Looking for constructive criticism on the emerging leaflet text below. (As it stands it still shows signs of its indymedia origin). Also of course I want to publicize the action within Australia
Anzac Day is a quasi-religious holiday "remembering the dead" of Australia's war efforts. The recent revival of interest in it is a spooky symptom of things in general going to hell in a handbasket....the last time the Anzac myth was seriously challenged was back in the early 80s by feminists causing an embarrbutting police over-reaction. These days protests still occur but they are carefully cordoned off into a freakshow under police protection. The current project takes a somewhat different approach....
-j
------------------------------------------------- Remember the IWW on Anzac Day
Rape Of A NationP˜g mo th˜in the idiot US to resume military ties to Islamic militia James Balowski, Jakarta In the boldest statement on the subject to date, US Secretary of State Condoleezza...
Current details of the projected IWW remembrance-celebration on ANZAC Day in Melbourne; with some background.
ANZAC Day demo set for 10:30 am at 171 Lt Bourke St (cnr of Russell St) Currently planned to last 1 hr, this is obviously flexible depending on support. 171 is the old IWW address in Melbourne, now a Chinese restaurant.
Aim is to celebrate and commemmorate the efforts of the IWW in World War 1 in (unsuccessfully) opposing the war itself and (successfully) opposing conscription....and through them the efforts of the world's war resistors in general. All people who wish to commemmorate and celebrate such are welcome. The intention is not to confront the ANZAC day march, we will not be organisng a march down to the Shrine etc. We hope there will be music and singing and possibly even some talking (perhaps with a decentralised soapbox system rather than a single platform.) We hope esepcially that actists from thewomen's interventions in the early 1980s will be able to attend.
ANZAC Day, and for that matter May Day, are in the Southern Hemisphere in the seasonal place that Hallowe'en is in the Northern. A good time for remembrance.
It should be noted that the IWW were not quietists, they did not reject the use of physical violence underall circumstances. It is part of the cant of our timesthat quietism is the only valid reason for opposing the mbutt-liquidate of national war...and the IWW were a wake-up to this as to most forms of cant.
In October 1916 and December 1917 the Australian people voted against conscription and Australia was the only belligerent to not enforce conscription against its people. Even conservative historians acknowledge the significance of the IWW in achieving this result. The anti-war movement was of course wider than the IWW and the anti-conscription movement wider again. Crucial votes against conscription when the issue came to referendum came from farmers (because they didn't want to lose their labour supply) and from serving Australian soldiers...the hostility of this latter group to conscription apart from perhaps tipping the balance in a very close vote was also important in that it denied the pro-conscription crowd what would have been a potent propaganda weapon. Soldiers who had not yet shipped overseas were generally in favour of conscription and were mobilized to attack anti-conscription meetings etc. Men who had seen battle saw it differently.
Despite the broadness of theanti-conscription movement the IWW played a crucial spearhead role. It was they who took the knocks, and the jail terms, as any activity likely to "prejudice recruitment" was a criminal offence and this legislation was freely used against anti-war and anti-conscription activists. And it was the IWW that kept opposition to the war alive in the early days when the war was widely popular. As the militant end of the labour movement they played a big part in mobilizing anti-war and anti-conscription sentiment in the broader labour and union movement, leading to the Hughes split in the Labour Party; the IWW saw labour and anti-war activism as essentially linked....so apparently did the Hughes government which encouraged "economic conscription" where employers were encouraged to sack and refuse to hire single men fit for service. There was no dole in those days of course.
The capitalist press went all out to demonize the IWWto an extent comparable to the present demonization ofradical Islam. (This is not to suggest that Islam and the IWW really have much in common) The "person" tag was also used against the IWW. As well as overtly political charges the criminal courts were more generally used against the IWW at any opportunity. In 1917 in the wake of the first anti-conscription victory it was made a criminal offence to belong to the IWW....the organisation was banned with the treacherous support of the ALP, despite the close buttociation of many ALP members with the IWW in the anti-conscription movement. Some historians (even Ian Turner himself) believe it was the banning that effectively stopped the IWW; but in fact it seems clear on Turner's own showing that the IWW effectively regrouped immediately and was operating under its own name again and publishing its paper Direct Action by 1921. Rather it was the change in left political scenery after the apparent triumph of Lenin in Russia which lead to the IWW's decline.
The IWW has left a number of enduring legacies to the Australian labour movement; one of the most imprtant was that the victory over conscription in 1916 and again in 1917 was in large part theirr victory, and the lives of many thousands of Australians were thereby saved....maybe including your own grandfather or great grandfather.
(History from Ian Turner's "Industrial Labour and Politics in Eastern Australia 1900-1921")
