Barry Spurr, former professor of poetry at Sydney University had a role in formulating our current governments review of the school curriculum. Chris Graham wrote in The Guardian of his influence:
“. . . Sydney University announced that its professor of poetry, Barry Spurr, had resigned from his post. I have to admit that I couldn’t give much of a bugger.
On the one hand, I do genuinely believe that Spurr has a right to earn a living. He seems to have been widely regarded as a good and effective lecturer and professor.
On the other, can you imagine how a female student, an Asian student, a Muslim student – or, God forbid, an Aboriginal student – might feel sitting in a lecture theatre listening to him wax lyrical about the power of Judeo-Christian literature?
Clearly, Spurr’s position at the University of Sydney was tenuous.
But this story has never been about Spurr’s tenure as a professor. It has always been about the “nod, nod, wink, wink” racism of people who hold positions of great power and influence over us all. Notably, Spurr has never acknowledged wrongdoing, let alone apologised.
Thus, the “real story” has always been his role as a special consultant to the Abbott government’s review of the national school curriculum.
On that front, nothing has changed.
Despite the emergence of these repugnant emails, the federal minister for education, Christopher Pyne, remains happy with the final report into the review of the National School Curriculum. Go figure.
In case you’re wondering, here’s an example from Spurr’s report of the sort of advice for which Australian taxpayers forked out thousands of dollars:
As usual, the literature of Western civilisation at large is omitted, while the specific ‘oral narrative traditions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ are singled out for mention.
And this:
The impact of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples on literature in English in Australia has been minimal and is vastly outweighed by the impact of global literature in English, and especially that from Britain, on our literary culture.
Now here’s just one of Spurr’s private views, revealed in his email correspondence.
Whereas the [Australian] curriculum has the phrase ‘Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander’ on virtually every one of its 300 pages, the Californian curriculum does not ONCE mention native Americans and has only a very slight representation of African-American literature (which, unlike Abo literature, actually exists and has some distinguished productions).
It’s only hard to reconcile the difference between the two views if you accept that Spurr was, as he asserts, playing a “whimsical linguistic game”. Of course, the full transcript of his emails reveals he wasn’t.
Like all accomplished racists and misogynists, Spurr knew that he had to tailor his bigotry for public consumption. Overt and ugly racism is for bogans (ironically a group for which Spurr holds a special disdain). But polished, slippery racism? That is for professors. And institutions.
Spurr’s attempts to entrench his bigoted views in the school curriculum – that will be taught to every child in every school in every state of the country, for at least a generation – should send a shiver down the spine of every Australian parent.
Ask yourself this question: do you really want people of this calibre influencing what your children will learn in school?
The review of the national school curriculum will always be tainted. It has been irrevocably polluted by the views of a man who believes rape is funny, who believes Aboriginal people are sub-human, who believes Asians and Muslims are fodder for mockery, and who believes that women do not occupy a place of equality in our society.
These are not Australian values, but unless the curriculum review is revisited as a matter of urgency, then we can only assume that they are Australian government values.