Immolation and the Idiot box: The 'political gimmick' and the Vietnam War in Australia

At first glance, the selected archival material conjures images of an Australian workforce opposed to conscription and the Vietnam War. Calls to “burn a draft card”, “protest now”, and “organise a job meeting on Vietnam” would suggest radical opposition to the war, were it not trade unions that dispensed the message. The strategic position unions have in the economy meant they could have seriously damaged the war effort through sanctions, strikes, and industrial sabotage. Yet these tactics were seldom used outside smaller unions like the WWF.[1] To appease vastly conflicting factions, the ACTU opted to incentivise symbolic forms of resistance. They emphasised songs, draft card burnings, and organised protest – actions that, while radical, shifted the burden of responsibility off official bodies onto individuals.

The hesitancy to strike was not merely a political sidestep – the effectiveness of symbolic resistance had burgeoned in the 1960’s for a number of reasons. Importantly, ‘The Press’ evolved into ‘media’ with the advent of television. Novel, symbolic, and disruptive acts attracted the most media attention and could therefore be used to influence the limits of public discourse. Secondly, disillusionment with post-war individualism caused youth experimentation and radicalism to skyrocket – which only accelerated when they became expected to risk death in a war widely held to be unimportant and unjust. These factors not only expanded the number of individuals willing to undertake symbolic political resistance but facilitated the translation of their message to the wider public – granting symbolic resistance a greater purchase on the governments it was meant to influence.

The ACTU and relevant unions adjusted their strategy accordingly. They called on individual workers to contribute to these new forms of public discourse if they so chose – to organise meetings, burn their draft cards, or assemble posters and protests critical of the government.[2] In short, unions circumvented the pressure to strike by calling for workers as individuals (but not the membership as a whole) to supplement the eye-grabbing protests of burgeoning youth movements with symbolic action of their own.

The extent of trade union opposition to the war depended on a swathe of internal political factors. In Australia, the war in Vietnam was opposed generally - particularly after the Holt government re-introduced conscription in 1964.[3] Radical left-wing unions had struck against the war, but pressure from conservative or indifferent unions barred the ACTU from developing these strikes into an Australia-wide phenomenon; “The ACTU quickly made clear that it supported the aims but not the methods of the left-wing trade unions.”[4]

Traditionally, trade unions as a whole did not strike on political issues, particularly those regarding peace.[5] The exceptions tended to be smaller, radical, and communist-led unions with spectacular cohesion among workers - in general, industrial concerns outstripped political ones where strikes were concerned.[6] The “Peace is trade union business” on the bottom of flyer 2 could be the slogan of the Amalgamated Engineering Union committee in print only.[7] Presiding over an array of indifferent or pro-war unions, the ACTU was unwilling to commit to a sustained campaign of opposition to the war in Vietnam, and actively “condemned the actions of maritime unions which […] brought commerce between the US and Australia to a temporary halt.”[8] Ironically, the ACTU only approved strike action after the ceasefire was signed on 27 January 1973, ensuring that it would never have to put its claims into practice.[9]

What is archived overlaps with what has attracted media coverage for several reasons. What is covered is generally novel, political, and illustrative of the time. But, more importantly, press materials are easily archivable: photographs and print are widely distributed, catalogued and preserved – and are generally privileged as a form of evidence.[10] In the words of Sarah Maza: “history is built upon silence [..,] every story unfolds at the expense of others left untold or buried under layers of other narratives.”[11] No Vietnamese people were mentioned in the archive collection I consulted (besides the song that the unions sourced from the Ballarat Courier).[12] Although this could have resulted admittedly limited research, the anti-war arguments made in the pamphlets are articulated purely in terms of Australian blood. Across all three pamphlets, there was no mention of Vietnamese victims, American aggression, or the righteousness of the war. The slogan “Peace is trade union business” could signify anti-war pacifism, or, conversely, self-interest: the war concerned unions insofar as they were affected by it.

At the time, the argument went that Aboriginals lacked the privileges of Australian citizenship and were ergo exempt from the responsibilities – conscription being one of them.[13] Despite the removal of obstacles to Aboriginal franchise in all states bar Queensland when conscription re-surfaced in 1964, there remained considerable barriers to indigenous participation in society.[14] Each state had a different definition of ‘Aborigine’, and their exclusion from the census until 1971 meant that ascertaining their numbers was difficult if not impossible.[15]

Government officials were concerned that the two causes (Aboriginal rights and anti-war protest) would converge.[16] On the one hand, the government was being pressured to remove its ‘discriminatory exemption’ of Aboriginals by “Aboriginal groups, sections of the Country Party and the Returned Services League.”[17] On the other, “it would doubtless be said that the Government had now reached the stage where it was calling up Aborigines to fight in Vietnam”.[18]

[1] Saunders – The trade unions in Australia and opposition to Vietnam and conscription, 66

[2] Flyer 1

[3] Mark Peel, a history of Australia, 222

[4] Saunders – The trade unions in Australia and opposition to Vietnam and conscription, 65

[5] Saunders – The trade unions in Australia and opposition to Vietnam and conscription, 79

[6] Saunders – The trade unions in Australia and opposition to Vietnam and conscription, 79

[7] Flyer 2

[8] Saunders – The trade unions in Australia and opposition to Vietnam and conscription, 79

[9] Saunders – The trade unions in Australia and opposition to Vietnam and conscription, 78

[10] Burton, Archive fever, archive stories, 8

[11] Maza, Archives, 151

[12] Pamphlet 1

[13] Jordens – An Administrative nightmare: Aboriginal Conscription 1965-72, 124

[14] Jordens – An Administrative nightmare: Aboriginal Conscription 1965-72, 125

[15] Jordens – An Administrative nightmare: Aboriginal Conscription 1965-72, 127

[16] Jordens – An Administrative nightmare: Aboriginal Conscription 1965-72, 131

[17] Jordens – An Administrative nightmare: Aboriginal Conscription 1965-72, 130

[18] Jordens – An Administrative nightmare: Aboriginal Conscription 1965-72, 131