Vol 23 No 11

03 June 2013

INTERNATIONAL

Solidarity on Europe's horizons
- Benedict Coleridge
- 14 June 2013
1 Comment
At present all that seems to unite European citizens is the negative sentiment of 'Euroscepticism'. There's a gulf between citizens' opinions, and the policies pursued to solve Europe's most pressing problems. For committed Europeans the important discussions to be had now aren't just concerned with institutional design, but with 'the fundamental questions'. Enter the philosophers.
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AUSTRALIA

Legislating to counter grog fuelled violence
- Frank Brennan
- 14 June 2013
7 Comments
The Northern Territory Parliament will soon debate a proposed treatment scheme for up to 800 problem drinkers a year. It will be a case of unprincipled, unworkable lawmaking unless the NT is more attentive to medical, legal and community opinion within its own jurisdiction and 'from down south'. Just because a proposal is novel doesn't mean it's a good idea.
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RELIGION

Good and evil faces of child labour
- Andrew Hamilton
- 13 June 2013
6 Comments
I met a young woman who had been sold as a domestic servant when she was five, and later on-sold for sex work in Bangkok, Malaysia and Australia. I also met a girl in a village of El Salvador: for generations her family had lived by making rope from cactus fibre. Her work contributed substantially to the family income and made her a valued member of her society.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Remote Aboriginal boy's march against miners
- Tim Kroenert
- 13 June 2013
Pete lives with his grandfather at an abandoned drive-in cinema outside a remote community. When a mining company threatens to reclaim the land and demolish their home, he sets out across the harsh outback to confront this corporate Goliath. If he is to survive he must draw upon the traditional wisdom his grandfather has passed on to him.
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AUSTRALIA

Visiting detention is a political act
- Nik Tan
- 12 June 2013
12 Comments
The toddlers are from Syria. The boys are Sri Lankan Tamils, nervous as they will soon be flown to a Tasmanian facility for unaccompanied minors — one asks me if it will be cold. Visiting a detention centre is a small act to say that the Australian Government's policy of detaining asylum seeker men, women and children is not in our name.
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CARTOON

The Coalition's secret weapon
- Fiona Katauskas
- 12 June 2013
1 Comment
View this week's offering from Eureka Street's award winning political cartoonist.
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INTERNATIONAL

Turkish democracy gets the shake-up it needs
- William Gourlay
- 12 June 2013
5 Comments
Turkey's increasingly dictatorial prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan paid little heed to last week's violent demonstrations, dismissing protesters as looters and blaming social media for inflaming the situation. The protests are hardly on par with Egypt's government-toppling anti-Mubarak demonstrations, yet may still lead to a rejuvenation of Turkish democracy.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Haiku for JNB
- Joan Grant
- 11 June 2013
5 Comments
You planted gum trees / For every family member / Some grew, some faltered. You shuddered at crows / Their cawings a foretolling / Of endings to come. You smiled and whispered / 'I may be gone for some time' / Skin like polar ice ...
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AUSTRALIA

More asylum seeker deaths, more unanswered questions
- Tony Kevin
- 11 June 2013
34 Comments
The fact that the boat was seen as stationary on Wednesday should have alerted Border Protection Command to the risk of likely engine failure. Had they reacted more quickly, the 55 or 60 drowned people may have been rescued. Instead, their boat drifted helplessly westwards, away from Christmas Island, and at some stage capsized and began to sink.
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AUSTRALIA

Sex is to pregnancy what racism is to genocide
- Ellena Savage
- 07 June 2013
10 Comments
This past fortnight, race has been high on the agenda. Can a 13-year-old be racist? Is what Eddie McGuire said racist? Meanwhile, revelations that police officers in one Melbourne suburb had printed and distributed 50 racist stubby holders hinted at a frightening culture of racialised violence. The reality is that racial violence is inextricable from racist language.
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AUSTRALIA

Multiculturalism puts the lie to monarchists' mission
- Fatima Measham
- 07 June 2013
66 Comments
There is no denying that our nation was forged by men and women who settled here from the UK. There is also no denying that men and women from other parts of the world came after them, and that there were countless generations here before them. Until monarchists can reconcile themselves with these facts then the image they hold of Australia is incomplete.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Baz Luhrmann versus the god of capitalism
- Tim Kroenert
- 06 June 2013
5 Comments
In the 1920s New York society of Gatsby, money is literally God: benevolent to some; laying waste to the lives of others. It's a tough call whether Luhrmann has deliberately dumbed down Fitzgerald's text in order to appeal more readily to a mass market. If cinema was a medium to excite the eyes and ears while relaxing the brain, he'd be a master.
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RELIGION

Imagine being Christian in a rational world
- Andrew Hamilton
- 06 June 2013
26 Comments
The Christian imagination is marked by internal tension and by tension with prevailing forms of rationality. These tensions are often dealt with by harmonising. The challenge facing those who arrive at these harmonising versions of their faith is to find sufficient sustenance for the imagination to allow them to happily stake their life on it.
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ECONOMICS

How financial devils came to rule the universe
- David James
- 05 June 2013
7 Comments
Religious authorities may not spend a lot of time pondering the nature of global financial systems, but the Pope's recent comment that 'money has to serve, not rule' suggests it can be useful when they do. Given scope to become rule makers, rather than just people who know how to exploit the rules, financiers have moved themselves to a position of mastery.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Human rights viewed from a Swiss mountaintop
- Pat Walsh
- 05 June 2013
5 Comments
The weather seemed to express the mood of this city of international public servants paid to resolve the world's problem. Over dinner we discussed health and human rights for remote rural communities in the poorest corners of the world. That's Geneva: clean, ordered, pretty, earnest, and struggling to make the world in its image.
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AUSTRALIA

Gillard Government is socially challenged
- John Warhurst
- 04 June 2013
8 Comments
Groups such as the Australian Union of Students, Australian Conservation Foundation and Australian Council of Social Service are feeling lukewarm at best about the Gillard Government. In terms of social movement support a draw is as good as a win for the Coalition. Labor needs to do better with this sector.
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CARTOON

Good ole Aussie humour
- Fiona Katauskas
- 04 June 2013
5 Comments
View this week's offering from Eureka Street's award winning political cartoonist.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

The seams of the earth start to bulge
- Jena Woodhouse
- 04 June 2013
7 Comments
Sometimes the dark bird of discord is loosed, to circle massif and savannah, inciting acts of mayhem, orgies of slaughter. But sometimes the white bird of hope is released and the tears it weeps restore something like order.
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AUSTRALIA

Non-commercial ABC serves the common good
- Michael Mullins
- 03 June 2013
18 Comments
The ABC's efforts to compete with commercial media restrict the diversity of its content and help to make the case for it to be sold off. It might do well to withdraw from audience ratings surveys in favour of juries or another mechanism better geared to measure the content diversity that is its reason for being.
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AUSTRALIA

On the brink of native title history as Mabo comes of age
- Paul Newbury
- 03 June 2013
3 Comments
The Mabo decision of 3 June 1992 changed the course of Australian history and set the blueprint for native title determinations. Twenty-one years on, the Noongar people of Australia's south west are on the threshold of achieving the most momentous and comprehensive outcome to date of the native title process.
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Vol 23 No 11