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Obituary: James (Jim) Ford Cairns, PhD (1914 - 2003)
by Takver
Thursday October 16, 2003 at 12:46 AM
Antiwar and social change activist, policeman, academic, parliamentarian, counter cultural theorist.
cairns-14feb03_peacerally_photo_by_peter_davis.jpg, image/jpeg, 500x769
Photo: Jim Cairns at peace rally, Valentine’s Day – Melbourne 2003 © Peter Davis
On Sunday 12 October Jim Cairns, former policeman, academic, Labor politician, anti-war activist, Deputy Prime Minister, and countercultural activist and theorist, died at home at the age of 89. Jim Cairns will be remembered for his idealism and his commitment to social change using different strategies over his life.
Dr Cairns was a senior lecturer in economic history at the University of Melbourne before standing for Parliament. He was a Member of the House of Representatives from 1955 to 1977 and served as Deputy Prime Minister and Federal Treasurer from 1974 to 1975.
On the 8th May 1970 Jim Cairns led 100,000 people through the streets of Melbourne in a peaceful protest against the Vietnam war. Tens of thousands of people marched in other cities around Australia. The Vietnam Moratorium movement was the culmination of several years of anti-war agitation. The Moratorium movement acted to legitimate street protests - the right of people to peacefully occupy and reclaim the streets as an act of protest.
In 1976 Jim Cairns was the primary initiator for the first Down to Earth Confest held at the Cotter River in Canberra. Bob James describes the organising of the event:
"Somewhere in there I ran into Karen Rush, an aide to Jim Cairns who was looking for a local Canberra group to provide logistical support for an idea he had. After he and I had talked, 'Alternative Canberra' became the co-ordinating group in the run-up to the first Down to Earth Confest. I've often laughed about going to meetings in No 2 Caucus Room, in the old Parliament House, straight from 'the farm', and deciding we'd go just as we were. The security guards knew exactly who we were and said nothing as we walked up the steps, sometimes in just our 'Halleluja hats', underpants, t-shirts and big rubber boots."
http://www.takver.com/history/journey.htm
Dr Graham St John, from his thesis: 'Alternative Cultural Heterotopia:
ConFest as Australia's Marginal Centre' elaborates further:
"In 1976, preceding his retirement from federal politics the following year, Cairns produced a manifesto: 'The Theory of the Alternative'. The document encapsulated his ideas about, and intentions for, cultural revolution, and as far as later developments were concerned, it was embryonic. In it, Cairns revealed his principal aim: 'to transform society and bring an end to alienation, oppression, exploitation and inequality' (1976:16). 'Survival now [Cairns stated] requires a radical break with the past; it demands a future which has to be created. Survival demands a revolution in the way of life of everyone' (ibid:3). The necessary radical elision would be achieved in four stages. 1) 'Cultural preparation or consciousness raising'. 2) 'Building up radical groups or alternative enclaves of all kinds based on real needs of the people'. 3) 'The development of a community for change, of a peoples' liberation movement, with the capacity to challenge the structure of authority'. 4) 'The radical groups or alternative enclaves [would] take over as self-governing and regulating communities and replace the bureaucracy and machinery of the centralised, nation-State'"
http://www.confest.org/thesis/threephaseone.html
The second confest was held in December 1977 at Bredbo and was attended by 15,000 people. The land was bought, ostensibly 'in trust', but then ensued a long and sometimes bitter fight over its management, occupation and ownership and control. By 1981 Cairns was no longer involved in Down to Earth Confest organisation, although he did attend some Confests organised by the Victorian Down to Earth Co-operative in the early 1980s to give workshops.
Cairns recently publicly admitted his sexual relationship with Junie Morosi, who he employed as his private secretary and office manager in 1974. The real issue is the level of vilification and moral outrage employed by the media in 1975. This provided one of the pretexts for Whitlam to sack him from his post as Treasurer.
Sunday Nights With John Cleary - 15/09/2002 - Keeper of the Faith - Jim Cairns Speaks Out
http://www.abc.net.au/sundaynights/stories/s677179.htm
The corporate media and many of his parliamentary colleagues castigated him for his relationship with Junie Morosi. Yet Cairns also remained committed to his wife, Gwen (who predeceased him), and family. The ability to form a multiplicity of relationships should be valued for what they can give to people, in drawing out their human potential. This is a lesson Cairns demonstrated and many people are still to learn, the power of love and openness to loving.
Valerie Yule, who knew Cairns from his Melbourne University and Moratorium days and beyond, comments:
"Cairns saw his relationship with Junie Morosi as 'loving' - which included sexual but not primarily. He thought it a big social problem that people were scared of loving. It is a comment on our country that he was criticised so strongly for being 'idealistic'."
For many years he could be found outside the various community markets around Melbourne behind a small table selling his self-produced books.
On February 14, 2003, Jim Cairns, who led 100,000 people through the streets of Melbourne against the Vietnam War on 8 May 1970, was on the street again against the war and invasion of Iraq in a crowd numbering up to 200,000 people. Read the report by Peter Davis, a Melbourne writer and photographer, on Jim Cairns at this rally. (See Photo at the top, reproduced with permission.)
http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/articles/0306davis.html
Jim Cairns embodied the original idealism that established the Labor Party. Too few of its representatives have lived up to the founding ideals and been willing to champion them. Jim Cairns was willing to explore different avenues for enhancing community and to bring about social change for a more equitable world. His early career as a policeman and detective was exemplary, while police corruption seemed as endemic then as it is today. As an academic he inspired his students. As a parliamentarian he tried to use the power structure to change social circumstances, but found barriers in his path at every step, including from within the Labor Party. His anti-war activism ultimately convinced him that power lies in the streets and in the community, and what was needed was widespread attitudinal change through education.
After he left parliament, the Labor Party all but spurned him for his counterculturalism. The Left largely ignored him as a nutty 'lifestyler'. The anarchists and communitarians saw him as an authoritarian charismatic personality who was unable to put into practice his rhetoric of democratic practice in alternative community. For all that, he was a man of ideas and idealism who encompassed both the social democratic and communitarian traditions. One day, perhaps, his independently published writings will be honestly assessed for their humanity, hope, love and idealism.
Some Online Writings:
John Curtin Memorial Lectures:
Cairns on Revolution (1981)
http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2003/10/56189.php
Writings by other people:
Bibliography of Cairns, Jim, 1914-2003
based on titles in the State Library of Victoria
- Australia, by G. O. and J. F. Cairns. 1953
- Socialism and the A.L.P. / by J.F. Cairns ; comment by Bruce McFarlane. 1963
- Living with Asia / by J. F. Cairns. 1965
- Vietnam : is it truth we want? / by Jim Cairns. 1965
- Economics and foreign policy / by J.F. Cairns. 1966
- Here I stand : statements / by J.F. Cairns. 1966
- "Changing Australia's role in Asia" / by J.F. Cairns. 1968
- Australian foreign policy, by Jim Cairns. 1968
- Eagle and the lotus; western intervention in Vietnam 1847-1968 [by] J. F. Cairns. 1969
- Socialist alternative : an A.L.P. view / by Jack Heffernan ; foreword by J.F. Cairns. 1969
- Silence kills; events leading up to the Vietnam Moratorium on 8 May [by] J. F. Cairns, M.P. 1970
- Eagle and the lotus : Western intervention in Vietnam, 1847-1971 / [by] J.F. Cairns. 1971
- Tariffs or planning? : the case for reassessment / J.F. Cairns. 1971
- Quiet revolution / by J.F. Cairns. 1972
- Impossible attainment / by J.F. Cairns. 1974
- Labor Party? Dr. Evatt - the Petrov affair - the Whitlam government. 1974
- Vietnam : scorched earth reborn / [by] Jim Cairns. 1976
- Oil in troubled waters / [by] Jim Cairns. 1976
- Growth to freedom / [by] Jim Cairns. 1979
- Survival now : the human transformation / Jim Cairns. 1982
- Human growth, its source and potential / Jim Cairns. 1984
- Strength within : towards an end to violence / Jim Cairns. 1988
- Towards a new society : a new day has begun / Jim Cairns. 1990-1993
- Untried road / Jim Cairns. 1990
- Reshaping the future : liberated human potential / Jim Cairns. 1996
- On the horizon : a cultural transformation to a new consciousness / Jim Cairns. 1999
- Liberated biological function : the source of human quality / [by] Jim Cairns 2001
- New day : liberated biological human potential : the source of social reform to the good society there's no other way / Jim Cairns 2002
Feel free to add your comments, memories and recollections of Jim Cairns.
Obituary written by Takver
Respect to A Man of Peace
by marcusbrumer@hotmail.com
Thursday October 16, 2003 at 10:24 AM
I would just like to record my respect and admiration for Jim Cairns. After reading the the pieces in the corporate media who decried his "misguided" idealism and "flawed" character, it only reinforces how much of a good man he must have been.
I have read that the CIA were very active in spying on Jim Cairns and his presence in the Whitlam Government may have been a factor in the CIA-inspired coup that toppled that government.
I hope that other people like him come to the fore in our society.
May he be well and happy!
vale
by basf
Thursday October 16, 2003 at 03:53 PM
In a Australian society where everyone loves Raymond and prefers model themselves on shite like Malcolm in the middle, individuals of strength and character such as Dr Cairns are needed more than ever.
Sadly with a culture full of shallow pettiness and trendy post-modernist criticism, it will be difficult to see his kind again.
vale.
Peace
by nicnak
Friday October 17, 2003 at 02:19 PM
Respect, to man who really believed in peace and never gave in to realism.
Peace.
---------------------------------------------------------------
"Trendy post-modernist criticism", isn't this just “criticizing trendy post-modernist" as elitists like Howard would, or is this “trendy working class deconstructionist” philosophy at work.
Jim Cairns' Legacy
by Joe Toscano
Friday October 17, 2003 at 06:04 PM
Anarchist Age Weekly Review
He is best known for his role in the Vietnam moratorium movement. Helping to organize protests of tens of thousands of people that finally ended in the election of the Whitlam Labor government, the release from jail of the draft resistors and the eventual end of Australia¹s participation in the Vietnam War. Some consider him a hero, others a traitor, blaming those who resisted the war for their lost lives, still refusing to accept that the
government that conscripted them and sent them to war robbed them of their futures.
I remember Jim Cairns as a man who sat outside the Prahran Market in Melbourne, sitting behind a card table, his self published thoughts available to anyone who wanted them. He spoke to everybody, a relic of an
age when people believed in causes, justice and the possibility of alternatives to competition and capitalism. His legacy is an important one, a legacy his friends and enemies seem to have forgotten. Through the Vietnam moratoriums, he showed people that direct mass action works, that people taking to the streets can have and will continue to sideline government, the bureaucracy and the corporate sector. Cairns' life encapsulates the maxim that direct action, not working up the right channels can bring those who wield power in society to their knees.
thanks
by Yvgrvny
Friday October 17, 2003 at 10:18 PM
I, like many people, remember seeing Jim Cairns at Prahran market.
Unfortunately, I also (like most sheeple) walked straight past him.
Something I now regret.
to hear a recent interview go to abc/radionational/LateNightLive
Where's the emperor's clothes?
by Care less
Saturday October 18, 2003 at 01:27 PM
A guy who lied to parliament twice (and sacked because of it), almost bankrupted the Australian government through Maxist madness, and supported his Communist mates in North Vietnam in their enslavement of the population causing a mass exodus of refugees.
What a legend.
To the Ignorant troll
by Takver
Saturday October 18, 2003 at 04:34 PM
But then look at John Howard who misled the Australian parliament and the Australian people on the threat from Iraq and Weapons of Mass Destruction. Who had troops invade another country while intelligence reports said they were no threat to any Western Nation.
You display your economic ignorance about economic management. Cairns brought down a typical Keynesian budget to stimulate the Australian economy, at a time of economic downturn when unemployment was increasing and the 25% tariff cuts which the Whitlam Government brought in were being felt.
While Cairns was important for initiating the breakdown of the White Australia immigration policy, it was Fraser who opened our doors with compassion to the Vietnamese boatpeople. As to the Vietnam War, I refer you to comments by Malcolm Fraser who said that in retrospect that Jim Cairns was right on Vietnam. Fraser was Labour and National Service Minister in the McMahon Government, and Prime Minister after Whitlam.
You post is nothing more than ignorant trolling!
no one believes Vietnam was just
by nicnak
Saturday October 18, 2003 at 08:44 PM
Save for a few right religious zealots, who misrepresent liberalism, no one believes Vietnam was just, bloody no one, not even the Vietnamese boat people fleeing the murderous political vacuum.
Go and talk to a Vietnamese refugee, here their pain, try to understand, talk about agent orange, talk about displacement……Hard stuff, really I dare you too justify a war which killed millions and saved nobody, in their presence.
Thank you, Takver
by Pip Wilson
Saturday October 18, 2003 at 10:19 PM
almanac@acay.com.au
Thank you for an excellent obituary to a great man. I'm blogging an excerpt at Wilson's Blogmanac http://wilsonsalmanac.blogspot.com/
Pip
www.wilsonsalmanac.com
Care More
by danni
Sunday October 19, 2003 at 12:50 PM
Of course the knockers are out - isn't tall poppyism a national sport? But piddling criticisms (shown to be wrong, anyway) of a man who made such a significant imprint on our political landscapes are nothing compared to the legacy he leaves. For all his *human* failings, Jim Cairns was undoubtably a great man and the history of Australian radicalism is the richer for him. I'm happy to be a part of the great tradition of Australian counter-culture - countering small-minded bitchy tall-poppyism - and happy to mark the death of one of our respected elders with love & warm commemoration.
Characters of the left
by bkmc
Sunday October 19, 2003 at 01:11 PM
Of course the knockers are out.
The right has no soul, no brains and no class so their mindless drones need to feed at leftwing sites.
Can you imagine the dialogue at a right wing site...corporate yes men preening each other and fluffing up each others egos? How boring? More entertaining to come here and malign and slander the memory of a man with soul and intelligence. It must be entertainment for these micro-brains.
These people think contribution to society is to help themselves to the common wealth.
They may have 'power' and 'material trappings' (or they may merely be sycophants) but the fact that they still feel the need to come here says a lot.
The only way these dysfunctional individuals can engage with humanity is through abuse.
Vale the labor man.
Dr
by R V Trubuhovich
Wednesday October 22, 2003 at 09:25 AM
rvt.met@pl.net 0011-649-6255304 7 Bingley Av Auckland 1003 NZ
Dear Takver, I am puzzled to read that Dr Jim Cairns' doctorate was a PhD. If the AAP message in our papers lists PhD but also adds that it was from Oxford, UK, then surely it should be a DPhil, as that is the title for Oxford doctorates? Can you be so kind as to possibly enlighten me, please?
Kind regards
Ron Trubuhovich.
PS I cannot see that this is a publishable enquiry unless it happens that PhD has to be corrected to DPhil.
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