TINTIN Reports on the BLACK ROSE ANARCHIST BOOKSHOP ATTACK: 31 January 2016 and its slightly odd disappearance under grey paint...

Oh, blurry hell! It's not often Belgo Geordie gets hot under yon collar (ohhh, yarr says Mrs Belgo Geordie) boot there's some skull buggery a goin' on amidst the litter encrusted, rubbish bin postered streets of Newtown/ Enmore! Summats not right with the sauce ganderin' the inner west. Not only is tickets for Eric Burdon selling for three times the price hours after going on sale and "Chris on King Street" closing their doors on the cowboy hat wearing maestro of the junk emporium* boot Black Rose has gone-like it were niver thar! All the hand painted signs, posters and broken shop front gone and in its place, grey paint, papered out windas an an application for a place to sell booze**. Joost what Newtown needs more sales of sauce to bladder the descending hordes. And those lovely folk in their musty, dark clothing' with short fuses and lots of energy for keeping' us old socialists on our toes? Vanished. If I was of a more paranoid disposition I wood be thinking sum unscrupulous landlord has used recent goings on to turf the lads and lasses of the Blackened Rose cooperative out. Bloody capitalism has seen rents for shops in this area go up 100% for bugga all. Too many small businesses going' bum up as the relentless gentrification brings a sameness to what sells...and too many empty shops selling nowt...go figure how it makes business sense to gut what is a vibrant, diverse area and put nowt in its place.
Boot not bein' of a sound medical disposition of the moment, an under the quacks orders I'm not to over excite meself more than an occasional game of drafts. So I called in a favour from an old Belgian mate to see if he could sniff out what the fook was going on. For me anarchist friends who knows their history like, he (me marra from Bruxelles) has seen the error of his ways since his days as a coloniser and recognise the style of barnet? Enough said, its common as muck on the pavements of Newtown and so this is what he filed concerning "The Mystery of The Vanishing Black Rose Cooperative".

8pm on a Thursday night the Polis

Our reporter with the bent pole

were called in to quell a full scale riot in Newtown. Initial reports indicated it was tangential mobs of drinkers roaming across Newtown mooing and bellowing. This followed the Kings Cross lockout and herds of drinkers being denied their chaser of kebab and mushy pea sauce. However, the Police Liaison Operations Division confirmed their tactical policing unit and cost recovery riot squad had contained a scene of crime. They had to interrupt three undoubtably weedy anarchists (12, 12 and 13 in age) who allegedly were beating the shit out of two Untied Parrots Farting (UPF-or FART) members (a lot older and who should have known better) who found themselves embroiled in a contretemps outside the Black Rose Anarchist and Social Services Centre (which used to be bloody well based) in Enmore Road.

The SCENE

The FARTs, Mr Anglo White and Mr Oz Stralian said they are not white supremacists, but merely genuine tourists on a day trip to this fascinating area. And as social media conscious tourists they just happened to be loaded to the gunnels with cameras. This was only because they had been planning an evening of reality television style fun capturing images of the delicious mono cultural nosh that is now being served up in King Street since the dens of kebabs had been driven out of town by Sheriff Baird. This was for the food column on their CrapBook site-"Steak, the White Australia Policy and other BBQ recipes".
They whined on saying; all they was doing outside Black Rose was looking, trying to join up the letters of the titles of books in the window. But then for a reason lost on them and their innocent fantasy, all hell broke loose. It started when accidentally, Mr Stralian who was learning to tie his shoe lace, hit the record button on his 16mm hand held camera and while facing the recently broken windows of Black Rose (see picture)....Then, to the soundtrack Throbbing Gristle...
A further eye witness account by Mr Whiter Shade of Pale stated: "there was a sound like a crack of Mordor, a smell of rancid egg farts and three darkly dressed and glowering anarchists appeared out of the cracked windows, trailing webs of left wing slime and smoking rollies of substances nefarious to tobacco. Whereas they proceeded to alight on the pavement and surround him and Mr Stalin sorry Stralian. Identity kit pictures showed three bhuddists levitating threateningly, but then when they turned the artist around, Sarah Cox, aged six from the "Our Lady of Crusted Sabots Primary School" in nearby Seedynam, captured three shadowy presences with sharpened teeth dripping green saliva and dressed from head to foot in black. She said she was particularly fond of Halloween. She sobbed when told by a cruel passing socialist with a rough, north of England accent that halloween was an invention by American capitalism to turn her brain to jelly and make her fart out of her ears in multi coloured gobs of goo. But a real dinkum live witness was established when a girl over the road, who said she bore no resemblance to one of the FARTers girlfriend but was an independent witness who clutching a rope of garlic said she saw the great big, provocative, asking for it, lefty, toe jam smelling anarchist mob adopt a threatening position, demanding cigarettes and loose change.
But instead of apologising, turning and running the two long standing and possibly only members of FART and as you do outside an Anarchist Day Care Centre, confronted by people who were obviously bats; the alleged assailed proceeded to engage in political discourse and debate. In particular on the legitimacy of Leon Trotsky and the dialemic of shoe tying and the sell out of Lenin moving to velcro. This led to, anarchists generally hating Trots, to identify they were intercoursing with a pair of bone fide class enemies and paid up FARTers to boot. Rather than the baby anarchists shrinking back in awe, and asking for autographs they chose instead to launch a counter offensive unseen in Newtown since the Jets last played anyone from the Eastern Suburbs...they (the anarchists and not the Jets who keep their biffo to the paddock) like black Exocets in reverse swooped back into their shop, scattering old socialists playing crib and dominoes to emerge seconds later, heavily armed. I would like to point out although all three alleged assailants of anarchist persuasion had two arms each, it would not matter if any one of them had one arm, or part an arm or an arm that bent at a funny angle-they were in this instance fully armed.

The same SCENE sideways on...

They did however, carry weapons of fascist destruction. A fluorescent light tube (obviously for a ninja light fitting-stolen from a dojo), a golfing club (we don't know whether it  was a putter, wedge or whacker walloper) and a 1.2 metre metal pole donated to Black Rose by a Kings Cross club that was forced to close by the lack of down trousers and drinking drunken patrons with excess testosterone syndrome.
Chasing the two, by now wet FARTs (as an entirely innocent bottle of water was broken in the pursuit) 50 metres down the road to the petrol station. They were then driven by a wedge  manoeuvre (witnesses said it was a red one) into a bollard and bowser with nowhere to walk away. Having cornered their foe and smelt petrol the anarchist posse then proceeded to shatter, drive and pole dance their helpless and hapless victims with unfair odds of three infants to two beefy red blooded blokes. Blokes although covered in blood, clods of grass, snot and g-strings were still able to get a signal and dial up a takeaway police service from the local Newtown nick (Nicked Towers) 50 metres in the other direction as the siren wails. (What ever happened to those lovely ringing, clanging bells of the Z-cars era?)
The police bicycle patrol were quickly on the scene and arrested everyone including the girl over the road who had fainted because her Portuguese Chicken had crossed the road and been run over by a rainbow coalition supporting prairie fox on a hover board with metal implements and rings in its tail. At the Lord Peter Fitzsimons Republican Hospital where the wounded and egregious were taken a spokes-thing said Mr Whiter 'n Whiter required six stitches to a cut on his hand, a meter reading for the fluorescent light still attached to the plug in his arse (I am sure this is a put in by a subeditor as the reporter wouldn't know this from an elbow) and a hundred and thirty butterfly stitches and Barbie plaster to his wounded ego. The hospital ejected a person saying they were representing  of the Putty for White Supremacy, Knickers Fucks (or something that sounded approximately similar) and who desperately wanted to see Mr Pale Face's stitches. A Union representative said the bloody security was appalling and Mike Baird needed cross stitching with an industrial overlocker.

Police are still looking for an anonymous golfer with a particularly poor handicap as they took witness statements that he attempted five drives at Mr Blancs head. The fifth connected but ended up in the rough by his ear and did not reach the green. The police confirmed Mr Snow's head is the size and shape of a golf ball and distinctly white with dimpled skin. They issued an ink blot representation of the scroat they were seeking to aid and comfort them in their enquiries.

The other four were charged with assault and or affray and annoying the busy magistrate who said there are enough people drunk hitting each other without those who are not drunk causing a disturbance and hitting one another. Three were sent home (one with their mother, two with their carers and one is currently occupying a corner of the Newtown's Supreme Court facing the wall). Our bold and brave reporter approached the Anarchist's cooperative for comment who told him "To Fuck off as he was a coloniser and it was about time he came out." On Friday 5 February 2015 our reporter found an elderly gentleman having a tantie and blubberin like a bairn saying "Away man, I canna believe it! 3-0 at Toffees and naw this!" The reporter said he was off for a Kreig, moules and frites and some straight forward sex with his boyfriend. It had been one of those assignments and in future he would rather work for potty mouthed Chris Graham at New Matilda.

* I have been hassured Chris on King Street will continue to trade in fine china and baubles even if it be from a wheel barra on ta street. He has a wife and two bairns ta support, well his wife supports him boot its important for him to put sum bacon on table and have enuf coin in his pocket to sink the occasional pint down in the Dog an Tin Balls.
**It became a hairdresser fer gentlemen. joost wot Newtown needed - another fancy barber shop!

Belgo Geordie would like to point out, for those who are gullible, believe in the tooth fairy or who don't shave under their armpits: TinTin is not a real person and none of the events, pictures aside, described bear no bearing or baring on the events described in the articles below, or if they do it is purely incidental. He/she/they also have to declare he once donated a book to Black Rose called "Lenin and the Dialectic of Johnny Thunderpants".

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/rivals-armed-with-fluro-tube-pole-golf-club-brawl-outside-anarchist-bookstore-20160129-gmh1gb

Nick Folkes on the Party for Freedom page: Daniel Evans and Ralph Cerminara were both attacked in front of the Black Rose (Anarchist) Bookshop in Newtown, an inner city Sydney suburb on Thursday night around 8pm, 28th January 2016. Etc-a fairy tale for certain grown ups with difficulty understanding Australia has changed since the 1950s.

And if you like the cut of Mr Folkes jib see: http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/meet-the-nick-folkes-who-wants-to-celebrate-the-cronulla-riots/7014848

And for those who really still don't get it:

That is multicultural and proud of it Newtown..in case you missed the point

WHITE SUPREMACISTS, 

YOU ARE NOT WELCOME IN NEWTOWN

SO FOOK OFF, AN DON'T RETURN

A not so brief history of seven killings by Mr Marlon James

Set around the attempted murder of Bob Marley in Jamaica in late 1976. This novel is described as "Gripping and inventive, ambitious and mesmerising...one of the most remarkable and extraordinary novels of the twenty-first century." Winner of the 2015 Man Booker prize it runs to a hefty 686 pages. Reviews praised the authors use of Jamaican patois and street language threaded through with reggae. A mix of social, political and gangster settings which captures Jamaica and its diaspora through music and crime into America and Europe. Central, but more ghost like, drifts Bob Marley, "The Singer".

First off it is not an easy pick up/put down read. Characters appear, are dead, disappear, are murdered, engage in philosophical debate and with savage frequency indulge in violence, murder, all kinds of drug taking, brutal sex and reek of inflamed, sour testosterone. The dialogue for most of the book is misogyinistic and homophobic, women sexualised, and men rated by physical strength, sexual prowess (in their pea brains) and their ability to carry out killings in cold blood. Context is black history, slavery, ghetto, gangster capitalism, drugs, music and bling...and the patois is Jamaica gangsta rap on a mix of amphetamine, ganja, male boasting and big noting. Women who stand up to this relentless tide are slapped down, raped, threatened with rape and shot. The structure is a rapid stream of consciousness diatribe which by page 686 has outstayed its welcome on the time spent keeping pace with a story which ultimately adds little to the attempted murder for political or other reasons of Mr Marley. Writing through the lens of black history? Racism and the imposition of a white framework and context on the experiences of other races and cultures remains a norm. The current conversation of the Oscars in America reflects how much we think things have changed, but how little has. I am not able to say whether in this context Mr James's book is a departure. I would also recommend the 2001 documentary "Life and Debt" for what was to follow and the insidious globalisation.

And the ghost of Bob Marley? Drifts like grey smoke, the music, lyrics appear but rarely engage or rise above the blood, the violence, the smallness of the characters jostling to be heard. But in fairness, as gangsta rap did in urban America, Mr James has captured a part of the Jamaica of this time period. The disintegration of the colonist shackles led to corruption, crime and greed pouring acid into Jamaica of the seventies. Life in poverty can be short and brutal with violence a way to get status and resource. But it is also so much more. The great array of music that came from this crucible, the sound systems created from bit parts that launched dub, captures the richness of life as well as the undertow where this novel lives. For me, the music still inspires-something this book was unable to do.

All photographs taken at Notting Hill, London 1978

Ted Hughes, Poet, bloke, lad and fisherman - the unauthorised spin

Jack Nicholson as the Ted

 This Ted Hughes, he's a reet canny lad. He uses wurds like a canary pecks at seed. He went ta University! One of them posh ones like Noocastel University. Wye aye, he did. He decided he wanted to be a poet. Mind, I told me ma the same when I was a lad. Rather thun sendin' us ta Univarsity, she took me to the doctor. He gis us castor oil, an injection of boiled water like and pulled on me lug. Telling' us me spellin' were worse than a bairn with a fork up its jacksie.

But young Belgo Geordie did fancy hisself as a wurd smith (more packet of crisps - Smiths). And 50 years on I can see: -  Belgo Geordie is but a toe nail to the great poet that is Mr Hughes. So this Christmas break in-between work I sat meself down and read the unauthorised biography of Crow by Jonathan Bate to see what it were that makes a poet great and one of the Queens performing corgi's at that!
So master Hughes went to the grammar school. University scholarship, Drank, partied, got together with girls, broke up with girls, got together with girls when he hadn' broken up with girls, Got back together with girls he had broken up with to break up with them again, again, again and agin. Red of tooth 'n claw mitta been this lads motto and he was a poster boy for the testosterone driven male id. No accidentally waking up in a lad's bed in Cambridge for Mr Hughes and putting' it down in a few poems to experience.
Then there is the sex, liked it rough did Mr Hughes. More than the over written diatribe that Mr Hughes drove a superior writer (Sylvia Plath) to suicide is in my view the distasteful borderline of "consenting" sexual violence. In his poetry this emerges as the raw, amorality of the beast and is spun with mythology of the brutal life force giving us creativity and creation. Raw passion dripping destruction in its wake like. Slobber off the maw of a wild boar more like!
But, the man could write and Jonathan Bate does a good job in taking the reader through the

chronology and development of Ted Hughes the writer. And in this Mr Hughes excelled and in my view deserves his place in the dusty bards corner of Westminster Grabby. I confess I did read his polemic on Shakespeare "..and the completeness of getting your end off" or sum sooch bafflin' title. It took a lotta of time on nettie to finish off that one! Although not a fan of the 'mystic of nature ' view of life, I like it more than the collection of religious sky fairies, although they have a lot in common with the 'random cruelty is just life' philosophy.
I was also less enamoured by the transition of the working class boy of the left (1950s and sixties) to after exposure to a few fly fishin' expeditions with the queen mum and other hooray henries to becoming a fan of one Margaret Thatcher. Calling Queenie and her ilk conservationists had the kipper come alive and stick in me craw. Ter counteract this he was ever a supporter of new or forgotten poets, particularly bringing to the attention of the English writing world writers who were writing in other languages and were all too often at risk in their own countries for their work. A complex man of contradictions.

Of course clutching Mr Bate's magnus opus with one wrist and Mr Hughes's collected works of poesys in t'other were a test. Boot ya have to read it alongside to get more depth and context to individual poems. It were worth the wrists being bent to buggery at the end of the journey. In particular I enjoyed the "Birthday Letters". This was the man wearing the slings and the arrows of ill judged venom and quietly working out the sinews of a relationship which in life was more difficult to sustain. In these poems he wears his heart on his sleeve and it is a massive heart and gut wrenching howl of a man trapped in a cage of his own design. In the context of the time there was little unusual in Ted Hughes's relationship with Sylvia Plath (and the many women in which he was a turbulence run wild across their emotional compasses). But as Mr Bate's identifies, Mr Hughes never underestimated Ms Plath's writing, and throughout his writing life it was as much a star he used to guide his own considerable output. And like many men of letters (arts) who see sexual infidelity as revolutionary, Ted Hughes experienced the lacerations of the tragedies this caused him. As well as the suicide of Sylvia Plath, the carbon copy suicide of Assia Wevil with the deeply troubling murder of their daughter Shura. The drawn out deaths of former lovers, friends and family members. These, as Mr Bates shows, Ted Hughes faced full on and used as grist to write. And this heart blood is present in the poetry he wrote to make sense of the frequently insensible. And for me, as reader, it was the final tragedy that was more profound. After the death of Ted Hughes was the suicide of his son Nicholas; a possible reaction to the enormous hole created by his father's death.

Crow! Na, Currawong

Lastly, Mr Bate's did a good job of explaining the blasted landscape of Yorkshire which even though the adult Ted lived mostly in Somerset and London, formed the basis of his inner being. This and the farmer Ted and fishing Ted alongside his lifelong commitment to conservation. I did wonder whether Ted the Conservative ever thought carefully that his beloved Mrs T would have happily nuked the unfree world without a second thought to the consequences of Ted's rustic landscape being the acceptable collateral to such an act. See also the beautiful Fay Godwin photographs in "Remains of Elmet"-where the images are as instructive as the verse in capturing the inner Hughes. Likewise his intricate family relationships which fed and nurtured him throughout his life, even at their most dysfunctional. You have a sense this was his anchor and centre which let him manage the maelstrom of other relationships. Also the analysis of his poetic influences (have to appreciate a writer who so admired the craft and technique of Dylan Thomas). Rich fodder. So this were good reading and I took a lot out of the time getting to know Mr Hughes. In this Mr Bate's has done a grand job. Worth the hire of the crane to get it in the Christmas stocking.

Anyhow, time for the sensitive reader to look away. I have bin inspired to again wet the lead, sharpen me pencils and peer into blue yonder. Mr Hughes liked to translate the work of others. And in me own busting' with britches confidence Geordie way, I thought I would have a go an' decided ta translate a Ted Hughes poem (weell  a bit of un-he were never short of long words on the page) inta Geordie. Look mon, sum un had ta! So I chose one I allus liked "The Horses". This wor from a wee book he (TH) called "The Hawk in The Rain". Now this should be in Geordie "Wet Boord" but since He (TH) has popped yon clogs I thought "Summat or Nowt" summed up the literary opus of one Ted Hughes.

"The Horses" as by Ted Hughes

I climbed through woods in the hour before dawn dark
Evil air, a frost-making stillness,

not a leaf, not a bird -
A world cast in frost. I came out above the wood

Where my breath left tortuous statues in the iron light.
But the valleys were draining the darkness

Till the moraine - blackening dregs of the brightening grey -
Halved the sky ahead. And I saw the horses:

Huge in the dense grey - ten together -
Megalith still. They breathed, making no move,

With draped manes and tilted hind-hooves
Making no sounds.

I passed: not one snorted or jerked its head.
Grey silent fragments

Of a grey silent world.

(Afta this, you get the gist-he bangs on about playin with yon self on hillside-so I left him too it and got on with me translation:)

"Yon Neddies" a transliteration by Belgo Geordie of TH

Aa dragged me bum up back of beyont, too friggin early for any booger!
Me cousin Eric's fart fair hung about an' I didnay moove.

Not a tab, nor even a spuggy -
Frigid, me knackers rang like bells, when I came oot from oonda trees

Me breath hung heavy like fug at bottom of bird cage
A crack in sky told oos it were due to get light like

I had a migraine - the dregs of beer and spirit chasers -
Ahh could barely see boot then I fair kacked meeself:

In front of oos, big bloody pit ponies - ten of em lookin' at us -
Malevolent boogers. Trouble: breathin' thru dilated nostrils

With teddy boy quiffs, they sharpened their hooves
Whustlin "Blaydon Races", boot silently.

I pissed meself: An' they looked at me with utter disbelief
Red and white marrers

On red and white turf.
Like I'd strayed onto Roker Park in the dark -

An then the lights were switched on....
As one, the neddies turned an' ran.

INVASION DAY at REDFERN, SYDNEY 2015: The Block rises up and marches

It's the 26 January and folk are in all manner of flag dress ups on the train into the city when I jump ship at Redfern. It is one thing to celebrate "Australia" and all things Australian but it is an elusive thing to pin down. Unlike Waitangi Day in New Zealand or if you prefer Aotearoa. But here the people always conspicuously absent in a meaningful way are the first people; those whose land we currently occupy.

So the Organisation by Indigenous Social Justice and local elders and community organised a "228 years and still fighting for sovereignty, Treaty and social justice" get together at the Block. Everyone was welcome to come along and feel welcome we were. And they came in numbers. Young and old. Indigenous and white folk with a smattering of new migrants. By the time the march started it would have been over two thousand strong and still growing. A rainstorm had just passed over before, the air was fresh and the speakers set the context of the rally. It lifted my spirits to see how many young people made this their day for atonement and reflection. It was matched by the reminder of what Australia Day means to indigenous people. No sovereignty in their own land or as one speaker said "indigenous people are made to feel they are not welcome in their own land." Another speaker pointed out that they never ceded their land, it was stolen by invasion in an unfair fight. Spears against guns and then the ongoing theft of resources, land and worse of all-children. The stolen generation were acknowledged with one woman making an impassioned plea for it to stop-the removal of children is current, just dressed differently by calling the parents unsuitable to care for their own. Then there are the depressingly regular and ongoing deaths in custody and what appears as an unwillingness by the Crown to investigate through either police or coronial systems. The wee lass in Western Australia * who suicided in custody who should never have been incarcerated on the grounds she was. Then to compound the worth of a black life; heartache for the families of the Bowraville 3 amongst many. These examples of indifference to black suffering are not isolated and not all of them make the papers (or electronic media) we sup with our cornies and coffee in the morning. But each story adds to a larger grief and this was what was spoken about here. The Green MP for Newtown turned up and spoke but no sign of Labor. Same with the Unions. Some of the MUA were there-as were Green Left, Socialist Alternative, Spartacus, but again in this plea for support and unity, we (the unions) are too often absent. Yet here are grassroots communities involved in struggle-our comrades in the fight against injustice - and here in Australia there is no larger struggle, nor one, if we want to improve the legacy to future generations - we have to win.
Then there are issues regarding housing and the land grab continues in Redfern, Alexandria and dare I remind meself, Millers Point. Nowt better than greed to oil the wheels of corporate and political theft. And even though Tony Abbott has left the building (albeit temporarily) the forced community closures, the intervention, the removal of money that keep essential indigenous services barely afloat remains ongoing.
As non indigenous people we were asked to support a non-violent protest. Although rightly there was some social disobedience. A bit of occupation of road space outside Central Station and further down George Street. Although the NSW police presence was two to three hundred strong they were mostly restrained. Points were made as to whose land was being occupied and whose rule of law and order was being obeyed (the elders).
For me, I was proud to march, proud of the collection of people marching. Most of all, I was proud that this is my Australia, where the first people of the land are recognised as such, respected and honoured. Enjoy the photographs taken on me Apple Box Brownie,,,"What do we want!' "Sovereignty!" When do we want it?" "Now" "What've we got?" "Fuck All!" Yup, says it all but today people had heart and pride.

*http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-23/inquest-into-death-of-dhu-in-police-custody/6963244

https://newmatilda.com/2016/01/28/preventable-death-ms-dhu-vs-wa-police-and-australia-at-large/

Bowraville 3: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/bowraville-victims-relatives-distressed-as-chance-of-suspects-retrial-dismissed-20151218-glqww1.html

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/16/bowraville-murders-we-need-policing-free-of-racism-not-new-double-jeopardy-laws:

https://www.themonthly.com.au/monthly-essays-malcolm-knox-mission-bowraville-murders-2786

From New Matilda: John Pilger: https://newmatilda.com/2016/01/23/john-pilger-australias-day-for-secrets-flags-and-cowards/

 

228 years is too long

Count the people

We march for the future of this generation

Social disobedience from Te Kuti to Martin Luther King-Gotta love it!

INVASION DAY SYDNEY TOWN HALL

Police Film Unit for Redfern now

And I was sorry to miss out on Radical Son at the shindig after but I am not in great shape at present. But if you have not heard this great artist I highly recommend listening to and buying his albums "Cause 'N Affect" and  "Radical Son". Particularly the track "Wiradjuri Woman". Listen and weep. Great song writer, singer, musician and activist. Kia Kaha Radical Son!

TALKING CAPTAIN JAMES COOK: Coloniser, humanist, scientist or explorer

Cook's Tiki BM

First off, from early reading days I have had a soft spot for Captain Cook. Born James Cook on 27 October 1728 in North Yorkshire,  the son of a farm labourer. A working class lad who by being clever made the most of the education available to him. To achieve this required luck as well exceptional talent. His good fortune was to be apprenticed to a Quaker ship owner, Captain John Walker.  However, by his own merit and working his way up the ranks, James Cook defied incredible odds to become a Captain in the British Royal Navy. Of course it was bollocks he discovered Australia or New Zealand. Neither had been lost and both were inhabited when the sails of his ships appeared on the horizon. But to see him in the light of an imperialist, a 'coloniser' or lackey of the British Empire is to misconstrue the man he was. Bigger brains than mine can explain his genius for exploration, engagement with different cultures, with beliefs and values vastly different than those he had experienced as an Englishman. What is evident in the records was how on his first two journeys, he did this with a degree of respect unknown to explorers of this era.

I can recommend Professor Anne Salmond's "The Trial of the Cannibal Dog" Penguin Books 2003. Over 440 pages of dense but riveting history. It begins with "Captain James Cook's three voyages to the south seas are amongst the most astonishing expeditions in history..." not because he was laying a flag trail for an empire where the sun would never set, but because "Cook forged strong, enlightened relationships with the peoples of the Pacific".  It was a reciprocal relationship as Cook did not look down on the people he encountered, but rather sought to see their world through their eyes and learn from this.  and often at odds with his crew or the more lofty toffs (such as Joseph Banks) who he was accompanied by. 
He was also a man of the new enlightenment. As much scientist as seafarer he was commissioned (in a partnership between the Admiralty and the Royal Society) to follow the Transit of Venus. And to achieve this he was in 1768, provided with a former coal scuttle-ok modified Whitby barque or collier cat "The Endeavour". Oh and the Admiralty brass threw in a "top secret" assignment as well; find the "Great Unknown Southern Continent". 
From the commissioning and provisioning of the ship, it was apparent that Cook was no more than at best, an oik not meant to get in the way of empire building, certainly not the preferred leader of the expedition. The Admiralty was without doubt imperialist with an eye to asset stripping what ever lands they 'discovered'. As well as broadcasting Britain's naval dominance of the global seas. The Braid and powdered wigs of the Royal Navy were not overly concerned about the welfare of Cook's ship, crew or Cook himself. Although placed in charge of the expedition it was as a Lieutenant-although a Commander in charge of his ship and voyage, but not a Captain. As well as the snobbery of class, it was the rigid hierarchy of the Royal Navy, where promotions for someone of Cook's background/class moved very slowly- despite his already considerable merit in mapping large tracts of Canadian waters under conditions of war. The there was the Admiralty's tighter than a duck's butt to expenditure on the lower classes such as what the Royal Navy would have to fork out to his widow should he die on the voyage into the Southern Oceans (a strong possibility). However, in light of admiralty ambitions Cook was a poor choice as he was shaped by Quaker morality, his journals show a fundamentally decent man (and doting husband) who could be defined as a free thinker.
So these posters encountered in Newtown Sydney in January 2016 are disappointing and poorly considered. The worse of these is the one combining the images of James Cook with Adolf Hitler calling for "Death to colonialism, fascism and patriarchy Women of colour stand together". The slogan and image is just daft. Comparing a humanist (Cook) to a fascist (Hitler) is just wrong.
Unlike New Zealand and Australia direct European colonisation by settlement did not occur in the South Pacific. Imposed colonial rule and its legacy of courts, education and systems of Parliament (often at odds with traditional means of social systems) did. There is no question these were influential and certainly imposed without consideration of the existing complex systems of belief, values and social status. However, the most influential and in my view, damaging influence was Christianity and the variety of churches that have maintained a stranglehold across the South Pacific. The legacy of the missionaries has been far more devastating for autonomy, culture and in imposing another layer of patriarchy. This has been through the waves of mass conversion and the leaching of money and resources which go on until today. Families continue to provide family land, money to build churches and support their pastors, even if they go into debt to do so. In this context James Cook's name and face is recognisable and will do but the like of Samuel Marsden's is not.

Cook's death, in February 1779, as portrayed here with the slogan "The Death of Captain Cook was awesome! Kill your colonisers" is equally troubling without context. In Professor Salmond's book, the context is provided under the chapter "Killing Kuki." Awesome it was not. Cook by this time was a Captain on the "Resolution". In the Islands of Hawai'i he committed (as rangitira or chief) a breach of tapu (kapu) or sacred protocol by attempting to imprison the chief Kalani'opu'u after unjustly allowing the mistreatment of a high chief (lashed to the mast and flogged). As Professor Salmon wrote page 416 " Despite recent controversies, there is no good morality play, colonial or post-colonial, to be made of Cook's killing. Over a decade in Polynesia, he was caught in intractable contradictions. As the trial of the cannibal dog at Totara-Nui showed, when he acted with calm restraint, he invited humiliation - his sailors and the islanders alike considered him to be weak and irresolute. When he acted in anger and sought mana by force, he invited retaliation." This is what happened in Hawai'i. Not only was he killed but parts of him were ritually distributed to other chiefs, an honour bestowed on someone regarded as chiefly and an ancestor. Only part of his thigh was returned to his ship by the priests. Professor Salmond notes that in trying to act out the mana (strength) of a Polynesian chief (Cook had titles bestowed on him from his three voyages) and be in command of his sailors as was expected of a Captain of the Royal Navy, on this third voyage Cook was unable to manage the balance required to do this. In this he paid a heavy price but it is likely one he knew would eventually be exacted.

Although it is easy to use Cook as a figurehead for the evils which would be unleashed on Polynesia following these first encounters. It is well to remember it was a later combination of greed and ignorance which set in chain the events of colonisation. In my view Cook deserves more respect for what he gave and achieved in these voyages. Now Samuel Marsden...

The last journey of the "Tanais" 9 June 1944

On the 29 May 1944, in the middle of the night, the Jewish population of Chania were rounded up from their houses, their community and imprisoned. Estimated between 250 to 275 people. Included were numerous children, the old, those hospitalised, new mothers and their infants. This was an entire community of people. Cretans who were Jewish with two thousand years of communal history in Crete. This deportation was instigated by Germans poisoned with Nazism. Supported by local collaborators, police and those indifferent to the suffering such an action would cause. 

In a blog Gregory Pappas described his father's memory of this event:
"The Day They All Just Disappeared." (http:www.pappaspost.com/day-just-dissapeared). 
His father A Cretan had lived among Chania's Jewish community relayed his memory of what occurred to his son. He recalled of that night: "...the Nazis surrounded the Jewish neighbourhood around the Venetian harbour, blocking all access with trucks and armed guards with dogs. Megaphone announcements ordered all citizens with Jewish identity papers to bring a single suitcase of belongings and report immediately to the street. (He described the scene) as violent. Nazi German soldiers pushing women and the elderly to move quicker, while anyone who questioned or confronted a Nazi was hit with the butt of the rifle. They were herded to a central meeting point and placed on trucks and transferred to the prison of Ayia; a village outside the main town of (C)Hania. After a few days in inhuman conditions, as reported by many (C)Hania Christians who made the trek to the prison to negotiate for friends freedom or to bring food or other items to their Jewish friends, 265 Jews of (C)Hania were transferred by truck several hours to Iraklion."

He then remembers "walking on Kondilaki Street the following morning. He saw people ransacking the abandoned homes. Women were taking kitchen pots and pans from their former neighbour's homes and groups of men were seen looting beds, chests of drawers and other large pieces of furniture...The streets were filled with random items, books, religious ornaments, clothing-as if a violent storm had hit only that street."

Other blogs record how people from Chania travelled to Iraklion to the prison to take their neighbours and friends food. This seizure occurred towards the war's end. At a time when it was believed by the majority of Cretans that an invasion by the allies and the driving out of the Germans was imminent. That this community then would be loaded into a small freighter and transported to Piraeus within days seems inexplicable. But this is what happened.

"Tanais" was originally built in 1907 in Sunderland, England and initially named "Holywood". it worked for almost twenty years taking cargo between English ports, as in the postcard picture below-taken in Hull, Yorkshire, England.

 In 1935 it was sold to a Greek owner and renamed "Tanais" after a Russian River.

Note it is not a big ship

"Tanais" was sunk on 26 May 1941 by the Germans during the attack on Souda Bay. It was later refloated and repaired and commissioned as a cargo ship. 

In 1944, the Australian Air Force reported attacking "Tanais" which was part of a convoy. On 1 June 1944, a reconnaissance plane identified three enemy ships with a strong escort of 4 destroyers, 4 corvettes and 2 E-Boats. These were believed to be heading for the port of Iraklion. The convoy was pursued from near the Island of Paros, then attacked by No 454 Squadron. 18 Baltimores, were joined by 12 Marauders, 26 Beaufighters and 19 single engined d fighters.  The attack left the "Tanais" burning fiercely. The convoy struggled to Iraklion (Crete), where at anchor they were again attacked by a Liberator and Wellingtons. Photographic reconnaissance early on the morning of the 3 June 1944 showed the "Tanais" " afloat but much blackened as if by fire."

Five days later on 8 June 1944 in Iraklion 'Tanais' was loaded with prisoners of the Nazis. Greek resistants (identified on some Cretan blog sites as communist partisans), Italian prisoners of war, believed to be those who refused to work for the Germans, and the Jewish community of Crete. It is believed all prisoners were locked into the holds of an already damaged, 1500 ton, 80 metres long freighter. This was no more than a cattle truck of the sea and given the large number of children included, it would have been a terrifying and distressing ordeal for those imprisoned onboard.

"Tanais" left Iraklion late on 8 or early 9 June 1944, bound for Piraeus, and escorted by three or four smaller vessels. When it was north east of Crete and in the early hours of the morning of the 9 June 1944; it was sighted by the British submarine "HMS Vivid". 

The "Vivid" was a V Class P77. An irony is this submarine was built at Vickers Armstrong, Walker in Newcastle Upon Tyne. Not so far from where the Tanais was built. The "Vivid" was commissioned in 1943. It was under the command of Lieutenant John Cromwell Varley from 25 October 1943 to 18 August 1945. The "Vivid" served with the 10th Submarine Flotilla based in Malta and saw frequent action in the Mediterranean. 

HMS Voracious, sister ship of Vivid

At 03.12 on 9 June 1944, four torpedoes were fired by "Vivid" from 2400 yards (submerged). One and a half minutes after the first torpedo was fired an explosion was heard, followed twelve seconds by a second torpedo. There was no counter attack. Less than two hours after the attack "Vivid" came to periscope depth but there was nothing visible. It is possible survivors (from the crew and guards) were picked up by the escorting ships - it is certain all the prisoners in the hold of the "Tanais" would have gone down with the ship. It is also very likely given the cramped conditions in the hold, the torpedoes would have caused massive injury to those trapped there. At 01.05 hours the following day (10 June 1944) a brief report of the incident was passed to the Captain of the First Submarine Flotilla, who commented that the target, was undoubtably the "Tanais". I have not found anything else concerning this tragedy in the public record.

"Vivid" survived the war and was scrapped at Faslane in 1950.

Lieutenant JC Varley would have been 24 years of age when in command of the submarine at the time he encountered the "Tanais". He had recently married Caroline Judith Coleman (1924-1989) on 9 November 1942 in London. 

The Cromwell-Varley's are a family with a rich history who can trace their origins back to Oliver Cromwell and General Fleetwood (who married Oliver Cromwell's daughter Bridget). The family includes Cromwell Fleetwood Varley (6 April 1828-1883) an inventor who developed the electric telegraph and transatlantic telegraph cable. John Varley artist and friend of the poet/artist/mystic William Blake. Many of this extended family were inventors/engineers and scientists in the area of electricity and cables. One ancestor, Cromwell Oliver Varley and his stepfather Ion Pericaris (an American of Greek descent but a Greek citizen) were kidnapped by Berbers in Tangiers in May 1904 from Pericaris's villa the poetically named "Place of Nightingales". It was here Cromwell Hanford Varley (JC Varley's father) was born.

Lieutenant JC Varley's parents were Cromwell Hanford Varley (known as Crom) as noted above born in 1890 in Morocco and Georgina Rosalind Stewart who he married in 1918. On leaving school (Winchester) Cromwell Hanford Varley trained as an engineer before joining the British Royal Navy where he reached the rank of Commander. He served through the First World War in submarines. He was also awarded the DSC. As well as being an engineer, he was also an inventor. He retired from the Royal Navy in 1921 and continued to work as an engineer in England and America. He developed a midget submarine and diving suit and later developed and patented the Varley paracyclic pump-still in use today. He died on the 11 or 26 November1949, in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, England aged 59.

Lieutenant John Cromwell Varley would end the war with the Distinguished Service Cross (DSC) for gallantry at sea and reach the rank of Lieutenant Commander in the British Royal Navy, retiring 29 April 1955 aged 36 with the rank Lieutenant Commander. He was born in Chillworth, near Guildford, England 11 October 1919 and died in 2000 in Gloucestershire, England aged 80. There is very little other biographical information about John Cromwell Varley on the internet. Other than he had two children one in 1948 and 1950.They if still alive may know when and what their father knew about this terrible event. I can only imagine even in war setting this would have had a profound effect on a young man who more than likely believed he was torpedoing a legitimate target, an enemy cargo ship. In particular it is likely such an incident could have deeply affected someone who came from a long line of scientists, engineers, artists and humanists.

When did he or the RN become aware of the enormity of this sinking? In blog sites from Crete there is a belief the RN would have sunk this ship because it held  significant number of captured Greek communist partisans. But the records from boat tend to suggest "Tanais" with its escort would have been seen as a legitimate target. Both as it was identified there was an escort, and the submarine appears to have expected there to be a counter attack and took evasive action to avoid this and then used the periscope later to view the outcome. 

Etz Hayyim in ruins 

All of Crete's imprisoned Jewish population, the Greek resistants and Italian prisoners of war perished as they were locked in the holds, as did the majority of those on board. It is possible some German and Greek sailors or guards survived but details are not clear and the submarine only reported seeing debris some significant time after the sinking occurred. As previously described, there is mention in available information, sounds of the escort boat picking up survivors-but this is not verified. It is probable had "Tanais" reached Piraeus the destination for Crete's Jewish population would have been Auschwitz/Treblinka. This was the case for other Greek Jewish people rounded up in this action.

There is another strand to this event which is equally disturbing to contemplate. Who in the German command was responsible for putting these thousand people on to the 'Tanais'? The savagery by the Germans on Crete is well documented. General Bruno Brauer (4 February 1893-20 May 1947) was the military commander, although at the time of this atrocity (the clearing of Chania in particular) he was being replaced as Commander of Fortress Crete by General Friedrich-Wilhelm Muller (29 August 1897-20 May 1947) the 'Butcher of Crete'. He was based in Chania at about the time of the clearance of the Jewish Community. There is also records to say the Waffen SS Polizei Division were operating in Crete at this time. But was shipping under the orders of the Kreigsmarine? There appears to be no clear record of who made and signed off on these decisions and that is puzzling. It is evident that due to the threat of imminent invasion partisan activity and German reprisals were increasing. The reprisals under Brauer and Muller were atrocities and both were executed in Athens in 1947 for war crimes. Muller also held responsible for the execution of Italian officer prisoners of war in Ios as well as atrocities against Cretan civilians in reprisals against villages. But why with the end of the war and defeat of Nazi Germany in progress, the 'Tanais', a heavily damaged ship was loaded to over capacity with an imprisoned human cargo and sent out to sea. It can only be explained in the context of the Nazi goal to keep transporting Jews to the death camps no matter what. Whether Muller or Brauer were the decision makers for this act - to send a damaged boat into waters (and air) controlled by the British/allies was no less a war crime. An evil so repugnant it still resonates with grief today.

In writing this I am aware this was an event tragic in the extreme which would have affected the lives of many families across Crete, Greece and Italy. As it may well have effected the lives and families of the sailors on "Vivid" when and if they became aware of what cargo the 'Tanais' was carrying when she was torpedoed. The actual number of those imprisoned has never been clearly identified but it is likely close to one thousand. And almost two hundred and fifty plus of these were but for a handful of people, the entire remaining Jewish community of Crete. The immensity of this personal tragedy is one almost unbearable to contemplate in words alone. This post is in memory of all of those killed in the early hours of the morning of 9 June 1944.

Postscript November 2017:

Martin Gilbert in “The Holocaust The Jewish Tragedy” 1986 Fontana Books edition wrote page 683 “On June 6 (1944), 260 Jews living on the Island of Crete, who had been seized on May 20 (1944), were taken, with four hundred Greek hostages and three hundred Italian soldiers, Germany’s former allies, a hundred miles out to sea, beyond the island of Santorini, where the boat was scuttled. All were drowned.”

He based this on note 82 p884-5 “Molho, in memoriam op. cit, according to a recent account by Shlomo Karmiel, the 260 Jews from Canea who were seized on 20 May (1944) were executed on Crete, and their bodies put on board the ship, which was sunk to destroy the evidence. They were shot he believes “because they were involved in helping British Intelligence in plans to abduct General Kriepe, who commanded the Nazi forces in Crete.” (Marcel M. Yoel, “Canea Jews – the truth.” Jewish Chronicle, 19 November 1984.

Anthony Beevor (Crete The Battle and the Resistance) 1991 Penguin Books-writes on the kidnapping of General Kriepe by a team led by Major Leigh Fermor does not mention any contact with the Chania Jewish community and the action was in the environs of Heraklion resulting in a number of Cretan villages in this region being razed. Likewise, the action to seize and deport Crete’s Jewish population was part of a mass deportation at this time across Greece and the Greek islands. There were no other mass executions or boats scuttled on public record, making this unique and unlikely.

Sources: www.gracesguide.co.uk, uboat.net, awm.gov.au, pappaspost.com, searlecanada.org/sunderland/images, Etz Hayyim site, Wikipedia, Wikiservice.
Barbara W. Tuchman (1981)-Practising History "Perdicaris Alive or Raisuli Dead" p 104-117