Vegetarian History final

So vegetarian history buffs the final version of my history of Australian vegetarianism is from yesterday free online at the International Vegetarian Union website at http://www.ivu.org/history/australia/index.html
Not wanting to sound too pompous, but I have tried to make some progress in vegetarianism and animal rights in this country in various ways, useless as it sometimes may seem. However, now I'm done with it as I'm maybe done with the country. So next year in Jerusalem as they say.

So what are the things that stand out in Australia's history, the first is that Australia has for long and still does kill, trade and eat animals out of all proportion to the rest of the world. Secondly, vegetarianism has always been a struggle, first for things to eat, it is amazing to think how hard it was to get even the most basic of foods like vegetables for at least the first 150 years of white settlement, (for instance it took US administration during WW2 for a reasonable system of fruit production and distribution to be brought about (the US needed fruit for its soldiers in the Pacific)) the second is how much antipathy there has been to vegetarians and for so long, in the press, in business and in parliament. The meat industry has many friends and much money, even today it is seen as quite acceptable for television adverts for dead sheep products (video here) to denounce vegetarianism as un-Australian - but in truth that is exactly what it is, profoundly so. Australia is the least vegetarian of all western nations; it eats the most meat and is consequently the fattest nation on earth (it recently won this from the Americans). The most prominent vegetarians were always foreign born settlers from Europe (mainly Britain) they tried appealing to peoples sense of decency, and when that failed tried to use arguments of better health, but always with the same result. Even today looking around at the grass roots of many vegetarian or animal rights organisations, you will find still a predominance of the non-Australian born. It used to be just Europeans, but since the 1970s now happily there are growing numbers of Asian vegetarians also. In fact every vegetarian restaurant I know in Australia is run by Indian or Vietnamese vegetarians. It was for long the case that vegetarians that came to Australia facing the traditional dietary opposition gave up their diet, today I hope that isn't still the case. Though however I did read a report on Korean vegetarian immigrants, which found that since migration to Australia most have adopted the Australian diet.
So what future for Australia, well maybe the knowledge that meat eating is the largest cause of greenhouse gases may do some good, but realistically I know that no great change will happen, but I am least consoled that in future not living here, I won't have the day to day slaughter of animals thrust in my face.

Article 'Living with Animals'

I have an article in Online Opinion at http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=7007

It discusses Australians relationships with animals. A segment thus:

'Australia, from all the evidence, is at war with its animals. It is an unceasing slaughter unprecedented anywhere else and it continues with public support and participation. It is no exaggeration to say that most interactions between Australians and animals that share the land, including domesticated animals, involves some violence or ends with an animal being killed and/or eaten.'

Wikipedia mania

Being just a little bit of a Librarian, in the past I have edited (mainly for typos) and created records on Wikipedia. I have also defended it and the accuracy of its contents and even donated money to it.

So with a cheery heart, when I came across the Wikipedia entry for the last Australian federal election and finding that it failed to mention at all the very strong impact in the campaign of the Internet, YouTube, social networking, Kevin07 etc. I thought I would add a few sentences (thinking myself somewhat of an expert in the area). So I add away only to find next day it's deleted, with a note saying it's opinion and needs editing. OK thinks I and edits it and posts again. Once more it's gone the next day. I wouldn't mind but the entry is already full of crap - i.e listing all the presenters of the tv coverage on election night - as though that's important in an encyclopedia.

So I won't obviously bother again. However the problem is that this is happening increasingly. Some self appointed editors see fit to demark a page of their interest or that they have created and disallow anything they feel like. The strength of Wikipedia it seems to me is that anyone can add and edit. So one person writes something, someone else edits, someone else adds some more etc. This is great as through many people working on an entry it becomes distilled and a better entry. However what we have now is a situation where someone writes something, and then some busybody deletes it, so no editing, no refining by others, it either is approved and stays or is gone.

This is particularly the case with Australian entries. For some 'cultural cringe' reasons Australian busybodies seem to crawl all over Australian entries, creating, deleting and generally worrying that Australia isn't being represented well enough. I can't think which other country would be so pathetically obsessed with what other people think of them. As though Wikipedia was the sole medium through which Australia is represented.

The upshot is, if you want to write anything new on Wikipedia about Australia, don't add to an entry, start a new one, or don't write about Australia, which is what I'll be doing.

Election 2007

My view of how political parties used the Internet during the last federal election is at:

http://www.nla.gov.au/nla/staffpaper/2007/documents/Election2007.pdf