war and more cooperation on the basis of global concern – although, of course, some women can be difficult! I sympathize with feminists, but they must not merely shout. They must exert efforts to make positive contributions to society.

I welcome comments from people who know more about Buddhism and where women see themselves within it. I’d also like to extend my congratulations to the newly ordained nuns and wish them and their community all the best of luck.

a word (or three) on consent

WA Police Commissioner Karl O’Callaghan has recently suggested metal detectors be installed at Perth train station. WA Police are on the brink of gaining remarkable new powers to search anyone on the street without evidence or even reason. This is to cut down on the amount of booze-fuelled violence in the entertainment precinct of Northbridge. You’ll notice the one thing that hasn’t been suggested – that people just don’t go there. No-one’s suggesting that if the Perth streets after hours are a war zone of violent criminals the best single solution is to not go there. Or to go there in a large group. Or to stay sober while you’re there. All the “solutions” cut down on the civil liberties of regular people, but not to the extent that they can’t leave the house. Just that they have to be willing to be searched, prodded, scanned and xrayed.

But that’s good enough for women who’d like very much not to be raped. Just stay in a group, don’t go out, stay sober. If you go into Northbridge and fall victim to an angry drunk who punches you in the head, well society’s gone to the dogs. If a stranger, your best mate, your husband rapes you – you really should have seen it coming, shouldn’t you. There’s no way to prevent it. What did you expect? Look at that skirt you’re wearing.

Silly? No, rape culture. Rape culture is a society in which sexual violence is tacitly or overtly permissible. In which the only way to stop sexual violence is by women changing their behaviour. Rape culture is a society in which the majority of rapes go unreported. If they are reported what the woman was wearing, doing, drinking, who she was with and how late it was are all used as evidence against her. Rape culture is a world in which an extremely small (I want to say 6 per cent, but I believe that’s an American figure) percentage of reported rapes result in a conviction. It’s a society in which there are hilarious jokes about sexual violence, about prison rape. If you don’t laugh there’s something wrong with you. Or you’re just an evil femnazi man hater.

It is disappointing that in a rape culture the Police Commissioner has this to say on provisions to prevent sexual assault during this year’s Leavers’ Week:

“Female leavers should never go off with someone they do not really know,” Mr O’Callaghan said.

“They should also avoid drinking so much alcohol that they cannot make safe decisions.”

No Commish, that’s not a rape squad, that’s not special preventative measures, that’s the world. That’s what every woman is told for ever. That’s rape culture.

And before you suggest that you’re putting special sexual assault squad officers there, how is that prevention? Isn’t that you accepting that rapes are going to happen? Aren’t you just kind of admitting that you don’t care about preventing rape, but you’d better pretend like you do?

Newsflash: women don’t cause rape. But you’re not saying anything to boys or men. I’m not talking about the hiding in the bushes with a knife rapist. I’m talking about the folks you know, the guys you hang out with, the teenagers about to let loose with booze. You say you’ve got sniffer dogs to confiscate drugs and alcohol. Maybe also say that being drunk may make a dude more likely to misconstrue consent?

You know, it’d be kind of reassuring if the dude in charge of the organisation that deals with allegations of sexual assault, the investigation of sexual assault and that lays sexual assault charges had something to say about how sex is an opt in as opposed to an opt out activity and how young men must remember that if she’s drunk or passed out there is no consent and they will not be spared the full measure of the law. I suspect he didn’t say that because he doesn’t believe it’s true.  But it’d be good to put up a front of actually caring about sexual assault – in the same way he’s pretending to care about alcohol fuelled violence in party districts.

What does he have to say about the potential perpetrators of rape?:

Mr O’Callaghan has said he was disappointed with the number of toolies, many in their late teens or early 20s, who tried to party with leavers last year.

“Disappointed”. Which is what your parents said to you when you failed your maths exam.

The world needs consent lessons. Everyone, man, woman, child, young and old. People don’t understand consent doesn’t mean pestering until she says “oh for God’s sake, let’s get it over with”. And consent doesn’t mean having sex with someone who is drunk or passed out or dead. Sure, there’s bad people, there will possibly always be people who are violent, or abusive, or just plain no good. But they aren’t most people. Most people I know don’t understand consent. Middle class dudes with jobs and girlfriends and pets. Sure, they’ll seem alright for a while but as soon as a rape story hits the news they’ll tell you that she was drunk and embarassed that she had sex with those 30 football players, so she said she was raped. The cops she told probably assumed the same thing. So did her friends. So did the media. So did the police commissioner.

What should the commissioner be saying instead of “girls take care”? Well, he should keep saying that. Everyone should take care, male and female. But what about a line suggesting boys respect their female friends? What about a phrase along the lines of: “sex coerced via force or intoxication is rape and rape will be prosecuted (and this time we mean it)”? What about that message being carried through the entire lives of every person on the planet – including when the Commish opens his gob. What would you suggest readers? How should messages about consent be communicated?

it wasn’t a problem when the Nazis did it

Western Australia is trundling happily down the road to fascism, thank Christ, but anyone who dares suggest such is over-reacting wildly and will probably “disappear” during the night. Of course, I am whole heartedly in favour of this collective step towards a police state, it had to happen eventually and goshdarn it, why won’t they do something about graffiti and those damned hoons while they’re at it. Oh wait, they are.

If you’re out of the loop, our wise and learned politicians all agree that the only way this State will cease this inexorable slide towards dogs and cats living together, fish falling from the sky carrying AK47s and of course complete (but only state wide, mind) armageddon, is by giving the police greater power to search people without requiring them to have any evidence of wrong doing. Which is right on key because I know I so often am violently assaulted by people who are doing nothing wrong. Sometimes I don’t even realise it’s happened, they’re so sneaky and all. In fact, this legislation is such a good idea that a parliamentarian has suggested that since it worked in Nazi Germany, it’s good for WA. (Not joking, yes it is 2009 here too.)

We should note here that some opponents of the plan have suggested that searching a person may in fact only reveal that they are a person. However, this is a vital investigative step as any police officer will tell you. What with all the one punching and the rape going on, establishing that said human in fact has fists is an important right that the police in this state do not have, making it all the harder to do their job like apprehending the well known gang members that run around freely in our city wearing greasy looking pony tails (which at the very least should be a fashion offence). No word yet on whether gangsters have fists.

Oh, and don’t even worry what that Greens MP (a woman!) says about the new laws being used disproportionately against Aboriginal people and other marginalised groups. If they knew what was good for them they’d just stop being so marginalised and then everything would be fine. Also, I suspect they deserve it what with them not looking so much like me and all. Anyway, my mate (who’s a cop) says that there is not one single racist police officer in the history of the world (or perhaps the universe). In that way coppers are like teachers and doctors, in that they exist outside of society, don’t have a social life or opinions of their own and aren’t in anyway influenced by prejudices that are inherent within the systems we all live in. If there is not one single racist cop, then it stands to reason that there are no hateful cops, homophobic cops, transphobic cops, sexist cops, hungover cops, cops who are prone to errors of judgment. There has never on this earth existed a cop having a really shit day. Ever. (Not to minimise being racist or transphobic or any of these hateful things, just to point out that our good mate the Police Union president could be presuming a little bit too much on this matter.)

There will be though, if they don’t get the power to stop all those not-yet-but-maybe-might-be-some-day criminals. So many cops will be having bad days they might have to bother about finding something along the lines of reasonable suspicion and intent and evidence and what not. And that would just be so damned time consuming.

Update: staggering around the intertubes today and courtesy of a comment from frazicus I found this post about WA Police and racism. I suggest you read it.

the down under feminist carnival is a go-go

The latest installment of the Down Under Feminist Carnival is up at Wallaby and I’d like to congratulate Jo Tamar on an excellent round-up. (Not to mention once again hang my head in shame at my own failure in helping her out by contributing some posts.)

The next carnival is at The Professional Lap Cat and the theme is Invisible Sexism – the elephant in the room, which I’m sure is something all of my regulars will have some thoughts on. I urge everyone (including myself) to nominate some posts. You don’t have to be a blogger to add suggestions and it’s really easy with this carnival site. More information is available at Hoyden About Town.

“other” and the reasons for fear

I am an incurable cynic and as such I can’t shake the feeling that Australia will never change. Our society will always be unequal on racial, economic and a myriad of other grounds, we will always fear the “other”, we will always be entirely unwilling or incapable to hear any differing opinions.

But, interestingly enough, judging by the letters and comments that spew out of the cesspool-minds of the populace at the slightest provocation, the reasons for the fear seem to be changing. Not on all subjects, of course. There was a quite farcical thread on news.com.au earlier in the week about celebrities backing same sex relationship equality that came out with the same tired fears, non-arguments and unthinking prejudices. Whenever some misguided columnist trots out a “battle of the sexes” type meme the comments are so predictable you could dance to them.

Indeed, the responses to any immigration argument also seem to follow the same lines every time. It’s usually a selection of Muslim bashing, laments about the Australian way of life being under threat and some misguided notions about Sharia law topped off with the old refrain about learning “the language”, by which we assume they mean English. But hasn’t that changed in the last ten years? What about immigrants taking jobs that should go to good honest, hardworking “Aussie battlers”? How about the marked shift in which immigrants Australians fear, from those from Asian nations we all remember being decried in the Howard/Hansen era to the untrustworthy Muslims from the Middle East. What about the way in which they’re viewed? It’s gone from industrious people who will undercut wages and thus threaten workers to a shadowy burka-shaped threat of suicide bombings and complete social collapse. It’s as if people who want to hate immigrants have decided a physical threat of destruction lurking around every corner will gain more traction than an economic threat. Like they’re running an awareness campaign. Eventually they’ll put out a ribbon for sale at post offices and supermarket checkouts.

Am I wrong? Is this just a new way of expressing the same fear that the White Australia policy was based on (which, of course, we can assume was nothing to do with race because there is no racism in Australia, that’s just for other countries)? Or has there truly been a shift in the way Australians express their xenophobia?

The thing is, I really believe in multiculturalism. It’s true that it is problematic in so many ways.  It’s true that prejudices and fears and oppressive forces against people viewed as “outsiders” will take generations to overcome, if they can be overcome at all. And more than anything, it’s true that as all these immigrants jostle for position, Aboriginal Australians continue to be erased and silenced. But I can think of nothing worse than living in a world in which everyone is identical. I don’t want to live in a place where there are no different languages, cultures or ways of thinking. To those who demand people learn “the language”, I constantly want to ask what efforts they’ve made to learn another language. Perhaps an Aboriginal one? Imagine how the world would be different if everyone learnt the language of the person at their local shop. Saying goodmorning or goodafternoon in the native tongue of someone you don’t know, but who you see every day. That, my friends, is community. As a continent of immigrants and a nation of constantly competing prejudices we cannot presume to value what we consider to be “our group”, whatever that may be, over any other. That is multiculturalism. Respecting that everyone is different and that society is better for those differences.

The fact is Australia is still in the very early days of being a multicultural nation. When my grandparents were my age, it wasn’t even heard of. Surely we can hope that in a generation’s time a lot of these old fears will be a thing of the past? But what worries me is that if in just ten years the focus of that hatred has shifted to become more seductive to an unthinking dominant group, will Australian xenophobia be a shape-shifting ugliness we will forever be glimpsing out of the corner of our eye?

Update: I thought I’d add some thoughts based on a conversation I had with eleusis7 on Twitter. He said that as an immigrant he’s wary of people who presume to talk to him in a language he might understand. And that was an angle that I half considered when Meggy commented about traveling and speaking the local language but couldn’t quite put into words. There’s a specific kind of arrogance in the presumption that you can guess a person’s culture based on the way they look. As eleusis7 said “it’s a special kind of racism, ie you look different, maybe you’re not one of us, maybe I’ll try speaking in a different language that you might understand”. That is such a great point I couldn’t not add it. For the record I realise how arrogant that would be and it’s a matter of privilege that I didn’t consider that in my post. I was working with a utopia notion of a world in which people talk to each other in their neighbourhood, know each other and are able to converse in an appropriate language. There’s no reason that English speakers should only speak English, is the point I was trying to make. As eleusis7 said, it’s not so much the requirement to learn English that is the problem, it’s the lack of respect with which that message is delivered.

It’s an interesting conversation about language, how society respects languages that aren’t dominant and the fact that even English is the language of the coloniser and hence far from politically laden. I also wonder how to reconcile the preservation of different cultures and languages with the fact that without a working language of English immigrants will be politically, economically and socially isolated. As the dominant group, I see that it’s the responsibility of Australians who speak English as a first language to make the accommodations for that. But I’m interested in your thoughts.

dude loses job, woman blamed

It’s never a dude’s fault if he loses his job. This is one of the rules of Dude Logic.  But if a dude loses his job and is replaced by a woman, well, clearly it’s just sexism, polical correctness and the apocalypse is nigh.

Lucky then that news.com.au has maintained its commitment to exposing this clandestine trend of underpaying white boys in visible jobs, where the option of hiring a woman at the expense of a boy will always be the first preference, when women far outweigh boys at business lunches and around boardrooms. This demonstrable sexism needs to be exposed.

Like, for instance, this poor bloke. Judging by his quotes, he’s not used to things not going his way. Poor bugger. And, taking into consideration hundreds of comments under the story ranging from “start your own show dude” to “sick of this PC shit”, the very angels in heaven are weeping over the constant inequities boys in television are faced with every day, just doing their jobs.

But the comment that really got me, and that really shows how entrenched the misandry in the world has become, is this one:

Err…sex sells……what’s new?

Posted by: Cly of Brisbane 2:41pm today
Comment 118 of 157

This is blatant sexism. Doesn’t Cly of Brisbane know that boys can be sexy too? Why are boys always considered to be nothing but logical, reliable and non-emotive? You know what, Cly of Brisbane? Boys can sometimes look nice too and want to be made to feel sexy. Boys walk down the street sometimes and just pray a woman would holler out of a passing car. It’s about valuing the entire person, not just how well they do their job.