Well, here we have my old mate Hugh Jarvis, the guy responsible for the first anthropologist (myself) being denied access to ANTHRO-L, now crying over one of his fellow Americans being the first to be denied tenure at an Australian University.

Sorry, UWA is my own turf, Hugh. I know very well what problems there are associated with the Anthropology Department there (now including the Archaeology Department), but I am also well aware of the wider social and political issues associated with our discipline here in Western Australia centrally focussed around Aboriginal Affairs.

The first matter I would raise in comment here, is the very public difference between myself and Dr Rhindos on the matter of categories in Aboriginal culture, played out on this very news.group. In that case Dr Rhindos quite openly attempted to discredit my own lifetime's experience with Aboriginal people on the basis of his one phone call apparently to an outstation!

I have met the man myself, and my impression is that his entire career has been built not on field research at all, but on his ability to berate and bully all and sundry on the logic of his own evolutionary theories. In the local pub, drinking and chain-smoking all the while for that matter.

Secondly, and this is rumour passed to me by several reputable and long-standing Western Australian anthropologists as to Dr Rhindos' "Puppy Parties" focussed I am told on a local boy they called "Puppy". Hmm, strange dicey behaviour indeed, especially here in an environment dominated by conservative fundamentalists.

Thirdly, and far more substantially, there are extremely serious questions arising here concerning an ongoing political campaign here against the Anthropology Department, most notably targetting the department's long-standing support for Aboriginal Land Rights against powerful international mining lobbies. This particular episode comes of great interest right in the midst of our national debate over the effects of the High Court's finding last year in favour of Eddie Mabo.

I am sorry Hugh, but if someone for whom I might have a little more respect than yourself had posted what you did, I would have hesitated to post my own reply to your scurrilous attack on the University of Western Australia, I can only imagine prompted by powerful vested interests lacking the guts and the integrity to come out and speak honestly on important issues deeply affecting Western Australia. If you are on their payroll, I detest your involvement in this matter; if you are not on their payroll I can only assume you are a complete fool.

As has been Dr Rhindos, apparently believing that since he is an American he is somehow immune from the criticism of his non-American colleagues in *their* country.

In the meantime your hysteria, in my case earlier when you decided unilaterally to deny me access to ANTHRO-L, and in this present case now, does not in any way bring you credibility.

The rest of you professors, lecturers, staff, students, professionals and sundry lurkers and lookers-on, I do ask that yoy think critically about what is going on here. Please be a little more intelligent than to be swayed by grossly exaggerated and one-sided campaigns by a media to which only one party has ready access. Please think about which powerful politicians and vested interests might be behind this whole business.

Please think that the real victims are the Aboriginal people here.

Thank you.

Gil Hardwick                  AARNet: gil@tillage.DIALix.oz.au
Derby/West Kimberley, WA                    (Remote via laptop)
* Anthropological Research - Sustainable Community Development 
  * Land Management Consultation - Permaculture Design *