This is about 6 weeks old but I just found it when browsing the web today. It's Pamela Bone's response to an article by Guy Rundle in Arena magazine where he described her as "our own imperial feminist".
Pamela took a lot of flak for her public stance on the war in Iraq and related issues.
She's one of the toughest, most forward looking and optimistic left-liberals around.
source: Tim Blair
"I may be old, weak and sick, but I have one
thing Mr Rundle will never have: guts. "
In the June-July edition of Arena, Guy Rundle writes, in an editorial regarding the Euston Manifesto, that one of the international
signatories to the manifesto is ‘our own imperial feminist Pamela
Bone’. I must first advise Mr Rundle that I am not ‘his’ anything.
Secondly, although I suppose I should be flattered that he has not
forgotten me, I must wonder why Mr Rundle feels it necessary to refer
to me quite so frequently: given that in 22 years of writing in a much
larger publication - The Age - I have not once referred to him; that
the copies of Arena regularly sent to me have been unsolicited; and
that I in fact I have written very little for six months, having
retired from The Age last year after having been diagnosed with
terminal cancer.
The Euston Manifesto is a document prepared by a group of British
academics and writers who met regularly at a pub near London’s Euston
Station. The architects are members of the Left who wish to distance
themselves from what they see as the knee-jerk anti-Americanism and
cultural and moral relativism that has plagued much of the Left in
recent times - indeed, from the kind of views which may be said to be
typified by the writings of Guy Rundle. I do notice Mr Rundle makes no
mention of the fact that another international supporter of the
manifesto is one of Australia’s most eminent philosophers, Professor
Raimond Gaita; perhaps he felt this would lend the document too much
credibility.
As for the term ‘imperial feminist’; I am certainly a feminist, and
I am happy to be deemed “imperial’ if that is taken to mean that I wish
to impose on other cultures the basic human rights that are taken for
granted in this culture (for I doubt he means the word in its other
sense, ‘majestic’). Indeed, if I could, I would forcefully replace
those cultural traditions that allow the stoning and beheading of
women, or the throwing of acid in their faces, with one that grants
women individual rights under the law. Happily, I don’t need to, for
brave Muslim women are themselves beginning to force those changes.
In another place Mr Rundle has ‘humorously’ criticised me for
frequently writing about poverty and human rights abuses in Africa. Yet
in his accompanying editorial in the same edition Mr Rundle writes
eloquently about the suffering of people in Darfur. Unlike Mr Rundle, I
have been to the refugee camps on the Chad-Sudan border, and have
talked to the victims of the fighting in Darfur, just as earlier I had
been to Rwanda and seen the aftermath of that genocide. A genocide is
taking place in Darfur. Every decent instinct calls for international
intervention; but one can be sure that if there were such intervention,
especially one that had any US involvement, good-hearted people of the
‘Left’ would be marching in protest at American imperialism.
Guy Rundle cannot forgive me for pointing out three years ago what
many others are now pointing out: that the
idea of international
humanitarian intervention rightly belongs to the Left. Yes, that stance
took some courage
However, I may be old, weak and sick, but I have one
thing Mr Rundle will never have: guts.
We have frequently referred to and quoted from
Pamela's articles on this
site. Here are some of our references:
Pamela Bone (launched last year when Pamela retired from the Age as a consequence of being diagnosed with terminal cancer)
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
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