Tim Anderson (political economist)

Tim Anderson (born 30 April 1953)^[1] is an Australian political economist and author. He is a senior lecturer at the University of Sydney and the author of several books on independent development and anti-imperialism. In 1979, he was convicted and imprisoned for an alleged Ananda Marga conspiracy against a National front leader, but was pardoned in 1985 after an inquiry ^[2]. In a linked case in 1990 he was convicted for ordering the 1978 Sydney Hilton Hotel bombing and sentenced to 14 years imprisonment, but was acquitted on appeal in 1991.^[3] He subsequently became active in prisoners' rights and civil liberties groups, and has been involved with international solidarity and civil rights campaigns. He has worked as an academic since the early 1990s.

Academic history

Anderson obtained a BA in economics from Murdoch University in 1983, a BA (Hons) from Macquarie University in 1986, and a PhD from Macquarie University in 1997. He was a lecturer at the University of Technology Sydney from 1994 to 1999 and has been a senior lecturer at the University of Sydney since 1998.^[4][5] He has published several books and twenty-five of his published academic works have 10 or more citations, according to Google Scholar.^[6] The most highly cited are to do with deregulation, Melanesian land and livelihoods, method in political economy, Timor Leste and Cuban health cooperation. By 2018, his book The Dirty War on Syria (2016) had been published in ten languages ^[7]

International and civil rights campaigns

Anderson has a history of supporting civil liberties and prisoners’ rights in Australia. He was a founding member of Sydney-based group Justice Action in the 1990s. That group grew out of the 1989-1991 campaign group 'Campaign Exposing the Frame-Up of Tim Anderson' (CEFTA), whose newsletter 'Framed' was taken over by Justice Action and ran until 2004 ^[8]. He was later Secretary of the NSW Council of Civil Liberties over 1998-1999 ^[9] Prisoners rights were a theme of his writing in the 1980s and 1990s, as reflected in his book 1989 book Inside Outlaws and part of his 1992 book Take Two, along with a number of published papers and interviews.^[10][11][12]

He has campaigned in support of East Timor, Democratic People's Republic of North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, Palestine and Syria. Between 2008 and 2014 Anderson made a series of short documentaries on the Cuban training of Timorese doctors,^[13][14][15] and the work of Cuban doctors in the Pacific.^[16] In February 2017 Cuba awarded him their Friendship Medal "as an acknowledgement of his unconditional solidarity towards Cuba and its revolution".^[17]

He has been a critic of uninvited foreign intervention in Syria^[18][19] including the use of foreign funded groups, like the White Helmets, to call for humanitarian intervention in Syria.^[20][21] He has described allegations the Syrian government was responsible for chemical attacks as a “hoax”, contradicted by independent evidence^[22][23] and Assad as a “mild-mannered eye doctor”.^[24][25]

In academic writing Anderson stresses the principle of self-determination of peoples, in international law and the twin covenants of human rights.^[26] Similarly, he calls his book on the Syrian conflict, a 'defence of the right of the Syrian people to determine their own society and political system ... consistent with international law'.^[27] In 2016 Anderson and other academics established the pro-Assad Centre for Counter Hegemonic Studies, because they believed their research and discussion was being censored by a broad conspiracy of governments, corporations, universities, and other academic institutions. According to Anderson, the organisation has no budget and is intended to compile a "virtual library" in support of sovereignty and self-determination.^[28]

He has visited Syria many times during the war,^[24] and attracted criticism for visiting in late 2013, while the Assad government was conducting bombing of civilians and hospitals, schools and civilian infrastructure in opposition-held areas of Syria.^[29] In April 2017 he co-hosted a two-day conference on Syria at the University of Sydney, described in the mainstream media as a "pro-Assad conference".^[28][30][31] In September 2017, he travelled to Pyongyang and pledged solidarity with the North Korean people against aggression from the West.^[32] He also attracted controversy in April 2017 for using a series of Anzac Day social media posts to allege the Australian air force was committing murder in Syria.^[25]. Later the same year, after another visit to Syria, he published a detailed research paper on this incident.^[33]

Ananda Marga bombing allegations

In 1979, Anderson was convicted along with Ross Dunn and Paul Alister to 16 years imprisonment for an alleged plot by members of the Ananda Marga spiritual movement, plot to bomb the house of Robert Cameron, a member of the far-right National Front of Australia. After almost seven years in prison the three were pardoned and paid a sum in compensation following an inquiry into the convictions in 1985.^[34] However, in a linked case, he was re-arrested in 1989. In 1990, Anderson was convicted for three counts of murder for planning the Sydney Hilton Hotel bombing, for which Evan Pederick had been jailed the previous year. Anderson was sentenced to 14 years imprisonment, but was acquitted on appeal in 1991.^[35] In directing an acquittal NSW Chief Justice Murray Gleeson said: "The trial of the appellant miscarried principally because of an error which resulted in large part from the failure of the prosecuting authorities adequately to check aspects of the Jayewardene theory. This was compounded by what I regard as an inappropriate and unfair attempt by the Crown to persuade the jury to draw inferences of fact, and accept argumentative suggestions, that were not properly open on the evidence. I do not consider that in those circumstances the Crown should be given a further opportunity to patch up its case against the appellant. It has already made one attempt too many to do that, and I believe that, if that attempt had never been made, there is a strong likelihood that the appellant would have been acquitted.".^[36][37][38]

The two failed prosecutions against Tim Anderson and his friends are cited examples of Australian miscarriages of justice, for example in Kerry Carrington's (Ed) 1991 book Travesty! Miscarriages of Justice ^[39][40] and in other law texts ^[41] including notes on compensation practice.^[42][43]

Controversial views

Anderson has been controversial. The Spectator Australia describes Anderson's book The Dirty War on Syria, as published by Globalresearch "a book club gathering for academic crackpots and conspiracy theorists".^[44] On the other hand, retired sociology Professor James Petras wrote: "Tim Anderson has written the best systematic critique of western fabrications justifying the war against the Assad government. No other text brings together all the major accusations and their effective refutation." ^[45]

In August 2018, Anderson was investigated by his university for defending a badge saying "death to Israel" and "A curse on the Jews" worn by a former colleague with whom he visited North Korea.^[46][47] Australian Education Minister Simon Birmingham described Anderson as an "embarrassment to academia" with "extreme views",^[46] and the investigation was welcomed by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry.^[47] In a response, Anderson said he merely refused to censor the image, that did not support the expression on the badge, and instead argues "Israel must be dismantled".^[48]

Publications

• The liberation of class: P.R. Sarkar's theory of class and history, Proutist Universal Publications, 1984.
• Free Alister Dunn and Anderson: The Ananda Marga Conspiracy Case, Wild & Woolley, 1985.
• Inside outlaws: a prison diary, Redfern Legal Centre Publishing, c1989.
• Take two: the criminal justice system revisited, Bantam Books, 1992.
• with Gaby Carney, Defend yourself: facing a charge in court, Redfern Legal Centre Publishing, 1996.
• Land and livelihoods in Papua New Guinea, Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2015.
• The Dirty War on Syria: Washington, Regime Change and Resistance, GlobalResearch, 2016
• Countering War Propaganda of the Dirty War on Syria. Damascus, New Dalmoun Press, 2017

References