Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

Andrews apparently went to Greenway a few days ago to support Liberal member Louise Markus and meet with Sudanese leaders, claiming to have been "misinformed" but declining to apologise.

I received a letter today from Louise Markus MP, re my concerns over the comments by Andrews. As I am stilll enrolled in Macarthur she referred my concerns to Liberal MP Pat Farmer. This is a technicality. In fact I live in Lindsay, with Lib Jackie Kelly retiring and Karen Chijoff running as the Liberal candidate. I live in an area which will be redistributed in to Markus's seat of Greenway after the election.

This not quite electoral fraud: I live where I do for the purposes of study and plan to return to Macarthur to be with my Mother over the period of the election and will vote in that electorate. From my experience and observation of Pat Farmer I have come to the view that he is a hard-working and loyal Liberal party puppet and correspondence with him is the equivalent of being referred to Gumby. I can read Kevin Andrews press releases myself; I don't need Pat Farmer to repeat them for me with his letterhead.

I was interested specifically in Markus's own opinion as she has represented the Blacktown community, which has a strong Sudanese community. Blacktown is also being redistributed out of Greenway in to Parramatta, a marginal seat held by the ALP, making Greenway a far safer Liberal seat, and, making Markus's comments on the issue lose much of their relevance. As such it makes no sense for me to change my enrolment details and then ask her again: I wouldn't put myself through the torture of raised hopes.

Besides, it was a test: she failed when she remained silent amidst Andrews comments and fails again in her response to me. I wouldn't have minded if she had agreed with him, but she said absolutely nothing despite being vocal on the issue in the past. Perhaps she arranged, behind the scenes, for Andrews not-quite mea culpa but I am not willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.

I tend to think Australian artists are born with a silver spoon in their mouths. Take Tim Winton as a case study. Tim Winton was born in 1960 and in 1981 won the Vogel award. In High School I was forced to read '91s Cloudstreet as part of the 2000-01 HSC curriculuum. I wrote to tell him how much I hated his book and requesting that he admit himself that it was bad so that I could quote him in an essay. He declined to respond.

Andrew Denton called him Australia's "Greatest writer" after he made the preposterous assertion that as a youngster he resembled Martin Bryant, because of a childhood incident of pointing a gun at strangers outside his window. I wanted to vomit.

There are all kinds of prizes and courses and grants that artists can apply for. Occasionally I will scan a book in a Council library and find that it was written on a Commonwealth grant. If I am to publish my hope is to do so through the Valerie Parv award, an award for unpublished romance writers.

The problem is less the opportunity to publish as it is in finding an audience. Australian films and novels are made, but who watches/reads them?

Harry Potter came out of nowhere. Once it started, the media hype just fed and fed off itself reaching its absurd point when Harry Potter starred naked in a stage play of Equus. What is most necessary for emerging artists is media coverage. The problem is that the media is largely disinterested in art. The ABC ritually tries and fails to make art in to good television with "Sunday Arts" perhaps the most successful, and, "The Book Club" as the least. Mostly it seems to degenerate in to two (or more) pretensious people talking at each other. Such programs have a high turnover.The newspapers also try, occasionally, and fail. The Australian covers the arts but not very well, and, not very often.

The only industry that gets the coverage it deserves is pop music.

Art needs the mass-media to find audiences and to do that it in needs to stop fearing that it will alienate its audience by giving it serious treatment. The great problem that I see in the media is the presumption that your audience is less intelligent than you, that you have to spell everything out, underline everything, and censor anything that is complex or controversial or might disturb a person's complacency, or they wont buy your product. If the media treated their audiences as equal we might see the clot in the arts unplugged.

As an aside: I don't think that on the balance of evidence I can be described as a "nice guy". It has never been one of my ambitions. George W. Bush is a nice guy. "This isn't about Moslems. We love Moslems." I recall he said after 9/11 and I am inclined to think he meant it.

I was hunting for material on the United Arab Emirates today as part of the voluntary work I do at an immigration centre: there in all its glory somewhere amidst my google search was "Confronting Islam", giving me a rather grim little thrill. Irony. Time. Haste. I can't erase it but it occurred to me that the good people of the world - such as those I work with - are far too busy solving the many problems of life to be concerned with the conscience or evolving political opinions of a single individual. There is too much work to be done, and, your worth is determined largely by your ability to complete that work with a measure of precision.

In contrast the media/political spectacle is full of ego, leisure and melodrama.

Start from a strength: how can governments/private sector ensure diversity of avenues for publication of art? Cross-media type stuff. Quadrant publishes Australian poetry, but who else bothers? All I know about is worst practice. Ask Shadi Ghadirian what she thinks about not being allowed to publish photographs in Iran which show the female form. Sh_Ghadirian@yahoo.com

The Mamet quote doesn't divest easily in to a quote, but here it is, slightly abridged:

“David Halberstam gave a commencement speech I was privileged to hear. He asked the graduating class to consider that the most successful students had been given jobs as consultants. The jobs carried large salaries because the position of “consultant” was not one to which a twenty year old would normally aspire unless he were bribed – there was nothing intrinsically interesting in such a job, so it had to be attended by a large paycheck. It was not the sort of thing that a young, energetic person would occupy herself with unless bribed.

Mass-media, similarly, are created (by what force we cannot say); they spring in to existence, if you will, and offer the promise, in many cases the reality, of great wealth to entice talented people who would otherwise be uninterested. They offer, like any other dictator, the promise of freedom if applicants confine themselves to slavery.

The writer, the actor, the director no less than the viewer, are thus wooed to spend their lives doing nothing. They are paid to remove themselves from the ranks of potential artists, to give up the desire to express, confront, connect, mourn, question, decry, unite; they are paid to serve the cause of censorship.

I remember being told at school that art flourished in times of abundance, which allowed the culture, and the individual, to rise above the claims of subsistence and gave them, in effect, a surplus with which to create. It seems to me, however, that the opposite is true. In the life of the individual and in the life of the community or the culture, art flourishes in times of struggle, and, in times of surplus, disappears.” P49-50

It is a slim volume but worthwhile: full of insight in to media/politics. A playwright who writes about such topics may sound presumptuous, but a playwright who writes about the drama inherent in them (or absent from them) is inspired. He is, incidentally, Jewish. The most powerful passage in the book is about Israel:

"It's the power to resist that affects us. It's the power of someone like Dr. King saying, "I have no tools, you can kill me if you want to, but you will have to kill me."

It's the power of Theodor Herzl, who said, "If you will it, it's not a dream."

Herzl went to the Dreyfus trial and said, "Jews need a homeland, this persecution has got to stop, I'm sorry." And none of the rich would give him money. So he went to the poor and asked them for a dime and a nickel. And everyone said he was a fool. But fifty years later, there's the state of Israel."

Undeniably, there it is - this doesn't give much guidance as to how to support emerging artists. I don't know, political patronage gave us Leni Riefenstahl, whose work Mamet calls "Advertisements for murder". It gave us the drearily upbeat "March of the Soviet Militia" from someone with the undeniable talent of Dimitri Shostakovitch, or the "Soviet realism" of Maxim Gorky.

Picasso is the highest selling artist in the world, followed by Andy Warhol. The two are not quite as dissimilar as they seem: Picasso used to sign blank canvasses and sell them for money. Support for artists can corrupt them, as can success - think how to create the conditions for art to exist without preferencing the politically convenient, the mundane, or the meaningless. It is difficult for me to imagine a government which could justify to itself to support "emerging" artists, as their lack of imagination seems to bias them towards doing little more than backing winners. The private sector can be more discriminating because usually they have a mind, but that kind of thing happens through the interaction of free agents, not through "policy", except where policy exists to remove obstructions to such free exchanges.

Keating valued the arts as cultural ambassadors, as methods of interpreting us to the world and vice versa. This sees art as an extension of politics, which it may well be, but it is hopefully more than that. Howard introduced "moral rights" in to our legal system, as part of the heroic, right-wing individualist ideology which infects all his policy.

The obscurity (and therefore uniqueness) of Indigenous life is what makes them of world-interest, and, why our national cultural production in film and in other arts are dominated by them. David Gulpillil was introduced to the world through British director Nicolas Roeg's film Walkabout. Until then Australia didn't know what a resource it had: now Indigenous film is routine.

Bagaric and Rentschler have thoughtful comments to make on the potential for exploitation in the Indigenous art market. The issues relate to existing power inequalities like lack of literacy and education, as well as culturally specific problems such as intellectual property in a collective society.

I think David Mamet is right: people are paid not to join the ranks of artists (Three uses of the Knife: the nature and purpose of drama). The only reason for an artist to go in to advertising is because they have been bribed. Whilst they have my moral support to do so, they ought do it without illusions as to what they are undertaking.

Margo: hi Solomon. I've been asked to research world's best practice support for emerging artists. Any ideas?  Deadline is tomorrow evening. And would love the full Mamet quote.

Eliot, you are right, to evade the subject entirely would be another way to "other" her, it would be to make her invisible. Ellison wrote of how being black is a kind of invisibility. There must be an approach to the subject which is neutral, which neither provides a heavy underline nor creates the equally alienating phenomenon of complete absence. I think that you can do this by treating her the same as others and to look for the same phenomenon: a smile, a face, a gesture.

In the end I did not choose her picture as one for potential publication (though she existed in others) because it was a bad shot. Had I chosen it anyway, for the "symbol" in it, for its usefulness to the cause, I think would have detracted from my neutrality. So would avoiding publishing a photograph merely because she happened to exist in it as part of the crowd.

One of the political campaigns against the push to ban Islamic dress in schools, etc, used the slogan "My right, my choice". It wasn't "My right, my obligation" or "My right, my business". This would support your approach, but it comes from people have made a conscious choice to engage in a political debate. Whilst all Muslim women that wear Islamic dress make a choice to "publicise" their religion, it only comes through an entirely different choice made to fulfill religious and cultural expectations. It is necessary that people go out in "public", that they do their shopping, that they work, that they entertain their children, etc, etc. Are the homeless publicising their homelessness by living on the street?

Sometimes people use the street to engage with the public and this is their right and their prerogative, Christian evangelists often do it, sometimes even Muslims do it. This is an opening based on an invitation, there is a choice and an affirmation of their own choice in it. Simply existing in such a space is not.

I suppose I came to these views in a conversation I had with a Muslim friend. She told me that she does not generally ask a person their religion, and, as well as being reminded that this was my own ethic, made me realise how Muslim women are denied their anonymity by their religion. I think there is a need to minimise this inconspicous phenomenon, not to draw attention to it, as I said in the opening piece. Conspicuous evasion would be an equal sin.

When Muslim candidate Ed Husic ran against Hillsong Christian Louise Markus in the Federal election, Markus was accused of employing staff which made an issue out of Husic's religion. She then made moves to weed out anyone who had done so from her campaign. To me this is undemocratic, as Husic had put himself up as a potential public representative, and, the public has a right to know the value system on which he will operate, just as they have a right to know that Markus has Christian links. I don't think it is right in this context to try and make the issue invisible: it should be fought out in the public sphere, because this individual has made a choice to put themselves forward. It should be underlined.

For people who are simply living out their day-to-day existense, I don't think the same standards apply.

On your second point: Political art has something to say about the world. Advertising does not and should not. All it has to express is the commercial imperative. Anything extraneous to the product is redundant.

Solomon Wakeling says:

Ack, Jeff Goodby, advertising exec, asserts that advertising is like art. Advertising is not like art. Such statements are made by people who wish to exhaust your creative potential in the service of a smaller goal. An advertisement has to have a single focus and selling point. It has a particular methodology based upon market and product research.

The complexities, meaning and ideas relating to the human condition which art deals with have no place in good advertising. It would muddy the message. The purpose of an advertisement is simply to sell something. Anyone who uses their creative potential for anything other than that is not doing their job.

"We're trying to make people think something, do something, feel something," Mr Goodby said. "We are in the entertainment business. You have to come at people in all these different ways and you have to do it with stories that have depth and drama.""

All that an advertiser wants a person to think, do or feel is in buying a product. It has no business being "deep", because the message is intrinsically  shallow: buy me. Any drama is not true drama because it exists not to serve creative expression but to serve corporate interests.

Entertainment is not art, but neither is advertising entertainment. Something like Everybody Loves Raymond is entertainment, as the creative effort is designed to please and engage people during their recreation. Advertising is the communication of a singular message in reference to a product: any entertainment value which is not intrinsic to this one goal is redundant. The entertainment value is in service of the goal of selling this product and subsequently it is not true entertainment.

Many ads are not entertaining or artistic in the slightest: for example, the APIA car insurance ads which are done to death in the commercial media. All it does is tell you why you should buy the product and it has no business doing anything else. If a flaming Giraffe, as in Dali, walked across the screen it would be interesting - it might even be entertaining - but it would not make you any more likely to want to buy insurance.

Advertising methodology is very simple: you set out to determine the reason people buy your product, as opposed to your competitors, then to communicate that message in as forthright and engaging a manner as possible. This may require some of the same skills as in creating art or entertainment, sometimes even the same methods, but it is an entirely distinct process.

Solomon Wakeling says:.

Eliot, the Lebanese woman was wearing ordinary clothes and as such I have no hint as to her religion, except that which I can estimate from her background. For most of us our religion is not on display and dress is not a prescribed element. For catholic nuns there is a prescribed dress based upon their religious obligations. Yes, I think the issue is the same. I think there would be the same ethical issue involved in using such involuntary (subjectively) dress standards to promote another agenda such as multiculturalism or a cause. To put a special emphasis on them, rather than any other individual at the event, is predatory and opportunist. It is this that makes an "other" of them.

My best evidence for this I think is my own testimony: I felt myself narrow in on this individual because of her dress, because what I intuited it could represent in a picture, feeling that as I did so I was making her more conspicuous than all the other people within the crowd. Had my intention been to focus on her as an individual, trying to find what makes her unique rather than what makes her useful, I think I would have come out with a different picture.

I believe that the motives of a photographer are crucial and that this will ultimately effect both the content and quality of the image. It is possible that the image may, notwithstanding the motivations of the photographer, come out the same. Yet in my experience I don't believe this is how it works: in photography there are so many deliberate choices to be made which affect the ultimate outcome that the assumptions on which you operate determine the outcome.

I think photographers - bad photographers - hunt out cheap symbols. That is how I explain the extraordinary dominance of American flags in the NYT photography of 9/11. This has nothing to do with the subject, which was an attack on New York buildings, but including it in the frame makes it "iconic" it makes the picture mean something which follows an agenda rather than referring to the objective facts. The flag itself is an objective fact but it is not a priority in expressing the subject of the picture, rather, by placing a special emphasis on a frame which contains a flag (usually with a sunset, which works visually to reinforce the poignancy of the flag fluttering in the wind) it reinforces the underlying assumptions on which the photograph is based, which is the assault on "America!" and the value of patriotism. It uses an objective fact and then makes an editorial underline, by focusing on that particular element.

Yes it would be possible to take a picture where the American flag is present but incidental, or, perhaps, where the flag is the subject of the photograph, such as the famous shot at Iowa Jima. Similarly I took many shots at the deaf society where the objective fact of a woman in Islamic dress was incidental to the framing of the picture, where she was evident but not singled out for special emphasis. I have no problem with this. I would also have no problem with photographing a person wearing Islamic dress, if that was the subject of the photograph. Yet in this context the subject was a gathering of deaf individuals: religion was not a relevant factor for anyone else, it was not conspicuous for them, it had not been raised by anyone else (it was not, for example, a religious gathering), it just-so-happened to be visually evident in a private individual.

There is also the current political context where "othering" has been vigorously applied to Muslim people, they have been singled out. I wonder whether to do so, even in the service fo good, of harmony and multiculturalism, exploits the substantially involuntary cultural context in which a person has grown up.

In the past I treated religious clothing as public because in living out the necessities of our existense: shopping, transporting ourselves to work, it exists to us, we are conscious of it, it impacts on our own frame of mind. It is counter-intuitive to describe public expressions as private. When those expressions contain a conflicting value system, one of which we may violently disapprove, or one which we intuit to disapprove of us, it can make us uneasy through no fault of our own. I compared it to graffiti. This is a harsh but effective metaphor for the potential impact on the people of this country, not attuned to change.

Muslim immigrants, especially of older generations, find it difficult to approve our liberal society. They value freedom intensely but consider that it is abused in our society. Other local religious groups form similar views. This conflict revolves around the delicate and emotional world of sexual morality: as such, it is highly charged.

Treating even that which we are conscious in public as private can be a deliberate mechanism for minimising hostilities. In Looking For Leadership, Donald Horne writes of his Mother telling him that drawing attention to another's poverty, as evident by their clothing, was impolite. This makes me think that there is a cultural basis for the system of manners that I am positing.

I suppose in a divided society the opportunities to conform are complicated. The internal glow achieved by gaining others approval only works for a proportion of society. The only effective way to conform to it is to do as I have attempted to do and to internalise and personify that conflict within yourself. This is a temporarily powerful place to be as you will find each side whisper in your ear, trying to seduce you in to fortifying in to one particular camp. Time plays a significant role in such a process, as people will cease to engage with you at the point they realise that you are not going to be "sold" and you start taking up time they could better spend working over others.

An alternative conformity is to pick a side and then attack the others as being unworthy of granting approval to you, to rationalise away their dislike of you by emphasising their inferior standards.

Approval-seeking behaviour may be out of some inner emotional need or it may simply be a conscientious survival technique.

Non-conformity provides similar dilemmas. If your goal is to make yourself distinct from the herd, how do you remain independent of two conflicting sides? There will always be the temptation for one to use your attacks against the other, even when they don't have your support, on the principle that the 'enemy of my enemy is my friend'.

You can come at the world from left field, perhaps the most creative and thrilling course, but is likely to result in your being ignored. Again, time is the dominant factor: why send time examining the new and complicated when you and your opponents can simply engage in a conspiracy of silence, maintaining the rules of the game?

In me a sense a kind of internal Hegelian process: thesis, antithesis, synthesis. I respond strongly to Shadi Ghadirian's work because her approach does not fit easily in to existing categories, in effect, she is a synthesis of the conflicting forces with in me. In the best of her work there is also a beauty in it which transcends any single idea. In her I am not affirmed in any one direction but am made whole.

Solomon Wakeling says:

Another issue which required that I submit the photographs to the Deaf Society for approval was the potential for a non-Auslan speaking photographer like myself to unwittingly take a shot of a person swearing. That the deaf swear like anyone else is a visual truth but there is no real public interest value in it, and it would conflict with the interests of the group. With such an issue I cede to the self-interest of the group in an uncomplicated way.

In security camera surveillance there is a demonstrable public interest value in filming people without their consent. Except in limited circumstances, such as the commission of a crimes, this will never be published. Even if it is the faces will usually be blanked out. The public is in no danger of having themselves filmed picking their nose at the train station put on display. (According to one newspaper (probably Mx) Kevin Rudd was caught eating his own ear wax and this was captured on film. There was a rather dubious claim of public interest value in relating to his media skills and therefore fitness for office.)

The Deaf Society's own photographer told me that he prefers to take candid shots rather than staged shots. No doubt they produce better, more truthful images, but I think it is a mistake to confuse marketing with art or other creative avenues. They serve different functions. To an extent at an event like this with photographers of high visibility, the whole event is staged, though there is still the potential to intrude on private conversations.

A benevolent organisation will inevitably have different priorities to an artist or photojournalist, and, I would expect that they would have no qualms about using the multicultural element in the furtherance of their good works. Everyone considers themselves to be the good guys, and, often benevolent organisations perform crucial functions. They rely on exposure, like any other organisation, to maximise their effectiveness. No doubt such people do not need the moral ambiguities of using people to do good forced upon them; It is better that they retain a single, uncomplicated focus.

I turned off Amnesty International because of their marketing strategies (including their photography) as highly manipulative, but this is one of the realities of running a successful organisation.

I would consider a person's relationship with their own religious community, within a free society, as a private matter. The extent to which they conform to the expectations of this community, except in contravention of the law, is their business. That their public, secular behaviour contains traces of these relationships does not to me make them public.

Unless there was some strong public interest criterion, I would consider a photographic study which highlights this sphere to require the deep engagement and consent of the people involved, because of its essential intimacy. Sometimes in photography, as in other arts, the private sphere can create the most powerful, personal and truthful expressions of the human condition.

Some truths will conflict with the interests of the subject and there may be a preference to censor such material. Certainly in Iran there is a prohibition on photographing women without Islamic dress, even in an indoor context where Muslim women do not actually wear such dress. This is a cultural (and legal) expectation and I think it is wrong.

I think there is a difference between taking a photograph with the view to the intrinsic value of the subject and one which is for the furtherance of a particular advertising objective. If you approach the subject with an eye to drawing out its essential truth, its distinctive features, then I think this is permissable to focus on elements such as religious dress.

At the Deaf Society there was, as I mentioned, a Lebanese woman who provided Lebanese cooking for the people who attended the event. I had no problem taking her photograph and would have no problem in publishing it. The difference between this and the Hijabi who merely happened to be attending the event is that the subject is a participant in the construct, conscious of the deliberateness of the strategy to promote the multicultural element of the deaf community, where as the other was simply living out her private existense.

Another example is an advertising poster I saw by Blacktown City Council protesting the closure of Blacktown UWS campus. The individual depicted was jet black. This reflects the significant African community in the Blacktown area, and, by implication, emphasises the multicultural element of the university community. The individual whose photograph was taken was a participant in this agenda and it is not exploitative in the slightest.

In Shadi Ghadirian's work her photography is a form of social commentary and the participants involved know they are part of a construct. She uses religious and traditional dress to highlight social issues, such as domesticity in Iranian society and the conflict of traditionalism and modernism for women in Iran. It is different to imposing such a construct on someone who has no knowledge of this.

Malcolm, I don't trust anyone who isn't afraid of vampires. Dear, departed Sylvia certainly was.

As for the barricades I have far more monastic ambitions. Semester is coming to a close next week and over the break I am devoting myself to poetry. I have been following politics for a long time now and have come to the conclusion that it involves not so much the development of convictions as the lowering of inhibitions. Up to a point this is a good thing but sooner or later seduces you away from a comprehension of rights and wrongs. I apply this as much to Margo Kingston as I do to John Howard. Worse, it seems to lead to a kind of homogenisation of personality and a dissolution of talent. It is necessary to retreat from it in order to maintain any semblance of personality or original thought.

I recall as a 17 year old believing passionately believing in homosexual rights and issues, especially transgender issues, shared with a young Goth girl with whom my first loyalties lie. One exchange is illustrative: she showed me a photograph of a pretty individual and asked what I thought of her looks. "Is this a guy?" "No." "She is very pretty." "I lied. It's a guy."

She responded at a personal level to George W. Bush and had been arguing with her online American Goth friends to get him elected. When I informed her of his views on gay marriage she quickly changed loyalties and started promoting Al Gore. I watched with a level of bemusement at the ABC's Lateline coverage of the online election and this event came back to me. The best political activism occurs through direct communication. The problem with the ABC is that they are viewing this in terms of "media" which is an effective method of reaching mass audiences, but which dissassociates you from individual people. I always wonder at people who hand out pamphlets rather than trying to engage people directly in conversation.

The Youtube videos they cited were entertaining but distinct from professional advertising practice in that they had no strong selling point. Good for entertaining bored journalists but not at swinging votes. This is not a criticism because I don't believe that is their purpose. It is also necessary to make a content analysis of all the bad Youtube videos, compared to mainstream advertising. You can measure this quantitatively by surveying groups on how such media will effect their vote, though, why would you bother when television remains the dominant medium?

There was also the so-called "death" of the Democrats, which I thought was a little too cute. The Democrats could easily put themselves back on the public mind by running television advertisments, as they did in the recent past. If anything accountability and the Senate as a house of review are more important now than ever. The potential is there, all it requires is a fundraising and the development of an effective campaign.

Solomon Wakeling says:

"Eliot, there are public and private social realms. To me religion is private until expressly raised by the individual."

Well, that's odd, Solomon. Because until the Reformation, religious devotion throughout the western world was everywhere recognised a public duty, and without public approval you couldn't much deviate from publicly sanctioned modes of religious practice.

To this day, for example, Roman Catholics have the expressed obligation to confess their sins to the Church Militant and other obligatory modes of public religious practice and adherence which are imposed on them (with or without their personal consent) by the religious community to which they adhere.

They don't call it "Mass" for nothing.

Religious congregations are just that - congregations. Not so many anomic, isolated, existential Hobbesian units of faith that just happen to believe the same things.

The idea of a private, individual relationship between the believer and his or her God is a novel, recent and utterly Western, post-Reformation notion.

Personally, I feel it was a good thing that that idea developed as it created the opportunity for individuals to carve out for themselves private space where they could examine their private consciousness, consciences and personal beliefs.

You know? Max Weber? The King James Bible? 'What I believe", etc?

In such an individualised devotional universe, however, there's no such thing as prescribed or proscribed mode of public conduct, by definition.

You believe what you believe, do what you think is right according to your own lights.

What you do and how you do it is a matter between you and God.

Others don't enter into that.

But when it comes to moving within a religious community, and adhering to rules of social conduct, including idiosyncratic dress codes and the like, then the religious adherent is clearly subscribing to social morés and conventions.

They are moving in cultural, social space - not some private, personal realm.

Not only that, in a multicultural, pluralist society they are moving in social space with people who do not nor should have to share their beliefs.

So, not only are their external religious garb - hijab, holy medals, communist party badges, saffron robes, etc - a public proclamation, they are so in secular space.

To treat them as if they are a mark entitling their bearers to special consideration is to acknowledge them as somehow 'anointed'.

Bugger that, I say.

I don't mean you should ridicule or disparage or belittle their choice. Because that's their choice after all.

But it's not mine or yours. And they should face up to that. 

Eliot, there are public and private social realms. To me religion is private until expressly raised by the individual. At public events permission to take photographs is implied; with people simply inhabiting the public space there is no such implication. Where a direct negotiation between subject and photographer is impractical then extra care ought to be taken to give a fair representation. I am not interested in prohibitions, rather, in a conscientious appreciation of the subject. Social documentary photographers will often take pictures of the homeless. Usually these people exist in the public space and it is easy enough to take pictures of them without their consent; best practice would be to ask their permission and engage with them. You would also get better pictures.

The event in question was a private event; Permission for publication is being arranged by Deaf Society staff for a lot of reasons, one major one being that I don't speak Auslan. In view of this I have to take particular care in how I sort through the photographs. It is not ideal but that is the reality I have to operate in. There are specific problems of which I have to take care, one being that deaf individuals have very strong use of facial expressions. This means that if you catch them at the wrong moment they can give very unflattering pictures. Such decisions come as a matter of course, except in politics and celebrity coverage, where the absence of such standards increase the currency of the photograph.

In the piece above I wrote that consent does not necessarily solve the dilemma, and, I think photographic ethics are often take a shallow approach which rests solely on consent. Sometimes I think it is permissable to take photographs without the consent of the subject - I wonder if French photographer Robert Doisneau ever asked the public for permission for his spontaneous and whimsical pictures - where as at other times simply having consent is not sufficient. The way women are portrayed in pornography is of genuine concern and I don't believe for a second that consent absolves proprietors of responsibility for how they approach the subject. The principle that I think is uncomplicated is the duty to fair representation, an attempt to find truth in the visual image. Letting your approach be coloured by an agenda, whether that be "multiculturalism", self-interest or what have you, to me is simply poor quality photojournalism.

Solomon Wakeling says:

Permission needs only to be negotiated with the subject of the photograph. A cultural group may have a stake in how each of its individuals are portrayed but this does not give them authority to dictate how this is done. Islam traditionally does not have an hierachical structure and as such there is no "higher authority", beyond God, or the prophet Mohammed as God's instrument on Earth, to look to, whether that be an "Imam" or "Sheikh".

That something has a social and cultural element does not make it "public discourse". My policy is to treat religion as a private affair, unless raised with me by the subject first. As a question of manners I don't ask people their religion, nor, based on their dress, would I make any explicit reference to it unless it was first raised with me. Whilst I may discuss religion, its politics and its principles, in a public way, I would not do so in a way which personalises that discourse, giving some explicit referral to some individual, unless there was some immediate necessity to do so because that individual had invited criticism through their behaviour or statements.

I accept that others are free to take other attitudes and approaches (notably evangelists), without being "unethical", whilst still adopting this as a matter of personal standards. I bring those same assumptions in to my approach to photography.

A photograph is personal. Best practice will always be to ask permission of the subject, unless there is some overriding public interest consideration. The question of how to treat that subject is a negotiation between the subject and the photographer, and I don't believe a photographer should relinquish creative control entirely to the subject. That would indeed be oppressive of personal expression, as you suggest.

Nevertheless I think there is an ethical requirement to think carefully about how the subject is treated and to be sensitive to questions of privacy and fair representation. I am not suggesting photographers refrain from approaching particular subjects because of their dress, just that they think carefully about the manner in which they do so. There are methods of approaching a subject which do justice to it and others which cheapen it. Visual communication is full of subtlety and all kinds of factors will influence the end result. I don't think it is good journalism, even to simply play a game of point-and-click at the "iconic".

Solomon Wakeling says:.

Lindsay Tanner didn't blink last night in discussing the placing of Australian lives at risk in Afghanistan. There would be no "soul-searching" he said. The ethics of it simply clicked. This to me is the future of post-Howard politics.

The moral equation about troop commitment in Iraq has a similar simplicity. Low-risk troop commitments are a complete waste of time, if the point is to serve our national interest. The recent deaths, far from highlighting the dangers of our troops, suggests to me the opposite. Australia, unlike the USA and Britain, has had only a handful of deaths. Sad for the families involved but seeming to me to be not much more unlikely than the heart attacks and car crash fatalities that happen to Australians every day.

Howard was talking the other day about the economy having a "human dividend". The very reason for distancing from the abstract creature that is the economy is that it is inhuman. To call it a "dividend" reinforces the economic basis for all earthly thoughts. Worse still was is referring to Australian history as a "balance sheet". History is not a balance sheet, you cannot trade Indigenous slaughter for dib-dib-dib Aussie good works and come out with a "positive" result. Such comments are obscene.

Nevertheless, to indulge this conceptual framework for a moment, if we view the cost of the Iraq war in numerical terms, Australia is not pulling its weight. If you operate on the basis that Australian lives are worth the same as American lives then implementing a policy which substitutes one for the other comes out ethically neutral. It would also assist our relationship with our powerful ally by relieving some of the domestic concern over all the dead young Americans.

I can see a coherent and ethical argument for troop withdrawal by Kevin Rudd, even if I am not entirely convinced by it. The idea that Australians ought not die for American "adventurism" is compelling, but no more compelling than that American soldiers ought not die for it either.

In contrast to the ALP the Liberal party policy lacks conviction and coherence. It is unsustainable and it wont bring any of the rewards we are seeking from the American alliance, because it is built substantially on talk, hot air.

Earlier in the year I wrote to the Attorney-General and argued that as soon as the opposition displayed any measure of competence the Howard government would be "summarily decapitated" by the brutal reckonings of democracy. The opinion polls seem to have borne this out. I think it is worth thinking about the future of the Liberal party now: Howard is a dead man walking.

There will need to be a process of "Dehowardisation", to do away with the moral fog of the past 11 years. Costello, Ataturk and I are knee-deep in this moral swamp together. We need do away with all the sleaze, smear and repression and return to principles of liberty and justice.

Fiona: You will be up on the barricades next, Solomon. Well said.

Eliot, it is only incidentally a public insignia, at heart it is the fulfillment of essentially private religious obligation. In truth the women who wear it have a choice, but at that point in their lives they may not feel that they do, and this sense of obligation is where the subtly of my point lies. I am sure many would prefer to live their lives more discreetly, to not be in the public eye. I look at them, ponder them, am haunted by them and I am not trying to encourage prohibitions here so much as a more thoughtful appreciation of their form and subsequent effort in to how this is then expressed in art and other avenues.

I would like to see more depth in portrayals of muslim women in art; Islam itself prohibits portrayals of the human form as leading to idolatry (more ruthlessly enforced in today's fascist states than in the past, and a stance not taken by moderate muslims) and I think this is a shame. What I would hope to see is a greater effort to acknowledge their individuality, the essence of their person, as one might attempt with any other subject. It is easy and crude to simple treat them as "icons" of a culture, or an agenda.

As a young male I used to look at women's bodies, as if their being in "public" made it my prerogative to do so. It never occurred to me that my eyes might put pressures on them and make their lives different than they would otherwise be, nor, for that matter, did it ever occur to me that women may in turn be observing me. I suppose I learned differently with a more direct association with them.

The eyes are powerful instruments, both in offence and defence. Think before you look.

Nevertheless Islamic dress in my eyes amounts to the censorship of women. In our country it is voluntary, in others it has the force of law. This is as evil as it is dreary.

In fact, it seems now we may not be even allowed to look at people with their permission:

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh has blasted louts at the Indy motorsport festival, saying their bad behaviour - which included cavorting naked on high-rise balconies - had crossed the line.

Ms Bligh described the behaviour of drunks and bare-breasted women as "disgusting" and "lewd" and accused them of ruining the Gold Coast's international reputation.

"I think this year (the bad behaviour) has crossed the line," Ms Bligh told reporters yesterday.

"What we've seen is more and more of it, and I think normal community standards are now being breached in a way that is unacceptable."

Solomon says:

Islamic dress is an obvious symbol and one which, like flags or other political insignia, are abused in photojournalism as a kind of pseudo-Bressonian "decisive moment".

They're external insignia. They're presented outwardly in the public domain.

Really, if someone presents themselves in the public domain fully embracing such a code, then they're fully visible according to their own choice.

What next? We cannot look at people without their permission, maybe?

Sigh - it is all rather clear to me now, has been for a long time, really, but I would not admit it to myself. Reading over Kingston's new book (much like the old book [Fiona: Oi, Solomon, it is an updated edition.]) I can see how Brandis met his downfall. He gave us "Greens are Nazis" and "political terrorists", some of the most abnormal and extreme language in Australian history. It is not that the Liberal party does not believe that the left is authoritarian (they do, based substantially on the provincialism of their formative years), it is just that the smart ones never express it in such naked terms. Sophie Panopolous's comments with the same kind of language must have come in response to Brandis, dismantling her own career in a gesture of wicked excess (born of human sympathy, if only for the wrong targets).

There is a certain kind of deep intelligence that operates forever in its own self-interest – Costello has it (though a Costello without an admiring public and his goals frustrated is an ugly thing), which makes him a natural leader. That is why his whole life people told him he was going to be Prime Minister. Howard is a rare creature in politics in that he built a powerful electoral appeal from human frailty. That is what I see at the heart of it all, built out of so many different observations I could not list them all, but I will give you just one: the woman on Lateline who said she liked the fact that they had not "forgotten" the elderly, that they were not seen as "has-beens". Lord be praised for delivering me from ever feeling such a fragile sense of self-worth and dependence on national politics for a sense of "Australia", a sense of community, a sense of belonging. I am blessed to have forever existed – sometimes coldly – in self-sufficiency.

After Blair the British will surely construct their own Howard, just as we constructed him after Keating. Less a leader than a conscript. Time now to lay him down.

I think I am in a position to solve the Team America puzzle once and for all. It was a childish cry for national unity, buried under layer after layer of comedy, designed at once to dehumanise and to distance from the harsh realities of life. In doing as they did, these two young men squandered their counter-culture credibility on making a not-very-profound political point, as cheap in its essence as it was Quixotic in its ambitions.

I tried the same thing this time last year in a similar burst of childish desire for national unity, mixed with fraternal sympathy for my fellow youth, trying to repent of my passions and bring about some kind of consensus. In politics I was simply outmanoeuvred, authoring my own destruction (I said prior to doing so that I was behaving "Byronic", perhaps trying to create the poignancy of self-consciousness to my folly), right on cue. Even in love it was the same, letting myself be outmanoeuvred of the only person I ever loved in a soulful way, knowing all the while just how the cards were going to fall.

Blame it on youth, all these years I've been losing...

Minister for the Arts, said Kingston of Brandis, as if this were a tragedy. I love art, because it allows you express yourself in a legitimate fashion, rather than the illegitimate coercive potentials of the law. That I knew this long, long ago and yet surrendered for a moment to the seductions of the law, the crude recourse of frailer beings, is my deepest regret. I mourn for the loss of liberalism in my own heart.

My Islamophilia and Islamophobia are easy to explain, a simple conflict of values. I explored Islam as I did many religions, finding appeal in it as an alternative to the mainstream nature of Christianity, its aesthetics, its pragmatic view of the afterlife and the necessity of war. I opposed much of what I found there because I was well brought up, during a period of nineties feminism, which I took well to heart. Neither my love nor my hate was wrong, only my desire to impose my will upon others, something I never believed in but which for a time I saw some worth in affecting.

All my disparate feelings come in to a stark convergence when I view these particular works of Shadi Ghadirian. There is my love of Islamic aesthetics and its alternative world-view, the female sympathy and evocation of the feminine form, the bitterness against fascist conformity and the melancholy realisation - made indistinct by a cruel world - of the profoundly beautiful, mature, mystic and sensitive potential that life hints at but so seldom fulfils. All of this in an innocent medium such as photography.

Deeper is my sorrow in knowing that this particular work was unable to be shown in Iran because you could make out the female form, that a society exists in which all that I could love, all that I could cherish, all that I could hold sacred, is denied its manifest place in shaping the society in which it rightfully belongs. This wonderful woman is made a pariah, when she ought to be cherished.

Like love I say
Like love we don't know where or why
Like love we often weep
Like love we seldom keep
 - W.H. Auden.

It was interesting to hear Howard make explicit the argument I made a year ago, that the Liberal Party's grand diplomatic strategy involved negotiating between the USA and China. I didn't throw the climate change spanner into the works - I think in its own little way this was a masterstroke from Howard. My argument was inspired in a strange way by two figures of the centre-left, Justice Michael Kirby and Paul Keating. Both have every reason to hate the government but on "big picture" issues which they care about, like Asian engagement, they have been willing to support the government's actions in the national interest.

I think, however, the argument falls down because Howard's relationship with the USA is not as strong as everyone pretends that it is. The USA is willing to co-operate with us but only if our alliance brings something meaningful and that requires, in light of events, a human sacrifice. Young Americans are dying in these wars in the thousands and to build any meaningful relationship (in which we hope to profit), we need to share in that burden. Howard invited the country to be relaxed and comfortable; he never invited us to die for our country.

The subtle editorial points that Lateline was making last night about Vietnam are intended to apply directly to Iraq, and it is a legitimate point. Putting our troops in low risk situations means that we squeeze the American soldiers out of doing the same work and into high risk situations increasing their casualties. More likely than not they hate us for it, and they hate our Prime Minister for engineering it this way, but self-interest (thankfully) sees them accept the limited advantage our commitment gives them.

I think the public record shows Howard to be a man deeply uncomfortable with human mortality. Howard's response to the potential for the American Democrats to increase Australian troop commitment seemed to be: over my dead body. It was the only time I felt my blood curdle at the Prime Minister's resolve.

I am making a study of Peter Costello, and, I believe him to be a different kind of man. I don't think he is uncomfortable with death, that he would have a crisis of conscience or a dark night of the soul over troop commitment. I think he is the kind of man more similar to Tony Blair, whose sense of moral clarity and Christian faith would not hesitate to ask men to die for him. I think in doing so he could forge a more meaningful relationship with America and out-perform Howard in his key strength. All it would cost is blood. Think of it as an economic exchange.

In domestic politics the Liberal Party seeks to isolate the hard left, whom they treat as authoritarian, whilst tolerating the hard right. The left does the same but in reverse, tolerating the radical left but isolating extreme elements on the right, especially the Christian right. In international affairs we don't apply the same standards: the national interest forces us to work with all manner of other governments, many who by domestic standards are utterly extreme in nature. The reason is not because we like them any better but rather because they have clout. The same goes for domestic politics, with the success of Hansonism showing Australia cede to many of her demands.

I object to our radical moderate approach on the grounds that it disenfranchises people and is therefore undemocratic. Doing so also illustrates to the world our insincerity in our relations with them. Extremists are fun, they lead debate, they arouse passions, and they can put issues onto the agenda which otherwise be absent. More important, they are citizens, stakeholders and human beings.

Modernism in art fits in well with right-wing individualism. Easy enough to make heroes and geniuses out of artists. Warhol is one of my anti-heroes, for being at once populist and subversive. Ironic that Hallmark, the Queens of kitsch, took to promoting "great art" on their corporate sentiment cards. Warhol would have loved it. Even more ironic is that his work is the second highest priced art in the world. Why on God's earth would anyone want an "original" Warhol? If they truly understood him they would insist on a cheap reprint. In the Pompidou centre I could not get my camera to work because the batteries were running out, so the only shot I could get was a hazy, badly tilted shot of one of Warhols paintings. I wouldn't have accepted a photo on any other terms, because the imperfections are the only things that make it unique or interesting.

I object to the uncomplicated acceptance of modernist individualism in to the legislative framework, not as an art lover, but as a law student. It is too simplistic, too crass and in defiance of history. Art is often collaborative and a playwright may not be the most significant figure in its creation. Certainly in film auteur theory (derived from Andre Bazin) is still dominant, though conscientious film audiences will be able to seperate the differing qualities in its constituent parts.

I own a book of the New York times photography of 9/11. Almost every frame had an American flag in it. There was even an Hijabi with her scarf constructed from an American flag. It makes me ill to think of it, that photography can be misused in this way, to associate tragedy with "America!".

Communication is a miracle but full of pitfalls. So often it hurts.

Evan, actually the integrity of artist's work is protected by law. It is called "Moral Rights" legislation. A famous case in Australia is with the production of a David Williamson play where the characters were altered to pop icons like Marilyn Monroe. Art seperates more easily in to modernism/post-modernism than theory, and it is a very modernist legislative approach. It as if pop art, Warhol, et al, never happened.

The major issues in photography revolve around what rights the subject has, and, this is what I was hoping to raise in the piece. Copyright rests in the photographer and there is the potential for it to be misused, even where consent has been given. There is an ethical question about how a subject is treated. Typically in photographic coverage Muslim women are used as "icons" to convey a particular understanding of who they are. I don't know if this is right, when you consider that they don't dress as they do to make a statement, but rather is a requirement of their religion and sometimes their society. One researcher, Roushanzamir, compares Islamic dress to a "corporate logo" for Iran, and, I wonder at this process.

Here is the transcript of the interview I conducted with Shadi Ghadirian. I cannot emphasise enough how much I enjoy her work. Some of her more iconic stuff is here, but my personal favourites come from her unfocused series, which I find hauntingly beautiful and heart-breaking. I have corrected a few simple errors in spelling but otherwise it is as it stands; She requested I keep the questions short because of her English.

1) Are you a Muslim?

Yes.

2) Do you think Islam is to blame for censorship of women in Iran?

No.

3) Have you heard of the work of Ayaan Hirsi Ali? She has written two books critical of Islam, "The Caged Virgin" and "Infidel". Do you have an opinion on her views?

No Unfortunatly I don't know her.

4) You say in your statement on the zonezero website that you want to show all aspects of women in Iran, not just a black chador, do you have any good things to say about life for women in Iran?

Yes, In Unfocused series and Desktop ones.

5) Have you ever faced censorship of your work in Iran?

Yes, Many time. Because my subjects are women and it can be censored easily.

6) Have you ever censored yourself, without any direct censorship from authorities?

Yes. I believe all the Iranian artists censored themselves first. In fact we have to do it, if we want to show our works.

7) One of your pictures from the Qajar series shows a woman holding a Pepsi can. Do you think that Western capitalism is bad for women in Iran, or does it liberate them?

I don't want to talk about these things with this photo. I want to show the traditions and modernism together at a time. This is the fact in our life, especially in our generation.

8) Do you think that photography can be used to change attitudes and opinions about women in Iran?

Yes. Sure. Photography is a powerful medium now.

9) What challenges do you face as a photographer in Iran that Western photographers would not face?

First, Censorship and also the way of our life and our society.

This is a short paper on the deaf community that I wrote to support the photoillustrations. Readers may find of interest.

We use a word like “disability” to describe the deaf community more out of habit than accuracy. It is not necessarily a correct description; Deaf individuals are only disabled to the extent that society excludes them. They are capable of communicating in alternate ways and many voice a preference for being deaf, a state which may confound the hearing.

Auslan, short for “Australian sign language” is only one type of sign language. It is the one preferred by the Deaf Society and is spoken by between 5,300 and 6500 Australians according to the ORIMA report by the department of Family and Community Services.[1] The Deaf society was formed in 1913. Auslan is a new term; Some older deaf individuals are unaware that they speak Auslan though they have been using it their whole lives.[2] Johnston estimates that there are approximately 15,000 deaf individuals who use sign language.[3] It is important, however, to note that deafness is substantially a question of degree, with some “hearing impaired” individuals having no need at all for sign language.

“Of critical importance in considering the size of the signing Deaf community is the fact that the majority of children with a hearing impairment (some 60 percent) have a mild or moderate hearing loss, and with hearing aids and targeted and specialist educational programs, they can and do function perfectly adequately using speech and hearing. Few have any need for or desire to use sign language. Of the remainder, only 30 percent are severely deaf, and many of these children are able to benefit from hearing aids and special oral- based educational programs.”[4]

Deaf Australians have lower rates of yr 12 completions and employment but not drastically so.[5]Academic indicators may not be the best way to examine the disparity between hearing and non-hearing individuals.

As Hyde argues:

“..studies by two of the present authors reveal that, while reported levels of academic achievement for deaf students in regular schools were high (more than 60 percent were "competitive" with their hearing peers), less than a third of these students had levels of personal independence or social participation comparable with their hearing peers.”[6]

This exclusion is disheartening and could lead to a certain dependence by deaf individuals upon one another. Johnston[7] also notes that improvements in technology mean that the pool of deaf individuals, and therefore the rates of Auslan usage, is declining as more children receive cochlear implants and the like.

One deaf individual writes:

“It's very isolating, it's very frustrating being deaf. Some people completely come to terms with it to the point that they prefer to be deaf. I have adapted, but at the same time, I hate having to rely on others to tell me what's going on, I hate looking like the prize idiot when someone talks to me, I misunderstand and start prattling about something totally unrelated (and start to get a sinking feeling when I see the person's body language saying 'is this guy round the twist or just stupid').”[8]

Another problem is the fact that deaf individuals cannot hear themselves and therefore struggle to modulate their voices in the same way that hearing individuals can. This can imply an intellectual disability which does not in fact exist. With careful tuition, deaf people can nevertheless be taught to read lips and to pronounce their words correctly. This nevertheless is a kind of “collaborative life”, as James Berger describes the life of famous deaf/blind woman Hellen Keller.[9]

[1]Department of Family and Community Services report, Supply and demand for Auslan interpreters across Australia, obtained at: http://www.facs.gov.au/disability/auslan_report/easy_english/EE_AuslanOrimaReport.pdf

[2] Hyde M., Comment on Whither the Deaf Community?, Sign Language Studies 6.2 (2006) 190-201, Gaullaudet university.

[3] Johnston T., Whither the deaf community?, Sign Language Studies 6.2 (2006) 137-173, Gaullaudet university. 

[4] Johnston T., Whither the deaf community?, Sign Language Studies 6.2 (2006) 137-173, Gaullaudet university. 

[5] See footnote 1

[6] Hyde M., Comment on Whither the Deaf Community?, Sign Language Studies 6.2 (2006) 190-201, Gaullaudet university.

[7] See footnote 3

[8] C Ivan, Hear Again, What it’s like to be deaf,  obtained at http://hearagain.blogspot.com/2005/10/what-its-like-to-be-deaf.html

[9] Berger J., Editor’s Preface: Documents of an education, in Keller H., The Story of My Life, Modern Library Classics 2004.

Thanks for this thoughtful piece.

I'm not sure there's anything much an artist can do to control what others do with their work. I suppose there are things like musicals only having authorised performances for a black cast and so on. To have a work of art that is not seen as representing something can be very difficult to do – our filters are very strong. An Australian photographer (Russel Shakespeare) speaks of life story photography that is an attempt to do this. If you don't know him you may be able to make contact.

I think propaganda makes bad art and vice versa. I think you could make great art of the clash inside you – Islamophilia and Islamophobia. The best art often disturbs our categories.

As to the Liberal Party. They (like Labor) post-world war 2 gradually became more multicultural and less racist. This trend was reversed by the current PM. So, in this at least, yes they are worse than they were. (Labor's opposition wasn't exactly strident, I might add.)