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How can we make progress on the question of whether debate can do harm, and if it can, whether that’s a sufficient reason to suppress particular debates? Or should we adopt a ‘no debate!’ approach to particular topics ourselves?
My Father’s Shadow is a beautifully constructed three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle in which perfectly formed and elegant stories from different times and places are juxtaposed and tested for fit, so forming a pattern of meaning that is never closed.
Renowned author and academic Tony Birch is known for his insightful and compelling narrative explorations into societal issues like marginalisation, Aboriginal identity and racial struggles. In conversation with Paul Mitchell, Birch discusses his work, the unique intersection of academia and creative writing, and the profound impact of historical dispossession.
Known for incisive insights into societal issues like fundamentalism, loneliness, and abuse, theologian and cultural anthropologist Fr Gerald Arbuckle is now examining the rise of conspiracy theories. In conversation with Michael McVeigh, Arbuckle discusses his work, cultural anthropology, and the impact of 'cultural trauma'.
As the National Council for Fire and Emergency Services updated Australia's fire danger ratings to include 'Catastrophic', it's worth considering other crises that pose a catastrophic threat like climate change, war, diseases, and economic loss, where disadvantaged groups disproportionately suffer.
If NAIDOC and of the Australian Catholic Church are to achieve their goals time and patience will be required. Yet both show signs of justifiable impatience. This year the theme of NAIDOC Week is Get Up! Stand Up! Show Up! Its tone is urgent, expressing frustration at the resistance to change but also the recognition that new possibilities have opened.
Whoever is Prime Minister after the election on May 21, he will need to address the question of Indigenous recognition in the Australian Constitution. This is the sixth election in a row when the question has been a live, unresolved issue during the election campaign. The patience of Indigenous leaders is understandably wearing thin. Trust is waning. There is still no clear path ahead. So where to from here?
As if the Covid-19 pandemic has not been testing enough, modern life has never seemed more difficult than it does at present. We are bombarded on all sides by masses of information, misinformation, expert opinions, and the relentless, strident voices of social media browbeating us into accepting the dogmatic conclusions of leading influencers.
We don’t need further commentary that gives people who are well off yet another excuse to demonise people living in poverty and to blame them for their circumstances. It lets governments off the hook – governments which should be addressing the structural causes of poverty.
Some weeks ago I wrote about the taking of human life and of the loss of its sacred connotations. I argued that the decisive consideration governing recent legislation in such issues as abortion and assisted dying has been the appeal to individual choice, supported by compassion for people who suffer from their denial. Whether we welcome this trend or regret it, as I do, we all have an interest in asking what effect it will have on society. In this article I would like to explore this question in a way that opens rather than closes conversation.
Annabel Crabb’s ABC TV documentary series Ms Represented had us gasping, laughing and raging all at once. The series struck an achingly familiar chord as women from different political parties and generations voiced their common experience of sexism and misogyny in Australia’s parliament, elucidating just how hard it is for women to have a voice at the table in Australian institutions of power.
It is refreshing to find a work that is exploratory and invites its readers into a world more complex than they had imagined. Such a work is a recent book by Peter Dowling, Fatal Contact: How Epidemics Nearly Wiped Out Australia’s First Peoples.