DECEMBER 2003

  The Land Boomers by Michael Cannon .................................published by Melbourne University Press

Marvellous Melbourne

Excerpt....

Visitors to the colony of Victoria in the 1880s were awed and dazzled by the astonishing progress of its capital city.

They began to call it ‘Marvellous Melbourne.’ Everywhere they looked the humble buildings of the early colonists were being pulled down, and in their place were rising the great granite piles of a myriad financial institutions. In the suburbs, on the rolling hills of Camberwell or the level paddocks of Brighton, luxurious mansions were built by the score for the newly rich. In the nearer industrial suburbs, rows of terrace houses and cottages went up by the thousand for a suddenly prosperous and fastbreeding artisan class. Business boomed. Banking boomed. Money poured in from overseas. The frenzy grew and fed upon itself. Thousands of acres of suburban land were subdivided and resold many times, each time at a higher price. Millions of shares changed hands in a stock exchange saturnalia. Anyone, it seemed, could make a fortune in this incredible colony. For his own amusement, a visitor might hail a horse cab and drive in leisurely fashion along the ‘Golden Street,’ Collins Street, a street of dreams and bubble companies. On his left before he crossed Swanston Street, he could admire Queen’s Walk, with its wonderful leadlight cupolas sheltering a shopping arcade. Italianate office buildings rose magnificently on either side, and a gilt statue of Britannia reigned on the lofty cornice. This edifice was built by Sir Matthew Davies our of the lavish funds of the Freehold Investment Company Limited. Davies put his elder brother in charge of it. Who could dare drewam that very shortly Sir Matthew Davies, leading financier and the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, would be arrested on criminal charges? Or that his brother would go bankrupt for more than half a million pounds [Ed: almost A$500 million in today’s government promissory paper]? Just over Swanston Street was the elaborate five-storey Premier Building, designed in French Renaissance style. This was the home of the Premier Permanent Building Association and its guiding genius, James Mirams. A wonderful man, ‘Jimmy’ Mirams; a strict teetotaller (like many of his fellow company promoters of the day); a great provider of houses for the people; altogether a man to be trusted. Investors thought so, and gave millions into his keeping before his arrest and imprisonment. Next door to the Premier Building, sandwiched between that and The Age office, rose a noble institution known as the Real Estate Bank. This was started by another teetotaller, James Munro, who rose to be Premier of Victoria. He also founded the Federal Bank further down on the corner of Collins and Elizabeth Streets. Absolutely trsutworthy! Depositors agreed, and their faith cost them two millions pounds sterling. When the bubble was about to burst, Munro hastily had himself appointed Agent-General in London and fled the colony. He returned later to face his creditors and the Insolvency Court. There was no provision in the flimsy Companies Act of the day by which he could be charged with fraud, and he escaped without penalty. Just on the other side of The Age office, at 243 Collins Street, there traded the famous partnership of Messrs Munro & Baillieu, then the city’s most successful auctioneers and estate agents. Donald Munro was the son of James Munro. WL Baillieu was a large bustling young man who had pulled himself up by his own bootstraps from poverty to sudden wealth. James Munro backed the two young fellows. He arranged for his banks to lend them 180,000 pounds to play the land market. They lost it all, and the depositors never saw the money again. A little further down Collins Street, where Centreway Buildings now stand, were the Metropolitan Bank and the Metropolitan Permanent Building Society. These two institutions were highly successful at disposing of the depositors’ cash. One of the directors was henry Hayter, the widely respected Government Statist of the day. Hayter was so good at figures that he went bankrupt for 36,000 and paid his creditors threepence in the pound. On the other side of Collins Street was the suburb new shopping arcade known simply as ‘The Block.’ This was the inspired creation of Benjamin Fink, another financial genius who rose from poverty to the control of millions. Shoppers who thronged The Block often saw his short portly figure bustling from one splendid enterprise to another, to his building called Rothschild Chambers, now Collins House, or to the office block in Flinders Street called Finks Buildings. Soon, soon, the prosperous shoppers and Fink himself were to disappear from the Melbourne scene: Fink to go bankrupt owing 1,500,000, and to flee abroad with his family. Further along Collins Street… PJ’s Parlaver: Thus begins The Land Boomers by Michael Cannon published by Melbourne University Press, a chronology of a real estate boom that gave way to bankruptcy, starvation, riot, suicide and other tragedies. Nothing new under the sun, the ancients observed, especially when it comes to the greed of man. If The Land Boomers doesn’t go to air on the book reading any time soon, its facsimile on the evening news surely will.

The Sakakini-Baransi Library is Rotting Away @ the Al-Jazzar Mosque, Akka

Dear friends,

Salah Baransi, founding member of Ibna al-Balad, had an enormous book, periodical and document collection at the Heritage Study Center he founded at Taybe. The collection was not frequented as much as he expected, so in 1995 he moved the library from Taybe to the al-Jazzar mosque in Akka. Baransi named this impressive collection The Sakakini Library, since it started with books and periodicals from the pre-1948 Sakakini collection. While the Baransi collection is mainly in Arabic, in 1997, the late Cambridge's Ibrahim Ibadha (or Abadha) donated his English language books on the Middle East. Originally from Nablus, in his will he ordered his books to the Sakakini-Baransi Heritage Study Center.


Baransi died in 1999. The library stopped being funded in March 2002. Until August 2001 the book and computer maintenance and the librarian salary were paid by the Ta`awen foundation. From August 2001 on, it was to be funded for 3 years by the Norwegian People’s Aid Foundation. Yet the Norwegians funded it up until March 2002. It is said that funding stopped because Nura Indegal, the foundation director in Gaza, was not able to review the bookkeeping due to travel restrictions put on the Gazan accountants.


Presently the collection is housed in 5 leaky rooms, and is without regular usage or maintenance. The person responsible for it, who conveyed to me the above information, is Mr. Amin Abu Raya, who also runs the Sakhnin museum. I heard about it by coincidence from Mr. Yunis, the man in charge of collecting visitor’s fee at the al-Jazzar mosque, as I was touring there with my son. I then scheduled an appointment with Abu Raya, who has the keys, and came from Sakhnin to Akka to show me the library.


Its main room consists of a reading and periodical room, with several computer screens. There are three other rooms, where one can find Palestine focused books and periodicals dating to the 1920s.


*The library urgently needs 4 dehumidifiers to start drying up the wetness the books accumulated from winter leaks in the roof.

*The building where it is housed needs maintenance as well.

*So do some of the books, periodicals and documents that were damaged by the water.

*The library would benefit from a librarian, who could serve the public.

*An internet connection and computer and xerox machine maintenance are also of necessity.

*Lastly, when all these can be funded, it would need a small advertisement budget, so that the general public, let alone scholars of Palestine, know of its being reopened.


Please contact Mr. Abu Raya if you could offer any help, or have any ideas for fund raising, or if you’d like to schedule a visit @ the library.


Amin abu-Raya

Work (ph+fx): +972-4-674-6123

Home: +972-4-674-5404

Mobile: +972-457-613

."Da Nawee Daar La Sara"
Daily Frontierpost 19/10/2003New Poetry Books by Dilawar Mansoor

By: Sher Alam Shinwari PESHAWAR:

Pashto language has been left at the mercy of Poets and writers and they are the only preservers of their mother tongue. Media should give its due right to Pashto language. Poets and writers will continue to serve Pashto language and literature in spite of the fact that no one there is to patronize this five thousand years old precious asset of Pashtun race. There is no dearth of new images and talent in Pashto literature. Dilawar Mansoor is one such new poetic talent with his distinct style and unique expression. I had written a forward to his poetry book five years ago. However, I had advised him to delay its publication till an artistic maturity touched his young talent. Now I am sure that he has achieved a clear poetic vision and an inspiring artistic way of expression and readers and Pashto poetry lovers will feel a new blend of flavours and colours in his poetry.

Rahmat Shah Sail a renowned and revolutionary progressive poet expressed these views while speaking at a book launching ceremony held at archives hall on Friday evening. He presided over the function.

Amin Ghafar Amin in his inaugural speech said, "The poetry of Dilawar Mansoor is a new addition to the world of Pashto literature. It contains new subjects reflective of the poet's sensitive inward depth and outlook on the surrounding that he lives in. This poetry collection will make a difference due to its colourful local habitation and colloquial style. The book consists of ghazals and poems covering 267 pages with an attractive title on its outer cover that is symbolic of the poet's vision."

Abasin Yousafzai in his speech told that Pashto language was ahead of other languages even Urdu, because a large number of tiltes almost on every genre were published in 2001 and more title are expected to come out to enrich Pashto literature. "I have gone through only forty pages of the book. The title should have been 'Da Nawee Daar La Sara or Da Nawee Daar Da Ser Na' but the poet probably has preferred his local accent therefore wrong preposition has been used. His name was not new for me because his younger brother Ayoub Sadaf also a poet himself used to visit me and would recite his poetry to me. Then new thing that struck me with wonder is the usage of pen name Mansoor as well as his real name Dilawar in a unique manner in his verses. He has all the qualities of a conscientious poet," he observed.

Sabir Shah Sabir read out his paper evaluating the merits and demerits of the new poetry collection. He said, "The poet has maintained a balance between quantity and quality. Nevertheless, local habitation has marred the beauty of his lofty thoughts to some extent." Asif Samim an Afghan poet and scholar critically analyzed the collection and termed that it would attract
the readers due to its fresh expression of views. He did not agree to the notion the Pashto books should not be gifted or given free of cost. He asked the affluent class of the society to publish more Pashto books and circulate them among the readers so that the general people could be enlightened and benefited from the valuable ideas of the poets and writers.

Shahkil Ahmed Nayab read out the paper sent in by Izaharullah Izhar which said that the poet had preferred poetic truth to the usage of high flown words and therefore, he is the true representative of his own surrounding.

When Dr Isar the chief guest on the occasion came to the rostrum, a ray of laughter ran over the faces of the audience. He in his unique style read out his hilarious paper bearing an English title 'Charge Sheet' that rolled the audience with laughter till the end. In his charge sheet, four crimes were put against the poet.

1: Why he did not get his name registered with any
literary organization?
2: Why the poet remained in a dormant condition for
such a long time without any reason?
3: Why the poet kept such a beautiful
collection of poetry only to himself?
4: Why the poet would not attend the
literary functions?

The poet was sentenced to gift his first collection of poetry to all the readers and he was supposed to bring out another poetry collection of the same quantity and quality within a year for having committed the said crimes.

Majeedullah Khalil while addressing the gathering said, "It is now time to draw a line between the genuine poets and poetasters, true scholars and pseudo scholars. Youngsters need appreciation and moral support and the senior should try to groom up the young talent like Dilawar Mansoor. Media is not a touchstone for evaluating a genuine or otherwise talent. It can only help polish and shine it''.

Amin Ghafar Amin, Nimroz Qais, Muzamil Shah Malang and Mohammad Hanif Qais paid their poetic tributes to Dilawar Mansoor. Hussian Ahmad Sadiq shouldered the stage responsibilities in a befitting manner. He also recited a long inspiring poem and received great appreciation from the audience. A large number of poets, writers and poetry lovers attended the two hours long function. The lively compering of Hussain Ahmad Sadiq who is also an excellent poet kept the audience glued to their seats.

Reviewed by Dr Sher Zaman Taizi
Tarikh-i-Khan Jehani/Makhzan-i-Afghani
By Naimatullah Heravi
Translated into Urdu by
Dr Mohammad Bashir
Markazi Urdu Board, Lahore
800pp. Price not listed

http://www.dawn.com/weekly/books/books15.htm

Originally compiled in Persian by Naimatullah Heravi in 1021 AH, when the Mughal Empire was at the apex of its glory in India, this book was translated into English by Dr Imam Din of Dhaka University and into Urdu by Dr Mohammad Bashir of the Punjab University.

As chronicler at the court of Emperor Jehangir, Heravi had the opportunity of recording day to day events. He was also motivated to do this by his employers, Haibat Khan and Khan Jehan Lodhi.

There are two prefaces to the book. The first gives Heravi's bio-data, the purport of his work along with the bibliography and summary of the contents.

The second preface gives the genealogy of mankind from Adam to Jacob. The rest of the book follows in a chapter-wise narration. There is a bit about Afaghena who is thought of as the forefather of the Afghans though little is known about the primary source of this information and Muslim scholars of late have rejected this story as a fabrication.

Afaghena was the paternal grandson of Saul, the first Israeli King. Some of Afaghena's descendants, who were all driven out of Babylonia, had taken refuge in the central region of Afghanistan, which is now known as Ghore. The book also narrates the story of Qais Abdul Rashid, the progenitor of the Afghans who had embraced Islam on the advice of Khalid bin Waleed.

The Lodhi dynasty has been dealt with in four chapters with one each assigned to Behlol Lodhi, Sikander Lodhi and Ibrahim Lodhi, and the one on Nawab Khan Jehan Lodhi added as an after thought by Heravi to please his employer. History comes to a turning point after that when Babar defeats Ibrahim at Panipat, which is in fact the beginning of the Mughal Empire in India.

The next couple of chapters discuss the period of the Suri dynasty to the return of Humayun, with brief notes on some Afghan Sardars. Although it has not been indicated by the author, these two chapters have been copied from Tabqat-i-Akbari compiled by Nizam-ud-Din.

The latter part of the book concentrates on the Afghan Sarbani, Bitani, Ghorghashti and Karlani families.

There are unexplained bracketed serial numbers appearing at short intervals throughout the book. Perhaps they denote the page numbers of the original work from which the text has been translated. There are also certain glaring mistakes in the chronology, which have been pointed out in the margin. Still, with all its drawbacks, the book is considered as one of the best works from the Mughal period. It does provide a lot of information of the growth and rise of the Afghans in India. However, the theory of the origin of the Afghans is open to debate.- Dr Sher Zaman Taizi

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