What happened to the 'Fremantle Revolution'? Is this another Percyite chimera?

In early February I received with my posted copy of the Socialist Alliance-sponsored newspaper 'Green Left Weekly' a leaflet inviting me to attend the launch of a new 'Activist Centre' in Fremantle. I took the time on Saturday, 4th February to commute by train from Perth, where I had been attending the WA Friends of Palestine Annual General Meeting, to the port city and the Activist Centre launch.

The atmosphere at the launch was quite convivial, the speeches were tolerable, and I enjoyed catching up with old political associates and having a few soft drinks.

Yesterday afternoon I was in Fremantle and, after doing some work in the Council library, I thought I would drop into the arcade in High St. where the new Activist Centre is located. When I arrived at the balustraded arcade where the new Activist Centre is situated (on the first floor balcony) I discovered to my surprise that the door (no. 5) of the Centre was not only firmly closed but also had no sign or notice of any kind indicating what was within. I did notice that the clinical psychology practice of the former Greens Senator, Christabel Chamarette, was located across the passageway on the same floor - but the former senator's office had a sign on it.

So I confess to being slightly puzzled. Perhaps the leaders of the 'Socialist Alliance', one of at least two public factions of the Percy people that exist currently in the Perth metropolitan area, and the organisation that is financing the rental on the the new Activist Centre to the tune of $100 per week (according to information that was disseminated at the Fremantle launch),could explain to the rest of the left in Fremantle (and Western Australia as a whole) how socialist activists in the area might access the bounties of the new 'organising space' in High St., Fremantle?

Fraternally,

Graham Milner

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Comments

On this page most of my article on the 'Fremantle Activist Centre' is missing. Does this mean that the Percy hack(er)s have been at work? If that is so then the reach of the Percy people is longer than I thought.

So where is the local chapter of the 'Percyite circus' leading the Fremantle left? We were promised a 'revolution' in the port city in the publicity distributed before the launch of the 'Fremantle Activist Centre' in early February. Now, more than a month later, there seems to have been a deafening silence from our Percyite confreres.

So what's the issue? Why this extravagant fanfare announcing the opening last February 4th of a facility supposedly aimed at benefitting the left in Fremantle, when the hoopla surrounding it is followed by - nothing?

I must say that my opinion of James Percy, the founder of the Sydney-based grouping that has devolved into today's 'Socialist Alliance', fluctuated somewhat over the years I had contact with him. 'Chimerical' would be a kind word to use when describing Percy's politics. Other terms one could use would be far less kind, and would gravitate no doubt towards the shorter, Anglo-Saxon components of the English vocabulary.