Revolution is in the air but US sticks to same old script

Washington appears addicted to propping up tyrants, writes Paul McGeough.

Events in the Middle East are moving too fast for the Obama administration to think it can get away with Plan A and Plan B reaction strategies according to the regimes or leaders it wants to keep in and out of power.

Consider the response of the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, to Hezbollah tightening its grip on power in Lebanon this week - Washington might have to pull its funding worth hundreds of millions for Lebanon, her office warned.
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But as democracy demonstrators were confronted by thousands of baton-wielding policemen in the streets in Cairo, there was no mention of pulling the $US2 billion-plus cheque that Washington writes for the octogenarian President, Hosni Mubarak, each year.

Instead, a rhetorical nugget that Mubarak's mouthpieces would use in their defence - ''our assessment is that the Egyptian government is stable'' and then some namby-pamby words about how Mubarak was ''looking for ways to respond to the legitimate needs and interests of the Egyptian people''.

That response came on Wednesday - more thugs in and out of uniform in the streets, more tear-gas and 860 more young Egyptians banged up in prison because, Oliver-like, they had the audacity to stand in the streets and to ask for more. Such is stability.

Undaunted, Clinton tried again on Wednesday, when she called on the Egyptian authorities to cease blocking the communications on which the demonstrators relied. But on Thursday the Twitter and Facebook websites were inaccessible and mobile-phone users in Cairo said that it was difficult or impossible to sent text messages.

Clinton uttered the ''stability'' line early in the week - before the seriousness of what is unfolding in the streets of Cairo and Alexandria came in to focus. Consider how it might be interpreted by ordinary Egyptians - the human rights of 80 million people have been trampled for 30 years but what the US Secretary of State is most concerned about is the stability of the state.

And, even as the focus sharpened, the administration refused to tell the truth about the despot upon whom Washington relies - ''Egypt is a strong ally,'' the White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, replied when asked if the administration still supported Mubarak.

And, in a week in which the Middle East's historic self-started wave of democracy protests came to a head, Barack Obama might have used his State of the Union address to cheer along all the protesters; and perhaps to warn all the leaders, country by country, of the fate that awaits them.

Instead he confined his specific remarks to Tunisia, saying: ''The United States of America stands with the people of Tunisia and supports the democratic aspirations of all people.'' So, in a region of 333 million people, where to varying degrees a good 325 million are under the heel of unelected leaders, the US President addressed only little Tunisia.

The lame excuse offered to reporters was that Cairo erupted late in the drafting process of the speech but that last ''aspirations of all people'' phrase was a recognition that ''what happens in Tunisia resonates around the world''.

By current American thinking it would never do to have Islamists in power in the Palestinian Occupied Territories or in Lebanon and therefore they heed every despot's warning that the Islamists are waiting in the wings across North Africa and the Middle East.

But lost in the lunge to protect US strategic and commercial interests by propping up the region's dictator class is any realisation that that support is what leaves the youth of the region under-educated and under-employed and, thereby, ripe for the picking by Islamist and other underground movements.

In Tunisia the revolutionaries are still searching for a leader who can articulate their demands. And this week a leader flew in to Cairo - searching for a revolution. That was the former International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei, whose return to Egypt underscores a challenge brought on across the region as much by the local community as the international community - the grooming of those who might form a half-decent opposition.

Tracing an arc through Obama's approach to the Middle East, the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies professor Fouad Ajami described the President's foreign policy pragmatism as ''a break of faith with democracy''.

Alluding to the suppression of demonstrations in Tehran after the contested 2009 presidential election, he wrote in Lebanon's Daily Star: ''American diplomacy was not likely to alter the raw balance of power between the regime and its democratic oppositionists. But the timidity of American power and the refusal of the Obama administration to embrace the cause of the opposition must be reckoned one of American foreign policy's great moral embarrassments.''

The Mubarak machine's contempt for popular aspirations and whatever the US might think of them was on full display yesterday when Safwat el-Sherif, the head of the ruling National Democratic Party, feigned obliviousness to the reality of political power in Egypt as he lectured the protesters - ''democracy has its rules and process - the minority does not force its will on the majority''.

Abdel Moneim Said, a stooge government-appointed publisher, echoed Hillary Clinton's midweek ''stability'' comment when he told reporters: ''I can't think of anybody that I know that has any concern about the stability of the regime.''

Finding the right policy mix to influence events without being accused of interfering is a fine balance that some observers have concluded eludes the Obama administration.

''It's about identifying the US too closely with these changes and thereby undermining them; and not finding ways to nurture them enough,'' Aaron David Miller, of the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars, told The New York Times.

Meanwhile, observers on the ground in the region shake their heads. ''People want moral support,'' said Shadi Hamid, of the Brookings Doha Centre. ''They want to hear words of encouragement - right now they don't have that. They feel the world doesn't care and is working against them.''

His point seems to be this: it is time Washington thought in terms of investing in people in the region, not in dictators.

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Collateral Damage - WikiLeaks In The Crosshairs

The horrific killing of six people in Arizona, and the wounding of a dozen more, including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, generated a wave of discussion on the impact of violent political rhetoric. A leading article in The Times commented:

"American politics has a strain of mean-spiritedness that, when it connects to disturbed individuals, can have terrible consequences."

True enough, although Britain certainly has its own "strain of mean-spiritedness". It is possible to disagree with others "in a reasonable way", The Times observed, without giving "unintended succour to those on the fringes who harbour extreme views and even worse methods". (Leading article, 'A Mean Spirit,' The Times, January 10, 2011)

In August 2002, Times journalist Michael Gove – variously, the paper's comment, news, Saturday and assistant editor - wrote:

"We have no alternative but to launch a pre-emptive war against Iraq to prevent Saddam completing his drive to acquire weapons of mass destruction. Massive military force must be deployed to remove Saddam's regime." (Gove, 'We need Bush and not Saddam calling the shots,' The Times, August 28, 2002)

Gove suffered no ill effects from this expression of "extreme views and even worse methods" - he is now Secretary of State for Education.

In January 2003, also gunning for war, David Aaronovitch wrote in the Guardian:

"If I were an Iraqi, living under probably the most violent and repressive regime in the world, I would desire Saddam's demise more than anything else. Or do we suppose that some nations and races cannot somehow cope with freedom?"

Again, extremism was given no "unintended succour" – later that year, the judges of the 2003 What the Papers Say awards made Aaronovitch columnist of the year, commenting:

"At a time when most left-leaning commentators were opposing the war in Iraq, he took a brave and consistent stand, presenting the case for action in the most coherent and persuasive manner."

Speech that incites violence against individuals at home is unacceptable. Speech that incites mass death and destruction against entire nations is met with indifference, and/or high office and awards!

In Mediaspeak, the word 'violence' actually refers to crimes committed by the 'bad guys' against the 'good guys', 'us'. 'We' do not commit violence, 'we' deploy 'assets' to 'neutralise' 'targets'. 'We' 'intervene' to bring 'security' and 'humanitarian relief'.

Because 'we' don't commit violence, it is fine for 'us' to non-violently kill 'our' enemies. Thus, columnist Jeffrey T Kuhner wrote in the Washington Times last month:

"We should treat Mr Assange the same way as other high-value terrorist targets: Kill him."

William Kristol, former chief of staff to vice president Dan Quayle, pleaded:

"Why can't we act forcefully against WikiLeaks? Why can't we use our various assets to harass, snatch or neutralize Julian Assange and his collaborators, wherever they are? Why can't we disrupt and destroy WikiLeaks in both cyberspace and physical space, to the extent possible?"

The net hosts numerous articles with titles like '5 Reasons The CIA Should Have Already Killed Julian Assange.'

On the BBC website, Matt Frei praised Barack Obama's mollifying response to the Arizona massacre:

"The president kept it personal and poignant. He reined in the attack dogs on all sides and called for a more civil, gentle tone. The tragedy has allowed him to play the role of consoler-in-chief with conviction."

Perhaps not on all sides. The "consoler-in-chief" had nothing to say about the crosshairs hovering over Julian Assange.

Of Wikiblokesphere And Lying Feminist Slags

Responding to the killings in the Independent, Joan Smith lamented the state of political debate, recalling "a concept I'm very keen on but haven't heard much in recent years: civility". The abuse is rampant:

"Among the online-abuse community, it's beyond question that Julian Assange's accusers are lying feminist slags."

There was precious little civility in this ugly distortion. If a minority of bigots do perceive Assange's accusers this way, they have not been contributing to the rational, awesomely well-informed discussions we have seen.
John Pilger has commented on the playing of what might be called 'the feminist card' in the WikiLeaks debate. The gambit has form. In December 2007, we found that, over the previous 12 years, the terms 'Taliban' and 'women's rights' had been mentioned in 56 Guardian articles. Of these, 36 had appeared after the September 11, 2001 attacks. As Pilger noted last month in the New Statesman:

"The invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001 was supported by leading feminists, especially in the US, where Hillary Clinton and other false tribunes of feminism made the Taliban's treatment of Afghan women the rationale for attacking a stricken country and causing the deaths of at least 20,000 people while giving the Taliban new life."

Something similar is happening now, Pilger writes, "as a group of media feminists joins the assault on Julian Assange and WikiLeaks... From the Times to the New Statesman, apparent feminist credence is given to the chaotic, incompetent and contradictory accusations against Assange in Sweden".

Some of the worst examples have appeared in the Guardian, one of WikiLeaks' "media partners". Libby Brooks identifies an "unlikely alliance between leftwingers and the misogynists of the Wikiblokesphere," which has seen them "indulge in the basest slut-shaming and misogyny".

Again, if this is true somewhere, it is not true of serious, left online debate, where words like "slut" are simply abhorred. In a similarly one-sided Guardian report, Amelia Gentleman quoted Swedish tabloid journalist Oisin Cantwell, who argued, quite outrageously, that the "celebrity support for Assange was similar to the support offered by Hollywood stars to Roman Polanski when he was arrested last year, accused of raping a 13-year-old..."

Nick Davies, the leading Guardian reporter who originally organised the Guardian-WikiLeaks partnership with Assange, before the two sides fell out, wrote a piece titled: '10 days in Sweden: the full allegations against Julian Assange.'

This included salacious tidbits such as:

"Another friend told police that during the evening Miss A told her she had had 'the worst sex ever' with Assange: 'Not only had it been the world's worst screw, it had also been violent.'"

And:

"Police spoke to Miss W's ex-boyfriend, who told them that in two and a half years they had never had sex without a condom because it was 'unthinkable' for her."

Bianca Jagger noted in Huffington Post that Davies had published "selective passages from the Swedish police report, whilst omitting exculpatory evidence contained in the document".

Assange was, Jagger wrote, being "subjected to a 'trial by newspapers,' in an effort to discredit him".
Assange's former barrister James Catlin commented:

"The complete absence of due process is the story and Davies ignores it. Why does due process matter? Because the massive powers of two arms of government are being brought to bear against the individual whose liberty and reputation are at stake."

With "media partners" like these, WikiLeaks hardly needs enemies.

Blood On The Guardian's Hands?

Worse was to come from the Guardian. On December 27, Africa correspondent David Smith reported:

"Zimbabwe is to investigate bringing treason charges against the prime minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, and other individuals over confidential talks with US diplomats revealed by WikiLeaks."

Treason charges could mean the death penalty, which, one would guess from this article, could mean blood on WikiLeaks' hands.

One week later, on January 3, James Richardson, an "account services director for Hynes Communications", wrote an opinion piece in the Guardian claiming: "now, with the recent release of sensitive diplomatic cables, WikiLeaks may have committed its own collateral murder, upending the precarious balance of power in a fragile African state and signing the death warrant of its pro-western premier..."

WikiLeaks, Richardson argued, should just shut up:

"Before more political carnage is wrought and more blood spilled – in Africa and elsewhere, with special concern for those US-sympathising Afghans fingered in its last war document dump – WikiLeaks ought to leave international relations to those who understand it – at least to those who understand the value of a life."

Political analyst Glenn Greenwald commented on Salon:

"There was just one small problem with all of this: it was totally false. It wasn't WikiLeaks which chose that cable to be placed into the public domain, nor was it WikiLeaks which first published it. It was The Guardian that did that."

In fact the Guardian decided to publish the cable about Tsvangirai, not WikiLeaks, which only published the leak after the Guardian had done so.

The reaction in the US press was predictable enough. An article in the Wall Street Journal was titled, 'Julian Assange's reckless behavior could cost Zimbabwe's leading democrat his life.' Who was to blame? "Julian Assange of WikiLeaks." A piece in the Atlantic observed: "WikiLeaks released [this cable] to the world" and so "provided a tyrant with the ammunition to wound, and perhaps kill, any chance for multiparty democracy". (Ibid.)

Responding to criticism, the Guardian amended Richardson's opinion piece, noting:

"This article was amended on 11 January 2011 to clarify the fact that the 2009 cable referred to in this article was placed in the public domain by the Guardian, and not as originally implied by WikiLeaks."

The Guardian's deputy editor, Ian Katz, worked hard to explain why David Smith had reported that WikiLeaks, rather than the Guardian, had published the Tsvangirai cable. Katz wrote: "it would be fair to describe us as joint publishers of any cables we have selected, with joint responsibility for any consequences of their release". Using the WikiLeaks name was "a piece of widely understood journalistic shorthand. The material was routinely referred to as a 'WikiLeaks revelation'".

If the term "WikiLeaks revelation" is "shorthand" that is "widely understood" to refer to the Guardian's status as joint publishers with WikiLeaks, why did David Smith not turn to his own editor for comment on the Guardian's shared responsibility in the news piece reporting that Morgan Tsvangirai faced a treason inquiry? Has any Guardian journalist ever turned to the Guardian editor for comment on allegations that the Guardian-WikiLeaks partnership had endangered life? We asked Ian Katz on Twitter but he failed to reply. It seems clear that the Guardian has not rushed to advertise its shared responsibility – we suspect it will be news to many people.

The crucial point, in light of the Guardian's amendments, is that mainstream media outlets have shown flat zero interest in accusing the Guardian of having blood on its hands for publishing the Tsvangirai cable. But why? There is only one explanation: the earlier media outrage was motivated, not by a desire to protect life in Zimbabwe, but by a desire to demonise and destroy Julian Assange and WikiLeaks.

A related propaganda theme is that WikiLeaks has recklessly "dumped" a "flood" of diplomatic cables on the web, so endangering lives. Arch-war monger John Bolton wrote in the Guardian:

"WikiLeaks has yet again flooded the internet with thousands of classified American documents, this time state department cables" which was the "third document dump."

The Daily Mail reported: "Then this week he [Assange] disclosed around 250,000 cables from U.S. embassies, many containing sensitive information."

This, also, is nonsense. In reality, WikiLeaks has, so far, slowly and carefully released only about 2,000 documents in close cooperation with its media partners.

Greenwald explains the rationale behind the selective outrage and false claims:

"To justify this assault, the U.S. Government needs to claim that WikiLeaks is somehow distinct from what other press outlets do. So it invents outright falsehoods to do so: unlike newspapers, WikiLeaks indiscriminately dumps diplomatic cables without editorial judgment; unlike newspapers, they refuse to be transparent about their methods (nobody is less transparent about what they do than large newspapers); and now, WikiLeaks endangers people's lives by recklessly publishing a cable which leaves democratic leaders in Zimbabwe vulnerable to attack, even though it wasn't published by them at all, but by The Guardian."

Once again, the mainstream media has distorted and deceived to manufacture, isolate and target a 'threat' for destruction. Certainly WikiLeaks is embarrassing the powers that be much more effectively than mainstream journalism. But mainstream outlets also publish government leaks, including 'Top Secret' information, which the diplomatic cables are not. Assange is a journalist and he is engaging in journalistic activity. The "collateral damage" of his destruction might well involve the freedoms enjoyed by the very journalists currently seeking that outcome.

Suggested Action
The goal of Media Lens is to promote rationality, compassion and respect for others. If you do write to journalists, we strongly urge you to maintain a polite, non-aggressive and non-abusive tone.

Write to:
Ian Katz at the Guardian
Email: ian.katz@guardian.co.uk
http://twitter.com/iankatz1000

Nick Davies
Email: nick.davies@guardian.co.uk
http://twitter.com/Bynickdavies

Libby Brooks
Email: libby.brooks@guardian.co.uk
http://twitter.com/libby_brooks

Amelia Gentleman
Email: amelia.gentleman@guardian.co.uk
http://twitter.com/ameliagentleman

Please blind-copy us in on any exchanges or forward them to us later at:
editor@medialens.org

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Why Ric's the man to coach cricketers

As calls grow for Ric Charlesworth, legendary hockey coach, to take over the Australian cricket team, David Sygall learns why he is the best in the land - and why the case is compelling.

Shortly after the Hockeyroos won gold at the Sydney Olympics, Ric Charlesworth and Nikki Hudson were en route to a promotion when Charlesworth's eyes welled with tears.

''I didn't know what was wrong,'' Hudson recalls. ''Finally he just said he was so proud. Proud that I'd done everything he'd asked of me. It's a moment I'll always cherish because it came from somebody I totally admire and respect.''

It wasn't always that way. Four years earlier Charlesworth had axed Hudson from the team that was to win gold in Atlanta. ''She contributed to it because she wasn't as professional as she could have been,'' he says flatly. ''She was a young girl who got distracted and went to live in Kalgoorlie with her boyfriend.''

 

 

It was classic Charlesworth, tough but fair, and it profoundly affected Hudson's career. She re-applied herself, was named vice-captain of the World Cup team and was not dropped again. In 2009 she retired as the Hockeyroos' most capped player.

''What could have been the biggest disappointment of my life became the turning point,'' she says. ''I realised how much better I had to be to get picked in Ric's team.''


If there's anyone who can match his expectations of others with his own achievements, it's Charlesworth. He is a hockey legend, won Sheffield Shield titles alongside Dennis Lillee and Rod Marsh, is a doctor of medicine with a degree in philosophy and spent 10 years as a federal member of parliament. He is an author, sporting strategist and father of five who received an Order of Australia. And, if a growing group of people get their way, he could be Australia's next cricket coach.

Charlesworth is also intimidating and demanding. He has been accused of being overbearing, self-absorbed and hyper-competitive. His brain works fast and he reviles the feeble minded. Those close to him say he has insomnia, a claim the 58-year-old disputes. One of his closest friends, former Fremantle Dockers boss David Hatt, describes him as ''Mick Malthouse on speed''.

''Before the 1974 national championship final, he studied for a medical exam for two nights without going to sleep,'' says Hatt, a former teammate, co-author, political colleague, current manager of the Kookaburras - the national men's hockey team - and partner with Charlesworth on a review into football club Perth Glory.
''He did his exam in the morning, played in the final that afternoon and was the best player afield. Then he promptly slept for 12 hours. That was his talent - to apply his mind to tasks in a way no one else could.''
Thirty-six years later, the night before the 2010 Commonwealth Games final, Hatt says Charlesworth did a similar thing.

''He was up all night watching videos, writing profiles on every Indian player,'' he says. ''By game time all our players had been comprehensively briefed on the opposition. We won 8-0 and won the gold medal.''
Hatt speaks of Charlesworth in terms of genius. Don't restrict him. Just admire and learn.

''Richard is different,'' he says. ''As a player his standards were higher than anyone else's and he worked harder than anyone else. His mantra was the old Henry Ford line that it's 99 per cent perspiration, 1 per cent inspiration. As a coach, his work with players and research into opponents is miles ahead of anything I've seen, including in AFL. His understanding of what it takes to be successful is greater than anyone else's.''
That drive has caused angst in many around him. Hockeyroos great Rechelle Hawkes was worried when Charlesworth was named coach. She had watched the argumentative player in action and feared he had the wrong attributes to be a mentor. Those fears were realised at first, when Charlesworth's stubbornness and impatience caused suspicion among the players.

''On our first tour he held one-on-one meetings with us and we were all petrified,'' Hawkes says. ''Everyone was intimidated by him.

''You could debate Ric but you'd never win. He was always right. It was quite frustrating. He'd chat to you at training but, in mid-sentence as you were responding to him, he'd have already walked away to talk to someone else. His mind would go at 100 miles an hour, thinking on so many levels.

''He was incredibly intense and competitive. He used to play in our training games and everyone wanted to be on the opposite team to Ric because everyone wanted to whack him. He was so determined to win everything. He'd argue and do whatever he could do to get ahead. Looking back, the players will all say he is the best coach they ever had. But he definitely walked a fine line.''

Charlesworth's childhood suggested glimpses of the achievements to come. His parents were dentists who raised four children in Perth's middle-class western suburbs. Richard, the youngest, would ride his bike and play outside till dark. The sporting influence came from his father, who had played cricket for Western Australia in the 1940s and become a state selector.

''In 1961 my father was the dentist for the WACA,'' Charlesworth recalls. ''I remember playing cricket in the back of his surgery with Wes Hall and Gary Sobers, who were getting their teeth repaired.''
Australian rules was an interest but Charlesworth soon tired of being smashed by bigger players. Cricket took up too much time. A teacher introduced him to hockey and, although Charlesworth showed early talent, his father was too busy working to see him play. The only relaxing time they shared was when Charlesworth caddied for his father on weekend golf rounds.

Although Charlesworth's interest in cricket waned (''It was just something I did during the summer'') he ended up in the WA side and featured in three Shield wins between 1973 and 1978. He was similarly ambivalent towards his studies but chose medicine because ''I liked that it offered flexibility in that you could teach, do research, do clinical medicine … Medicine offered possibilities.''

Charlesworth was to practise for a decade - in a hospital for four years then general practice for six.
However, Charlesworth couldn't shake his time on campus. ''When I was a student there were big protests against the Vietnam War which I became a part of,'' he says. ''I was in the draft and thankfully missed out. But I felt the war was a major folly by the government and it got me interested in politics.''

Young Charlesworth was an idealist. He was incensed by the war and the dismissal of the prime minister, Gough Whitlam, in 1975 and, later, by his hockey team's boycott of the Moscow Olympics. In his 10 years from 1983 as federal ALP member for Perth, Charlesworth worked on projects such as industrial relations, AIDS prevention, drug use and road safety. His political travels took him to Mongolia, eastern Europe, Cambodia, Vietnam and Israel. Charlesworth still thinks politically and, typically, does not hold back.
''The greatest public policy failure I've seen in my life was us going to Iraq,'' he says. ''There were fabrications that took us into a war. We can do better than that. It's the reason I support [WikiLeaks co-founder] Julian Assange.''
Charlesworth's disillusionment with politics helped to shape his coaching philosophy. ''I thought politics was a meritocracy,'' he says. ''And like any political party, a good sporting team needs to be refreshed regularly. Teams get old and lose their vitality and punch. If you don't renew and refresh you become stale.''

Charlesworth returned to hockey in 1993, rebuilt the Hockeyroos and secured triumphs as impressive as those from his playing days. After the Sydney Olympics he turned down a job as Kookaburras coach and took a break. In 2003 he began a two-year stint as a consultant at the Dockers. Afterwards, Charlesworth moved with his second wife, Carmen, who is of Italian heritage, to Italy, where he wrote a book, consulted and worked as a commentator. After the Kookaburras' win in Athens, he applied unsuccessfully for the coaching job.

New Zealand Cricket hired Charlesworth as its high performance manager for two years from 2005. Afterwards, he nearly accepted a role with English cricket but instead took a job in Indian hockey. After the Beijing Olympics he accepted the Kookaburras role and led them last year to unprecedented success, winning the World Cup, Champions Trophy and the Commonwealth Games gold medal. He is now widely regarded as one of Australian sport's greatest minds and one of its best coaches.

''You do best in the things that you're most passionate about,'' he says. ''If you're absorbed in something, it doesn't seem like hard work. It becomes difficult only when you try to do too many things. I've done that many times in my life. When you pack too much in you can get away with it in the short term. But there comes a cost.

''Not that I have regrets. People talk about athletes making sacrifices. But the fact is we make choices. I had personal ambitions that might have clouded my judgment. But when I had too much on my plate I made compromises, never sacrifices.''

Charlesworth's thoughts on leadership and team dynamics are highly sought after. He believes there is no ideal personality type for an athlete - ''some successful athletes are borderline suffering personality disorders,'' he says - and, while a captain should embody the qualities wanted in a team, the team will only succeed if there's a ''critical mass of leaders''. ''The problem with the current Australian cricket team is that it doesn't have that,'' he says.

Charlesworth's first, second and third rules of coaching are preparation, preparation and preparation. This involves tough decisions and pressuring players to be the best they can be.

''Not every athlete will like you but I don't think many players realise how good they can be,'' he says. ''You don't get anywhere by making it easy for them. That's the best thing about coaching - you spend your time helping people realise their potential. It's very satisfying.''

Satisfying enough to bring Charlesworth to tears.

''Ric can be overbearing, he'll yell at you and can be harsh,'' Hudson says, recalling that day in 2000 when the coach became misty-eyed. ''But if you're prepared to go outside your comfort zone, he'll pat you on the back and have tears in his eyes and tell you how proud of you he is.''

Not one for hyperbole, Charlesworth says: ''I felt something special for Nikki because she made it back. It's emotional when they do well; when they achieve as human beings and reach their potential.''

---

THE RESUME

RICHARD CHARLESWORTH
Born in Subiaco, WA, 1952. Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery, 1976, University of WA; honorary Doctor of Science, 2002, UWA.

CRICKET
Forty-seven first-class matches for WA from 1972 until 1980. Scored 2327 runs at average of 30.22. Member of Sheffield Shield-winning teams in 1972-73, 1976-77, 1977-78.

HOCKEY
Four-time Olympian, in 1972, 1976, 1984 (captain) and 1988. Played 227 international games. Olympic silver medallist in 1976 and World Cup winner in 1986.

MAJOR AWARDS
Received Advance Australia Award in 1984 and Order of Australia in 1987. Inducted into Australian Hockey Hall of Fame and Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 1987. Named Confederation of Australian Sport Coach of the Year in 1996, 1997 and 2000. Received Citizen of WA Award in 2001. Named WA's greatest ever hockey player and WA's greatest ever coach in 2005. Inducted into Hockey Australia Hall of Fame in 2008.

COACHING
NCAS Level III and FIH Master Coach. Head coach of Hockeyroos 1993 to 2000. Victories included Champions Trophy (1993, '95, '97 and '99), World Cup (1994, '98), Commonwealth Games (1998) and Olympic Games (1996 and 2000).

Head coach of Kookaburras since 2008. Last year the Kookaburras became the first team to win all three major tournaments (World Cup, Champions Trophy, Commonwealth Games) in one year. It was Australia's first World Cup gold medal in 24 years.

Named Australian Coaching Council team coach of the year in 1994, '96, '97, '98, '99 and 2000.

ADMINISTRATION
Australian Sports Commission Board 1994-97. WA Institute of Sport board 1984-92, 2001 to present.

POLITICS
ALP Member of Parliament 1983-93.

AUTHOR
Has published three books: The Coach: Managing for Success, 2001; Staying on Top, 2002; Shakespeare the Coach, 2004.

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Nationalism and identity in a disaster

In the wake of the floods that have hit Brisbane, people are homeless. They are living in shelters, or sleeping at relatives’ houses, travelling back to their sodden homes to clean out the mud and re-claim precious keepsakes.

Some are grieving the loss of their entire household contents, left out on the footpath as rubbish. Some are weighing up the damage to workplaces, which is affecting income and security.

Lives have become fundamentally disrupted as notions of home, ‘work’, ‘safety’, even daily timetables and routine are changed.

There is exhaustion, stress, grief and shock.

But there is also still spirit, friendship, compassion and love, qualities which are being demonstrated on a daily basis by volunteers answering the call of need.

Of course, these qualities are not unique to Queenslanders or Australians: these are human traits, exhibited by people realising their common humanity and recognising a shared community.

If people are suffering in the Lockyer Valley, as they are on a shocking scale, then we feel their sorrow, their anguish and pain.

We can sympathise too with people in New South Wales, waiting for the floodwaters to reach them. We know what has happened here, and what may yet arrive there.

But that empathy doesn’t stop at the border, or at the extremes of the continent. There are floods in Brazil, like those in Grantham, at present.

Haiti is marking one year since its earthquake.

The difference is that we will probably not hear those stories of compassion and friendship, but of course they happen. As human beings, regardless of which continent they live on, we reach out to each other in times of misery and joy.

However, when Anna Bligh and Julia Gillard bring up the hoary old chestnut of nationalism or state identity in the face of death and destruction, they are challenging that spirit of shared humanity.

They are claiming ownership of these human qualities as particular to Australians.

Surely in a multicultural country, nationality is irrelevant? Phrases, such as ‘Australians look after each other’ and ‘it’s the Queensland way to lend a hand’, lay claim to superiority based in identity: perhaps a white identity?

Other countries respond to tragedies in their communities, yet do not feel the need to connect it to who they are.

Indeed if this trait of selflessness and compassion is self-evident in Australia, why is there a need to highlight and restate its’ expression? Is this behaviour remarkable because the Australian nation, our society, makes a habit of excluding people? Or are we admitting that we prefer to only help ‘our own’?

While I watched television pictures of people waiting in lines to get food, seeing their houses emerge from the water, covered in mud and their possessions ruined, wondering what the hell they were going to do next, I felt, like everyone else, distraught.

Yet my thoughts went to people who do not have the help of hordes of volunteers, whose usual daily experience is poverty, dislocation, fear and insecurity.

They are the homeless of Brisbane, who sleep in the parks that are now flooded, or in their cars under bridges that were unsafe.

There are families who do not have an income and live in hostels and temporary accommodation, with their relatives or friends, regardless of flood.

There are refugees and asylum seekers in Brisbane fleeing from war, famine and persecution, who live without knowledge or control of what is to happen to them - incarceration or deportation.

Aboriginal communities in Queensland are living the ongoing injustice of overcrowding, poverty, police brutality and dispossession.

This inequality and injustice, this lack of compassion and friendship, this racism is displayed by Queenslanders and Australians. How does this society, that can come to the aid of flood victims so generously, ‘look the other way’ when it comes to the silent tragedy of the everyday?

Is this, as Anna Bligh says, “who we are”?

The weeks and months will pass and the 17,500 flooded homes will be put once again to rights and people will move back in to their houses and communities.

Perhaps they, and more importantly we, will understand just how humanity suffers here in our backyard. Because that is what we are called to do after a disaster, when people are resettled and can resume their daily lives.

A tragedy provokes us to consider how extraordinary a loss it is to feel afraid and unsure of today and tomorrow, to feel unable to protect your kids or to have no shelter to go home to in the evening, when it’s cold and dark. And how it is to be unable to seek remedy against unlawful injustice and intervention, or to have no control about decision making in our own lives.

If we are human beings of compassion, spirit, friendship and love, the flood provokes us to ask how such things can occur in this country, in this state, and how we can change it.


Naomi Fisher is an Aboriginal woman living in Brisbane with her son, Jack. She is currently completing an honours degree in history at Griffith University.

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Industry warned to fix insurance cover

Insurance companies have been told to develop a standard flood clause, in plain English, and give all households access to insurance, or face government intervention on the issue.

As thousands of businesses and families excluded from flood coverage by insurance policies face financial ruin, the Queensland Treasurer, Andrew Fraser, said the industry could face a competing government insurance scheme if it did not act.

The contentious issue - which reached an impasse in 2008 - formed part of discussions the federal Treasurer, Wayne Swan, and Assistant Treasurer, Bill Shorten, and Mr Fraser have held with the Insurance Council of Australia.
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Mr Shorten said: ''My advice to the insurance industry was that either they would push it, they would need to come to the party with further reform, working with consumers and the ACCC, or politics will fill the vacuum. The community has an appetite now to get this right once and for all.''

The shadow treasurer, Joe Hockey, said yesterday whole towns subject to flooding had been unable to buy insurance and it ''raises a big issue'' when the community expected shopkeepers to continue operating on the main street.

Mr Fraser said the insurance council was opposed to a national government insurance scheme, but ''unless they adequately respond to this issue then the people who price risk for a living, then that's a risk that they should price''.

He said the government wants a standardised flood clause inserted into all policies, and flood cover offered to all policyholders, albeit priced according to the tailored risk.

''The argument that it's impractical or unable to be priced, or priced economically, is answered by the fact you have a major insurer, Suncorp in Queensland, already doing it,'' said Mr Fraser.

The federal and state governments would seek to help the industry tailor flood policies by providing improved data mapping to insurance companies, Mr Shorten said.

A private sector solution was the best option, but governments were determined to see the issue finally resolved, he said.

The federal government would also look to the findings of the Queensland flood inquiry as it sought to toughen consumer protections for flood insurance, Mr Shorten said.

The Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, said last night that the federal government may introduce a flood levy, and would make significant spending cuts, to rebuild Queensland and keep its election pledge to bring the budget to surplus in 2012-13.

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Uninsured 'shouldn't be covered' for floods according to world's biggest reinsurer

The world's biggest reinsurer says it is sensational to describe insurance companies as lacking compassion in the wake of the country's devastating floods, but people who do not have flood coverage should not be compensated.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard has called on insurance companies to be generous in their interpretation of policies towards flood victims in Queensland and Victoria.

Heinrich Eder, the managing director of Munich Re Australia, says people who do not have flood insurance cannot expect to be compensated for flood damage.

Reinsurers provide insurance cover for insurers.

Investment bank UBS estimates that 60 per cent of homeowners affected by the floods in Queensland may not be covered for floods in their insurance policies.

Mr Eder told the ABC that most people do not read the fine print in product disclosure statements and consumers should not be covered if they did not buy flood insurance.

"If you have a house and you have no fire insurance and unfortunately you have a fire then no-one would suggest your house should be paid [for] by the insurance companies," he said.

"We have a large scale disaster and those who have bought insurance for flood, they will be compensated by those insurers, and those who haven't can't expect compensation for a cover which they have not bought."

Mr Elder says insurance companies have been generous in the past towards policyholders.

"What people always suggest [is] they will insist on the fine print or whatever. That is just to get everything a bit sensational, but it is not the facts," he said.

No flood cover

Less than half of 45 insurance policies surveyed by consumer group Choice provided insurance for floods.

The chief executive of the Insurance Council of Australia, Rob Whelan, says insurers will try to be flexible but cannot make exceptions for people who did not buy flood insurance.

"Unfortunately those who don't have flood cover, [if] it's not specifically allowed for on their policy, won't be covered," he said.

"That's a very unfortunate circumstance and we do regret that, but unfortunately that is the case."

Australian insurers have so far received about 12,000 claims worth $410 million from the floods in Queensland.

Reinsurers will cover the bulk of the payouts for local insurers because of reinsurance policies held by insurers such as Suncorp and Insurance Australia Group.

UBS insurance analyst James Coghill says that means the hands of the local insurers are tied when it comes to the fine print in policies.

"There is going to be less discretion made in ex gratia payments and we don't think there will be too many of those occurring," he said.

Flood definition

The flood crisis has prompted the Federal Government to look at the creation of a common definition of floods in insurance policies because many insurers do not provide coverage for floods from rivers and creeks.

Mr Eder says a flood definition would be an advantage and would not affect reinsurance.

"If we had a flood definition and flood definitions were suggested, it's always good to have because it gives clarity, what is covered and what is not covered."

But he warns a standard definition of floods in insurance policies in Australia will not guarantee cover.

"The guarantee of a provision of cover can only be that you can assess the risk and achieve a risk-adequate price for the risk you are covering," he said.

In 2008, the Insurance Council of Australia proposed a common definition but that was rejected by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission as confusing.

Chief executive Rob Whelan agreed there is no guarantee insurers will underwrite policies compensating for floods even if there is a common meaning.

"It's not the critical issue, the critical issue is around flood mitigation works and flood information around flood mapping," he said.

But the director of campaigns for Choice, Christopher Zinn, says a standard meaning is badly needed.

"There isn't a common definition in insurance policies of what is a flood and that results in people believing they have flood cover but the particular sort of water that inundates their place may not be covered by their particular policy," he said.

Flood maps

The ICA says inadequate information about flood-prone areas is the reason why many companies do not offer flood coverage in Queensland.

Suncorp is the major insurer in the state and provides automatic flood coverage under its GIO brand after doing its own flood maps.

Brisbane City Council and some other regional councils in Queensland do provide flood maps on their websites.

Mr Whelan says the number of councils providing flood mapping data to the Insurance Council's flood database has improved.

"It does take resources, it does take funds to be able to do this and not all councils are in the position to be able to do it," he said.

Insurance Australia Group offers flood coverage in New South Wales under NRMA Insurance but not in Queensland.

Expensive disaster

Munich Re says total payouts from the Queensland floods in December and January could run into the billions of dollars.

"They will be very substantial. They will be probably exceeding those costs for the hailstorms which we had in Melbourne and Perth, which were very substantial losses," Mr Elder said.

"I could well imagine we are talking billions of dollars."

The Insurance Council says the insured losses from the hailstorms in both cities stands at more than $2 billion.

The Newcastle earthquake in 1989 was the most expensive natural disaster in Australia with insurance claims of $4.3 billion.

Rising premiums

The cost of reinsurance for local companies is rising because of the growing number of natural disasters and rising population in Australia.

Already Suncorp has had to pay an additional $120 million in reinsurance for the rest of the financial year.

Mr Eder says premiums for local insurers will go up because Australia has became more risky.

"The premiums, reinsurance premiums, have to be risk adequate in the long term to maintain sustainability. And if you have higher loss costs then, naturally, you have to increase prices over time," he said.

"The frequency of large events has tripled in the last decade due to the effects of climate change, due to the effects of higher risk density, and exposure concentration."

Another reinsurer, Swiss Re, says it is too early to tell if premiums will increase in the wake of the Queensland floods.

Morningstar insurance analyst David Walker says floods across the country means local insurers may pass on double digit rises in premiums to consumers.

"We think they will rise and they rise substantially," he said.

"The insurers will seek to recover their claims costs from these flood events but they also seek to pass onto policyholders their rising reinsurance costs."

James Coghill from UBS says insurance premiums for consumers have increased over the past few years and are expected to rise again the wake of the floods.

"This is an event that will enable insurers to price higher for longer," he said.

Flood levy

Charging taxpayers a flood levy or a national flood insurance scheme could be another issue on the table to pay for the cost of rebuilding in Queensland, but that move is opposed by Munich Re and the Insurance Council of Australia.

Adding to their costs, local insurers may also face legal challenges from disgruntled policyholders left out of pocket because of the floods.

The ABC has been told by a major law firm that the wording in insurance contracts could be challenged if its deemed to be misleading.

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Austerity: more than just a buzz word

As the UK’s debt crisis teeters precariously on the edge of implosion, the Conservative-led government has heralded in a new dawn of economic austerity that is the harshest in living history.

At a time when the unemployment rate in the UK is nervously inching past 8 per cent and the budget deficit is 11 per cent (the biggest in its peacetime history), PM David Cameron has warned that desperate times call for desperate measures. Savage cuts to the public sector under the guise of fiscal responsibility have been deemed a necessity in aiding the UK’s economic recovery. About 490,000 public sector jobs are to be slashed by 2014, taxes are being hiked and every penny is being pinched from the government’s already scant social welfare budget. The cuts of 81 billion pounds ($128 billion) over four years are the equivalent of 4.5 per cent of projected 2014-15 gross domestic product.

In Joseph Stiglitz’s Freefall: America, Free Markets and the Sinking of the Global Economy, the Nobel Prize-winning economist noted that it is economics’ cruellest paradox that economic gain tends to be privatised while losses are socialised. Moreover, these losses - as we’ve seen in the aftermath of the global financial crisis - are a disproportionate burden to those who are most financially vulnerable. The “age of austerity” - as Cameron has called it - may have just begun but the ramifications are already crippling those who are among the most economically vulnerable in society: the youth.

Social anxieties are especially heightened in times of economic hardship, and it was unsurprising to witness students of all ages in London expressing their vehement disgust at the government’s proposed education reforms last November. The British government’s proposal to triple university fees to $14,000 a year raised the ire of more than 50,000 students, who had taken to the streets of London in spirited rebellion reminiscent of May ’68, if not in ideology then at least in spirit. And it wasn’t just the British students who had voiced their anger: students in Greece, France, Spain and Italy have also rioted against the spectre of an ever-shrinking state and an increasingly bleak future. Bloomberg columnist Matthew Lynn has suggested in a recent op-ed that the student protests are not only a measure of public frustration against the government’s economic policies, but they are also symbolic of a new shade of generational warfare, aimed squarely at the excesses of the baby boomer generation.

Lynn may well be right. After all, can you blame British and European youths for speaking out? These austerity measures - which have been implemented by a number of similarly beleaguered nations in the Eurozone –are felt most severely by the younger generation. After enduring the hard yards at university, graduates will not only be saddled with the increasingly punitive costs of tertiary education, but they will also be confronted with tight labour markets and job scarcity. Statistics from the EU present an unflattering average unemployment rate of almost 20 per cent for those aged under 25.

Generation Y - a species often lazily maligned for exhibiting stereotyped traits such as a sense of entitlement and blinding narcissism – will now be marked by a new and equally unflattering trait: austerity. Make no mistake: austerity’s short-term effects will be brutal. Economic growth will be stunted, at least temporarily, while investor confidence in markets will remain uneasy. Experts from the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies in Britain have labelled the combination of tax hikes and welfare cuts as “regressive”, as “on average, they hit the poorest households more than those in the upper middle of the income distribution in cash, let alone percentage, terms”. But it is austerity’s long-term effects which could prove much more damaging. If social spending cuts on education and infrastructure persist, economic output and growth will remain low, ensuring prolonged stagnation of the UK’s economy. And if unemployment persists, the skills of Britain’s labour force will eventually atrophy – as will its competitiveness in the global economy. The costs of remedying these side effects will surely balloon in the future. And what everyone seems to have conveniently forgotten is that the implementation of these measures is based on an extremely risky bet, which assumes these austerity measures will lift Britain out of its recession in the first place.

Unsurprisingly, austerity was named “word of the year” in 2010 by dictionary publishers Merriam-Webster. But for many young people, it is more than just a buzzword. The recognition of austerity’s tangible effects on their lives – as opposed to it being an abstract concept with numbers and statistics – makes its impact all the more depressing and real. Many young Europeans have realised they will find it much harder to achieve the levels of prosperity that was achieved by their parents. They sense that as the retirement age rises across Europe, they will end up working for longer, even though bricks and mortar will – for the majority of Gen Y– remain an impossible dream. Still, perhaps the biggest blow of all is that the future of these youths will be mired by the economic failures of the generation that preceded them; that such severe measures of financial austerity will deny them the opportunity to forge their own social, economic and cultural legacy.

Gillian Terzis has written on economics, politics and pop culture for Foreign Policy, The Jakarta Post, Arena and New Matilda.

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Flood victims feel unlucky they're with AAMI

QUESTION: When is a flood not a flood?Answer: When the insurance company calls it a "rising river".

This is the almost tragi-comic scenario facing Bill and Maria Gilbert after learning this week that their insurance policy does not cover damage from a river bursting its banks.

The Gilberts, who live on a 2ha hobby farm at Bundamba, near Ipswich, had taken out home and contents insurance with AAMI, a subsidiary of Suncorp.

They understood the policy to cover losses from fire, theft and flood. But after initially being told by AAMI over the phone last week "Relax, don't worry, you're covered; we'll look after you", the Gilberts were informed that a flood caused by a "rising river" was not included.

An assessor and a geologist will inspect the house in coming weeks, and a new copy of their policy is in the post after the original was washed away, but the Gilberts are resigned to losing everything.

An AAMI spokesman confirmed to The Australian that, although the coverage extended to damage from flash flooding and stormwater, riverine flooding was excluded. "AAMI does not insure for that sort of flooding; it's as simple as that," he said.

In other words, if the water came through the roof, they'd have been covered. But because it seeped up through the floor, they aren't.

"If you don't laugh, you cry," said Mr Gilbert, a truck driver for the past 29 years.

"I've been fed this crap for bloody days. It wasn't a flood. It was the great rising river of 2011.

"What's the bloody difference? It was raining over 100mm every day; it was bloody teeming down. But the Wivenhoe Dam is open, the river's full, there's nowhere for the water to go, so it floods.

"As far as I knew, I had insurance for fire, theft and flood but they get you on the fine print.

"It's bloody upsetting. We've lost everything, and we're not the only ones."

The Gilberts are living in a shed beside the house's battered remains. They bought the property five years ago for $400,000.

The Gilberts' son-in-law, Michael Heit, who is helping finance the family's recovery and has been dealing with AAMI, said the company had failed to show any duty of care and only the federal government could step in to help.

"At the end of the day, even if they weren't across the detail and the PDS (product disclosure statement) says they're not covered, they're still customers of AAMI who thought they were covered and not once has the company shown any care for them," he said.

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