Our joint article is in Holocaust Studies Autumn 2013.

(From The Conversation 31 January 2014)

Polish reactions to the German TV series Generation War, which has just screened in Australia, confirm that the history of World War Two remains highly contentious. The resulting public debate tested Polish-German and Polish-Jewish relations and placed historical memory at the forefront of the disputes.

The series first aired in Germany last March. It told the story of five young Germans in the 1940s who, as German newspaper Der Spiegel put it, “lose their innocence without being malicious”. The broadcasts contributed to Germany’s ongoing re-assessment of its past, especially among post-war generations.

The series inevitably raised questions about the responsibility of ordinary Germans for the crimes of the Nazi regime. More specifically, questions were asked about these depictions on public television in a historic drama miniseries, which was sure to attract a wide audience.

The reactions in Poland focused less on Germans being presented as likeable human beings caught in the war than on Poles being portrayed as anti-Semites. Such depictions (in only a few secondary scenes) led the director of Polish public television, Juliusz Braun, to fire off a protest to the German TV station. His letter objected to the injurious and false simplifications of the historical image of Poland, which could not be justified by the creators’ artistic freedom.

Protests by Polish public organisations led a month later to the government issuing an official letter of protest signed by the Polish ambassador to Germany. The Polish embassy in Washington protested at plans to broadcast the series in the US.

The news in August that the BBC would air the series caused another uproar in Poland. The sizeable Polish community in the UK held protests against screening “a film slandering the Polish Home Army”.

In Poland, the broadcasts on three consecutive evenings last June was preceded by an aggressive drumming up of expectations of controversy about a German director’s negative depiction of Poles. It was difficult to watch the series without anticipating those most “controversial” bits. These became the focus of a debate aired live after the last episode.

In an ironic turn of events, Juliusz Braun was heavily criticised for screening the series on public television in Poland. The leading Polish right-wing party, Law and Justice, demanded his immediate resignation. The Polish Anti-Defamation League contacted the Attorney-General’s Warsaw office to report a crime of “public slandering of the Polish nation”.

Why has this series caused such a strong reaction in Poland and among Polish diaspora around the world?

Power of the myth

In the post-war Soviet takeover of Poland, the Polish Home Army was dismantled. Its members were vilified, persecuted and executed (or otherwise exiled for life). For many generations of Poles, the Home Army soldiers came to symbolise honour and ultimate sacrifice in the fight for freedom.

Accepting that the Home Army was anti-Semitic would go against the myth of the glorious Polish soldier and survivor. The notion of martyrdom that this evokes, centuries-old and all-important in the Polish imaginary, is always accompanied by tales of heroism.

In this TV series, instead of heroes, we see a bunch of dirty and primitive bandits who commit very questionable acts and display questionable attitudes.

Historical truth

Since 1989 Poland has sought to recover the “historical truth” after half a century of Soviet propaganda. Contemporary Poles, who in their vast majority rejected the Soviet version of history, have been engaged heavily in making public the “real historical truth” – the version of history silenced by the pro-Soviet regime. Truth about the Katyn massacre is a perfect example.

However, within this project of rewriting the national history, it is difficult to fit in multiple interpretations and varying viewpoints, especially on the most sensitive topics.

Victims and perpetrators

Generation War’s five main characters are portrayed as young, idealistic and somewhat naïve. The experiences of the war lead them to certain actions that might be questionable, but, as in any film or TV series, the viewer cares about and feels for them.

The implicit message is that these were the average Germans. Caught in the enthusiasm for the war project without being ideologically involved with Nazism, when faced with harsh reality they were forced to act as they did by circumstances and not by their own will.

The character of the SS officer does not in itself balance the overall impression that the main German characters are almost the victims of the war and not the perpetrators.

Among non-German characters, on the other hand, the Polish Home Army soldiers are probably the least sympathetic of all. In the scenes that most outraged the Polish public, they are simply repugnant and framed almost as perpetrators of the Holocaust.

This is an issue so sensitive in Poland that after US president Barack Obama referred to “Polish death camps” in 2012, heformally apologised for the “inadvertent verbal gaffe”. Obama acknowledged that these were, in fact, Nazi camps located on German-occupied Polish territory.

Polish anti-Semitism

So, were/are Poles anti-Semitic or not? Well, yes and no. The fury over the TV series confirms that this issue remains highly problematic.

It is difficult to accept expressions such as “Polish death camps”, with its implicit message that these were Polish-orchestrated and operated. It is equally difficult to accept that there were no anti-Semites in the Polish Home Army, or anti-Jewish crimes committed by Poles. Poles were victims of the Nazi terror, but some Poles also perpetrated anti-Jewish violence. Neither one nor the other can be denied.

A fully accurate re-examination of this chapter of history will be impossible. This is because of the unreliability of primary sources from the WWII-era, due to the age of first-hand witnesses, as well as Soviet authorities’ heavy postwar manipulation of the collecting and archiving of testimonies. Thus the goal for the historians will be to engage younger generations in a constructive dialogue by carefully considering multiple viewpoints and experiences.

The national project of rewriting Polish history ought to have room for a re-evaluation of Polish attitudes towards the Jews. Poland should seek a reconciliation with this difficult chapter of the past and ultimately a celebration of a 1000-year Polish Jewish history so that, as Michael Gawenda wrote, the story doesn’t have to end in a cemetery.

See also edited version on The Conversation

There is something both utterly predictable and wonderfully larrikin about Attorney General Brandis’ appointment of the Institute for Public Affairs’  self-described “classic liberal” Tim Wilson to the vacant Human Rights Commissioner post at the Australian Human Rights Commission. In a “gotcha” moment reminiscent of an undergrad poker game, Brandis saw and raised former ALP Attorney General Mark Dreyfus’ appointment of Labor intellectual Dr Tim Soutphammasane to the Race Discrimination Commissioner job, an appointment he had excoriated in the pages of The Australian while in Opposition.   So now we have the two young Tims facing off at each other, Wilson having been the main architect of Brandis’ push to chop the Racial Vilification provisions (Section 18C) from the Race Discrimination Act, and Soutphammasane the main defender of the rights under those provisions.  Here we see the “me” generation” confront the “we” generation in a fundamental test of the vision for freedom – as a personal versus a social phenomenon.

In one swift move Brandis has dragged the HRC into a very modern moment, with Wilson the gay advocate of LGBTI aggression against all comers, strong supporter of same-sex marriage (for the best of conservative reasons including no taxation without representation)   and valiant defender of Andrew Bolt, circling the space inhabited by the ranks of anti-hate speech activists. Last week over 150 organisations signed on to an open letter to Brandis pleading to save Section 18C. Every one of them would have been red rags to the IPA bulls.

Tim Wilson is well known to the chattering classes, being a fixture on the ABC (“in the name of balance”?) and an ardent opponent of Climate Change and Global Warming.  He describes himself as “currently completing a Graduate Diploma in Climate Science and Global Warming at Murdoch University.” Wilson was first amongst equals in arguing for the end of the Climate Change Commission (one of the first ten IPA victories with the new Abbott regime), king-hitting that third Tim, Dr Flannery, in the process.

While his education has pushed him towards international development and health issues (he is a strong opponent of health labels and limiting the freedom of people to eat, drink, and get very merry), he is also a favoured son of the Murdoch empire, having been anointed by The Australian as one of ten emerging leaders (2009) and been gifted with an Australian Davos Connection leadership award. His formal position at the IPA has been as Director of the Climate policy Unit, where he has been a strong supporter of Lord Christopher Monckton, a global warming denialist.

He presents then a very interesting mix, someone who argues for policy to reflect political values, and be informed by evidence, rather than determined by evidence. He has no problem in arguing that the values he represents and advocates should be placed at the heart of the Australian human rights agenda. Now what indeed might that mean?

Brandis has pointed him at the International Civil and Political Rights convenant as his first landing field. The ICCPR is a complex document but it does rub right up against the International Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD). In hailing him, Brandis foregrounded Wilson’s role in “thwarting recent attempts to erode freedom of speech, freedom of the press and artistic freedom”.  So here we can see the Andrew Bolt case (Wilson and Bolt  form a mutual admiration society), and the attempt by the ALP to regulate the media that ended in a complete shambles under Senator Stephen Conroy’s ham-fisted intervention, though artistic freedom is a bit more obscure. Perhaps a desire to confront Kevin Rudd and back Malcolm Turnbull over the Bill Henson affair in 2008? At that time the IPA (though not Wilson himself as far as I can tell) came out in strong support for Henson and even Serrano’s Piss Christ.   That should be an interesting conversation among the boys in Cabinet.

So what are the classic human freedom issues that Wilson will need to address? A former HR Commissioner, Sev Ozdowski, himself today a supporter of Andrew Bolt *and advocate of removing Section 18C, brought down an important report on the human rights of children in detention in 2004. It had some short-term impact on focussing the Immigration minister of the day on his duty of care for minors. This may be back on the agenda a decade later with the tales of multiple still-births and neo-natal deaths among detainees starting to emerge. So Wilson could do a revisit there, and include something on the right to life.

Freedom of speech is another good one. He could check out what sort of freedoms should be allowed journalists who fake stories in the The Australian to bolster the political agenda of Senator Brandis.  In this case (9 December 2013) journalist Joe Kelly wrote a story about a delegation of community groups which had met with Brandis to protest his moves to remove 18C: the headline was “Brandis wins approval for changes in RDA”.  The delegation was outraged and the The Australian pulled the piece.

But perhaps his main task will be, as it was at the IPA, to ensure that all the bits of the neo-liberal agenda can be held together, on a paltry $320,000 pa +. Given the difficulty the Government seems to be having in doing so, Mr Wilson may give them some well-needed taxpayer-funded support.

_____________________

18/11/2013 02:53

Andrew Jakubowicz

We need to act to stop the licensing of hate speech proposed by the new Australian Government. You can help by signing on to the petition and telling your friends. Thanks, Andrew.

http://chn.ge/1aLlsdP

Sev Ozdowski

I think you are wrong. What happens to A Bolt was not fair. A legislative change is needed. Sev

(Published at The Conversation 6 November 2013).
Rupert Murdoch’s Lowy lecture last week celebrated Australia as a multicultural and migrant society, a place where “multiculturalism is not relativism, and tolerance is not indifference” and there is “an openness to all comers – provided they are willing to abide by our way of life”.

(Our way of life practiced by two Sudanese burquini lifesavers)

Having visited Australia in April to celebrate the Institute for Public Affairs’ (IPA) 70th anniversary – where he was praised as one of the three Australians to have “most shaped the world” by then-opposition leader Tony Abbott – Murdoch has now further positioned himself as the éminence grise of Australian neoliberal conservatism. His shaping of the multicultural discourse gives strong indications of where Australia may be headed over the next few years.

Essentially, Murdoch believes it is the British institutions that give Australia its core morality and energy. This is moderated only by the now-clear ascendancy of Catholic politicians (Murdoch is a papal knight but not a baptised Catholic) and values in the form of Abbott and many of his frontbench, an impossibility a generation ago. What then does this mean about the “multicultural face” of Australia over the next decade of potential conservative dominance?

While we cannot speak of a Catholic/Protestant split in the Liberal Party, the decisions around multiculturalism point to some interesting social directions. In particular, Abbott specifically decided to take multicultural affairs (but not ethnic affairs) out of the hands of immigration minister andevangelical Protestant Scott Morrison, and instead passed them across to Kevin Andrews, a conservative Catholic, ex-Lyons forum mover-and-shaker and a former immigration minister (now social services minister).

It was Andrews who famously announced in 2007 that African humanitarian immigration would be halted because Africanscould not assimilate, while also leading the witch-huntagainst supposed (and later exonerated) Queensland terrorist Dr Muhamed Haneef. Andrews also has carriage of the IPA-prompted policy on the privatisation of social services, which has implications for settlement services.

Abbott assigned multicultural affairs to Wollongong-raised senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, another conservative Catholic, who is responsible to Andrews, and comes from apersonal history as an activist for the Italian community on welfare and cultural issues.

Fierravanti-Wells sits at the bottom of a rather long ladder of power – the most junior parliamentary secretary. However, she has been making progress since her appointment by meeting with key stakeholders – most of whom had approached the election of the Coalition with a modicum of trepidation with good reason.

Morrison went on the record in January condemning multiculturalism in a London Australia Day speech. He effusively celebrated Henry Parkes as the father of Australian democracy, missing the key role Parkes played in bringing in White Australia and excoriating the Chinese, though noting his anti-Irish Catholic bent, which Morrison half-excused.

For Morrison, the mantra now is so strongly “what we share not what makes us different” that he has alienated himself from significant ethnic members of the NSW Liberal Party. NSW premier Barry O’Farrell, already crusty about shenanigans in Morrison’s electorate branch (that lost Miranda back to the ALP in October in the largest ever NSW by-election swing), has been careful to reiterate his strong support for multiculturalism, including its “differences”. O’Farrell recognises the role that his commitment to multiculturalism played in his landslide election win in 2011.

The other spoiler in the multicultural patch is attorney-general George Brandis. He has been pushing (in support of the IPAand Murdoch columnist and IPA celebrant Andrew Bolt) for the elimination of Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act as it now stands, which outlaws racial vilification.

This is a difficult issue for “multicultural Australia”. Any reduction now in the small protections available (even if only to freely permit the right to “insult” and “offend”) would be widely seen as a license to proliferate hate speech.

The Jewish community was already concerned about this promise by Brandis, and has upped the ante since the attackon a group of Jewish pedestrians (including a senior Jewish National Fund officer) in Bondi last week. The attack, quite clearly racist and opportunistic, fed concerns that any diminution in official condemnation of hate speech would leave the way open to more such attacks.

Local MP Malcolm Turnbull, whose office last year told me that he totally supported the removal of 18C, has been inmeetings with Jewish organisations where he seems to have recognised that removing the protections now would not be a good look – even if the backdown makes Andrew Bolt angry. Abbott had been looking for a win-win here, but may simply decide to have Brandis lay low for a long while.

Even so, as recent events have shown, stakeholders in multicultural policies may get a better hearing from the Coalition than they did from the Labor government, though they face widespread privatisation of their services. Rudd’s first term was not a great period for multiculturalism. He was no product champion and little if anything was done, other than moving some of the deckchairs around and reviewing settlement services.

With Julia Gillard’s election and Chris Bowen moving into the immigration portfolio, there was a significant shift. The government instituted a Multicultural Council, appointed a full-time Race Discrimination Commissioner (now Tim Soutphommasane, who was blasted by Brandis) and a significant commitment of funds to community organisations (which may or may not survive the razor-gang).

A joint parliamentary inquiry also reported on multiculturalism and migration, and its limited recommendations were signed off on in March by both sides of politics. Fierravanti-Wells will be facing many pressing issues, not the least how to build some leverage from the bottom of the pile on an issue that once sat (during the Hawke period) in the office of the prime minister. The Federation of Ethnic Communities’ Councils (FECCA) meets this week in Queensland and has signalled its priority for a Multiculturalism Act. The proposed act has long been anathema to both political parties at a national level and hated by the bureaucracy, though Liberal governments in NSW and Victoria had no problem with introducing such legislation.

Meanwhile, the Multicultural Council has run its term. The new government will have to decide whether there will be another and if so what will it do and who will be on it. Further, with a major attack by treasurer Joe Hockey on the Australian Research Council’s humanities and social sciences funding role, a probable break-up in the immigration department’s research section, and few (if any other) sources for support for research, the parliamentary inquiry’s unanimous recommendation for a major invigoration of research into migration, settlement and multiculturalism looks to be stillborn.

In this case, ignorance will not be bliss. The 2005 Cronulla riots demonstrated this all too well.