Workers BushTelegraph

Resistance to Trumpism in Central America.

***Media Release***
This is to let you know that Guniwaya Ngigu [We Fight], is to be screened nationally on NITV on 4th February at 7:30pm. The film was made by the Black Film Unit and is about the 1982 protests at the Commonwealth Games. After nearly 40 years this is the first time this landmark documentary has received any exposure on Australian TV or anywhere really. The screening of this film was made possible by the efforts of Peter Gray from Radical Times archive.

I did an interview yesterday with the director of the film, Madeline McGrady, see https://soundcloud.com/ian-curr/sets/guniwaya-ngigu-we-fight-a-film
Please contact iancurr@bigpond.com if you wish to download a copy.

You are welcome to use parts or all of the interview but please credit ‘Paradigm Shift 4ZZZ fm 102.1 Fridays at noon’.

The Black Film Unit was involved with three key productions during the active period of its existence: (1). “Welcome To Wee Waa – In Memory Of Eddie Murray” (1981/2) Unreleased (2). “We Fight” (“Guniwaya Ngigu”) (1982/3) Very limited release (3). “Fight For Your Rights – In Memory Of Cheeky McIntosh” (1982/3) Unreleased

Paradigm Shift 18 Jan 2019 (4ZZZ fm 102. Friday at Noon).

Victoria’s Vindictiveness
Ian interviews Victoria Brazil who booted 4ZZZ off campus at UQ on 14 December 1988.

No Trickery, no re-takes, no stand-ins 
How Vulcana survived without State or Federal funding.

Listen @ https://www.4zzzfm.org.au/program/paradigm-shift

Playlist
Jumping Fences – The Quiet of the Winter Moon & Distancia y latido*

*’Distancia y latido’ means distance and heartbeat (yearning) and was written by Cuban Frank Gonzalez whom Sue Monk and Lachlan Hurse met in Havanna during the 1990s. It is a contemporary bolero sung with beautiful intonation by Sue Monk.

__oOo__

Victoria’s Eviction Vindictiveness
Interviewer: Can you please introduce yourself?
Victoria Brazil: My name is Victoria Brazil. I am Professor of Emergency Medicine and Director of Simulation at Bond University.

INTERVIEWER: Where did you study?

Victoria Brazil: Havard and Stanford Universities.

INTERVIEWER: No, I mean before that.

Victoria Brazil: I did my Bachelors of Medicine and Surgery at the University of Queensland.

INTERVIEWER: When was that?

Victoria Brazil: That would have been in the late 1980s.

INTERVIEWER: Did you participate in any extra-curricula activities?

Victoria Brazil: Yes, I was President of the University of Queensland Student Union.

INTERVIEWER: Oh. How many members did the student union have in 1988?

Victoria Brazil: Not sure but off the top of my head about 20,000 members, I’d say.

INTERVIEWER: That many?

Victoria Brazil: Student unions were compulsory back then.

INTERVIEWER:What sort of business did the student union run?

Victoria Brazil: You mean like the refectory? Well, it had Clubs and Societies, a Medical Centre, a Crèche, a bar and of course it organised parties for the students.

INTERVIEWER: Didn’t it run an FM radio station called 4ZZZ?

Victoria Brazil: Oh yes, it did have that as well.

INTERVIEWER: Didn’t it run a newspaper called Semper Floreat?

Victoria Brazil: Yes, that too.

INTERVIEWER: Didn’t the student union run a cinema called the Schonell Theatre?

Victoria Brazil: I didn’t have much to do with the Schonell.

INTERVIEWER: But wasn’t the Schonell Theatre a big money spinner for the union putting on World Premiers like Woody Allen’s Annie Hall?

Victoria Brazil: Annie Hall was before my time; besides, I was too busy studying.

INTERVIEWER: What can you tell the listener about 4ZZZ?

Victoria Brazil: Not much.

INTERVIEWER: I’d like you to comment on this eviction notice you personally served on Darren a volunteer announcer doing the graveyard shift at 4ZZZ on 14th December 1988.

Victoria Brazil: I have no comment. That was 30 years ago, I’ve moved on.

INTERVIEWER: I’m wondering if you were in breach of the broadcasting act shutting down a radio station while it was operating.

Victoria Brazil: No comment.

INTERVIEWER: Wasn’t the eviction of the student radio station a cause célèbre at that time?

https://soundcloud.com/ian-curr/victoria-brazil-evicts-4zzz-from-uq

Victoria Brazil: There was a lot of fuss but, from memory, there was really not much to it.

INTERVIEWER: Didn’t hundreds of people turn up to defend the station that very morning?

Victoria Brazil: I don’t think it was that many. From memory I received legal advice that the station owed the union money and to be quite frank, the station was a rathole with all kinds of illegal activities going on there.

INTERVIEWER: Didn’t the station continue to broadcast from Mt Cootha after you locked them out of their premises and placed armed security guards at the entrance?

Victoria Brazil: I don’t recall what the station did.

INTERVIEWER: Didn’t student union members occupy your office in the UQ union complex until you withdrew your attempt to evict 4ZZZ.

Victoria Brazil: Yes, they climbed into my office through ceiling tiles. We entered into negotiations with the station for them to vacate their studios in a responsible manner.

INTERVIEWER: Who supported your attempt to evict the station.

Victoria Brazil: The Queensland government, Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen, and the University Senate.

INTERVIEWER: The University Senate is going to take a wrecking ball to where 4ZZZ studios once stood. They propose demolition of the whole UQ Union Complex: the forum area, the Schonell theatre, the refectory, and the union building. How do you feel about that?

Victoria Brazil: I can’t really comment, I work for a rival university … but remember this, if you are one of those horrid Triple Zed types, I won. Your precious station was booted out. You had no place there. I hope they leave no trace that you were ever there.

INTERVIEWER: I was one of the people who turned up to defend the station in December 1988. We were defending free speech and independent media. It is true, the station fell on hard times after it left UQ. Triple Zed was never perfect but at least we stand for something. We came out of the struggle against the Vietnam war and opposition to racist apartheid in South Africa. Before you were President the student union did support us and some time after the station left, so did the Communist Party by selling 4ZZZ its headquarters in Fortitude Valley at an affordable price. At least we are not at the mercy of a corporate University eager to turn its back on our heritage by demolishing a space that was theatre to democratic rights struggles against vile and reactionary governments.

Victoria Brazil: We left you nothing, you are nothing, you have no history, you can no longer rely upon the student union that squandered money on you for years. We stopped all that. [Hangs up].

Interviewer: That was one time President of the University of Queensland Student Union now Professor at Bond, a privately owned University on the Gold Coast. You are on 4ZZZ, still going strong in its 44th year as an independent radio broadcaster and 30 years after its eviction from the University of Queensland.

[In Victoria’s Vindictiveness, Victoria Brazil was played by Hectoria and the Interviewer by Ian]

__oOo__

No Trickery, no re-takes, no stand-ins 
In 2012 Vulcana Women’s Circus lost all core state and federal funding. Vulcana is a Small Arts Sector (sas) organisation. For funding purposes SAS means ‘a small/medium organisation or individual arts practitioner’. To keep the doors open, it changed its income model. Vulcana no longer relies on core government funding.
In 2012, no one knew what was to come. Federally, over $300 million was taken from the Arts Sector between 2013 and 2016. In hindsight, the 2012 cuts foreshadowed the scope and nature of the cuts under Abbott and Brandis, Turnbull and Fifield. The 2012–’16 cuts; the 2015 raid on the Australia Council’s SAS funding pool; and the formation of Catalyst, using the plundered money, are all acts of political influence designed to erode artistic independence and erase freedom of expression protections. 
This 45-minute historical radio documentary uses Brisbane’s Vulcana Women’s Circus as a case study to explore the dogmatic changes forced on Australia’s Arts sector between 2012 and 2016 by consecutive conservative governments. Each act was one of unprecedented political interference in Australia’s Arts Sector.
Produced by Craig Garrett of Radio 4ZZZ, as part of the Out of the Box national arts journalism project.
Supervising production by Lia Tsamoglou (2ser).

Paradigm Shift 4ZZZ fm 102.1 11 Jan 2019, Friday at Noon.
On Thursday 10 Jan 2019 Nicholas Maduro was inaugurated as Venezuela’s President after closely fought elections with much violence on the streets. Leaders from Cuba, Bolivia and Georgia attended the swearing-in ceremony.

Ian talks with Eulalia Reyes de Whitney who is the convenor of the Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network. Ian had fourteen issues he wished to address, they managed to cover five in a 40 minute live interview.

1. Presidential elections 2018
2. US Embargo
3. Violence on the streets
4. The legacy of Hugo Chavez
5. The parliamentary road

Elections in Venezuela
Eulalia has recently returned from her native country after an extended visit of 5 months. During her stay, Eulalia participated as an international observer in Venezuelan Presidential and regional elections. Eulalia presents eye-witness accounts of the situation in Venezuela today. She speaks of the resilience of its people facing a political crisis and U.S. economic embargoes on that country.

Despite the crisis in Venezuela, there is near silence in the mainstream media in Australia about the 2018 elections and, what coverage there is, aligns itself with reports from the Organisation of American states.

Eulalia Reyes is keen to invite people in Brisbane to discuss ways of solidarity with the Venezuelan Bolivarian Revolution.

Future Action
Eulalia made an open invitation to people to come to the Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network at 1pm on Saturday 2 Feb 2019 at the Peace Centre in 102 McDonald Road Windsor. The meeting will discuss solidarity activities in 2019.

Playlist
Jumping Fences – Satellites
Harpes du Venezuela – El Pararillo
Ali Primera – Sangueo para el regreso

https://soundcloud.com/ian-curr/venezuela