Arena Magazine articles from April 2007

Arena Magazine archives from April 2007

Politics by other means.(EDITORIAL)
April 1, 2007... Aside from taming his eyebrows, John Howard's personal image has remained relatively static over his tenure as Prime Minister. Howard has, however, worked and moulded almost all political images of the last eleven years to his own ends. If the...

Lead graphic.(Comic)(Cartoon)
April 1, 2007... MEANWHILE IN IRAQ, ONE DAY, SON, ALL THIS WILL BE YOURS... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

How do we become Aboriginal?(LETTER TO THE EDITOR)(Letter to the editor)
April 1, 2007... Location matters. We cannot ignore our surrounds, or the people that have lived here for thousands of generations. The connection of indigenous people to the land is a gift that they can share with all others, but one which has been seriously...

The politics of climate change: an elemental blindness prevents us grasping the full significance of climate change.(AGAINST THE CURRENT)
April 1, 2007... The handling of the recent proposal of Bob Brown's to phase out coal exports over a short period of time illustrates the way in which climate change will be neutralised politically in this country. It will be shaped into manageable bits that...

Political silence and affective ties: Liz Conor examines racist comments made by journalist and Howard supporter David Barnett, and the disturbing lack of response.(AGAINST THE CURRENT)(John Howard)(Critical essay)
April 1, 2007... Last June David Barnett, journalist and former media adviser to Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, wrote in his Canberra Times column about Aboriginal mothers, 'We must ask ourselves whether it is right to condemn Australian children to be brought...

Lobby world: political lobbying is a $1-billion-a-year industry. John Warhurst argues that while the likes of Brian Burke are not representative of the industry, open government demands regulation.(AGAINST THE CURRENT)
April 1, 2007... The Australian lobbying industry comprises a diverse range of groups, companies and individuals who act as professional intermediaries seeking to influence government policies and decisions. The Business Council of Australia, the National...

Protest politics and policing: tensions within the Victorian police force are playing out in the response to the G20 mobilisations.(AGAINST THE CURRENT)(G20 Summit)
April 1, 2007... In the aftermath of last November's protests against the G20 summit in Melbourne, Victorian police have conducted a massive operation against individuals who were allegedly involved. Under the banner of Taskforce Salver, dozens of houses have...

Whose rights are we talking about? Mary Lucille Sullivan examines the case made for prostitution as a legitimate form of work.(AGAINST THE CURRENT)(Critical essay)
April 1, 2007... At the beginning of the 21st century governments worldwide are confronted with an unprecedented escalation of the global sex industry. An intrinsic component of this new world sex market is the trafficking of millions of people, mainly women...

At the Maori Village.(POETRY)(Poem)
April 1, 2007... AT THE MAORI VILLAGE The woman demonstrating weaving seems reluctant to answer questions but when she does her voice is flat and challenging. 'Why do you assume that?' she wants to know, ...

Can the Left find a new vision? David McKnight responds to Geoff Sharp.(COMMENT)(Critical essay)
April 1, 2007... Though battered and bruised, the Left in Australia has good reason to be optimistic, or at least feel vindicated. The invasion of Iraq, as predicted, has turned into a murderous folly. Instead of being the seedbed of democracy in the Middle...

Time for rethinking: is Compass on the right bearing? John Hinkson asks.(COMMENT)(Compass Programme for Renewal's New Political Economy proposal )(Essay)
April 1, 2007... Over the last few months a number of unions under the auspices of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) have sought to begin a process of reassessment in the face of the general challenge to working people and our way of...

To Barak and Hillary: letter from the US.(//bites: BRIEF NOTES ON NEWS AND VIEWS FROM AROUND THE WORLD)(Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton)
April 1, 2007... In February, on the 42nd anniversary of the bloody civil rights march there, Barak and Hillary went to Selma, Hobama, to connect with the important and difficult civil rights history of America. Barak says he is Black enough to know that his...

Unsustainable greening.(//bites: BRIEF NOTES ON NEWS AND VIEWS FROM AROUND THE WORLD)
April 1, 2007... Every passing day brings another example of commercial excitement about climate change. There are rental cars, bank accounts and credit cards that offer ways to green our lifestyles. Channel Ten recently took the opportunity to broadcast...

Finding the Threads, Melbourne, Textile Clothing and Footwear Union, Victorian Branch, (2005).(NOTABLE PUBLICATIONS)(Brief article)(Book review)
April 1, 2007... If you ever thought industrial work was a dull and meaningless activity merely endured for the life it afforded outside the factory, this short oral history will disabuse you. These workers' stories are simple testament to the satisfactions of...

Chega!, Dili, Timor-Leste Reception, Truth and Reconciliation Commission, 2006. Advanced copies in CD form available for free download at <www.cavr.timor-leste. org>.(NOTABLE PUBLICATIONS)(Brief article)(Book review)
April 1, 2007... It is a melancholy duty, reading Chega!, the final report of the Timor-Leste Reception, Truth and Reconciliation Commission (CAVR) (available at www.cavr-timorleste.org). Like the Bringing Them Home report in Australia, so many pages of...

Remembering Baudrillard: forgetting the significance of theory.(COOPER'S LAST)(Jean Baudrillard)(Column)
April 1, 2007... The recent death of Jean Baudrillard means the passing of a significant and often controversial figure. It also marks a symbolic shift in the tangible influence of 'French theory', the influential intellectual movement based around...

Tiro's people: in 2006 journalist Linda Christanty interviewed founding members of Aceh to find out if the historic Helsinki Pledge will bring real peace.(Interview)
April 1, 2007... Several men were in the room, sitting cross-legged on the floor. Before I set foot in the room, Fatimah binti Ali hurriedly whispered, 'Put on a veil, you must wear a veil. There is an elder present'. A man in his sixties wearing a black...

From here to eternity? In the first instalment of a two-part essay, Geoff Sharp argues that the technosciences are creating a radical discontinuity in human social life.(ESSAY)(Critical essay)
April 1, 2007... In the final sentences of the editorial which introduced the December-January issue of this magazine, Paul James pinpointed the single issue that has rapidly moved into the foreground when most Australians give thought to the future wellbeing...

Z Magazine Online, volume 20, number 4, April 2007.(MAGWATCH)(Brief article)
April 1, 2007... The name for 'Z Magazine' was inspired by the movie 'Z', directed by Costa-Gavras, in which Comrade Z (a leader of the resistance movement in Greece) has been assassinated and his killers, including the chief of police, are indicted. As the...

Overland, issue 186, Autumn 2007.(MAGWATCH)(Brief article)
April 1, 2007... The introduction to the latest issue of Overland, headlined 'The Frightened Country', reads: 'In politics, Coleridge famously warned, what begins with fear usually ends in folly. Australia has become the frightened country, a nation permanently...

Corporate Watch Newsletter, issue 33.(MAGWATCH)(Brief article)
April 1, 2007... Corporate Watch is celebrating A Decade of Dirt Digging, so reads the editorial of their latest newsletter: 'It's been ten years (and a bit) since Issue One of Corporate Watch magazine was printed. Cheeky, desperately amateurish, but somehow...

State of Nature, Jan/Feb/March 2007.(MAGWATCH)(Brief article)
April 1, 2007... The theme of the latest issue of State of Nature is Civil Disobedience. Satya Sagar writes on the ecology of civil disobedience: 'There is no doubt at all that the idea of civil disobedience is probably as old as human civilization itself for...

Dissenting voices: 'troublemakers witnessing for an alternative way forward?' New voices are starting to be heard in the Australian Jewish community.
April 1, 2007... In 2000 Marc Ellis, a Jewish American theologian of the 'liberation' variety, elegantly described the plight of those who dissent from the entrenched Jewish mainstream view: In times of trouble, troublemakers abound, and throughout history...

Goodbye to all that: the end of Australian left-liberalism and the revival of a radical politics.(ESSAY)(Critical essay)
April 1, 2007... Maybe it was Jindabyne that did it. Ray Lawrence's beautifully shot, stylishly directed film hit London as the opening presentation of the London Australian film festival, a flagship event for the presentation/flogging of Australian culture....

Capital's curriculum: as the battle rages over ideology in the classrooms, Sharon Beder uncovers how promotional materials for the shareholder society are creeping into the curriculum.(EXTRACT)(Excerpt)
April 1, 2007... In a 2001 opinion piece in the Australian Financial Review Christopher Pearson argued: 'There's a strong case for saying that any experience of share ownership is worthwhile for its educative value alone... At least [children will] have begun...

Drums say natives restless, bwana.(social protest movements)(Essay)
April 1, 2007... Thomas Friedman, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of the pro-globalisation tract The Lexus and the Olive Tree, once wrote in The Age that throughout history, successful social protest movements have had one thing in common: a clear,...

Northern Territory Statehood revisited.
April 1, 2007... The Northern Territory (NT) Minister for Statehood and the Opposition shadow minister visited Canberra from Darwin in early February 2007 to speak with Attorney-General Philip Ruddock about prospects for NT statehood. Apparently Ruddock, like...

Cedric Beidatsch on class war on the high seas.(Villains of all Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age )(Book review)
April 1, 2007... Markus Rediker, Villains of all Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age (Verso, 2004). Markus Rediker is an historian of the early modern Atlantic, and in particular of piracy. Villains of All Nations deals with the last great outburst...

Ben Gook on Mike Davis, Megaslum Lord.(Planet of Slums)(Book review)
April 1, 2007... Mike Davis, Planet of Slums (Verso, 2006). In Western nightclubs and cars over the past year, the sounds of Brazil's infamous favelas have soundtracked a few hundred sweaty and sticky nights. The music produced in these slum cities is one...

Felix and I.(RECOLLECTION)(Short story)
April 1, 2007... 'But why does she want to look beautiful?' they asked, releasing me from the Western Obsession. 'She's a tourist'--the subscript being that tourists with pale skin and strange hair are by definition already beautiful. But, explained Josep, the...