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Keywords: Pacifism

  • AUSTRALIA

    Is peace worth fighting for?

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 19 September 2024

    Though little known in Australia, Abraham Johannes (A.J.) Muste spent his life commending pacifism and leading movements to make the world more just. His commitments to pacifism may still seem extreme to many. But will anything more mild address the threats facing the world from violence, inequality and apathy?

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Uncle George’s war

    • Juliette Hughes
    • 21 June 2024

    Most soldiers don’t like to talk about what they’ve been through, the things they’ve had to see; the things they’ve had to do. Uncle George was more willing to talk as he got older and more willing to be coaxed by a crowd of adoring nieces. But there were some things he'd never say. And the war never went away from him.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    The day John F. Kennedy, C.S. Lewis and Aldous Huxley died

    • Juliette Hughes
    • 22 November 2023
    1 Comment

    Sixty years ago today, on November 22, 1963, the world lost three towering figures of the 20th century. On their diamond jubilee, do I think it was the end of the world as we know it when these three died? Each one shaped the twentieth century in a unique way. Each one left us with much to think about still.  

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    What is Pope Francis' vision for Ukraine?

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 28 September 2023
    7 Comments

    As the war in Ukraine drags on towards its second year, Pope Francis continues to emphasise peace over victory. Highlighting the human cost of war, calling for a month dedicated to reconciliation. This plea diverges from common narratives, urging the world to see beyond geopolitical complexities.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Patterns of war and peace

    • Barry Gittins
    • 13 October 2022

    Why is it that we so often don’t learn from the last war’s mistakes? Time and again, humans are drawn into patterns of behaviour that echo those of the past, and that lead once again to armed conflict. It's too easy to shy away from examining the moral failure that is war. When we eulogise the fallen, do we forget why they were butchered in the first place?

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Life and death in the Cathedral

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 10 October 2022
    8 Comments

    Two weeks ago, Bishop Hilton Deakin died. My memories of him are inextricably tied to the Mass he celebrated in 1999 at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne, certainly the most emotionally charged event that I have seen there, following the violence orchestrated by the Indonesian military following the Referendum on Independence in East Timor. During the struggle for Independence, many East Timorese had joined the Catholic Church. 

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Pacifism and Putin

    • John D’Arcy May
    • 28 September 2022
    3 Comments

    What can the pacifist do when confronted with naked tyranny? With Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, pacifists are faced with the dilemma of either helping Ukrainians defend themselves ― and what spirit and courage they have shown, led by their unlikely president ― or letting Putin have his way. If diplomacy stood a chance, it would be the alternative option for pacifists; but does it?

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  • AUSTRALIA

    How to be civil in an uncivil world

    • Barry Gittins
    • 13 October 2017
    3 Comments

    In 2017, we have had one of the most uncivil years in memory, with assaults against politicians, institutions, entire demographics. What can we learn from antiquity? The obvious lesson from Rome's post-Caesarian civil wars is that internecine conflict is inevitably punctuated by further conflict and wrestling for power.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Millennials have allies in the emerging grey vote

    • Fatima Measham
    • 18 February 2016
    5 Comments

    The formative experiences of Australian early boomers include unprecedented access to university education and health care, immersion in feminist discourse, Aboriginal land rights campaigns, environmental activism, LGBT movements and pacifism. Quite remarkably, it mirrors some of the elements that engage millennials. While in some ways anti-boomer sentiment seems well placed, what it misses is that on social issues a 21-year-old might have more in common with a 61-year-old than a 71-year-old.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Vera Brittain's elegant anti-war ode

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 23 April 2015
    5 Comments

    Vera, a latecomer to the gathering, interjects. She has worked as a nurse, has had her hands warmed by the blood of the maimed and the soon-to-be-dead of both sides of the conflict. She has lost loved ones, too — a brother, a friend, a fiancé — and the grief of their loss will be with her always. But how can violent conflict ever be truly redeemed through the trauma of more violent conflict? The German soldiers who died in the war left behind loved ones, too.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    An erstwhile pacifist's IS quandary

    • Gillian Bouras
    • 02 October 2014
    11 Comments

    I used to style myself a pacifist. Or hoped I was one. Or something. But that was before I had children. The minute I clapped eyes on my first-born, I realised that any threat to him would see me transformed into a murderous monster, and I later felt the same about his two brothers.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Rise of the right in Japan

    • Walter Hamilton
    • 24 February 2014
    4 Comments

    Tony Abbott has described Japan as Australia's 'best friend in Asia'. When he journeys to Japan in April and his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe reciprocates in July, the two leaders will move to cement a new 'normal' in the relationship between their nations, including closer defence cooperation. As a correspondent in Japan in the '80s and '90s, I believed Japan's extreme right to be noisy but irrelevant. I'm now coming around to a different view.

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