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It is not difficult to find reasons for student apathy for after reading your publication for some months I am bored stiff with
Your issue of July 12 illustrates my argument. Page after page of woe and misery leads me to the impression that you actually enjoy it. In the nineteen pages of written matter there were only three flashes of humour, two in letters to the Editor, and the bitter humour of the cartoonist Ron Cobb, and these three are the most memorable aspects of the whole issue. Certainly Citizen Pollard's attack on the American policy in Vietnam was thought provoking because his facts and opinion were clearly defined, but what research went into Peter Franks' article on our foreign policy? With a heading more suitable to a Playboy joke, he weighs into the papers presented with a bias highlighted by the tenor of the sub-headings e.g. Good Old War! Paranoic Fools, Wool Over Our Eyes etc., How he can expect any reader to believe in the accuracy of his report is beyond me, and it is obvious that he is writing not to convince but to add to a present policy of denigrating everything military without knowing exactly why. Cliche ridden articles such as this are not a substitute for accurate reporting.
Finally, why not try and follow the example of Ron Cobb and try and write constructively enough to "leave a trail of very perplexed people with the potential to be humbled by reality". Why not try a little bit of subtlety for a change, yea even satire, for you are killing any enthusiasm for student politics by your dismal outlook.
Thank you for letting us know I.T.T. is behind the food we buy in the caf. I suggest that all those who dislike capitalism in this form stop patronizing it. Cut lunches are cheaper and tastier than caf sandwiches and it takes less time to make them than it does to stand in the queue for caf food.
Doubtless Mr Franks will label me a patronizing comfortable Liberal, but may I suggest that he has yet to crawl out of the cocoon of pubescent righteousness that most of us turned in with our P.Y.M. badges.
My basic complaint is against his tendency to write as if the world fell neatly into black and white compartments. While this might make him feel better, one must keep an element of reason in discussing any topic. Emotionally I agree with much of what he says, but he misuses the medium of the printed word. This does Not mean he is called upon to be a hypocrite; it merely requires that he stir in a modicum of Augustan reason now and again, and occasionally admit the possibility of his own fallibility. Okay so McKinley is a prick as his recent fascist manoeuvres have amply shown, but to convince others (which presumably is Mr Franks' intention in writing articles) he must attack McKinley's ideas and not his person. When you confront your reader with labels you close his mind to the thought behind it.
May I recommend that Mr Franks take up the politics of laughter and leave his bitterness behind. There is no saner man in the country than Shadbolt, simply because he knows how to laugh at human stupidity.
Many campus radicals have great capacity for back biting, but lose sight of their original goal and consequently they achieve nothing.
What I ask of Mr Franks is a leavening of humanity, and I don't mean ali that Christian love-thy-neighbour crap either! His stereotypes are too bleak, and his wit is too easy.
P.S. The only occasion I have for using the library is to listen to records of Beethoven, and I have no intention of apologizing for that.
Could you please explain to me why you have decided to discontinue the sports section in Salient. I was about to write a strong criticism about such action when I realised that I was not certain exactly why such action was taken. I have read a few letters in Salient on the topic but I have not read your reasons and so I feel I should enable you to justify yourself and your actions before I attempt to tear them apart!
[See Salient 12 page fifteen, and Salient 14 page three—ED.]
After receiving several copies of Salient I must congratulate you on providing me with the only regular contact with that part of our Society that is not existing in a mist of apathy, indifference, rationalisation, delusions, hypocrisies and self-gratification.
It is elating and stimulating to know of one paper that is at least trying to provoke our mindless fat-arsed society into thinking for themselves instead of being manipulated.
It is refreshing to compare your paper with the immature self-conciously liberal and "enlightened" productions of other campuses.
I just hope that your paper is reaching those that really need it, "Civilisation is in a race between education and catastrophe."
(Staff, Waikeria Prison Officer)
True to Malaysian spirit I will endorse TET or anyone who wants to run the organisations MSA or MSSA or an alternative that is democratic, and will efficiently cater for the needs of students and foster good relations with our Kiwi hosts.
TET - Won't you come forward? Be at any Malaysian gathering or meeting - we will ensure a concerned soul like you will be noted. Justice is done to democracy. Surely, this is a good chance for you to show your genuine concern and accompany it with deeds. We will give you the essential support — and do whatever we can to help. No fear mate—you can count on us—if you care to be around when you see us in a mob. Of course you know good Malaysians do not simply talk- but do something. (I do my bit by voting for you- if you do not require anymore help from me).
Come forward fellow citizens. Isn't is Malaysian to facilitate changes and improvement Give TET (whoever he is) a chance. Best of luck from,
[Several other letters have been received on this matter. We will print them next week, as they arrived too late for this issue — Ed.]
Permit me to use your columns to dissociate myself from an article appearing in last weeks Salient (Wed 19 July).
As far as I know I am the only Paul Burns on Campus if not in Wellington. I am not the Paul Burns who is supposed to have writ "Deviating For a Moment".
Anyone who knows my style of writing (Pseudo-Gothic) will know it bears no resemblance to this article. If you Don't know my style of writing, ask Peter Fletcher of Waikato University, he wrote a very critical interesting study of it.
Love and Peace.
[Sorry Paul, — Ed.]
I strongly support Peter Franks and Gil Peterson's accusation of Mike McKinley (Salient. Vo. 35 No. 17) being a hypocrite.
I am glad I did not vote for him as man-vice-president.
N. Liew.
This Vietnam Medical Aid question should not be legitimized in a word called 'democracy'.
I feel that it is an issue of individual conscience rather than one of collective morality, super-imposed by a rather doubtful student organisation. Regardless of whether the decision is based on majoritarian principles or otherwise.
In the "Evening Post" of
Both Mr Stubbs and myself accept that the decision at the meeting was a majority one representative of student opinion. Although we regret the decision we wish to affirm that we will abide by it and strongly deny the rumours circulating around the University that we intend taking legal action. We do not feel that this course of action is an appropriate one in these circumstances. As far as we are concerned the matter has been finally decided.
A comedy, a verbal orgasm or an S.G.M.! which? It took some working out for a member of an ignorant public but I finally got the idea.
It was amazing that so many could be led by so few. It is also amazing that the so-called intellectual elite of young N.Z. could display such complete lack of all rational thought and control.
If anyone can tell me that any rational decision could have been made or majority opinion expressed I should laugh in their face. The only acheivement was mayhem! and utter pandemonium.
I would suggest that students take a cold bath and a good long look at themselves before voicing any opinion on any other matter at all.
I would suggest that some form of control be exercised over persistent interjectors of such important meetings as an S.G.M. When a dog gets that excited he usually gets shot.
You can't hope for a public hearing or any support at all in your aims, when you can't even agree among yourselves, and after all, in public opinion lies the only weight you carry. As you en masse could be our mind, so we are your only voice.
A disgusted public member.
Produced by Gil Peterson [Ed.] and Roger Steele [Assoc. Ed.] with the help of David Naulls, Graeme Collins, Peter Franks. Beth Butler. David McLatchie, Red Campbell and Helen Pankhurst.
Photography: Jothiram & Lee
Advertising: Roger Green (793-319) Bryan Pratt (758-684).
Salient Office: 70-319 ext. 81. 75
P.O.Box 1347, Wellington N.Z.
Printed by Wanganui Newspapers Ltd. P.O. Box 433 Wanganui, and published by the Victoria University of Wellington Students Association (Inc) P.O.Box 196 Wellington.
Am a Name not a Number....
This Concerns You !
The boys were off to the rugby game... But no-
The Force to whom he can turn for advice. But at last he can have hope.
An organisation has recently been set up in this city to help policemen such as Joe and yourself who are searching for a better way of life. This service has been operating in Auckland for some time and our Northern Regional Office has been Hooded with letters of thanks from policemen it has helped, a fitting tribute to the wonderful work being done by those dedicated few. Donald Trent, a resigned Auckland constable writes: I cannot give enough praise to the work being done by your organisation. Once the strain of having to police and judge my fellow man was lifted from my mind I felt like a new man. Neville Jones, another Auckland policeman writes: The strain of having to support a corrupt and undemocratic system was beginning to take its toll and then one of my friends told me about your wonderful scheme. Now I can go to parties and other social gatherings with confidence and am also sleeping and eating well for the first time in eight years.
These are just two of the many letters we have received from grateful clients. Join PRO tomorrow and be completely rehabilitated by Christmas. PRO stands for the Police Rehabilitation Organisation-a non profit making Organization-your hope for a new life.
Issued by the Police Rehabilitation Organisation in the interests of Public Health. For further information write:
Police Rehabilitation Organisation, C/O P.O.Box 196, Wellington.
Do you seek a career which-offers challenge, interest and opportunity? The Department of Industries and Commerce seeks young men and women with trained and enquiring minds.
This could be your opportunity to play your part in shaping New Zealand's future.
You could help us in:
Encouraging the development of industry Helping to ensure supplies of raw materials and plant for industry.
Fostering the right climate for healthy industrial growth.
Opening and safeguarding access for our goods in overseas markets.
Helping exporters to sell in overseas markets.
Ensuring fair play in the dealings of commerce and industry with the consumer.
Sharing in broader economic work affecting New Zealand.
To carry out these tasks and many others, the department requires men and women of integrity and ability who are either graduates or well advanced in studies towards a degree or professional qualification. Economics and Accountancy are preferred for many positions but good degrees in other subjects will be considered.
Mr G.H. Datson, Assistant Secretary in the Department will be at the University on Tuesday 1st and Wednesday 2nd August to meet interested students and to discuss career prospects with them. To arrange an interview please contact the Careers Advisory Office, 6 Kelburn Parade, telephone 44.447.
If it is not convenient for you to meet Mr Datson at these times please arrange an interview with Mr Mac-lachlan, the Assistant Administration Officer. His telephone number is 48.640.
Last Tuesday I had helped to buy a package of bandages to dress wounds of people in a certain Asian country. The amount of money was trivial. I had paid bigger sums to the Vietnam Medical Appeal Fund before. But this time I objected to paying. This time it was not a contribution from me as an individual who had decided himself that the cause is a good one and should be given money to. "I" had given merely by virtue of having paid - for entirely different purposes than the one above - membership fees of a certain organisation.
As I think the cause is a worthy one I do not object to paying this money, but I do object to having been made to pay it. For majority of those who voted for the motion it was a matter of conscience. But conscience is a private thing. It cannot be substituted by governmental decrees or the Collective Conscience of VUWSA - rather a doubtful phenomenon anyway - or anything else.
And the argument heard at the SGM, that the Association can spend money as it pleases because it has the support of majority of students is in essence exactly the same one as that saying that the National Government can use tax money - including mine - on killing people in Vietnam, because it has the support of the majority of New Zealanders. Most of those who voted for the donation would support OHMS too. If they can consider the private principles of those who oppose military service as more important than the mandatory regulations and laws of this country, then they should afford the same right to decide individually to those students in this university whose political and moral convictions differ from theirs.
Vladimir Halama
[A donation of $2 for the Medical Aid Appeal was received with this letter)
As I expected the recent SGM on the motion that "no money be sent to the Vietnam Aid Appeal" turned into an emotional affair.
What a great shame Peter Cullen ended debate on the motion when he did. At a time when people's emotions had been aroused and at a time when a few had made it into an affair whereby if you supported Stubb's motion you were a right-wing fascist. I feel sure with further debate the real issue would have been revealed.
What people should have been discussing was whether or not $2,000 should be given to any charity by our union. The issue of whether charity shoud be restricted to a personal basis is the most relevant here.
For instance - should 790 people have the right to tell 6,000 that the Vietnam Aid Appeal is the most worthy cause to give our money to - should they have the right to tell 6,000 that Corso is the most worthy cause? I think not.
My argument is that charity is something that can only be realistically given (In the form of money to appeals) on a personal basis. There are many reasons why I have come to this conclusion.
Firstly, Alick Shaw and the other 789 people who believe that $2,000 should be sent to the Vietnam Aid Appeal have good grounds for such a decision. I personally agree with them that the Vietnam Aid Appeal is extremely worthy of our money. However there may be, next week, 800 people that believe that $2,000 should be sent to Bangladesh, or Biafra or to some other poverty stricken and disease ridden upturned area of the world. It is unlikely that our union could afford to give away to charity more than about $6,000 a year, at the very most. How then do we decide which charities to support? At least, how do we, as a collective body of 6,000 people, decide which charity we will support. People have differing consciences, differing motives, and differing senses of what is suffering and what is misery.
A person can decide what is more deserving of his charity for himself only.
This principle has wider applications. For instance what if the N.Z. taxpayer found that the N.Z. govt was donating large amounts of the taxpayer's money to charity organisations which had been set up to improve the position of the negro in America! A hypothetical illustration I admit but this is virtually the same principle as donating $2,000 of union funds to the Vietnam Aid Appeal. [Quite different I would think.— Ed.]
Again the point I am trying to make is that a large organisation is treading on dangerous ground when it starts using a compulsory fee for donations to charities because it is too difficult for that large organisation, especially in the case of VUWSA whose funds are already very limited, to draw the line and say one charity will receive support at the expense of numerous other worthwhile charities. It is too difficult for such a large body to choose what is deserving. As I have already stated, suffering, starvation, pain and agony are no different whether you're in Africa or Vietnam. We have the same responsibility to any human being on this earth who is not as fortunate as we are. Therefore why send $2,000 to Vietnam? [Because we sent our military there to help destroy them]
Many of us think the Vietnam Aid Appeal is as worthwhile as any cause. We have that right but we do not have the right to force that opinion on others. Other people have a right to want to give their money to Corso or to a cause such as the foundation for the blind. This is why nearly every charity that has ever been organised has appealed on a house to house or street corner basis! Only a few would quibble over 30cents -But many will quibble over which charity to receive the benefit of our financial support.
Charity begins in your own backyard, someone said — How bout a good long look at the Varsity Creche — Housing in the vicinity of Varsity, a good long look at the many students who have so much difficulty devoting enough time to their studies because they have to do a lot of part-time work in order to survive.
If anybody who supported the motion to send $2,000 to Vietnam would care to organise a Vietnam Aid Appeal on campus i.e. advertising, appeal box in the foyer etc. I personally will start if off with $1.00 because I personally think those suffering in Vietnam need help, [how sweet] many will disagree with me and I would personally like to argue with them over it but if they don't want to give $1.00 or even 30cents then that's their right.
G.A. Keene [Abridged and annotated — Ed.]
I have been rendered sick to the stomach by the latest copious cascade of bullshit to flood this campus. I refer of course to the S.G.M. held to consider whether Henry Stubbs would get his rugby balls or whether Alick Shaw would be able to boost his already towering ego by giving the proverbial fingers to Jack and the boys.
One would have thought that we, the smug self-satisfied bourgeois pricks wallowing in affluent apathy would have finally managed to make the band of student bureaucrats, would be revolutionaries and stentorian-voiced ego trippers who deign to lead us, love us for our enthusiastic and interested response to the S.G.M. At last we had beaten the cancer of student apathy, but there was no applause. Our leaders were too busy running for cover behind a curtain of the most outrageous hypocrisy ever seen at Vic.
Peter Cullen, after berating the gathering for its lack of interest in past S.G.M.'s lost control when a formerly apathetic sector voiced its fury at the whole bloody farce. Don't get me wrong, Peter is a nice guy but he is so busy pleasing everyone that he manages to please no-one. The most used President in Vic's history perhaps. But I digress. Everyone's favourite raving demagogue (with more than a hint of a maniacal gleam in his eye) and rabble-rouser extraordinaire Alick Shaw, was so overcome by the violence of his reception that he actually mumbled something about their destruction of democratic proceedure! Shaw, who has devoted much of his time to thwarting democratic proceedure in S.R.C. among other things in order to achieve his own ends criticising a lack of democratic proceedure was just too unreal!
Salient's prissy little article about wicked fascist students murdering democracy in cold blood was the sugar in this hypocritical shit. One thing must be made clear. The Shaw/Wilson/Campbell faction, supreme among others has devoted much of its energy in the past to stacking S.R.C, launching often vicious insults against exec, and those whose beliefs and opinions do not meet their sincerity in the area of personal belief, but how the fuck can they summon up the temerity to accuse 760 students of being guilty of sins they should have suffered for long ago.
How can Salient accuse Mike McKinley and Mowbray of being dirty rabblerousers, when the noble art of rabblerousing has been smiled upon by Salient and looked upon as a saintly virtue. Could it be that Salient thinks their rabblerousing is politically unacceptable while the so-called radical lefts' is? [In that situation, yes it is unacceptable. Ed.]
What these worried would-be revolutionaries witnessed were their pigeons coming home to roost. As ye sow, so shall ye reap lads. Certainly S.G.M. was bloody chaotic and the defeated were poor losers, pissed off at the "Vietnam tax"being imposed upon them by the dubious legality of this farce. For once people lost their apathy and those who have ranted about it for so long were utterly shocked.
Democracy certainly played no great part in the proceedings but only because it has been castrated through countless S.R.C.'s by the very people who are bemoaning its loss now. Accept that democracy is dead on campus, accept that the people who killed it cannot drag it out of the grave at their convenience, and accept that so many people are spouting so much mealy-mouthed hypocritical drivel about it that it must be turning in its tomb. [Abridged—Ed.)
What a bloody mickey mouse affair! Again the idiots who cling to the microphone like infants to a maternal nipple, successfully distorted the issue such that gullible students ended up voting on a motion, the obvious alternative to which was scarcely mentioned. The intellectual poverty of Mowbray's clique prevented them from presenting the real issue - which was to ensure the $2,000 wasn't financed out of union funds. Instead, they fluffed around, inarticulately - then with chronic pettiness -trying to salvage the situation they had lost for themselves. The sooner the campus reaction employ spokesmen who can speak the sense that so badly needs to be spoken the better. As long as McKinley's morons are allowed to speak on behalf of plausible people like Henry Stubbs (who must finally have felt embarrassed by his zealous right wing supporters), the possibility of the students true feelings on matters ever being expressed are less than minimal.
This being the case, even a 'reactionary' must admit that the leftists played it well once the anti-$2,000 proponents had sufficiently crapped in their own nests. But despite their successful political management their ideological credibility is even less than the right wingers, who can at least be dismissed on the grounds of their bone-headed ignorance. Its laughable that these aspiring Marxists can resort to coercive charity to appease their publically confessed, yet privately non-existent consciences, over the dead and dying Indo-Chinese. I suggest that these well-heeled fat cats, these establishment-sponsored senior scholars from the liberal arts departments, put their charitable moneys where their tiresomely vociferous mouths are. Even they must admit that 30 cents per student is trivial; when Russians and Americans spend $2,000 a millisecond in the same war. But the greater hypocrisy; is that 50% of the students didn't want the money sent from Union sources.
If in fact the leftists were sincerely motivated, rather than personally aspiring, they would have adopted the suggestion to take up a collection on the spot and put all the bullshit to the acid test. Even Mowbray admits he would have given a buck. That being the case think of how much those chronically concerned types like Alick Shaw would have donated.
If we were to prove the genuine nature of our charity (which I doubt we selfish, state-sponsored, 'enlightened' scholars would have done) we would have reached into our pocets at that very meeting and made $2,000 look like the minute amount it really is. At the same time the $2,000 would have remained available for the clubs and societies of the University in the way it was always designed.
But, I'm dreaming. The meeting wasn't designed to expose our selfishness, it was a genuine and generous manifestation of our solidarity and concern for the maimed Vietnamese. After all 30 cents is no small amount - a milkshake and a sandwich in the caf in fact.
The semi-fascist tacties employed by a small sector of the defeated minority at the Medical Aid SGM is one of the most depressing and sisillusioning experiences I have ever undergone. Never before have persons blatently cheated by double voting as the minority did. Never before has a minority en masse refused to vote, as the "noes" initially did, in an attempt to subvert a decision being taken. Foolishly perhaps, I expected the leaders of this grouping to act responsibly.
I was not given the assistance I expected in running the meeting by Vice President McKinley. Matters were made worse when McKinley moved that my raling that Stubbs/ timmins motion was lost, be disagreed with. This procedural motion was unconstitutional not only because the Chairman's decision on voting is final, but also because we were by then discussing another motion.
It has been alleged by some that I did not maintain control of the meeting. Although control was only just maintained the blame for disruption does not I believe rest with the Chair, but squarely on the shoulders of those disrupting the meeting.
Short of having a vigilante squad to deal with the determined rabble of disrupters, the Chairman can only properly control the meeting if people show some respect for meeting proceedure. Sadly, a group of sore losers lacked this respect.
Tribute must be paid to Messrs Stubbs and Timmins — The original callers of the meeting to stop the donation being sent. They both dissociated themeselves from the rabblerousers among their supporters, and implored them to behave responsibly. John Timmins claims however that he was denied his right to speak as seconder of the motion to preevent the funds going. Although Mr Timmins reseryed his right to speak. I was only aware of his intention in to do so after the procedural motion" That the motion be now put" had been passed. My interpretation of the Constitution (Ref. Schedule 1 Sect. 22) was that only Mr Stubbs could speak using his right of reply.
When it became clear that the motion to grant the $2000 would be passed, a group within the minority began calling for a referendum. if the meeting had been called to propose the holding of a referendum on the Medical Aid issue then debate on this issue would of course be quite in order. It however had not been so called: The question was to be decided there and then and not by referendum.
A careful observer of student affairs would be shocked to see the hypocrisy of some of the most disruptive of the dissenters. Only a few months ago these very disrupters were spitting venom over the disruptive tactics of others at the PBEC Conference. So much for integrity!
I hope that those responsible for the disruption at the SGM will in fact rethink their behaviour and agree that such a display must never happen again.
The S.G.M. held on the
The complete disorder which arose from the unconstitutional methods adopted by the Chairman Mr. P. Cullen in conducting the meeting, whereby he (a) permitted a non — student to address the S.G.M. while both part-time and full-time students were denied such privilege, (b) permitted non-students to register their votes after their presence had been drawn to the Chairman's attention, (c) attempted to push Mr. A. Shaw's motion through with what is best termed "indecent" haste, and in the process denying any student whatsoever (bar Mr Shaw) from the right to speak to the motion, (d) neglected to ensure that an effective and fool proof system of voting existed whereby an accurate registration and count of votes could be recorded, (e) denied at least 20 to 40 students their right to register their vote, by arbitrarily forcing the discontinuation of the function of the scrutineers in counting the votes against the motion to send the $2,000, (f) refused to accept and/or acknowledge a number of motions from the floor; procedural motions of no confidence' in the Chair, motions disagreeing with rulings of the Chairman, and motions to adjourn the S.G.M. on the grounds that it was unconstitutional and that its disorderly nature was rendering the voting proceedures impossible to comply with.
The following examples demonstrate the many inaccurate and irresponsible statements made by the Chair, and through the Chair, as regards (a) the destination of the $2000 and (b) the financial position of the Victoria University Students Association (heareafter called VUSA) It is submitted that the overall effect of these statements was to mislead many people voting for the motion to send the $2,000. (a) It was represented to the students attending the S.G.M. that the $2000 was to be given for the medical aid of North Vietnamese civilians, whereas it is our contention that the $2000 is presently in the possession of the Wellington agent of the New Zealand Medical Aid Committee for South Vietnamese People in National Liberation Front Areas.
1. The claim made by the President of the VUSA Mr P. Cullen that the VUSA was "well able to pay the $2000 because it wasn't needed this year, and probably won't be needed next year for the Cricket Pavilion" represents a distortion of the true position of the VUSA's commitments to the Cricket Pavilion scheme.
In Fact : after the S.G.M. of the
If such pressure was being brought to bear on the Student Association's funds two and a half weeks ago, what sudden relief made it possible for Mr Cullen to contend publicly that the VUSA was enjoying a favourable financial position and could afford to send $2000 to the Vietnam Aid Appeal?
And commitments forgotten? At no time during the S.G.M. on the 18th July was any mention made of the VUSA loan of $6,000 to the Pavilion fund, a longstanding commitment. In this respect we wish to question the competence of the Executive, because in our approach to five members of that body, not one has admitted knowledge of any such existing obligation.
2. It is our contention that the money paid to the University for the use of amenities by the organisers of the PBEC conference did not constitute any part of VUSA's funds We thereby wish to refute those claims made at the S.G.M. of 18th July, that such money was at the disposal of the VUSA fund for student activities.
3. It was stated to those students present at the S.G.M. of 18th July, that an existing reserve fund exceeding $30,000 was available for the use of VUSA if needed. However, since that meeting members of the Executive have repeatedly assured us that this represties even if needed.
Although we have by no means exhausted our arguments. we feel it necessary to point out that with injunction proceedings under way, comment upon many impending legal issues is precluded.
However, we can inform you that the effect of the Interim Injunction granted on the
It is becoming abundantly clear though, by the support we are being given on Campus that a great many students have realised that the unconstitutional proceddures adopted at the S.G.M. of 18the July which prejudiced the outcome of the meeting should be subject to the utmost condemnation, in order that the very basics of Democracy might in future be given careful respect on the Campus of Victoria University. And it is in this respect that we appeal to students to use the intervening period of the Interim Injunction to formulate remedies for the existing meeting and voting proceedures, while bearing in mind that,
If you've ever read "Socialist Action", the revolutionary socialist fortnightly of New Zealand, recently you'll notice that the S.A.L. is on again about 'red-baiting'. Its really shocking how much the old discred-itedlefty parties like the Manson/Bailey gang and their youthful running-dogs smear and redbait the Socialist Action League. No genuine socialist would stoop so low, of course. That's why its hard to work out why the dynamic Young Socialist candidates standing in the elections are running on a policy of anti-disruption and throwing shit at their rivals, where they can.
But when you look at the Young Socialists' policies you'll notice Ian Powell getting into Peter Wilson, and Graeme Cook son getting into Don Carson. Of course Don Carson did not lead any sit-downs in Lambton Quay during the Mobe, but that's only a mere factual detail. Liberals like us have to learn the difference between genuine criticism and red-baiting - a long educative process because sometimes the difference's hard to tell.
The really funny thing of all is the Young Socialists' smear on self-styled 'radical' candidates especially Carson and Wilson. No one really knows how red Carson is, but as for Wilson voters should know that the other day he received a large envelope through the mail addressed to Peter "Rabbit ' Wilson H A.R. T. Area Officer. Inside, neatly wrapped in tissue paper was a large cabbage leaf. We trust he put his pi ft to good effect.
Next time you're in Cuba Mall on a Friday night and see happy P. V. seller, Selwyn Devereux, the local CP. branch chairman, ask if its true that he owns and rents a flat. A prize of one life-size photo of Enver Hoxha will be offered to the first person who can supply us with the answer.
Some student opponents of abortion must be feeling frustrated at the ineffectiveness of their own arguments, judging by recent events. Their reaction to the coming march for repeal of the abortion laws on July 28 has simply been an attempt to blot out all the publicity material put up by the Abortion Action Committee. Not only have posters pasted up around the university area and in town have had anti-abortion stickers slapped on them, right over the information regarding the march.
It seems strange that they should want to stamp out this information, since they intend to take part in the march themselves, at the tail end. If their performance on Friday is the same as it was on May 5 (the last march for the right to abortion) it will add to their discredit On that occasion there were about 50 anti-abortion people behind the main march of 300, most of them raucous, oafish males shouting "murder" and, while laughing and jeering at the woman for repeal, claiming allegiance to the imaginary "unborn child". At the meeting following the march, loud male voices succeeded in disrupting the speeches continuously, so. that they could not be heard.
The irony of it all: anti-abortionists are using the swastika to smear those wanting the law repealed. Not only are their tactics reminiscent of fascist suppression - they don't seem to realise that Hitler brought in the death penalty for abortion.
Who are they trying to fool?
On Wednesday 19 July a Young Maori went to A Kllburnie, Dairy and Asked for a ½ Pound of Butter. The Lady Behind the Counter Refused to Serve Him, My Investigations Re Veal the Reason for this was that it was Illegal to Sell butter in ½ Pound Lots. A Few Minutes After Being Refused Service. A Pakeha Friend of the Maori Youth, Went in to Get a ½ Pound of Butter. This Person had no Difficulty Getting the Butter. The Circumstances in both Cases were Identical. The Reason for not Serving the Maori was not Upheld when the Pakeha Demanded the same Product Only a Few Minutes Later. This is Clearly one of the Many Cases of Racism in New Zealand Which must be Dealt with Under the "Race Relations Act".
For More Information Contact
Pierre Maru
17 Stanley Street,
Berhampore
Phone 893935.
Tuesday at 12 noon four cars arrived at the University Parking area and about 20-25 people from them walked down past the Lecture Block building to the quad between Easterfield and Rankine Brown. Nearly all of them, judging from comments overheard, were unfamiliar with the area of the University and were told by about three or four with them who evidently knew the place to "do what we do and put your hands up when we do." Few of these people appeared to he students and all appeared to vociferously support opposition to the granting of $2000 to the Vietnam Aid Appeal. It seems they may have been seconded from the law and commerce offices downtown by a few conservatives.
The loss on student meals over the first five months of 1972 has been $9,319. The profit on the shop over the same period was $2,482. The Union Management Committee agreed in 1971 that the break-even point on student meals should include the profit on shop trading. When this is taken into account the total loss is reduced to $6,837.
However, over the last two months the catering operation has settled down, and losses have been greatly reduced. It is thus hoped that the overall profit of the catering operation will be such that the early losses will be absorbed this year. This will only be achieved if a high level of private function catering is maintained.
More than half of the people interviewed in a housing survey, conducted in central Wellington, want to leave the houses they are now living in.
This is revealed in the first section of preliminary results of a survey commissioned by the Wellington Citizens Committee on Accommodation. The survey covered 512 dwellings. About 75 percent of them were located in the Newtown, Mount Victoria West, Thorndon, and Wellington Polytechnic areas. The remainder were in Berhampore Brooklyn, and Haitaitai.
Mr R.T. Bradley, a Victoria University sociologist who conducted the survey in co-operation with the WCCA, said that those interviewed, almost 53 percent wanted to move out of their present housing. Sixty-six percent of this group gave a financial reason as that which prevented them obtaining the kind of housing they wanted, an exception to this general pattern were those over 65. Since a high proportion of them own their dwellings, almost 60 percent preferred to remain in their present accommodation".
(For the survey, a dwelling or household was defined as a residential building in which the inhabitants shared common cooking facilities.)
While nearly a quarter of the dwellings studied had at least one basic household amenity missing (such as a hand basin, hot water, or laundry facilities), almost as many have to share such facilities with another dwelling. Dwellings containing the aged were the worst on this aspect.
Of the total sample of 512 dwellings, 321 (or 62.7 percent) were rented. Of the 321 renters, 48 percent said they were dissatisfied with the physical conditions of their dwelling.
With over 90 percent of their dwellings having structural faults (such as dry rot, a leaking roof, or broken windows), and/or basic household services and amenities in need of repair, almost half of the 321 renters were dissatisfied with the physical conditions. Those living in semi-furnished and unfurn-ished flats reported the greatest proportion of faults with the physical structures of their dwellings.
Few positive reasons were given by the respondents for selecting their accommodation It was hardly a matter of choice for just under 30 percent - either because there was nothing else available, or because they could not afford anything better.
Almost a third of the people aged 15 to 29 interviewed in a housing survey conducted in central Wellington are forced to remain in accommodation they do not like.
While 22.8 percent said they had no choice of alternative accommodation, eight percent said they could not afford better. Only five percent live where they do because they want to.
"One of the main reasons for young peoples' dissatisfaction with their accommodation was its condition," says Mr Bradley. The survey has already shown that over 90 percent of the rented dwellings that the inhabitants were dissatisfied with had structural defects or some basic amenity missing Young peoples gross dissatisfaction with their present accommodation is understandable when you remember that they occupy over three quarters (77.2 percent) of all the rented dwellings covered in the survey. Only 5.2 percent of the young people interviewed wanted to remain in their present accommodation. Just over 15 percent remained there because the rent was cheap while 38.6 said they stayed their present accommodation because it was convenient. The young people (defined as those aged between 15 and 29 inclusive) number 878 or 48.5 percent of the total 1,851 people living in the 512 dwellings covered in the survey. They included manual, office, and technical workers, those in managerial and professional positions, and just under a sixth were students at Wellington secondary and tertiary institutions.
Commenting on the survey results, the chairman of the Wellington Citizens Committee on Accommodation, Tim Dyce, said housing in Wellington city did not cater adequately for the needs of young people, and was a factor in creating social problems among the young. "The mobility of youth is a fact we have to live with. More and more young people are leaving country areas to search for better employment opportunities in the city, and to cope with the challenge of a different life here. This does not absolve the city from ensuring that the housing it is providing is a sufficiently healthy environment for these young people to grow up in.
"If we permit the continuance, or further creation of, ghetto areas where both bad housing and young people predominate, then we must bear the consequences as a community. From several individual cases I know, I believe that substandard housing in the central city area has contributed, and is contributing, to such activities as drug abuse and an unhealthy lack of respect for property," said Mr Dyce.
"A broken-down damp house with structural defects such as dry rot and broken windows is not the kind of living quarters people need in the city, which for many, is unfriendly and alien after their transition from smaller cities and towns. "Depressing environment, added to other factors, encourage various forms of resentment against or escape from society. The manifestation of such attitudes in violence and drug abuse hit the headlines and arouse public outrage, but too few people are getting to the root causes. Still fewer are doing anything about them," Mr Dyce said. L'
Overcrowding was another problem young people had to face. In a survey published in June this year it was shown that the number of people per house in Wellington was 3.15 But in the houses surveyed by Mr Bradley, young adults were at an occupancy rate of 4.3 to a house. One of the causes of overcrowding is the need to pack extra people in flats to pay rent. In cases where these young people are students, overcrowding can have a bad effect on their studies, particularly as study space at university is becoming overcrowded.
One of the solutions to the problems of young peoples accommodation in Wellington is a housing trust, mooted by the WCCA.
If the community supports the Housing Trust, hopefully to be launched by the end of the year, one of its early priorities should be to provide clean, sound accommodation for young workers and students.
To say that the accommodation problem in Wellington is critical is now a truism. Most of the 45% of Victoria students who live away from home know that from their own experience. If you do live at home, ask your out-of-town friends how many months they spent looking for adequate accommodation. The chances are that in desperation they settled for something less than adequate.
The accommodation problem in Wellington is essentially a low income group rather than a student problem. Students are part of the problem because they are a low income group. The long-term solution to the student problem therefore logically lies in the long-term solution of the community problem.
There are certainly come ways in which the student problem can be concentrated upon, but these are only partial solutions. For instance, halls of residence and student flatting complexes can be built. However, they are very expensive and finance is short (unless, of course, you live in a city that is sponsoring the next Commonwealth Games). And there are serious doubts that it is socially desirable to put students together in their own little boxes rather than scattering them throughout the community.
The Students' Association can itself become directly involved in housing. Already it is leasing a number of old Ministry of Works' properties and letting them to students. Direct Association investment is also a possibility. However, at more than $4000 a bed for flatting complexes, it is really only worthwhile for the Association to invest its limited resources if by doing so it can stimulate outside groups to do likewise. NZUSA is trying to establish a National Accommodation Trust to do this. If it gets going, it will be of particular value to Victoria since our accommodation problem is the most critical in the country. However, a distinct lack of enthusiasm from some of the other universities whose problems are not as bad may well mean the National Trust will crap out, and Victoria will have to go ahead and establish its own.
The Students Association has not the resources to solve our problems in isolation so it is important that we continue to support the Wellington Citizen's Committee on Accommodation. Initiated by Tim Dyce (Junior Lecturer, History Department) early last year, it brings together various individuals and groups concerned with the accommodation shortage. With the support of the City Corporation, it is doing a great deal of very sound work especially empirical research into the nature of the low-income group housing problem in inner city areas. As a result it is formulating a good many of the answers needed.
Some of these solutions include:
Student accommodation problems are only a part of the W.C.C.A.'s concern. However, the kind of work it is doing may well lead to solutions for the student accommodation problem within the context of solutions for the wider community problem.
One of the newest and most fashionable "left-wing" pressure groups is the Organisation to Halt Military Service, which aims to abolish compulsory military training. The Spartacist League recognises the army as the key insitution (usually left in reserve) for the protection of the bourgeoisie and its state. Consequently the SL approves of actions which tend to undermine the army. But rather than having radicals defy the National Military Service Act and keeping them away from the army, which is what OHMS preaches, the SL looks forward to organised revolutionary activity to undermine the army from within.
Unfortunately OHMS appears to have attracted the support of a number of individuals whose rhetoric, if not thei actions, are radical. Even ostensible revolutionaries have offered their support. Peoples Voice Wellington correspondent, "F", has blessed OHMS with a solemn: "Communists will recognise OHMS as the boldest manifestation of hostility to ruling class militarism to have appeared so far among students... OHMS is still working through individual acts of defiance by a small sector of youth (students) and in terms of a bourgeois liberal world outlook. But in time OHMS will learn the need to use mass tactics and to see military service from the viewpoint of working class politics." That is how revolutionary the Communist Party is. Spontaneous evolution from middle class liberal pacificism to a perspective of working class revolution!
A close examination of OHMS' policies and tactics show it is a long way from working class politics.
Firstly, it uses pacificism as one of its arguments — absolute opposition to war and training for war. However, pacificism is usually associated with deceit, and always with pathetic illusions about the nature of society it is very easy to denounce violence when your own life is comfortable, but such pontificating ignores the violence of the imperialist system.
We live in an era of war — war as a direct outcome of the irrationality of capitalism in its imperialist epoch. The laws of capitalism force the imperialists into a militant protection of the markets they control, and into fighting for fields of investment and profit.
Consistent pacificism is impossible: it would involve total condemnation of capitalism and joining the struggle (necessarily violent at times) against it.
Most pacifists however are quite content to enjoy the privileges gleaned from the exploitation of others, and few think their pacificism through to its logical conclusion. One OHMS supporter said that in times of war he would take a job "unconnected with the war effort". He like most others, do not realise that the parts of society are so interdependent that it is virtually impossible to have any job not connected with the war effort. In fact as pacifists are frequently well educated they will usually be more useful to the belligerent bourgeoisie in a job they think is unconnected with the fighting, rather than being sent to the front as "cannon fodder".
A major fallacy of the pacificist argument is that it is impossible to abolish war without abolishing its causes—imperialist capitalism. One argument presented by OHMS is that international conflicts will never be solved by national wars. But how will international conflicts be solved? Only by an international revolution which smashes international capitalism. The smashing of the causes of war requires a series of revolutionary class wars which will take place not because Communists love violence, but because the capitalist ruling classes will not forgo the use of violence to maintain their exploitation.
Pacifism might be personally satisfying, but by precluding the use or armed struggle, the pacifists mislead the masses and objectively serve the interests of counter-revolution.
OHMS does not, however, limit itself to appealing to pacifists. It argues that conscription is an attack on "freedom of the individual," and points out that "In particular, members of the National Party, which has as one of its tenents a belief in limiting the powers the State claims over the individual, should be at least sympathetic to repeal of the Act." — gross opportunism? or stupendous naivety ? Probably a combination. The National Party's ringing phrases about "rights" and "freedoms" mean only that the capitalists have freedom to exploit the working class, and any other "rights" are dependent on the recognition of that.
Closely related to this argument are the claims that basic training leads to brainwashing and the implantation of a constricting and dehumanising military ethos. The soldier is led to a rejection of personal identity; he submits to the organisation and accepts values alien to his previous experience — values applicable to military ends rather than the individuals. This, we are told, is completely at odds with our "democratic principles".
All this tells us is that the processes are similar to those workers undergo in factories. No wonder then that people who face a lifetime of wage-slavery are a little bemused when the likes of Michael Thomas Murphy solemnly pronounce that "after due consideration of the National Military Service Act of
OHMS also makes an appeal to those "who feel that training conscripts is not the most efficient way of spending the defence vote." This particular plea, an OHMS spokesman informed the National Antiwar Conference in April, was designed especially to appeal to the RSA! So OHMS wants to lead a common movement of radicals, pacifists and reactionary militarists.
There is already a significant opposition in the army and Defence Ministry to national service on the grounds of inefficiency. These hawks will be arguing that the state should give in to OHMS, thereby making a more efficient army and demonstrating how democratic New Zealand really is. Add to this a period of high unemployment (which is likely), and national service could be replaced by greater regular force recruitment. Since it is frequently the most resourceful of the unemployed workers who seek alternative employment in the army, the danger from worker unrest would be allayed by thus siphoning off some of the least docile workers and, of course, at the same time strengthening the army.
The ruling class has a very good reason to spend money on defence - the armed forces exist to protect its profits and its class rule and to expect the defence lobby to accept a cut in the defence budget is unrealistic. Only recently, Defence Ministry mouthpiece McCready said he hoped for increased spending on defence in the coming year and said the New Zealand defence forces were operating on a "minimum figure." (Dominion,
An army loyal to its command is essential to the ruling class, and it has to man it, if necessary by conscription. Even if conscription is abolished, it will roll back in as soon as the ruling class needs the troops.
OHMS' final argument is that "people on the political left can see no need for a future war in South East Asia They note that none of the training is geared towards fighting
If such New Zealand intervention in an Asian war again becomes likely, it is vital to have revolutionaries in the army to aid the anti-imperialist struggle. It is vital to have revolutionaries fomenting mutiny and insubordination (look at the effect on the US Army in Vietnam), furnishing intelligence to the revolutionary forces, general sabotage of the ruling class's war effort and eventually desertion to the revolutionary army. And this is not just confined to an imperialist war against revolutionary forces, but to wars between imperialist powers as well. All these may be part of the class struggle to turn imperialist war into civil war.
Revolutionary defeatism, which is not the same as pacifism, is an imperative tactic for ending an imperialist war for the benefit of the revolution.
The class struggle must continue regardless of its effects on the bourgeois war effort, and without concern for the military defeat of the bourgeois state. Any other line leads simply to a victory of an imperialist dominated coalition, or a compromise at the expense of the masses.
OHMS says it will support individuals who feel they can no longer continue to co-operate with the present conscription laws and offers three alternatives: refusal to register; return of draft cards; and refusal to answer call up. Thus OHMS is for complete defiance, non-compliance and (non-violent) disruption of the National Military Service.
Although OHMS claims it wants to promote mass dis-obedience, Chairman Reid says the crusade will be aimed mainly at students and nothing OHMS has so far done indicates it is really seeking to reach the working class, which is the only class with the power to bring capitalism and its wars to an end.
Some OHMS members have realised that conscientious objection is essentially a privilege of the middle class and educated youth, but in opposing the class inequality of CO exemption, OHMS fails to see that defiance will also be the monopoly of the middle class.
What should revolutionaries do? The army is the chief instrument of bourgeois state power, and if it is operating at full strength the revolution can be crushed. The answer for a revolutionary is to undermine and propagate revolutionary sentiment. This was a major factor in the success of the
Even in sub-revolutionary situations, the army often has a critical role as a professional strike-breaker and as a backup at demonstrations (remember the trucks and barbed wire at Wellington airport when the All Blacks left in
Draft resistance would be tactically correct only if it was likely that it would result in a successful outcome, that is such massive non-compliance that the army is truly crippled.
The ruling class prefers to have radicals in jail, rather than in the training camps mobilising the recruits against them. Moreover, at this stage, an escape from military service is unlikely to earn the respect of the unpoliticised masses. On the other hand there is much a revolutionary can contribute by accepting the draft:
Thus the army should be composed of as many revolutionaries, radicals and "undesirables" as possible. There is material to work on. The army is not just the officers and the elite thugs. Officers are normally the conscious representatives of the bourgeois state, but in post revolutionary situations some have joined the revolution. The rank and file comes overwhelmingly from the working class.
Imperialism and its atrocities in Vietnam or else, where will not be stopped by OHMS or by any other form of re-formist manoeuvering. The only real solution is to destroy international capitalism.
But it is not suggested that all revolutionaries and radicals should rush to volunteer as there are at the moment more important tasks. In time, as the revolutionary forces develop, the task of preparing for the revolution within the armed forces will be made easier by the extensive ties that both the soldiers and revolutionary leadership will have in the working class.
For OHMS supporters, the choice is simple. They must decide whether they are on the side of revolution or counter-revolution. And if they choose the side of revolution, they must decide whether OHMS' present reformist approach (disguised by a confrontationist style) is correct. They should clearly realise that OHMS is certainly not revolutionary, and that gut reactions to imperialism are not always effective. OHMS serves as another example of how an attempt to appeal to everyone without developing a principled revolutionary programme ends up by serving the interests of counter-revolution.
Revolutionaries will accept military training at Her Majesty's expense in preparation for the day when it may be needed against whatever cops and soldiers remain loyal to her Government. OHMS and its supporters would do well to consider how they themselves are objectively serving, On Her Majesty's Service.
So OHMS is helping the army! I thought I heard something to that effect on the radio early one morning. But I was tired and turned over and went back to sleep. When I woke up again I thought I must have dreamt it However a few days later I saw half of the Sparticist League selling one of their papers with the headline "How OHMS helps the army."
Not being given a complimentary copy I gave my 5cents for the rebuilding of the Fourth International and began to read the article.
The first paragraph was good - it applauded OHMS for being the most fashionable of "Left-wing" groups and approved of actions to undermine the army. Since OHMS has been classed as subversive by the RSA. Minister of Defence, Dunedin City Council and ex. POW Association I thought we might be on the right track. But no, half the Sparticists say the most effective way to undermine the army is from within.
Even although I am not a man for working within the system I read on, hoping to find some useful pointers of what to do if I ever get into the position of being forced into the army. But instead all I found was a whole lot of paper tigers brilliantly shot down.
Their first argument was against pacifism "it is very easy to denounce violence when your own life is comfortable, but such pontificating ignores the violence of the imperialistic system." I agree with this statement but looking at the Sparticists it seems it is even easier to denounce the violence of the imperialistic system but to do little about it It seems to me at the present time the "pacifists" are far more active than the "revolutionaries" A revolutionary purism such as that put forward by the Sparticists seems to lead to inaction rather than action and the article cautions revolutionaries "not to rush to volunteer as there are at the moment far more important tasks"
Logan's more important tasks seems to be changing minds by propaganda. I believe it takes more than propaganda to change minds. Minds are changed by action not by the paper war of the Sparticist League. There must be a revolution in peoples minds and one of the ways OHMS is helping in this is getting people to the stage of breaking immoral laws.
I consider that once people have got over this threshold point "people facing a lifetime of wage-slavery" will be able to take stronger and more meaningful action.
If the Sparticists are against non-compliance with the army are they also against workers using non-compliance i.e. the strike? It seems incredible that a so called "revolutionary communist" group are against strike action. The final point the article made was that it is better to have revolutionaries in the army and the writer asked us to have a look of the effect of revolutionaries in the U S army. What effect? All I see is the Vietnam War continuing and any U.S. troop withdrawals being not because of dissent and non-compliance back home. The Vietnamese people are too important to be pawns in the Sparticists game of trying to achieve a perfect revolution somewhere. OHMS believe that all people are too important to be pawns and that forcing a person to train to kill is one of the greatest affronts to a persons humanity.
Without might, right remains a dream.
Without right, might is oppression
Without love, right becomes an ideology
Without right and might love degenerates into sentimentality.
This is about the unborn child, whose life is threatened by those who want to legalise abortion.
They will tell you it is not really a person, but "just a collection of cells." And to justify abortion, they talk about "socio-economic factors," "sheer desperation of the mother," "a woman's right," and so on — rarely do they talk about the unborn. It is dismissed after the first few sentences. So here I give you the facts of the unborn's existence during pregnancy, why abortion should not be legalised, and why the mother does not have the right to decide the fate of the unborn inside her.
Medical science has proved that at no stage of pregnancy is the unborn child an appendage of the mother. It is a genetically separate individual from conception. Right from the union of sperm and ovum, the zygote has a full human chromosomal complement, which given food and warmth, destines it to become a person. The cell divides into two, then four, and so on. Fortyone of 45 such cell generations which happen between fertilisation and mature adult, happen during pregnancy. The others occur in childhood and adolescence. Over seven or eight days, the multiplying and differentiating ball of cells goes along the fallopian tube to the uterus. There he implants himself in the spongy lining, and where he is also able to suppress the mother's next period. To make his home habitable for the next 270 days, the embryo develops a placenta and protective capsule for himself. He alone solves the homograft problem, so mother and foetus, immunilogical foreigners who could not exchange skin grafts safely, nor receive blood from each other, still tolerate each other in parabiosis for nine months.
By 25 days the developing heart starts beating. By 30 days, the baby, ¼ inch long, has a brain of unmistakable human proportions, and eyes, ears, mouth, kidneys liver umbilical cord and the heart is pumping blood he has made. BY 45 days, the baby's skeleton is complete, in cartilage, not bone, the buds of the mild teeth appear and he makes the first movements of his body and new limbs, though the mother will not notice movements for another 12 weeks.
By 63 days, he will grasp an object placed in his palm, and can make a fist. Later, he is known to be responsive to pain, touch, cold, sound, light. He drinks his amniotic fluid, more if it is artificially sweetened, less if it has an unpleasant taste. He gets hiccups and sucks his thumb, he wakes and sleeps. He gets bored with repetitive signals, but can be taught to be alerted by a first signal for a second differenot one. And only the foetus determines his birthday.
This defenceless and helpless little thing is what it is all about — though if you listen to pro-abortion arguments, you might not think so. This is what we all once were—a child at a very early stage of development, but still a person. If killing the unborn is legalised, then that means we could eventually legalise its killing after it is born. Then, we will ask, why not kill old people, incapacitated people, the incurably sick? One month after Britain legalised abortion in
One can be cynical, and say we let people die in wars, so why the uproar about the unborn child? But do two wrongs make a right? And because the unborn child is dependent on the mother, she does not have the right to decide its fate. It is just as dependent on her after birth.
We who oppose abortion accept the need to take positive steps in the other direction. Many people have real difficulties from poverty, and lack of love, help and care. They need help from people, and social agencies. Apparently, more help is available from church, government and social agencies than most women realise. A number of women have also been misinformed about the alleged need to have an abortion, when help was available.
Who are the people who are strongly opposed to abortion who would join the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child? I think they fall into three general categories.
Firstly, people who are conservative on all issues, including extreme right-wingers. (Remember Hitler opposed abortion - he was a great upholder of the family, and of women's servitude. Under the fascists, abortion for woman of the "master" race was a capital offence - yet they forced Jewish women to undergo abortion and sterilisation against their will.) This first category, the real conservatives, are our worst opponents - they are intractable.
The second category- people, and especially men, who are liberal on some issues but never those which concern women's rights. These people want to keep women in the background while they concern themselves with the affairs of the world, even if those affairs directly affect women's lives. They won't recognise women as people with rights until women show them in the strongest terms, that we are capable of fighting our own battles.
And the third category - women who are drawn into support of those against abortion on various grounds, all of which relate to their own oppression. Many of these woman an will eventually be on the side of abortion law reform or repeal.
Some of these women are won over to an anti-abortion viewpoint by the appeals to so-called maternal instincts. The emotive references to "unborn" children" is no more sensible than "unconceived child" or "unborn adult" for that matter. However, this "unborn child" approach gets across to some women who then say they are against abortion. We must explain to those women why it's nonsense to think of foetuses as children, and encourage them to think more clearly about what is really involved; women who don't want to continue a pregnancy, and potential babies which these women are not prepared to give birth to because they would be unwanted.
Another major reason that women come to support the anti-abortion cause is that they have misunderstandings and fears about sex. They feel that abortion makes sex for its own sake more acceptable (which it does) and they can't believe that that would be a good thing. These women are also opposed to such things as pornography and the use of the female body to sell products. It's well known that feminists, who support abortion, have a similar position on advertisements and other things which make women into sex objects. Why is there this seeming point of agreement between women who are opposed to each other on the abortion issue?
To begin with, both recognise that sex is often oppressive for women. But the women against abortion see sex itself as oppressive, while feminists see that it is the use, the exploitation of sex that makes it oppressive. Why should sex be oppressive to women? Why do many older women become embittered and angry at the youner generation's struggle for sexual freedom? To find the answer we have to look at the way our human relation-ships are structured in this society and the attitudes which arise from, and uphold these structures.
Firstly, we've got to look at the family. The family is not voluntary association of people. It's basically just a convenient unit in which children can be fed, clothed and edcated into the ways of our society. That is what it is, but that is not what it is made out to be. The family is supposed to be the ideal situation for loving relationships. In reality, the family can be like a prison, in which all sorts of hatred is learned and from which both children and parents have no escape.
It would be far better for children to be brought up outside the nuclear family, to be brought up communally, so that they could have equal opportunities to develop their talents, and so that they could feel part of a wider human family instead of being alientated from all but a tiny few.
It would also be far better for men and women if they could form relationships with each other on a perfectly voluntary basis, so that if they want to part, there would be no laws or family commitments to stop them. It seems very strange to me that divorce between consenting couples, who both want to part, is made extremely difficult, even if they have no children. You're supposed to stay married for life whether you like it or not. And anyway, because you're all supposed to stay with one person for life, even if you do part, there are very few people with whom you can mix because most other people are sticking out their marriages, being "normal" couples, because alternatives simply don't exist.
The family and marriage do not meet the needs of most people for stimulating, warm human relationships - from childhood to adulthood, these institutions restrict the development of such relationships. They encourage selfishness, possessiveness, and competitiveness. These qualities are reqarded in our society - they are basic to it and that is why those who uphold the status quo most strongly are determined that marriage and the present family set-up must remain.
Men don't get the same conditioning, perhaps because they're not going to get pregnant before or after marriage anyway. They might be taught that sex is dirty, but they also know, much earlier than girls, that it's fun.
For many women, sex is never fun. Perhaps they never had sex before marriage - they "save" themselves for their husband. Perhaps they believed the myths that say sex before marriage is filthy and lustful but that after marriage they will be floated off on a rosy cloud. Then because they have shut off all their urges for so many years, they find they can't respond, the rosy dream is shattered; it does become a duty. When they've had a family, added to their dislike of sex is the fear that they might get pregnant again. And after they are past child bearing age they have no good experiences of sex to make them want it again. No wonder such women are against anything which enables women to have sex more often.' No wonder such women think that women's liberation means giving up sex altogether.
I know that the situation is changing. Young women to-day are resisting the conditioning their mothers had to succumb to. They expect a better deal in sexual matters, especially since the pill was introduced. But we have to remember that many women's lives have been irreparably damaged; they have never been able to enjoy sex. Sex has become an oppressive part of their lives. Many more women will be in the same plight if we don't break down all the barriers now.
These women must be shown that it is in their interest to support abortion, not oppose it. They must be made to realise that establishing women's right to choose about abortion means a great deal. It means establishing women's right not just to sex, but to sexual enjoyment It means we can undercut the whole set-up which messed us up in the first place; the conditioning of women to dislike sex so that they won't get pregnant before marriage, thus undermining the family system. When women are free of the punishment for sex - the fear of having an unwanted child - they will be able to think about their own sexuality and how, if it isn't repressed, it can enrich their lives. Most importantly, winning the repeal of the abortion laws will mean recognising women as people, with a right to decide the course of our lives. It will give us the dignity we are denied while we are always vulnerable to unwilled childbirth. It will challenge our passive role, which has led to acceptance of discrimination against our sex.
In order to reach out to women with our ideas, we must show that women themselves are the main force behind the abortion law repeal movement. And the most effective way we can show who we are is to hold public demonstrations like those on May 5. There is no better way of showing the public the growing support for repeal than by organising these sorts of public activities which can attract many more women than we otherwise could reach. We publicise them, as well as we can afford; each time new people come along, and the publicity in the media keeps the issue in people's minds and shows them that large numbers are not only in favour of abortion, but are prepared to be seen to be in favour of it.
Remember, it wasn't long ago that the word abortion was almost whispered. Since we came right out into the open, people are thinking and talking about abortion much more, and the more people think about it and hear of the growing numbers of women supporting repeal, the more the myths surrounding the subject will float in-to the background.
The May 5 march was probably the first such demonstration for a concrete demand for women since we fought for the vote. And just as the struggle to win votes for women was worldwide, so is the fight for repeal of the abortion laws an international one.
New Zealand women were the first to win the vote. I think we stand a good chance of setting an example for other countries again if we keep going, insist on repeal, not reform, and continue to bring women into action. On July 28, we'll be marching again, and in three cities this time, in the next big effort to show that we want the right to choose - for all women.
On Friday, July 28, a march will be held in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch to demand repeal of the abortion laws, free easily available contraception and voluntary sterilisation.
In Wellington, as part of activities leading up to the march, a picket of the National Party Conference was held July 22. The Tories didn't even bother to have a remit on abortion, though there is apparently quite a lot of support for repeal amonst younger members
Sponsors for the march include two Labour Party branches, a Christchurch city councillor (Nancy Sutherland), Professor Werry (an Auckland psychiatrist) and many other individuals and organisations, including the V.U.W. Students' Association.
The Wellington march begins at the Cenotaph, Lambton Quay, at 7.15pm (assemble 6.45pm) and ends in a rally in Civic Square, which will be addressed by Brian Edwards and others.
Posters, buttons and other material can be bought from the table in the ground foyer this week.
Support the campaign for repeal by buying a raffle ticket from the sellers around campus. The prize - a parcel of contraceptives. Not interested? Buy one for someone else
This is a film that Alf Allan should see. The guff sheet that is used for advertising purposes for the film states that, "Joe Hill championed the right to demonstrate and protest against social injustices." This is however just a slightly simplistic way to describe the role that Joseph Hillstrom played in America's radical history. A leader of the l.W.W. (Wobblies) movement Hill was. framed and then executed by the state of Utah at the height of his influence in the early labour movement.
Really Hill was basically a very ordinary man. He was however gifted with a remarkable ability to speak to people, plus immense courage and belief in the cause for which he fought. He was also a man who rather helped to bring about his own downfall by adopting a policy of refusing to give the name of the woman who would provide his alibi for the frame up which killed him. This rather pathetic sense of honour cost Hill his life, and made him a martyr to the cause, far more useful in death than in life.
"You will eat bye and bye
In that glorious land way up high
Live on hay
Work and pray,
You'll get pie in the sky when you die. "
Joe Hill was a revolutionary whose revolution failed. The Wobblies lost the war but thanks to Joe Hill they had all the best songs. Hill campaigned on soap boxes and on the job site; on the soap boxes his oratory gave way to his music. One of the most engaging moments of the film is when Hill sets up in opposition to the Salvation Army, it was here that Pie in the Sky was written. The warmth of this man is matched only by the chilliness of his reception by the general public.
The Wobblies were not a popular force in the U.S. at this stage. The American people were very probably in support of the actions taken by the state of Utah. Joe Hill and his fellows were under constant attack from the ordinary people who then were asked to listen to and support the Wobblies.
At no stage in this movie was the role of Hill romanticised or his influence exaggerated. Nor is the poverty of the period exaggerated for it is true to say that the United States was suffering from a worse tyranny of capital at that stage than was the greater part of Europe.
It is difficult to describe this movie in terms other than political. The art of cinema is well contained in the piece, but it is somewhat irrelevant. The medium is sufficient, the subject is both topical and fascinating, the treatment is brilliant and the result is one of the finest movies I have seen. (Political bias)
Those who say that the work of the Trade Union or Radical Movements is largely finished should see this movie for it shows the issues to be fairly constant........ freedom to protest and object and the right to share all the product of all the labour equally. The empty bellies make the issue more poignant but the issue remains with us today. As does the answer.
"There is power, there is power
In a band of working men
When they stand hand in hand."Joe Hill.
Another message is paramount ... "Dont forget when you're smashing the state, keep a smile on your lips and a song in your heart.
Sam Pekinpah's Straw Dogs is one of those films that crop up from time to time (cropped down in this case), and in so doing inspire a certain amount of controversy, sometimes acrimonious and generally spurious. (Last Year at Marienbad and Blow Up are two others of this ilk). Sound and fury rages in all quarters. In a hotel two gentlemen discuss whether the film is 'fascist', with no definition of the term offered by either, and no obvious indication that they have common understanding of its meaning. Elsewhere the violence in the film is questioned: is it 'obscene', Excessive' or 'justified'? ! have even heard an earnest debate as to whether or not David (Dustin Hoffman) returns to his wife after delivering halfwit Niles to the authorities, with the unequivocal implication that this was the crux of the matter; that an answer to the question, if found, would give some insight as to 'what the film was all about'.
The reader may gather from the jaundiced tone of the above report that I am not in favour of these blatherings. This is true, but not to the extent of totally excluding or ignoring such discussion. The point is that intellectual contemplation of what Peckinpah is trying to say has its place, but I believe it should not supersede other considerations. Is the film exciting, boring, horrifying? Are the characters and settings convincing within their own context. Is the work a good film qua cinema? - a primary emphasis on the aesthetic rather than the moral qualities. A precipitous and enthusiastic reading of the thematic material inevitably extracts more than is actually there, to the detriment of one's appreciation of the film as 'story telling through the artistic discipline of cinematic technique', liven among those who hate Straw Dogs there is some consensus that it is a superior piece of film-making, although they will usually admit this only when prodded. Their attentions are concentrated elsewhere, on the immorality, the 'gratuitous violence' etc. etc. Peckinpah has indeed done a superb job, better in many ways than his work in The Wild Bunch. The action is better 'orchestrated' and he resists the temptation to dwell on slow motion shots at the expense of the narrative pace. As in the previous film the switches to slow motion nearly always accompany violent death, but in Straw Dogs these shots are momentary, sometimes almost subliminal. The effect of this device is to reinforce our awareness of what has happened, without retarding the frenzied action within which they occur. There is one instance of their use in a situation where the setting is not one of violence but one of jovial camaraderie. At the church social Amy (Susan George) is plagued by memories of her rape - a series of extremely short slow motion flashbacks intrude on this otherwise pleasant scene, forcing us to share her unease and rising panic. This is about the most effective use of the device that I have seen. Throughout the film there are countless examples of Peckinpah the master technician at work. These extend to the editing, which creates a montage of savagery in the later scenes, and imposes overall the juxtaposition of contrasting worlds, that of David the bumbling egghead on one hand and the rough, down-to-earth yokels on the other. Amy is straddled somewhat uncomfortably between the two. This contrast gains force when one examines the ambivalence in the loyalties of the audiences laughing at David's fumblings in the early sections of the film, when the locals seem at least to know how to manage in the world, and cheering him on later as he slaughters them. Presumably Peckinpah achieves this change in attitude by showing that David is actually rather cool-headed when it comes to the ultra-manly business of killing people. Peckinpah is aided considerably by photographer John Coquillan who lights and shoots the night scenes of violence with consummated skill and extracts some beautiful colours from the unyielding, dingy English landscape. Jerry Fielding's fine music adds its own quota of menace. The acting is generally excellent, especially from the English contingent of Susan George (a subtle exposition of nubility), David Warner (Niles), T.P.Mckenna (the beak) Peter Vaughan (splendidly overblown as the nasty old man Tom) and the sundry village bucks. I particularly like Colin Well-find (Rev. Hood) who did such a good job as the school teacher in Kes. His short exchange with Hoffman when they first meet is a cameo to be remembered.
Hoffman's contribution as the film's pivotal figure is as we would expect from an actor of his stature, but I can't help feeling that the character, as conceived by Peckinpah and played by Hoffman, is not entirely satisfactory in the context of this story, and must agree with John Simon when he writes, "in this part a more neutral figure, scholarly and aloof but not infantile or even doltish in appearance, would have been vastly preferable". Perhaps 'vastly' is an overstatement, but there is something unsettling in the way Hoffman trips and stumbles about like the proverbial 'absent-minded professor'.
Peckinpah is not particularly noted as a lover of the human race, and Straw Dogs may very well be his major essay in misanthropy. It's a long way from that gentle idyllic salute to an era now past, Guns In The Afternoon (still my favourite Peckinpah movie), to the sour vision of The Wild Bunch and this latest film. If he can be said to be making any point at all, I suppose Peckinpah is saying that the Hoffman character lives according to his own rules in his own private world, but finds that in order to survive (or just to win the respect of his wife) he must play the game according to the rules of a hostile environment, the harsh world outside the comfortably familiar symbols of his astral physics. Of course Hoffman could have survived by handing Niles over to his drunken pursuers but, curiously, that's not playing the game either, at least not the game the audience believes in and has been waiting for. In a cool, carefully constructed ballet of slaughter the inevitable lines implied by our rules are logically drawn.
The violence in Straw Dogs is exciting rather than nauseating, exciting because it's so beautiful and there's so much of it, because much of it is perpetrated by the unexpectedly inventive Hoffman, and because it's in defence of 'his' property or his 'rights as a man'. It doesn't matter which - both are products of our rules. Much of it is openly comic. The attackers cavort drunkenly around on kids' tricycles while Hoffman, inside his castle, plots their grisly fates. The partial disappearance of Tom's foot is another jolly jape. It is precisely this balance of comedy, beauty and blood which seduces us into accepting Peckinpah's view of ourselves. On reflection, the seduction may be found disagreeable as a triumph of brute force over intellect, but there is no doubting that it works when we are under its spell. This, together with the film's technical achievements, is why Straw Dogs is such a brilliant success and such a splendid movie.
Under this title come such things as theatre, dance, poetry and various combinations of these. At this year's arts festival in Auckland there wilt be a number of traditional performances, but also several experimental works, and more emphasis on participation rather than spectation. Here is the latest news:
Many of the universities will be bringing up original works. "Nam" from Victoria is based on the letters of an American G.I. soldier. "Anthologies", a multi-media experimental piece from Otago. Auckland's Theatre Workshop and the Living Theatre Troupe will each be presenting new works. Some of the major productions include Marlowe's "Or. Faustus" (Otago), Gunter Grass' "The Plebeians Rehearse the Uprising" (Auckland) and "Too True to be Good" (Massey), a new play by George Bernard Shaw. There will also be quite a few one-act plays by writers like Tom Stoppard, Joe Orton, Sartre.
Opportunities to get involved. For a limited number of people, two theatre workshops will be held by the Mercury Theatre-one on theatre techniques, including street theatre-and the other on the theatre of Brecht. Applications for this will have to be made in advance to the drama controller. Additional workshops on street theatre will be held, and also a mask-making workshop leading towards a grand street procession. People taking part in this will have to be in Auckland a week before the festival.
There'll also be a street fair at the end of the week, street theatre performances, a circus and collages, combining dance, theatre, poetry, film and music. It is hoped that most of the material for these comes from work done during the week.
Where lies the joy, the specialness of dance but in the total involvement of body and soul in the relationships and communication of the dance; in the power to feel or understand with all parts of the body; in it's ability to involve anybody; in that it is a Now event. The relationships or at least the outcome of relationships in creative dance happen spontaneously not defined by or confined to any other reality but that of the moment. Each moment Is—it defines itself and demands to be acted up on.
For most of us dance Is a joyous educational process, a way of developing awareness and sensitivity to ourselves, to others, to music, words and space. So, In this Art's Festival the dance workshops are open to any person who wishes to learn about qualities of movement and their relation to how one feels (kinesthetic) sense), about space and most important aspect, how to dance (communicate) with others. The nature of creative dance Is such that within any group there can be people of differing abilities.
One workshop given by Baujke Van Zon will involve amongst the areas mentioned above poetry and dance; another a two day Multi Media workshop with Phillip Dadson, Val Hunter, Deb Pearson and Linda Taylor will involve experiencing movement sound and paint.
On the performance side there will be no one big dance concert. From Auckland the Van Zon Dancers and the A.U. Creative Dance Group will take part in a Collage along with music, drama and poetry. There will be an Asian-Pacific programme (and I hope some workshops from these people.) Victoria will present a number of dances with their drama production, while Otago will present a revue combining dance, music and drama.
There will be two professional groups performing—the New Zealand Dance Ensemble will perform new works by John Casserly in a programme of modern dances. They will also be giving an all day master class. The second group will be the Australian Dance Theater who may also give a master class.
when more
people
realise that
dance
is
a
language
of life
then
There are going to be a lot of poets in Auckland over the
There will be a display, too, of poems from people throughout the country, invited to contribute, whose names have been randomly selected from telephone directories. This will be on all week at the Grafton Road Arts Centre.
At Unity Theatre now.
"51" relives the Wharfies' futile attempt at solidarity that broke after 151 days, undermined primarily by economic pressure. The play, a collage doumentary created by the Amamus Theatre Group (who did something similar last year with the Depression), is a forceful and pretty perceptive study of power conflicts between workers and fat-arsed bosses, workers and Trade Union bosses, workers against themselves. At the end of the play only one man is left standing by his conviction that the wharfies had right on their side, the conviction that 'union solidarity' should have won the day.
But it didn't and some of the emergency powers have passed into legislation, ready to be invoked if some other group dares to try the might of the establishment. It comes as a tremendous shock (and this indicates the power of the play) to learn that 20 years later we the next generation, are still beating our heads against the same brick wall; e.g. public opinion still swayed by capitalist controlled mass media- the same demand for law and order, with its close affinities to fascism - extended police powers - the same accusation that all who stand up against prevailing opinion or government policy are either commie shits or weaklings subverted by Foreign agitators - forgetting that this is just the position with the government and visiting 'experts', or the pressures of overseas investment (in
The company have the rare ability to trace us with ourselves, give us a glimpse of our past, and a little more understanding of how we got to be the way we are. It's an uncomfortable mirror to face. Minor criticisms would be the length of the piece-it needs to be split up, and the occasional scene played too blatantly, but there are some brilliant portrayals of Dt. Sgt., Patterson "Call me Dave", and Syd Holland, portrayed as a bungling country bumpkin.
Theatrically, the Amamus Theatre Group is by far the most exciting, most creative group on the Wellington scene—a group that cares enough about the medium to chuck out the usual pretentiousness, expecially when dealing with kiwis, and make an active, lively theatre.
Jim Bury lives in Northern California. At present he is working on a farm and attending occasional classes at a state college. In
His experience of war is recorded in a series of letters which he wrote home to his mother and brother.
"Look I got this thing, ya know man, I've been trying to write. Trying to write about NAM. I've been back now over three years. Can't stop thinking about it. I want to write a play that'll give people some idea of what it's like to be there some idea of what it's like to be in combat-some idea about the whole fucking scene. But you can't explode grenades under the audience; you can't send in mortar rounds; you can't kill people; you can't even scare them that much... How do you do it, what in hell do you do?....There's so much stuff inside me, all about alarm. It's in my head and guts - I can't stop feeling it. I'm trying to find some way to get it out.
Jim Bury handed over some letters which he had written home during his period of duty, and these letters became the basis of the play. Dick Rothrock brought these letters with him when he came to New Zealand. To try and create a play from them seemed to be a good project to undertake with Drama II students.
First came the talking. Dick Rothrock, Phil Mann and other interested parties tossed ideas about. The problem was to discuss an approach. On the one hand we didn't want to give a straight reading — effective though this may have been, and on the other we didn't want to directly "dramatize" the experience as we felt that this would somehow be dishonest to the original experience.
Finally, we concluded that what we were really talking about was the process of theatre itself. This became the start. We decided to create a piece of theatre in which was explored "how" the theatre "means". The subject was Jim Bury's experience of war. This approach led to great freedom in the use of time, space and theatrical methods.
A basic scenario was worked out on large sheets of draughting paper which allowed one to see how the tape effects, the acting, the slides and the text were to interact.
The text came directly from the letters. It was divided up between several actors playing Mum, Sylvia, (the girlfriend). Bury, A sergeant, an instructor, four soldiers and a Reader. The different phases of Jim Bury's experience of combat as revealed in the letters were projected through these characters. A basic structure was Innocence Becomes Horror becomes Fatalism. (This is too simple a progression but reflects in some measure Bury's development as a soldier.) Other sections were written by students in Drama II. These were concerned with topics such as Combat Fatigue, Anatomy Lesson, Weapons of War, and Origanization of U.S. Army Postal System.
When we came to work on the play, the cast were asked for their comments and supplied additional dialogue through improvization or by direct writing.
The process has been one of gradual accumulation. For example, Jum Bury sent us a tape in which he gave his comments on the scenario and read one of the letters. These incorporated as part of the performance.
Someone asked, "Is this a play against the Vietnam War?" The answer has to be, "No." It happens that Jim Bury served in Vietnam, but apart from individual references and slides which make the action specific, the experience in the play is general and one suspects that a Roman soldier in garrison duty in England 100A.D. might have had similar thoughts.
Someone else asked, "Is this a play against war?" Again the answer must be, "No." The play is not propaganda for any particular interest, although there are references to politics and protest.
It is a play about a man, Jim Bury, who in
Jim Bury lives in Northern California. At present he is working on a farm and attending occasional classes at a state college. In
The past year has shown that the Students Association cannot afford equivocating leadership. Nor on the other hand can we afford dictatorial officers. My position at all times and on all issues will be clear, but decisions on all matters of policy will be referred to S.R.C. and S.G.M's. All such policy will be upheld and enacted promptly.
Manifesto.
B.A. Honours student in Anthropology and International Politics.
Hart Area Officer. Wellington
President, V.U.W. Labour Club
Student Rep. Chaplaincy Advisory Board
V.U.W.S.A.'s delegate to N.Z.U.S.A. May Council.
Stephen Hall
(no photo supplied)
"Krap. Crap. Shit". With I motto and election promise like that I make an excellent modest middle-class student leader. I own one tic and have medium length hair. This will help in establishing a community feeling amongst everyone of you 6000 students. I have a wide range of promises to which you are welcome to add anything you want. Flexibility is the crux of the matter. I have not thought about the function of the university at all and have never challenged the extremely satisfactory stable order of things Let sleeping professors lie.
I have had no experience on committees except for one. It set out to design a horse and came up with the camel. "If it rides hump it. If it humps ride it." V.C.D.A. Another quotation rumoured by F.A.R.T. to originate with the Irish poet S. Milligan "McKinley Restus in Pieceus"
I believe, deep in my soul, in party politics. A friend of mine is having one on Saturday so trot along. I read about it in Grassroots. Those naughty righters. A liberal thinking man (women don't count at Vic) who supports the South Afrikaaner tour is needed. Find him and vote for him.
A vote for me is a vote for progress!
Vote for me and I'll remember you for life-but I'm not very good with names.
Support the growth of the thinking majority.
A wide awake campus is needed. And before I go to bed I must say that I must say that the real issue of this election is bananas and softer nicer whiter toilet paper. And therefore, because of that it is obvious that I will lead you to victory over adverse elements. Down with bad weather and hard rain......crap rap app - etc.
I am heading up the Young Socialist's election slate because I believe that students should organise to build the most powerful movements for social change, in particular the movement against the Indo-China War, the fight for the repeal of all abortion laws, and an end to all racist sport's tours.
I am especially opposed to the tactic, advanced by a few student "radicals" represented in this election by Peter Wilson, of disruptive protests.
The counter-productiveness of disruption was classically illustrated by the PBEC demonstration. Here the aims of the demonstration were obscured and the media capitalised on the disruption to attempt to discredit the protest movement as a whole.
Disruptive protests against the
The power of the Student Association membership and facilities should be used to add real weight to the movements for social change which students support. The University buildings, its expertise, its printing facilities and the activity of the thousands of its members can have tremendous consequences.
Age: 26. Married
Third year B.A. student majoring in Political Science.
International Politics, and Asian Studies.
Man Vice-President on current executive.
Previously Sports Officer.
Representative on Professorial Board
Student Representative on Professorial Board
Member: Publications Board,
Sports Committee,
Cultural/Sports Grants Investigation committee
Finance/Representation Organiser NZUSC
Club Captain University Swimming Club.
A positive stand and strong leadership are imperative if the students' association and its executive are to function as a responsive student body. In financial matters this need is especially conspicuous. My policy and efforts will be directed accordingly — particularly in the genuine spheres of student concern. To the end I will actively support:
NZUSA's Accommodation Trust. Which aims to provide housing suitable for student leasing.
Earlier Bursary payments to avoid the present needless delay and financial embarassment.
Realistic Creche assistance — Financial as well as moral, which is the right of all student — parents.
Creation of a $1000 budgeted Upper Limit for total donations in
Independent Chairman for SRC towards which significant progress has already been made and which recent developments now demand.
National and International affairs of concern — Every facility to be made available but with the definite provision that allocation of funds must be viewed in the foregoing perspective.
Proposed Merger (In Principle) of NZUSA and STANZ into NUS without which Victoria will lose (for instance) all benefits accruing from travel concessions.
I am standing for the position of N.Z.U.S.A.
I am a 3rd year arts student, with a major subject varying from year to year, since I seem to crap out in my chosen major each year.
My previous experience in student affairs has been largely non-political I am at present V.U.W.S.A. Welfare Officer, and am involved in the organization and running of the Food Co-op.
I attended N.Z.U.S.A's May Council as Victoria's Welfare Rep, and thus have some experience of the back stabbing and power politics that occurs on such occasions.
I believe that the Proposed National Union of Students has some advantages over the present organization, but that it will require a large amount of work to make it feasible and acceptable to the majority of students.
I will, if elected, continue to assist on Contact and in the Food Co-op., and try to make them viable centres for the development of Community on Campus. The Student Travel Bureau I would try to see extended, so that the best service possible is available to students. This could entail the employment of a full time travel officer.
I believe that
Most students are antiwar and antiapartheid; few people dispute that anymore. Yet only a small minority of students would claim to be committed radicals. Yet NZUSA has adopted policies which only this radical minority could support.
A strong, united national student organisation is potentiallya very powerful pressure group and defender of student interests. It is important if such a body is to be effective, however, for its elected leaders to be sensitive to student interests and student opinion. This unfortunately has not really been the case with the current NZUSA leadership, which has adopted policies quite out of touch with student sentiment.
First of all, NZUSA is the main force behind HART, the anti-apartheid group committed to halting South African sports tours by physical disruption, against the will of the majority of New Zealanders, if necessary.
Secondly, at a recent council, the NZUSA leaders adopted a policy of "Victory for the NLF" for NZ students by a vote of three universities for, one against, and three abstentions. In fact they refused to support the July 14 mobilisation, except around the slogan of "Victory to the NLF"."Nobody can say that there was overwhelming support for 'Victory to the NLF' " said NZUSA President, Dave Cuthbert, in the June 23 Canta. In fact Canterbury students have already rejected this policy at an SGM.
As the Young Socialist candidate for Liason Officer, I am completely opposed to elitist, disruptive politics. I shall campaign for NAUSAtoadopt policies and strategies for issues such as apartheid, the war and abortion, that does not alienate students and the general public, but can involve them all in the movements for social change.
Experience:
University/Community Intergration:
I believe University is an extension of society; intiating Social development, change and research through participation and co-operation.
Policy: Promote community projects and advocate their crediting towards degree requirements.
Women Self-Determination:
Women have not only the intelligence, but above all the heart power, to heal the hates of the modern world.
Policy: Promote women right to 1. seek equality in all fields. 2.choose abortion and birth control on demand. 3. equal participation in policy making. 4. Creche - to be free as part of student welfare service.
Student Self-Determination:
At present we are not even listened to. Surely effective student representation can only be achieved by united action.. Policy: 1. Press for the merger of NZUSA/STANZ into NUS. 2. Provide a Candidate for 'Nov' elections. 3. Make SRC the supreme decision making body.
Student Development:
Students must spend much intelligent thought on the development of 'higher values' instead of developing worth, power and scientific knowledge.
Policy:
"Your friend is your needs answered."
Next year I will be a third year student having had one year in science and one year in an arts course.
Currently:
International Vice-President of NZUSA.
Executive member of NZSCM
National Chairman of OHMS
Member CORSO/NYC Youth International Committee.
Previous experience:
Executive member of Lincoln College Students' Assn.
Organizer for Christchurch Youth East Pakistan Appeal
NZUSA liason officer with HART.
After being a Vice-President of NZUSA you may wonder why I wish to return to local student politics? As an undergraduate I am experiencing the alienation of the present University System and therefore want to devote my energies to counteract this rather than work in the perhaps more glamorous field of International Affairs. I see the main job of Vice-President as the building of a strong University Student community that will enable students to take more committed and more effective action in the University as well as the local, national and international level. Specific areas I will deal with:
Students along with other Wellington citizens must take direct action to combat the shortage and exorbitant rents of flats.
If elected I am prepared to assist the President in his administrative functions.
Active in Ecology Action, at present in charge of Curriculum Development.
Treasurer of Young Socialists.
I don't intend to present a full coverage of ray policy here. I stand by the platform of the Young Socialist Ticket as presented by the other Candidates, and in our other election publicity. However, there is one important point I wish to make.
The question of Medical Aid to North Vietnam and Liberated areas of South Vietnam has been prominent on campus with a Special SGM reaffirming the decision to send $2,000. My position is that while Medical Aid is worthwhile it should not be a priority for the Student Movement. Students should aim for prevention and not cure, and this can best be achieved by mobilising support for political action to stop the war. The priority on finance for issues such as the Vietnam War must be building political action involving the students and not mere charity whether it be CORSO for the Imperialists or Corso for the Rads. The sooner the war is stopped the sooner Medical Aid will be unnecessary. New Zealanders cannot dissociate themselves from the murderous assault on the Vietnamese People by conscience money, but only by involving themselves in a movement to get the U.S. forces out, and leaving Vietnam to the Vietnamese.
I'm a third year student working for a B.A. in psychology. Among my qualifications for the job is the fact that I have worked in the University gym for two years and have gained a considerable appreciation of the needs of many of the clubs both through the clubs themselves and the very helpful physical welfare staff. I am active as an individual in sports such as basketball skiing and badminton.
Many Vic clubs are floundering because of lack of stable organisation and one of my efforts would be to promote stability in this respect. The timetable in the gym has only to be looked at to see the pressure lack of space is placing on both club and individual activities, and anything I can do to relieve this pressure will be done.
I would like to see sport at Vic oriented to both club and individual activity to foster both the competitive spirit and recreational relaxation.
I also believe that as the money for club grants comes from your Stud Ass. fee it should not be the non-student members of Vic's clubs that benefit.
I am a third year Law student. My policies are:
At present I am the treasurer/secretary of the Phantom Club and a member of the Legal Referral service, that is, the Citizen's Advice Bureau.
The central issue concerning sports facing Victoria students, is NZ's continuing sporting contacts with racist South Africa. As Sports Officer, I would campaign vigorously for an end to university and national sporting contacts with that country.
Don Carson, the present incumbent, is a leading advocate of disruptive protests on this campus. He was one of those who attempted to lead a sit down in Willis St. on the July 14 mobilisation, and supports similar disruptive protests against the
As a candidate on the Young Socialist ticket, I am strongly opposed to the anti-apartheid movement adopting tactics of disruption. I believe that the majority of New Zealanders can and will be won to opposition to racist sports tours, just as the majority has already been won on campus. The way students can most effectively win this majority and stop the tours, is through using our facilities to educate and organise others against the tour eg through ananti-apartheid version of Indochina Report, and through organising massive non-disruptive demonstrations as have been so successful in the antiwar movement.
As current Sports Officer my intention is to provide continuity in the Exec, from
I intend to continue to emphasise recreational sport on this campus. The casual participant is losing out to the organised lobbies of the sports clubs. In line with SRC policy, another priority is to ensure that non-students pay their fair share when they join university clubs.
It is only fair to penalise exclusivism in sports clubs, intentional or otherwise, if advertising is insufficient.
I play both rugby and cricket, but I have no vested interest in any particular club, and I have had substantial experience in club administration.
Politics are an integral part of the Sport Officer's portfolio. The Sports Committee deals with the more apolitical and administrative aspects of clubs. The Sports Officer must deal with affairs in their wider Association perspective.
The Association should in turn promote action to attempt to deal with the many social problems that afflict our community from the issues of Viet Nam and CMT to creche centres and racism.
Finally the Sports Page should return to Salient next year and stay there. Sports events are news.
I am a second year commerce student standing for the position of Sports officer for reasons pertaining solely to the furthering of sporting interests within the University. I believe that the combination of my involvement with sport within the University (Rugby league, Tramping Club, Motorcycle Club) and the degree which I am pursuing will be a major advantage in carrying out the duties of a sports officer. As parties, tickets, and cliques have no place in my view of student affairs my candidacy is independent and involves my being prepared to work with any individual or club. My more immediate concerns for sport within the University are as follows:
I object to Student Association funds financing the membership of non-students to University Sports clubs. Although I believe they should have every opportunity to join they should be levied accordingly. I would make further investigations into the financial position of the Ski-clubs lodge on Mt Ruapehu and ensure that all possible avenues for making it profitable are researched before any consideration is given to its sale. I support and would ensure the regular (1 page per issue) appearance of sports in Salient I do not support teams selected with racial bias and touring under the title of a Nationally representative side.
My major asset is a variety of sporting interests—Having played soccer, rugby, tennis, table-tennis, fencing and still playing cricket for Varsity. This will undoubtedly assist me in association with these clubs tending to give me a sympathetic and unbiased view of their needs and problems.
Sports should in no way be affected by political biases and to this end I support the
I also intend to press for the return of the Sports Column in Salient. The student body has a right to know of the progress of our teams and the loss of this column was a great disappointment to all those concerned with sporting activities.
For my piece de resistance I believe I have the knowledge to work in harmony with the Executive. Being a second year Accountancy major I have a basic financial understanding and will be able to use this knowledge to its greatest effect in the administration of funds for the sporting bodies.
It thk university is to cease to be a job training institution and to become active in the forefront of change, students must become more active in the cultural clubs of this association. I would therefore demand that all cultural clubs are active during orientation, and that no clubs are restrictive in their membership as was at least one club earlier this year.
Students are being forced to live further and further away from the university and are therefore increasingly regarding it as a centre of instruction, rather than as a centre of cultural activity. In order that this problem may be at least partially solved, it is essential that the exec look extremely closely at the possibility of purchasing flats in the vicinity of the university. Students close to the university are better able to participate in the activities of the clubs.
I am at present:
Cultural Affairs Officer
Executive member of the N.Z. Race Relations Council
Arts Festival Co-ordinator
And a member of numerous university clubs.
My aims are
To continue the present work of supporting, promoting, and en-couraging the Cultural Affairs of the university that I am at present doing.
To continue promoting opportunity at the 3 levels outlined in my last manifesto
a) Intra-university
b) Inter-university
c) International level.
To continue supporting direction from student general meetings. To keep building the university community.
I would not hesitate to initiate another Clubs Day next year with an eye on increased participation and involvement.
To keep supporting N.Z. Universities Arts Council
To give special emphasis to promoting N.Z. ideals and creations.
My political beliefs have not changed from my last manifesto and with the
Victoria students have by far the most active and progressive community in the country. I want not only to keep this going, but also to build it.
I am a 4th year law student, and should, with any luck, finish my degree next year.
I feel the position of Secretary is an important one as it should be the focal point of communication between the President and other executive members, and the student body as a whole.
Because of the problems besetting this university, the executive should be fighting to obtain more finance for development of space, because I am completely opposed to any curb being placed on the number of students attending this University. I fully support the anti-Tour movement and the Anti-War movement, but feel that it has got to the stage where we must do something positive; to make a positive commitment to the causes we support. The Students Association should also be giving more support to groups on Campus who are doing constructive work amongst the underprivileged groups on our backdoor step i.e. those involved in Homework Centres, Legal Referral work etc.
Despite the mud that has been thrown at it, I fully support the move to amalgamate with STANZ because for too long Universities have been an elitist power group. Such a move would increase resources and also provide a lot stronger base for action.
As the exclusion rules are strict enough, I do not support any changes pertaining to these rules. First-year students commonly face drastic changes in routine and so should be given the time and chance to adapt to the situation.
I support the idea that the association should buy flats in the vicinity of the University for student use, charging rents within the means of the average student.
I advocate strong support for anti-racist causes such as Care and Hart.
I support the repeal of the National Military Service Act.
I am anti-bomb, anti-war and therefore support organisations such as Greenpeace etc...
Previous Experience:
Student Rep. Faculty of Lang, and Lit.
Student Rep. Interdisciplinary Activities Committee
Student Rep. Catering Sub-Committee
Student Rep. Publication Board
Has worked in the Union Building in the holidays and therefore has experienced the workings of the Union Building Has put into practice the promise of trying to often the prerequisites within the English Department by conducting a survey.
Report still in the hands of faculty bureaucracy.
3rd year Arts Student prepared to limit academic activities to one stage I unit.
Policy:
Revamping of Orientation Programme, using a group of persons with widespread interests.
Investigating the possibility of a "private" radio station at University - similar to the one operating at Auckland University. Support for S.R.C. policy towards such organisations such as HART, OHMS, Anti-War and Women's Liberation Movement. Dissatisfaction with present caterers, and support for more varied and frequent vegetarian meals.
Aim for increased student participation in all the affairs of the University, e.g. on council, Professorial Board, Faculty committees etc.
Continuing the work of the present Exec. in developing all available empty houses as student hostels.
Love and peace. Lisa.
3rd year Arts and Law
Student S.R.C Accommodation Officer
Association Representative on Wellington Citizen's Committee on Accommodation.
Victoria delegate, NZUSA Council.
President and Past Secretary, Debating Society.
Secretary, New Zealand Universities' Debating Council.
The Secretary is responsible for the efficient day-to-day ad-ministration of the Association. However, the job is not simply an administrative one. As a member of Executive the Secretary must deal effectively with the problems and political issues confronting the student body. My views include'-
Staggered finals exams must be completely reviewed. Pressure throughout the year has been greatly increased but stress at the end of the year is unlikely to be lessened.
We must be constantly concerned with the purpose and the quality of university education.
Protest - We must back our policies with effective political action, c.g. in support of OHMS, HART, Antiwar. Where this means public demonstration the Association should lead and encourage. Rights of protest must be jealously guarded.
Accommodation - essentially a low-income-group problem rather than a student one. We must therefore concentrate particularly on continued close co-operation with community accommodation groups, especially the Wellington Citizens' Committee on Accommodation.
3rd year LLB. (Hons.) student.
Currently Publications Officer.
Member Gazette Committee
Secretary V.U.W. Debating Society
Member N.Z.U.D.C. Member of the Phantom Club.
If re-elected to this position I would do what I think a Publications officer should do, i.e.
Who: A fourth year third year Arts Student. Age 23. majoring in Sociology and Philosophy. At present a student representative on Faculty of Arts, Union Management Committee
Inter disciplinery Activities Committee, and believe it or not the Teaching-Aids Committee.
Why: Not to interfere with editors (this, of course, does not imply that any other candidate has said he would.) But to work towards a better integrated set of Student Publications. I would like to see Handbook integrated with the Orientation programme, and think that the whole concept of "Cappicade" needs to be critically re-examined. The idea of student owned printing equipment also appeals to me and I would examine the possibility of setting aside some income toward the eventual purchase of such equipment. As an exec member I would seek to promote particularly ipatory democracy in the University with full student control of student affairs. I am not happy with the present system of token student representation, and will support efforts give students an effective voice in the control of the University.
I am running for publications officer on the Young Socialists slate, because I believe that students must be presented with a socialist alternative to the disruptive politics of many of the self-styled radical student "leaders" running in this election. I fully support the ideas expressed by other Young Socialist candidates.
Student publications, particularly Salient, are a potentially valuable weapon in influencing students and in publicising pressing social issues. In this respect, as publications officer, I would give full support and encouragement to the Salient staff to give full coverage to the antiwar mobilisations, antiapartheid activities, the pro-abortion campaign, and so on. I also believe that
Salient should provide a forum for the debate of the different perspectives put forward by forces in the student movement, on how to build the movements for social change.
Salient and other publications can play an educational and organising role outside the university as well. The publication of Indochina Report by student newspapers for nationwide distribution is an example of a trend that should be expanded.
The use of Salient by the editors and their friends to foster not debate, but smear attacks on their particular political opposition, as the current editors have done against the Socialist Action league, must be condemned and actively discouraged.
( Continued Overleaf)
Dear Mr Antiel,—I have just turned 20 and I am going out with a very attractive 18-year-old girl.
"We get on pretty well, overall, except for one thing. I keep my hair neat and reasonably short but she is always on at me to grow it long.
"What is more she seems to be prejudiced against my short-haired friends, while I seem to get on with her longhaired friends.
"As things are getting pretty serious, I don't want this to come between us. What would you advise?
"In the past she has hinted at having used certain drugs. Do you think this might have something to do with it? — Curly'."
Have the hairstyle you want, not one of the girl's choosing; in short, be true to you self, young man. Tell her that it suits you and you have no intention of having it any other way.
Maybe she considers that, it's the "to thing" for boys to have long hairstyles; it could be that she's just reflecting the fashion-consciousness of women, generally, but if you were to explain that it's simply a question of personal, preference she may change her views.
If she does not accept you as you are. then I venture to say that there's precious little. death in her regard for you.
Perhaps the use of drugs has exercised some influence Better tread warily. The experience may be well behind. her. I trust it is.
I find refenrences to drung addiction the most saddening feature of behaviour in a section of
How can one get the message over to these misguided youngsters that health is something to be treasured. nurtured. and never abused.
Dear George,—I have read your comments on drugs. Perhaps more Than most people I was moved by what you said, because I have become involved with a person caught up in these horrible things.
"He is a fellow employee and we spend a lot of time together at work. I may as well admit that in spite of all his failings, I love him dearly, though he does not know this.
"In fact, I doubt if he knows what love is. He's had a hard life if half of what he has told me is true.
"But I can't see life getting any better for him if he continues to use drugs. It's hard to say but I think he's beginning to have trouble keeping up to scratch at work.
"Please help me George, If I go to the police then I might never see htm again. How best do you think I might get him to give this up of his own accord?—Shirley."
All I can suggest is that you endeavour to persuade him to seek medical aid. I realise that you won't find this easy to do. but if you have such regard for him I am sure you will Like courage and tell him.
Act as promptly as you ran. Choose your time for discussion and when you broach the subject don't fail to impress upon him the need for urgency.
Time is not on his sick; indeed, it could be almost too late.
I Have had several letters from most disturbed young people whose friends have become caught up in the web of drug addiction.
In each letter it is crystal clear that the friends are unable to make the victim see the folly of it all: not only that, they obviously don't" know how to convince them that ana nothing must be done, and quickly, if they are to break the bonds of their own making.
Their reluctance to take medical advice I can. like others who have given thought to the matter. understand.
Perhaps the best way to break down their resistance would be to counsel them to discuss their problem with an organisation that deals exclusively with the many difficulties experienced by youth.
Anyway, read what "Worried" says.
These three letters to George Antiel are all hoaxes. My friend and I sent off the first letter shortly after the Sports Post front-paged a dubious story involving professional demonstrators employed by an anarchist group pledged to the destruction of New Zealand's present state see Salient June 14th). We were wondering just how gullible the Sports Post was. A reply appeared on June 24th. Amazed and amused by this reply we sent off two more letters to Mr Antiel, the one which appeared on July 8th had a small sentence mentioning use of dark glasses and long sleeves edited out. Was this done to make the letter more credible or to protect "fellow employee" from recognition? Our third letter appeared intacts. We don't despise lonely-heart columns it is just that "Boy Advises Girl" provided the easiest means of testing gullibility. It's a sad reflection on our society that so many troubled people do not have access to more personal forms of counselling. We do object to authors of such columns moralising and dispensing advice on topics they know very little about. We also feel that the manner in which the letters were headed up suggests they are being commercially exploited.
We prefer to remain anonymous.
For the Position of Publications Officer next year I have both the time and reasonable knowledge of what is required — this is more important than any political faction that a candidate may support.
The position of publications officer is bloody important even though it tends to get shoved into the background. Publications in vanity are one of the chief means of communication amonst students. This aspect should gain more emphasis as far too many students know too little of what is happening around this place. Salient is the main medium of this communication but other, apparently less important publications should have a wider range of circulation. Publications in general should be stronger and more important.
I would like to see greater emphasis on publications at the begin-ning of the year. At present several booklets are produced because too many students dont know what varsity is or even give a stuff about it.
A considerable amount of administration goes into Publications Against this are the political aspects that go with any executive position. If elected I intend to be a Publications Officer and not use it purely as a political position. I do have my views and ideas which I intend to push forward. An executive position is a useful way of doing this. But whoever fills the position must be a Publications officer and not simply use it as a political stand.
This sounds like the rave of a candidate who wants to be Publications Officer. It is. Students must know who they vote for. Don't danm well vote for a bloody name that appears everywhere unless they can do the job students want.
Freedom of expression is integral to Varsity life. Students should become involved in their publications. An open system where creativity is utilized not lost for lack of access. The Varsity should be receptive to the ideas and objectives of students by encouraging participation.
Salient still lacks the courage of the
I support many things, but unlike McKinleyites I believe support implies actions and as an exec member I will act on three main fronts:-