Editorial (August 14, 2009)
Danby’s human rights message
MELBOURNE Ports’ Michael Danby has been making headlines over his support for visiting Chinese dissident leader Rebiya Kadeer.
As Prime Minister Kevin Rudd grapples with Beijing over China’s detention of Rio Tinto executive Stern Hu, Kadeer’s visit to Australia could not be ignored.
Kadeer attended the Melbourne International Film Festival’s screening of The 10 Conditions of Love, which gives her side of Beijing’s treatment of her Uighur community.
She visited Melbourne and Sydney and elaborated to the media about the persecution of the Uighurs, a separatist Muslim community in China’s north-western region of Xinjiang, or East Turkestan.
Danby’s work in promoting the rights and interests of the large number of Jewish community members in Melbourne Ports is well known, but it is possible to overlook his work on human rights for Jews and other minorities.
It is not just rocket attacks on Sderot, or bombings and shootings in Jerusalem that bring Danby to his feet in Parliament. But for almost 10 years as the only Jewish federal MP, he has been vocal about the bigger picture, and sees it as incumbent on someone of his background to speak up.
Danby chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Tibet, and last month he led a Parliamentary delegation to the Dalai Lama’s Indian home. He stands up for the Sudanese in Darfur and monitors Wahabist Islamic extremism encroaching on South-East Asia.
Closer to home, he chairs the Joint Standing Committee on Migration, which probed the detention of refugees. The committee recommended against prolonged detention of genuine asylum seekers.
Beijing attempted to scupper the screening of The 10 Conditions of Love and would not have been pleased that it went ahead, or that Australian Government MP Danby gave an impassioned speech.
If you assume the Rudd Government has a layered approach to diplomacy with China and other human rights offenders, you might see Danby as the “bad cop”, cued to blow the whistle on oppression from the Government’s backbench. But more likely, he is a plain speaker proving to be a thorn in the side of a Mandarin-speaking prime minister.
Perhaps that would explain why Danby, who has been in Parliament since 1998, has not yet snagged a ministerial portfolio, despite being in government since late 2007. And the hardworking MP has wondered aloud, more than once, about a promotion.
Humour and the Holocaust
THE outrage in the United States over Heeb magazine’s article featuring Jewish comedienne Roseanne Barr dressed as Adolf Hitler again raises the question of how much is too much when it comes to using the Nazis, and, in particular, the Holocaust as a subject for comedy.
Heeb’s readership, which is in the 18-30-year-old bracket, will know the magazine likes to push the boundaries.
The Catholic Church in the US was deeply offended by a 2004 article mocking Mel Gibson’s controversial film Passion of the Christ and in this instance, the Anti-Defamation League took up the cudgels on behalf of the church.
This time around, it is Jewish readers who are offended by the images of Barr wearing a brown shirt and a Hitler moustache, removing a tray of so-called “Jew cookies” from the oven. We share that outrage.
Heeb deserves credit for engaging a demographic that in many instances is barely committed to Jewish life and much of its journalism has been excellent. Until now.
But this is not to say that all Nazi and Holocaust-related humour is taboo. Hogan’s Heroes was a funny TV sitcom made in the 1960s and set in a prisoner-of-war camp. Importantly, it featured virtually an all-Jewish cast, including some who had lived through the horrors of the Shoah.
Mel Brooks’ The Producers was a brilliant, if sometimes a little uncomfortable comedy, on stage and screen, as was the Survivor episode of Larry David’s TV show, Curb Your Enthusiasm.
In cyberspace, the key scene of the movie The Downfall has spawned dozens of spoof “Hitler hates …” videos on YouTube, which show the dictator railing against everything from his stolen bike and Windows Vista to the Collingwood Football Club. Once again, very confronting — and often very funny.
Because tastes are subjective, it is not for us to be prescriptive about what passes as acceptable humour. But in this instance, the American editors of Heeb crossed the line, and by a considerable degree.
We hope those behind the Australian version of Heeb, which will be launched soon, have a better understanding of their market and what they may find humorous.