THE PEOPLE SMUGGLER, ROBIN DE CRESPIGNY, PENGUIN VIKING, 2012
By Jenny Haines
This is an important book in the debate about refugees, asylum seekers and people smugglers. It should be read by all members of federal parliament, some of whom stood weeping in parliament during the debate on asylum seekers in 2012, and then allowed the reopening of the Nauru and Manus Island detention centres to add to the misery they claimed to be so concerned about.
The Iron Lady
Directed by Phyllida Lloyd
Starring Meryl Streep and Jim Broadbent
Reviewed by Jenny Haines
The curse of our lives is that as we get older all we are left with, as children leave home and the next generation moves in to our workplaces, is our memories. The Iron Lady, a movie written by Abi Morgan, portrays an aged Margaret Thatcher living with her memories in the confusion of old age, not sure any more what is real and what is not.
By Jenny Haines
In an article in the Sydney Morning Herald’s National Times section on December 22, Robert Manne, stated his opinion that the left got it wrong on boat people.
Manne notes the current stalemate between the political parties in parliament and does not resile from his opposition to John Howard’s Pacific Solution cruelties, but he criticises the left for not recognising the efficiency of the Pacific Solution in reducing the numbers of refugees arriving by boat.
By Ed Lewis
A few days ago, Bob Brown said he was looking forward to joining the welcome for US President Barack Obama on his visit to Australia. He said Obama’s visit was “a much happier prospect” than the visit of George W Bush on the eve of the second Iraq war, and he would like to meet Obama.
Bob Brown said Obama would get a great welcome from Australians “and that will include Greens”. Brown should speak for himself on this, as there are plenty of Greens who will not be welcoming Obama. I have worked for the Greens on many election campaigns and in other activities, but I have been politically active for much longer opposing great-power aggression against small nations.
Come the Revolution, a Memoir
Alex Mitchell
New South Press, 2011
Reviewed by Ed Lewis
Alex Mitchell’s memoir covers a big chunk of history, from the late 1950s up to a few months ago. Mitchell is a skilled and entertaining writer and the book is worthwhile alone for its vignettes of the 1961 Mount Isa strike, the early stages of the Vietnam antiwar movement in Australia and London, the Canberra press gallery, Rupert Murdoch as a rising young mogul challenging entrenched media interests in Australia, Mitchell’s training in tabloid journalism on Murdoch’s afternoon Sydney daily, The Mirror, his later experience in investigative reporting with the Insight team on London’s Sunday Times, his traumatic few days as a reporter in Biafra, his reporting from Idi Amin’s Uganda, in Ireland during “the troubles” and much more.
But Mitchell makes it clear the passion of his life was left politics, and the high point of his involvement in the left was his time in Gerry Healy’s Workers Revolutionary Party, for a few years probably the most successful Trotskyist organisation in Britain, with a daily newspaper, an extensive publishing program, numerous real estate assets, an active membership of probably several hundred and a constellation of celebrities surrounding it, including Vanessa and Corin Redgrave.
A Bob Gould archive has been set up on Marxists Internet Archive and a start has been made on making Bob’s writing available there.
Ozleft will continue to host Bob’s writing, but MIA is a better organised site that will make it easier to browse his archive and find works.
TRIBUTE BY ANDREW LEIGH, MP
Bob Gould, House of Representatives, 30 May 2011
I rise to pay tribute to Newtown bookseller Bob Gould, who passed away on 22 May 2011 aged 74. Bob was part of the progressive left in Australia for the better part of the post-war era. From the Vietnam War to asylum seekers, he has marched and argued for what he believed in. As former New South Wales MLC Meredith Burgmann noted, “He was involved in most of the great political protest movements of the time.”
Obituary to Bob Gould, 1937-2011
Hall Greenland. June 2, 2011 , Sydney Morning Herald
Founder of the anti-Vietnam War movement in Australia. Lifelong member of the Labor Party and Trotskyist. Bookseller. Bibliophile. Historian. Union agitator. Anti-censorship battler. Bohemian. Irish Catholic. Polemicist.
Eulogy for Bob Gould
By Hall Greenland
Bob Gould was my old comrade and sparring partner. My relationship with him fell into three periods … the 60s which I will return to in a moment … but then in the 70s and 80s we went our separate ways looking for paths to or beyond what Bob liked to call the socialist project to which he devoted his life … and then there was a growing reconciliation in the late 90s when Bob’s wisdom flowered and his historical writing took off and I once again learned to listen and take on board the words of a master.
Bugden’s Bookshop in King’s Cross marks the passing of Bob Gould.
(This is the speech delivered by John Percy, national secretary of the Revolutionary Socialist Party, and editor of its paper Direct Action, to the funeral of Bob Gould in Sydney, May 26, 2011. Other speakers were: Mairi Petersen; Janet Bonser; Hall Greenland; Jenny Haines; Nick Martin; Meredith Burgmann; Ian Rintoul; Phil Sandford; Natalie Gould. The service finished with the singing of the International, led by an Alistair Hulett recording.)
BOB’S FUNERAL – 26.5.11
Thank you all for coming today. Bob would have been really pleased to see friends and foes, Labor, Green and Far Left supporters all in the same room and he would have been trying to figure in his head how it could all be turned in to a political force and not just a gathering at his funeral. One thing he wanted to see in his lifetime was a resurgence of the Left and he could only see it ever happening through supporters of all the parties and groups putting aside their differences and working on the commonalities.
On May 27, John Robertson, parliamentary leader of the NSW Labor Party, paid tribute to Bob Gould in state parliament. The Hansard record follows.
Bob Gould, 1937-2011
By Ed Lewis
Bob Gould’s funeral, like his life, promised to be interesting, and it didn’t disappoint. About 500 people crowded into the Palm Chapel at Macquarie Park, North Ryde, to hear nine speakers, with Mairi Petersen, Bob’s former wife, making some introductory remarks and running the ceremony.
