Arena Magazine articles from April 2004

Arena Magazine archives from April 2004

Military non-humanitarianism.(editorial)(Editorial)
April 1, 2004... The folly and criminality of the invasion of Iraq can be conclusively seen in the fact that no good outcome is now possible--there are merely a range of undesirable alternatives from which one must choose. Continued US occupation will only see...

Kingdom of nothingness.(Australia's criminal procedure)(Editorial)
April 1, 2004... Listeners to the ABCs Late Night Live program were treated to an extraordinary radio event some weeks ago. With the release of 'Sending Them Home', the latest Quarterly Essay, which deals with mandatory detention, a debate was set up between...

9/12.(Poem)
April 1, 2004... In 1872 a swarm of ladybirds flew over New York. Martyrdom is a kind of Baptism. Pick up the phone--dial: 1) 4) 3) 6) 2) Is he home? "Freud!" Each morning 2 million eggs get broken over the breakfast...

Methodical, precise and overwhelming: the war on Iraq is as much a cultural as a military conflict, with the US determined to install its own technocratic brand of democracy.(against the current)
April 1, 2004... The worst fears about where the US campaign in Iraq may end are now materialising. The country is quickly transforming into citadels for the occupiers and a seething resistance by substantial and rapidly growing local movements. As with the...

ATSIC; regional mythologies: national indigenous governance is being denied a fair go by both sides of politics. The new enthusiasm for 'regional solutions' is faddish and unthinking.(Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission)
April 1, 2004... The long legal wrangling over the future of the ATSIC Chair seems to be finally drawing to a close with the Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs presenting Geoff Clarke with a 'show cause' letter. Ironically, the fate of...

A new anti-semitism: American discourse since September 11 has seen a reinvention of the eternal anti-semitism thesis applied to critics of Israel.
April 1, 2004... One way to judge an alarmist discourse is to question its 'worldliness', its capacity to engage with the contingency of the past and the complex realities of the present. This criterion helps us to analyse the proliferating literature warning...

Howard's way with terror: Kopassus and Australia: the government's eagerness to renew ties with Indonesia's special forces exposes the fraudulent nature of its 'war on terrorism'.(John Winston Howard)
April 1, 2004... Established at the beginning of the Suharto years in 1965, Kopassus is the elite special force of TNI, the Indonesian armed forces. Its soldiers are elite in every sense. It is said that one Kopassus soldier equals four average soldiers in...

Hitler youth or democracy in schools? A new reform in secondary schools involving students evaluating their teachers has some fearing it will promote an environment of spying and paranoia. However, the idea is neither as dangerous nor as unconventional as some would imagine.
April 1, 2004... Over recent years there has been a lot of talk about the virtues of participation as part of a project to (re)build community. The policy community has even embraced youth participation, making it a central and popular part of contemporary...

Poverty in India: poverty, disease and suffering are on the rise in India devastating not just for India but for humanity in general.
April 1, 2004... South Asia is home to more than half of the world's poorest people and it has the lowest average GDP of any of the world's major geographic regions. India, the largest of the seven South Asian countries with a population of over a billion...

Gangland.(Bites: brief notes on news and views from around the world)(influence of gangsters on civil society)
April 1, 2004... There is no doubt that questions of law and order become a lot more pressing for sections of the media when gangsters start killing each other in inner city restaurants, rather than on the nature strips of obscure outer suburbs. In Melbourne,...

Families: the next wedge.(Bites: brief notes on news and views from around the world)(gay parenting regulations)
April 1, 2004... Should children be penalised by the government if their parents don't fit Howard's view of the deal family? This may be a key debate at the next election if Howard succeeds in making children in gay families the silent victims of a Tampa-like...

Death of the rivers.(Bites: brief notes on news and views from around the world)
April 1, 2004... Autumn rains have broken the worst drought in the memories of south-west Queenslanders. Yet for rural producers downstream in New South Wales it's as though the drought remains. For millions of litres of the resulting floodwaters have been...

Privatising the vote.(Bites: brief notes on news and views from around the world)
April 1, 2004... The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which all other rights are protected. To take away this right is to reduce a man to slavery... Thomas Paine Santa Clara County, of all jurisdictions in America, should...

Blood sports.(Bites: brief notes on news and views from around the world)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... When the Brisbane Lions decided to tackle the problem of dehydration during AFL matches a couple of years ago, they came to the conclusion that the most efficient solution was to cease to regard their players as the animals they are often said...

Freedom of association.(Bites: brief notes on news and views from around the world)(green advertising strategies of corporates)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Advertising is a strange beast, with the flexibility and freedom to devour, trample and generally have its way with anything in its path. In this arena of cynical opportunism, Apple associates itself with Gandhi; Nike has attempted to harness...

Rupert I.P.(Bites: brief notes on news and views from around the world)(Rupert Hamer's political activity)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Like all the former members of the one-time natural government of the jewel in the crown, the late Sir Rupert Hamer probably has a few more questionable decisions and compromises to his name than his recent obituaries would suggest....

While Redfern riots, whites do battle.(cultural riots in Australia)
April 1, 2004... The riot of Aboriginal men, women and children against police in Sydney's inner Redfern district one sweltering summer Sunday night in February was an unmistakable political statement by Indigenous peoples. Apart from the measured and sensible...

Social capital and the politics of co-operation: two responses to Chris Scanlon.(Column)
April 1, 2004... THE INEQUALITY THEORY OF SOCIAL CAPITAL: TOM CLARK Chris Scanlon's recent Blue Book, 'What's Wrong with Social Capital', gives a lively and thoughtful examination of the uses and users of social capital. In response, this article examines...

Sorting for suspects: a culture of suspicion is spreading as sophisticated surveillance societies, in which everyone is monitored, are being created around the world.(essay)
April 1, 2004... In a classic one-liner, Jacques Ellul once suggested that: 'To be sure of apprehending criminals, it is necessary that everyone be supervised'. Substitute the word 'terrorists' for 'criminals' and we have an uncannily accurate description of...

What's wrong with the Australian people? Australia's conflation with the global market has coincided with a marked decline in altruistic values.
April 1, 2004... Poor fellow, my country I start with these words from Xavier Herbert because I often feel them these days, in my semi-self-imposed exile in France. To explain why I feel ashamed that I am an Australian, let me start with oat exchange of...

Anaesthetising the national conscience: the Howard government's refugee policy is a hypocritical contradiction of the oft-espoused rhetoric of the 'fair go'.(John Winston Howard)
April 1, 2004... Tony Abbott said recently, in connection with the Prime Minister's revised attitude to parliamentarians superannuation, that it takes real guts to do the right thing in difficult political circumstances'. He acknowledged implicitly that...

Make media, make trouble: hacking the infocalypse in the Italian Telestreet.
April 1, 2004... As the cold rain lightens, I pass the small twice-weekly farmers market and travel down the corridor past the Italian class for migrants, the bookshop, a meeting, the circus class. In one room, a web of cables crawls above, converging in a...

Market Forces [A Parable of the 1980s].(poetry)(Brief Article)(Illustration)
April 1, 2004... Market Forces: [A Parable of the 1980s] A bus is travelling along a mountain road The road is on the edge of a high cliff The bus carries 100 passengers They are rich and can pay Among them is an economist, He...

Alcoholism's unnatural history: alcoholism is not a 'health' issue, but one of personal and existential pain. Recognising this would force us to acknowledge one of most successful methods of dealing with alcohol addiction.
April 1, 2004... Watching former Tasmanian premier Jim Bacon on TV, resigning himself to continuing a course of palliative care for lung cancer and urging young Australians not to be 'idiots' and smoke, reminds one that there is such a thing as addiction. Bacon...

A good case for retirement at sixty? The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund enter their dotage.
April 1, 2004... The world bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) were born sixty years ago in Bretton Woods. In their youth they presided over the post-war boom. In their late twenties they were buffeted by the collapse of the US$-based exchange...

It's more than a business: commerce, culture and clubs in the Australian Football League.
April 1, 2004... In early February this year, the Melbourne Demons became the third club to seek emergency assistance from the Australian Football League, after recording its third straight year of heavy financial losses. With accumulated losses of more than $5...

Ecce Pomo: Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ is much more a product of this society than its proponents or critics would like to admit.(cooper's last)(Movie Review)
April 1, 2004... After months of speculation, Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ was finally released this year. Predictably it divided audiences, whether through its graphic violence, its alleged anti-Semitism or simply its declaration of some kind of...

Gary Pearce on the new imperialism.(Empire of Capital)(Book Review)
April 1, 2004... Ellen Meiksins Wood, Empire of Capital London, Verso, 2003 The United States has always sought a space of plausible deniability when it comes to accusations of imperialism. It has long contrasted itself to the history of European...

Alan Gold on a better Australia.(Book Review)
April 1, 2004... Donald Horne, 10 Steps to a More Tolerant Australia, Penguin, 2003 Donald Horne's latest book, 10 Steps to a More Tolerant Australia, is a distillation of his thoughts about the growing racism in our nation during the past decade. He treats...

Simon Cropper on the fate of universities.(Book Review)
April 1, 2004... John Cain and John Hewitt, Off Course: From Public Place to Marketplace at Melbourne University Scribe, Melbourne, 2004 As an international academic who believes strongly in a public education system and has worked at Melbourne University...

Ilka White White Work: a Contemporary Trousseau.(Textnote)(exhibitions)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Craft Victoria, 11 March - 17 April 2004 In the words of the artist, a trousseau is 'a proving ground, a space for self expression... sometimes called a hope chest, also like a dowry, a measure of a woman's worth'. 'White Work' showcases...

Notable publications.
April 1, 2004... Molly Ivins & Lou Dubose, Bushwacked: Life in George W. Bush's America (Allison & Busby Limited, 2004) A critical look at the right-wing sympathies of George W. Bush. Ivins outlines the counterproductive nature of Bush's political...