This is an aboriginal interpretation of Zorba The Greek. This performance always lifts my spirits. I am always happy to see anyone enjoying life and not taking themsleves too seriously. As the description on the YouTube page explains…

Frank Djirrimbilpilwuy from Milingimbi has been in the Indigenous Media Industry for many years and has been a long-standing member and supporter of the Top End Aboriginal Bush Broadcasting Association, TEABBA Radio. He has worked Independently in Music and Film for many years also. As the man behind the camera and release of the video, Frank is also representing the dance group who call themselves “The Chooky Dancers”.

Frank has said that he filmed the footage at this years Ramingining Festival on the 30th September 2007 and knew it would be “something special” as soon as he saw the boys rehearsing. “The crowd went wild as you can see in the video, and the classic song Zorba the Greek has now become a hit overnight in the communities and now it seems, everywhere else too.”

Australia never experienced anything at all remotely resembling the Cuban Missile Crisis or McCarthyism but we did have the Petrov Affair.

Back in April 1954 Australia had its very own Cold War drama when Vladimir Petrov defected while employed as a third secretary at the Soviet Embassy in Canberra, Australia’s capital city.

The episode became known as the Petrov Affair and it dominated the Australian political landscape and newspaper headlines. Australians were caught up in “stories of espionage and political conspiracy”.

As the Old Parliament House web site states, “The defection of the Petrovs came to be regarded by Western intelligence services as one of the most important of the Cold War era and it had a profound and lasting impact on the Australian political landscape, with the Labor Party Split a direct consequence of the events of 1954-1955.”

The Old Parliament House has an exhibit commemorating the event and in support they have created a web site rich with resources suitable for students of Cold War history near and far. There is also a web quest that students can explore. The resources are particularly useful for students of Australian history at Stage 5 of their schooling in NSW. There is a wealth of documents, photographs, media files and links to investigate.

It seems that Fijian bloggers may be gagged by the military junta running the country. Check out these three blogs for more on the latest. Intelligentsiya, ResistFranksCoup and Discombobulated.

My first editorial on my old Pasir Ris Mercury site, an early incarnation of a blog, back in 2000 was a comment on the previous coup in Fiji. History repeats itself.

It is pleasing to read in local newspapers here and also here that the internationally respected journal, The Lancet, is critical of John Howard and his government. The focus of the editorial is upon the Howard government’s neglect of health and the silencing of critics. The editor also criticises the conservative outlook of the government with critcisms not only of Howard and the health minister, Tony Abbot, but also Malcolm Turnbull and his dismissive attitude towards the UN’s intergovernmental panel on climate change.

As the editorial in the Lancet concludes “This year provides an opportunity at the ballot box to bring a new enlightenment to Australian health and medical science” and an a new direction in the way Australian governments handle immigration, asylum seekers, refugees and the worker. It is time to vote John Howard and the Liberal ~ National Party coalition out.

How can Howard and Downer stay in office considering the revelations of the Cole Inquiry into the AWB kickbacks scandal? In previous governments the ministers responsible for the respective departments would have stood down. Years ago two ministers stepped down because a TV set was not declared at customs. In this instance $300 million was paid by the Australian Wheat Board to Saddam Hussein via a dodgy Jordanian trucking company to guarantee wheat sales to Iraq. Bribery. The Australian government was warned by a variety of organisations here and abroad that the AWB was up to no good. Howard and Downer deny they knew anything about it. Time to go Howard. Time to go Downer. You are both an embarrassment. It is so shameful to be an Australian these days. 

Well, the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, Australia are over. The Channel Nine broadcast is over. It was an exercise in jingoism. You would hardly know that other countries were involved. It was if the broadcast was scripted by that maestro of right wing nationalism, John Howard. I so long for the day that when he and his ilk no longer influence the society and culture of this country. Australia is becoming such a self-centered and pompous hole.

Ian Semmel of Maleny in Queensland wrote so well… “A pack of neo-Nazis go on a rampage under the banner of the Australian flag and in protest someone burns it. The penalty? Three months’ jail. What sort of country has Australia become? I deeply resent people such as Pauline Hanson and John Howard draping themselves in the flag to peddle their jingoistic racist views, but nothing happens to them. The way Australia is at the moment, the flag deserves to be burnt.” Letters, Sydney Morning Herald, 14th January, 2006.

Ian’s thoughts reflect my own. Howard and Hansen… jingoistic, self-centred, ignorant and racist. Australia is going down the drain.

Prime Minister John Howard has condemned the race-based attacks in Sydney, but says they don’t mean Australia is a racist nation. “I do not accept there is underlying racism in this country,” Mr Howard said today following yesterday’s race riots at Cronulla Beach. “I have always taken a more optimistic view of the character of the Australian people.” SMH. Monday 12th December 2005.

How can John Howard be so blind? His can he make these utterances? His government has promoted a campaign based upon politics of fear. Howard’s government, like that of Bush and Blair, have over-emphasised the theat of terrorism across the world. The immigration and foreign policies of John Howard’s government smack of jingoism and nationalism. Howard says there is no underlying racism in this country! The policies of John Howard’s government breed jingoistic views that lead in turn to racism.

During John Howard’s watch we have had Pauline Hanson’s unbridled racist pronouncements, the Tampa incident, illegal deportations, appaling immigration detention centres, the Cronulla race riots and blind adherence to the insane foreign policies of the USA. Australia’s image abroad has deteriorated during this time. We are perceived as racist by people overseas.

How can Howard deny there is underlying racism in this country? His government is promoting the environment that nurtures jingoism and racism. One only has to look at the sickening increase in the number of Australian flags fluttering in the front yards of Australian homes… misplaced nationalism. Pauline Hanson is now an accepted televsion personality… how appalling is that!? She should be in prison. She did more to tarnish the image of our country abroad than any other single individual in our history.

John Howard has an optimistic view of the character of the Australian people. Does he not realise that many people overseas have a dim view of the character of the Australian people due to his arrogance, jingoistic foreign policies and retrograde immigration policies?

T-shirts that read “Ethnic Cleansing Unit” and SMS messages that read “bash wogs and lebs” not racist!? John Howard is an imbecile. The sooner he retires or is removed from public office the better.

It was probably the Liberal voters of the Sutherland shire that bred the rioters that shamed this country on Sunday afternoon.

20 years from now history text books will set out Pauline Hanson, Howard, Ruddock, Vanstone and Downer together with their US inspired politics of fear and a jingoistic approach to foreign policy as the background causes for the riots at Cronulla and Maroubra.

Teaching students about the rise of Nazi Germany is so much more easier now. There is a rich source of similarities in Australia’s recent history that a teacher can draw upon. Ten years of neo-conservative Liberal Party government, the shame that is Pauline Hanson, jingoistic foreign policies, inhumane immigration detention centres, the baby overboard debacle, illegal deportations, and the jewel in the crown… the Cronulla Race Riots.

Historical personalities like Howard, Downer, Vanstone and Ruddock espousing right-wing, nationalistic, pro-individual, selfish policies to the detriment of community and collaborative social values have their parallels in Nazi Germany as well.

Welcome to Australia… only if you are fair-skinned, sandy-haired and blue-eyed of course. You must promise to vote for the Liberal Party as well, just like the majority of Cronulla’s residents. Australians of a caucasian background no longer seem to make immigrants and visitors of other racial backgrounds welcome. I first started observing this in 1996 or thereabouts.

It is so shameful to be an Australian now. This episode and the malaise that seems to be infecting Australia and its people makes me feel angry, frsutrated and sad. It seems to be vote ‘1′ for individualism and selfishness in this country.