Politics
While she never joined a political party, she was affected by the social and political upheavals of the 1930s. During this period, Barnard, Eldershaw and Frank Dalby Davison worked together to ensure the Fellowship of Australian Writers (FAW) functioned as a trade union of professional writers and that it adopted progressive positions on political questions. It was this work that resulted in their being known as 'the triumvirate'. Fiona Capp writes, for example, that through the FAW Barnard and Eldershaw actively lobbied against National Security regulations and infringements on the freedom of speech.
Barnard regarded herself as a 'nineteenth century liberal' and defined herself as a pacifist. In 1940, she joined the Peace Pledge Union. She edited a collection of essays defending freedom, which was not published, and a pamphlet The Case for the Future, which was banned by the censor. She also joined the Australian Labor Party as confirmed in several letters to Nettie Palmer, although later denied that she had ever joined. Dever suggests that this denial may be due to the Cold War witch hunts of the 1950s in which her name, among others, was mentioned. She suggests that Barnard received more criticisim at that time than Eldershaw, who was frequently defended as a member of the CLF Advisory Board, and that, not being fond of publicity, she was likely to have been "deeply disturbed" by "the accusations and embarrassingly public attention".
Read more about this topic: Marjorie Barnard
Famous quotes containing the word politics:
“Writing is the continuation of politics by other means.”
—Philippe Sollers (b. 1936)
“Politics begin where the masses are, not where there are thousands, but where there are millions, that is where serious politics begin.”
—Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870–1924)
“In politics people throw themselves, as on a sickbed, from one side to the other in the belief they will lie more comfortably.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)