It’s the 61st session of the General Assembly of the United Nations this week. Heads of government from all over the world are there. George W Bush, Hugo Chavez, Thabo Mbeki, Michael Somare, Jacques Chirac, Thaksin Shinawatra (even if he has no job to go home to); Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, Robert Mugabe, they’re all there, including… um, Alexander Downer.

Instead of strutting on a world stage where The Voters Back Home won’t see him, John Winston Howard spent yesterday morning strutting on a world stage where All The Voters Back Home were watching. He gave a speech at the Crocoseum at Australia Zoo as part of the extremely kitschy globally-televised send-off for Steve Irwin. And then he toddled off to the north of Queensland for the twentieth-anniversary piss-up, er, meeting of the Cairns Group.

Let’s just recap, John-Boy: the Cairns Group is a gaggle of 18 agricultural exporting nations and is intended as a meeting of Trade Ministers. Your trade minister, Mark Vaile, is there, as he should be. The United Nations General Assembly is a gaggle of 192 nations - just about every sovereign state in the world. You, John-Boy, as a global citizen should be in New York with all of your peers, not doing a junket in Far North Queensland.

And certainly not leaving this country’s voice on the world stage to the Global Village Idiot himself.

Did I ever tell you Federal Parliament is a joke?

Despite the Prime Minister’s total apathy towards the world’s greatest current humanitarian crisis, the Government hasn’t been totally quiet on Darfur. DFAT announced on September 1 an additional $5 million in food aid for Darfur, and $510,000 to Austcare for “protection officers who will work with United Nations agencies increasing security for civilians in internally displaced person camps in both Darfur and southern Sudan.”

Bruce Baird is one of the better Liberal MP’s in the House of Reps. The member for Cook (which includes Cronulla within its boundaries), chairman of the Amnesty International Parliamentary Group and a committed Anglican, Baird has a social conscience the likes of which his colleague, the member for Bennelong, could never comprehend. On May 29 Baird introduced a motion to the House of Reps as private member’s business:

That this House calls on the United Nations to:

(1) substantially increase the level of aid to the Darfur region of the Sudan;
(2) call upon member nations to provide peacekeeping forces to quell the civil war currently taking place in the country;
(3) lift the profile of this catastrophic situation that confronts Darfur and the conflict which has already claimed 300,000 lives and seen 2.4 million people displaced;
(4) work effectively with the NGOs to ensure a substantial lift in the level of privately sourced aid going to the region; and
(5) ensure that maximum cooperation is given to peace negotiations.

Thirty minutes allotted for six speakers with a maximum of five minutes each: Baird, shadow Attorney-General Nicola Roxon, Petro Georgiou, Michael Danby, Cameron Thompson, and Laurie Ferguson. All totally in support. And then, as is normal procedure:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Barresi)—Order! The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.

You guessed it. The debate hasn’t resumed. It might. Do a word search for “darfur” on this page and see how far down the queue it is.

There’s been a couple of mentions of Darfur in Federal Parliament since that debate. Last Thursday (September 14) in the Senate, Helen Coonan outlined Government policy on the possibility of sending peacekeepers in relation to UN Resolution 1708. She at least has a better grasp on events than did her Liberal stablemate Senator Marise Payne on June 21. Poor Senator Payne thinks Darfur is in the south of Sudan.

Today, September 17, has been declared a Global Day of Action for Darfur. dayfordarfur.org tells us that the day “was originally conceived by a group of NGOs working on Darfur and concerned about the slow response of the international community to the crisis”.

It’s also the first anniversary of the signing of the 2005 UN World Summit Outcome Document. Of particular relevance here are paragraphs 138 and 139:

Responsibility to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity

138. Each individual State has the responsibility to protect its populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. This
responsibility entails the prevention of such crimes, including their incitement, through appropriate and necessary means. We accept that responsibility and will act in accordance with it. The international community should, as appropriate, encourage and help States to exercise this responsibility and support the United Nations in establishing an early warning capability.

139. The international community, through the United Nations, also has the responsibility to use appropriate diplomatic, humanitarian and other peaceful means, in accordance with Chapters VI and VIII of the Charter, to help to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. In this context, we are prepared to take collective action, in a timely and decisive manner, through the Security Council, in accordance with the Charter, including Chapter VII, on a case-by-case basis and in cooperation with relevant regional organizations as appropriate, should peaceful means be inadequate and national authorities are manifestly failing to protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. We stress the need for the General Assembly to continue consideration of the responsibility to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity and its implications, bearing in mind the principles of the Charter and international law. We also intend to commit ourselves, as necessary and appropriate, to helping States build capacity to protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity and to assisting those which are under stress before crises and conflicts break out.

So what are we doing about it? Damn little. An obscenely small amount. Mary Liddell in today’s Observer summarises the situation:

The African Union’s 7,000 peacekeepers, feeble, underfunded and unwelcome, are leaving in a fortnight. Sudan’s leader, Omar al-Bashir, refuses to accept the 20,000 replacement force mandated by the United Nations. The resulting security vacuum would force out aid workers, condemning to death many of the 2.5 million who depend on them. It would also let Bashir unleash a military solution to a three-year conflict that has killed 300,000 people and left 2 million homeless; 10,000 Sudanese troops are massing to take on the rebels.

A good centralised resource page for information and action about the situation in Darfur can be found at the excellent International Crisis Group website.

As for John Winston Howard, he still registers a nil return for mentions of “Darfur” either in Hansard or in transcripts available on the Prime Ministerial website. But then, he never was big on humanitarian issues, was he?

I’ll post about the Australian political activity in relation to Darfur in a separate item. I’ll finish this post with a prayer, published by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, on Friday:

Heavenly Father,

We pray for those whose lives are lived on the margins of nations and suffer from the wars that others fight around them. We pray for the warring factions, that they may see themselves under the gaze of God and those who suffer for their cause. We pray for the peoples of Darfur who are haunted by fear of violence, hunger and hopelessness, that they may continue to be fed, visited and defended. We pray for the work of peacekeepers, negotiators and the humanitarian organisations that security may prevail. We pray for the Government of Sudan and for her unity. We pray for peace in the name of him who is the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

September 16, 1956: Channel Nine begins transmission with station manager Bruce Gyngell (long before his pretty in pink days) uttering that profound line:

Hello, and welcome to television.

Well it seems that it was actually Janet Gaynor who was the first face on Australian television, during laboratory tests in the 1934. The Ipswich City Council website documents it in detail, but of course we know never to let the facts get in the way of a good anniversary.

But there can be no better way to celebrate the half-century of commercial TV in Australia than that concocted by the people behind Naomi Robson. Summed up succinctly on the editorial page of today’s Sydney Morning Herald:

Naomi Robson, a glamorous and determined reporter, is on her way to save Wa-Wa, a boy marked, perhaps, for consumption by his cannibal tribe. She falls into an elaborate trap set by a fiendishly cunning Indonesian immigration official: she is asked for her visa. Not having a valid one, she and her crew are entombed alive in a three-star hotel. Using only their corporate credit cards, they cut their way to freedom and ratings success.

It’s still 48 hours away from the next episode of Media Watch, but until then we can follow the reportage from the Sydney Morning Herald, the Daily Telegraph and the ABC. (Where is Boris Johnson when you need him?)

Special 72-and-a-bit-years of Australian television celebratory link: the best of Naomi Robson on Youtube.

Two years ago, I opened my personal recollection of the events in the US on September 11, 2001 with a quote from New York Times columnist Nicholas D.Kristof. Let me repeat it, for it still rings true:

But as we commemorate the anniversary of 9/11, let’s remember that almost as many people are still dying in Darfur every week as died in the World Trade Center attack.
- Nicholas D.Kristof, New York Times, 11 September 2004

We feel for the people of New York City whose lives were disrupted, and in many cases destroyed, by the actions of suicide radical hijackers on September 11, 2001. They were innocent people going about their daily lives. They were residents and workers in a city thought safe from attack. They were victims of an attack so utterly bewildering in its imagination and audacity.

But we are enabled to feel for the people of New York City most of all because their suffering was televised.

Did we feel for the people of Bam, wiped out by an earthquake in December 2003? Did we hold ceremonies to read the names of the residents of Banda Aceh killed by tsunami in December 2004? Did we feel for the people of Tyre in July 2006 as their city was bombed to pieces by a foreign army seeking revenge for the abduction of two soldiers?

Did we feel for the thousands of Iraqi Kurds in 1988, killed by weapons of mass destruction under the direction of our then-ally Saddam Hussein?

For today, enough of politics. Day in, day out, I feel outrage at the politicisation of 11.9.01 by the executives of White House Halliburton. The total bullshit espoused by Rice, Cheney et al on the Sunday talk shows yesterday demonstrates that the US has moved not one millimetre closer to understanding how poisonous their global ideology has been, and still is.

Time for me to step back and reflect with the people of New York, following events on WBAI and WNYC radio online, following the reportage of the prayers and sermons of the truly Christian clergy of the US. Knowing full well that I, and indeed all of us, can do a damn lot better in understanding our world as a whole.

There’s a stack of background reading material Out There of course, but I recommend the Center for Cooperative Research for their exhaustive documentation of known events relating to the events of 11.9.01. And from today’s Sydney Morning Herald, Paul McGeough’s excellent column, the title of which sums the last five years up quite well:

The world offered unity. It was rejected.

King Taufa’ahau Tupou IV 1918-2006

One of 29 remaining monarchs in the world today, the King of Tonga died yesterday. An old Newingtonian and a Sydney Uni law graduate, Siaosi Tāufaʻāhau Tupoulahi had been King since 1965, succeeding his mother, Queen Salote, who been Queen since 1918.

Tupou weighed in at times at over 200 kilograms.

Crown Prince Sia’osi Taufa’ahau Manumata’ogo Tuku’aho Tupou, a 58 year-old confirmed bachelor, is now King Taufa’ahau Tupou V.

Obituaries from the New Zealand Herald, New York Times, the Associated Press. I await the parochial Inner Western Sydney angle - there can’t have been too many kings go through high school at Newington College.

“More than 9,000 Palestinians are in Israeli jails nowadays; it is a nightmarish number. Anyone who knows the Shin Bet security service and the military justice system can safely assume a significant proportion of them are imprisoned for no reason. Israeli society doesn’t even ask why so many are jailed.”
- Gideon Levy, Ha’aretz, 10.9.06

The English language edition of Ha’aretz has become one of my must-read online newspapers every day. Uncompromisingly critical of Israeli government policy where it is deserved, and the closest thing I have seen to a “balanced” coverage of the Middle East troubles. A comparison with the Jerusalem Post, for example, is an eye-opening experience.

Levy, one of Ha’aretz’s most trenchant columnists, alludes in today’s piece to the hypocrisy over the Israeli government’s reaction to the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit et al, while they at the same time capture dozens of democratically elected Palestinian parliamentarians and have an enormous number of Palestinian citizens behind bars.

Reading Ha’aretz enables me to restore my faith in the goodwill of the Israeli populace. Now if only they could elect a government that could display the same humanity…

September 11, 1906: Indian-born lawyer and South African resident Mohandas Gandhi spoke in Johannesburg calling for non-violent resistance to racial discrimination, in particular Transvaal’s Asiatic Laws. This week is the centenary of Gandhi’s first satyagraha.

It’s a pity that the date of September 11 has become associated with an audacious act of mass murder. With both events in mind, the Mahatma’s grandson, Arun Gandhi, has submitted that September 11 be observed as a Day of Prayer for Peace and Harmony. There’s more information at the Gandhi Institute, including a PDF document of Arun’s paper “The Duality of September 11“.

Rather more fitting, I think, than the Bushite proclamation of September 11 as Patriot Day.

A tribute to another of the industrialised world’s finest telecommunication institutions, the United Arab Emirates’ Etisalat.

(Here’s some further reading on the subject.)

3 Texas Men Arraigned on Terror Charges (AP, 13.8.06)

Perhaps that should read: “Three men of Middle Eastern appearance arrested for buying 1000 mobile phones.”