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Author: Arnold Zable

  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    The House of Many Colours

    • Arnold Zable
    • 09 February 2024
    2 Comments

    'Each day I take time out to sit in each room. I’m gazing at death, but gaze long enough and you forget about death and disappear into the colour of the wall. Give it a try. Who gives a damn?'

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Best of 2023: He walks among them

    • Arnold Zable
    • 11 January 2024

    I spent memorable hours yarning with Father Bob and I accompanied the Father Bob McGuire Foundation food van on some of its nightly forays to parts of the city to provide sustenance to those in need. Invariably Father Bob would turn up at some point in the evening to lend his inimitable presence to the show.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    He walks among them: Remembering Father Bob

    • Arnold Zable
    • 24 April 2023
    11 Comments

    I spent memorable hours yarning with Father Bob and I accompanied the Father Bob McGuire Foundation food van on some of its nightly forays to parts of the city to provide sustenance to those in need. Invariably Father Bob would turn up at some point in the evening to lend his inimitable presence to the show.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Commemorating the Warsaw ghetto uprising

    • Arnold Zable
    • 19 April 2023
    4 Comments

    As Holocaust denial and falsehoods spread on social media, we commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw ghetto uprising, a heroic act of resistance against oppression, with a sense of urgency. Let us remember the lessons of the uprising and stand up against racism and authoritarianism in all its forms.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Son of the West: A tribute to Peter Haffenden

    • Arnold Zable
    • 01 February 2023
    1 Comment

    Peter’s playful, profound love of life ranged from the earth to the skies, and from the oceans to the great mysteries of the universe. It was a love that was grounded in family and community rituals. 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Uncle Jack Charles: A tribute

    • Arnold Zable
    • 14 September 2022
    6 Comments

    I am deeply saddened at the passing of inspirational actor, storyteller, artist, potter, musician Uncle Jack Charles. I loved him. I was one of the many who loved him. He was a gentle, loving, big-hearted man, despite it all. Because of it all. He triumphed over institutional racism, the legacy of colonialism, and the immense suffering, fragmentation, and trauma it left in its wake.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Retracing the tracks

    • Arnold Zable
    • 26 May 2022
    3 Comments

    Election day. Mid-afternoon. 21 May 2022. I make my way to Canning Street, Carlton North. Stop by my childhood home, a single-fronted terrace, the neighbourhood of my youth. In the 1950s election day was a happy day in that rented house, conveniently close to the factories of Brunswick, and the Victoria Market where my father was a stallholder.  My parents loved the three-block walk to the polling booths, located in Lee Street, our local primary school. They were elated at having the right to vote. From where they came, this right had been brutally taken from them.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Tall Fences, Taller Trees and film as resistance

    • Arnold Zable
    • 06 October 2020
    4 Comments

    Tall Fences, Taller Trees, directed by Dutch-based Iranian filmmaker, Arash Kamali Sarvestani, is a companion to Chauka, Please Tell Us the Time, which Sarvestani co-directed with Kurdish-Iranian writer and Manus Island detainee, Behrouz Boochani. On its most basic level Tall Fences, Taller Trees documents the making of the first film, but it is far more than that.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    A tale of two funerals

    • Arnold Zable
    • 22 February 2011
    6 Comments

    SIEV X survivor Amal Basry died of cancer in 2006. By then she had received her permanent visa and was able to return to see her children, grandchildren and father in the Middle East one more time. When she returned, she expressed a wish to be buried in Australian soil.

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  • EUREKA STREET/ READER'S FEAST AWARD

    The spider-web fisherman

    • Arnold Zable
    • 04 November 2009

    Observing this unique means of fishing, I realised an alternative intelligence was at work, born of the islanders' relationship to the environment. Ironically, this island is one of a growing number facing inundation by rising waters due to climate change.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Nicolaides free, but writers' persecution persists

    • Arnold Zable
    • 27 February 2009
    8 Comments

    Harry Nicolaides should never have been jailed, and his release is a cause for celebration and relief. Yet it leaves many unanswered questions about the reason for his imprisonment, and highlights the plight of many other persecuted writers.

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  • EUREKA STREET/ READER'S FEAST AWARD

    PEN's three-pronged pursuit of justice

    • Arnold Zable
    • 24 September 2008
    3 Comments

    There was good reason for keeping the message simple. We wanted our cards to get past the censors. There is a time for advocacy, and a time for simple words of support. Together they make up the 'human' and the 'rights' in human rights.

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