Arena Magazine articles from October 2000

Arena Magazine archives from October 2000

NOW, S11.(demonstrations against globalization)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... VICTORY OF A NEW KIND Doubtless the parents of children trampled by baton-wielding police will disagree, but the S11 protests were a clear victory for the campaign against the global free-market agenda. The World Economic Forum came to...

PATRIOT GAMES.(marketing Australia's national identity)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... THE `ORDINARY PERSON' IS NOW AN IRONIC MYTH An Olympic opening song called `G'day'. A pre-bubescent girl as spirit of the nation holds the hand of an Aboriginal elder. Stockriders storm the stadium as the Sydney Symphony Orchestra plays the...

SUFFER THOSE WHO ARE SURPLUS.(analysing the McClure Report on welfare reform)
October 1, 2000... JOHN HINKSON LOOKS AT THE McCLURE REPORT AND THE DEGRADATION OF MUTUAL OBLIGATION The McClure Report, which reviews the Australian welfare system, sets in place a strategy which will complete the picture of economic rationality marching...

STOLEN PAST, STOLEN FUTURE.(ruling on compensation for Aboriginal children who were relocated)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... THE O'LOUGHLIN JUDGEMENT DEMONSTRATES THE BIAS OF EXISTING LEGAL FRAMEWORKS On Friday 11 August 2000, judgement day came. It was devastating for plaintiffs Peter Gunner and Lorna Cubillo. In giving evidence, their wounds were opened and...

THE WHOLE WORLD IS WATCHING.(protests against the World Economic Forum )(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... Up to 30,000 people participated in non-violent protests against the World Economic Forum (WEF), held at Melbourne's Crown Casino, 11-13 September 2000. On the first day, over one third of WEF delegates were prevented from attending the Forum....

MEDIA VIOLENCE.(coverage of the demonstrations outside the World Economic Forum Conference)
October 1, 2000... They were all there. Inside, the captains of industry, the white collars of corporate elitism, and the holders of high office from around the globe; outside, the malcontents, the marginalised, and `the great unwashed'. It was political theatre...

BECOME THE MEDIA.(independent media and the World Economic Forum)
October 1, 2000... Two blockades were erected around Melbourne's Crown Casino on the 11, 12 and 13 September. There was firstly the blockade of peaceful protesters surrounding the Crown Casino and partially `shutting down' the World Economic Forum, and secondly...

JERUSALEM, WHOSE JERUSALEM?
October 1, 2000... MIDDLE-EAST POLITICS MEANS NEVER SAYING SORRY Reconciliation is in the air -- or if it's not it should be. The South Africans have had their truth and reconciliation commission, squeezing the truth and occasionally tears out of the...

LIBERAL POST-HUMANISM?(Peter Singer and genetic engineering)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... PETER SINGER AND THE GENETIC MANIPULATION OF INTELLIGENCE When will we stop lionising Peter Singer, `the most influential philosopher in the world'? Far from cutting down this tall poppy, we have proudly, parochially, celebrated his work in...

FROM LOG-ROLLING TO THE WHITE HOUSE.(Ralph Nader and the Green Party)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... SLIM PICKINGS FOR THE LEFT IN THE US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS Ralph Nader is as effective a presidential candidate as the United States Left is likely to get. In a milieu where empty grandstanding often wins out over nuts and bolts economics,...

A KISS IS NEVER JUST A KISS.(in vitro fertilization)
October 1, 2000... LESBIANS HAVE NO RIGHT TO HAVE A CHILD -- BUT THEN NEITHER DO `LOVING MARRIED COUPLES' Politicians now cynically use the `family values' card with hypocritical gay abandon. Al Gore did it after his Democratic Convention acceptance speech...

DO NOT ADJUST YOUR SET-UP.(Australia. Broadcasting Services Amendment (Online Services) Act 1999)
October 1, 2000... DIGITAL TELEVISION POLICY BYPASSES COMMUNITY BROADCASTING Digital television is said to provide a better picture for all. We have been told that the new technology is capable of better quality transmission, different services, and a new...

ENOUGH ROPE.
October 1, 2000... HOSTAGE TO FORTRAN `We cannot let terrorists and rogue nations hold this nation hostile or hold our allies hostile... I will work to end terrors and tariffs everywhere.' US Presidential candidate George W. Bush explains his election...

AUSTRALIA, THE NEW SOUTH AFRICA.(policies on indigineous peoples)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... Watching the current government do what it does would be a lot of fun if it wasn't ours. The most recent actions -- the withdrawal from key UN committees because of excessive criticism of Australia's human rights record -- is the latest in a...

LA RESISTENCIA.(world view of social activists)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... Cam Walker writes persuasively about `Resistance as a Strategy for Sustainability' in Arena Magazine no. 47 (June-July 2000). I empathise with Walker's views, but I have reservations about the use of naked activism as the way to achieve a...

THE SILENT GENERATION.(post-war adoption practices)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... Since 1928, over 350,000 children nationally (60,000 in Victoria, including 34,000 between 1953 and 1973) were separated from their mothers. These children, often born of young single Catholic mothers, were severed from the continuum of their...

WOMEN, SEX AND THE LEGAL PROFESSION.(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... The legal profession, long a bastion of unreconstructed masculinity, seems to evince a fear of the feminine as well as a fear of feminisation, as more women enter law schools and the profession. An insight into the way many of our notable...

PART-TIME WORK IS REVOLTING.(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... A fast-food outlet recently proposed that staff should clock on only when a customer is in the store, and clock off upon customer departure. It effectively means staff may attend for an entire shift, yet only be paid for a portion of the shift:...

GROWING PAINS.(economic growth and labor)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... Like a flock of noisy parrots squawking at the bottom of the garden, government and business spokespeople never cease chorusing that the only way to overcome unemployment is through more economic growth. This is in complete contradiction to the...

TRANSNATIONAL CHANGE AND INDIGENOUS PEOPLES.
October 1, 2000... Several years ago a Latin American anthropologist recorded a view after visiting Quebec anthropologists that they, Francophone quebecois, see themselves as `the real Indians', the victims of British colonialism -- not indigenous peoples. He did...

SIMULANT SORTING IN THE CITY.(surveillance of city dwellers)
October 1, 2000... AND EVERYONE IS WATCHING EVERYONE Most people today live in cities. Even for those who do not, the urban environment is never far away. Urban experience is characterised by the regulation of daily life. Myriad checks are made to ensure that...

DEBATING THE KNOWLEDGE NATION.(Excerpts from three speeches)(Transcript)
October 1, 2000... TRAINING, LEARNING, LIVING Education in Australia is dominated by a contradtiction. As a nation, it is our most important issue -- the key to mastering the new economy and forging a good society. Yet as a public issue, it suffers from a...

CRISIS IN ZIMBABWE.(presidential election and social strife that followed)
October 1, 2000... REFLECTIONS ON THE AFTERMATH OF EMPIRE 15 June 2000 Bracing for the tedious wait at Harare International's baggage belt, I was forewarned of the Australian-Zimbabwean connections that would spring into relief in the days leading up to...

REMEMBERING JUDITH WRIGHT.
October 1, 2000... The ancient war between poetry and philosophy can be traced back to classical Greece. In the Republic, Plato writes disparagingly of poetry as corrupting, swaying the populace by base appeal to the passions rather than to reason, which he...

GLOBALISATION FROM BELOW.(new face of immigration in the 21st century)
October 1, 2000... MIGRANTS OF THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY The passport is the most noble part of a human being. It cannot be created in such an easy way as a human being. A human being can be created anywhere, in the most frivolous manner, and for no good...

Global Spin: The Corporate Assault on Environmentalism.(Review)
October 1, 2000... Sharon Beder, Global Spin: The Corporate Assault on Environmentalism (Revised Edition), Melbourne, Scribe Publications, 2000. At times during the 1990s, the war between corporations and environmentalists to win the hearts and minds of the...

Jobs of Our Own; Towards a Stakeholder Society.(Review)
October 1, 2000... Race Mathews, Jobs of Our Own; Towards a Stakeholder Society, Sydney, Pluto Press, 1999. For most of us, the `third way' is a recent political idea whose time seems to have come, judging by the way in which it is picking up powerful...

Obliged To Be Difficult: Nugget Coombs' Legacy in Indigenous Affairs.(Review)
October 1, 2000... Tim Rowse, Obliged To Be Difficult: Nugget Coombs' Legacy in Indigenous Affairs, Cambridge UK, Cambridge University Press, 2000. Those initially attracted to this book are likely to be drawn by a knowledge of Tim Rowse's earlier writings on...

BOGDANOV'S TROILUS + CRESSIDA.
October 1, 2000... The Bell Shakespeare Company (BSC), launched in August 1990, is celebrating its tenth birthday with Troilus + Cressida, directed by Michael Bogdanov. Company founder and Artistic Director, John Bell, has aspired to create `a world-class...

Think Stuff.(Poem)
October 1, 2000... It's good to think because then you have something to say when people ask what you are thinking? Even making a list of all the Basque names you can remember or all the adjectives used for movie titles or any dumb thing ...

MALLED.(Short Story)
October 1, 2000... He held Isha's shoulders, making sure the blue vomit didn't contaminate her robe. Good robes had been harder to lift since they started weaving dye bombs into their seams. Hay knew how to find them, clear them with his palmchip, but you could...