Forty years ago last week Martin Luther King Junior returned from the mountaintop to continue campaigning for civil rights in Memphis Tennessee. On 4 April he was gunned down by James Earl Ray.
I've been offline for much of the last fortnight but felt this should not pass without comment. On the anniversary Barack Obama invoked that mountaintop visit quoting King: "Either we go up together or we go down together". No doubt that is a thought uppermost in the mind of progressives in the US at the moment. Both speeches are worth the visit.
King made his historic “I have a dream” speech in 1963, 3 months before John Kennedy’s assassination. King's own murder took place not long after he had said, “Let me close by saying that we have difficult days ahead in the struggle for justice and peace, but I will not yield to a politic of despair.”
In an age of cynicism, we need to spend some time reflecting on those sentiments. A renewed desire to reject political despair clearly accounts for a lot of Obama's popularity.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Return to the Mountaintop
Monday, March 17, 2008
War Reflection #2: “Peace with Honor” – the usual spin
John McCain has made it clear that if he is President, Iraq will continue to echo the worst aspects of the Vietnam War. The beliefs that it is winnable and that it can go on indefinitely are frightening reminders of the hawk politics of 40 years ago. 1968 was the year that LBJ retired a shattered man because of the war, the My Lai massacre took place and Richard Nixon was elected US President promising to end the war.
The current “success” of the surge smacks of Nixon’s promises to get peace with honour. Peace was even declared in 1973 with the hollow Paris Accords, just two years before the rout of the South Vietnamese. Nixon announced “an agreement to end the war and bring peace with honor in Vietnam and in Southeast Asia.”
It was an empty charade to get US troops home without acknowledging defeat. With macabre irony the chief negotiators Henry Kissinger and Le Doc Tho were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
John McCain has promised us:
I intend to win the war, and trust in the proven judgment of our commanders there and the courage and selflessness of the Americans they have the honor to command.Presumably the Vietnam conflict, where 50,000 Americans died, was not one of those "similar challenges".
Faced with similar challenges, previous generations of Americans have passed such tests with honor. It is now our turn to demonstrate that our power, ennobled by our principles, is the greatest force for good on earth today.
Strategy for Victory in Iraq
McCain's brief response to Admiral William Fallon's early retirement last week as commander-in-chief of Central Command did not address any of the issues which brought about his decision. Fallon had "served with honor". Strange for someone who criticises George Bush for changing the military leadership in Iraq too frequently.
We are going to hear a lot more that sounds like "peace with honor" before this year is over. Expect the usual spin from the usual suspects.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
War Reflection #1: The My Lai Massacre
On 16 March 1968 U.S. forces killed between 300 and 500 Vietnamese civilians in what came to be known as the My Lai (My Son) massacre. The military covered up the atrocity and President Richard Nixon and the Pentagon ignored it at first. Lieutenant William Calley who led the slaughter was eventually charged and convicted of murder but served only a few months in prison.
It was only weeks after the politically disastrous Tet Offensive and seven years before the Vietnam conflict ended. It was 30 years before helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson and two other soldiers were honoured for stopping the killing.
There are hundreds of thousands of websites that mention My Lai. I would recommend another source for some understanding of the dark side of humanity that perpetrates such barbarity: Tim O’Brien’s 1994 novel In the Lake of the Woods. He served 'in country' as a draftee in 1969-70 with the same division as Calley.
It is not an easy read. Its structure is very complex and it uses multiple voices. It is anything but a straightforward narrative. It is a mixture of many elements: war story, political intrigue, murder mystery and a tale of psychological magic.
O’Brien has written other novels based on his Vietnam experiences, such as If I Die in a Combat Zone and The Things They Carried, which are well worth reading.
In October 2003 O’Brien spoke of similarities of Vietnam with the Iraq war. Even then he remarked, “Just the doubletalk of it all reminds me of Vietnam, “lights a glow at the end of tunnels,…” We can only hope that recent progress is not illusory.
Stay tuned for "Peace with Honor".
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Lionel Rose: Australian hero
Lionel Rose: World Champion and 1968 Australian of the Year
Lionel became World Bantamweight Champion on 26 February 1968 by defeating Figthing Harada in Tokyo. He was the Australian of the year for 1968, the first aborigine in that role. He was only nineteen.
Lionel was not a political person in his youth unlike his American counterpart Muhammad Ali. Ali's boxing licence had been suspended a year earlier because of his refusal to be drafted for the Vietnam War. He was also stripped of his world title.
You didn't have to be into boxing to watch Lionel's bouts. We all did. There was no traffic in Melbourne if it was televised. His trainer was Jack Rennie - no relation, though it is a family name.
When he became the greatest boxer in Australian history, he was only nineteen.
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Slaughterhouse-Five: the anti-glacier novel
Kurt Vonnegut, who died last year, finished writing Slaughterhouse-Five in 1968 after a long gestation. It was published in 1969. I hadn’t read it until this week. Its central theme is the fire bombing of Dresden on 13 February 1945. Vonnegut was a prisoner of war in Dresden at the time and saw the devastation firsthand.
It’s the anniversary this week. The bombing has always been controversial. The nature of the attack: was it a war crime? The extent of the death toll: was it grossly overestimated (as the novel seems to do) because of nazi propaganda? Was it hushed up after the war by Allied military and governments?
The novel remains a modern classic for a number of reasons. It is essentially autobiographical though its main character Billy Pilgrim is fictional. Science fiction and time travel are unexpected aspects of this war memoir. It’s from a completely different planet from Norman Mailer’s “The Naked and the Dead” that was based on his own war experiences. The planet’s called Tralfamadore to which he is taken by aliens and placed in a zoo. At times you feel like you wandered into the middle of a Phillip K. Dick short story. It’s Ken Kesey in a real asylum.
Billy flashes back and forward in dreams, conscious recollections and excursions in time. He believes that we all live forever and can move between our experiences.
Vonneguts’s “Duty Dance with Death” uses a meta-narrative. Kurt is only a minor character in the story but he reflects on his Armageddon, its broader context and the writing process throughout the book. We even get:
Robert Kennedy, whose summer home is eight miles from the home I live in all year round, was shot two nights ago. He died last night. So it goes.There are lots of modern parallels that could be drawn from this novel. Billy Pilgrim would not make any of them if he time travelled to our world:
Martin Luther King was shot a month ago. He died, too. So it goes.
‘It was alright,’ said Billy. ‘Everything is all right, and everybody has to do exactly what he does.’The death and destruction of this “telegraphic schizophrenic” tale is supposed to speak for itself. So it goes.
"Peace.", wrote Vonnegut at the end of its lengthy sub-title. It's an "anti-glacier" book: Wars "were as easy to stop as glaciers. [They] keep coming."
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Tet Offensive: 40 years on
It’s forty years since the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese launched the Tet Offensive. Three images persist. The US Embassy in Saigon during its capture, the devastation of the Ancient Imperial Capital at Hue and the summary execution of a VC by the National police chief.
It was a political disaster for Lyndon Johnson and his allies such as Australia. Not
a great beginning for John Gorton’s government. The US military has always claimed that it was a crushing defeat for the communists. It was certainly the beginning of the end for the Indochina war but not before Richard Nixon spread the carnage to Cambodia and Laos.
Nixon was the beneficiary of LBJ’s political self-destruction and Robert Kennedy’s assassination in his campaign to win the presidency and end the war. I clearly remember watching Johnson’s “I shall not seek, and I will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your President” speech. It was a moment of optimism that did not last long. Australian troops, including conscripts, would continue to fight and die for another four years. 50,000 Americans would die before their ignominious defeat in 1975. Countless millions of Vietnamese, both military and civilians, perished.
I was not conscripted but others of my age started their compulsory military service in 1968. The war changed all our lives. At Monash University, home of the most radical anti-war activists, thousands would spend their lunchtimes listening to the infamous Albert Langer and others debate Australia’s participation. Draft resisters began to openly defy the government, burning their conscription papers and taunting the Federal police and government to come and find them.
It brought the moratorium movement that would transform local politics and help to change the government as well.
For more about the year I turned 21, reached voting age and watched the world turn upside down, visit Remembering '68 an online Facebook history group.
You can contribute by adding photos, by writing on the wall, by posting items such as videos or web links or by starting or joining discussions.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Martin Luther King Day
The national holiday in the USA for Martin Luther King Jnr. was celebrated yesterday, 21 January. He made his historic “I have a dream” speech in 1963, 3 months before John Kennedy’s assassination.
King's own murder took place on 4 April 1968. It was just weeks after he had said, “Let me close by saying that we have difficult days ahead in the struggle for justice and peace, but I will not yield to a politic of despair.” Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution
The politics of assassination and despair are still with us. So is the struggle against racism.
For more online history about 1968 visit Remembering 68 on Facebook.
Friday, January 18, 2008
Remembering '68
It's stinger season in Broome. These jellyfish were in the AQWA Aquarium in Perth on Tuesday, not at Cable Beach.
Laborview has a couple of projects in the planning stage.
The first: Remembering '68, an online history of the year I turned 21, reached voting age and watched the world turn upside down. Personal, social, political. Stories, images, sounds.
John Grey Gorton became Prime Miniter 40 years ago on January 10 with a promise of change. His government did not met our hopes but it gave us an end to rigid censorship under Don Chipp's leadership as Minister for Customs and Excise. I wonder what university life would have been without being able to read Henry Miller. The current internet filtering debate and the regular controversies at the Office of film and Literature Classification shows that we still have a way to go.
The Beatles White Album, released at the time of the May 1968 Paris protests, featured Revolution:
You say you want a revolution,
Well, you know, we all want to change the world.
You tell me that it's evolution,
Well, you know, we all want to change the world.
But when you talk about destruction,
Don't you know that you can count me out
Don't you know it's gonna be alright.
There was lots of destruction that year!
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