Arena Magazine articles from October 2001

Arena Magazine archives from October 2001

Editorial in terror and hope. (The new world order under siege editorial: guy rundle; Geoff Sharp on the new mixing of religion and politics in times of social reformation; John Docker with aphorisms for a despairing age of wandering people, ultraviolence, terrorist states and genocide; Tom Nairn on the revival of apocalyptic nationalism; and senator Bob Brown on nexus between terrorism and war-mongers).
October 1, 2001... The US attack on Afghanistan and the prior destruction of the World Trade Centre and attack on the Pentagon have launched the world into a new historical period -- this is true even though most of the newspapers say it is true. Since the end of...

What hope for years to come? In the wake of the terrorist attacks in the United States, the tension between religious piety and imperial power reveals the urgent need for re-examination of the new social forms.
October 1, 2001... George W. Bush may well be right. The war, if it is a war, which he has declared, could last for a generation or more. It could take all of that for the Bush constituency to come to realise that the horrific immediacy of the United States' own...

Thirteen untimely meditations.
October 1, 2001... I The Tampa crisis: the new voyage of the damned. The falling towers of 11 September -- the ultimate aestheticisation of politics? The perpetrators knew America and the world would be watching CNN and BBC World as the second plane flew...

Black pluto's door: the beginnings of a new and undisguised American unilateralism has led many to suggest global forms of justice. But peace may only be achieved by overcoming the impasse of nationalisms in the region.
October 1, 2001... Aeneas was praying and holding on the altar When the prophetess started to speak: `Blood relations of Gods, Trojan, son of Anchises, the way down to Avernus is easy. Day and night black Pluto's door stands open. But to...

Document: justice not war.(terrorists responsible for U.S attacks should appear before International Court of Justice)(Brief Article)(Transcript)
October 1, 2001... At the dawn of the twenty-first century, our human world has more knowledge, more technology and more power than ever before in history. This means we also face far greater danger of annihilation, at our own hands, than ever before in history....

Ten-thousand-pound cat goes to war -- the US and the world. (A world on the brink of war: Scott Burchill and Dan Flitton on the new global balance of terror; John Hinkson on the transformations of the global economy; Jeremy Salt on terrorism in the mirror of the Middle East; Bernhard Platzdasch on Islam, Indonesia and Disintegrasi; and Angela Fennell reveals china's Islam problem).
October 1, 2001... Outside of Western capitals, a common question is being widely posed: why must there be a world-wide crusade against terrorism when the United States is attacked, but not when, say, Peru was being terrorised by the Shining Path or when Sri...

High towers, high stakes, high risks: the financial fallout of the attack has laid bare the risky and crisis-ridden nature of a hi-tech society. The aftershocks will echo through every sector of the economy.
October 1, 2001... The attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon seem certain to have profound effects on the US economy as well as the world. This is not because the direct economic effects in terms of property loss are especially major or that the...

Terror in the mirror of the Middle East: famously trained by the United States, Osama Bin Laden has taken on the role of Muslim redeemer working in a global context. Private terror cannot be eliminated without attacking the state terror that guarantees its appeal.
October 1, 2001... The United States is now trapped between the poles of its own rhetoric and the backwash of its policies in the Middle East. The US State Department has identified Iraq, Libya, Sudan, Syria, Iran, Cuba and North Korea as the seven `state...

Document: from the Middle Eastern Press.(reaction to American action in Afghanistan)
October 1, 2001... The Middle-Eastern press was quick to analyse the local effects of the 11 September attack. The calls are similar throughout: that mainstream Muslims abhor the attack; that the United States act with restraint, preferably under UN auspices; and...

Echoes of the blast in Indonesia: will the war in Central Asia heighten tensions in Indonesia? Are Islamic fundamentalist groups more likely to push the archipelago further towards disintegrasi?
October 1, 2001... Unlike during the Suharto era, Indonesia now has quite radical Islamic groups operating in the open. Among them, the Islamic Defenders Front (Front Pembela Islam, FPI) is infamous for unleashing paramilitary gangs on `iniquitous' nightspots....

Document: first reaction.(political response to terrorist attacks)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2001... The September 11 attacks were major atrocities. In terms of number of victims they do not reach the level of many others, for example, Clinton's bombing of the Sudan with no credible pretext, destroying half its pharmaceutical supplies and...

One fine day.(Poem)
October 1, 2001... one fine day like snowflakes that melt & reform hands that touch the bride & groom are lucky for the both of them whenever they come together as they foot it though the house they have a small white celebration...

Crouching tiger, hidden Islam: China's islamic minorities have been almost invisible behind centuries of repression. Beijing's lukewarm support for the war will cool yet further if it leads to a revival of separatist hopes.
October 1, 2001... In the context of the almost universal wave of sympathy which accompanied the immediate aftermath of the attacks on the US World Trade Centre and Pentagon, Beijing's offer of condolence was a relatively cool response. Although it did not...

Will democracy come to the USA? (The empire strikes back -- America and its allies Simon Cooper on dissent and democracy in the new climate of control; Paul James visists dreams of redemption in the American heartland; Ray Nichols on America's faith in its own exceptionalism; Andy Butfoy on international diplomacy and global responses; Douglas McQueen-Thomson on the new language of war; and Damien Lawson on fortress Australia).(foreign and domestic policy in wake of terrorist attacks)
October 1, 2001... In what must count as one of the most perplexing forms of political correctness yet, US football commentators recently announced that in the wake of the WTC bombings they will remove all the militaristic and violent metaphors which normally...

Document: responding with humanity.(foreign and military policy of United States)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2001... This week saw the end of an exhibition I helped put on at the Barbican in London, devoted to photo-journalism that makes sense of terrible events. Brilliant, subversive pictures from Vietnam show the systematic rape of a country with weapons...

The terrorist syndrome: mainstream western responses to global violence involve disturbing reassertions of nationalistic parochialism.
October 1, 2001... We are all struggling with how to respond to the attack on New York and Washington. At least in the first few days afterwards it was understandable that the recorders of this `day of infamy' resorted to iconic images, cliches and apocalyptic...

The exceptional powers of the United States: the political and cultural reactions by American politicans and public cano nly be understood by a consideration of American exceptionalism.
October 1, 2001... When a finger points at the Moon, only a fool looks at the finger. This old adage is profoundly apt after the 11 September attacks. We need to look, not at the terrorists or their carnage, but at America. I propose to sketch the impact of...

Arms and the mandate: prior to the attack on the Twin Towers, the US had embarked on a policy of unashamed unilateralism. The new war will only produce more of the rogue states that it now identifies as the problem.(non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction)
October 1, 2001... Does Washington really care about the spread of weapons of mass destruction (WMD)? This apparently outrageous question arises because, in a series of breathtakingly reckless actions, the US has undermined the internationally negotiated...

Them's fighting words: language of war and war through language.
October 1, 2001... For the first conceivable time, a country declared war without knowing its enemy and without firing a shot. In the four weeks after 11 September before the first missle strikes, in lieu of military action the United States initiated a war...

Document: the hitchens effect.(commentary on American foreign, military policy by Christopher Hitchens)
October 1, 2001... It is a truth frequently observed that the rise of the net has transformed Australia's relationship to the media world more substantially than just about anywhere else in the global North. Nowhere is that more evident than in the matter of...

The government goes to war: the Howard government is launching a fresh attack on civil liberties as engineered refugee crises and war panic grant a pretext to rebuild fortress Australia.(John Howard)
October 1, 2001... The new Cold War against terrorism is reinforcing an ideology of security, which will result in a significant removal of democratic rights. Of course there is nothing new about this. The replacement of `reds under the bed' McCarthyism with the...

Rope.
October 1, 2001... THE MAN'S AN EXPERT, YOU KNOW `Whatever he says, he is not a happy man. He's got a lot of weight on his mind and there's a deep feeling in him that he has bitten off more than he can chew.' Erik Rees, from the British Institute of...

Bordering on the worst: the multiple forces of globalisation -- the best and the worst -- have been at play abroad and closer to home. We need a policy that affirms global reciprocity between communities. (The new voyage of the damned John Hinkson on the global context of the movement of people; Nehal Bhuta laments the effective repudiation of the refugees' convention; and Angela Mitropoulos on the global protest and open borders.).
October 1, 2001... Australia has entered a new phase of its history as the implications of its approach to asylum seekers are interwoven with the global mayhem that began with the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon. The actions of the Howard...

Gunship humanitarianism: the Tampa-led reaction has ushered in a series of unprecedented attacks on the judicial and legislative arms of government and on fundamental rights under Australian law.
October 1, 2001... For those of us who have followed the fortunes of refugees and asylum seekers as a political issue over the last two years, the period from late August to mid-September 2001 represented a dramatic escalation in the government's anti-refugee...

Habeas Corpus: citizens are commodities, dialogue is dead and civilisation is barbaric in the new global order. Against capital and state, open borders represent hope.
October 1, 2001... The end of mediation `In Genoa, we have seen the end of political mediation between institutions and movements', wrote Luca Casarina in Il Manifesto. Casarina, spokesperson of the north-eastern social centres and part of the Genoa Social...

One rolled-up copy of Trade Practices Act * + competitor's head = competition policy. (Business as usual, John Quiggin on Ansett, corporate of privatisation; Owen Gager structures of today's anarchists; Doug White on life up north after the CLP; and Jude Mcculloch reviews police accountability.).
October 1, 2001... IS COMPETITION POLICY CRAZY? ABSOLUTELY SAYS JOHN QUIGGIN Over the last year or so, Australia has seen a series of corporate collapses unparalleled since the recession of 1989-92. Notable failures have included those of, the retailer Harris...

Civilian Oversight of Policing: Governance, Democracy and Human Rights.(police justice in the spotlight).(Review)
October 1, 2001... Andrew Goldsmith and Colleen Lewis (eds) Civilian Oversight of Policing: Governance, Democracy and Human Rights Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2000. On the surface this book is about police accountability, and in particular civilian oversight of...