We knew we were naughty... but that naughty?
Boy, oh boyo, are we embarrassed – or what?
Being Bugs, you'll have to take our word for it that we're all very
red-faced in the Bug office at the moment.
Brightly red-faced, in fact, from embarrassment – nay, make that humiliation–
now that the real reason has finally come to light why our Thighs Wide
Shut issue was banned from the University of Queensland campus.
Regular readers of Australia's No 1 family netzine and street entertainment
paper will recall that some months ago, the University of Queensland Union
wrote to say we were no longer welcome on campus because our content had
contravened their policy against racist, homophobic and sexist material
(for the background to that particular humiliation, visit our Banned
by Qld Uni issue).
Our publication was never, ever to darken the portals of that great tertiary
institution never, ever again, chief campus censor, UofQU vice-president,
Carol Humber thundered in an aggressive e-mail which left us with very hurt
feelers indeed.
But not any more.
We now view Carol's stance in a new light, seeing that her colleague and
University of Queensland Union secretary, Ms Alissa Macoun, has finally
explained the error of our ways. Not to us, mind. Just the rest of Australia.
Alissa told a national radio audience a few Mondays back why her union executive
committee had unanimously found the banned issue of the Bug to be
offensive.
"Was it the cartoon breast?" Sam, the Triple J interviewer from
Sydney asked Alissa.
"No, we have no problems at all with nudity .... or any of that sort
of stuff," replied Alissa.
"It was just, um, the way she's looking into the distance so obviously
dazed and not paying attention."
BECAUSE SHE'S LOOKING INTO THE DISTANCE SO OBVIOUSLY DAZED AND NOT PAYING ATTENTION!
So there it is, Buggers, our indiscretion has been laid bare to a national-wide
audience of young Australians.
Alissa has thrown us into a boiling pot of unanswerable condemnation. We
have been peeled bare of our hard shell of indifference to decent standards
of morality. Stripped bare and our disgrace complete, we are left a quivering
mess of jellied meat that's not even worthy of calling itself food for thoughtful
people.
BECAUSE SHE'S LOOKING INTO THE DISTANCE SO OBVIOUSLY DAZED AND NOT PAYING
ATTENTION!
If we at The Bug had commissioned our artist to draw the same cartoon
but with Nicole looking deeply intoTom's eyes, moaning like a cheap whore,
pouting her ruby-red lips, wiggling her cute little arse and whispering:
Stick me with that Cruise missile right now, Big Boy!" everything would
supposedly have been okay by Alissa, Carol and the other nutless, gutless
wonders that make up the University of Queensland Union executive committee.
To be fair to Alissa, she did go on to say that the banning of The
Bug was a minor issue for the union's executive. "To be really
honest, I think students generally have a whole lot better things to do,"
she said.
That's right, Alissa. Carol. The others on the UofQU executive.
Banning The Bug is nothing compared to the task of holding your campus,
the tertiary institution you attend and all your fellow students up to absolute,
Australia-wide ridicule.
Not a word back from the campus censors.....
It's now been two months since we wrote the following letter to the
University of Queensland Union.
They have not had the decency to reply.
11 September, 1999
The President,
University of Queensland Union,
University of Queensland,
St Lucia,
Qld. 4072.
Dear President,
I have today (Saturday) read an e-mail from a Ms Carol Humber, claiming to be the vice-president of your union (copy enclosed).
In it, Ms Humber states that the latest issue of our publication, The Bug, has been deemed to be racist, sexist and homophobic and that permission for the newspaper’s distribution on university campuses or union premises has been withdrawn.
At first, we thought the e-mail, with its unfounded, illogical and amazingly un-university-like over-reaction to our publication, was a practical joke.
But if it isn’t, please mail to us urgently on UQU letterhead the union’s official notification of the banning of our publication from locations under UQU control, including:
• Details of the relevant sections of the UQU constitution or by-laws or relevant sections of the University of Queensland Act or its regulations under which a ban was supposedly instituted;
• The legal grounds on which a supposed ban might apply to future editions of The Bug;
• Minutes of the UQU meeting at which our most recent publication was deemed to be sexist, racist and homophobic;
• Details of the particular words, illustrations, articles or sections of the recent edition of The Bug which the UQU decided contravened its policy on racist, sexist and homophobic material;
• A hard-copy of that policy; and
• Written descriptions of those areas of the University of Queensland’s various campuses under UQU control to which a ban might apply.
In addition - and as universities are supposedly bastions of the principle of natural justice - we also request an urgent written response to the following:
• Did the relevant UQU meeting at which a supposed ban was instituted or any union officer or staff member seek to extend to publishers of The Bug an opportunity to respond to allegations of racist, sexist or homophobic content?
• When and how contact was made or attempted to be made with me or anyone associated with The Bug to discuss a possible ban;
• Were bundles of The Bug which had been delivered to various University of Queensland campuses confiscated, by whom and on whose instruction, and if so:
• Where can we pick up those copies of the newspaper for re-distribution, either to other areas of the university not under UQU control or off-campus?
Editions of The Bug are not cheap to produce and I will be very angry if the copies placed in good faith at campus outlets have been destroyed by anyone with a distorted and totally misguided view of what constitutes sexist, racist or homophobic material or, even worse, by someone who has taken a unilateral decision on what students or other adults should or should not read.
If still available, those papers will be distributed on or near the campus for the benefit of the thousands of University of Queensland students and staff who have enjoyed The Bug without a single protest over the past 10 years.
Please supply the above information to me at P.O. Box 696, Fortitude Valley. Q. 4006.
An urgent response is sought as our soon-to-be-published next issue of The Bug (Monday 20 September) will address this apparent ban, and what it might indicate about the role of universities and organisations such as the UQU which are meant to be clearing houses for divergent or emerging views and bastions of the right to free speech.
That said, I and those associated with The Bug, disagree vehemently
with Ms Humber’s view that its publishers and writers are
racist, sexist or homophobic or that the words we use and the articles we
publish could inflame any reasonable person to racist, sexist or homophobic
views.
Yours sincerely,
Don Gordon-Brown
Publisher
