Vol 30 No 4

23 February 2020

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INTERNATIONAL

Personal is political for feminism in Pakistan
- Annam Lodhi
- 06 March 2020
9 Comments
In 2018, feminists of Pakistan were hit with a ray of hope. While still not very well understood the concept, feminism has now become a household topic. People are asking questions, and the youth were ready with some answers. All it took was the courage of some womxn to gather like minded womxn and claim the streets of Pakistan's largest metropolis, Karachi.
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AUSTRALIA

The rising corporatisation of queer identity
- Dejan Jotanovic
- 05 March 2020
8 Comments
Pride is politically messy. When you stir together an alphabet soup of people, all of which have other intersecting identities (race, class, religion, political allegiance), you will invariably plate up a political mess. And the 2020 Sydney Mardi Gras dished quite the menu.
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INTERNATIONAL

Delhi's spirit resists divisive ideology
- Irfan Yusuf
- 05 March 2020
8 Comments
The divisive and foreign Hindutva ideology goes against the culture and spirit of Delhi. Recently Modi’s party were trounced in local elections. Almost always the violence and hatred is caused by outsiders and resisted by the Dilli-walas.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

The ecology of words
- Andrew Hamilton
- 04 March 2020
8 Comments
To speak of the ecology of words can be illuminating because it evokes the wide range of relationships that words embody. It also invites us to ask broad questions about the healthy and unhealthy use of words in a society.
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AUSTRALIA

Solidarity in the face of a neoliberal inferno
- John Falzon
- 03 March 2020
27 Comments
The Morrison government despises the working class. There is no other explanation for its behaviour. For all the ‘lifters and leaners’ or ‘workers and shirkers’ guff that we’ve seen over the years from this and past governments, the truth is that, according to the neoliberal worldview, whether you’re in paid work or on social security, you’re despised unless you belong to its own big money elite.
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CARTOON

Lovesick
- Fiona Katauskas
- 03 March 2020
1 Comment
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ECONOMICS

Be wary of a cashless future
- David James
- 03 March 2020
10 Comments
We live in an era of hyper-transactionalism, whereby most of what we do is subject to the exchange of money and market pricing. Whereas in the past much of humanity was bound to a political system, now most of us are bound to a globalised monetary system.
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AUSTRALIA

Disability RC reveals important medical history
- El Gibbs
- 02 March 2020
2 Comments
Disabled people, and those that love them, have told the latest hearing of the Disability Royal Commission about their experiences in the health system. Neglect, abuse, violence all featured, with medical people and systems often talked about, not as caring health professionals, but as callous and cruel.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

That pastoral edge
- Chris Wallace-Crabbe
- 02 March 2020
1 Comment
From just up here, on the lip of mountain mileage, that pooling river mouth below, half salt but also hill-fresh, could seem a lagoon. On its low point, surmounting asphalt and breaking waters, sits the verandaed pub, a focus once of holiday shorescape.
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AUSTRALIA

What does it mean to be a settler?
- Marnie Vinall
- 02 March 2020
17 Comments
Was I a settler? What did it mean to be a settler? I began asking my non-Indigenous friends around me what their thoughts were on the matter: did they identify as settlers? Some reacted with intrigue and were open to discussing it with me, and others reacted with strong distaste. ‘No’, they would say, ‘I just don’t like the word — it doesn’t describe who I am’.
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AUSTRALIA

We all need to know about endometriosis
- Susie Ray
- 02 March 2020
3 Comments
This March is endometriosis awareness month. My eight year journey to receiving diagnosis was a road paved with misdiagnoses, misinformed doctors, medical professionals disregarding my pain (some being outright rude) and poor education of gynaecological health. No one should suffer this road and, most importantly, no one should suffer it alone.
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MEDIA

Adam Goodes, in retrospectives
- Celeste Liddle
- 27 February 2020
15 Comments
Last year, two documentaries regarding the Adam Goodes booing fiasco were released mere weeks apart: Shark Island Productions’ The Final Quarter and Madman Films’ The Australian Dream, anchored by Stan Grant. Given the topic and timing of both of the films, I couldn’t help but compare the two films as an Aboriginal viewer who spends a lot of time dissecting Australia’s racism in her own analysis. As I watched both of them, my reaction to each was markedly different.
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RELIGION

Dawkins delusion: the legacy of New Atheism
- Tim Robertson
- 27 February 2020
16 Comments
Contrary to their claims, the New Atheists do have a creation myth. It goes something like this: emerging from darkness into the light, Enlightenment thinkers cast off the shackles of religion and, in so doing, ushered in an age of reason. For the likes of Richard Dawkins, a founding member of the movement, this is an article of faith, and he’s spent recent years casting himself not just as an heir of this tradition, but also as its modern day guardian.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Stop bombarding us with military metaphors
- Andrew Hamilton
- 26 February 2020
22 Comments
One of the most popular, and largely counterproductive, metaphors in public conversation is the military one. It suggests that the project commended is a war in which there is an enemy, a campaign to be begun, forces to be mobilised, a public whose support is to be won, and weapons to be used. They commit us to do whatever it takes to win the war.
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ECONOMICS

Economic stimulus to fight poverty
- Bree Alexander
- 25 February 2020
2 Comments
After taking account of housing costs, it is estimated that 3.24 million people, equating to more than one in eight people, are estimated to be living below the poverty line in Australia. For children, it is estimated to be one in six.
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CARTOON

A monumental error
- Fiona Katauskas
- 25 February 2020
7 Comments
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RELIGION

Church governance needs to walk the walk
- John Warhurst
- 25 February 2020
7 Comments
Approaches to governance are in flux within church agencies, sectors, dioceses and at the national level, either driven by the demands of state regulations or in response to the challenging new situation the church finds itself in. There is so much change going on that it is difficult to follow.
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RELIGION

Embracing First Nations voices in the Church
- John Lochowiak
- 24 February 2020
17 Comments
Pope Francis’ 'Querida Amazonia' (Beloved Amazonia) has been warmly received by many members of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Catholic community. The tone of the exhortation is reflective of the position that underpins our vision for the Church in Australia — a Church that is open to the gifts of First Nations Catholics, honest to the past and embracing of a new way of thinking that utilizes the principle of subsidiarity.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

No stranger now
- Earl Livings
- 24 February 2020
2 Comments
I circle the huge granite standing stone sunwise three times, as my ancestors did long before the designs of cranes and coins, of theory. ‘Tell me how and what they thought.’ No answer but the wheeling murmuration of a thousand starlings. A stubble field.
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ENVIRONMENT

Climate justice includes secure public housing
- Andrew Jackson
- 21 February 2020
6 Comments
As the bushfires raged and air quality worsened, we were constantly told to stay indoors, keep cool and be alert for emergency orders on our phones. But with each public service announcement, we continued to leave some of our most vulnerable behind.
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AUSTRALIA

The problem with taking politics out of climate change
- Jeff Sparrow
- 21 February 2020
15 Comments
The common-sense enthusiasm for depoliticising environmentalism — voiced most recently in relation to the bill proposed by the conservative independent Zali Steggall — pushes in entirely the wrong direction.
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Vol 30 No 4