Arena Magazine articles from October 2003

Arena Magazine archives from October 2003

An end to all our labours?(editorial)
October 1, 2003... Some time around the beginning of the twentieth century, working people began to seize state power. Whether you date that from the world's first, faltering, Labo(u)r government in Queensland, or social democracy in Norway, or the October...

The aftermath of Cancun: the Mexican resort was originally known as Kan Kun, 'nest of vipers'. Has the WTO meeting seen it live up to its reputation, or is there now greater hope for a just global settlement?(against the current)
October 1, 2003... There has been a profound shift in the logic of globalism. A newly assertive US empire has grown weary of multilateral trade-offs. The United Nations is supplanted by the 'coalition of the willing', the World Bank is superseded by bilateral...

Dig for oil, Aung San Suu Kyi! Burma's government is continuing to get an easy ride, despite its recent return to openly repressive tactics. Increasingly it is national minorities who are feeling the heat.
October 1, 2003... The war on Iraq this year, according to the leaders of the coalition of the willing', was important because of the need to remove tyrannical dictators and in order to restore democracy. Ironic, then, that democratically elected leader of Burma,...

Histories, possibilities and voices: Windschuttle, the history wars, ATSIC and indigenous futures.
October 1, 2003... In the last two years or so, has there been a seismic shift in the way in which indigenous Australia--its dilemmas, its possibilities and its history--is perceived by both indigenous and non-indigenous Australians? To judge by the media, you'd...

Wounds above the heart: Keith Windschuttle's Fabrication of Aboriginal History is cutting with the grain of a new Western supremacism that has become explicit since the World Trade Center attack. Hoisted as the ragged standard of the right, it must be replied to.
October 1, 2003... Books discussed in this essay Windschuttle, Keith, The Fabrication of Aboriginal History, Volume One, Macleay Press, 2002 Manne, Robert (ed.), Whitewash: On Keith Windschuttle's Fabrication of Aboriginal History, Black Inc., 2003 ...

Silenced voices: the 'history wars' have been conducted in the substantial absence of indigenous voices and with an exclusion of non-Western forms of knowledge. It is time to resituate, rethink and listen anew.
October 1, 2003... Earlier this year Keith Windschuttle debated historian Patricia Grimshaw in front of a capacity crowd at the Trades Hall in Melbourne. Among the audience were Gary Foley, Wayne Atkinson, Robbie Thorpe and Kevin Buzzacott. All four Aboriginal...

Four out of four hundred: Windschuttle annotated.
October 1, 2003... What follows is an annotation of three sections of Keith Windschuttle's The Fabrication of Aboriginal History, Volume One. As noted at the start of this chapter, the guerilla warfare thesis advances two explanations of why violence broke...

ATSIC bashing: the commission has been the victim of double dealing, judged by standards not applied to white bureaucracy. The current attacks may be an opportunity for it to recover an advocacy role.
October 1, 2003... With Senator Amanda Vanstone taking on the portfolio for Indigenous Affairs, it is opportune to reflect that the key challenge that faces the new minister is the future of the peak national Indigenous representative organisation, the Aboriginal...

Whitegoods: despite all the rhetoric there has been little recognition of the way in which different cultural frameworks should set political goals and aspirations.
October 1, 2003... The recycling of debates around welfare, violence and history in Settler-Indigenous Australian affairs involves the circulation of some wellworn perspectives. For new--and not-so-new--assimilationists such as Janet Albrechtsen, Peter Howson,...

Norway's bucketloads of extinguishment.
October 1, 2003... Norway is deservedly considered a leader, even the leader, in promotion and respect of human rights internationally. This does not protect it from its own dilemmas, of course. In August 2003 the Committee on the Elimination of Racial...

A spectre is haunting left nationalism: Angela Mitropoulos.(comment ... critics of Australia's immigration policy are divided by differences over global citizenship)
October 1, 2003... For some time, there has been an ongoing debate in Arena Magazine around border policing, and specifically around the efficacy of a 'no border' politics as one of the responses to it. In the most lengthy and recent piece, Rob Sparrow (No. 66)...

The myth of the people: Jess Whyte and Nik Beuret.(comment)
October 1, 2003... In 'Borders, States, Freedom and Justice' (Arena Magazine No. 66), Rob Sparrow raises the spectre of 20 million refugees, who could be accommodated in Australia only at 'the cost of social and economic chaos'. Leaving aside the ludicrousness of...

Douglas Kirsner: reply to John Docker.(comment)
October 1, 2003... John Docker is perfectly entitled to defend once again the ethnic/racial stereotyping of Jewish Israelis prevalent in his discriminatory academic boycott proposal (Arena Magazine, August-September 2003). However, he is not entitled in a...

Blown out of all proportion: Bob Ellis.(comment)
October 1, 2003... President Nixon was forced out of office for helping plan a burglary and pretending he hadn't. President Clinton was impeached for having sex with a young woman and pretending he hadn't. Senator Edward Kennedy was forced out of the presidential...

Thieves in the night: electricity privatisation and deregulation has failed to deliver and no one ever really wanted it in the first place. In the wake of blackouts, Gridlock and Enron, is public ownership back on the agenda?(features)
October 1, 2003... The widespread electricity blackouts in the northeastern states of the US are merely the latest in a long line of electricity crises caused by electricity privatisation and deregulation. Blackouts have been experienced from California to Buenos...

Alex Millmow on the economist's new clothes.(How to Argue with an Economist)(The Contest of Economic Ideas )(Book Review)
October 1, 2003... Lindy Edwards, How to Argue with an Economist Cambridge University Press, 2002 Frank Stilwell, The Contest of Economic Ideas Oxford University Press, 2002 There is more to Lindy Edwards' book than the appealing title and striking...

Syed Mohammad Ali on the people next door.(Book Review)
October 1, 2003... Abdullah Saeed, Islam in Australia Allen & Unwin, 2003 Dr Abdullah Saeed is an acknowledged academic heading the Arabic and Islamic Studies Program at Melbourne Institute of Asian Languages and Societies in Melbourne University. He has...

Tristan Ewins on the shape of a progressive left.(What's Right?)(Book Review)
October 1, 2003... Eric Aarons, What's Right? Rosenberg Publishing, 2003 This bold new book by sculptor and life-long progressive activist Eric Aarons is nothing short of vast in breadth, the product of an entire lifetime of dedication and critical thought....

Notable publications.
October 1, 2003... John Anderson, A Perilous and Fighting Life. From Communist to Conservative: The Political Writings of John Anderson (Pluto Press, 2003) For over three decades, John Anderson was one of the nation's most controversial intellectuals. Editor...

Responding to the challenge of globalisation: the democratic imperative.
October 1, 2003... The global condition is one of heightened vulnerability. National boundaries are increasingly porous. States are finding it harder and harder to run their economies and defend their borders. As the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington...