Arena Magazine articles from October 2002

Arena Magazine archives from October 2002

To the other side of history. (editorial).(looking at the possibility of war)(Editorial)
October 1, 2002... War is re-emerging in all our lives, like land reappearing from floodwaters. The lineaments are familiar, the paths laid out before us, the conditions under which we must move forward are those we always knew were there. We are all doing all we...

Conservative hacking. (editorial).(journalists Roger Scruton and Janet Albrechtson ethics questioned)(Editorial)
October 1, 2002... Conservative hacks are having a hard time of it at the moment. Take, for example, the case of Roger Scruton the English conservative moral philosopher and columnist. Earlier this year it came to light that Scruton was being paid by a tobacco...

Breaking the drought. (editorial).(Editorial)
October 1, 2002... The drought currently afflicting much of Australia has reached a new level of urgency at the same time as David Kemp reaffirms the government's stance against the Kyoto accord, claiming that its implementation is not `in Australia's best...

A prelude to World War III? Military intervention in Iraq could well provide the preconditions for a global conflict. (war).
October 1, 2002... The war that is not a war It is a shocking prospect that few people believe will actually happen. But the conditions for a world war are quickly falling into place. Two years ago such a prospect seemed beyond the pale, simply a doomsday...

The Iraqi connection: `evidence' for war so far presented is loaded in favour of a pre-determined conflict and panders to a wider need for grotesque self-deception. (war).
October 1, 2002... The English historian A.J.P. Taylor once argued that the principal difference between the methodologies of the lawyer and the historian was that `the lawyer aims to make a case; the historian wishes to understand a situation'. According to...

Taking them out: rogue states, despots and dictators have always been essential to the pursuit of English and American interests in the Middle East. (war).
October 1, 2002... Everyone knows that the United States and Britain have been continuously at war with Iraq ever since the Gulf War. They first sought to cripple Iraq through sanctions which have taken the lives of about one million Iraqis. These were...

The logic of unilateralism: American attitudes towards global trade, international accountability, and Iraq are representative of a nation insulated from--and indifferent to--the wide world beyond its borders. (war).
October 1, 2002... There is a certain logic which comes into play when individuals, corporations or governments become too powerful. For a start, the views of others cease to matter. This is so because the too powerful can no longer see or feel the consequences...

The world is not enough: conservative responses to September 11 reveal a wilful blindness to the line between power and culture. (war).(Terror: A Meditation on the Meaning of September 11)(Book Review)
October 1, 2002... After last year's attack on the WTC many political and cultural commentators simply reaffirmed their already existing positions, albeit with greater emphasis. The Left pointed out what they have been saying for years: that the United States has...

Document in grief the majority have it. (war).(Australian reaction to American patriotism)
October 1, 2002... It has been an apposite year to dabble in the writings of that most passionate of American patriots, Walt Whitman. From 1855 to 1892, when he was revising his great tribute to the New World, his North American continent promised an...

Mourners and `the mob': the response of sections of the UK public to a double child-murder reveals the ambiguous nature of public emotion and `community'. (against the current).
October 1, 2002... What's the difference between a `loving community' and a `hate-filled mob'? About forty miles--the distance from Soham to Peterborough--to judge by reports of the different public outbursts of emotionalism we have witnessed in response to the...

Climate bullies: reducing greenhouse emissions could help minimise air pollution as well as disastrous climate change, so why is the Australian government determined to `adapt' rather than stop the damage? (against the current).
October 1, 2002... In the one corner: the majority of the world's governments, the world's foremost collaboration of atmospheric scientists, health and humanitarian agencies and environmental advocates. Their clear message is that climate change is irrefutable,...

Normalising razor wire: bids to improve conditions inside the detention centres risk legitimising the government's border protection scheme and could lose the battle for the right to freedom. (against the current).(refugee detention centers)
October 1, 2002... You could knock this place down and rebuild it from gold. It would still be a cage. Maribyrnong detainee On the final day of the recent Easter protests at Woomera I took part in a march around the perimeter of the detention camp. As we...

A re-joiner to Guy Rundle: Colin McNaughton. (letters and debate).
October 1, 2002... He who binds to himself a joy Does the winged life destroy, But he who kisses the joy as it flies Lives in eternity's sun rise William Blake I was greatly heartened by Guy Rundle's article in Arena Magazine No. 60...

Collecting songs out of things: anthropologist T.G.H. Strehlow's journey into the Australian outback to record vanishing Aboriginal songs and to document totemic ceremonies revealed the complex relationships between the sacred and the scientific in early 20th century Australia. (Essay).(Excerpt)
October 1, 2002... The journeys T.G.H. Strehlow made during 1932 were foundational. They set him up for his further travels in 1933-34 and then again in 1935, by which time he had covered more than 7,000 miles, over half of them by camel and often only in the...

In the absence of voice: some of the 1950s battles of the Australian left have now been won, but ensuring that new technology improves community living standards requires a well-informed electorate. (Memoir).
October 1, 2002... The multinational tycoon Rupert Murdoch we know today once supported an Australian Left journal--surprising, but it happened. The journal was Voice: The Australian Independent Monthly--a current affairs review which I founded and edited. Last...

Pottage.(Poem)
October 1, 2002... Pottage I chop potatoes, herbs toss them into a pot discard thoughts with peelings I don't name the outcome lest memories stop me from seeing things as they are The pottage simmers steam drifts...

Kim Dovey on open houses and ivory towers in the work of Glenn Murcutt.
October 1, 2002... The Pritzker Architecture Prize was initiated in 1979 by the American owner of the Hyatt hotel chain. Modelled on the Nobel Prize, it has long been the world's richest architecture prize (US$100,000) and has become the most prestigious. Glenn...

Nic Maclellan on Fiji's continuing revolution.(Government by the Gun: The Unfinished Business of Fiji's 2000 Coup)(Book Review)
October 1, 2002... William Sutherland and Robbie Robertson, Government by the Gun--the unfinished business of Fiji's 2000 coup, Pluto Press, Leichhardt, 2001. On 2 November 2000, I was returning home to Fiji after travelling overseas. Out of the blue, a...

Spiderman, The Minority Report, The Sum of All Fears.(Movie Review)
October 1, 2002... A recent article in the Age reported that in October last year the US Army invited thirty screenwriters, directors and producers to a meeting to try to develop new likely terror scenarios. The article's author noted that this is the latest...

Johann Hari God Save the Queen? Monarchy and the Truth about the Windsors.(Book Review)
October 1, 2002... Whilst main players in the local Republican debate continue to flagellate each other over the recent failure to behead the seriously suspect office of Governor-General, British journalist Johann Hari undercuts these residual blame games with an...

What's wrong with the universities?
October 1, 2002... Universities are essential to Australia. In the global environment, higher education and research have become central to the health and sustainability of the economy, to social well-being and to cultural life, in every nation. Universities are...