Indigenous Censorship, Ramsay Centre and more

However, then I reached an empty display cabinet. A label explained that the ancient Norse artefacts intended for it were not included due to objections from Aboriginal elders and members of the museum’s Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Advisory Committee. They considered some Viking materials contrary to their own “indigenous laws”, deeming that if allowed to be shown, “this current display could undermine many hard-won, positive steps over recent years”.

Checking the museum’s website, I found that this Aboriginal committee has a say over the content of all displays in Victoria’s state museums. Every exhibit must be in accord with “indigenous laws”. By what right do Aborigines meddle in a Vikings exhibition? The deleted funerary artefacts had nothing whatsoever to do with Aboriginal history, indeed, the show was about my cultural heritage. Why do Aborigines decide what I, as a person of Norse descent, am permitted to see of my own historical roots?

One wonders if this is a foretaste of what will happen should Aborigines be granted some form of clout over the Commonwealth parliament and its instrumentalities. Will all our institutions involved with the study of history be subjected to indigenous censorship? Will Aborigines set about deleting chunks of European history from the national school curriculum?

Christopher Heathcote
Keilor, Vic

Sir: It is sad news that the Ramsay Centre’s proposal of a degree in Western civilisation at the Austral­ian National University was rejected.

An organisation similar to the Ramsay Centre, aiming to defend Western civilisation, the Lux Veritatis Foundation, was started in 1996 in Warsaw by two Redemptorists. This foundation established the College of Social and Media Culture (Wyzsza Szkola Kultury Spolecznej i Medialnej) in Torun, Poland, in 2001. The college is similar to Campion College in Sydney. It is an independent school and receives no government funding. The foundation owns TV Trwam, a Christian television channel. One of the two founders of Lux Veritatis, the dynamic Father Rydzyk, also created Radio Maryja, a Catholic conservative radio station.

Perhaps the Ramsay Centre and the Lux Veritatis Foundation should make contact. The college in Torun and the above-mentioned related enterprises are proving crucial in the face of collapsing Western civilisation in Western Europe.

Kazimierz Kozlowski
via e-mail

Sir: Wolfgang Kasper’s review of La llamada de la tribu (July-August 2018) quotes the book as attributing humanity’s “tribal instinct” to evolution. Speaking of “thousands of generations of Homo erectus” it says, “Facing nature with awe and dread, they survived by slavishly following an almighty leader who promised protection and salvation.” We are to believe that modern humans have inherited a “herd mentality” or “tribal instinct”.

This is unlikely for several reasons. First, studies of hunter-gatherer tribes do not emphasise the slavish following of an almighty leader. Our ancestors are considered to have lived by hunting and gathering for thousands of generations.

Second, our primitive ancestors lived in small bands of perhaps twenty to thirty. In such a small group, there is little specialisation, and everybody can see how everything is done. Almighty leaders like Napoleon or Hitler have generated a mystique, employed means of propaganda, and concealed their weaknesses. How would an “almighty leader” achieve this when the only available followers are his relatives?

Third, slavishly following an almighty leader doesn’t increase the chances of survival. Did Hitler enhance the Germans’ survival prospects, or Stalin the Russians’? Usually we think that two minds are better than one. Our predecessors on the savannah probably thought so too.

Fourth, we moderns may face nature with awe and dread, but did our ancestors? After all, they grew up in it. We just don’t know. Awe and dread don’t fossilise.

Last, the terms are very subjective. A group carrying out a program I oppose have a “herd mentality”, whereas when my friends and I act in unison we demonstrate solidarity.

Michael Cashman
Grange, Qld

Sir: Bravo to Stuart Lindsay for his articulate and telling criticisms of the “live meat industry” (June 2018). A regulatory system that more or less encourages a blind eye being turned to those who blatantly and regularly transgress its provisions is a legislative sham, bringing our system of laws into disrepute.

The case for animal welfare has not always been the monopoly of the left (Matthew Scully being one notable conservative advocate). However, sadly it seems that abject cruelty is fast becoming the hallmark of those who are otherwise conservatively minded. That this awful trade is blithely perpetrated by fellow conservatives is deeply disconcerting to this lifelong conservative.

Glenn Wright
via e-mail

Sir: I salute your wisdom in acquiring the services of Tim Blair as a satirist worthy to inherit the magazine’s back pages once occupied by the wit and wisdom of the late Peter Ryan. Long have I missed Ryan’s combination of learning and hard-hitting irony. Long may his successor continue to occupy that space.

Thank you, also, for publishing David Mason’s beautiful essay on the American poet Richard Wilbur. It whiled away a recent spell in bed with flu and sent me scrabbling for every scrap of Wilbur’s verse that I could find in my anthologies of American poetry; there I found that I had double-ticked several favourites: “Museum Piece”, “After the Last Bulletins”, and “Love Calls Us to the Things of This World”.

Suzanne Edgar
Garran, ACT

Sir: Yes, the Arrow Theatre did fail under Frank Thring (July-August 2018), but it was never totally closed. It continued with amateur productions and for a time Jon Finlayson produced several professional revues. David Barratt then took over the theatre and gave his young turks a place to act, write and produce. Many of these people worked on in theatre, film and television. Several still do. David Barratt also expanded the Arrow Theatre, opening upstairs his Studio Theatre (seating forty) and renting out the larger upstairs space to the Meland Theatre (seating eighty) and for a number of years turned this Middle Park location into a hive of theatrical activity.

Bryan Niland
Willoughby, NSW

Sir: We hear much of the “Right of Return” of Palestinians, but what does it mean? To have a right of return to a place you must have been there before. To have a meaningful right of return you would need to have substantial connections to the place. Do I have a right of return to St Paul’s Cathedral or Hayman Island because I have been there, and how much land am I entitled to?

Jews were in Hebron for hundreds, if not thousands of years, until the pogroms of 1929 and afterwards, but the right of return, even to Jews who went to Istanbul to trace the titles of their family land, is rarely taken seriously.

In 1948 the foundation of Israel and associated war led to approximately half of the 1.5 million Muslims in Israel leaving, either on the advice of their leaders or driven out by the Jews. About 750,000 Muslims remained. There are now 1.8 million Muslims in Israel.

The Muslims living in Israel, unlike Muslims outside Israel, enjoy a free vote and are well represented in the Knesset. They have full access to health and education. Muslims are well represented in the law, including the supreme court, and the other professions. Their life expectancy is higher than in any Muslim-majority country, including wealthy Gulf states.

The Palestinian Authority claims a diaspora of over 9 million, but this is of little relevance. More importantly, there are claimed to be over 5 million in Gaza, the West Bank and various camps in surrounding countries. These are those who claim a right of return. Even with Muslim treatment of women it is inconceivable that 750,000 exiles could have increased to 5 million let alone 9 million. If they have a right of return, it is certainly not to Israel.

Rodney Henderson
via email