As Latin American women we record our repugnance at the unjustified dismissal of Dr Robert Austin, and our solidarity with the struggle to restore him to the position of Spanish coordinator from which he was illegally removed last October from RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. Further, we condemn the persecution to which he has been submitted. This article is written from the perspective of lived experiences in our countries of origin: El Salvador and Chile. We will reflect here on the sacking of Dr Austin—an internationally-respected Hispanic Studies academic and socialist-feminist intellectual—and the echo of Latin American dictatorships.

Military coups in Latin America during the XX century invariably produced witch-hunts in universities: that is, the expulsion of Left academics and drastic self-censorship. Ironically Dr Austin, dismissed over his support for student activism and socialist activism, is author-editor of the definitive history of Chilean higher education. The book—Intelectuales y Educación Superior en Chile: de la Independencia a la Democracia Transicional, 1810-2001 (2004)—spans the republican era; and contains his two detailed chapters on the decimation of public universities during the fascist Pinochet dictatorship, and consolidation of that process during the third wave neoliberalism under the Concertación governments. In fact he has produced seven books among some eighty publications on the social and cultural history of Latin America, based on his comprehensive experience and research of the political, economic and social realities of the Latin American countries. His academic career spans almost twenty years, principally in Latin America.

Dr Austin’s books also include Imperialismo Cultural en la Historiografía Latinoamericana: Teoría y Praxis (2004 and 2006, 1st of a 4-volume series); The State, Literacy & Popular Education in Chile, 1964-1990 (2003); and Diálogos sobre Estado y Educación Popular en Chile: de Frei a Frei, 1964-1993 (2004). Books underway include The School of the Americas and the Rise of Terrorist States and Reconstructing the National Unified School: Myth and History (1927-1973), with Emeritus Professor Lautaro Videla (Universidad Central de Venezuela, Caracas), on Popular Unity’s grand education and culture project. Austin is also a participating editor of the journals Cronos (Brazil) and Latin American Perspectives (USA); and has been a visiting or full professor in Chile, Cuba, Mexico and Venezuela since 1990. His Ph.D on the history of popular education and literacy in Chile was passed without change by two distinguished feminist professors of History: Asunción Lavrin (Arizona State University) and Mary Kay Vaughan (University of Chicago at Illinois). Some one hundred conferences delivered in The Americas and Australia form part of a trajectory and identification with the cultures of Latin America.

During the U. S. hysteria surrounding the McCarthy investigations on “Un-American activities” from the late 1940s, the state refused access by the accused to their secret archives prepared by such agencies as the CIA and FBI. Owners or managers of the means of production generally collaborated in fabricating these archives, and then denying them to the accused. The persecution embraced all social strata: workers, peasants, students, church representatives, professors, university and office workers. Indigenous, coloured and black women were generally recipients of the harshest consequences of such witch-hunts. The model was soon adopted by the Latin American dictatorships, economically supported by such countries as Taiwan, the U.S., the U.K., Israel and France. Especially important was the political-economic aid from Miami and the School of the Americas (in Panama, later USA), to create paramilitary forces charged with eliminating all of us involved in the struggle for social justice. The careers of liberal or Left writers, journalists, artists and intellectuals were suspended or destroyed in a frenzy of political purification generally based on fabricated or untested evidence. Across the Americas this was an effective way of silencing the people, using the power of the state in the name of its dominant class.

In this context, it is worth mentioning the mistaken complicity of that worker known as “yellow” in Chile or a “boss’s fan” in El Salvador, who defends bosses’ interests and loses the perspective of class identity, betraying their own interests which are identified with collective struggles that benefit workers’ well-being. The “yellows” or “boss’s fans”, fearing for their own jobs or seeking to improve them at any cost, become enemies of their own real struggles and turn on their fellow workers. Thus they lose their class perspective and lend themselves to manipulation by the bosses’ interests, submitting themselves to the service of late capitalism or neoliberalism as we know it today. In the context of contemporary Australia reality we see the same highhandedness committed in our own countries carried out in this country, which supposedly practices popular democracy.

The dismissal of Dr Robert Austin signals a wave of repression against intellectual workers for the simple act of exercising the right to freedom of expression. It creates a climate of workplace instability which threatens freedom of thought, opinion and organisation. Faced with this situation, we denounce RMIT’s intransigence and its lack of will to reverse the unjustified dismissal of Dr Austin. Further, this case has been denounced before the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the Australian Human Rights Commission.

Dr Austin is a very solidary academic open to all Latin American communities. He was invited to participate on a panel at RMIT with a parliamentary representative of the FMLN, the political party which represents the second power in El Salvador. Together with the Latin American organising committee, Dr Austin organised a research and education forum for the occasion, within the Latin American Studies program he was developing. Throughout his career he has been closely identified with Latin American communities, lending across-the-board support principally to the development of those projects which benefit Spanish-speaking communities, both local and international. For example, he has played an important role in the incorporation of the Spanish language in the standard Australian school curriculum, where he has also been instrumental in the incorporation of indigenous Latin American studies.

As coordinator of the Spanish program at RMIT, Dr Austin increased enrolments by 25 per cent in one year. Further he secured Australian scholarships for Latin American universities, thus providing RMIT students with unique study and research opportunities. In the context of the Latin American Studies program which he initiated at RMIT, this was one more instance of Dr Austin’s identification with the intellectual development of young people. According to the evaluations of his teaching and research, Dr Austin has had highly favourable results. Those same authorities who dismissed him have confirmed in their reports that his level of teaching and research is excellent, as have been his pedagogical and cultural improvements in the Spanish program.

Beyond this there has been a series of anomalies committed by the RMIT administration during this dismissal. We will name only some:

RMIT has not demonstrated any reason to dismiss Dr Austin. By such measures it is not only damaging its own reputation but also students, by denying them a highly-skilled teacher capable of matriculating students with an excellent quality of knowledge. In August 2005 the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) called for the postponement of classes for one day to allow students to voluntarily attend nationwide protests against the government measure designed to abolish student unions. This became the source of right-wing columnist Andrew Bolt’s attack on Dr Austin, after he had postponed classes in line with the union’s call.

On 30 September 2005 head of school Professor Steger and deputy vice chancellor Professor Cumming arrived uninvited to a meeting of Spanish staff and an NTEU representative, off campus. They demanded that Dr Austin immediately return to the university to meet with them. He refused, despite Cumming’s false claim to have approval from the NTEU RMIT branch president. Evidently Steger and Cumming knew of the meeting via Spanish staff informers who had falsely confirmed their own intention to attend it, even declaring themselves in favour of a “counter attack”.

On 12 October Steger alleged that he had received anonymous complaints from casual tutors and administration staff. Given this, Dr Austin asked for evidence, which to date—six months later—has still not been provided. This tactic was frequently used by fascist regimes in Chile, El Salvador, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, and in every country under a military dictatorship. It is now fashionable in Australian universities.

On 13 December the secretary of the NTEU (Victorian Division) sought evidence for the claims implied in Dr Austin’s dismissal, for which RMIT has not yet presented any justification. Failing such evidence, the secretary demanded Austin’s restitution. RMIT refused. By then, management had already removed Austin as Spanish coordinator, in a provocative breach of the Enterprise Bargaining Agreement covering all workers at RMIT. But the NTEU did not challenge, or even raise the breach.

In view of these facts, in February 2006 some 120 members of the NTEU at RMIT signed a petition calling for an urgent branch meeting, given that its leadership had declared that a meeting was unnecessary. By constitutional obligation, a meeting was called. However, the leadership did not facilitate participation for members at Bundoora, RMIT’s second campus, despite established arrangements for doing so (including transport, denied by the leadership on this occasion). As a result the meeting had no quorum; and the fifty participants were left with no power to approve any of the four proposals tabled.

On 2 March 2006, one day before RMIT management was obliged to present its supposed evidence for the dismissal to the Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC) and to the union, the NTEU withdrew from the dispute. It alleged that a witness statement had not complied with requirements which were, in reality, the responsibility of NTEU officials. Belatedly it has resumed limited support for the re-lodged case, without any finance for the $12,000 legal bill Dr Austin now faces.

The Defend Our Universities committee (DOU) was created late in 2005 to support the struggle for Dr Austin’s re-instatement in the context of federal government economic and political attacks on public universities. The DOU decided to continue its imperative struggle to win workers’ rights and have justice done in this case through legal measures, and for these reasons the DOU re-submitted the case to the AIRC on 20 March 2006. Advantaged by the delay, RMIT management now used the pretext of disputing jurisdiction to further stall and if possible avoid any public hearing of the dispute. Five working days before his dismissal was to take effect, the Industrial Commission ruled that the dispute had been lodged within the correct jurisdiction and could be heard, but then denied Dr Austin an interim injunction postponing his dismissal until it was heard. RMIT management, whose preference for back-room over public hearings had long been clear, then refused Dr Austin’s eleventh-hour offer to take leave without pay until end June 2006, to allow for an expeditious hearing.

To continue this struggle, Dr Austin is being supported by organisations and people identified with collective struggles for social justice. In that context, we call on all Spanish-speaking communities and organisations in general to join this struggle and contribute in concrete ways. Unity empowers people and opens the way to success in their struggles against the neoliberal system, so detrimental to workers. In the Australian context we should unite to defend the advances of our predecessors, and take a more active approach toward confronting the regressive new changes to labour laws. Faced with such challenges, Latin American women can not ignore these assaults. We need to raise our voices so that the history of our colonised peoples is not repeated. If you would like to support this cause, and contribute to the solidarity fund, see the DOU web page at  http://www.defendrobert.blogspot.com/

¡Basta con la injusticia! ¡Venceremos!

Illustration:

Decades
 http://www.llgc.org.uk/illingworth/illingworth_s050.htm