Arena Magazine articles from April 2003

Arena Magazine archives from April 2003

When the ground beneath divides.(War in Iraq)(Editorial)
April 1, 2003... By the time you read this, the war against Iraq will be underway. Writing in the hours prior to its commencement it is impossible to know how it will proceed. It is likely that it will be devastating for the population of Baghdad, and of other...

Behemoth: the influence of the US administration's religious right is spurring the world's most powerful nation to increasingly destructive and contradictory actions.
April 1, 2003... In the Jewish eschatology--of Babylonian origin--Behemoth and Leviathan designate two monsters... Both are monsters of the Chaos. It was Hobbes who made both the Leviathan and the Behemoth popular. His Leviathan is the analysis of a state,...

Suburban Drought, Grief, a Peace Plan.(Poem)
April 1, 2003... Suburban Drought, Grief, a Peace Plan Drought set father against son On behalf of the grandfather who had rain. Declaring his little old home a slum, The father berated, with the wrath of the old Campaigner, his son...

The logic of fear: the paranoia accompanying war's mediated rhetoric erodes our sense of belonging.(John Howard's stance on the 2003 Iraq war)
April 1, 2003... It is not quite a syllogism: `rogue states' have weapons of mass destruction, terrorist organisations want weapons of mass destruction, Australia must now help disarm Saddam Hussein's regime. My old philosophy tutor would not approve of John...

Strangely Proud.(Poem)
April 1, 2003... Strangely Proud In these odd, anxious times, I think Of my Red Uncle and his sweaty didacticism: His hungers, his obliviousness to food while talking, His laughter when he mentioned Chaplin, His handshake, that grip,...

Short memory: what will be the long-term consequences of a quick, high-tech war?(Iraq war, 2003)
April 1, 2003... If the war is a short one it will most likely be hailed as a success. If Saddam Hussein disappears, or is removed, we will undoubtedly see images of liberated Iraqi's dancing in the streets in front of whatever infrastructure remains, while the...

The uses of violence: global media networks were supposed to make it more difficult for rogue states to perpetrate violence against their victims. But the age of mediatised war may have the opposite effect.
April 1, 2003... In 1993, drunk on post-Cold War triumphalism and eager to boost the ratings of his newly acquired satellite television network, Star TV, Rupert Murdoch declared that satellite television presented an `unambiguous threat to totalitarian regimes...

Wad.(Poem)
April 1, 2003... Wad This morning it rained, and, in a minor way The drought broke. Now you hear yourself croak A little more gently. Dawn as statement, Night still to come as unknown tide. A summer of foreign parrots brutalizing...

The age of meta-war: the distancing effects of techno-weaponry and a sanitised global media are altering the structural basis of modern warfare.
April 1, 2003... There are a number of dimensions to the Second Gulf War that makes it stunningly unique. Never before has an invading military force been greeted by such sustained cultural-political opposition before the war had begun, including outsiders...

Burden of proof: unheeded, the Blix report to the security council shows progress on Iraqi disarmament.
April 1, 2003... Based upon nightly news reports alone, and the spin placed upon Han Blix's various reports by both those in favour of and against war in Iraq, it is understandable that few feel any the wiser in determining whether or not any real progress has...

Turkey says no ... Or will it finally be yes?(Turkish position on Americans and Iraq war)
April 1, 2003... These have been interesting times in Turkey. In early February the Grand National Assembly--the parliament--met and refused to support the government's recommendation to allow 62,0000 US troops into the country so that a second front against...

The Waiting.(Poem)(Poem)
April 1, 2003... The Waiting When the war starts our yacht races Will be over. It will be the New Year. By the 6th--that the date?--the tree Will be taken down with a rueful thought For the months to come. We will feel older, as you,...

Manifest destiny: the Pearl Harbour Memorial becomes a contested space on the eve of war.
April 1, 2003... Visit the Pearl Harbor website and you will read how the USS Arizona Memorial `as a national shrine symbolises American sacrifice and resolve', and how the sneaky attack by the Japanese on the morning of 7 December 1941 `awoke' the United...

Clowns in Kabul (1).(Poem)(Poem)
April 1, 2003... Clowns In Kabul (1) I wasn't there. I only heard. The story came To me across the desert we are in, where The term, `droplet', is a sick one for drought-breaking, And the idea of it being a small, yellow, flat grenade, ...

An argument for a moratorium: how a South Africa-style boycott could bring about openness and equality in Israel and Palestine.
April 1, 2003... Despite furious controversy, the call to boycott I Israeli academic institutions--initiated by the British scientists Steven and Hilary Rose in April 2002 and renewed in Australia by Ghassan Hage and John Docker in May 2002--continues to grow...

Clowns in Kabul (2).(Poem)
April 1, 2003... Clowns in Kabul (2) There is another way to see the arrival. It is that, instead of praying for medical supplies, Children and their bedside mothers became Happy to be reminded of laughter. Rather than Pick up that kid...

The erosion of the American dream: it's time to take action against our wars on the rest of the world.(Interview)
April 1, 2003... M.D. Gore Vidal, welcome to Dateline. G.V. Happy to have crossed the dateline down under. In the past few years, you have shifted from being a novelist to principally an essayist or, in your own words, `a pamphle-teer'. It's almost the...

The power of disobedience: as the US enters a `pre-fascist' state, the protest movement should create civil unrest as an expression of true internationalism.(Interview)
April 1, 2003... How have we got to this point, where two Western governments take us into an illegal and immoral war against a stricken nation with whom we have no quarrel and who offer us no threat: an act of aggression opposed by almost everybody and whose...

Clowns in Kabul (3).(Poem)(Poem)
April 1, 2003... Clowns in Kabul (3) Rumi also said The man of God is beyond belief and unbelief The man of God is beyond evil and good And his translation was published, then reviewed, In the United States of America, Where...

Not to speculate: although it is necessary to recognise the probable impact of the policies of Washington's `recycled Reaganites', it is crucial to focus on the means of influencing and resisting those events.(Interview)
April 1, 2003... C.P. Do you have any predictions about what we might expect in the coming weeks? N.C. If anything's obvious from the history of warfare, it's that very little can be predicted. But what's going to happen is not war. The disparity of force...

Avoiding the full one in January. (Three Moon Poems (1)).(Poem)
April 1, 2003... Avoiding the full one in January He went to the downstairs room, where, also, The upper reaches of the Mahogany Gums were quiet. He lay there alone Wondering if she was lonely. That was all. And he tried to read ...

Who's in charge? ... A tiny, unelected group, backed by powerful unrepresentative interests.(U.S. foreign policy is steered by shadowy forces)
April 1, 2003... The Bush Administration's relentless unilateral march towards war is profoundly disturbing for many reasons, but so far as American citizens are concerned the whole grotesque show is a tremendous failure in democracy. An immensely wealthy and...

Slouching towards Baghdad: the US war machine is banking on a Wal-Mart-style battlespace network. But could it all unravel?(revolution in military affairs/network centric warfare)
April 1, 2003... Imperial Washington, like Berlin in the late 1930s, has become a psychedelic capital where one megalomaniacal hallucination succeeds another. Thus, in addition to creating a new geopolitical order in the Middle East, we are now told by the...

The politics of affluence: Australians watch the extravagances of the rich with awe and envy. So why is it that low-income households seem to be able to acquire the basic necessities of life, while the rich say they are suffering, unable to find the money for everything they need?
April 1, 2003... James Packer is the heir to Australia's largest fortune, the product of a family that has ruthlessly pursued material success and political power. He surrounded by the trappings of the super-rich, and is ranked number one on the society A-list....

Hot Stuff. (Three Moon Poems (2)).(Poem)
April 1, 2003... Hot Stuff Slowly, low in its descent, the moon Gathered in the heat from the grass fires, The high ones, above the tree line, then As it dipped again before dawn, it smouldered With the long story it had heard before,...

Cries unheard: the diagnosis of children with attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder, and their treatment with prescription drugs, reflects a social trend in thrall to the philosophy of the quick fix.
April 1, 2003... When I was young, a turbulent social movement centring on the possibilities of human flourishing open to women was in full swing. One of the issues feminism raised was the treatment of `suburban neurosis'--the depression that isolated and...

Those Pots. (Three Moon Poems (3)).(Poem)
April 1, 2003... Those Pots Now it's back, gleaming wan over the Capital, And what we imagine might be left after a burst of us fire-storming Baghdad with `the worst we've had'. I look into its silver on a hot night, and see, With...

Black Swan.(Poem)(Poem)
April 1, 2003... Black Swan (Perth February 10, 2003) A walled garden in the hot morning Indian ocean sun. The peace of a sea into which incendiary afternoons fall. The sky a dome for blue praying, beneath which happiness, So privately...

Rumi's Dancing Shoes.(Poem)(Poem)
April 1, 2003... Rumi's Dancing Shoes I read my anti-war poems in Persian heat The kind of heat that puts a lid on argument And leads to sleep or treachery or war. I could feel my categories melting. How stale the modern activist...