By Nathan Hobby

 

 

 

People write stuff on toilet walls that they’re too scared or embarrassed to say.  Much of it in male toilets at Murdoch is along the lines of ‘I want to suck a big fat cock, leave date, time and size’  and/or ‘Breasts are great’; some of it is from political extremists of the left and right, some of it is funny, some of it is banal and some of it is profound.  Almost all of it I find interesting. 

 

Last year on toilet walls in SWL2 of the library, a neo-Nazi manifesto was declared, and I’m not joking.  It made me shiver, it was so evil. It went something like this:

 

Aryans of the world unite to protect our daughters, sisters and mothers!!!  The [various offensive terms for non-Aryan races] are forming a super-mud race to pollute the purity of our race!  Death to non-Aryans!!!!

 

Below this were various slogans for ‘Students for National Socialism’.  Thankfully there were also some [wasted!] intelligent responses, which alas I didn’t take down.   I’d like to think this is all a piece of extreme Swiftian irony, but I have my doubts; I saw similar hate slogans in the NWL3 toilets this year.   At least one of those faces you pass in the library or around the campus today is quite possibly a neo-Nazi lunatic who hates everyone who has different amounts of pigment in their skin to him and probably believes the world is flat, also.  I find that disturbing, to say the least.  I wouldn’t want to accidentally trip him over or something.  I’m sure he would have access to big guns.

 

Last year (before the Nazis got in) these same infamous SWL2 toilets witnessed a door length dialogue between a Roman Catholic and an atheist who felt (somewhat unfairly) that priests were mostly child abusers.  It became a nuanced monastic debate about venial and non-venial sins (which lost me, a theology student!) before, alas, degenerating into the trading of insults.

 

Other important sightings: ‘We are the ninja-turtle generation!!!  Dress up as your favourite ninja turtle tomorrow!’   And beneath it, ‘My favourite ninja turtle is Steven [Schwartz?]’; beneath that, ‘Mine’s John Howard’.  In the same toilet: ‘We are the pacifist-anarchists and we are taking over the world’, to which someone offered a stunning (not!) right wing rebuke, ‘Rebellion is for the weak-minded, rebel scum!’   And on a condom machine near the tav... ‘For refund, insert baby here’.

 

I like the ideal of graffiti, if not the practice - it is a chance to show dissent and share ideas.  If a corporation buys up a space and puts an ad on it (eg: above the urinals in near-tav toilets) then they are acting fully within the law and no-one complains.  Ironically, if the users of that space (eg: people wishing to pee) wish to make their voice heard it is illegal graffiti, because it’s not generating income for the owners of the space (eg: the university). 

 

The university periodically cleans toilet doors and/or repaints them to remove graffiti.  When they do this, it’s an opportunity for fresh people to have a say, so I don’t have a problem with it.  But the practice does raise the issue of the censorship of graffiti in a university context.

 

When we see hateful, racist or pornographic graffiti should we paint over it or should we let it stand and respond to it?   This is a massive issue that could be framed as the question of what ‘common values’ can we possibly hold as a diverse multicultural university?  How do we decide what is an ‘acceptable’ view to express and what is not?   In the end, the affirmation of ‘tolerance’ - nothing hateful, sexist or racist - as the foundation virtue by university policymakers is able to tolerate anything except intolerance.  (I’m not suggesting a better approach, only acknowledging a limit.)  I think inevitably there will be a hateful minority who express their rage in toilet wall slogans.  However, fortunately there will also usually be someone who is able to respond with compassion.

 

Graffiti can’t be stamped out without turning the university into a police state - something like surveillance cameras in every toilet and public lynchings of ‘offenders’.  Thus it will remain open as an avenue of dissent and expression.  Gems like this one which I want to leave you with will continue to turn up to brighten our days and hit back at the system.  It was written above a library toilet wall dispenser:

 

NOTICE: Due to university funding cutbacks, from the 1 June 2001 toilet paper will be charged at 11c per sheet.  Swipe your student card in the slot above the toilet paper machine and enter your PIN.   We apologise for any inconvenience.