Sex, Drugs and Censorship
Honi in the 60's
Julia Bowes delves into the archives and uncovers the sordid history of Honi Soit.
Honi Soit has always been a beacon of controversy. Or so the editors like to think. This year, editor Steven Roy Hind, has upheld the long standing tradition of ground-breaking political investigation, inflammatory articles and general feather ruffling.
There is an equally strong tradition among SRC executive members to use their power to ‘uphold standards of journalist integrity’ in their ‘legal’ review of the paper.
Some say they are protecting the SRC from potential defamation suits, and protecting minority groups on campus from harassment and victimisation. This is the line towed by current SRC President Kate Laing who has stepped in numerous times this year to insist to changes to articles, or that an article be pulled altogether.
Yet every time the President uses their executive power to change the content of Honi Soit much debate is sparked. After all, it is only the elected editors who have the mandate on from the student body to decide the content for each edition. More importantly, it is often at least perceived that the President has used their power for political convenience, to halt or alter an unflattering article about their presidency or their party.
Especially when it comes to political interference, it would seem more appropriate for the relevant parties to allow the article to go to print and to exercise a right of reply in the following edition. This is the same opportunity afforded to any other group on campus who make take offence at a particular issue in Honi Soit. And in this way, the paper both promotes freedom of press and freedom of expression, fundamental underpinnings of any democratic institution.
So, who began this tradition of curtailing freedom of expression in Honi Soit? It was none other than the High Court judge and left-wing “maverick”, Justice Michael Kirby who was President of the SRC between 1962 and 1964.
True to form, Justice Kirby now dissents from his own opinion. In an interview conducted with Michael Kirby last year, he expressed his shame and embarrassment over the original incident. While commenting that Honi Soit ‘was and probably still is self-interested’, he now thinks that: Maybe that’s not such a bad thing because often they are defending an important value that might not otherwise be defended by citizens.’
He expressed the belief that Honi Soit defended the very important value of free expression, and indeed, controversial and unpopular expression. Yet, not only were Kirby’s politics different in 1962, but so was campus and its student newspaper, Honi Soit.
This was an era in which pictures of Miss University entrants still took pride of place on the front page of Honi Soit each week. One week, Miss International Club, Janelle Lumm, described by her club as a ‘petite and pocket-sized Venus’ would grace the cover. The next week, beneath an elegant picture of Miss Science, Edwina Robertson, the paper would put forward the pressing question to its readership: ‘She included her number, but listed no hobbies. Is this significant?’
In 1962, however, things were moving forward. Sort of. Miss Engineering, Lynn Hyman, described as a ‘part-time model and all-time doll’, expressed her relief to Honi that the public judging had been moved from the Wallace Theatre to the private function of the Coronation Ball. Hyman, reflecting on the harassment which entrants had previously faced, explained: ‘It would be terrifying to have to face dogfish and paper darts in Wallace.’
Miss Arts for 1962, Ruth de Berg, went so far as to suggest that the Miss University contest should not be simply be a beauty contest. She believed that the competition should be judged on a broader range of criteria including looks, personality and intelligence. Such a radical suggestion, while reported by Honi, was certainly not adopted by the competition that continued to illustrate the cover of Honi Soit each week.
It was in this very year that the unprecedented measure was taken by Kirby’s SRC to fire the editors. The editors were Peter Grose, later editor of the Sunday Mirror and Richard Walsh, the later chief of Kerry Packer’s publishing empire.
Although Walsh and Kirby were to enjoy a life long friendship after this incident, Kirby reflected that every time he saw Walsh, Walsh reminded him of this ‘shocking event’ and he held his ‘head down in shame.’
Reflecting on the issue last year, Justice Kirby was ‘almost ashamed to mention’ the incident, asserting that he couldn’t even remember what the offence was but insisting that the council had voted democratically to sack the editors.
Indeed, it appears no one was too sure at the time as to why the editors had been sacked. In a 10-6 vote on May 14 the Executive voted to sack the editors for “unspecified reasons.” Vice President of the SRC, Laurence Neild, later told the press the reason for the sacking was ‘inadequate publicity for the S.R.C.’
The Immediate Past President Peter Wilenski next moved a rescission motion that was ultimately successful. The editors were generously re-instated on a ‘probationary’ period before soon resigning in defiance, as they signed off their final editorial: ‘ [we] thank, castigate, defy, defame and resign.’
During their brief return to editorship, Grose and Walsh undertook a valiant, albeit indulgent, defence of their work. Grose charged that one third of the paper had been taken up with SRC affairs which roughly represented the importance of the S.R.C. in the goings on about the University.
(This represents a stark contrast to the current situation where the SRC have to constitutionally reserve pages in Honi Soit reflecting their general irrelevance to the goings on in the University).
Further, the editors contended that, as each edition since has proven, it was impossible to produce an Honi in which every thing appealed to all readers. They claimed that their paper had devoted exactly as much of the paper to light hearted features to serious and literary material in order to cater for their diverse audience.
Grose, in particular, took offence to the allegation that they had not solicited contributions from a wide pool and had discouraged freshers. He retorted that in their first semester the paper had boasted 48 contributors, seven of whom had been freshers.
It appeared that there had been no substantive reason to sack the editors in 1962 that extended beyond the fact that the SRC didn’t like the cut of their jib. (In light of the often-volatile relationship between the editors and the SRC that has persisted) It was undoubtedly a dangerous precedent to set.
Following an interim period, in which the Directors of Student Publications appointed provisional editors, who carelessly expressed their disinterest in producing their publication, Walsh and Grose were finally replaced. Their successors were Laurie Oakes, the now veteran of the Canberra Press Gallery and Bob Ellis, an author and gadfly of his generation.
Walsh and Grose went on to found the Oz magazine in 1963. Within a year, they were again relishing in the spotlight that accompanies controversy when they were successfully charged with publishing an obscene publication and fined £20.
In 1964, the new editors of Honi Soit again found themselves in hot water when they decided to run a decidedly provocative article. The article entitled ‘Some Kosher Food for Orthodox Thought’ was published on April 28 1964, under the pseudonym “Ephraim Isaacs.”
Ephraim Isaacs sought to criticise the recent protests against anti-Semitism in Russia. Seeking to attack what he perceived to be the ‘hypersensitivity’ of the Jewish people, he put forward five quite incredulous claims; first, that the Jews enjoyed and romanticised their position as outsiders in society, next that the Jews were a race who had formed an economic club where they preference one another.
Following on from his, Isaacs thought that the Jews monopolised industries, like clothing. This was part of the proof of his fourth contention that the Jews refused to integrate.
Finally, he waved a red flag to Jews on campus by alleging the Jews ‘often tended to claim a privileged position against criticism.’ He thought this was an overreaction to the Holocaust, as according to Isaacs, as many political prisoners as Jews were exterminated by Nazis.
To justify his sweeping allegations, Isaacs had begun his article with the usual confession of a bigot: “some of my best friends are Jews.” It bore uncanny resonance to Sarah Palin’s protestation that some of her best friends are the gays.
Isaacs was not about to make any more Jewish friends on campus. The next edition of Honi Soit printed five pages of responses from incensed students.
Peter Cappe began his letter: ‘Normally from my accustomed heights of apathy, I wouldn’t care one brass razor about crap like this. But,’ he went on ‘it horrifies me to think that there is one single individual at university, be he e’er humble, who believes he is above these accusations.’
One student, Mark Braham, remarked that Isaac’s knowledge of Judaism gave every appearance of having been culled from the pages of official Nazi or Soviet Publications.
Student Peter Endrey-Walder concurred, writing that ‘no doubt this is the most typical protoype of anti-Semitic literature I have ever come across and perhaps the most dangerous type.’ He immediately personalised Isaac’s charges by commenting ‘Just exact why my father was starved to death at the Mauthaven concentration camp in 1944, for an alleged crime committed 2000 years ago by “my people” is something very hard to comprehend.’
Endrey-Walder went on to question Isaac personally: ‘How on earth can you compare political prisoners with infants, grandmothers, rabbis, doctors, poets, the millions who died just because they happened into a Jewish family?
He concluded by conceding some of Isaac’s claims: ‘Jews isolate themselves from the rest of the community in direct relation to the strength of the community prejudice against them.’ The article hit a very raw nerve with many on campus.
It was not long after that people came to question why the article had ever been allowed to go to print. After lengthy debate on July 16, the SRC voted 14-2 to suspend editor Michael McDermott.
The council also passed a motion, moved by Kirby, declaring the use of issues concerning race, colour or creed in Honi Soit so as to incite hatred, ridicule or contempt as inconsistent with the principles and traditions of the paper.
Kirby noted that Mr. McDermott was wrong to believe that he had an unfettered discretion to print whatever he liked.
Changes to the constitution following the 1962 debacle, however, prevented the council from having the power to dismiss McDermott altogether. Thus a balance was struck; while the council did not have the power to summarily dismiss editors with a mere vote, the editors were now required to conform to baseline standards.
This extreme example sparked the framework by which all future battles between editors and Presidents over material in Honi Soit would be fought. Given the liberal and unaccountable interpretation of this clause by many subsequent SRC presidents, however, it is perhaps preferable that the debate over the limits of freedom of speech continues to be waged on the pages of Honi Soit rather than behind closed doors in the dungeon that is the S.R.C.
Disclaimer: The Executive and council of the SRC do not endorse the views and opinions expressed in this article.