Arena Magazine articles from June 2001

Arena Magazine archives from June 2001

RETURN OF THE REPRESSED.(new books on treatment of Australia's indigenous peoples)(Critical Essay)
June 1, 2001... THERE'S A NEW WAR ON AN OLD FRONTIER AND INDIGENOUS CULTURES ARE IN THE FIRING LINE In Australia self-congratulation seems to be the order of 2001. Recent commemorations of the first sitting of Federal Parliament made much of the idea that...

GLOBAL HEAT.(globalization and the environment in US politics)
June 1, 2001... CHINA, TAIWAN, KYOTO AND THE NEW STAR WARS... AN INSECURE AMERICAN EMPIRE IS SEEKING A NEW ORDER, ARGUES JOHN HINKSON Three announcements of George W. Bush appear to have reset the political agenda for the next decade. Firstly, he...

EYES WIDE SHUT IN THE CHILD-CARE DEBATE.(Child Health and Human Development)
June 1, 2001... ONLY CONFRONTING THE `NEVER SAID' WILL IDENTIFY THE NEEDS OF BOTH CHILD AND PARENT There is a curious mismatch between the emotional charge of the most recent manifestation of the child-care debate and the tediously familiar arguments...

ON THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN US AND THEM.(Australian Aborigines and New Zealand Maoris)
June 1, 2001... MEMORIALISING THE PAST IN AOTEAROA Being an Australian tourist in New Zealand is mildly disorienting. Initially there is a distinct lack of the culture shock usually associated with overseas travel. Notwithstanding the accents of the...

TURKEY IN TRANSITION.(prime minister and president's relationship worsens economic crisis)
June 1, 2001... THE SECULAR REPUBLIC IN QUESTION `I see no future for my country or myself.' This is the woman behind the counter in the library. This is Turkey, which is now in the grip of the most serious economic crisis outside war since the republic...

ABOUT AUSTRALIA'S FUTURE ... GEOFF SHARROCK QUESTIONS THE DEPTH OF HOWARD'S RESEARCH PLAN.(analyzing the Backing Australia's Ability plan)
June 1, 2001... The Howard Government's innovation plan, Backing Australia's Ability, invites questions about government thinking about Australia's future. The basic settings for significant public investment are there -- a projected budget surplus, a strong...

THE FEEL OF PROTEST ... JENROSE COUCH WRITES FROM QUEBEC CITY.(Summit of the Americas)
June 1, 2001... I truly felt like a country cousin. Dressing to protest in Quebec is quite a feat. There is a lot to consider. Layers of clothes are advised. Cotton socks are out. Rain gear (which you can paint black I hear), ponchos, gloves and boots are all...

MAN OF PEACE? ... JEREMY SALT QUERIES THE PERES AGENDA.(Israel's Prime Minister Shimon Peres)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2001... Mr Peres is at it again. Having spent time in Amman and Cairo discussing a possible ceasefire with the Palestinians, he went to New York and Washington for fund-raising dinners, briefings and meetings with George Bush and his foreign policy...

OF CYBORGS AND HUMANS ... ANTHONY MCMAHON ON AN EPIDEMIC OF MEANINGLESSNESS.(responding to Guy Rundle's article on 'depression')
June 1, 2001... Meaninglessness crops up twice in Guy Rundle's analysis of depression (Arena Magazine no. 52). The rising incidence of depression is due, he says, to a `widespread and growing feeling of meaninglessness' in a `culture of hyperindividualism and...

NO CONSPIRACY ... DENIS ALTMAN ON THE TRAGIC PARADOX OF AIDS.(emphasis should be on prevention not treatment)
June 1, 2001... How comforting, as Guy Rundle does in the latest Arena Magazine, to blame AIDS on `the neoliberal world order', in particular on `King Pharma'. In what appears to be a first cousin to the conspiracy theories which attribute the spread of AIDS...

Sort of Kind of Like.(Brief Article)(Poem)
June 1, 2001... Promiscuous as hair on the floor of the barber's shop Safe as his scissors bathed in ultra-violet light Obvious as spray-on hair thickener Sharp as a cut-throat stropped on the palm Like the brand fidelity of thieves ...

IN THE DARK AGES.(civil rights of indigenous peoples)
June 1, 2001... Amid the noise around the Summit of the Americas in Quebec City in late April, and all the wordiness of the government leaders' Final Statement -- against AIDS and for `democracy'! -- its section on indigenous peoples may have been missed: ...

Buddhist Gridlock.(Poem)
June 1, 2001... an old Asian man with his beard dreaming walks across the road in capital letters he waves a hand, halts the traffic cars squat and chant beside him four-wheel drives on haunches mumble learn the meaning of...

COCA-COLA, HUMAN NATURE AND THE ORIGINS OF OUR FUTURE.(Statistical Data Included)
June 1, 2001... INVESTIGATING THE NEW BRAND OF `GLOBALISATION' AND THE ESSENCE OF CAPITALISM, HUMPHREY McQUEEN CHARTS A HISTORY OF MARKETING, MONOPOLISING AND MANAGEMENT THROUGH THE PERFECT FIZZY COMMODITY. At an owner-operated drug store in Atlanta in...

DRUGS AND THE EMPIRE OF DESIRE.(history of drug abuse)
June 1, 2001... CHASING THE `PERNICIOUS COMMODITY' ALL THE WAY INTO THE SELF Writing of his drug addiction in 1821, the English essayist Thomas De Quincy -- author of the classic Confessions of an English Opium Eater -- noted that he had fallen into the...

GETTING TOUGH ON THE WAR ON DRUGS.(developing an ante-drug policy in Australia)
June 1, 2001... A LEFT/STRUCTURAL PERSPECTIVE ON THE HEROIN DEBATE With some minor exceptions, such as the militant-led Campaign for Heroin Reform, the Australian Left has generally been silent on the illicit drugs debate. There is no significant Left...

Confessions of a spice girl.(observations of Batavia, Indonesia and the spice trade)
June 1, 2001... Running amok in Java I am sitting in Cafe Batavia under the old wooden fans. Batavia is the old Dutch Kota right on the mouldering Port of Jakarta. You flatter yourself if you fancy you might catch a whiff of cumin and tea, cloves and...

EARTHDREAMING.(Earthdreamers' protests against mining and nuclear industry in Australia)
June 1, 2001... AN ALLIANCE OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES AND `TECHNO-TRIBES' GOES CROSS-COUNTRY FOR A NUCLEAR-FREE FUTURE The country got a big power Big energy Somebody got to go back and say sorry to that country (Kevin Buzzacott -- Arabunna elder) ...

INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY FOR AUSTRALIA.
June 1, 2001... TOWARDS A NEW FORM OF EMPLOYEE REPRESENTATION IN THE WORKPLACE The text of this article is based on a speech delivered at the Unchain My Mind Forum, Thursday, 27 July 2000, Council Chamber, Trades Hall, Melbourne Workplace democracy...

Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behaviour.(Review)
June 1, 2001... Christopher Boehm, Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behaviour, Cambridge (Mass), Harvard University Press, 1999. On my refrigerator is a postcard from Leeds. The illustration shows a bespectacled intellectual,...

Man, Beast and Zombie: What Science Can and Cannot Tell us About Human Nature.(Review)
June 1, 2001... Kenan Malik, Man, Beast and Zombie: What Science Can and Cannot Tell us About Human Nature, London, Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 2000. On my refrigerator is a postcard from Leeds. The illustration shows a bespectacled intellectual, scratching...

A Darwinian Left: Politics, Evolution and Cooperation.(Review)
June 1, 2001... Peter Singer, A Darwinian Left: Politics, Evolution and Cooperation, London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1999. On my refrigerator is a postcard from Leeds. The illustration shows a bespectacled intellectual, scratching his chin, explaining: `I...

The Moral Animal: Why We Are the Way We Are.(Review)
June 1, 2001... Robert Wright, The Moral Animal: Why We Are the Way We Are, London, Abacus, 1996. On my refrigerator is a postcard from Leeds. The illustration shows a bespectacled intellectual, scratching his chin, explaining: `I suspect that genetically...

The Enterprise University: Power, Governance and Reinvention in Australia.(Review)
June 1, 2001... Simon Marginson and Mark Considine, The Enterprise University: Power, Governance and Reinvention in Australia, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2000. After two decades of denial or embarrassed silence, almost everybody, except David...

Remaking the University: Monash.(Review)
June 1, 2001... Simon Marginson, Remaking the University: Monash, St Leonards, Allen & Unwin, 2000. After two decades of denial or embarrassed silence, almost everybody, except David Kemp and his cronies, now agrees that Australia's universities are in...

COME FLY WITH ME.(global warming and politics in Australia)(Brief Article)(Column)
June 1, 2001... There's this fly that's been buzzing around our house for weeks now, just out of reach. Right now it's standing on my ceiling, reminding me of someone. But who? From down here at my desk I can just make out a pair of twitchy eyebrows beneath a...

ROPE.
June 1, 2001... I WAS PREMATURELY MIDDLE-AGED ONCE MYSELF.... "Natasha Stott Despoja's economic policy is inner-city trendy, not conservative. It is not what young people want; they want the market economy." Marky Mark Latham on the Democrats' new...