David Hicks shortlisted for literary gong? Really?

Updated August 25, 2011 15:35:21

The autobiographical novel written by Taliban-wannabe/fabulist David Hicks is entitled Guantanamo: My Journey.

But it now appears the former Islamic holy warrior might end up taking every taxpaying Queenslander for a ride.

This week Anna Bligh proudly announced that Hicks was shortlisted for her 2011 Queensland Premier's Literary Awards. Guantanamo: My Journey was selected as one of five finalists out of over 130 entrants in the non-fiction category. If he wins, Hicks stands to reap a taxpayer-funded windfall of $15,000.

By nominating Guantanamo: My Journey as a work of non-fiction, the Literary Awards judges essentially endorsed the veracity of David Hicks's narrative. The self-serving rewrite of history purveyed by this book was apparently swallowed, hook-line-and-sinker. So much for critical literary thought.

In the World According To Hicks, he was nothing more than a naïve young Aussie bloke who went overseas for a bit of a frolic. Sort of a gap year experience - but with guns and a few blocks of TNT thrown in for good measure.

A more sinister portrait of Hicks's activities comes to light from letters written in his own hand from Pakistan and Afghanistan during 2000 and 2001. In one epistle he endorsed paranoid anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about society being "controlled by Jews". In another missive he boasts of numerous meetings with Osama bin Laden and training on "anti-aircraft and anti-tank rockets, rapid-fire heavy and light machineguns, pistols, AK47s, mines and explosives".

And to cap it all off, Hicks embarked on what can only be described as a class outing, Al Qaeda style. He tells of journeying to the contested province of Kashmir where he "fired hundreds of bullets" at Indian soldiers on the other side of the frontier. Hardly the benign image of an innocent abroad that apologists for David Hicks would have you believe.

Yet in his book, Hicks presents a completely bowdlerised version of this paramilitary magical mystery tour, claiming: "We did not fire upon Indian soldiers or any other people. We only participated in the symbolic exchange of fire." What utter tosh!

But I don't want to devote this entire column to rehashing all the detailed ins-and-outs of David Hicks's dalliance with Al Qaeda. The facts about Hicks's enlistment in the jihadi army of Osama bin Laden have been well canvassed by the media, and I've written on the topic a time or two myself. At this juncture I'm more concerned about the moral bankruptcy of a government-funded program that confers such an honour on such a man.

The raison d'être of the Literary Awards, as proclaimed on the Queensland Department of Premier and Cabinet website, is to "recognise Australia's most exceptional literary talent". But of all the books put out by all the publishing houses in all the nation, is David Hicks really the best they could do?

Hicks's autobiographical novel is devoid of either intellectual honesty or artistic merit. In fact, the only thing 'exceptional' about Guantanamo: My Journey is the brazenness of Hicks's effort to whitewash his past by playing fast and loose with the truth.

But there's no denying the Hicks book provided the Queensland Premier's Literary Awards judges with an excellent platform to take an oblique cheap shot at John Howard. By conferring an honour on David Hicks, the panel is making an implicit, yet obvious, attack against the policies of the former Coalition government.

As 18th-century Scottish poet Robert Burns wrote: "The best laid schemes o' mice and men go oft awry." And with their crude decision to politicise the Queensland Premier's Literary Awards, its judges have only made themselves look ridiculous.

It turns out that three of the non-fiction panel's members are women. And there's nothing quite so pathetic as the sight of feminist literati falling all over themselves to heap accolades on a former Islamic radical who'd have forced them into a burka during the heyday of his jihadi fervour.

Then there's the Premier herself, whose defence of her Literary Awards program verged on hysterical incoherence. "The nomination of this book," proclaimed Anna Bligh, "in my view is a profound reaffirmation of the values that distinguish us from those who want to terrorise others."

Forget about freedom of speech, gender equality, open elections and all the other liberties that mark Australia's pluralistic democracy. According to Ms Bligh, the real way we set ourselves apart from Al Qaeda suicide bombers is by showering them, not with Hellfire missiles, but with literary awards.

And then Queensland's Labor Premier just kept on digging herself in deeper, hurling epithets like "book burner" at critics of the Hicks short-listing decision. News Flash to Anna Bligh: the ones setting books and girls schools aflame these days are Hicks' old Taliban mates.

The stamp of approval bestowed upon David Hicks by the 2011 Queensland Premier's Literary Awards exemplifies the moral myopia marring the soul of Australia's insulated, self-referential artsy elite. But this self-same ethical blindness propels the inner-urban 'brie and Chablis' crowd to the political fringe where their cavils are full of sound and fury, but signify nothing.

Hicks has lately come out with statement promising to donate every cent of any award to victims of torture. But surely the most appropriate use of any prize money would be as reparations to the orphans, widows and others who have suffered at the hands of his former Taliban comrades.

Ted Lapkin has worked as a ministerial advisor to the federal Coalition and as communications director to a senior member of the Republican leadership in the US Congress.

Topics: arts-and-entertainment, books-literature, human-interest, awards-and-prizes

First posted August 25, 2011 15:34:20
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