Bob and Nibbler putting the polish on the last FOMM from our Maleny home, circa 2019.
Nobody said it was going to be easy but in December 2024 I merged the content of our two websites into one, which means fans of The Goodwills and my long-running blog, Friday on My Mind, end up here.
I stopped writing the weekly essay just over a year ago, promising to produce occasional rants called Digressions. They have been few in number so far but I can feel one coming on.
The nine-year archive of Friday on My Mind can be found in the right hand side panel under the historic photo of me posing in the doorway of a stone cottage in Culloden, Scotland. I was born there, so claim birthright.
From now, all Goodwills posts and Digressions columns will appear on this website. If you are less interested in the music you can confine yourself to the right hand column. As warned, the Home page contains a constant stream of writing from today back to 2014, when I started the blog. It is more efficient to browse through the topics or search by key word (try Trump or Abbott).
The Goodwills website goes back further – to 1999 when the Internet was in its infancy and we had no idea what we were doing. That is why the original website name was hacked and pinched by a porn Queen. Ironic, eh. It happened to Kristina Olsen too but she gets lots of laughs from the story when performing live.
The original bobwords website will soon disappear, as will the rather large invoice to maintain two websites. Just a word about the mailing lists. Of neccessity they have all been condensed into one (large) mailing list. It is a simple matter to unsubscribe and your contacts details will disappear from the database forever. You can always subscribe again. I’m working on that too, but Ukraine wasn’t built in a day, eh.
I’d say Happy New Year but given the tone of my next Digression and a new song (coming soon), let’s just say Good Luck.
After setting up sound gear, playing guitar and singing then packing it all away, Murray Law (left) took this lovely selfie of Mum and the Goodwills Trio.
As our songwriter friend Karen Law, co-host of two successful concerts on the Southern Downs in November said: “Let’s do it again sometime.”
The concerts at Eukey Hall on November 23 and St Mark’s Hall in Warwick on November 24 were well-attended and the audiences fulsome in their praise. We even had to put out extra chairs.
Karen is already planning some concerts with us for next year.
Karen was launching her latest CD, Lifeline, accompanied on electric and acoustic guitar and vocals by her son Murray. Her sets were mostly drawn from this album but she also included Sweet in the Morning, my favourite song about her home town of Nambour.
We were joined yet again by fiddler and harmony singer Helen Rowe who also stepped up to play fiddle on one of Karen’s songs. Our only problem was, what to leave out. With a back catalogue of more than 100 published songs it’s a hard task preparing a set for a new audience. Yes, we should have done Underneath the Story Bridge. Next time.
If you missed our Southern Downs concerts, the best way to experience the music is to explore our respective pages at Bandcamp. This is an online shop for independent musicians. You can listen to songs at least three times before Bandcamp will ask you for money. There are singles and albums here. If you want to buy direct from the source, look up our websites. You know what to do. – Bob Wilson December 3, 2024
(Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz) Wikimedia creative commons
Perhaps it is the circles in which I travel, but of late it seemed to me every person who thinks deeply about life had one thing to say about the USA: How is it, in a country of 336 million people, that Joe Biden and Donald Trump are the only candidates for president? * (There’s also a Kennedy offspring, whose name escapes me, who plans to run. Ed)
This rhetorical question became academic after President Biden’s selfless decision in June to step aside and not contest the November election. Maybe nobody else noticed, but Biden flagged this about a day before it was revealed he had Covid (again). “If a doctor tells me to, I will step down.”
FYI Ronald Reagan said the same thing when pressed about his age and his health.
Not so much a promise but to keep the media guessing.
And the world’s media sent packs of journos, analysts and photographers to the US to provide a running commentary (interspersed with cunningly edited faux pas from the debate the Democrats would rather forget).
It was clear that Joe Biden’s 64-year career in politics was coming to an end, as the inevitable ageing process caught up with him. Let’s not forget President Biden’s steady hand as Barack Obama’s vice president from 2009 to 2017. But he was becoming frail, and something had to happen.
Collectively, we kept waiting for an Obama or Kennedy-like personality to emerge from the pack. There is Kamala Harris, a black, female Vice- President whose media profile was below the fold, as they say. Biden’s decision to endorse her as the Democrats candidate will change that exponentially. Regardless of reports that Harris has fumbled various tasks allotted to her, she is a 59-year-old, well-credentialled lawyer who has been in the White House for nigh on four years. If Harris wins the election and becomes President, she will be 64 next time round and hopefully will have a younger deputy by her side.
But should this debate really be about age or disabilities?
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. He was not only the longest-serving US president, but he was also the only president to serve more than two terms. This was despite being confined to a wheelchair and relying on leg braces for mobility. Roosevelt developed polio aged 39 and spent the rest of his life running the US from a wheelchair.
Donald J Trump, who can walk unhindered, is a political naif compared to FDR. Trump stands out for unpalatable precedents, including surviving a court challenge that pending criminal charges should disqualify him from running.
A scrum of judges, when asked should Donald Trump be granted immunity from prosecution, answered ‘some’. Or at least that was the word headline writers grabbed from a lengthy judgement. As some wag posted on social media when this was announced: ”So the American Revolution was for nothing”.
According to the official White House bio, Joe Biden, 46th President of the United States, ran for the White House on a platform which said he would “restore the Soul of America, rebuild the backbone of America – the middle class – and unite the country”.
Did he in fact do as he promised? Furthermore, as a rising 82-year-old, could he promise more of the same for a tenure which would have seen him celebrate his 86th birthday in office?
My research unearthed only one other candidate who led a major western country aged in his 80s. William Gladstone won a UK election in 1892 aged 82, resigning two years later. He was, however, PM on three other occasions (1868–74, 1880–85, 1886), all packed into a 60-year career in politics.
Point being, Donald Trump is no Gladstone.
Talk show hosts, comedians and lefty social media influencers pounce on any nonsensical utterance from Donald Trump. He’s an easy target but (a) he doesn’t care, (b) he can work a crowd), (c) he’s a salesman whose pitch attracts those who share his views and (d) he doesn’t care.
There was much conjecture about Biden’s mental acuity, not much of it from medicos, I might add.
Surely this was the main reason Democrats and ageist people alike wanted Biden to step down. They’d been calling it long before the debate debacle with Donald Trump.
There has also been similar speculation about the mental fitness of former president Trump, who comes to the campaign with a lot of baggage. This year Trump turned 78. If he wins the November election he will be 82 at the next election (though he recently told Christians to ‘vote now and you’ll never have to vote again’).
As with many things Trump says, that is open to interpretation.
The long (too long) televised debate left Joe Biden under the spotlight long enough for his emerging vagueness to become obvious. His faltering gait, especially when climbing up to the Presidential jet, a more than obvious sign of ageing (or underlying health condition).
In Biden’s defence, his long battle to overcome a stutter could explain his faltering speech patterns. Moreover, his decision to stand down indicates he is still capable of wise decision-making.
From a Down Under perspective, it is clear we don’t like old people running the country. The oldest person to be appointed Prime Minister of Australia was Sir John McEwan. He was 68 when appointed to a six-week caretaker role after the disappearance of sitting PM, Harold Holt.
The oldest person ever to serve as Prime Minister of Australia was Sir Robert Menzies, who left office one month and six days after his 71st birthday.According to www.australianpolitics.com, 9 of 31 Australian PMs took office aged in their 50s. McEwen, William McMahon and Malcolm Turnbull all took office in their 60s, but none were the result of an election. McEwen was a stop-gap PM after Holt disappeared; McMahon and Turnbull overthrew their predecessors.
The youngest PM lasted only four months. Chris Watson (ALP) took office at the age of 37. Of all our PMs since Federation, only 9 were younger than 50 when appointed.
Compare this with the USA, where 12 presidents got the keys to the Oval Office aged 60 or older, and four of them (Biden, Trump, Reagan and George Bush), were between 64 and 78 when sworn in.
From my perspective as an elder, the weeks and months of people urging Sleepy Joe to go revealed a clear bias against older people as no longer being capable of holding down serious jobs.
There is no official retirement age in Australia (apart from judges who must stand down at 70 and Catholic priests, who can work until they are 75). The Age Discrimination in Employment Act forbids employers from forcing their employees to retire.
Much of the desire to retire revolves around when you qualify for the age pension (in Australia this is now 67).
An ABC report in 2023 cited Census statistics that showed more than 65,000 Australians in their 70s worked full time (3% of that age group). The 2021 Census also revealed that 5,200 people aged in their 80s worked full-time. About double that number worked part-time.
Our cohort continues to slave away when they should have their feet up, primarily because of punitive social security and tax systems, and/or personal circumstances.
We’ll get our chance next year to pick the (relatively young) politician who promises to do most for the disadvantaged. It won’t happen of course, but we will hear lots of promises from Peter Dutton (55 in 2025) and Anthony Albanese (62).
Domestic events aside, the US election in November is the most crucial since Nixon faced impeachment. It means a lot to Australia to be able to work with a capable, cogent, energetic leader and Kamala Harris seems to fit the job description.
The US media appears to have allowed Harris a brief honeymoon but do not think it will stay like that. It won’t.
Bob’s been editing and updating our website video page. There’s quite a bit of ‘content’ on there now, including video slideshows accompanying the studio recordings. Some of these videos have had quite a lot of views. You can help this process by liking a video, subscribing to the channel and sharing links with people you think would enjoy our music.
In 2024 we will be doing more of this as (1) it is the most cost-effective way of keeping in touch and (b) motivates us to stop watching Married at First Sight (LOL).
Bob and Laurel performing on the Bohemia Bar stage at the National Folk Festival in Canberra. Photo by Karina Red.
Our latest song is a fairly accurate description of contemporary life in Australia and its moral dilemmas. Bob was inspired to write this after finding an old black and white photo of his grandfather (a stonemason in Bob’s Scottish hometown). The Highland Clearances are mentioned here in the context of the plight of First Australians, homeless people and refugees.
We entered this in the 2024 Alistair Hulett Songs for Social Justice Award, the last time this award will be offered. Bob’s song, When Whitlam Took his Turn at the Wheel, was awarded the prize in 2022.
This year’s awardee is Paddy McHugh for an as-yet unreleased song about Lismore and its disastrous floods (A Hatchet in the Roof). Award coordinator Bob Fagan told the audience at a special National Folk Festival concert on March 30 that 200 songs for social justice had been written and offered to the judges in the 14 years the award has been held. After the concert (when eight of the awardees performed their songs), some audience members commented that some or all of these songs ought to be on a CD (or a download). We second that!
The 2024 concert in the Budawang included songs by Fred Smith, Penelope Swales, Snez, Miguele Heatmole, Tony Eardley, Tripple Effect, Karen Law and The Goodwills. There was also a rousing all-in version of Alistair’s famous song, “The Swaggies”, led by Murray Law and Fred Smith’s band.
Bob and Laurel performing on the Bohemia Stage at the National Folk Festival in Canberra. Photo by Karina Red
Wow, can it really be three months since my last post? I did say I needed a break.
We’ve been immersed in music for the last few weeks – a road trip to Canberra for the National Folk Festival. We were invited to participate in a special concert to celebrate the Alistair Hulett award. Alistair was a well-known leftie songwriter who died in 2010. His family set up a trust to administer an award to encourage people to write songs of social justice award. The award has now ended, after 14 years and some 200 submissions by good songwriters, all adjudicated by incomparable judges.
Our entry was one of a record number in 2024, all of a very high standard, we were told. The awardee announced on Easter Sunday was Paddy McHugh for a brilliant song about Lismore’s floods called Hatchet in the Roof. I hope he gets it out there on music platforms real soon.
Meanwhile our producer Roger Ilott of Restless Music worked away on the spare demo we did to send in for the award late last year. It sounds pretty good and we think it encapsulates some (but not all) of the many social issues which tarnish our country. Have a listen on Bandcamp
.In the fullness of time I expect I’ll write an essay about the parlous state of affairs in the Middle East, Trump’s comeback, the end of Albanese’s honeymoon period.and other juicy topics.
We plan to shut down the Bobwords website by the end of April and migrate the blog archive to our music page, Goodwills Music. So any future blogs will arrive from thegoodwills,com.
.In the fullness of time I expect I’ll write an essay about the parlous state of affairs in the Middle East, Trump’s comeback, the end of Albanese’s honeymoon period.and other juicy topics.
We plan to shut down the Bobwords website by the end of April and migrate the blog archive to our music page, Goodwills Music. So any future blogs will arrive from thegoodwills,com. If you sometimes feel like reading a Friday on My Mind you’ll find nine years’ worth of weekly musiings on that website (once we close Bobwords.
I have been writing new songs and recording them at home but there are likely to be fewer fully produced efforts like Caring for the Dispossessed. We’ll hopefully be doing more gigs and tours this year, but I can’t tell you about them in case the festivals we applied for say no thanks.
I might add, if folk and alt-country music is your preference, great acts we saw at the NFF included Harry Manx, Monique Clare, Windborne, Josh Cunningham and Felicity Urquhart, John Craigie and our very own Spooky Men’s Chorale. Their leader Stephen Taberner was given the Lifetime Achievement Award at the festival.
While we are doing some digital (and actual) housework please note we are no longer using the PO Box in Warwick so if you have it on file please disregard.
As always, if you do not want to receive creative comment from the House of Goodwills, you can unsubscribe.
Bob with his framed award from the National Folk Festival 2022
At our age, you take the chances when they come and that is why we are heading, by invitation, to the National Folk Festival at Easter.
As one of the Alistair Hulett Songs for Social Justice awardees, we have been invited to perform Bob’s song When Whitlam Took His Turn At The Wheel at this year’s festival. The song took out the award in 2022, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the Whitlam government’s election.
A special concert is being presented at the National Folk festival as a tribute to the late Alistair Hulett, whose family set up the award. Sadly, it is now coming to an end, with the announcement of the 2024 awardee on Easter Monday.
The Singing for Social Justice Concert will be staged at the Budawang on Saturday March 30 from 10am to 11.20am. Concert organiser John Sutton has eight awardees lined up to perform their winning songs.
Previous winners of the Alistair Hulett songwriting award include Snez, Paddy McHugh, Karen Law, Penelope Swales and Fred Smith.
Alistair Hulett, who died in 2010 aged 58, was a Scottish-born singer-songwriter. He moved with his family to New Zealand and then subsequently to Australia, where he became known as the front man for the folk punk band Roaring Jack.
His best-known songs include He Fades Away (about an asbestos miner), Song of a Drinking Man’s Wife, and a powerful ballad known as The Swaggies. His songs have won awards and been recorded by well-known folk performers including Roy Bailey, Nancy Kerr and James Fagan, Andy Irvine and June Tabor.
We are quite likely to pop up at open mikes or sessions, so if you are at the National in Canberra this year, come and say g’day.
Yes folks, it’s a list, and not just any old list. This one selects (just some) of the things that gave the writer an urge to pen ‘outraged father of one’ letters to newspapers in 2023. All are ongoing issues in 2024.
Cash is King
Kudos to our local Credit Union teller who happily counted bags of coins and deposited them in our respective bank accounts. Some banks are no longer providing such service options, claiming to be ‘ cashless’.
We have encountered (as have you), instances of retail outlets (restaurants and bars) who refuse to take cash. Last time I looked up the legislation, cash was still ‘legal tender’. Did you know that includes one and two-dollar notes, phased out in 1984 and 1988 and replaced with the very same coins we took to the Credit Union. Go figure.
While it may be very old school to secret coins away in a container for use at Christmas, this year She Who Hoards bought a bottle of Mumm and a quality red with the proceeds. It’s called saving.
Help yourself check-outs here to stay
Major Australian supermarket chains will probably persist with their policy of encouraging customers to scan their own groceries at self-service check outs. I am one (and we are many) who refuse to do this.
The major chains will tell you they are employing more people than ever to cope with new shopping options (on-line delivery). But clearly, fewer staff are required when a store has (for example) eight service check outs and eight self-service stations. There is usually at least one employee in the self-service areas, ostensibly to ‘help’ people but more likely to spot opportunistic theft.
Large retailers including Booths (UK), Walmart and Costco (US) are reportedly winding back their self-service options. Booths is removing self-service check outs at 26 of its 28 stores, saying its customers rejected them as ‘unreliable and impersonal’.
News Ltd quoted a Marks and Spencers executive that self-service check outs lead to what he called ‘middle class shoplifting’, that is theft by people who normally would not dream of it but are motivated by an “I’m owed it” attitude.
Shoplifting is up 20% in Australian supermarkets, although there is no break-down as to how much of that is down to self-service customers leaving stores without scanning some items. Supermarkets have always had losses due to staff pilfering, shoplifting and fresh food wastage. The industry calls it ‘shrink’ and it’s factored in to financial operations.
Homeless, diamonds on the soles of their shoes (not)
If anyone’s keeping a list of things various governments promised to do about housing, prioritising the homeless is not one of them.
It’s a weight of numbers thing, true, and homeless people are more likely to gravitate to States where it is possible to live outdoors most of the year. The Census figures are damning enough, but already this snapshot taken every five years is hopelessly out of date.
The Census (2021) revealed that on any given night, 122,494 people in Australia are experiencing homelessness. One in seven are children under 12 and 23% of people experiencing homelessness are aged between 12 and 24. Homelessness Australia has a more pessimistic (or realistic) picture, but it too is dated. In 2021-22, 272,700 people were supported by homelessness services (source Institute of Australian Health and Welfare). In 2021-22, a further 105,000 people (300 per day) sought help but were unable to assisted because of shortages of staff, or accommodation or other services.
What’s been done about this? Not much and even if it could be described as ‘better than the last guys’, governments are playing catch up. The stories that make headlines are homeless camps (under bridges and freeway ramps) being broken up by officialdom.
McCrindle Research reports that the average full-time annual earnings in Australia is $97,510 with household gross annual income at $121,108.
The majority of rental accommodation is expensive and in demand. House prices keep rising and interest rates are higher now than when mortgages were negotiated when rates were low. In November, 552,000 people were listed as unemployed. And don’t get me started on the plight of single pensioners who don’t own their own home.
Victorian Councillors surveyed about ‘perceptions of corruption’
In May the Independent Broad-Based Anti-Corruption Commission (IBAC) emailed all 632 Victorian local government Councillors. They were invited to participate in a perceptions of corruption survey. Reminder notices were sent over a three-week period to those who had not completed the survey. In total, 131 Councillors participated in the survey, representing a response rate of 21%. (Councils where Administrators were in place were excluded).
Almost 75% of respondents thought corruption was a problem in Victoria; 59% thought it was a problem among elected officials. Three-quarters agreed that some elected officials behaved inappropriately or unethically, but this did not necessarily extend to corrupt behaviour.
(Victorian MPs were also asked to complete the survey with similar findings and level of engagement).
Readers should be aware that this issue is not just about Victoria and Councils should expect scrutiny in an election year.
What good is the UN?
According to a databank maintained by Sweden’s Uppsala University, there have been 285 armed conflicts since the end of World War II. That doesn’t include the latest war between Israel and Gaza and who is to say there won’t be more before 2024 is out? The United Nations, previously the League of Nations, is supposed to keep the peace. The UN’s latest moves to stop the war between Palestine and Israel have so far been futile. There was a vote for a ceasefire, but it wasn’t a binding resolution. Both sides have since kept exchanging missile fire as the occupying force advanced. A United Nations Security Council bid to enforce a ceasefire was watered down to allow aid to get through to Gaza. Meanwhile, Houthi Rebels from Yemen (reportedly backed by Iran), have stepped up attacks on commercial shipping vessels travelling through the Red Sea. This too is a response to Israel’s bombardment of Gaza.
Yes, I mean no
Sydney Mayor Clover Moore was on ABC television yesterday claiming that 70% of Sydney people voted Yes in the October referendum (remember that?). I don’t remember the context but found this statistic in direct contrast to the Federal seats of Maranoa (where we live) and Fisher) where we used to live. In both these electorates the Yes vote was less than 20% and the No vote actively supported and sanctioned by sitting Federal members. Incidentally, Clover Moore defends the $6 million+ cost of Sydney setting off 50,000 fireworks at midnight as great international PR. This comes under the ‘I’m just going to leave this here’ category of social comment.
I could go on (the quality of on-line captions for the hearing-impaired, editors who organise lists into alphabetical order, hypocritical betting ads, the deterioration of ABC News (sliding rapidly into viewer-provided content and infotainment), venues that expect musicians to play for ‘exposure’, the worrying swing to the populist form of government (in Holland, Brazil and New Zealand…)
Most of all, we wish you all a Trump-free world in 2024.
So goes the simple counter melody to John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s 1971 song, Happy Christmas/War Is Over. The Vietnam war was still raging when Lennon penned this universal message for the album, Imagine.
Fifty-two years later, the 30 children from the Harlem Community Choir who sang on the recording would be in their 50s and 60s now, if still alive. I wonder if any enterprising journalists have tried to find and interview these people.
What in Lennon’s name would they think about the simple call for peace contrasted with what’s going on in December 2023?
As I wrote this, the UN Security Council was trying once more to have its Israel/Gaza ceasefire resolution passed, hopefully without another US veto. Israel insists that a ceasefire will leave it defenceless against Hamas attacks. The inference is that Hamas, as a terrorist group, will pay no heed to a UN resolution.
In case you are confused, the ceasefire resolution passed last week by the UN Assembly is a non-binding agreement. The UN Security Council, however, can force a ceasefire if it gets the resolution passed.
I turned to Al Jazeera for the latest on the Israel/Gaza war, which started on October 7, after Hamas fired missiles on Israel, with 1,200 Israel civilians killed.
The bombing raids and subsequent invasion by Israel has left at least 20,000 Palestinians dead, including large numbers of children.
Which made me wonder when our Prime Minister took the podium at a Lowy Institute function this week and backed Israel’s right to defend itself. Mr Albanese and foreign Minister Penny Wong came out early in the conflict supporting Israel, as did US President Joe Biden
Last week Penny Wong sided with the UN Assembly’s call for a ceasefire, which is a fair U-turn on the original statement. The UN General Assembly resolution was passed 153 votes to 10, with 23 abstentions.
It’s fair to say that any discussion between friends and family over the Israel/Gaza war will inevitably become terse. It usually comes down to one’s heritage and previous experience with sectarian conflicts (Ireland, the former Yugoslavia and Ukraine), which tends to divide families.
My life partner is a Canadian-born Australian who has tracked her Jewish maternal family back to Latvia, where her ancestors fled the pogroms in the late 1800s.
The key difficulty is if you disagree with Israel’s position you are seen as anti-Semitic.
(Ed: I certainly disagree with Israel’s position, and it would seem odd to classify me as ‘Anti-Semitic’- more accurately, anti-uber Zionist).
This a summary of the most recent history from the Council for Foreign Relations: (words in parenthesis are my attempts to clarify)
In 1947, the United Nations adopted Resolution 181, known as the Partition Plan, which sought to divide the British Mandate of Palestine into Arab and Jewish states. (Britain was given the mandate in 1917 by the League of Nations after seizing Jerusalem from the Ottoman Empire).
On May 14, 1948, the State of Israel was created, sparking the first Arab Israeli War. The war ended in 1949 with Israel’s victory, but 750,000 Palestinians were displaced, and the territory was divided into 3 parts: the State of Israel, the West Bank (of the Jordan River), and the Gaza Strip.
Over the following years, tensions rose in the region, particularly between Israel and Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. Following the 1956 Suez Crisis and Israel’s invasion of the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt, Jordan, and Syria signed mutual defence pacts (against Israel). In June 1967, following a series of manoeuvres by Egyptian President Nasser, Israel attacked Egyptian and Syrian air forces, starting the Six-Day War. After the war, Israel gained territorial control over the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip from Egypt; the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan; and the Golan Heights from Syria.
It is demonstrably the case that trouble was expected from the formation of the nation state of Israel. In short, both sides believe they are entitled to occupy the land. These beliefs go back centuries, to biblical times, even. When the British decided to leave Palestine (which they had occupied since the end of WWI), they created a doctrinal vacuum in which Arabs and Jews were supposed to co-exist.
Israel has been accused of genocide (meaning the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group). Israel in turn says it is focused on rooting out and destroying the terrorist group, Hamas.
Whatever you want to call it, the daily footage of ongoing destruction and killing in Gaza, accompanied by hawkish statements from Benjamin Netanyahu, does not point to the UN successfully brokering a lengthy ceasefire.
I just happened to be reading The Fog of Peace, a memoir by French diplomat Jean Marie Guéhenno. Early in his tenure with the United Nations, Guéhenno was asked to review UN peacekeeping missions which had been in place for decades.
The brief was to weigh up the importance of the missions against the ongoing costs of maintaining them.
This is how I learned of the existence of UNTSO, an observer mission formed in 1949 to monitor the ceasefire between the newly created state of Israel and its Arab neighbours. This mission, based in Jerusalem, is still in place today.
Guéhenno writes that while closing down the mission made good management sense, maintaining it meant making the political point that the conflict between Israel and its Arab neighbours remains a big issue.
The UN loves acronyms so I should explain that UNTSO is The United Nations Truce Serving Organization. In 2023, the mission has 53 military observers, 81 international civilian personnel and 148 national civilian staff. Some 27 countries including Australia contribute to the ongoing operation of UNTSO. Since we are recording facts, 50 people working for UNTSO have been killed since its establishment 74 years ago.
Meanwhile, our PM and his Foreign Minister remain tied to the US, which is highly unlikely to say Yes to an immediate ceasefire without substantial amendments to the resolution.
Which brings us back to War Is Over, If We Want It.
Lennon is dead, shot by an allegedly disturbed fan in 1980. In the nine years between Lennon’s ultimate call for Peace and his death at an assassin’s hand, 84 wars, civil conflicts, military coups and insurrections went unchecked. Vietnam ended but other wars began.
As Jackson Browne observed in Lives in the Balance:
There’s a shadow on the faces
Of the men who send the guns
To the wars that are fought in places
Where their business interests run,
In the 43 years since Lennon died, there have been 104 wars in which the US was involved. While the US is not actively involved in the Israel/Gaza war, it provides aid to Israel and its foreign policy dictates what happens from here on. Should Australia be aligning itself so closely to the US, given the divisive signals that sends to the Australian people?
Forty percent of us were born overseas and 213,900 of our citizens were born in one of the 23 Middle Eastern countries.
As Lennon sang in 1971: “And so it is Christmas”.
Yes indeed, but it won’t stop Pro-Palestinian public protests in our capital cities and who are we to say they shouldn’t.
I’d probably recommend banning the above discussion at the Christmas table, even though you are now as up to date as you’d want to be.
Find a soothing playlist which should include Silent Night, O Holy Night, a couple of Australian carols (Carol of the Birds, The Silver Bells), and this one, a version of The First Noel set to Pachelbel’s Canon.
Play Fairytale of New York if you must. We prefer Dirty Old Town.
