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Keywords: Fatima Measham

  • AUSTRALIA

    Family drama reveals detention contortions

    • Fatima Measham
    • 16 January 2013
    15 Comments

    Ranjini turned up for a routine catch-up with her caseworker only to be told she was deemed a security risk and that she and her young sons would be detained indefinitely. Days later she found out she was pregnant. Last night, she gave birth to that child, a son who will be an Australian citizen.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Best of 2012: Thoughts on democracy from a martial law baby

    • Fatima Measham
    • 08 January 2013

    Today marks 40 years since martial law took effect in the Philippines. I was born during this time, part of a generation who grew up not knowing any other president. Given the numerous regressions that have occurred since, it is not surprising many Filipinos look back on the Marcos era with nostalgia. Friday 21 September 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Conscientious Catholics come around to contraception law

    • Fatima Measham
    • 20 November 2012
    23 Comments

    Last week the UN declared access to contraception a universal human right. The Philippines Church's opposition to reproductive health legislation is hollow because it is doesn't address identified social problems. Many conscientious Catholics are arriving at the conclusion that they can support the bill without having to renounce their faith.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Cat's eye view on Australia's poor

    • Fatima Measham
    • 17 October 2012
    7 Comments

    I went to a house in the northern suburbs to collect a cat. I departed with a new awareness of poverty that until then I had thought did not exist in my adopted country of Australia. It is disheartening that nearly a decade later, attitudes toward poverty remain unchanged and continue to shape public policy.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Thoughts on democracy from a martial law baby

    • Fatima Measham
    • 21 September 2012
    11 Comments

    Today marks 40 years since martial law took effect in the Philippines. I was born during this time, part of a generation who grew up not knowing any other president. Given the numerous regressions that have occurred since, it is not surprising many Filipinos look back on the Marcos era with nostalgia.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    What's the point of the Olympics?

    • Fatima Measham
    • 01 August 2012
    16 Comments

    The games are an escapist spectacle, where the flags of Iran, Palestine and Syria flutter without irony alongside those of the US, Israel and Turkey, and delegates from Spain and Greece wave as if their nation's economies have not fractured the Eurozone. The dissonance between the games and reality has become hard to ignore.

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  • MEDIA

    Orwell in 2012 Australia

    • Fatima Measham
    • 16 July 2012
    2 Comments

    As word of the national security inquiry filtered through Twitter last week, one wit remarked, '1984 is meant to be a cautionary tale, not a manual'. The proposed reforms constitute a disturbing concession that our intelligence sector is not equipped to deal with the increasing sophistication of covert online activity, without resorting to questionable laws.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Trading fears for tears in complex asylum seeker debate

    • Fatima Measham
    • 11 July 2012
    16 Comments

    The tear-shedding in parliament over people drowning near our northwest coast was astonishing. In a decade that has seen asylum seekers demonised by policymakers, the reversal was nearly comical: asylum seekers, it turns out, are human beings. It illustrates how poorly the question of asylum has been discussed since 2001.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Australia follows US drone lead

    • Fatima Measham
    • 09 February 2012
    27 Comments

    Despite Obama's insistance that the use of drones in Pakistan 'is a targeted, focused effort at people who are on a list of active terrorists', civilian casualties are inevitable. Australia is also phasing in the use of drones.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Beyond Australia's adolescent identity crisis

    • Fatima Measham
    • 26 January 2012
    9 Comments

    While Australia's early history is marked by violence, the Fraser Government's decision to accept nearly 60,000 Vietnamese refugees, the Mabo decision, and Paul Keating's Redfern speech provide positive narrative touchstones that can help lead Australia to maturity.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Best of 2011: The reluctant Australian citizen

    • Fatima Measham
    • 09 January 2012
    7 Comments

    2001: Two planes slammed into the World Trade Centre. A Pakistani refugee self-immolated in front of the Australian Parliament. Asylum seekers were accused of throwing children overboard. These events had nothing to do with me, but I absorbed them. I am brown-skinned. I have an Arabic name. Published 4 September 2011

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    Witnessing Washi's wrath and aftermath

    • Fatima Measham
    • 19 December 2011

    As we drove downtown, we saw people huddling on street corners, covered in mud and looking for shelter. Water shortages and power cuts further disrupted this city of half a million. Mortuaries could not even wash the mud off dead children so they could be quickly identified by parents.

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