Oh say, can you see… by the Con’s pearly light…

Oh say, can you say YES MEN and WOMEN?

The rarest of opportunities: a meeting for students with the US Secretary of State, Madam (as they call her) Doctor (as they croon) Condaleeza Rice...

“Who?” Was the response from some pals that I excitedly told. “Oh, is that that Aboriginal Lady on the news about the war?” Yeeeeahhh… that’s her…

Who do I say she is? On one hand, I admire her achievements – as a woman, and as an African-American. Being the cynical tart that I am, however, I can’t help stifling the word “token” with a half-arsed cough. As a feminist (according to my own definition or brand – for that is the fashionable way to be one these days), I’m saddened to observe her masculine methods for achieving such status. She is playing a white man’s game like a white man would play it. Above all else, having finally made the admission to myself that I do have a political persuasion and it is grooving on the left side of the dance-floor, my foremost perception/fear of Connie baby is that she is an EVIL republican (insert chilling climax music).

Basically I love that she’s where she is when she’s who she is, but I lament how she’s there and who she’s WITH!

So after passing Fed Police screenings to be here, tearing oneself away from the more engaging protest outside (I made it through in one piece, unlike Howard-puppet-Ackerman) it was all very surreal. Every model of police were there – mounted, motorbike, sniffers, porkers*, patrol car, on-foot and, I assume, undercover. I realised the “seriousness” of the whole affair as I handed my bag over, the cloak-room attendant asking if I had a mobile phone on my person, as they were not to be brought in.

“What?” I replied “But how am I supposed to detonate the bomb then?”

Hmmmm. What an icy look! Chuckling on the inside and congratulating myself on what a funny guy I was, I decided “Mrs-serious-face” was gonna hafta get some mileage.

Amongst the Independence Day vibe from suited men lacking necks I milled into the Sydney Uni Conservatorium Hall. The usher handed me a fabulous lapel pin, which I shall treasure till my dying day, depicting the US and Australian flags, flying side by side in a coalition of the killing. The card was an official welcome to Ms Rice’s “Remarks on Foreign Policy”. Why did the remarks have no adjective? Was it like the late-night ABC comedy “Tracey takes on…”? Or maybe more “Debbie does Dallas”?

Even the set-up of the room was desperate. Note the textbook hierarchy of NSW unis depicted:

In the end only 20 Newie students went, though we had 36 places. UWS only got 2 rows of seats, even less than us… The Mel Gibson in me ticked over about why that was so (search: shit movies of all time + ‘conspiracy theory’).

The bile really got dancing when one of Sydney Uni’s VC’s got up to welcome the woman herself. He described the origins of her name:

“When she came into the world, her parents were inspired by the musical term con dolcezza, meaning ‘with sweetness’”

>>Insert pint-sized piece of barf-burger<<

He then roused us with the prospect that she would “no only bring sweetness, but light to the topic of US Foreign policy in Australia.”

I smirked at the notion that an esteemed academic’s “poetry” was indistinguishable from that of a Daily Telly gobshite.

Then the dragon emerged to rapturous applause.

And so, we embarked upon a horrid journey exploring the closeness of Australia and US, the importance of “friends”, the necessity of war, the changing climate of trade. In reference to her visit she said

“You must call on friends before you need them, so they are there when you need them”.

The appreciating nods angered me as I felt she had, in a nutshell, expressed why the US keeps us close in all the wrong ways. The F-word is about keeping us placated until they need us! And this, her THIRD attempt at calling on us *before she needs us! [Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t they already using us? Or was that war in Iraq thing just a movie I saw?]

She didn’t want “to talk at us”, she wanted a bloody “dialogue”, i.e. a largely scripted question time, concealed as an opportunity to engage with students. No tricky q’s from the media or any resistance forces from the list of non-fans this woman has accrued.

She suggested we were an alliance of peoples… for reasons of political values and culture. She demonstrated our similarities through our *love* (ahem) of contact sports. I was interested that this didn’t extend to our common rising levels of obesity, our creeping fusion of Christianity and the state, our racism and fear of the foreign, our interesting budgetary balance where welfare recipients fund war and our inability to locate terrorists when they’re holding our top government positions.

Enter stage left: two fantastic young Novocastrians with a plan. If you watched the news you know who they are, I won’t name them without permission, but I’m sure they’ll reveal themselves if the suspense is killing you. Anyway, my eyelids were drooping 10 min into Connie’s drool, when up jumped the swagmen beside me:

“Condaleeza Rice Iraqi blood is on your hands and you can never wash it away”

YES!!!!!  Hope is restored that this is not just a crooning fanclub! Our second star arises to join in the chorus and the security swoop in for the kill. I despair as the other people around me tut tut, with murmurs of ‘inappropriate’ and ‘why did they have to do go and do that?’ - questions I thought were equally fitting to be asked of US foreign policy decisions in Iraq!!!!

Anyway, thumbs up to you kids!

As our friends exit stage right-wing-silence, Connie inserts her pre-constructed one-liner for dissenters, used also by Georgie-Porgie on his last visit:

“It’s great to see democracy is alive and well in Australia”

I suddenly realised the purpose of our lapel pin, but was too paralysed with revolt to stab it into my own eye. I despair that “democracy alive and well” sees these two peaceful voices dragged out of sight and mind.

But wait, there’s more

“And I am happy that such democracy now has a voice in the Universities of Kabul and Baghdad”

The crowd went wild!!! Mayday, mayday. I swear they only set this whole uni talk up so she could throw in that line, and then buff and polish her finger nails on her own chest.

She discussed our willing assistance to US causes. Re: Sept 11- according to Connie “our tragedy was your tragedy”. She drew a less distinct line about how their illegit war became ours.

She discussed her life in Alabama, the racism she endured and the difficulty she had in believing in democracy. I wanted to ask her how she felt about being responsible for the new racial segregation emerging in the West against middle Eastern Australians, Americans, Brits… as a direct result of the fear-mongering of her administration. But alas, no Newie students got to ask questions.

On that point, damn all of you who asked pissy polite questions about “how the US intends to win the war” and “ how she sees Australia and US working together in the region” (paraphrased)

Big, phat High-Fives to those who put it on the table:

“How do you feel about the fact that more than 60% of Aussies think your policies, esp regarding the war, are shit-house?” (again, paraphrasing)

To this Connie’s long-winded response involved the statement “we know it’s not stable now, but was it any more stable before?” Now on that logic, I see the door to Iran has just swung right open, with a glowing Neon sign saying “Infidels Come On In “ flickering.

‘Abu-Ghraib was a disgrace, but Guantanamo is a “necessity”’ was another corker. She suggested that “you don’t have the luxury of legal obligations… waiting until they commit the crime” with those in Guantanamo such as David Hicks. “By then innocents will be hurt.” As I said, she kind of provides the critique herself… I don’t really need to point out the flaws in imprisoning the innocent to preserve democratic freedoms. In saying one sacrificed is better than thousands, she uproots the basic tenets of liberal democracy and the primary reason we hold the “presumption of innocence” so dear. Whoops, I criticised it anyway.

May I suggest Connie, that if you want to protect innocent civilians, you lock up that President of yours?

There were a few great q’s, and Connie’s responses were all pretty Baker’s Delight pull-apart easy. It was glorious that the last question of the day followed

“You’ve mentioned freedom and democracy many times in your address today. Could you explain how these are demonstrated in your restrictive Patriot Act, Australia’s new sedition laws and Guantanamo Bay?”

Another spiel about the difficult, necessary elements of law-making in democracy ensued but “the most important thing was that they were ‘transparent’” about doing it. As long as the people see you screwing them its cool. And in Guantanamo they have many freedoms, they are allowed to pray, for example. I find it interesting that she thinks they could stop anyone from praying. Sure, they could stop the physical movements of some creeds, but no one’s cutting in on that direct line between your soul and whatever god you’re subscribing to. Then again, Georgie is “in” with upstairs…

Of course she said more than I have stated here, mostly party-line waffle. I can understand that of course she’s not going to give us any real low-down like who Cheney’s sleeping with (who the HELL would sleep with Cheney indeed - besides big business of course). But it was a source of despair that even after saying nothing she exited to massive applause, and was bestowed with a bloody Usyd football jumper as a token of thanks. *Sigh*

I watched the news, the 7:30 report, her promo-gigs, where she used identical phrases to those she had answered student questions with. I heard people discussing how astutely she responded the tough questions. Having predicted Australian questions and prepared answers accordingly, I thought she would have defended the American govt foreign policies more sufficiently than she did!

I know I haven’t portrayed her sweetness so well. Believe me, there was a lot of sugar-coating going down! But I couldn’t stomach it. It was sickly sweet, the kind you can’t swallow without a good gulp of something intoxicating to numb the senses.

At least I got the opportunity to hurl it all up here, and bring some “light” to the topic of Condaleeza’s ambiguous remarks on nothing too in-depth.

Where’s that bloody pin?

*Porkers being a tongue-in-cheek comment, not a suggestion that law enforcement were actually engaging in ham-based practices. And not that I’m dissing those who DO frequently engage in ham-based practices… thank you.