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I'm a white man in a white man's world, his mother tongue the lingua franca everywhere. I may not be rich, but I am more or less free, and my calling has let me travel the world. It's easy for me, not having had to fight for mine, to ask us to go deeper than identity when we write. But when James Baldwin says the same thing, it compels.
The Pope's speech was newsworthy because in Australia sentences to a lifetime in prison without parole are becoming less contentious and more used. His approach to prisoners and their criminal behaviour is in such strong contrast to strands of Australian culture in which exclusion and the denial of hope are an instinctive response.
If you're not burdened by a conscience, it's a perfect get-rich-quick scheme: offer 'garrison' services to governments reluctant to get their hands dirty. Ensure the vulnerable people you 'manage' are hidden, demonised by politicians and right-wing commentators. Hire cheap labour, minimise your tax, and make millions.
Even during the brief six months I worked on Manus I saw a group of healthy, good-humoured men reduced to shadows. On this anniversary we must protest and mourn not only the toll on human life incurred by six years of offshore processing, but also the Frankenstein mechanisms through which this has all been enacted.
The defeat of Bill Shorten will impact particularly harshly on thousands of asylum seekers who arrived by sea during the Gillard and Second Rudd governments. The 'Fast Track Assessment Process' has left thousands of genuine refugees in limbo and made lawful what would otherwise be considered gross administrative misfeasance.
Some have portrayed Chittister as a feminist, secular warrior in religious dress. But those familiar with her writing on social, cultural and political issues recognise that it is fed by her life as a Benedictine Sister, and particularly by her deep, lived reflection on the Rule of St Benedict.
By 'belly to earth', Orwell meant not only the uncomplicated, hands-on approach he threw himself into at Wallington. It also denoted a quality of engagement with the natural world that he saw to be threatened by the nature of what he considered to be the 'evil' times in which he lived — a feeling familiar to many in 2019.
When discussing climate change, it's easy to depict the world's reliance on fossil fuels as primarily a technological problem, to be resolved by new methods for harnessing renewable energies. But that's only part of the story, as the example of Saudi Arabia shows.
One of the greatest philosophical challenges for social justice is to articulate a 21st century vision of the role of government. Government is the chief means by which people achieve collectively what they cannot achieve alone. We have no right to indulge in despair when more and more people are being forced to bear the brunt of inequality.
In Boochani's experience, Australians were homogenous and unreflective parts of a machine designed to dehumanise, cow and corrupt the people who sought protection. This report and the departmental response suggest that in on-shore detention the human destruction is not directly intended. It is seen simply as irrelevant.
The first lesson would seem to be that Iran would be foolish to return to talks with the US. There seems precious little to talk about, and absolutely no assurance that the US would keep its side of the deal even if talks did result in the new and better deal the US has claimed it always wanted.
Egypt's first and thus far only democratically elected President Mohamed Morsi died in court while being tried for espionage following a lengthy period in prison. He is described as an 'Islamist' but never as a democrat. It's as if the two are necessarily mutually exclusive. Must they be? Was he any less democratic than his predecessors?