Veterans Affairs Minister Alan Griffin opened the Nambang exhibition at the Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre with a self-deprecating remark about his understanding of ‘art’ which was not helped by a slight colour-blindness affliction! I was one of many who shared his sentiments. Griffin, who is shaping up to be one of the most effective Veterans Affairs Ministers we have had for some time, said he found some of the displays ‘confronting’ but passed no judgement. ‘Art’ is in the mind of the beholder.
A large rally of protesters waving Republic of Vietnam flags was an early indication of the veracity of the Ministers observations.
A traditional ‘burning of the dog’ ceremony was interesting and well received. Viewing a display by the son of a Vietnam Veteran, Sean Gladwell, was a highlight. His father Mark, is an old friend and it was great to catch up with him after many years. He had many demons to fight after the war.
I was transfixed on the haunting Image of a Dead Man by Ron Beattie. I have seen that jacket on many vets over the years. I moved past the paintings depicting the communist North Vietnamese stories and wondered if that was what the protest rally was about. I found them interesting and saw nothing in them that could offend.
I later realised it was what they didn’t depict that was offensive.
I then moved up to the largest, most visible wall that seemed to display cartoons of the war – a bit of light relief depicting our Diggers humour in Vietnam no doubt. Wrong. The entire wall was a crude, humourless, offensive display against John Howard.
What the hell has this got to do with the Vietnam War I thought? I knew the exhibition was about the aftermath of Vietnam but lampooning John Howard’s commitment to the war against terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan is a long bow. ‘George W Bush needed an ape without a brain. An ape who would sell his soul to the devil himself . . . you miserable bastard selfish prick’ captioned a farting John Howard swinging from a tree with one hand and holding a banana in the other. It got worse.
The artist was obviously deranged. I believe the curator erred by allowing his offensive bile to be put on public display. I would certainly not classify it as ‘art’.
Another display depicting the American soldier in Vietnam was equally ‘confronting’. ‘He went over there, ripped her clothes off, and took a knife and cut her vagina almost all the way up, just about to her breast, and pulled her organs out, completely out of her cavity, and threw them away. Then he stooped and knelt over and commenced to peel every bit of skin off her body and left her there . . . as a sign of something or other’.
‘Wait a minute’, I thought. ‘What about the atrocities committed by the Communists against the South Vietnamese to ‘encourage’ them to join the Viet Cong? ‘
And what about the great work of our Uc-Dai-Loi [Australian]Civic Action Teams?
And why display the worst of the American atrocities? Obviously because there is no evidence of any Australian atrocities committed. At least the American perpetrators were publicly exposed and dealt with under their democratic system. Communists don’t have such a system – they just shoot the whistle-blowers! It’s a fundamental difference between communist and democratic societies.
The Communist atrocities have obviously been airbrushed from the exhibition. Now I was beginning to understand the reasons for the rally outside.
Communist ‘re-education camps’ are also a serious aftermath of the war for many Vietnamese living in Australia. A number of ‘graduates’ bearing the physical and emotional scars of years of torture in these camps feel betrayed by the exhibition. Some were standing quietly in the rally against the exhibition.
So back to John Howard. If they were going to lampoon him, what about Gough Whitlam?
Cabinet papers released over recent years reveal the extent to which Whitlam went to appease the Communist government in North Vietnam. Whitlam would not allow Vietnamese refugees or ‘boat people’ to come to Australia. He even betrayed the Vietnamese who worked for our embassy. “Locally engaged [Vietnamese] embassy staff are not to be regarded as endangered by their Australian embassy associations and therefore should not, repeat not, be granted entry to Australia,” was the shameful instruction he sent just before the fall of Saigon.
After Whitlam’s dismissal Liberal Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser reversed that inhumane decision and provided safe-haven for thousands of Vietnamese refugees, or ‘asylum seekers’ in today’s parlance. John Howard was a key member of the Fraser government when that decision was made.
If it was not for Malcolm Fraser and John Howard there would not be a Vietnamese community in Australia. There would not be any ‘aftermath’ from the Vietnamese artists to display. This is not depicted in the Nam Bang exhibition.
I am not an art critic and I tried to keep an open mind about the exhibition and what it was supposed to represent. But I left with the strong feeling that the exhibition was a crude front for communist sympathisers, Islamic apologists and Howard haters. Association with the war in Vietnam gives them a perverted relevance they would never otherwise have.
Tags: John Howard, Veterans, Vietnam
