Arena Magazine articles from August 2002

Arena Magazine archives from August 2002

Destroying the world to save it. (editorial).(United States invasion of Iraq)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2002... It is in the nature of events that they work forwards and backwards through time, reshaping the past as much as the future. The destruction of the World Trade Center on September 11 has been taken by many Americans as an epochal moment, a loss...

Descant for dog whistles. (editorial).(Brief Article)
August 1, 2002... With the worst aspects of the government's repressive anti-terror bill defeated by forces both inside and outside the Liberal Party, there is a danger that the remainder of the bill, and the wide array of repressive measures, will fall out of...

What is owed to the stranger? The world is on the move. But what do we owe to the stranger? We can only practice a genuinely ethical policy from deep within an idea of home. (against the current).
August 1, 2002... jacques derrida on immigration policy Penelope Deutscher: My questions will be directed at Derrida's work since 1996 on the theme of hospitality, which has been discussed in the context of ancient Greek notions of hospitality, in a...

An International Criminal Court? A single peak body indicting figures of evil will never get at the complex truths behind crimes against humanity. (against the current).
August 1, 2002... paul james looks at the international court Bravo Two, this is Bravo Four. Let me know when it is clear, copy... ten-four. The Japanese paper blinds are unrolled, shielding from public view the entry of one of the witnesses in the...

Does plagiarism really matter? David Robinson's plagiarism had to be exposed. But the subsequent debate showed that many of his strongest critics don't understand the real reasons why it mattered, nor what is at stake in defending the academy. (against the current).
August 1, 2002... john hinkson on plagiarism The recent dismissal of Professor David Robinson as Vice-Chancellor of Monash University on grounds of plagiarism gives many insights into how the university as an institution has changed. It is first of all an...

Mother of a debate: government loyalties have been tested as the debate over maternity leave rages on--feminist supporters have aligned themselves with a conservative government and liberal leaders are finding solace in the policies of the opposition. (against the current).
August 1, 2002... alexandra kirkham examines paid maternity leave Since the Howard Government took power in 1996, forward thinking on paid maternity and paternity leave has been deliberately stalled. They must have been surprised, then, when Pru...

Bad neighbour policy--Australia, Kyoto, and the Pacific: the Howard government's refusal to ratify the Kyoto Protocol represents a fatal lack of environmental and economic foresight. We are shirking our particular responsibility to the peoples of the Pacific. (against the current).(John Howard)
August 1, 2002... sarojini krishnapillai on greenhouse policy With the vitally important World Summit on Sustainable Development about to commence in Johannesburg, Australia is once again playing the role of `Whelan the wrecker'--most recently at a UN...

Left without leadership: opposition to Italy's Berlusconi government is growing as protests are stepped up over laws that strip away rights, extend concessions to the well-off, and weaken democratic safeguards. (against the current).(Silvio Berlusconi)
August 1, 2002... frank barbaro on berlusconi In what appears to be a re-run of Berlusconi's first try at holding onto government, millions of Italians have taken to the streets in opposition to his policies. An estimated three million marched in Rome on 23...

Sino Mining in northern Tibet: foreign trade is influencing China's state-owned corporations to the further impoverishment of its people and environment. (against the current).
August 1, 2002... gabriel lafitte on mining in tibet High in the pastures of the Dola Mountains, the final range of the Tibetan plateau before the steep plunge into the Gobi Desert, traditional Tibetan nomadic life has survived through to today. The...

Consensus conferences and the `people's enlightenment': the Danish government's involvement of laypeople in technological issues presents a model of functioning democracy. (against the current).(Brief Article)
August 1, 2002... sharon beder on danish enlightenment In Australia non-expert opinion on technological issues is held in low regard. However, in Denmark the views of laypeople are highly valued and it is believed that a profound understanding of...

On first viewing Atanarjuat, the fast runner.
August 1, 2002... Three years after achieving its formal launch as a self-governing political entity, Inuit in Canada's Nunavut region have burst onto the world cultural scene with a Cannes medal-winning movie, Atanarjuat, the fast runner. (For Nunavut...

Jill Singer on editorial privilege; and an exchange on nuclear waste. (letters and debate).
August 1, 2002... JILL SINGER ON PUBLIC INTELLECTUAL (A)GENDERS The publication of John Button's insightful essay Beyond Belief: What Future For Labor?(Australian Quarterly Essay Number Six) unintentionally serves to tell us more about Australia than the...

South Coast Valley. (Poetry).(Poem)
August 1, 2002... South Coast Valley Sunlight, sharp sunlight, the corroborating `laugh' of one kookaburra throat, the creek gurgle of the other, kept in tune by snake flesh. The peace of the valley at four o'clock belies and...

Can a radically human project be renewed in the twenty-first century? Looking back over the period covered by the first decade of this magazine, we can see the final collapse of a certain idea of left politics that began with the French revolution and the monumental work of Marx. But from within these traditions we can perceive the possibility of a political project that more fully recovers our human being. (Features).
August 1, 2002... Like that other momentous date--1984--the year 2001 seemed an impossible destination while the greater part of the world was moving towards it. What would happen when the `19' fell away and we became the first people in fifty generations to...

Blood from a stone: the real goal of `practical reconciliation' is indigenous diempowerment, and ATSIC is once again a target. Now it's being subject to a massive disinformation campaign. It won't get the real attention it needs until a genuine commitment to Indigenous rights is made.(Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission)(Statistical Data Included)
August 1, 2002... The era of practical reconciliation is a wrong turn in the road. It is more than a backward step. A backward step would seem to indicate that the ground that has been lost can be easily regained. This is not true. The native title rights that...

Two traditions of the sea: the relationship of indigenous peoples to their waters and shores--not only as a source of livelihood but of identity, cultural memory, and spirituality--points to new ways for the world to think about managing depleted resources and re-grounding our lives and communities.(Saltwater People: The Waves of Memory)(Excerpt)
August 1, 2002... Resonances It was 1978 and I had come to the Murray Islands--Mer, Dauar and Waier--within listening distance of the Great Barrier Reef. I was watching a man Cast a sardine net in the shallows in front of his house. His movements were...

Where can the liberals go? It is not only the ALP that is in trouble. The Liberal Party is dying as a genuine social institution and it has little interest in genuine liberalism. Liberals may end up as far afield as the Greens in their search for a political expression of their values.
August 1, 2002... The Australian Liberal Party is in a bad way. Bad not just because it is languishing in opposition in all six States, which should concern anyone who wants politics to be competitive. What's worse is that its only election victories, in the...

Love of the master's game: the re-issue of C.L.R. James's classic Beyond A Boundary introduces a new generation of readers to the work of one of the twentieth century's most extraordinary thinkers.
August 1, 2002... In Ian Buruma's 1992 novel Playing The Game, the narrator makes a pilgrimage to a distinguished nonagenarian critic cum cricket writer from Trinidad. K.C. Lewis, now almost blind in his South London retreat, is nonetheless surrounded by books:...

John Quiggin on progressive reform.(When the Boat Comes In)
August 1, 2002... Boris Frankel, When the Boat Comes in, Pluto Press, 2002. Apart from having easily the best title in the history of Australian social criticism, Boris Frankel's 1992 volume, From the Prophets Deserts Come generated plenty of anticipation as...

Ideology.(Poem)
August 1, 2002... Ideology James Joyce abhorred all those big words, all those `isms', except perhaps for schism and prism, nice and short, denoting fracture and refraction, "exile, silence and cunning". First we enjoyed...

Kath Kenny on babies, literary tics and ritalin.
August 1, 2002... Sylvia Ann Hewlett, Baby Hunger: The New Battle for Motherhood, Atlantic Books, 2002 Elizabeth Wurtzel, More, Now, Again, Virago Press, 2002 Tara Brabazon, Ladies who Lunge, UNSW Press, 2002 Half a century ago a young journalist...

Christopher Hawkes on ghost films and other spookiness.(The Others)(The Devil's Backbone)(The Mothman Prophecies)
August 1, 2002... The Others (Alejandron Amenabar, 2001), The Devil's Backbone (Guillermo del Torro, 2001), The Mothman Prophecies (Mark Pellington, 2002) Let's face it: when you're digging yourself out of an early grave you're probably going to work up a...

Jung and the New Age. (textnotes).
August 1, 2002... David Tacey, Brunner-Routledge 2001 It's not hard to imagine many readers spotting a book with a title like this and flipping through it in the hope of finding more clues to what it's all about. Bookstore dabblers like us rank in the...

Maria Prendergast, Banks Behaving Badly. (textnotes).
August 1, 2002... Penguin, Melbourne, 2001. Over a thousand people wrote in to Maria Prendergast with personal horror stories about banks behaving badly. Thousands might also write about tradesmen behaving badly, or real estate agents, or... The difference...