A LOOK BACK IN HISTORY. . . Australia: Kicking Jehovah's Witnesses out for being a "NATIONAL NUISANCE"

by TerryWalstrom 4 Replies latest watchtower scandals

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  TerryWalstrom

  Teaser excerpt:

  The Minister for the Army, Percy C Spender, had requested a Cabinet meeting to decide upon a ban of the sect on 9 December 1940, and he had enclosed with this request a military intelligence report dated 21 November 1940 recommending the banning of the Witnesses. Cabinet would have been aware of pressure by the clergy, the Returned Sailors, Soldiers and Airman's Imperial League of Australia (RSSAILA), local councils and state politicians, particularly Mr Mair’s threat to curtail the Witnesses in New South Wales if the Commonwealth did not ban the sect. Menzies himself had received many letters complaining about the Witnesses and had not ruled out the possibility of banning the Witnesses.

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  "In October 1940 the Sydney Morning Herald reported the Premier of New South Wales, Alexander Mair, as saying: The organization known as Jehovah’s Witnesses was definitely disloyal to the interests of Australia, was anti-British, and was a disruptive element to the community … he was asking the State Attorney-General … if the Commonwealth Government did not declare the organization of an illegal body, to consider whether the State Government had power to legislate to control it.

  Mair then wrote directly to Menzies, saying that ‘the feeling of indignation against the organization is increasing rapidly’.xiv Menzies replied in December 1940: Even if the Commonwealth has power to suppress the body, any action by the Commonwealth to that end would probably result in protracted litigation, as the body would undoubtedly challenge the validity of the Commonwealth action.xv However, the paragraph which was to end Menzies’ letter, saying that the government did ‘not propose to introduce legislation on the subject’ was deleted. This was perhaps a prescient move by Menzies, as approximately six weeks later, the Commonwealth Government banned Jehovah’s Witnesses."

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  Read the details in this PDF

  http://www.flinders.edu.au/sabs/fjhp-files/2008/JaynePersian2008.pdf

  
  
  
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  zeb

  Dec 1940. Australia was involved in world war II. It was a terrible time for this country.
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  Vidiot

  Way to feed the persecution complex, Oz.
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  Doug Mason

  The "Smith's Weekly" newspaper ran a campaign against the JWs. At one stage I copied the pages, which are available at the State Library in Melbourne, but I now only have the dates of the publications ("somewhere").

  Doug
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  fulltimestudent

  zeb:2 days agoDec 1940. Australia was involved in world war II. It was a terrible time for this country.

  
  Not having a shot at you zeb, but wouldn't a word like "worrying" be more apt to describe those times. I started school in 1939, so more or less grew up in the war years. Sydney, where I lived for many of those years, had a bit more tension, particularly after the Jap. midget submarine attack on Sydney harbour (they did manage to sink an old ferry), but on the Central coast and the South coast life went on as usual. At school we had to help dig trenches in case of air-raids, but otherwise everything was rather normal. The most 'terrible' aspect was the death of fathers and sons who were K.I.A.
  Darwin did suffer more, there were something like 100 Jap. bombing raids on that town during the period 1942/3.
  They were able to destroy oil storage tanks on the first raid, but missed the little Naval ship.
  There were shortages of food, and things like meat and sugar were rationed. But in those far-off days, near everyone had a backyard vegie garden, and some chooks (chickens) so chicken meat and eggs were still on the menu, and since the national diet (then) consisted of meat and three vegies (boiled until they fell apart), I do not think we suffered much.
  I'd save the word 'terrible' for places like Russia (25 million dead), Poland (6-8 million dead) or China (15-20 million dead). The poor bloody Chinese really suffered. The Japs were vicious. The took 250,000 (approx) villagers out and shot them in cold blood, in retaliation for the Americans landing B25/B29 bombers in China, after they had bombed Jap. cities in 1942/3.
  The Axis powers also suffered. Can you look at these two images and not feel sympathy for the victims:
  
  Yup, that's a mass of burnt humans (though Japanese, they are still human) in the foreground. This next pik is even more poignant.
  
  That's the body of a mother caught in an American fire-bombing raid. She'd been carrying her child on her back - you can see the unburnt section, but the child did not escape (Images from Wikimedia.)
  That's what I'd call "terrible" Zeb, compared to all that, Aussies did not suffer much. In fact, I'd argue that from the P.O.V. of the thread theme, our Aussie penchant for mismanagement, made the ban on the witnesses at that time a bit of a joke