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Author: Fatima Measham

  • AUSTRALIA

    Hate thrives as much in the open as in the dark

    • Fatima Measham
    • 08 December 2017
    21 Comments

    It is apparently not enough for Muslims, Jewish, queer and Indigenous peoples to deal with homegrown hate; they must deal with imported brands, too. The latest such visitor was feted by Leyonhjelm, Hanson, Latham and assorted hangers-on. There was something pathetic about it, the scramble to goad 'lefties' about their 'worst nightmare'.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Australia's original sin

    • Fatima Measham
    • 23 November 2017
    13 Comments

    It's entirely possible that reconfiguring our relationship with First Nations peoples, even centralising it, would give us the language and impetus to reconfigure everything else, including the way we resolve conflict, think about the environment, and make decisions about vulnerable members of society.

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  • MEDIA

    What to do about shareable lies

    • Fatima Measham
    • 09 November 2017
    4 Comments

    Last week, executives from Facebook, Google and Twitter had to answer questions about how their platforms were used to influence voters in the 2016 US elections. It is a significant moment. Other media like radio, newspapers and TV have never been grilled like this, though Fox News and The New York Times surely influence voters, too.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Raising boys amid Australia's 'masculinity of the frontier'

    • Fatima Measham
    • 19 October 2017
    10 Comments

    We may not have a daughter, over whom we would have worried about the countless ways the world can hurt her. Yet the work does not seem to be any less difficult, raising sons, especially in Australian context.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Facial recognition tech perpetuates injustice

    • Fatima Measham
    • 06 October 2017
    12 Comments

    Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has pushed state premiers to hand over their drivers' licence database in order to enhance facial recognition systems, particularly at airports. COAG has agreed, with the ACT insisting that only perfect matches be used for non-counterterrorism purposes. It is hard to find this reassuring.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Getting some perspective on Charlottesville

    • Fatima Measham
    • 17 August 2017
    15 Comments

    Instead of refining his initial remarks about a Nazi rally in Charlottesville, which brutally claimed the life of a counter-protester, Donald Trump has doubled down. At a heated news conference in New York, he demanded that journalists define 'alt-right', invoked the idea of an 'alt-left', and lay blame on 'both sides'.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Time to protect vulnerable university students

    • Fatima Measham
    • 04 August 2017
    9 Comments

    This week, the Australian Human Rights Commission released Change the Course. It is a landmark report into sexual assault and harassment at universities. The undertaking was propelled by survivors, student leaders and support organisations.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Dual citizenship should be a plus in modern Australia

    • Fatima Measham
    • 21 July 2017
    38 Comments

    There are layers of frustration around the resignation of Greens senators Scott Ludlam and Larissa Waters due to dual citizenship. The immediate loss of two of Australia's better parliamentary performers - on any side of politics - is unfortunate. For no one in their orbit and nothing in the AEC nomination process to have caught something so fundamental is unsettling, but perhaps not that odd. Presumptions of Australian-ness are more or less adjudicated on a certain kind of look and surname.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Draconian citizenship mindset means no one's safe

    • Fatima Measham
    • 06 July 2017
    10 Comments

    The Guardian has revealed that two men holding dual Australian citizenship were sent to Christmas Island under section 501 of the Migration Act. The law enables the minister to detain or deport non-citizens who fail the 'character test'. The detention of these citizens was without question unlawful. The error was identified and they were released. It looks like a happy ending, but you'd have to squint hard.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Petty political class is stunting Australia's growth

    • Fatima Measham
    • 21 June 2017
    15 Comments

    In the latest Essential poll, the primary vote for Pauline Hanson's One Nation lifted to 11 per cent. It does not bode well when competence is no longer the baseline; though in a leadership vacuum, 'someone else' holds a natural appeal. In any case, there can be worse things than incompetence. There is timidity. Mediocrity. Running up the cost of doing nothing at all. In so many ways, the Australian political class is holding us back. That is the crux of nearly every policy impasse over the past several years.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Know your enemy (and it's not Islam)

    • Fatima Measham
    • 08 June 2017
    13 Comments

    Since 9/11, as well as more recent, atomised attacks in Europe and the UK, our judgment about what is against us has been clouded. It is not Islam, no matter what politicians and commentators say. To believe them is to take seriously the notions that it is ever possible to 'fight' religion as if it were a nation-state, that religion holds a single interpretation, that the only legitimate victim of religious violence is white and non-Muslim, and that human motivation is simple and direct.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Philippines coming full, sordid circle

    • Fatima Measham
    • 25 May 2017
    3 Comments

    None of what continues to unravel in the Philippines is a shock. In August last year, barely more than a month from inauguration, Duterte mentioned the prospect of martial law in relation to his drug war. Duterte is the sixth president since the 1986 People Power revolution that overthrew Marcos. He is a close associate of the dictator's children. Martial law was long in play before the incidents in Marawi this week, and is in character for an ex-mayor with alleged links to 'death squads'.

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