Foreword by Prof. Athol Pine

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ATHEISTMAN (AM) is the unfortunate title of an extract from the professional field
journal of Canadian cultural anthropologist Dr. Jacques Levague. It contains
information relevant to a fatal plane crash that occurred in February 2011 on East
Crocodile Island (ECI), located off the remote coast of northern Australia in the Arafura
Sea. Four of the passengers died, one during impact and the others under peculiar
circumstances. Levague and two others survived. The circumstances of the crash
were the subject of a Northern Territory coronial inquest, a detailed federal police
report, and intense media interest, primarily concerning the actions of Levague.

Dr. Levague’s is the only written record of what occurred on ECI. Federal police
forensic examination of AM would later question the author’s state of mind at the time
and whether the document can be relied on as an account of the real situation. In the
end, federal authorities found no hard evidence of a ‘prosecutable offense that could
reasonably lead to conviction’ - or that Levague is a psychopath.

AM is a story of sinister design and deadly occurrences. As well as the awful and
gruesome facts of the plane crash and aftermath, AM documents the first case of a feral
monkey in Australia.

Despite holding a position as a United Nations ethnographer from 1973 to 1989, it
cannot be said that Levague holds a high standing within the fraternity of
anthropological scholars. Although he has been recognized as an accomplished
linguist, he is demonstrably not a person of sound moral judgment, as evidenced by
his UN employment record and the following field notes.

Levague was forced to leave the UN after being accused of Insulting the Prophet by
several Islamic nations. Some readers may recall his 1989 cartoon satirical parody of
‘alter-ego’ ATHEISTMAN fighting the former Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini in a
Mexican professional wrestling ring that offended the nation of Iran and Muslims
worldwide. This prompted Iranian authorities to issue a fatwa - a death sentence
reserved for the most heinous religious offenses. Eventually, the fatwa was lifted and
replaced by a lifetime ban from entering any Islamic country, mosque or halal
restaurant.

Some of Levague’s comments and observations in AM are regrettable and will be
considered insulting by a wide range of groups and individuals. Catholics, Jehovah’s
Witnesses, Pentecostalists, as well as Armanistanis, Australians, Berbers, Brazilians, the
Dutch, the Edo Tribe of the Amazon, Germans, the Kunmubilpilguru Aboriginal Clan of
the Northern Territory, Mexicans, and residents of Alice Springs, may find some AM
entries particularly disturbing.

It is late in the annual monsoonal wet season when AM is recorded, and Levague is
employed by the Darwin-based Territory Aboriginal Land Council as a consultant
genealogist for the negotiation of a major mining development on Aboriginal Land. A
deal has been struck, and he is on a short trip to the remote northwest corner of Arnhem
Land for the official signing of the Gove Uranium Mining Operations Land Access
Expansion Agreement with local Aboriginal landowners and multinational resource
company Red Creek Corporation.

I have taken legal advice concerning the threats to myself in Levague’s ‘Postscript’ to
AM.