The Fred Hollows Foundation has lately been pushing its campaign ‘Fred On The Fiver’ – a bid to get Hollows’ legacy celebrated on the five dollar note.
The campaign has faced some pushback from the LGBT community, which has argued that Hollows’ comments about the AIDS crisis in the early 1990s mean he isn’t a worthy candidate for appearing on our money.
Hollows’ work with remote indigenous communities has cemented him as one of the most respected non-indigenous people within the Australian Aboriginal community. For this reason, the honour sounds deserved.
But should we revere those who do good in some communities while demonising others? In 1992, Hollows said that HIV positive homosexuals should be quarantined, because they were recklessly spreading the virus. He said they were responsible for blowing the disease out of proportion, because the reality was it was “basically a homosexual problem”.
If Hollows had taken aim at the gay community in 2016, I might be more inclined to give him a free pass. While homophobia still exists on a very real level, we’ve made tremendous advances in the past two decades. Sure, he’d be out of step with popular opinion, but it would just be another ‘old man yells at cloud’ moment we could all brush off with an “eh, we have plenty of other allies” shrug.
But in the ’80s and early ’90s, the gay community was at its most vulnerable. People were dying every week, and homophobia was rampant. I can’t even begin to imagine the tragedy of watching your loved ones die, having people in your neighbourhood just disappear, wondering if – or more likely, when – it would happen to you, and still facing extreme abuse on a daily basis.
Supporters of Hollows have argued the ‘everyone makes mistakes’ angle. And it’s true. In our contemporary society, we hold everyone to the exceptionally high standard of ‘be a decent human’. And let’s be clear; in many, many instances, Hollows passed this test with flying colours.
But his opinions then weren’t just a mistake. The AIDS crisis in Australia was well contained in comparison to other countries, due in large part to our incredible public health response, which surprisingly enough, didn’t advocate that those infected be forcibly taken away from their loved ones and support networks. Hollows’ views were out of step with the common opinion of health professionals at the time, and as a health professional himself – and a very progressive one at that – his remarks would’ve been disappointing, as well as hugely hurtful and detrimental. He should’ve known better.
The ‘everyone makes mistakes’ angle is a good one, though, when you consider that the other people on our currency probably aren’t perfect, either. I mean, the Queen is literally the living face of colonialism, and the actions of her former empire make even Hollows’ homophobic actions seem positively transcendent (advocating their quarantine instead of their brutal genocide? How quaint!). For this reason, I’m more inclined to support a move to put Fred On The Fiver. But our currency hasn’t been changed in decades, and surely by now we should expect a higher standard of those we celebrate.
The idolisation of people is always fraught, because nobody’s perfect, and because everyone makes mistakes. Turning people into icons doesn’t allow you to pick and choose what to celebrate about them. Perhaps instead we could pick a symbol to represent Hollows’ good work, and celebrate that on the fiver instead.
This Week…
On Friday February 12, Girlthing returns for 2016 at Slyfox, featuring Bad Ezzy [below], Ollie Henderson, Beth Yen, Smithers, Cunningpants and more. A much smaller venue than its previous parties, this one will probably fill up early.
On Saturday February 13, 1050 is having another of its parties in the Blue Mountains, at the Victoria & Albert Guesthouse (Mount Victoria). There will be a pool party in the early afternoon and a dancefloor into the evening. It features Annabelle Gaspar, DJ Scada, DJ Shorty and Dr. Evil.
Next week Mardi Gras season launches, so there’ll be a tonne of parties, plays, films, and other events to look out for. Rest up this week if necessary, the next three will be huge.
