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In the lead up to Refugee Week the attitudes of Australians to people who come by boat to seek protection made sober reading. 71 per cent of Australians believed Australia should turn back asylum seeker boats. That is far higher even than the Prime Minister's disapproval rating. Some might say that 71 per cent of Australians can't be wrong. At Eureka Street we have never been persuaded that majorities always have truth on their side.
Journalist Masha Gessen describes the members of Pussy Riot as 'Putin's ideal enemies'. In recent months, their nemesis has hosted the Olympics, taken control of Crimea and clamped down on media. For a group born out of 'the repressions of a corporate political system that directs its power against basic human rights', Pussy Riot still has much to roar about, even if its signature 'punk prayer' sounds more than ever like a plea.
On the occasions I got into detailed discussions with strangers in Moscow, a pattern emerged. Saying I was Australian prompted a polite request for clarification: 'But your ancestry?' The reply that I was fifth-generation Australian was treated as an evasion, or met with the assumption that my ancestors were 'bandits'. Generally, Muscovites took a second look at me and the box they ticked was 'Jew'.
In Australia free speech is understood as freedom from legal constraint. In the Bolt case, it was defended for commercial reasons. A better understanding of the cost of free speech can be seen in Russian journalist Alexander Minkin's description of an attempt to kill him.
While he was best known for his unrelenting criticism of the Soviet system, Alexander Solzhenitsyn also provided a devastating critique of the excesses of Western capitalism.
As a reader, it's satisfying to reach that moment when you realise you don't have to finish the book you've been ploughing through. A book's unfinishability reflects less on the reader than on the writer. Even great writers flop sometimes.