David Jones, artist and poet (1895-1974) begins his PREFACE TO THE ANATHEMATA :

'I have made a heap of all that I could find.' (1) So wrote Nennius, or whoever composed the introductory matter to Historia Brittonum. He speaks of an 'inward wound' which was caused by the fear that certain things dear to him 'should be like smoke dissipated'. Further, he says, 'not trusting my own learning, which is none at all, but partly from writings and monuments of the ancient inhabitants of Britain, partly from the annals of the Romans and the chronicles of the sacred fathers, Isidore, Hieronymous, Prosper, Eusebius and from the histories of the Scots and Saxons although our enemies . . . I have lispingly put together this . . . about past transactions, that [this material] might not be trodden under foot'. (2)

(1) The actual words are coacervavi omne quod inveni, and occur in Prologue 2 to the Historia.
(2) Quoted from the translation of Prologue 1. See The Works of Gildas and Nennius, J.A.Giles, London 1841.


25 October 2011

Sire, the peasants are revolting.

.
On the evening of Sept 12, 2000 your correspondent was standing with many others outside the fence around the World Economic Forum (Melbourne) when the police suddenly baton charged us.

Beating Up :
A Report on Police Batons and the News Media at the World Economic Forum, Melbourne, September 2000
( read article here )
by Dr. Bernard Barrett, Historian. Forwarded to the Office of the Ombudsman, Victoria, 15 November 2000

Investigation of police action at the World Economic Forum : Ombudsman's Report ( read Report here )

See videos here

Watching these videos and revisiting the media from that time shows how much there is in common between the attitudes and actions around the 2000 WEF/S11 protests and the OCCUPY protests now. For all the players, little has changed.

Melbourne's mayor, Robert Doyle, has described the Occupy Melbourne protesters as "self-righteous, narcissist, self-indulgent rabble''. It was he who sent the police against them. He who watched from the Town Hall (see photo below, from today's AGE article Doyle faces council row on eviction). As with the S11 protests, when then Labor State Premier Steve Bracks supported the actions of the police and denigrated the protesters, this time Liberal State Premier Ted Baillieu did the same, praising the police from the same set script. (And today the Baillieu Government has announced the police will receive the large pay increase they've been lobbying for.)

In response to our OCCUPY/OCCUPATION (Get a job!) blog (here), we were delighted this morning to receive from a reader the spot-on image of 'diverse stakeholders' shown below. On the weekend we were discussing with a young Melbourne artist the ongoing influence of the 1968 National Gallery of Victoria exhibition The Field. ('Groundbreaking' is how one website describes it.)

Theatre of the Actors of Regard
presents





detail
A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
someone looks at something ...

LOGOS/HA HA
(Triumph of the Figure over The Field
after Tomasso Siciliano's
The Triumph of Christianity over Paganism
-1585-)