Sad to see that Pamela Bone is battling cancer and will no longer be writing for The Age. Her final Age article describes her feelings about her battle with cancer, the kindness she has received from many, expresses her support for legislation for assisted suicide and maintains her optimistic outlook about the future of the human race.

"There simply is a great instinct for kindness in most people. One thinks a system should be devised in which this is more strongly appealed to ...

... the human race will go on. I believe it will, and I even believe it will get better. Notwithstanding the strange, apocalyptic times we are in, I still believe in the continuing, gradual, difficult, faltering improvement of the human condition. If I had space I could make a rational argument for this."

We have frequently referred to and quoted from Pamela's articles on this site. Here are some of our references:

optimists where she argues that the overall trend in the world is positive

liberation literature  where she argues that genocidal dictators must be stopped

the silence of the feminists where she asks for western feminists to speak out against human rights abuses carried out in the name of Islam

afghanistan and iraq, where she supports their liberation from fascist regimes

now there's hope where she wonders, "... why millions of people marched last year (meaning 2003) not to denounce the world's worst dictator but to prevent the overthrow of that dictator."

the enemy is not america where she asks "Why is international public opinion not outraged at the treatment of women in Islamic fundamentalist societies?"

lost in Iraqi mire where she asks for broad unity so that "Iraq can be rebuilt as a decent democratic state"

A good time for those who respect her to let her know by letter/card how they feel.

 

Barry

 

Thanks for the Pamela Bone retrospective.

I've just read all the links which was very worthwhile.

Its inspiring that her adieu emphasized this theme.

I still believe in the continuing, gradual, difficult, faltering improvement of the human condition. If I had space I could make a rational argument for this.

Reflecting on that theme, which shines through the other links is a useful exercise. I generally tend to be impatient with repetitions of such sentiments as merely repeating a baseline which should be taken for granted while our task is to push things much further. But her contribution is an important reminder that this baseline is the fundamental essence of the broad concept of being "on the left" in its combination of optimistic support for progress and siding with the oppressed against the oppressors.

Her views are in fact mainstream - the real current of history.

The prefix is more problematic Notwithstanding the strange, apocalyptic times we are in. That's what was making me impatient. I prefer "apocalyptic times" and prefer confronting those in power but feel frustrated at being marginalized by having to side with them against an opposition that is merely reactionary and pessimistic.

But she's accurately capturing the problem. Somehow many people do see these "strange times" as also being "apocalyptic times" and the apathy and disengagement that is widespread is somehow related to a fear of apocalypse which I don't quite understand but which she understands better than I do (while she also clearly rejects it and stresses hope rather than fear even when facing death).

Although the absence of a revolutionary left is quite depressing, the domination of reactionary (including pseudo-left) views among "opinion leaders" is actually a reflection of their isolation from the mainstream.

Most people actually think in the same progressive direction as Pamela Bone, though without her clarity and engagement. That is why they were "concerned" about the Iraq war and mobilized in millions against it and that is why they lost interest when their fears were not realized. The reactionary opinion leaders are lecturing them continuously precisely because the mainstream is actually confident of human progress (though apathetic about accelerating it).

Pamela Bone says:

There simply is a great instinct for kindness in most people. One thinks a system should be devised in which this is more strongly appealed to.

That is what most people think and it does need saying as part of the preparation for "devising".

I agree that in one sense Pamela's' views are "mainstream" but in another  very important sense she has consistently been swimming  against the tide.  Unlike other  pro-war journalists supporting the war she has  always maintained that she is of the left.  

I know that she has copped a lot of flak for doing that.   She has a really wonderful  spirit and  sense of direction.  

I felt very sad when I read her piece in the Age yesterday -  but also uplifted by her still positive outlook.

Pamela Bone is certainly swimming against the tide among journalists (a notoriously cynical bunch at the best of times). What I meant about her views being mainstream was not that she fails to swim against the tide but that both the pro-war and anti-war right are not mainstream whereas her views are in fact much closer to the real outlook of the general public than is realised.

Since the media "opinion leaders" are overwhelmingly either conservative/reactionary/pseudo-left pessimistic merchants of gloom and doom or right-wing ideologues peddling the obvious lie that this is the best of all possible worlds, she is certainly swimming against the tide in putting her views as an associate editor of a major newspaper.

 But the readers merely "go along with" the dominant ideas of the dominant class - when discussing politics either mouthing platitudes about doom and gloom or patriotically saying whatever the government says they should think. That's because they aren't actively engaged as she is, rather than because they actually adhere to the world outlooks she rejects.


The point is that they don't discuss politics much because they aren't engaged and they aren't engaged. They do not in fact agree with prevailing moods among opinion leaders and there is currently no genuine opposition mobilizing against ruling class opinion leaders in the public arena as there was a few decades ago.


This mainstream rejection of ruling class opinion leaders can appear to take the form of being more "right wing". Hence the appeals by Bush and Howard to popular sentiment against the "elites" who are overwhelmingly opposed to spreading democratic revolution by armed force, while the public remains unmobilized by their hysterical opposition.


Although the pseudo-left insists that sentiment is in fact "right wing" they say the same about us.


I think Pamela Bone's broadly "left" outlook is much more widespread than  it appears.


For example think about the millions who marched against the war. Many of them were conservatives but many were motivated by much the same leftish outlook as Pamela Bone's. They simply lacked her knowledge of the facts and clarity of analysis and drew mistaken conclusions about what was happening and what was likely to happen.


They weren't wrong to reject the lies about a war based on WMDs and its not surprising they didn't support the war on either humanitarian or revolutionary democratic lines since both those cases for war were completely drowned out by WMD lies at the time.


Having taken a definate stand (against) most people are reluctant to change their mind. But its clear they are now *hoping* democracy will succeed in Iraq and *opposed* to "cut and run".


Although a majority now believes the war was a "mistake",  this reflects the fact that they were told, and believed, it was about WMDs - in which case it obviously *was* a "mistake".


The reality is that the mainstream vast majority agree with Pamela Bone's position of wanting democracy to win. So much so that the Democrats are unable to run on a defeatist platform and the "opinion leaders" are reduced to petty carping and expressions of hatred rather than having any serious alternative program to actually cut and run.


Likewise on other issues, the mainstream view is that humanity is progressing and will continue to do so, contrary to the "doom and gloom" merchants. The mainstream view is that our rulers aren't very impressive, there is no reason to have much confidence in them and more should be done for the oppressed, contrary to the right-wing ideologues.

What's missing is any interest in actually displacing the present rulers because people lack confidence that they could actually run the world better themselves.


This is also reflected in Pamela Bone's thought that a better system could be devised which appeals more to the collective "kindness" of people. Absent a movement that claims to have devised such a better system and can prove its claim,  it is hardly surprising that mainstream opinion and its representatives like Pamela Bone cannot go beyond that vague desire.

Its up to us to make it concrete and we certainly haven't done that  - so it is hardly surprising that Pamela Bone hasn't done it either.

BTW its also interesting to note the lack of **hostility** to her views.


The conservative/reactionary/pseudo-leftist opinion leaders and the right-wing ideologue opinion leaders enthusiastically tear strips off each other quite vitriolically, but they are very cautious about attacking views understood to be those of the general public in the same way.

Some news about Pamela Bone's new book Bad Hair Days, from Chris Saliba's blog:

In one of the most moving parts of the book, Bone describes the mammoth amount of e-mails (they were printed up by The Age and sent to her) and letters she received after her last column, announcing publicly that she had cancer. She had not been able to cry since diagnosed, but this happy event allowed the tears to finally come.

Bone admits throughout the book that she’s still not completely comfortable focussing on her cancer as a prime subject, and so the book keeps morphing into one of her columns. All of her usual passions are here: Iraq, Darfur, Africa, the Taliban (she was one of the few writing early on about their abuses), poverty, the treatment of women and the falling quality of today’s media (The Age comes under some scrutiny).

There is also a lot of discussion of voluntary euthanasia. Early on Bone tells us she has received ‘the knowledge’, and so can end her life at a time of her own choosing. This ability to have control over one’s own life is very important to Bone, a basic human right.

I'm a bit sad that she's now apparently qualified her position about Iraq war according to the blog (might be necessary to read the full version in her book, I haven't done that):

Bone now accepts that the invasion and occupation of Iraq has in itself been a disaster: ‘I acknowledge, now, that the price of getting rid of Saddam Hussein has been too high.’

But…There’s always a but. Or an ‘if only’.

‘Perhaps it did not have to be like this,’ she laments. ‘If there had been better pre-war intelligence, less arrogance and les incompetence on the part of the United States administration, if there had been sufficient troops and a firm plan for immediate reconstruction, there may have been a different outcome.’

Pamela Bone reports on a recent exchange between herself and Germaine Greer, after she asked Greer at a public meeting why Western feminists seemed so reluctant to speak out against things such as honour killings:

Greer: "It's very tricky. I am constantly being asked to go to Darfur to interview rape victims. I can talk to rape victims here. Why should I go to Darfur to talk to rapevictims?"

Questioner (me): "Because it's so much worse there."

Greer: "Who says it is?"

Questioner: "I do, because I've been there."

Greer: "Well, it is just very tricky to try to change another culture. We let down the victims of rape here. We haven't got it right in our own courts. What good would it do for me to go over there and try to tell them what to do? I am just part of decadent Western culture and they think we're all going to hell fast and maybe we are all going to hell fast.

- Why we stay mute on Islamic sex apartheid

As pointed out in this 5th comment, aslam on another blog Greer did two things here:

1. Diverted a question about honour killings into one about rape
2. Diverted an invitation for Greer to condemn honour killings as a feminist into a hypothetical about why she shouldn't go to Darfur

"Very tricky trying to change another culture" = Be deaf, dumb and blind about barbarism

I'm not sure how much influence Greer has anymore (although her remarks were applauded at the meeting) but her position on this and other questions such as female genital mutilation in African cultures (which she compared with breast augmentation in the west - source) is perhaps an extremely barbaric version of the more general problem of cultural relativism - that westerners ought to be tolerant of practices in other cultures that we regard as barbaric in our own culture.

In the same article, Bone answers the question, Why do we stay mute? , as follows:

Is it the fear that by speaking out they will become targets of Islamist threats too?

I don't believe so. More likely it is, as Andrew Anthony described it in his recent book The Fallout, the new phenomenon of "Islamophobiaphobia": the great fear of being seen to be critical of Islam, of being seen to be racist ...

Very sad to hear of the death on Saturday of journalist Pamela Bone.

There are many fine tributes to her courage and convictions from these farewells in the  newspaper she used to write for and the one she ended up writing for:

The Age: Age columnist dies, calm and clear to the end
The Australian: Bone Writes Her Final Column
and another from norman geras

In her last few years she turned to book writing and completed one book on battling cancer (Bad Hair Days) and was writing another about women and islam, which remains unfinished.

I liked this bit from The Age article:

On The Age switchboard she is still legendary for her willingness — indeed, her insistence — on taking the calls of apoplectic readers unhappy at her latest column, a situation which frequently would send fellow commentators to ground.