Helen Razer on Canberra's protest scene of the 1980s (and Nelson Mandela)

I still own a copy of Helen Razer’s (with Mikey Robbins) ‘Three Beers and a Chinese Meal’. Probably her best work.

as trite and loathesomely self-aggrandising as ever from ms pridd.

[disclaimer: still not quite recovered from discussing a shared idea, at an anu cafe some years back, the need to advocate for women’s rights and the role of men’s responsibilities then having her telling me i can’t be a feminist because i ‘have a penis’]

[second disclaimer: i do, in fact, possess a penis; but i am not aware that ms pridd has ever had access such as to verify this claim experientially]

I don’t know she is, but she’s just as guilty of breathless hyperbole as the people she criticises. Here’s the comment I’ve posted below the article:

““over the 27 years he spent incarcerated for?—?let’s be clear about this?—?brutal terrorist acts of a class that often made the IRA look like Jamie Oliver’s campaign for school lunch”

Either you know nothing about the IRA or you know nothing about Mandela. I understand he was imprisoned for sabotage and conspiracy. The ANC as a whole may have been violent, before or after this imprisonment, but he wasn’t convicted of it and I don’t think he ever admitted it either.

Unfortunately when you get your facts or opinions as wrong as this, it undermines the rest of your position, however much it may be valid.”

IP

Yes, it has been rather fulsome, but in a grim, cynical world, the rare opportunity to grasp something positive is hardly surprising. Five years on from the train wreck with Steven Berkoff, a mellower – but still feisty, mind you – Helen is probably just the right speed for Crikey.

To put it all somewhat more pithily – one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter, and history is written by the victors.