Editorial:

Our one-sided commemorations

The Howard Government and Howard personally are conducting a 
relentless campaign to militarise the thinking of the Australian 
people in pursuit of the phoney "war against terrorism". Howard 
has gone to the APEC heads of government meeting in Bangkok 
pushing this Western-promoted "war without end" high up the 
agenda. His aim is to involve the other nations in the US' s 
imperialist campaign for global domination.

The commemoration conducted in Bali was also used towards the 
same ends. Sheriff Howard once again pushed himself into the 
front row, this time to promote his cynical sympathy for the 
Australians killed in the Kuta blast.

The cynicism of this display of compassion was rather 
unexpectedly but none-the-less dramatically revealed by the photo 
of Howard holding hands with two children whose Indonesian mother 
had died in the blast. The bereaved children had been 
specifically denied a visa to visit their father who is locked up 
in a camp in Australia. He is a refugee from Iran and is on the 
list to be deported. Their father is the children's only living 
parent. But does this engender any sympathy from the Australian 
immigration authorities? Absolutely not!

Even after the publication of the photograph and the publicity 
given to the children's plight, Minister Amanda Vanstone calmly 
offers the response, "I have asked my department to pursue with 
vigour the man's reunion with his children in Iran". A reunion 
but not in Australia! The father must first accept deportation 
back to where he fled from.

However, this is only one facet of the Bali commemoration. The 
tragedy is being squeezed relentlessly by the media and the 
government. We are regaled with stories of heroism that are 
undoubtedly true but presented in such a way as to suggest that 
it is only Australians who display such heroism and compassion 
for others.

But the people of many other countries are experiencing Bali 
tragedies every day. What of the people of Palestine whose homes 
are being flattened by Israeli bulldozers and tanks and many men, 
women and children killed. Do those who die not deserve to be 
remembered? Do the Palestinian people not also show compassion to 
those rendered homeless with family members killed?

What of the victims of the war in Iraq? What of the people of 
Bolivia where government police and military have killed about 70 
people demonstrating against the grinding poverty inflicted by 
the policies imposed by the World Bank and the IMF? Do they not 
also suffer and cry and help one another?

What about the people of Vietnam who are still suffering the 
consequences of Agent Orange sprayed on them by the US military 
invaders so ably helped by Australian forces? What of the mothers 
who bear deformed children? How often is a commemoration held for 
the many more victims of Australia's invasion of their land. The 
Vietnamese were not invading Australia. It was Australia that was 
invading their homeland.

We do not even have to go overseas to show that the compassion of 
the Government, media and, unfortunately, many Australians is 
very one-sided.

Just recently the Indigenous newspaper Koori Mail recalled 
the 75th anniversary of the massacre by police of up to 100 
Aboriginal men, women and children at Coniston in the Northern 
Territory in 1928.

Where are the monuments erected by any Australian government? 
When have the white Australian population lit candles in memory 
of those killed — possibly a larger number than the 88 
Australians who lost their lives in Bali? Which church 
commemorates this act of genocide — only one among the many 
massacres of the Indigenous people as the invaders stole their 
land and attempted to eliminate them completely? The Government 
cannot even say "Sorry".

It is suggested that the tragedy of Bali will be commemorated 
"for ever". The Indigenous people merely request that the 
massacre at Coniston should be taught as part of the history of 
Australia.

As part of the Remembrance Day commemorations (November 11) the 
Prime Minister is to go to London to open yet another war 
memorial. And so the hypocrisy goes on.

The commemoration of those who lost their lives is a normal human 
reaction, but if we fail to act decisively to eliminate war, ever 
more statues, war memorials and candles will be lit to mark the 
inhumanity committed while some make use of this sentiment to 
hide their real monstrous agenda.