Woroni Edition Five 2017

Woroni Issue 5, Vol. 67. Week 9, Semester 1, 2017

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Punitive prisons and Indigenous Over-incarceration

A Reflection Across Oceans

After Moonlight

Disrupting Indigenous incarceration patterns means taking a look at Australian culture itself

Leaving pragmatism behind for a uniquely Australian self-confidence

A light in the darkness of struggles for representation

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Bhai, Don’t Stress. Just Give Them the Nuggets.

Being more than just a face in the drivethru window

िहं दी लेख के िलए, पृष्ठ 24 पर जाएं

Julia Faragher

The Places in people ‘The Places in People’ is a series about how certain places and memories can define how people see themselves. Our identity is not just linked to people or stories, but also to the places in our life that have meant so much to us. Creating this series reaffirmed that for me, as each person had a story behind why they choose a certain place to be featured in their portrait. That place was their current home, their old home, where they grew up, where they were a child, where they learnt how to play and learnt how to say goodbye. Most of all, they were places that helped shape each of them into who they are today.

Issue 5, Vol. 67

Welcome to Country

By Ngunnawal descendent and ANU graduate Rob Williams Indigenous Australian traditions have a history of continuity unrivalled in the world. They have been performed for millennia and emerged today as a symbol of recognition and respect. A Welcome to Country ceremony is such an example. Historically Aboriginal and Torres Islander people required approval before entering into another’s country – much like requiring permission to enter into another’s property or obtaining tourist visa prior to travel. Since we are working and studying on the land of the Original Owners – the Ngunnawal people – it is fitting to include a Welcome and Acknowledgement of Country in this special Woroni edition.

To welcome you to Ngunnawal Country, I would like to give you a glimpse into the history of this land. Within the last 100,000 years, my ancestors undertook a remarkable journey, leaving Africa, travelling through continental and Island Southeast Asia, and arriving on Australian soil sometime between 50-60,000 years before present. On this journey, they encountered different human species, undertook the first open sea voyages, and upon arrival to Sahul (greater Australia), were confronted by rather fearsome looking giant marsupials, giant birds and possibly a 4-7m long monitor lizard named Megalania.

My ancestors were the first people to walk this land. They performed ceremony, spoke for Country and managed its land and waters.

Indigenous Australia is one of the most culturally diverse in the world. It consists of a patchwork of autonomous nations, potentially two to three hundred distinct language groups, each nation maintained by borders, just as any other, with shared but also distinct beliefs system, ceremonies and cultural expressions. It differs around Australia, but my ancestors and much of southeast Australia were mobile but not nomadic.

Land in which my ancestors lived was shaped by religious figures. Our ancestral beings carved rivers, raised mountains and rested in the stars. Creation beings such as the great Bhiamie can be seen at night as a mosaic of stars looking down at us. They directed our lives, informed our decisions, taught us ceremonies and gave us language – language which told of their stories since time immemorial.

Indigenous beliefs tied people to the land in a form of mutual responsibility to one another. It enriched my ancestors’ being – it is a deep spiritual connection and a holistic existence. The land nourishes us: providing food, shelter, clothing and medicine, but most importantly, spiritual wealth.

Since European arrival, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders have experienced persecution and dispossession. In a kind of historical and geographically inequality, Aboriginal nations of southeast Australia were the first to experience tragedy. It is the place of the earliest sustained European colonisation and the place of the first Christian missions – their role to save a dying race or offer us salvation from our blackness.

I would like to stand up here as a descendant of Ngunnawal and speak to you in the language of my ancestors, but this is not possible, for my great grandfather was denied the most basic human rights. If you research Ngunnawal language, you will see it is classified as extinct. We were disposed of our land and culture and denied stories and language that described our creator beings.

Since the time of white settlement, governments have used no less than 67 classifications, descriptions or definitions to define Aboriginality. By the 19th century, ‘protective’ legislation was in full swing. My grandparents and their parents were forcibly relocated from their country, here in Canberra, to live on Christian missions and Government reserves. These communities were tightly managed; cultural expression was forbidden and leaving required approval from the mission or reserve manager.

This was a time where Aboriginal Australians were only seen as equals on sporting and battlefields. However, returning Indigenous servicemen were not allowed to enjoy a drink in the pub with their non-Indigenous mates, in a country they fought to protect. This was a time prior to the 1967 referendum which afforded Indigenous Australians the same rights as every other Australian. My father and his siblings were raised during this period. It was tough for them, kept on the periphery of society, never to be acknowledged for who they were and the history they endured.

At around 12 years of age, my father began work to pay his way and support his family. He had to move to where the work was, leaving the Christian mission for jobs like fruit picking, travelling with boxing tents and hard labour on the construction of Scrivener Dam. Often these were the only jobs that minority groups could obtain. University was beyond his grasp, not for any fault of his, but rather the pervasive idea that Indigenous Australians did not belong at university.

Indigenous Australians represent some of the most disadvantaged people in the world; we are reminded of this every day by government and so called experts. But this does not define us; rather it is the many thousands of years that tell a story of a proud existence. The last 200 years demonstrate unquestionable resilience – we are a strong people. Despite numerous political and social barriers, Indigenous Australians are succeeding in all spheres of society, including tertiary education. I have been fortunate to study and work with brilliant Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders who have gone on to be doctors, lawyers, scientists, engineers and teachers.

Some of you reading this may question how or if this is relevant, and to this I answer, yes it is. If there is a nuanced means through which I can welcome you to this land as an Original Owner, it would be to acknowledge and provide you with a small glimpse into the history of this land.

The ANU rests upon the land of my ancestors, and because of this, the ANU has become a part of this story. We are all a part of this story as new and continuing students. The ANU represents a very recent chapter in a narrative that is many millennia old. The location of the ANU is today, what it was in the past – a meeting place underpinned by exchange in knowledge and ceremony. Today it is pleasing to think that on this location, albeit a dramatically transformed one, we are continuing traditions that my ancestors started many thousands of years earlier.

I ask that you take the story of this land with you. I ask that you acknowledge that the freedom, privilege and the Australian dream that many of us enjoy was obtained through the sacrifices and immeasurable loss of my ancestors. Today many Indigenous Australians do not enjoy the same freedom or privilege in a land they once called their own.

I welcome you to Ngunnawal Country.

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Week Week 9, 3,Semester Semester1,1,2017 2017

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Contents

A Long Way to Go Rashna Farrukh - ANU Ethnocultural Officer 2016 A few days ago, by chance of being in the same place at the same time, I met up with two friends from high school. We hadn’t seen each other in 7 years (note: I’m not that bloody old, just moved schools a few times), but as we attempted to catch up on how we were doing, the places we have been to and the people we now have in our lives, we realised two things.

The first was that we were all headed in incredibly different directions, and the second was that, despite this, our experiences as South Asians in fields dominated by white people meant that we would always have something in common.

‘Whenever I start talking about Hinduism, everyone just shuts up and starts nodding but honestly, I have no fucking idea what I am talking about.’

At the time I laughed – pretty hard might I add – but as I write this letter I have a bittersweet feeling. Bitter – because, while I expected the idea of an autonomous edition of Woroni written and edited completely by ethnoculturally-identifying people to be met with some degree of opposition, what I did not expect was that some of this opposition

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Who Really Cares About Section 18C? Hari Sridhar 5

Reflections and Anecdotes on Identity from an Aborigine Rob Williams 6

On Aboriginal Women and the Criminal Justice System Hari Sridhar and Rachel Hao

came from the exact people I sought to represent.

Sweet – because despite the backlash we received, my collective banded together to produce something we are incredibly proud of. Sweet, because we created our own media to address the void we saw and felt in the mainstream outlets. Sweet, because after that conversation with long-lost friends, I knew that this issue was important.

Acknowledging this is hard, but the mainstream media not only inf luences how we – the minorities – are seen by others but also how we see ourselves. We may joke around about being the token Asian in ANU’s ‘thought leader’ campaign ads, but our racially diverse present, and future, deserves better than this approach to addressing diversity problems.

While it is true that in recent years minorities have in fact become more prominent faces in Australian media, and while it is true that this is a great step forward, the crucial issue of portrayal and participation remain unresolved. Journalists especially seem trapped within their identities;

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Onstage vs. Backstage: Theatre Contenders Synan Chohan

Korean by Birth, Australian by Choice Christina Lee

The Missing Ghost: A Review of Ghost in the Shell Anonymous

PROMPTED 21

Tim Tams, a Dancing Calf, and the Djembe Annabelle Nshuti

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The Rise of Fair-Right Populism Tanya Ma

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Punitive Prisons and Indigenous Over-Incarceration Mary Spiers Williams 12

Racism – It does Exist Aleyn Silva 13

Maybe You’ll Listen Because I’m ‘White’?

Luis Carlos Bustamante The ‘Self-Hating’ Jew Isabel Charny 14

The Struggle of Maintaining an Indigenous Identity in Contemporary Australia Garigarra Riley-Mundine 15

A Reflection Across Oceans Daniel Kang 16

Cuba at a Crossroads: Human Rights or Economics?

Rosie Heselev 17

A Race Against Race Thivya Rohani 18

Malala Yousafzai: A Bittersweet Collision of National and International Aspirations Hiba Akmal

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Review: Shanghai Dumpling Cafe Diana Tung 38

‘Bhai, Don’t Stress. Just Give Them the Nuggets.’

Reza Mazumder 39

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‘Black’ Hair Annabelle Nshuti and Aditi Razdan

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At the Crossroads of Identity and Faith Jonathan Tjandra

‫ سالم استرالیا‬،‫خداحافظ افغانستان‬ Khalil Kamali Constitutional Recognition or a Treaty: Horns of a Dilemma or False Dichotomy?

A. J Wood

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Glocalisation: Why is McDonalds Different Everywhere?

Vivian Duong

ि व द्र ो ह के ५०० स ा ल Raghav Sharma-Burton 25

3D Printing Ming Chia 26

lust; unrequited Abdullah Rasheed 27

The Gap Sarah Rajakariar You Daven Rajan William

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DISCOVER 41

Climate Change: Why We Fail to Act Rosie Heselev and Lydia Kim 42

After Moonlight Jill Masters 31

Tales of Tyranny: A Tribute to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Alexander Vuong 32

Podcasts That I Can’t Unhear Xiao Lin King

Rashna Farrukh Aditi Razdan Lucinda Ou-Yang Amanda Dheerasekara Nathalie Rosales Cheng Nigarish Haider Linda Chen Rosie Heselev Tanika Sibal Victor Munagala Kasthury Paramiswaran

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SPORT

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This edition was sourced and edited by a group of ethnocultural-identifying ANU students. Some are members of the Woroni print team, and others joined the team for this edition as guest sub-editors.

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CULTURE

I hope if you are part of this collective but did not get the chance to be part of this edition, that you find empowerment and solidarity within these pages. If you raised objections to this edition, I hope that you find awareness and understanding. To everyone else, I present to you the first edition in Woroni’s history, written and edited by the ANU Ethnocultural Department.

The Grand Emergence of Africa Victor Sukeerth Munagala Photography Tony Gu

Finding Dignity: An Exploration of Mental Illness Through Bharathanatyam Sumithri Venketesubramanian

I’d like to give a big thank you to the team at Woroni for all your support throughout this process. And of course, to my team of sub-editors, writers, poets, illustrators, collective members, and supporters, thank you.

A Misguided Path in Resourcing a Sustainable Future Matthew Teh

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WISH Jharna Chamlagai

tokenism perpetuated by the mass media. I strongly believe, however, that we have provided a platform for people who felt trapped in their identities to speak about whatever they wished. It is an example of a piece of what media should be – not an inf luencer of society, but its ref lection.

I do admit that there is a long way to go, and this one edition of Woroni does little to nothing in the big Australian picture when it comes to fighting the negative stereotypes and

No, Art is not for ‘Everyone’ Judy Kuo

A Shotgun History of Philanthropy Victor Wang

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The individuals working within media organisations have significant involvement in how cultural diversity is produced, but this is hindered by the lack of diversity in the industry itself. However, this issue isn’t just about workplaces being difficult for visible minority groups. This is about the place of media in our society as an inf luencer. People look to mass media for various reasons but always come out of it having formulated opinions. The trust we place on the media as an authority gives it the power to persuade us to view our world in a certain way.

Rising Nationalism and Shrinking Free Spaces – Indian Universities in Ferment Prachi Arya

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The Myth of the ‘Model Minority’ Jessy Wu

constant demand to speak on behalf of their respective cultural and ethnic groups renders any hopefuls in the field unable to freely explore careers and abilities in any area of interest.

We are made to feel voiceless, when we know that, as Arundhati Roy put it so well, ‘there’s really no such thing as the “voiceless”. There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard.’

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The Cultural Politics of Yoga Dr. Shameem Black 46

Why Brown Girls Love Beckham Kanika Kirpalani SATIRE 47

Vox Pop: Yay or Nay to an Ethnocultural Woroni?

Jasmine Mahogany-Eaglenest Group Assignment 101 Neerja Thirunavukarasu Sudoku Sebastian Rossi

Woroni is powered by locking yourself out of your apartment, indesign continuously crashing and late night maccas runs.

Issue 5, Vol. 67

Comment

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Who Really Cares About Section 18C? Text: Hari Sridhar Illustration: Kanika Kirpalani Hari Sridhar is a sixth-year law student interested in the racialised and gendered impacts of the law.

In 1999, Stephen Hagan, an Aboriginal Toowoomba resident, asked the Toowoomba Sports Ground to remove a sign that read ‘E.S. N***** Brown Stand’, which was erected in honour of a white, blonde, blue-eyed footballer. The Toowoomba Sports Grounds refused, and Mr Hagan took his complaint to the Federal Court, pursuant to s18C of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth), which prohibits acts which are reasonably likely to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate someone due to their race.

The Federal Court dismissed Mr Hagan’s claim, stating that the public display of the word was in a ‘context which [did] not … have any racist connotation’ – even though the basis for the nickname was rooted in racism – and because other Indigenous Toowoombans did not find the sign offensive. The High Court then refused to hear his appeal, flippantly asking whether if he were a pink person, he would find a pink cement truck offensive. When Mr Hagan sent his complaint to the UN Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the Committee found the word to be offensive and recommended Australia take appropriate steps to remove it. The then Attorney-General, Darryl Williams, and Prime Minister, John Howard, refused to do so, despite being a signatory to the Convention under which this UN body was established.

Ultimately, in late October 2008, almost a decade after the initial complaint, the sign was quietly removed, citing a white ant infestation of the grandstand.

Despite political rhetoric about a proliferation of frivolous grievances, the Australian Human Rights Commission only hears approximately 100 complaints a year on the basis of s18C, with only 77 received in 2015-16. Of these, only a few ever proceed to formal hearing, and perhaps one may reach the Federal Court.

In this way, Stephen Hagan was one of the ‘lucky’ ones, despite being refused access to the High Court. The point is, a minuscule proportion of racial discrimination complaints are successful.

These figures certainly don’t support all the catastrophising about the threats to free speech that Senators Cory Bernardi and David Leyonhjelm have been fearmongering about. The so-called ‘right’ to free speech has been distorted in the s18C debate into a polarising binary: either speech is unregulated, and you have an unfettered right to make racially hateful statements, or it is regulated, and you live in an ‘Orwellian’ 1984-esque

world. This dichotomy subjugates the indisputable right of all people to live a life free of racial vilification. I believe that what the figures really suggest is a profound lack of legal protection against racial discrimination. This is partly due to judges’ enculturated in white supremacist thinking, which is rendered invisible due to its normalisation in Australian society, and which also prevents most victims of racism from bringing their complaints forth in the first place.

‘Casual’ racism – which is not really casual at all and instead indicative of internalised racial understandings – is an everyday part of the lives of many people living in a country in which they constitute a racial minority. Section 18C does not reflect the lived experiences of People of Colour in Australia – most people

who endure racism are likely to be either too disempowered to complain to the AHRC, too tired or marginalised to fight, or have simply normalised it.

Making an act an offence, even if just civil rather than criminal, is a common tool for Parliament to declare its understandings of what society deems acceptable or not. Let us focus for a moment on what the current Liberal government believes we, as Australians, find acceptable. They say that a ‘reasonable member of the community’ believes that we have a right to insult someone on the basis of their skin colour, offend them because of their race, or even humiliate them due to their ethnic origin. The idea of free speech has a long history of being invoked by conservatives to reflect what is, in fact, a very narrow concept: speech

which is only free when it is beneficial to dominant groups. In this instance, the continuing oppression of racial minority groups is in the interest of the small group of Benchmark Men elites seeking to foster an increasingly nationalistic, xenophobic society.

I do not think that the debate around amending s18C will create a significant amount of tangible change in the lives of those it is designed to protect.

What the amendment debate has done is bring out the true colours of the common Australian body politic: a populace which seems to support the ascendancy of so-called ‘freedoms’ (for whom? from what?) over substantive equality and justice for those historically oppressed by the white majority of this nation.

Week 9, Semester 1, 2017

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Comment

Reflections and Anecdotes on Identity from an Aborigine Text: Rob Williams

online picture database and walk the aisles looking for titles relevant to my ancestral country, Koori history (Koori is a term used by Aboriginal people in parts of NSW and Victoria to define oneself) and anthropological essays. As a child I have vivid memories of this place and recall my mother explaining to me that the books lining shelves are about my people. AIATSIS provided a nourishing environment where I began the process of building a strong Ngunnawal identity.

Rob Williams is a Ngunnawal Descendant, graduating with a Masters of Archaeological Science (Advanced) from ANU in 2016 and receiving the ANU 2017 Young Indigenous Alumni Award.

I chose Aborigine, a term I dislike, as a reminder that in the eyes of many Australians our identity is fixed to some historical era and if we don’t align with that idea, well we’re not really Indigenous – anachronism still defines us. It is a deficit term, and I believe, diminishes our credibility as descendants of autonomous nations.

Indigenous cultures of Australia are defined by orality. Knowledge is transferred from one generation to the next, imparted from seniority, the recipient informed of totemic beliefs and lore. This, in turn, informed recipients of appropriate social behaviour, taboos and responsibilities to kin and Country. The word ‘Country’ in Indigenous Australian vernacular encompasses a holistic relationship to one’s ancestral land, which among other things, includes spiritual and physical elements. Mountains, stone formations, rivers, creeks and shores, were enriched with mnemonic elements that kept the landscape’s history, retold ancestral narratives and illustrated religious stories.

The sophistication of this system, developed over many millennia, enabled my ancestors to thrive not just on but with Country, through a mutually respectful relationship. If only European colonisers recognised these systems, perhaps Australia’s rivers would be flowing cleaner, its skies less polluted and wildfires less catastrophic.

Many of the beliefs and traditions that my ancestors maintained are no longer inherited by Indigenous children of Southeast Australia. Colonial attrition has all but erased this system, eroding it to a mere shadow of its former self.

For example, my first introduction to Indigenous culture heroes came via written publication, rather than spoken word. I learnt of Indigenous parables such as those describing the story of the great Rainbow Serpent, the Quinkans (Queensland mythological figures) and other creation beings, from published children books. Today I can only imagine the knowledge that my ancestor Black Harry Williams would have possessed of culture and Country.

In secondary school, I was one of several identifying Indigenous students in a school with a student population which numbered some 1200. My suspicions were confirmed some years later, discovering that there were others of Indigenous descent, but I can only assume that they chose not to identify publically for risk of being stigmatised. I reserve my judgment, for I experienced racial taunts at the hands of my peers. Would anyone willingly experience this if they could avoid it? For some Indigenous Australians, their appearance is not considered befitting for someone of Aboriginal descent, and therefore, they are not recognised as so by non-Indigenous people. This is of no huge benefit, for the fair Aborigine must also prove their identity not only to white but also black Australia. Even in the first decade of the 21st century, I was led to believe I was deficient because of my heritage. The basis of my thoughts were underpinned by deficit discourse and a pervasive idea which coerces a self-fulfilling prophecy, defining my future as one where I do not achieve the same level of success as my non-Indigenous peers. This was only perpetuated through curricula which ignored the achievements of black Australia.

This new system, a foreign import, is a recent imposition upon Indigenous Australia and is one that we as individuals and communities are grappling with. A somewhat persistent theme in the Australian psyche is that our cultural loss is something that we, Indigenous Australians, should simply get over. This

attitude is epitomised by a dismissive Australian government and overwhelming support to keep 26 January as our national day of celebration.

As Prime Minister Turnbull states: ‘… there are many bigger and more profound issues, including constitutional recognition, to deal with than the date of Australia day.’ He goes on to say: ‘changing the date does not have my support.’

His words reflect a broader paradigm with serious implications. Turnbull’s sleight of hand leads the audience to think there are more important issues: that we should not worry about two centuries of dispossession, a generation of stolen children, murder and cultural genocide. I know myself that when 26 January rolls around, I will again feel uncomfortable because the very history that has shaped me – defined my experience and disposed my forebears of their culture – will be called into question by people whose ancestors did not suffer the same treatment. But again, we should just get over it.

At 19 years of age, I took up my first position at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS). This is where my perspective began to change. I was surrounded by successful Indigenous colleagues, but also of equal importance, non-Indigenous colleagues who genuinely cared about Australia’s black history and demonstrated this through their work. During my breaks, I would visit the AIATSIS library, search through the

Shortly after, I began my studies at ANU. This truly marked the beginning of my intellectual and cultural growth.

Although I was majoring in a discipline rooted in 20th century Western ideology, archaeology provided an opportunity to build upon early experiences from my childhood and most importantly connect me with my ancestors and with Country. It was also when I began to grapple with identity, my own Indigeneity and my place as a Koori within the university context. Incredibly, it took this long until I felt I had this freedom, to learn of Australia’s forbidden history.

Today Indigenous Australians of Southeast Australia find ourselves in a state of cultural reclamation and burgeoning renaissance. We are revitalising the languages taken from us. The goal is that Aboriginal youth of Southeast Australia may be able to refer to Country and learn Creation Stories in their ancestral tongue – a return to orality. Traditional and contemporary techniques are reviving the work of Australia’s first artisans, nourishing our identity and illustrating Country. A specific example of this is a renewed knowledge of and methods for making possum skin cloaks, led by senior Aboriginal women. In Canberra, cultural burning practices are also emerging as an element of cultural revival and importantly the restoration of Indigenous environmental management regimes that Australia’s vegetation has adapted to over millennia.

Indigenous Australians are continuing a journey that is many millennia old.

However, unlike the past 50 or so thousand years, today we find ourselves desperately trying to re-energise culture, connect with Country and retell our stories in a rapidly changing society that does not value our traditions. More than ever it is a matter of cultural survival – not only for ourselves but successive generations.

Issue 5, Vol. 67

Comment

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On Aboriginal Women and the Criminal justice system: An interview with Louise Taylor Hari Sridhar and Rachel Hao interview Louise Taylor, the Deputy CEO of Legal Aid ACT. Her expert insights reflect the complexity of this issue.

Louise Taylor is a Kamilaroi woman and lawyer currently the Deputy CEO of Legal Aid ACT. Louise is a former specialist family violence prosecutor, a long-time Convenor of the Women’s Legal Centre ACT, an Associate of the Indigenous Law Centre at UNSW and a member of the ACT Law Reform Advisory Council. She completed her degrees at ANU.

Two high-profile Aboriginal women, Marcia Langton and Josephine Cashman, have suggested that in advocating for reducing Indigenous incarceration rates, we forget the victims of crime who are, most often, Indigenous women.

They also argue that the application of different sentencing principles for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander offenders carries with it an inherent devaluation of the lives of their Indigenous victims.

In your opinion, what is the relationship between the reduction in Indigenous imprisonment and the right of Indigenous women to be free from family violence, especially when it is common for Indigenous women to distrust or struggle to access Australian legal remedies? Does a focus upon more nuanced

sentencing for Indigenous offenders undermine the experiences of victims?

In my view, this is an incredibly complex area and reducing it to one or the other ignores those complexities. I don’t disagree with the idea that Aboriginal women and children suffering violence at the hands of men are often silenced and sidelined both within our communities and in mainstream discussions around violence against women generally. Aboriginal women are leaders in our communities, but that does not readily translate to us being seen as leaders by mainstream Australia or being given a platform to advocate for ourselves and for solutions.

I’m supportive of any advocacy that highlights the plight of Aboriginal women, who are at much higher risk of violence from men than their non-Aboriginal counterparts. I do think, however, that we can walk and chew gum.

Tellingly, the highest rising cohort of incarceration is Aboriginal women, many of whom are victims of violence and caught up in the child protection system), so acknowledging the appalling incarceration statistics does not take away from the prioritising the safety of Aboriginal women and children. A life free from violence should be the right of every Australian woman and her children.

But simply saying so does not make it happen and we must open up conversations about the realities and practicalities of people’s lives. For instance, in many relationships where violence is a feature, it will continue in one form or another – either with people reforming as a couple or needing to go on and co-parent their children together. Ignoring this reality is simplistic, and misses the opportunity for the development of practical solutions.

The focus must be on how we change behaviours and give people the tools to live a life free from violence. It is clear that in many instances a period of incarceration is necessary to protect members of the community but one thing I do know is that we are not going to jail our way out of this problem. The criminal justice system is rarely changing the lives of perpetrators or victims for the better – rehabilitation of perpetrators within

that system, if it even does happen, occurs through luck and not by design. The criminal justice system has a fraught relationship with Aboriginal women, and historically it has not served any women victims of male violence well – let alone Aboriginal women.

We only need to look at the experience of Ms Dhu in WA and Ms Daly in NSW to see recent examples of the dismissive (and I would argue racist) way in which Aboriginal women were dealt with by that system. Ms Dhu, in particular, shines a light on the institutionalised racism and bias that permeates the interaction Aboriginal women have with the criminal justice system (and the health system). It is naïve to encourage Aboriginal women to report violence to police and not recognise the complexities involved. Aboriginal women often sit at intersecting systems playing a number of roles – victim, perpetrator and mother, subject to state scrutiny in multiple ways. So a focus on incarceration rates is also a focus on the position of Aboriginal women – many of whom are incarcerated and also victims of male violence.

And to be clear, there are no ‘different’ sentencing principles for Aboriginal offenders. The High Court made that abundantly clear in Bugmy. To suggest otherwise is wrong. Aboriginal offenders are subject to the application of the same sentencing principles as any other offender who comes before a court.

Ultimately, we must come to grips with the very limited remedy that is the criminal justice system – it narrows the discussion and sidelines other important factors which can assist victims to move beyond a life characterised by violence.

Australia has an international legal obligation to act with due diligence when protecting and preventing domestic violence. However, the Australian response against domestic violence is overwhelmingly about legal remedies after the

fact (offence). In light of the recent Victorian ‘respectful relationships’ education policy, do you believe more onus should be placed on developing preventative policies to prevent domestic violence before the fact? What do you think are some examples of preventative policies?

Experience has shown me that the criminal justice system provides a very limited, largely punitive and short-term solution to this issue. If we seriously want to tackle family and domestic violence we need to fund programs and initiatives that target prevention, particularly targeting young people so that it becomes part of their development.

We need to recognise as a community that for many victims, the criminal justice system is not the answer they are seeking and provide them with alternative pathways beyond that system. As I say above, many of these relationships will continue in some form – we must tailor solutions and policy to take account of that.

The long-term solutions to the successful prevention of family and domestic violence lie in the education, housing and health sectors, not the criminal justice system. I’m neither an expert in nor a student of successful preventative policies, but part of the difficulty here is the lack of long-term funding, evaluation and data – how do we know what actually works?

However, I am absolutely convinced that prevention must start with our children and an education that encompasses and targets this issue.

Week 9, Semester 1, 2017

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Comment

A Shotgun History of Philanthropy Text: Victor Wang

In 1741, Captain Thomas Coram started the Foundling Hospital in London, the first institution to provide free housing and education for children living on the streets of London. Soon enough, such philanthropic institutions became popular ways to store surplus private wealth for a burgeoning British upper class.

These institutions were often a breeding ground for illness and child abuse.

A century later, in Jane Eyre, the eponymous main character is also subject to such charity; however paternalistic and oppressive Lowood seemed to her as a child, she also welcomed the chance to be educated – thus a chance to escape from her life at Gateshead. Arguably, despite the condescension from benefactors and generally horrible conditions within charitable organisations, institutional philanthropy had a net positive effect.

This was not always the case. In the 20th century, here in Australia, the numerous missions headed by clergymen and enforced by ‘Aboriginal Protection Officers’ was structurally that of state funded philanthropy. The consequence: tragedy.

Colonialism at its worst; a permanent stain in the pages of Australian history. The logical basis for modern philanthropy built on a capital rich upper class patronising some disadvantaged lower class led to the system that created the tragedies surrounding the Stolen Generation. Thus, not only are good intentions in philanthropy insufficient, ‘good intentions’ may lead to bad outcomes.

In the 21st century, philanthropy has diversified and changed. Roles performed by charitable institutions of the 18th and 19th century have largely been absorbed by the government – e.g. education or healthcare. Philanthropy itself has moved on to be more global and cause specific. Rather than within a society, charity is now the redistribution of capital from a rich developed Global North to a largely underdeveloped Global South. Yet for the most part, philanthropy cannot escape the problematic social attitudes of the past two centuries. Consider an infamous example: Roundabout PlayPump. The PlayPump is a water pump driven by a merry-goaround. The idea is that children playing on the merry-go-round will pull up the water from an underground reservoir into a water tank. First implemented in South Africa 1994, it received worldwide acclaim as an excellent developmental innovation. It was only in 2009 that the world became aware that children would need to play an average of 27 hours a day in order to fill the tank. Furthermore, it turns out that PlayPump requires considerable work to actually `play’ with. In Mozambique, it was reported that it was mostly elder women who operated the pumps and often did so with considerable difficulty.

The problem is that the designers and manufacturers did not go into this philanthropic endeavour with objective outcomes for the wants and needs of the villagers in mind – only ‘charitable’ platitudes. The product seemed conceptually convincing, thus it went out with universal acclaim. Consider also the criticism against WorldVision’s sponsorship program. Marketed as a way for a donor in a developed nation to support a child in a developing country, the reality is that donations go towards a community pool which is then spent as WorldVision deems fit – a portion then going to photo opportunities with blankets and photogenic goods. Clearly the parents cannot be trusted with any money. Or consider Homeopaths Without Borders operating in Haiti following the 2010 earthquake ... I won’t explain why this one is horrible.

Thus in 2017, we see continued criticisms of charities that work in the developing world for being a front for a sort of neo-colonialism. For example, at ANU, recent Woroni stories have covered the dangers of voluntourism. On philanthropy, most of us would agree that we can do better. Enter effective altruism.

As a way of rethinking philanthropy, effective altruism is a social movement

that asks donors to focus on charities that produce the best possible outcomes for the people they are helping. Effective altruists accept that good intentions are usually insufficient. Thus, effective charities are ones that operate based on evidence. Consequently, effective charities respond to the needs and wants of the communities they work in and react to such needs with interventions calculated and tested to be cost-effective in improving lives.

One of the most effective charities is GiveDirectly. As the name suggests, GiveDirectly offers direct cash transfers from donors to some of the poorest households in the world. Its conceptual simplicity belies the amount of good it can do. It may be surprising to WorldVision but it turns out poor people in developing countries make reasonable decisions on how to invest their money.

This money can be used by recipients however they like, thus respecting their autonomy. Most common uses are food, livestock, furniture, a metal roof and schooling. The improvements are enormous and often in unexpected areas.

For instance, a Princeton study in 2015 showed a significant reduction in domestic violence in households receiving cash transfers from GiveDirectly. It is a

dark remark on the self-centred history of philanthropy that cash transfers have been so overlooked; a good way to improve the lives of people living under a dollar a day is to increase their income.

More generally, effective altruism shows that the redistribution of private wealth from developed countries to developing countries could be shaped to support better outcomes and to avoid bad outcomes that come from ‘good intentions’.

This is an undeniable improvement but ultimately an insufficient one. Effective altruism’s commitment to evidence and therefore knowable risks necessarily discounts political advocacy and more radical structural change which may come with possibly Knightian uncertainty.

The redistribution of private wealth does not question the system into which this transaction is embedded, the roots of poverty, and the political dynamics which shaped the current global economy. So, in fact, it is structural change that is of supreme importance for future persons. Nonetheless, in the present, a growing effective altruism movement signals a positive shift in the way people think of philanthropy which learns from the mistakes in its history.

Issue 5, Vol. 67

Comment

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The myth of the ‘model minority’ Text: Jessy Wu

Is the mythologising of the ‘model minority’ preventing Asian Australians from attaining leadership roles?

My Dad grew up in rural China, in a house without any books. Nevertheless, he loved reading so much that he practically haunted the local library, sitting at their small wooden desks, copying out their small selection of books by hand.

He was proud of his scrappy creations, simply because he could call them his own and read them until they fell apart.

He has the neatest handwriting I’ve ever seen, and he is also as blind as a bat.

When I was growing up, my family had just moved to New Zealand, and money was tight. But my Dad could not resist buying books. It was my every birthday present and every Christmas present – my 12th birthday present was a copy of Steven Covey’s ‘The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.’ As much as I resented this at the time, my Dad successfully instilled in me a conviction that education paves the way to a brighter future. My parents’ commitment to education is the reason I am here today, on the brink of graduation, with a well-paying graduate job at a reputable consulting firm.

My story is personal, but it is not unique.

In fact, it is a tale as old as time: a tale of immigrants whose hard work secured a better life for their children; a tale of a ‘model minority’, whose members are perceived to achieve a higher-than-average degree of socioeconomic success.

But despite the educational attainment and socioeconomic success of Asians in Australia, we are vastly underrepresented in prominent leadership roles.

Even though we comprise more than 11 per cent of the population, less than two per cent of ASX200 executives and federal parliamentarians have Asian ancestry.

The myth of the high achieving, law-abiding, hard-working ‘model minority’ seems at odds with their underrepresentation in leadership roles. This had me thinking: does the myth of the ‘model minority’ exacerbate the very unconscious biases that prevent Asians from being promoted to leadership roles?

I set out to research these myths and found three to be particularly commonplace.

The first myth declares Asians to be ‘naturally’ good at maths, science and technology. This particular myth is embodied by one of my favourite (albeit racist) jokes: ‘Why should you put your phone in rice if you’ve dropped it in water?’

‘Because the rice will attract Asians, who will fix your phone for you.’

The second conjectures that all Asians have been tiger-parented, and emerge as unusually industrious, high achieving individuals, hardwired with cultural values that esteem education, discipline and hard work. However, children raised in this manner are also said to be ill-adjusted, socially inept and lacking in self-confidence.

The third concerns East Asians in particular, labelling them as non-confrontational, meek and submissive. This myth has probably developed out of several sources, from Asian immigrants’ low crime rates; to their reputation for adhering to the ethics of respect for authority figures; to the spectre of the submissive Asian woman touted by media and advertising.

Of course these stereotypes are reductive, but at first glance, they seemed relatively innocuous. However, I believe they can reinforce existing unconscious biases.

Take a typical workplace example.

Asians are recognised for their technical proficiency at lower levels. However, many have reported they are prevented from progressing further in their career.

In these situations, I believe the myth of the ‘naturally talented’ Asian may be in force. When competence can be attributed to a mysterious ‘natural aptitude,’ technical proficiency is taken for granted, rather than construed as a sign of greater potential or unusual dedication.

In another example, many Asian Australians have admitted a reluctance to claim credit or engage in self-promotion, as this breaks with their upbringing. This is unfortunate in a context where such behaviours are required for recognition and subsequent career progression. However, the obvious course of action – simply becoming more arrogant – is also rendered out of bounds, by none other than the spectre of the mythical meek, submissive Asian. This is because exhibiting counter-stereotypical behaviour can arouse disapproval and provoke punishment. A study on an analogous issue found women in the workplace faced backlash from engaging in behaviours inconsistent with their gender role.

The jury is not in yet, but there is reason to suspect that the mythology of the ‘model minority’ has placed Asian Australians in a peculiar double bind: caught between being good but never quite good enough. To usher in an era of equal opportunity, we could all do more to interrogate and dismantle these seemingly innocuous myths.

Comment

Issue 5, Vol. 67

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Constitutional Recognition or a Treaty: Horns of a Dilemma or False Dichotomy?

Text: A. J Wood Asmi Wood is an Associate Professor at the ANU College of Law.

The First Peoples of this continent were recognised in the common law by the High Court in 1992, in the seminal Mabo #2 case. The next logical legal step, arguably, is constitutional recognition, thus harmonising Australian law.

Recognition, as equals, is a prerequisite for establishing respectful, formal legal relations between Indigenous people and non-Indigenous people in Australia and creating a level legal platform for the subsequent legislative framework. Recognition, however, is often conflated – often for understandable reasons – with broader issues, such as the creation of clear positive human rights in the Constitution or the conclusion of a treaty between the ‘two peoples’ – two very broad notions that need to be unpacked.

History shows that notwithstanding the mention of ‘aboriginal natives’ in the original Constitution, the fiction of Australia as terra nullius – nobody’s land – continued through Federation and formalised Indigenous ‘invisibility’ under the law. This situation continued until the 1967 Referendum, when the Constitution was amended to legitimise the counting of ‘aboriginal natives’ in the National Census, but not to recognise us as equals. In the 1992 Mabo #2 Case, the Mason Court recognised Indigenous people as the first people of the continent in the common law, which Parliament codified in statute. Constitutional recognition, if successful, will synchronise the common law and the Constitution on this issue with no conditions – two specific areas of concern for many Indigenous people which are the surrender of sovereignty and precluding ongoing negotiations between the parties in the future.

On the other hand, recognition does not preclude the possibility of concluding a treaty between parties in the future, nor do the currently proposed forms of recognition cede Aboriginal sovereignty.

The recognition referendum, if successful, would be a unilateral act, expressing the will of the majority of voters, most of whom are non-Indigenous. What recognition does for the nation, however, is to synchronise the law, which recognises

the First Peoples, with the Constitution, which in effect still carries Founding Fathers’ notion of a continent that was terra nullius. Recognition will explicitly and finally expunge this lie of an empty land, one that remains embedded in the Constitution, a document which was created at a time when Indigenous people were considered sub-human.

Recognition provides a first necessary legal step towards an entrenched recognition of Australia’s Indigenous civilisations in their truest and broadest sense. That is, recognition is a step in that proverbial 1000 mile journey to acknowledge Indigenous civilisations, languages, laws, cultures and customs, and one that is closer to the beginning than it is to its end.

Formal recognition is a first but necessary step towards the majority of Australians beginning to appreciate the rich civilisation on this continent, one that has continued unbroken from the dawn of time. Such an understanding is arguably a necessary condition for the respectful coexistence that would enrich all and promote common understanding, or in Yothu Yindi’s words: ‘Now two rivers run their course, separated for so long, I’m dreaming of a brighter day, when the waters will be one.’

Further, without this recognition, a treaty between two parties who do not recognise each other’s existence is a contradiction in terms. In comparable jurisdictions with colonised Indigenous minorities, recognition was a consequence of a treaty, albeit a poor second best option. For example, in New Zealand (Aotearoa) or the US and Canada (Turtle Island), the Europeans did recognise the existence of the Indigenous people but with the quid pro quo of partial or total loss of Indigenous sovereignty. The Australian referendum affords Indigenous people here the opportunity to entrench formal recognition of their status in the Australian Constitution without ceding sovereignty, as neither the Australian Constitution nor the common law imposes such an obligation on Indigenous people.

Paradoxically a great advantage that Indigenous people in Australia have today, as compared with Indigenous peoples in other comparable jurisdictions, is that the absence of a treaty so far, clearly means that sovereignty was never lawfully ceded.

Indeed, the very notion of terra nullius negates the possibility of there being anyone to cede sovereignty.

An Australian treaty that explicitly or implicitly accepts the Crown as the de facto superior Sovereign could, depending upon the exact wording, cede Indigenous sovereignty. This most likely

would not be acceptable to the majority of Indigenous people, and treaty formation should therefore at this stage be deferred until Indigenous people can carefully craft a form of words that would do our ancestors proud. Nevertheless, an honourable treaty can be constructed if it is approved by Aboriginal elders and is to support recognition already existing in the constitution. This is the process is currently underway in the state of Victoria.

On the other hand, Australia’s history of constitutional amendments shows significant conservatism. Thus the real question for the referendum surrounds the question itself. What is the ‘right question’ that a majority will support?

Arguably, the wording of any successful formulation needs to be fairly straightforward. Complex and overly convoluted language and reasoning could rightly be interpreted as deceptive legal jargon, containing hidden surprises and consequently fail. The only way to gain the majority’s trust is to seek gradual change; careful, deliberate change is also arguably less likely to entrench further disadvantage. The question must also ensure the repeal of the racially discriminatory provisions in the Constitution – and yes, the Constitution does permit detrimental treatment of Indigenous people, a shameful relic of the past and one unbecoming of an otherwise progressive advanced and modern country.

A simple statement of recognition coupled with the rescission of the racially discriminatory provisions in the Constitution such as ‘Should Australia recognise Indigenous Peoples as equals?’, should both gain majority support and create the legal conditions for the equal treatment of Indigenous people and consequently, better outcomes in the near future. However, in Australia, recognition is merely a prerequisite to a durable and long-term solution that will reverse the impact of two centuries of oppression and neglect. Recognition alone cannot and will not solve every problem, but can provide a sound legal and political basis for negotiation between two parties who recognise, acknowledge and hopefully respect one another and their respective civilisations.

Week 9, Semester 1, 2017

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Comment

Punitive prisons and Indigenous over-incarceration Text: Mary Spiers Williams Mary Spiers Williams is a former legal practitioner in criminal law and lectures at the ANU College of Law in subjects concerning criminal law, social justice, ethics, evidence, law reform and Indigenous perspectives on state law.

Why do we punish so many so harshly?

This short piece is a polemic, a provocation. The aim is to challenge some of our ‘common sense’ about imprisonment and the criminal justice system more generally. We must disturb our fatalism about the numbers of people that we put into penal penitentiary type institutions favoured in Australian states and territories, and to disrupt complacency about the criminal justice system’s entanglement of so many Indigenous Australians.

What is our problem with imprisonment?

In Australia, the rates at which we incarcerate people is at an all-time high.

At any one time, there are almost 40000 people in prisons.

The conditions of custody are consistent with the volume of people we imprison: they are punitive. Not every inmate is held in a penal penitentiary style prison, but every jurisdiction in Australia has at least one such facility, and that is where the greatest proportion is imprisoned.

These prisons are concrete and steel secure facilities, with no natural horizon.

Personal autonomy is nugatory, and daily routines are highly regimented and include long periods locked overnight in shared cells. Overcrowding is a persistent issue. Personal possessions are strictly limited, occupation is participation in prison industry production lines.

Education, welfare and other social services tend to be limited. Contact with family is strictly controlled and limited. That we still deprive liberty from so many people (and that number is just increasing) and additionally punish so many of them in these inhumane conditions is deeply troubling and raises some serious questions about what sort of a society Australia is.

Punishing Indigenous people Indigenous peoples in Australia are now an estimated about 2 per cent of the Australian population – unless you are in a prison, in which case it is almost 30 per cent of the prison population, or worse in a women’s prison where it is now 34 per cent. Even worse again, if you are a

child in detention: 54 per cent nationally. In the Northern Territory, 97 per cent of the children detained are Aboriginal.

At any one time in Australia, there are almost 11000 Indigenous people imprisoned; more than 3200 of them are not convicted.

Indigenous people are overrepresented at every stage of the criminal justice system: over-surveillance and contact by police, proportionately more are charged and prosecuted for offences generally but especially in relation to petty public order offences, and so imprisoned without conviction. More Indigenous people are imprisoned than any other cohort – not for longer terms but more often. That this happens ‘systematically’ veils the fact that this system is driven by the discretionary choices of people: it is police who surveil and decide to charge or not, prosecutors determine charges, defence lawyers legitimise the process, judicial officers convict and sentence including order imprisonment, and corrections staff who imprison. These people (and I have been one of them) can usually justify our decisions and actions within the limited frame of this system. And this is done by these people for us.

What can these numbers mean?

The overrepresentation of Indigenous Australians in the criminal justice system is so gross that it amounts to racial discrimination. These criminal justice statistics demonstrate consistent and increasing discrimination that negatively affects those Australians descended from the original Australians. This type of racism is anti-Indigenous. Discrimination against Indigenous peoples here has been the subject of repeated criticism by human rights organisations and investigators, such as Amnesty International and United Nations Special Rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous peoples.

The rate of removal of children and the proportion of Indigenous children that are detained in the juvenile justice system is deeply shameful. This has a shattering effect on the young person, their families and communities, and will continue to reverberate for future generations. The lived reality these statistics represent is only just starting to penetrate the awareness of mainstream Australia, as images from Don Dale Detention centre disrupt the complacent and fatalistic discourse that accounts for this situation. That discourse is more effective at soothing our conscience, and the state of responsibility in relation to adults, because of our deeply ingrained ideas about responsibility that are inflected with pejorative attitudes about Indigenous people’s capacity to work, reliability, sobriety, morals, etc. The common sense of this is not so easy to apply to children, for we all are responsible.

Making sense of overrepresentation Many scholars have attempted to make sense of the overrepresentation by narrowing their consideration on whether an individual has been culpable or deserved to be punished. The criminal justice system is predicated on liberal reasoning, which tends to examine an individual’s culpability for an offence while limiting the context of that consideration. Law is a product of its culture. The frame and perspective of state legal systems in Australia reflect Western mainstream perspectives and tend to privilege the position of the coloniser-settler.

Focussing on the individual so closely allows one to ignore the scale and the pattern of discrimination that is clear when expanding the frame of one’s consideration: the scale of criminalisation of Aboriginal people is startling. Liberal accounts of individual responsibility cannot explain away the racist effect on criminal justice processes, which itself cannot be considered in isolation from larger social systems and forces that tend to marginalise Indigenous people, or where inclusion is offered it tends to require compliance that can amount to an existential threat.

Other scholars have expanded their field of inquiry and observed that coincident with criminal offending are poverty, ill health, unemployment, low levels of education (in mainstream schools), and being a victim to crime. This scholarship still fails to explain why as a cohort Indigenous people are so overrepresented. It also fails to address the other obvious question – why is it that Indigenous people, including those not entangled by the criminal justice system, experience the greatest extremes of that social marginalisation.

Some critical criminologists argue that criminal justice processes are criminogenic, in particular, the use of the prison and the juvenile detention centre. These arguments are complex and are contested by influential conservative criminologists who maintain that the criminal justice system does not criminalise, and rather point to social marginalisation.

These concerns in relation to deep social and economic marginalisation of Indigenous peoples are legitimate, but they do not explain coincidences of imprisonment.

The Australian Bureau Statistics found that of all the prisoners released in 20112012, 40 per cent of them were sentenced to prison again by June 2013. Of those prisoners released in 2011 – 2012, 46 per cent of them were caught up again in the criminal justice system, although were not sent to prison – they were either

convicted of new offences or brought back under the supervision of community corrections for parole violations. It is not possible to say definitively that the penitentiary-style prison causes reoffending, but it should raise some serious concerns that prison seems to be having little impact on diverting people from the criminal justice system, and may even contribute to it.

Prisons cost us a lot Prisons are extraordinarily costly. The productivity commission has estimated that on average we spend $292 per day on each inmate, or a total of $2.6 billion.

This figure does not include the cost of the infrastructure, which is important to bear in mind as New South Wales is currently building its mega prison in South-western Sydney.

Why do we imprison so many people and why in penitentiary-style prisons?

We know then that prisons are costing us a significant amount of money. We suspect, and some research supports the contention that the experience of incarceration contributes to the perpetration of criminal offences. It is difficult to understand why we persist with the penitentiary -type institution. Are we so addicted to punishment and revenge?

Are we bent on the continual exclusion and marginalisation of those we imprison? Are we prepared to do this even if it means that we risk creating the conditions for future offending by those who we’ve imprisoned? Do we feel like we have no other choice?

Imagining an alternative future This article is not an argument for abolishing imprisonment. Imagining alternatives to the penitentiary-style prison that every Australian state has does not mean that we should no longer imprison any offenders. The state must still be able to exercise its power to incapacitate some people for a period and compulsorily remove them from their ordinary social environment.

This article is an invitation to think about three things. First, do we need to incarcerate as many people as we do?

Second, do we need to incarcerate the groups of people that we imprison the most, and why do we discriminate most against Indigenous peoples? And finally: do the conditions of the penal penitentiary type prison or detention centre cause us and those we imprison more harm than good?

How we answer these questions will say a lot about who are, and who we want to be to each other.

Issue 5, Vol. 67

Comment

12

Racism – It does Exist

Text: Aleyn Silva

woman who deserved respect, I chose to regress.

Aleyn Silva is a second year arts student who enjoys writing.

Currently, I’m sitting at a table. And I’m terribly angry. I’m angry because I’m listening to the most appallingly constructed, superfluous and useless argument I’ve ever heard. I’m listening to an English speaking, wealthy, cis-gender, heterosexual male stating that racism doesn’t exist.

I’ve only ever heard people of privilege complain about the above. This article aims to make you aware, my beloved audience, that racism is very well alive, as is white oppression, and that they do occur, and also unsurprisingly, gender inequality is a real life problem! And perhaps those who choose to believe that racism doesn’t exist, need a definition: racism refers to bias and discrimination underpinned by power in that society, towards people of a particular race or ethnicity.

I was in year 4 when I first experienced racism. The local high school bully seemed to enjoy calling me black. I learned that being called ‘black’ was as bad as any swear word. I became ashamed of my skin. I was 10, and when

I complained to my school principal that a girl was making racial slurs, he replied: ‘Her mother is sick, and she’s having problems at home, she just needs support right now.’

When I was 12, I learned that I wasn’t pretty. And here’s where the intersection of gender and race come into play. Girls are meant to be pretty. At least that’s what I’d been taught by my parents, my peers and the media. In year 6 I was the ugliest girl in the class. The boys in our classes would judge the girls, ‘the prettiest,’ ‘the ugliest,’ ‘the weirdest,’ and so on. ‘But she isn’t that bad looking for a black girl,’ one boy remarked. I began to wish I had white skin, so that I could be pretty. I assumed for many years of my life that any romantic rejections and any person who was rude to me had reason to be. I had internalised the racism. I was black. I wasn’t beautiful. Beauty became an obsession. I was so transfixed by my supposed ugliness that I became depressed.

When I was 13, I experienced racism again. A girl at the back of the bus would throw raisins at me and call me ‘Chinese’

and tell me to ‘go back to China.’ I explained to her that I was of Singaporean descent and that Singapore was not part of China. It offended me, using another culture as a slur. We should not be ashamed of where we come from. But I was.

In Year 10, our class talked about the oppression of Aboriginal Australians.

One girl remarked something I’ve never forgotten: ‘If they can call us white, why can’t we call them black?’ I sat in class trying to be invisible. I listened to facts about racism and, shockingly, I was embarrassed. I was embarrassed to be the only black person in the room while I listened to people justify racism. I became embarrassed of racism. I became embarrassed to admit that it was something that happened to me – because I felt like I was ‘causing’ the problem.

When I was in year 12, I became determined to be beautiful. Many people thought I was narcissistic, but it was just me trying to cater to my insecurities. I didn’t do my chemistry homework because I was painting my nails. My grades dropped significantly. Instead of improving my self-worth through introspection and recognition of myself as a

It’s only recently that I’ve become okay with my skin colour, but is still immensely affects me when racism is not acknowledged as fact, while I know I have experienced it. Yes, to a lesser extent than many individuals, but that doesn’t reduce any pain or anger I’ve felt because of it. What upsets me is that I’m told that I’m part of a minority that is always upset, and that is why my argument is invalid. Everyone feels racism – it’s not necessarily only people of nonwhite descent, I do not deny that. I’m stating that racism does exist – and we should acknowledge that.

By saying racism doesn’t exist, you are saying that we do not have the right to be hurt or angry when people use the colour of our skin, our origin or even the way we look to devalue us as human beings. I am a woman. And a Person of Colour. And I don’t wish to be ashamed of that.

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Week 9, Semester 1, 2017

Comment

The ‘self-hating’ Jew Text: Isabel Charny Isabel Charny is a third-year arts/law student at the ANU.

If a Jew is to challenge the actions of another Jew, should it be seen as an unequivocal sign of internalised anti-Semitism – Jewish ‘self-hatred’ – and a lack of solidarity with one’s fellow ‘tribesmen’?

Following her 1961 coverage of the infamous trial of the Nazi Adolf Eichmann, Hannah Arendt – German-born Jewish-American political theorist – wrote that the ‘role of the Jewish leaders in the destruction of their own people is undoubtedly the darkest chapter of the whole dark history’.

This statement, overlaid with historical, philosophical and moral complexities, promoted a paradigm shift in

discussions of the Holocaust and of the role played by the Jewish community, or its leaders, in their own demise.

Her challenging of the sacrosanct model of the Holocaust was seen as an affront to the memory of those whose lives were lost and led Arendt’s fellow Jews to accuse her of ‘self-hatred,’ and of being a woman lacking ‘Ahabath Israel’: love for the Jewish people.

The argument advanced by Arendt was and still is undoubtedly based on a difficult and dangerous premise of executing judgement and imposing responsibility for the Holocaust onto its victims – depicting them as unwitting collaborators, or worse, guilty participants. Perhaps Arendt’s work should be seen not as a malicious attack on her own people and a reflection of her skewed relationship with religion but rather, as a sound or perhaps an unsound piece of historical revisionism.

Antony Lerman, an expert writer on anti-Semitism and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, describes an ‘unquestioning solidarity with Israel’ as ‘the touchstone of Jewish identity’. Here, the question of the self-hating Jew posed at the beginning of this article, and Arendt’s experiences, become relevant to the discourse surrounding the existence of the state of Israel and the demonisation of ‘liberal Jews’. That is, those who stand in support of ending the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, the attacks on human rights, and reaching a two-state solution.

As part of the diaspora, my own criticism of the policies of Israel, like many others, is neither fuelled by hate for my religion nor my opposition to the existence of a Jewish state. Rather, it is based on a fundamental belief in human rights.

Jewish ‘victimhood’ narrative or the Jewish dream of Israel is characteristic of a group that has suffered major trauma, recurrent persecution, and whose identity has become somewhat intertwined with their experiences. The prospect of group ‘survival’ has, for some Jews, come to be seen as entirely dependent on continued displays of Jewish solidarity.

But it is dangerous to ignore contemporary realities and human rights abuses.

Adopting such an ‘exclusionary’ stance and failing to facilitate open discussion and debate is, in fact, detrimental to any person or group and their future prosperity. We of all people should know.

Of course, I know that the strong opposition to any such challenging of the

Maybe You’ll Listen Because I’m ‘White’?

Text: Luis Carlos Bustamante Luis Carlos Bustamante is a white-passing Colombian immigrant – you wouldn’t know it unless he told you though.

I’m a white-passing South American first generation migrant, meaning that I am commonly categorised by people as belonging to the absolute ‘peak of the racial hierarchy’ – despite having a non-majority linguistic and cultural background.

Thanks to an easily anglicisable name and a native-like accent, my everyday ‘white-passing’ means it is almost entirely up to me whether you find out if I am a migrant or not. This also means that I am privy to the challenges of being linguistically and culturally a non-majority, but surprisingly blind to the daily hardships of being visually ‘identifiable’ as a minority race. Since my only ‘racist’ activities involve making fun of my people of colour (PoC) friends to their face (they don’t mind), I simply don’t see racism happen to people – I’m only ever told about it.

And my whiteness means that when I’m with friends of Asian or African etc. backgrounds, my presence acts as a

protective blanket of palatable and comfortable ‘white’ goodness, so people refrain from giving my PoC friends shit in front of me.

I think it’s a similar dynamic to how women commonly experience harassment, often so subtle or so normalised, that when other men are accompanying her, they won’t see it. They fend off potential harassers just by their presence, so then men are unlikely to see the everyday harassment happen. We’ll only hear about it later.

So even though I’m definitely a minority in Australia, in the past I may have been as unintentionally sceptical as the white, Anglo Aussie guy. Because I don’t experience blatant racism and I don’t see this shit happen – I have wanted tangible evidence, right now, to prove it’s true. But with everyday racism, for those minorities who have to contend with whether a joke is on them or if a ‘look’ is really a glare, there just isn’t any. So are we supposed to just believe what people say?

Basically, yeah. The discourse around racism isn’t just about understanding discrimination resulting from dominance and hierarchies. It’s also about actually believing what others say, showing that we actually respect their word and – for me even – choosing not to suspect PoC minorities would lie for some

greater agenda. The ‘agenda’ is simply not wanting to be treated like shit, which is hardly an ‘agenda’ in the traditional sense. And while this need to just ‘trust’ feels like we are placing blind faith in hearsay sometimes, that’s a relatively minor discomfort.

So to those who are discriminated against, I say: sometimes you’ll be hard to believe. It’ll take time for people to

believe you and that isn’t your fault at all – you probably know when that ‘look’ is really a glare, because you have been dealing with it all your lives.

To the privileged: lend the abused and discriminated an earnest ear. All we have to do is actually listen.

Comment

Issue 5, Vol. 67

14

The Struggle of Maintaining an Indigenous Identity in Contemporary Australia

Text: Garigarra Riley-Mundine Garigarra Riley-Mundine is a Wiradjuri and Bundjalung woman from Dubbo, NSW. She is currently studying international relations at ANU and is the 2017 ACT representative for the National Indigenous Youth Parliament.

What are we without our culture? Lost.

The evidence of this is all around us.

Why are our suicide rates so high? Why are incarceration rates increasing? Why are we dying so young compared to non-Indigenous Australians? Of course, there are countless factors, but we cannot overlook the foundational one – substantial loss of culture due to the processes of colonisation. Even for those who live where they have been able to maintain most of their traditions, there has still been a considerable shift from their traditional lifestyles that is has created a ‘break’ of sorts in their identities as Indigenous peoples.

I am in many ways a highly privileged woman, growing up in a middle-class Indigenous family with strong cultural ties; I went to a good private school and have been afforded the ability to travel around the world to meet and learn from other young Indigenous people from every corner of this earth. I have always had other young Indigenous people that reaffirmed the great importance of our culture, languages, songs and dances.

But they have also reaffirmed that we must constantly grapple with this contemporary world while still maintaining who we are as Indigenous peoples so that we are not assimilated into the mainstream which would mean losing a culture that our people have fought to preserve for tens of thousands of years.

I have struggled my entire life to find the balance between who I am as an Indigenous woman and who I am as an Australian. I struggle every day to walk between two worlds, with one foot placed in the traditions of my ancestors and the other standing in this new globalised world. Neither are firm

or definite, and I am constantly being expected to choose one at the expense of the other. As if it were that easy. This means I attempt to use my privilege to work myself into positions where I can best contribute to Australian society, while simultaneously giving back and helping my people. Throughout my travels, I have met other Indigenous peoples from around the world, from New Zealand to the Amazonian Rainforest, and we all struggle with this perpetual identity crisis. And it is only a backdrop for all the external pressures – of constantly having to explain ourselves and our cultures to those who are too ignorant to educate themselves and defend ourselves against those who push negative stereotypes upon us.

But I am forever given strength in watching my fellow Indigenous brothers and sisters succeed despite all that has been used to disempower and degrade us. Our parents, grandparents and great grandparents fought hard to survive, and now here we are fighting hard to flourish. This means more than just survive – our generation’s duty is to revive our cultures, and already we are seeing a new surge of power and strength that is driven by a closeness and pride in our culture. This new world is driven by

power and greed, but we are using this new western education system to empower ourselves so we can turn it back on its head to lift up our own people.

We’re all struggling, but we’re all holding firm; maintaining that our culture is the most important aspect of our identities because, without it, we are lost. This has been used against us to hold us as less deserving of our own land and livelihoods than those who came thousands of years later, but now we are rising.

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Week 9, Semester 1, 2017

Comment // international

A Reflection across Oceans

Text: Daniel Kang Daniel Kang is an international student from Singapore studying law and international relations and is the International Representative at Burgmann College. He hopes that other international students may truly appreciate and celebrate the sweetness Australia has to offer.

It’s been 10 months since I left Singapore and arrived in Canberra. Before stating my initial observations, I’d like to first acknowledge that my views are by no means representative of other international students. Residing at a college on campus has definitely granted me more intimate insights into local culture, and I hope that value may be found in these.

I had apprehensions about moving to a foreign land. I remember being already overwhelmed by an immense sense of loss and separation on my seven-hour flight here. In particular, I was incredibly worried that I would be an unwelcome addition, imposing myself upon Australian society. This became a particularly acute fear after I read a survey that found 30 per cent of Australians to be casual racists, which must mean that the other 70 per cent are full-time.

Jokes aside, I’ve had an incredibly positive experience here. While having first arrived in Canberra last semester forced me to jump deep into the Canberran cold, I still found immeasurable warmth in the winter chill.

I’ve found your openness incredibly positive and definitely welcoming, and amidst all the cultural nuances that have surprised me, one, in particular, stands out quite nicely. Almost all the people I’ve met have seasoned our conversations with ‘Australianisms’ – even though I’m clearly an outsider, an ‘other’ in your society.

In contrast, I’ve generally observed that Singaporeans code-switch from our pidgin and use standard English when we talk with an outsider, and the reason for this goes beyond seeking efficacy in our communication. I wouldn’t drop my colloquialisms simply because I recognise that you are an outsider, because it just seems inappropriate, or strange even, to invite you into my culture in such an intimate way.

I believe this stems from our differences in pride – the Australian is unabashedly proud, with this openness that translates into a celebration of culture through actions and speech. However, Singaporeans are eager to adapt instead of include. Any attempts to warmly weasel into our culture would be undoubtedly appreciated, yet still jarring.

Perhaps this reflects a Singaporean obsession with competition, already inherent in our language. Two words in particular come to mind – kiasu (fear/ afraid of losing) and chiong (to charge into, commonly used in a work/study context). These are words that we, strangely enough, use to celebrate values of pragmatism and diligence in our society. To be kiasu means opportunistic – jumping at any and every deal, to shine against every rival and against all odds. But herein lies the problem: this

obsession costs us healthy introspection, our eagerness to be valued and respected translates into an occasional hesitation to assert our pride in self-celebration. We become so consumed in one-upping and meeting you beyond the halfway point that we forget to allow you to reciprocate.

Unfortunately, our emphasis on pragmatism, instilled into us by every facet of society, means most of us look at issues mathematically as puzzles to be solved, where the individual is omitted from the equation. Of course there definitely are exceptions, but the average Singaporean doesn’t trade ideas, simply because we insulate ourselves from them. Every child can vouch for a general dislike – or even hatred of current affairs – for issues beyond our island. My compatriots turn their backs on ‘non-compulsory reading’ with words like ‘boring’, ‘irrelevant’ and ‘no use’. The bulk of Singaporean children abhor extra-curricular knowledge with so much zeal that our education system has mandated newspaper readings, and current affair discussions – we’ve even had to push for mandatory reading periods to somehow stimulate interest in the chore.

Again, I feel that our hunger for success is unfortunate. Every Singaporean child is taught to always stay ahead in our rat races, every son and daughter expected to reach standards of excellence that rise by the day. In reaching incredible speeds, we’ve come to forget to watch the grass grow, to notice how blue the sky is, and to develop an interest beyond numbers and letters, the grades and salaries that define us.

I wish for Singaporeans to adopt the self-assured confidence, perhaps, that is a flame of strength kindled in every Australian that somehow empowers this society: most, if not every person I’ve met, has confidence in the future in a way that has evaded my own people.

Australians have not been consumed by the worries and the problems an uncertain future holds. Instead, every person feels a master of their own. The immeasurable value you place on self-care, on a holistic personal development and the general thirst to enjoy the world as your oyster instead of just striving to be its pearl is undoubtedly refreshing.

Do not mistake this for pitiful lamentation; never would I wish for my upbringing to be any different, never would I denounce my culture for its flaws. My society and its culture is perhaps young jade, eager to shine, with time it is my hope that it mellows and matures and celebrates its hue — right now I certainly think we have much to glean from yours.

I am now a thousand miles from home, and while it is difficult for me to find it natural to say, I feel happy to be part of Canberra, and I am glad to think of it as my society – at least for now – in every sense and every way.

Comment // international

Issue 5, Vol. 67

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1.

Cuba at a crossroads: Human rights or economics? subsidised the Cuban state, Cuba entered a ‘dark’ economic period of which they are still experiencing. Raúl Castro introduced housing and private business reforms in 2014, aiming to incorporate market-based mechanisms into the socialist economy. It is true that the opportunities in Cuba are slim, and the salaries received from state jobs are impossibly low. For example, while health care is free, a doctor working for the State receives $40US a month. As such, Cubans must be resourceful and seek income in different ways. Of the people we met, a genetics specialist supplemented her income by working as a part-time chef in a private restaurant, earning as much in a night in a kitchen as a month as a doctor. Or, we were told that in staterun restaurants, workers steal the good produce to sell in the black market. The black market makes up for nearly 80 per cent of the economy, with many Cubans receiving repatriations from relatives or friends in Miami or overseas. The economy itself is weak and unsustainable.

Text: Rosie Heselev Rosie Heselev is a development studies/laws student who just needs to hurry up and graduate.

She enjoys wine and is currently about to board a plane to Nepal mid-semester, because why not.

After the surge in media attention following Fidel Castro’s death in November 2017, Cuba has fallen from the headlines once more. But Cuba remains ever captivating, enthralled by 1950s aesthetics – an island blessed by rum and cigars, underground Jazz bars and Vintage cars.

Under the leadership of Fidel’s brother, the softly spoken yet revered ‘doer’ Raúl Castro, the country is in political and economic doubt, weary not to return to exploitative relations of the past while understanding the current system is unsustainable. As Raúl is due to give up power in 2018, the doubt for the future is further exacerbated. While Western media focuses on political freedom, the problem for Cuba’s future is economic.

There is seemingly a form of social contract that denies political freedom in Cuba. The Revolution provides free education, healthcare and food subsidies while bringing a sense of Cuban autonomy and self-determination. The importance of this autonomy in Cuba cannot be overlooked – with a history as the last nation to remove slavery, only then to become exploited by a system of upper-class elites and Western partygoers. In exchange for these liberations, however, Cuban politics paradoxically became a one-party system without dissent. It is not that people cannot criticise the government. On the contrary, most people I spoke to were openly critical of the state of their nation and the government’s ability to run it. Cubans, however, cannot stage a political protest, organise on mass nor create an alternative political party for risk of being arrested and reprimanded, historically with severe brutality. Of course, this is a violation of human rights and recognised by even the most ardent supporters of the regime as something that must be reformed.

While these aspects are often the focus of the Western media, it is rarely analysed beyond conceptions of autocracy.

There is an interesting rationale used justify this reality of Cuban political life. In a country clouded by controlling external forces, political sentiment conceptualised dissent as providing arguments for the enemy. Dissent was further ostracised by the idea that in times of strife, people must remain united.

Political turmoil was and continues to be a constant in the Cuban political

scene, and therefore leaders rationalised to an accepting people that matters will be dealt with only at a government level. Following the success of the revolutionary forces, the new government was confronted with the implementation of the US embargo, the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Cold War was just brewing, and Cuba was in the middle of it. As the years went by, the Soviet Union collapsed, and the embargo continued, this rhetoric was continually pushed and became the norm.

Some commentators say that the embargo gave ammunition to the Party, counterproductively serving to maintain and entrench this rhetoric and resulting autocracy. It will be interesting to see how this sentiment holds up in future. As the situation stands, with US travel laws and the embargo being lifted, the rhetoric may lose its strength. However, with the election of Trump and the rising tide of instability, there may be no better time for the rhetoric to return in full force, to the detriment of Cuban’s political freedom.

at confirming or challenging my idea of Cuba as a country of tyranny and autocracy. My questions were often met with frustration or contempt. People responded that Cuba upholds human rights, even beyond those in the West. While there is poverty in Cuba, no mother dies in childbirth, or no child works in the streets. The development indicators in Cuba are amongst the best in the region, being a nation of highly educated people. It poses the question: What really are human rights? Why is political dissent a human right, while free education and health care are not? Our Western conception of human rights places importance on free speech and democracy.

But how much of that do we even respect and uphold? A system which places only two options for American President – Clinton and Trump – begs the question of the quality of our democracy. And we must remember that the US nor the West cannot preach political freedom in Cuba, considering the illegal sentencing and brutal treatment of political prisoners in Guantanamo Bay.

Yet, Cuba conceptualises human rights beyond political freedom. My focus, as a Westerner with a certain lens, was aimed

The concern for the people isn’t human rights – it’s economics. Following the fall of the Soviet Union, which heavily

The only industry with money is tourism. As Westerners spend over a Cuban’s monthly earnings on a night’s sleep, it is the one industry with economic viability. ‘Casa particulares’ or ‘private houses’ for tourists are popping up everywhere.

In a small village near the Bay of Pigs, where once there were only two rooms to stay, now there are over 200. One tour guide of ours was once a college professor, while a waitress at night, still failing to pay the bills. In tour guiding, she makes more money than she could have imagined. As such, the ability to penetrate the tourism industry in Cuba is creating a divide between ‘have and have nots’, fundamentally challenging notions of equality that underpinned the Cuban revolution. Cuba is in danger once again of becoming neocolony, a party island for Westerners or travellers with money. Is a country truly independent if its sole income is reliant on the will and desires of travellers from other countries?

While the future of Cuba is not grim, it is at a crossroads. It is not impossible for Cuba to recognise the achievements of its socialist state and uphold them, while allowing for economic reforms that increase the standards of living and uplift their falling economy. It is not that the state-based system is inherently bad – it just doesn’t pay nearly enough to survive. If it is really possible to achieve pure socialist systems while engaging in global capitalism markets, time will only tell.

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Week 9, Semester 1, 2017

Comment // international

A Race Against Race Text: Thivya Rohani Thivya Rohani is a fourth year law/international relations student with Peranakan Chinese, Malay and Tamil Heritage.

‘Regardless of race, language and religion’ says the national pledge of Singapore. But how accurate is this phrase?

How well is it upheld in the city state which proudly proclaims itself as all-inclusive and harmonious? Discussions of privilege and oppression often incite denial and deflection by the beneficiaries of the system – the Chinese majority – but they must be addressed. It is crucial to tackle this rationally, as opposed to sweeping it under the rug – something that’s almost innate to the masses in Singapore.

To understand the struggles and difficulties that minorities in Singapore face, a breakdown of its composition is crucial. There are four main races in Singapore – Chinese, Eurasians, Malays and Indians – making up the population of

5.7 million. The Chinese population also forms roughly 73 per cent of the nation, thus making them the clear majority.

However multi-cultural, -racial or -religious it trumpets itself to be, Singapore still has a long way to go when it comes to being inclusive and unbiased. And instead of continuously shoving harmony down the throats of citizens like me, Singapore would do better to address the ongoing structural inequities and institutionalised racism. Declaring an annual ‘Racial Harmony Day’ and constantly preaching about principles of meritocracy – Parliament’s favourite pastime – does not mean that we have removed all the implicit bias.

The media is hardly an avenue that allows adequate representation of the minority races. Advertisements and television shows do not present equal opportunities to minority talent unless they require someone to be cast as the thief, a gang member or an extra in the background.

Casual racism is also a problem. Minority races are also often used as a tool of fear or as the punchline of a joke. As

sickening as it sounds, it is commonplace for the majority to say, ‘You had better finish your food or do XYZ task, or I’ll get the Indian man to catch you’.

It’s almost as if minority races exist to be ridiculed, but try voicing this out to a Chinese person and chances are they’ll kung fu their way out of it. See what I did there? Wasn’t very cool, was it? Likely to turn you off any discussion, right?

Those are the type of jabs minority races are often subjected to and expected just to accept – whether it be on television, in school or the workplace.

Even stereotypes, which affect all races, including majority ones, favour the Chinese – as they are considered crafty, hardworking and dollar savvy. On the other hand, minority races are often mocked as unmotivated, violent and even foul-smelling. Is it not peak privilege when even stereotypes paint a positive image of the majority?

– portrayed as unattractive and undesirable. A minority race who satisfies the ‘Chinese normal’ is then complimented as being ‘pretty for an [insert race]’. Singaporean society is unabashedly conditioned only to appreciate the ideals and norms of the majority race.

Minority struggles in Singapore are paralleled to the oppression faced in Western societies. However, as Singapore is predominantly Asian, racism is carelessly brushed aside, as if racial hierarchies and dominance don’t exist in non-western societies. There is diversity and hierarchy amongst Asians themselves, and this should not be ignored.

Evidently, there are a plethora of issues surrounding racism, oppression and daily micro-aggressions that are faced by minorities in Singapore. But instead of repeating how this discussion is divisive and sensitive (as is often the case), it is time now we tackle them head on.

Singaporeans beauty standards are also almost always compared to the ‘Chinese normal’. Fair skin and silky straight hair is being celebrated, while darker skin tones and curly hair are misrepresented

Photography: Meenas Shaugy Anticlockwise from top: 1. The vessels float, awaiting their purpose, regardless of the changes under them; the blue turns white turns red, all encompassing shades of emotions and characters.

2. The softness of the white, floating so gently as if weightless, making my heart light.

3. As the blues of calmness turn into the warmth of a peachy red, my mind wanders from sunshine to darkness.

Issue 5, Vol. 67

Comment // international

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Malala Yousafzai: A Bittersweet Collision of National and International Aspirations Text: Hiba Akmal Hiba Akmal is studying international relations and is an international student, originally from Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

‘I am sad watching my uniform, school bag and geometry box. I felt hurt on opening my wardrobe and seeing my uniform, school bag and geometry box.

Boys’ schools are opening tomorrow.

But the Taliban have banned girls’ education.’

‘My Swat is also very beautiful but there is no peace.’

Here is a collection of sentences from the anonymous blog written by a young girl in 2009, chronicling her existence under Taliban rule in Swat Valley, Pakistan. It is a province of sloping, elegant valleys and crystal waters that reflect a blanket of clear blue sky above. However, when I read her diary, it is a passion for education, a passion for her home and the fear of losing both that lies quivering between the lines, entry after entry after entry.

Ironically, it was a near-fatal bullet to the head which amplified her voice beyond the protective silence of secrecy and into the international amphitheatre. Today, Malala Yousafzai is a household name, lauded by the international community but curiously, received with scepticism and ire amongst her compatriots. I realised that this intriguing dichotomy runs deeper than a superficial dismissal of her global stardom. It struck me as an uncomfortable juncture between national and international narratives.

Malala embodies a historic, feminist message. However, it was realised against a political context, giving her call nuances of political overtones: Education is not only a human right that needs to be restored to the female population, but it also is a profound instrument of resistance. Resistance against the tyranny and misogyny of de facto Taliban control in north-eastern Pakistan.

In the War against Terror, the Taliban constitute a primary enemy, and Pakistan the big power, proxy playground.

As torrents of US authorised drones hailed over Taliban strongholds, the once serene Swat Valley and its people become collateral damage. The young girls of Swat were suffering twofold.

Thus Malala’s message was recognised out of a painful necessity, but once her plight made international headlines, the root cause faded into the background.

While Malala began collecting the accolades of her bravery, the blog-less, bullet-less girls of Swat Valley stagnated outside barred classroom doors, under austere Taliban rule. It is this contrast of recognition and neglect that provokes a disturbing hypocrisy. The girls of Swat became forgotten props behind the Malala narrative.

And narrative indeed, the Malala story is the media’s apple in a global Garden of Eden. We can’t help but romanticise it. We savour the fruit and forget the branch from where it was picked. A young girl barely escapes martyrdom as she nobly resists oppression under a global enemy. Miraculously resuscitated through foreign medical finesse, she becomes a cover girl for third world feminism and education rights. Allow me to be figurative for I am conveying impressions and sentiments, not scrutinising facts and figures. Basically, while a glamorous narrative of heroism and education rights dazzled the international community, the morbid prologue was hurriedly flicked past.

This is not an attack on IGO’s and global gratitude over the movement Malala has come to be synonymous with.

I am deeply grateful that a figure of such international respect has come from my home country. I am an ardent supporter of international activism, platforms of global recognition and all other pillars that come together in our international community for the service of development and awareness.

This is me dipping my feet in the water, realising the pond is much deeper and complex than it seemed from afar when I first questioned why Malala received such mixed responses.

But others may question whether Malala has become alienated from her cause. Indeed she is now geographically distanced f r o m

Swat by swathes of European and Middle Eastern territory and comfortably resides in the lap of peaceful British society. From this distance she continues her activism by spreading her efforts across a broader scope, representing Pakistan and servicing the world’s young girls with a selfless maturity. The Malala Fund seeks to create ‘a world where every girl can complete 12 years of safe, quality education.’

So, is Malala a hero? Indeed, she has provided a mobilising, legitimising face to a world cause. Is Malala Pakistan’s hero?

Here the affirmative is not as resounding. Malala’s scope has outgrown Swat Valley, and she now is a global ambassador for her movement. History shows that every movement, has a leader which plants it, waters it and

watches it bloom. I believe her potential to mobilise Pakistani’s in the pursuit to advance the development of our nation – making education accessible to all and empowering women to reach their potential – has been lost amidst a far larger crowd. So it’s a bitter story, immensely sweet for the world’s young girls, and a bit bitter for those who saw in her an opportunity to heal our nation.

Week 9, Semester 1, 2017

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Comment // international

Rising Nationalism and Shrinking Free Spaces – Indian Universities in Ferment Text: Prachi Arya

In May 2014, the Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP), an ultranationalist Hindu right wing party, came to power in India. The student wing of the BJP is Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), which has its presence in various universities across India.

In February last year, India’s iconic Jawaharlal Nehru University was drowned in tumult after a group of students allegedly raised ‘anti-India’ slogans on campus. The JNU Students’ Union President, Kanhaiya Kumar, along with two other JNU students, Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya, were taken into police custody and subsequently charged with sedition. All three identify as communists. As footage showing the three of them raising the slogans started doing the rounds on social media and various TV news channels, they were dubbed ‘anti-nationals’ and ‘traitors’. A bounty was placed on Kanhaiya’s head.

Umar Khalid, reduced to his immediate identity as a Muslim, was linked to Jaish-E-Mohammad, a radical Islamist terror outfit. The then Union Education Minister, in an impassioned speech in the parliament, spoke bitterly of what had transpired. All three were eventually let out on bail, and a probe into the widely-circulated videos proved that the footage was doctored.

JNU has long been the bastion of the socialist school of thought. Few university campuses are as abuzz with political debates and discussions as JNU. It is a university which as part of its admission policy makes it a priority to take in students from marginalised sections of society, as opposed to just sustaining merit. Sixty per cent of JNU students are female. Nurturing liberal values, critiquing ideas and dema ndi n g

equality for everyone are part of the very ethos of JNU. Unsurprisingly, the ABVP has never held much sway there, but with its parent party now in power, it feels emboldened to take to whatever means might be necessary – including circulating misleading nationalistic propaganda to dethrone the left on university campuses.

The BJP Government’s idea of Hindutvawadi nationalism hinges not just on bolstering the Savarna (upper caste Hindus), but on systemically oppressing women, people from marginalised sections of society and Muslims. It is, for this reason, that people like JNU Professor and feminist scholar Nivedita Menon make India’s right-wing so incredibly nervous. Menon suggests that feminism in the Indian context can’t solely be focused on emancipating women. Given India’s historical and cultural complexity, liberating women is inextricably tied to ensuring empowerment for the tribal and religious m i nor ities,

Dalits (lower caste Hindus) and people living in strife-torn areas where the Armed Forces are afforded absolute impunity – all of which the Hindu rightwing resents.

Professor Menon was labelled ‘anti-Hindu’, ‘anti-national’ and a ‘Naxalite’ for her views. The JNU administration issued her a warning notice for publicly addressing students on campus. She has had numerous police complaints filed against her in various cities across India for airing her views. Recently, another university professor was suspended because she invited Menon to give a talk at Jodhpur University.

It is evident that education seems to be the government’s favourite propaganda tool. In April last year, the then Education Minister directed the Indian Institute of Technology, renowned for their engineering courses, to start teaching Sanskrit, a language used mostly by

Brahmin (upper-caste Hindu) priests.

In the wake of this came the slashing of funds for institutes of Social Sciences. Those who study languages, gender, society and social sciences are known to be more likely to be dissenters, thinkers and protesters. If you reduce their number, you reduce your critics.

In February this year, Ramjas College, a constituent college of Delhi University, held a literary seminar themed ‘Cultures of Protest’. The guest speaker was Umar Khalid. The ABVP issued a warning to the organisers over Khalid’s invitation.

Even though Khalid had pulled out, the ABVP reached the venue and started pelting stones at the attendees, critically injuring many. All the while hurling rape threats at women and shouting, ’Bharat Mata ki Jai’: Victory to Mother India.

In response to their violence, Delhi University student Gurmehar Kaur started an online campaign against the ABVP. In the days that followed, she was abused ad nauseam on social media. A BJP MP went to the extent of comparing her with underworld gangster Dawood Ibrahim. A website run by the right wing linked her to ISIS. Interestingly, many of the trolls who threatened Gurmehar with rape and death on Twitter, are followed by the official handle of the Indian Prime Minister. Vitriol and fear were in the air, but in waging this war, Gurmehar made the voices of reason band together.

All the abuse, name-calling, intimidation and threats later, the Indian Liberals stand more invincible than ever. Hindutva, fascism and the ABVP have never had a place in liberal spaces like JNU. And they never will, for the resistance is here to stay.

Comment // international

Issue 5, Vol. 67

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Korean by birth, Australian by choice Text: Christina Lee Christina Lee is from Cairns, and is studying law and international relations. She is passionate about human rights and dreams to be an international human rights lawyer. Recently, she was a volunteer in a remote village in Nepal and is currently recruiting ANU students to join her in another life-changing trip to Nepal in 2018.

I was halfway through grade one of primary school when I was told my brother and I were going to leave Korea and study English in Sydney. I didn’t even know where Australia was.

I was 12 years old when my family decided to permanently move to Cairns, Queensland. I didn’t know how to correctly pronounce ‘really’ nor spell ‘camouflage’.

I was 17 when I became an Australian citizen.

Now I am 19, and having my childhood built over two continents instilled something special in me.

I have lived almost half my life in Korea and the other half in Australia.

People often ask me: ‘Are you Korean or Australian?’ I thought, how could I possibly choose? I am neither just Korean nor just Australian. I am both. To decide between them is as difficult as choosing your left arm over your right.

Is day or night the best? You cannot have one without the other. Australia is my home by choice and Korea is my home by birth. Without each other, my identity is incomplete. Therefore, I am both.

To be asked which one would be to deny both because one without the other is only half of who I truly am. One makes the other better; it’s the knowledge of one that feeds the love of the other.

Having spent half a semester already at university, high school seems like decades ago, but there is one night that I simply cannot forget. Formal – an event where Year 12 students wear their most beautiful gowns and suits and head for a night to remember. I wanted to make a statement; I wanted my dress to be a true symbol of who I am and what I am proud of. Hanbok is a collective term for traditional Korean clothing. It is often worn at special ceremonies and every dress is uniquely beautiful. Whether by coincidence or fate, the Australian flag and the Korean flag both consist of the colours

blue, red, and white. I’m no artist, and certainly not a designer, but I am a girl proud of her two cultures. As a symbol of pride for both of my cultures, I designed a traditional Korean dress in these colours for my Year 12 formal, reflecting the symbiosis of both countries in me. I had the opportunity to proclaim to the world that I am both Korean and Australian.

My childhood was beautifully created in

Asia and my teenage days were crafted with unforgettable adventures within the Australia’s tropical wonders of nature. Just like the dress. To all those who come from a diverse background: embrace your cultures, be proud of the differences. Take every opportunity to talk about your roots. Be fearless.

Glocalisation: Why is McDonalds different everywhere?

Text: Vivian Duong Vivian is studying a Bachelor of Economics/Law. When she is not busy, she is pruning her basil plant, and she likes to engage in social impact causes and spontaneous outings with friends.

Last week, while in conversation with a charming Canadian exchange student, I was told that in his home country the infamous ‘golden arches’ which light up the world’s most prolific fast food chain are adorned with a red maple leaf. To think that McDonalds would customise their unmistakable logo for anyone seems out of character. But perhaps the chain’s ever-growing globalisation isn’t as much of a blanket cultural takeover as we may think.

This phenomenon, sometimes termed ‘glocalisation’ – where global trends are adapted to local markets – can be

witnessed everywhere. While released as Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in England, the first of J.K. Rowling’s best sellers was marketed to American audiences as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. The seasoned traveller could tell you about ordering rice at KFC in Thailand, never seeing California sushi rolls in Japan, and how the iconic green siren was removed from Starbucks logos in Saudi Arabia. And while Australians can indulge in Genuine Aussie Angus Beef Burgers from McDonald’s, in India, cows are considered sacred and aren’t consumed – so the alternative there is none other than the Chicken Maharaja Mac. Such examples of glocalisation, while obvious, are perhaps indicative of a common misconception about how Western culture and institutions seem to dominate countries near and far. Indeed, major multinational corporations are the usual suspects providing financial fuel to whichever bandwagon they’re relentlessly driving. But it’s not simply a matter of overriding a country’s cultural

elements with those of the corporation.

Rather, it involves carefully considered market entry, disguised as something never-before-seen, that adapts the corporation’s products to the tastes and preferences of the local market. It’s less like invasion, more like infiltration.

As a result, in this increasingly globalised world, many find themselves seeking ‘authenticity’, especially by way of cuisine and travel experiences. More and more tourists don’t just want to scrape the surface of a country they’re visiting; they want the ‘local’ experience. While this might well be a response against the homogenisation of society by social media, it could also be – if you’ll indulge me in the proposition – the work of glocalisation of another kind. Guided tours by locals are often marketed to prospective international visitors as providing a ‘unique, in-depth cultural experience’. Tour guides can tailor their services, knowing what tourists want to see and hear. This colours the way cultures are presented – the ‘authentic’ experience could be adjusted to

international visitors’ tastes and preferences. It’s adapting the local to the global, another form of glocalisation. The cynic in me further argues that the recent, trending desire for authentic travel experiences is a result of clever marketing by tourism companies wishing to enter an untapped market, but that’s a whole other discussion.

Meanwhile, glocalisation has established a route to our stomachs. So the next time you’re waiting in line at Braddon Macca’s after another misspent Thursday night, just remember: What you’re eating probably isn’t even authentically American – and the suckers intended for it to be that way.

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Week10, 9, Semester Week Semester 1, 2,2017 2016

Prompted // flight

The softness of the white, floating so gently as if weightless, making my heart light.

Photography and poem: Meenas Shaugy

Tim Tams, a Dancing Calf, and the Djembe Text: Annabelle Nshuti

around people who physically looked like me, but I learned to love, respect, and adopt two intricately beautiful cultures.

see a white, dancing calf during a full moon, you’ll live for longer. There’s a reason why my grandfather lived to be quite old.

‘Rwanda? That’s the country that had the genocide, wasn’t it? I’m so sorry!’

‘Oh, isn’t Al-Qaeda in Mali?’

I have grown up experiencing three cultures. In Mali, there was a large Rwandan community, so I was lucky to get a glimpse into that culture. I would visit Canberra once a year, still holding onto my Australian culture and world, as I lived in Mali. Trying to grapple three completely different worldviews throughout my childhood and adolescence was and still is tough and conflicting at times.

I always felt a sense of home whenever I opened the pantry and saw a jar of Vegemite, or I snuck on Tim Tams on the plane. Yearly, I would buy a Canberran calendar, and I felt a warm sense of home – memories of cycling to the shops, going to the park with Dad, or catching a movie flooded back to me whenever I looked at it.

Time and time again, my cultural experiences are reduced to these two sentences by those who profess to ‘know’ Africa. The land of prancing antelopes and majestic hyenas, with ebony-coloured bared breasted women, brightly smiling children who don’t seem to ‘understand the poverty they’re living in’ and of course, uncivilised barbarians who are ever-ready to perform beheadings.

To cut straight to the point, there is no general appreciation and understanding of Africa being a culmination of thousands of different cultural practices and attitudes, because we’re all bunched up together.

I am of Rwandan descent but was born and raised in Canberra. I moved to Mali, West Africa when I was seven, and underwent a fantastic culture shock. At the airport, I was apparently counting the number of Africans I saw because I had never seen such a multitude of people who resembled me. I was not only

I am a lover of stories and music, and it is through these mediums that I best identify with my three cultures. In Mali, I was completely enthralled by the unique local take on music, rhythm and dance – I was obsessed with the djembe and balafon. I learnt about their interpretation of Islam and would hear the best jokes and random stories told by strangers or friends.

In Rwanda, I identified with the folklore.

I can only speak basic Ikinarwanda, but the playfulness and creativity of their fairytales captured my imagination. The ‘land of a thousand hills’ has plenty of tales to offer; my favourite is that if you

When I returned to Australia five years ago, not only was I exposed to the full extent of the discrimination and racism that pervades Australian society, but also the disregard and naivety that is generally displayed toward different cultural practices. I seem to be living in a Western-dominated world of thinking that doesn’t show any regard or respect for my personal ways of thinking and living, which have been shaped by my experiences with the Rwandan and Malian cultures.

Culture forms us from birth, acting like a parent and developing with us throughout our lives – instilling a unique set of values, behaviours and expectations in us. There needs to be

an acknowledgement of different cultures, particularly within Western society, because ultimately, we can’t all conform to the same way of thinking.

That being said, there is a determination in every culture to seek out knowledge and wholesome experiences, and that is something I’d encourage everyone to pursue.

So, before you commence a spiel on a country’s crisis or the poverty-stricken areas that you’ve seen on the news, imagine not only how you’d feel, but what your reaction would be if you were at the receiving end of the lecture.

It’s only human to burst out in anger at someone else’s set-in-stone perspective.

Instead, aim to start a discussion with someone – engage with their point-ofview and acknowledge their perspective.

It helps in the long run.

Prompted // flight

Issue 5, Vol. 67

22

The Rise of Far-Right Populism

Text: Tanya Ma Tanya Ma is studying a Bachelor of Politics, Philosophy and Economics/Bachelor of Laws (Honours), and is passionate about Human Rights.

Far-right right populist politics is gaining ground throughout many areas of Europe. In recent years, the National Front in France, PVV in the Netherlands, True Finns in Finland as well as their far-right party equivalents in Austria, Switzerland and Denmark have also secured increasing supporter numbers in polling and election data. Following the recent successes of the Brexit vote and Trump’s election as President of the US, we can see right-wing populist ideals as not only rising within our national communities but succeeding within politics to affect change in domestic policy.

Broadly speaking, populist parties have strategically gained success through linking policy to two key ideologies – ethnonationalism and xenophobia manifested in anti-immigration sentiments.

The ethnonationalist message generally puts forward the idea that the rights of the nation transcend those of the individual. As a result, it is common for the rights of the population to be compromised, in favour of what appears to the far-right leaders, as overall benefits for the nation. This can lead to policies that afford ethnic citizens special treatment by discriminating against immigrants and citizens of a different ethnic origin.

The ethnonationalist political strategy bolsters the image of multinational corporations and immigration as obstacles to the nation’s progress. For example, the Front National’s campaign for closed nationalism rests on the conception that political, economic and cultural openness is a threat to essence of French national identity. The party advocates for a notion of ‘national preference’ alongside

a campaign slogan of putting the ‘French first’. This would bring about policies giving preference to ethnically French citizens in the labour market, welfare grants, healthcare as well as other public services. Thus, both immigrants and citizens with non-French ethnic origin would be excluded from certain benefits and services offered by the state.

campaigns around the world. In 1993, SVP/UDC in Switzerland launched a referendum on ‘illegal immigration’ and used crime statistics to emphasise the dangers of multiculturalism through eliciting concepts of the ‘bogus’ asylum seeker. This is a popular argument amongst right-wing candidates for stricter immigration control.

Another strategy underpinning the successes of far-right parties in elections has been through demonising non-ethnic groups as the cause of national problems in the form of xenophobic statements and anti-immigration appeals.

Four common approaches for framing immigrants as problems by populist candidates have shown to be largely effective. The first has been to establish immigrants as a threat to ethnonational identity. This has been successful for Le Pen in France with the increasing support for the jus sanguinis in smaller towns – a principle that only those born to French parents should obtain French citizenship.

Lastly, many extreme-right parties also politicise immigration as a national problem through characterisation of immigrants as abusing the welfare systems of established state democracies.

The common argument is that while working citizens are earning a living through hard labour, their income is being taxed to immigrants who are reaping national welfare benefits for a living.

This has targeted many citizens of the middle working class to vote for populist far-right candidates in elections.

Consequently, immigrants are strategically framed as a detriment to society regardless of whether they are employed or not working.

The second is to frame unemployment as the result of too many immigrants coming into the country. The significant increase in immigration to Italy from African and Asian countries, along with several northern Italian regions offering employment opportunities to immigrants, has sparked fears within their local communities. In 1996, Lega Nord was able to successfully capitalise on this issue through openly xenophobic propaganda to increase their electoral base in lower class groups worried about competition from immigrants who were willing to work without union protection and lower pay. Data collected from election polls, including those from the recent Dutch parliamentary elections, also show large numbers of the unemployed voting for PVV.

These ideological understandings of ethnonationalism and immigration are spreading throughout the politics around the globe. With the recent election of Trump as president of the US, we can see the actualisation of these ideologies in his trade, migration, health care and other policies. Two major policy reforms, in particular, reflect this policy shift predicted by the populist ideologies for political right extremism. Firstly, on 23 January, Trump successfully initiated an executive order to pull the United States out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). America’s National Association of Manufacturers predicts large economic losses of having to close trade markets in Asia and eradicating good relations from years of exchange with foreign governments by rebuilding barriers. In spite of a looming collapse in global trade, Trump continues to push in the direction towards protectionist trade policies, with the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement

The third strategy is to pose immigration as a major cause of criminal activity and insecurity. This has fuelled many radical-right anti-Muslim political

and the prospective enforcement of a Trump tax reform plan.

The second major change in policy direction since the inauguration of Trump was the first platform to close US borders to immigrants enacted on 27 January. This executive order from the President was proclaimed to keep Islamic terrorists out of the US through denying individuals from Yemen, Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Somalia, Libya and Syria entry into US borders for 90 days and barred refugee entry for 120 days. By the next day, protests brewed at airports across the country, interpreting his order as a ‘Muslim ban’, whilst several hundreds of immigrants and refugee were stuck in a limbo situation. This policy largely aimed to block out immigration, once again paralleling directions for policy with far-right populist ideologies.

As the seeds of right-wing ideologies are slowly taking root in cities throughout Europe, where does this leave us, as global citizens of the international community? The rise of populism throughout state politics highlights the escalation of political discontent amongst citizens with their governing systems. It appears that the more state systems are receptive to multinational corporations and international organisations, the stronger populist rhetoric becomes by offering protection from globalisation movements and security of traditional values.

It is important that we acknowledge that far-right parties are not only an opposition but in many cases, have become successful power-sharing participants in governments and policy making. Nevertheless, it is also paramount that we do not blame domestic security issues and shortfalls of the economy on an inclusive and diverse national identity when we become discontent with our political systems – the victims of this far-right spectre haunting Europe are the minority communities that already lack a political voice in our institutions.

23

Week 9, Semester 1, 2017

prompted // Multilingual

،‫خداحافظ افغانستان‬ ‫سالم استرالیا‬ Goodbye Afghanistan, Hello Australia Text: Khalil Kamali Khalil Kamali is a second year Bachelor of Laws and PPE student, originally from Afghanistan.

My story is like that of many other Afghans.

When I was in Afghanistan, I analysed my future and discovered that it would be difficult for me to achieve my goals if I stayed, due to security concerns and a lack of opportunities.

And so, I decided to come to Australia. It is not easy for Afghan people to travel to Western countries like Australia, but I was lucky.

Afghanistan is a beautiful and diverse country. Pashtuns, Tajiks, Hazaras and Uzbeks are the four ethnic groups that comprise the majority of the country’s population, and each of these ethnic groups maintains their own unique

cultural and linguistic traditions. For example, Afghanistan’s many languages contribute to its distinct styles of music; Hazaragi Damboora, Uzbek and Pashtu songs are popular. There are also cultural practices which transcend ethnic divisions – such as the Afghan custom of inviting guests into one’s home and ensuring they are provided for and looked after.

Afghans are peaceful people, but unfortunately, their lives have been impacted by war for many decades. Thousands of innocent Afghans have been killed, and millions of others have migrated to different countries around the world. Afghan people have been faced with many challenges in their lives: terrorism, Taliban leadership, foreign invasions and limited access to essentials such as education, food and work. But in the face of all adversities, Afghan people remain ambitious and resilient, and they work hard to make a difference in their societies.

My future goal is to establish a global mining company because I believe such a business has the potential to make this kind of difference. Developing countries like Afghanistan are rich in natural resources but, due to years of conflict, these industries are underdeveloped and neglected. I would like to establish a company that benefits the people and government of such countries and empowers people in overcoming financial hardship and gaining access to better education and health care.

When Afghans come to Australia, they face many obstacles – for example, learning a new language, adjusting to a new culture, overcoming financial difficulties and obtaining residence documents.

However, the generosity of Australian people has always helped Afghans to overcome these challenges and provided me, along with other Afghans, with opportunities like studying at university, enlisting in the Army Reserve and even training Taekwondo. We are grateful to Australian people and will always remember this generosity and kindness.

3 4 ‫داستان من‬ ‫ام افغان های ديگر‬.- ‫ مانند‬5‫ن‬ 3 .‫شد‬ED F ،‫ كه من در افغانستان بودم‬A‫زما‬ O AG ‫ليل كردم و‬L ‫زيه و‬LD ‫ خود را‬P‫زند‬ - ‫ن‬R‫ ام‬S‫امني‬ Q5‫دس‬ ‫يل‬U‫م كه به د‬VD 3 4 V‫بنا‬ W‫ا‬ D .‫ی خود را ندارم‬U‫به اهداف وا‬ - ‫ _اجرت به‬Z‫تصم‬ - ‫اليا را‬5‫اس‬ ‫ سفر‬.Z‫گرف‬ 4 3 ‫ نيست‬A‫ر آسا‬e ‫ای افغان ها‬VD ‫اليا‬5‫به اس‬ ‫اما من بسيار خوش شانس بودم‬.

O ‫ است‬i‫ تنوع فرهن‬ED ‫افغانستان كشوری‬ F ‫ بسيار _مان نواز‬F‫كه دارای مرد‬ ‫ هزاره و ازبک‬،‫جيک‬E- ،‫ پشتون‬.‫شد‬ED q ‫ ای هستند كه‬s‫ار قوم اص‬vG ‫عيت‬pD 5‫اك‬ ‫ هر يک از‬.‫ دهند‬F ‫افغانستان را تشكيل‬ 34 ‫تص به خود را‬z3 ‫ن‬E‫ز‬D ‫ اقوام رسوم و‬W‫ا‬ 34 ‫تص به‬z3 {‫موسي‬ |‫~چن‬ ‫ افغانستان‬.‫دارد‬ ‫ طب و هارمونيا مثال‬،‫خود را دارد؛ دنبوره‬ 3 4 ‫های از‬ {‫موسي‬ ‫ت بسيار خاص‬U‫ارآ‬V‫ا‬3 D W‫ا‬ ‫ در فرهگ افغانستان‬.‫شد‬ED F ‫افغانستان‬ ‫ن‬E‫آ‬3 ‫دعوت _مان و اطمينان از آسايش‬ ‫بسيار _م است‬. ‫مردم افغانستان بسيار خون گرم هستند‬ O ‫ل‬R‫اما متاسفانه دهه هاست كه در چن‬ ‫خار گرفتار شده‬ D ‫ و‬s‫جنگ های داخ‬ ‫ هزار ها نفر جان خود را از دست‬.‫اند‬ ‫ر مادری خود را‬E‫د‬4 ‫داده اند و مليون ها نفر‬ ‫ک كرده و در جست و جوی امنيت به‬VE4 ‫ كشورهای دنيا _اجرت كرده اند و‬V‫سا‬ 4 ‫ مردم افغانستان در طول‬.‫پناهنده شده اند‬ O 3 E‫گو‬ 3 ‫ چالش های‬ED ‫ خود‬P‫زند‬ ‫ مثل‬A‫گو‬ ‫اوز‬LD ،‫ دمداری اسفبار طالبان‬، ‫وري‬V- ‫خار و عدم‬ ‫ت‬E‫ور‬ D 4 3 ‫ به‬Q5‫دس‬ O ‫صيل‬L ‫ شغل و‬،‫ مانند غذا‬P‫اوليه ی زند‬ ‫ام مش ت‬.- ‫ وجود‬ED .‫ كرده اند‬A‫رو‬ 4 4 E‫رو‬ 3 ‫ مردم افغانستان بسيار هد ند بوده و در‬، ‫آ ا‬3 .‫شند‬ED F V‫پذ‬ 4 ‫ مش ت انعطاف‬V‫ا‬D VD 3 ‫ بتوانند در جامعه ی‬E- ‫ كنند‬F ‫ر‬e ‫ ت‬ ‫اد كنند‬L‫ا‬4 Q‫ی اسا‬5‫تغي‬ 4 ‫خود‬.

q AU 4 ED ‫ معدن پتانسيل‬S‫ك‬- ‫به اعتقاد من‬ ‫ در جامعه‬Q‫ اسا‬5‫تغي‬ D 4 ‫ای‬VD 4 ‫اد يک‬L‫ا‬ ‫ كشور های در حال توسعه‬.‫ام را دارد‬ 3 ‫مانند افغانستان از منابع طبي بسيار‬ S‫غ‬ 3 4 ‫هستند اما متاسفانه‬ ‫ منابع به دليل‬W‫ا‬ 3 E3 ‫جنگ و‬ .‫خورده مانده اند‬E3 ‫ دست‬S‫ام‬ 3 4 ‫من‬ ‫ مردم‬E- Z‫ك‬3 F ‫ كت را بنا‬q W‫ا‬ ‫افغانستان و دولت آن را از آن مستفيذ‬ 3 4 ‫سيس‬E- Z‫ك‬3 F ‫ من فكر‬.Z‫ك‬3 ‫ كت‬q |‫چن‬ ‫ معدن در كشور های در حال‬A‫ا‬3 vD ‫عث‬ED ‫ن ک كرده و‬E‫آ‬3 ‫توسعه به اقتصاد‬ ‫ مش ت اقتصادی فائق‬VD ‫ن‬E‫آ‬3 ‫ شود‬F ‫ داشت خوب‬D ‫ت و‬£‫صي‬L ‫آيند و به‬ ‫شند‬ED ‫ داشته‬Q5‫دس‬.

- ‫ كه به‬A‫افغان ها‬ F ‫اليا _اجرت‬5‫اس‬ 4 3 E‫گو‬ 3 ‫ چالش های‬ED ‫كنند‬ ‫و هستند‬V‫رو‬ A‫گو‬ D ‫ جديد را‬£‫م‬e A3 E‫ز‬D ‫يد‬ED ‫آ ا‬3 ‫ای مثال‬VD O i‫ آب و هوا و فرهن‬ED ‫ خود را‬،‫بياموزند‬ VD ،‫ متفاوت و جديد وفق دهند‬£‫م‬e ‫ و اقتصادی غلبه كنند و‬S‫معيش‬ ‫مش ت‬ 3 4 ‫ای ماندن در‬VD ‫ از ~ه‬V- ‫_م‬ ‫ كشور از‬W‫ا‬ - ‫دولت‬ 3 4 ‫وز و‬zD ‫اليا‬5‫اس‬ .‫فت كنند‬E‫در‬ 4 ‫ا‬V‫و‬ - ‫ مردم‬A3 E‫_ر‬ 3 4 ‫ ~ه ی‬ED ‫اليا‬5‫اس‬ D ‫ ها‬W‫ا‬ ‫ از‬E- ‫~واره به افغان ها ک كرده است‬ 3 4 ‫پس‬ A‫خو‬ D ‫ مش ت و چالش ها به‬W‫ا‬ - .‫آيند‬V ‫ از فرصت‬¤‫اليا درهای متنو‬5‫اس‬ D 3 ‫ از‬s‫ گون را به روی من و خي‬E‫های گو‬ ‫صيل‬L ‫افغان های ديگر گشود؛ فرصت‬ O ،‫ فرصت عضويت در ارتش‬، ‫ه‬R‫در دانش‬ - ‫ ورزش تكواندو كه‬W‫ر‬ 3 4 .- ‫فرصت‬ ‫اليا‬5‫اس‬ ‫ افغان ها‬.‫در اختيار بنده قرار داده است‬ - ‫از مردم‬. ‫اليا سپاسگزار هستند‬5‫اس‬

prompted // Multilingual

Issue 5, Vol. 67

24

िवद्रोह के ५०० साल

500 Years of Rebellion

Text: Raghav Sharma-Burton Raghav is a fourth year asian studies/law student in his third year of Hindi Studies at the ANU. His interest in India and Indian affairs stems from his Indian heritage.

मध्य भारत के जंगलों में एक युद्ध है। लाखों आददवासी लोग यह जंगलों में रहते हैं लेदकन इन जनलों में भारत के कोयले का ४०% और अरोबों डॉलर लौह अयस्क, चूना पत्थर, डोलोमाइत और बोक्सआइट भंडार शादमल हैं।दवरोधी एक हाथ पर एक बलशाली अधर्सैदनक है दजसको भारत सरकार के पैसे और हदथयार दमलते है । दूसरा हाथ पर गरीब आददवासी माओवादी गोदरल्ला हैं। यह पहली बार नहीं है दक यह संघरर् हुआ है, अधर्सैदनक और माओवादी कई बार लड़े हैं।सबसे पहले ५० के दशक में टेलंगाना में, दिर ६० और ७० दशक में पदश्चम बंगाल, दबहार और आँधर् पर्देश में और दिर एक बार दिर ८० दशक में आँधर् पर्देश, दबहार और महारार्टर् में। हर बार जब वे माओवाददयों से लड़ते थे तो उन्हें हार नहीं लगी थी, सरकार ने उन्हें खत्म कर ददया था। मगर हर बार वे पहले से मजबूत उभरे हैं। समकालीन संघरर् छत्तीसगढ़, झारखंड, ओदरसा और पदश्चम बंगाल का खदनज अमीर जंगलों केंददर्त है: जो आधुदनक भारतीय अथर्व्यवस्था के डर्ाइवर है। आददवासी लोगों का दवदर्ोह का लंबा इदतहास है, साँठल, मूँदस और गोंद सभी दबर्दटश, ज़मींदार और धन उधारदाताओं के दखलाि कई बार दवदर्ोह दकया। वे

सब दवदर्ोह असिल थे, लेदकन आददवासी लोग असल में कभी नहीं हरे। भरदतया स्वतंतर् के बाद नक्सल्बरी में आददवासी लोग पहली माओवादी दवदर्ोह में सहायक थे।तब से आददवासी लोग पूरी तरह नक्सली राजनीदत से दलपट गाए हैं । २००५ से छत्तीसगढ़, झारखंड, ओदरसा और पदश्चम बंगाल के सरकारों ने दवदेशी और घरेलू दनगमों के साथ अरबों डोलर के गुप्त सौदों हस्ताक्रर दकए हैं इस्पात संयंतर्ों, खानों, दबजली संयंतर्ों और एल्यूमीदनयम दरिाइनरी के दलए। इन पदरयोजनाओं के आगे बढ़ने के दलए आददवासी लोगों को स्थानांतदरत दकया जाना चादहए।इन पदरयोजनाओं द्वारा दवस्थादपत 24 दमदलयन आददवासी लोग माओवादी गोदरल्ला के दलए तैयार हैं। भारतीय सरकार ने आददवासी लोग जानबूझकर और व्यवदस्थत रूप से हादशए पर रख ददया है। भरतोया संदवधान ने दबर्दटश उपदनवेशवादी नीदत लागू की और राज्य को आददवासी भूदम के संरक्रक बनाया। इसने आददवासी लोगों को अपने ही देश में अनदधकृत बना ददया और आददवासी लोगों के जीवन के मागर् को अपराध दकया। दनदश्चत रूप से माओवाददयों ने अत्याचार दकये हैं । नक्सली सेना ने हजारों नागदरकों को मार डाला है। जन अदालत, माओ लोक पीठों के आधुदनक अवतार हैं। लेदकन आददवासी लोग और क्या कर सकते हैं ?

There is a war in the forests of central India. Millions of Adivasi people – India’s tribal people – live in these forests, which also contain 40 per cent of India’s coal, and trillions of dollars of iron ore, limestone, dolomite and bauxite reserves. The antagonists are, on the one hand, a massive paramilitary force backed by the money and weapons of the Indian Government, and on the other, the impoverished Adivasi Maoist guerrillas often referred to as Naxalites.

The flare-up of conflict between the two is not new; the paramilitaries and the Maoists have fought many times, and their battlefield has ranged across numerous Indian states. First in Telegana in the 50s, then West Bengal, Bihar and Andhra Pradesh in the 60s and 70s, and then once more in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Maharashtra in the 80s. With each of these incidents of conflict, the Maoists were not merely defeated; they were exterminated by the government.

They have managed to re-emerge each time – the contemporary insurrection is focused on the mineral-rich forests of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa and West Bengal: the drivers of the modern Indian economy.

Adivasi people maintain a long history of insurrection. Various groups, such as the Santhals, the Mundas and the Gonds, have all rebelled several times – against the British, against the feudal landlords and against money lenders.

Though these revolts were unsuccessful, following Indian independence, these Adivasi groups rose on the government’s agenda, most notably due to their instrumental role in the country’s first Maoist rebellion. This insurrection, taking place in Naxalbari (a small village in West

Bengal, from which the term ‘Naxalite’ is derived), marked the point following which Adivasi people have remained intertwined with Naxalite politics.

Since 2005, the governments of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa and West Bengal have signed billions of dollars’ worth of secret deals with domestic and foreign corporations for steel and power plants, mines and aluminium refineries.

In order for these deals to proceed, the tribal people who traditionally inhabit these lands must be moved. The 24 million Adivasi people displaced by these projects are the willing recruits for the Maoist guerrillas.

These events are merely one example of the manner in which the Indian Government has systematically marginalised Adivasi people. The Indian Constitution enforced British colonial policy and made the state the custodian of tribal land, which essentially transformed Adivasi people into squatters on their own land, and criminalised their way of life. Certainly, the Naxalites have committed atrocities; their forces have killed thousands of civilians, they are the Jan Adalat – the modern incarnation of Mao’s People’s Courts – but what are the alternatives?

Week 9, Semester 1, 2017

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discover // Science

3D Prints and Words: Ming Chia, Minecraft: Yuka Morinaga

3D Printing with the ANU Maker Club

Camera Case This case can be used to mount a camera and sensors (for example, humidity and temperature sensors) onto a bar. ANU scientists are using it to carry out quality control in experiments simulating the effect of climate change on plants grown in growth chambers - artificial environments with lights that imitate day and night.

Shine Dome model This shine dome model was made as a present. The Shine dome is an easy building to model because you can make it by adding and subtracting just two shapes - spheres and cylinders! The inside of this model is solid, but you can make it hollow by filling its inside with a three dimensional pattern called an infill. ome patterns are mainly for visual effect, especially when the model is semi-transparent, while other patterns provide structural strength while keeping the model lightweight.

Pizza Slices These pizza slices have been made from a randomly generated pizza model. If you were to print your pizza using the same code, you would get a unique pizza each time. Although these pizzas have pepperoni on them, Ming’s favourite pi a is actually cheesy garlic. A fine example of over-engineering.�

Spoons Week Keychains These keychains were made for Spoons week, and come in glow in the dark and pink variants! To print models, printers use filaments long strings of plastic that get pushed through the nozzle of a 3D printer to draw layers of an object. There are lots of types of filaments that are used at when 3D printing at ANU! Colour-changing filaments can be used to make thermoreactive mug holders. lexible filaments can be used to make tyre treads. low in the ark filaments are useful for things you need to find in the dark. There are even types of filament with embedded bits of metal - when you fire a model printed with those filaments in an oven, the plastic burns off and the metal melts to form a solid object. The ANU Maker Club has also made lots of Coombs keychains!

printing makes it easy to add and subtract things to the same basic tool - for example, you can easily add holes to this case to attach new sensors, higher walls to put more chips in or a different type of mount to attach it to other surfaces. Without printing, you’d have to buy cases with the right dimensions and mounts, and drill holes in every single one of them manually. printing makes producing small amounts of very customised tools easy. lus, you can print new ones whenever you need them

Issue 5, Vol. 67

prompted // flight

26

lust; unrequited Abdullah Rasheed

denial: the night after I’m pretty tired. My mind is tired and my heart still feels like there is a stone on it.

Had I known this was going to be the state of my being, I would have never left your bed that morning.

I don’t know what you thought of me coming that night, and what you thought of me leaving.

What I do know is none of it was ever done with any bad intention, and I don’t regret what happened.

I just wish I knew if you do. I wish I knew what you thought of it.

I wish I could speak to you about it. Because I can’t speak to anyone else.

You’re the only person that I want to say anything to, and the only person I wish would say something to me.

I don’t expect anything out of what happened, I never did. But the silence is killing me.

I haven’t stopped thinking of what would become of us at the end. I don’t want us to stop talking to each other, and for this awkward silence to stretch on forever.

Because you were a friend before our lips met. You were the best dancer on the floor before you held me. You were the funniest and the nicest person before I felt your breath on my face.

And I don’t want to lose that. Not because of a handful of hours of intimacy that felt like a fleeting moment.

I know everything that I’m feeling is stupid as fuck. But the more I try to invalidate my feelings, the more real it becomes. I can’t help it, and I need to get it out of my system because it’s growing increasingly toxic for me.

I could try forgetting anything happened, but it’s hard to forget when the words you won’t say are weighing me down from dawn to dusk and all the way back around.

confrontation: the night after the night after Confronting you took the will of every cell in my body. But I had to do something before I sank further into the darkness that was enveloping me ever since I left your bed.

All this time I was too desperate to know what you were thinking to think about what I was feeling deep down.

I know I said that I didn’t expect anything from what happened.

But there is a thin line between hopes and expectations that I was trying not to cross. Ultimately, my hopes came to the surface once you said that you did not want to compromise our friendship and my heart sank.

Everything that we were before I shared in your warmth, I would trade off to lie in bed next to you again. I hate that I feel this way.

But my hopes were stronger than my conscience and try as I might, I can’t help but sink in the water that has drowned my hopes.

I’m not in denial anymore, or being delusional. Having a reality and accepting it doesn’t mean you don’t wish you had a better return from the hand that dealt your luck. I accept that keeping what we had before is a better alternative to falling out and becoming bitter about how things went. I just know that deep down, I was wishing for more than that.

I don’t know if I should label what I feel for you as love. I don’t have anything to compare you with, but what I know is that I’ve never yearned as intensely as I have for you. This is an unrequited feeling in the truest form of that expression. And it’s as dark and foreboding as anything I’ve ever felt.

What I need now is time. Time may not heal all wounds but I know for a fact that it eases a lot. And eventually I guess I’ll be fine. But for now, as much as I’ve been hurting over the past few

days, I’ve grown to appreciate the dark beauty of hurting so good. It’s given me a new sense of how alive I am, and give validation to my emotions.

We can never go back to how we were before you caressed my skin with your fingertips; well, at least I can’t. I still feel them trace down my back, over my arm, along my chest.

I can pretend until the memory fades. That’s how I know that these unrequited emotions I feel for you are some of the saddest and realest things that I’ve experienced.

Maybe it’s really for the best that I won’t get to relive a night like that with you. Maybe it is. But I can’t quit wishing for it upon every passing moment.

‘If we must part forever, Give me but one kind word to think upon, And please myself with, while my heart is breaking.’

– Thomas Otway

Week Semester1,2,2017 2016 Week10, 9, Semester

17 27

you

daven rajan william You could be the death of me.

But I was born to know the way your lips curl when my fingers touch your skin, Take another drag of your cigarette.

I’ve never truly held the words that people throw out of open mouths, But I’ll take all those you scatter, Like pennies on pavements.

How you draw breath when I touch you, How you hold it when I don’t.

Pencil to paper.

Ashes to smoke.

Touch to skin.

Some say the earth must have a designer, That the meticulous beauty in nature is evidence, So allow me to presume, That if earthquakes and hurricanes, Tear through the land we call home We will worship them as they pass, And build moments not fortresses, Houses out of sand so when the waves come crashing, I will feel sea salt and calm in the air There is beauty in understanding this And in loving this, there is you.

the gap

primpted // flight

sarah rajakariar Our dreams are not our own.

Our parents, in loving us; stifled us.

With their concern for our future, our wealth security, our happiness foisted onto us the dreams of their design.

Our achievements are not our own.

They are the karmic resolution of the mistakes, the unfulfilled aspirations of our loving parents.

We carry the weight of their hopes whilst negotiating for ourselves an unfamiliar terrain in which we are the other.

Where is the space for the unique longings of the heart that we can hold?

They have been dismissed in infinitesimal waves of the hand and barbs from a slick tongue from the gap that at times feels like a gulf that we can never bridge that has come to represent so much of our experience between our parents and ourselves.

Compounded by the gap, between our friends our school and neighbourhoods and our brown bodies and minds not at home in this white mans’ land nor at home in our own.

Engulfed Nicole Tan Follow Nicole on Instagram @nicolethetan

Issue Vol. 67 66 Issue12, 5, Vol.

prompted // flight

16 28

wish

Text: Jharna Chamlagai

So this was how it began; with a discoloured, pathetic patch of paper. Even after every fact I’d memorised, every cautionary tale I’d consumed, it seemed silly that this could have wrecked as much havoc as a mechanical digger’s hand slicing through the earth. A stifled chuckle of disbelief escaped my mouth as a gust of wind threatened to rip the flimsy piece out of my grasp. I’d spied it just a moment ago, a pink smudge on the edge of my vision, peeking out from the sea of sullied snow. For a moment, I contemplated letting it go. I’d expected profound fear as my fingertips met the edges, intrigue and understanding as I studied its every intricate feature. All that greeted me was overwhelming disappointment. This is it? Seriously?

‘Adhikari, Did you find anything?’

I folded my hand into a fist and shoved it in my pocket as the supervising officer approached expectantly. He spied the military suitcase by my boots, filled with hundreds of copies, then patted me roughly on the shoulder.

‘Good, let’s go.’

It was my first day on the mission, my first raid. Money. That’s what they’d called it. Before 2050 and the outbreak of World War Three, this was God. It was all powerful and out of control. To have it was a sign of grace. It whispered its way into your dreams and dictated your every breath. It created feasts and famines, songs of joy and lamentations.

It had two faces; greed and hunger. It

began to eat things with a vigorous appetite. It consumed whole forests, glaciers and deserts. It consumed armies, ships and clawed away at the flesh of all creatures. No soul could cry mercy.

Towers of glass and factories of exploitation rose in its name, destroyed and rose again, destroyed and rose again. Battles, plagues, famines and droughts visited at an exponential rate, but there was no day of rest in the industrious creation of concrete jungles; No one could stop the will of God. No one.

Twenty years ago, only when every last well had been poisoned, every river filled with dirt and disease, Every Ocean dead beyond resurrection had people awoken to the devil’s façade. By then, it was far too late.

*** Eight hours later we were nearing the cool warmth of the Compound. I was a few feet behind the S.O. but well in front of Agent Hudson. Until now, we’d been trudging through the snow together, calling on the makeshift shacks that bordered the towers upon towers of discarded waste. Diggers as massive as the skyscrapers of old caged us in, systematically trampling one heap after the other to make space. ‘Worldwide Initiative to Save Humanity’ was written in big bold letters across every one. Batteries and old phone cases, pieces of metal and electrical components came willingly.

But the scavengers in the West were still worshippers.

These people radiated resentment. I’d been sure the man who’d confessed the briefcase on the first raid was mad. He

was in hysterics; the heap of paper had been his life savings, enough for a house, a car, and holidays to see the wonders of the world. Wonders that they knew would cease to exist.

They Knew.

They knew it was murder manifested; irrigating icecaps, smelting souls, raping woods – and they let it destroy the world anyway.

I handed him his WISH token and left quietly. Every face that followed was the same, some more aggressive, some less distraught but most simply sad. My stomach was all knots. A flash of the walls upon walls of WISH recruitment posters that bricked every building back home stopped me in my tracks. I did a double take, made sure I was alone and approached it warily.

‘Meet and work with interesting people from all walks of life.’

From a distance, the people here looked like normal, hardworking, productive members of society. But close up I was engulfed in the void of their emptiness, in fear of their forced freedom from God. There was no sharing of stories, no conversation, no acknowledgement of each other’s existence.

‘Immerse yourself in a mesmerising and captivating environment.’

I lost my mind out here, as I would in one of the old-earth deserts, climbing past the mountains of junk and debris trying to make some sense of what my eyes were reflecting, until I felt myself numb, cut off from anything I’ve known somewhere faraway in another existence. When vegetation once rioted this

land, and rain wasn’t drops of poison melting away my hair. When a quarter of the population was still alive, and there were Trees.

I’d only ever seen one in my life. It was on the corner of the street, surrounded by a plain of concrete. Oak. Big and powerful with a tyre swing hanging off.

I ran to it once, my hand slipping from my mother’s as I grasped onto the rope.

But one swing was more than enough.

It was dangerous. I’d fall and break my head and die. The TOYSRUS store next door was much safer.

‘Make life-long friends in a career full of possibilities; CALL NOW!’ Apparently it was an unwritten rule that you took these last few steps slowly, alone; We were all clinging childishly to the old world, unwilling to immerse in the supposed safety of the compound.

I scrunched the paper in my pocket out of annoyance and let it fall into the sea of white. Earlier, I’d done the same with the poster, ripping it from the wall.

It was obvious now; there was nothing for me out here but craze and confusion from the cunning conscription of my naïve optimism.

Week 9, Semester 1, 2017

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prompted // flight

Finding Dignity: An Exploration of Mental Illness Through Bharathanatyam Text: Sumithri Venketesubramanian

Back in October 2015, I remember sitting with my mother at a table in a hawker centre enjoying some fabulous local Singaporean food when she mentioned an idea that she had; she wanted to create her own dance production. My mother has been dancing Bharathanatyam – a major Indian classical dance that originated in Tamil Nadu – since the age of 12. But she didn’t want to follow the traditional, Hindu religious and spiritual themes that typically characterise Bharathanatyam. Instead, she wanted to capitalise on what she saw as the art form’s potential in raising awareness about mental illness among the Indian community in Singapore where stigma surrounding mental health is prevalent.

My mother, Lalitha Venketasubramanian, got in touch with psychiatrists and mental health organisations, as well as choreographers, musicians and dancers to make this happen. Ten months later, her vision finally became a reality.

I had the privilege of catching a 6.30am flight to Singapore on Saturday, 22 October to witness the final result of months of planning, back-and-forth e-mails and rehearsals. I caught the train from Changi Airport to the School of the Arts Theatre Studio and arrived right on time for the first show at 7.30pm, and left for the airport once the second show ended the next evening. It was a hectic weekend – not to mention the assignment I had due in the middle of it – but it was worth every second.

Finding Dignity focuses on the relationship between a mother and her daughter, who has schizophrenia. Over six

scenes, titled, ‘Normal’, ‘Descent’, ‘Denial’, ‘Stigma’, ‘Conversation’ and ‘A New Normal’ respectively, the production follows the growth of the young girl as she navigates the effects of the illness on her life and relationships, and grapples with experiences of helplessness, isolation and ostracisation by friends.

The depth of emotion conveyed through dance brought tears to my eyes. One scene which depicted figures with dark cloths running around the girl as a reflection of her confusion and terror stands out in my mind as being particularly confronting to watch.

The performance is an hour and fifteen minutes in length and was followed on both days by a discussion with psychiatrists and panellists from mental health organisations such as the Singapore Association for Mental Health (SAMH) and Institute of Mental Health (IMH).

The audience was given the opportunity to pose questions to the experts about how to support loved ones and provided a platform for common misunderstandings about mental health and illness to be dispelled. I was thrilled to see some familiar faces among the 220-strong crowd, and it was very well-received by those who attended it.

While a success, the performance was not without its issues. In choosing to explore mental illness through Bharathanatyam, the creative team was met with the challenge of maintaining the traditional form of dance as far as possible, without compromising the integrity of the story and message of the production. For example, the depiction of the symptoms of schizophrenia by a woman-identifying character through an art form which portrays women in very specific roles was difficult – but nonetheless navigated well through excellent choreography and creative narration.

According to the creator and producer (of both the production, as well as myself), Lalitha: ‘When I came up with the storyline, I was already aware of the nature of Bharathanatyam having performed it for so many years. It came

together well because we approached it such that the story flows seamlessly using the vocabulary of the dance form.’

Finding Dignity brings a taboo topic to a specific group of people whom may not have previously considered the importance of mental health and fighting stigma associated with it. While recognising that Bharathanatyam isn’t universal among Indians in Singapore, reaching out to even a small part of society is valuable to the broadening of the mental health discourse and destigmatisation of mental illness. It would also have sparked dance enthusiasts’ interest to the potential of their art in advocacy and making important messages palatable to a crowd which may not engage in protests, which are illegal in Singapore.

The production inspired Lalitha to contribute to efforts to destigmatise mental illness. She is currently working with a group of medical professionals and others to set up a mental wellness organisation catering to the Indian community in Singapore. She would still like to bring Finding Dignity to new audiences and to spread the beauty and versatility of Bharathanatyam while raising awareness of important issues.

Any questions, concerns or ideas about Finding Dignity: An exploration of mental illness through Bharathanatyam can be directed to Sumithri Venketasubramanian (that’s me!) at sumithri.rv@gmail.com.

Culture // arts

Issue Vol. 67 66 Issue12, 5, Vol.

12 30

after moonlight

Eta Aquariids Text: Jill Masters Artwork: Nicole Tan Jill Masters is a recent Honours graduate and the co-founder of Not Another Film Club, an ANU society dedicated to exploring and unpacking the creative work of international women of colour.

Follow Nicole Tan on Instagram @nicolethetan

In the weeks before the Oscars, people were saying a lot about Moonlight – critics in the US media, podcasters on their Twitter feeds, once-closeted friends in heartfelt Facebook posts. But in the days after the much-publicised ceremony, these conversations changed. When an on-stage kerfuffle led La La Land to be named Best Picture in Moonlight’s stead, talk diverted from the content of Barry Jenkins’ film – a tender coming of age story about black masculinity – to the theatrics of how it was recognised.

The story was discussed so frequently that it barely requires synopsising. But the hallmarks are somehow both deeply inelegant and strangely movielike – the mistaken envelope, the truncated speeches, the shock announcement, the Hollywood ending for the underdog.

Of course, people were surprised, cynical and amused by the high-profile

blunder. But as the La La Land team awkwardly departed from the stage, and the waves of congratulations for Moonlight arrived to replace them, the comedy of errors created an artificial divide.

Some people, both in the media and at the kitchen table, rallied to defend the musical. For the film’s own warmth, and its sumptuousness, and for its success in distracting viewers from the political questions that frame and encumber our lives outside the movie theatre. But, these observations, however valid, created a dialogue that detracted from the significance of the night’s proceedings.

Essentially, the momentary mix-up installed undue value in the belief that these films are opposites, and that a win for Moonlight must come at the loss of its competitor. Yet La La Land did not lose because it could be considered a poor film; Moonlight won because it was in so many respects a rich one, and one that may make the landscape of film richer by having been recognised so powerfully. Rich with images and identities that movie-watchers have been long starved of. Rich with verisimilitude, with political resonance, and with intimacy and tension. For a film dealing so deeply in questions of sexuality, violence, and addiction, Moonlight was a triumph of restraint. Yet it was ripe with struggle, and it deserves a return to the pre-Oscars dialogue that it ignited.

The following statements seek to illustrate the subversiveness and the significance of the film being recognised by

such an industry-defining awards night: Moonlight was the first film with an allblack cast to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. The first all-POC cast directed by a person of colour to win Best Picture. The first LGBTQI film to win Best Picture. The first film to bring home an acting Oscar for a Muslim, and an editing Oscar for an African-American.

When Barry Jenkins, the film’s director, and Tarell Alvin McCraney, writer of the play upon which it was based, collected their award for Best Original Screenplay, it was the first time the Academy witnessed two black men, both the sons of addicts, step up to the podium with a message of inclusion and of our shared ability to overcome. In Jenkins’ words: ‘All you people who feel like there’s no mirror for you, the academy has your back, the ACLU [American Civil Liberties Union] has your back, we have your back, and for the next four years, we will not forget you.’

Speaking about the visibility of minority communities in literature and film, the Dominican-American author Junot Diaz once stated that ‘there’s this idea that monsters don’t have reflections in a mirror. And what I’ve always thought isn’t that monsters don’t have reflections … it’s that if you want to make a human being into a monster, deny them, at the cultural level, any reflection of themselves.’

By reaching out to those ‘who feel like there’s no mirror’ for them, Jenkins and McCraney created a space to normalise and celebrate the images of minorities, people habitually made into monsters

and villains and curios by Hollywood’s Anglocentric lens. Moonlight is in that sense a kind of marvel. It’s a hall of mirrors – a curiosity to some, a shock to others, but a force that by necessity has brought some of Hollywood’s long-marginalised identities out of the shadows.

The black community, the communities of other people of colour, the queer community, the communities that exist in and across these borders. And by representing minority experience on the majority stage and being lauded for it, Moonlight may enable the hall to grow.

Perhaps in the years to come we may see ourselves again, and again, and again, as future filmmakers are given the creative freedom to reflect us in all our diversity, confirming the legitimacy of our experiences and affirming the visibility that the film industry has too long denied.

The Hollywood ending for Moonlight is not a brief triumph over La La Land, but like the film itself, a slow burn – the promise that its lasting impact lies in stories soon to be told.

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Culture // arts

Tales of Tyranny: A Tribute to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Text: Alexander Vuong Alex is a third-year politics, philosophy and economics student, caffeine enthusiast and cricket tragic who wishes that one day, he could speak Russian.

‘I dedicate this to all those who did not live to tell it, And may they please forgive me, For not having seen it all, nor remembered it all, For not having divined it all.’

‘In this book there are no fictitious persons, nor fictitious events. People and places are named with their own names. If they are identified by initials instead of names, it is for personal considerations. If they are not named at all, it is only because human memory has failed to preserve their names. But it all took place just as it here described.’

Thus begins The Gulag Archipelago, a three-volume, 650 page, colossal non-fiction narrative by persecuted Nobel-prize winning author Aleksandr Solzhenistyn. 2017 marks the 50-year anniversary of its completion in 1967, after which it sold over 30 million copies in 35 different languages. In no less than 300,000 carefully chosen words, Solzhenitsyn documented the comprehensive injustices of Stalin’s forced-labour camps, or gulags, which claimed the lives of millions of prisoners between 1934 and 1953.

Born in Russia in 1918, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was raised in austere conditions by his widowed mother, Taisiya

Zakharovna, who identified his precocious talent for language at an early age.

As Solzhenitsyn would recall years later, she was no ordinary woman, and, as was typical for Russia’s post-WWI womanhood, she was tougher than ice. With only the strength of her own will, Taisiya single-handedly provided for her small impoverished family, working insufferable hours to give her only son the education befitting his once-in-a-generation talents. Solzhenitsyn loved her dearly.

On the eve of WWII, Solzhenitsyn shelved his academic pursuits to fight as an artillery officer in the Red Army. It was the first time he had been separated at length from his mother, his guardian angel. Only months before his scheduled return to Moscow, Taisiya fell ill. Her body, which was an uncanny fountain of youth during the interwar period, began to fail her.

Solzhenitsyn would never see her again.

Only in his dreams.

Immediately after the war, Solzhenitsyn was caught criticising Stalin in a personal letter to a friend. ‘Perpetuating anti-Soviet propaganda’ was his charge.

By March 1945, Solzhenitsyn was sentenced in absentia to eight years in exile in the Serbian gulags for committing no crime except that of free thought and expression. His sentence – 2,184 days, with two extra days for leap years.

Fittingly, it was within the tortured walls of the gulags where Solzhenitsyn acquired an indestructibility found only in the greatest liberators of the 20th century – Nelson Mandela comes to mind.

It was also within these walls where he began work on The Gulag Archipelago in the dark hours of the night, memorising and then destroying each and every page he wrote so that it wouldn’t be lost if it were seized. All this while resisting the terror of the camp guards, the burden of famine, and the maliciousness of cancer, undiagnosed for a year. His was a resilience you see only in comic book superheroes and religious prophets, a stoicism that would have made even Marcus Aurelius blush.

After his release – which by coincidence was the day Stalin died – Solzhenitsyn refused to wallow in the wilderness of his grief. Over the next 15 years, he wrote religiously, publishing over a dozen novels including the electrifying One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich which, subtly and unsubtly,

condemned the brutality of Stalin’s regime. His fidelity to the motherland was outweighed only by his fidelity to the truth. In 1970, Solzhenitsyn was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for ‘the ethical force with which he has pursued the indispensable traditions of Russian literature.’ But he was far from finished.

After receiving the Nobel Prize, Solzhenitsyn secretly began editing, once again, his already-completed book: The Gulag Archipelago. Drawing on the reports, memoirs and letters of 227 fellow prisoners, Solzhenitsyn mapped the icy despair of the Soviet prison experience. The whole book rested on one Russian proverb: ‘Dwell on the past, and you’ll lose an eye. But forget the past and you’ll lose both eyes.’ Solzhenitsyn knew that only through the power of language could the world hope to come to terms with the limitless despair of the Stalin dictatorship, that only through the power of the pen could one hope to thaw the permafrost of Russian history.

After rumours had surfaced that Solzhenitsyn was finally prepared to release The Gulag Archipelago, the KGB began incessantly terrorising him and his family – this included a failed assassination attempt. Eventually, the KGB acquired one of only the three existing manuscripts, and upon hearing this, Solzhenitsyn immediately published it overseas to instant international acclaim.

Simple owning a copy of The Gulag Archipelago was worth seven years in prison. Such was the power of Solzhenitsyn’s words.

Condemned as a traitor, the Soviet Union stripped him of his citizenship, put him on a plane, and, once again, exiled him from his own country of birth in the hope that expelling him from his beloved homeland would break him. On February 12 1974, Solzhenitsyn arrived in Frankfurt, Germany, carrying only a straw cap and a sheepskin coat (his faithful companions during his time in the gulags). With an unshaved beard and a piercing glare he seemed less like a fiery writer-activist, and more like a character from the Old Testament.

His second exile would last 20 years, in which he moved from West Germany to the United States to live in reclusion, before returning to post-Soviet Russia as a hero in 1994, where he would spend the remainder of his days.

The life of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn is so complex that it naturally resists summary, but upon close and intimate examination, one theme runs like an artery through his work. That is, the idea that liberty and freedom are currencies vastly undervalued by those who have always had it, and priceless to those unjustly deprived of it. We have much to learn from him.

With new wars emerging and new hatreds brooding every day, it is easy to despair and lament the evil drowning the world. At such times, however, we must always remind ourselves that there are people in this world brave enough to fight and die to oppose and expose this evil. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was one such person.

Issue12, 5, Vol. Issue Vol. 67 66

Culture // arts

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Podcasts that I can’t Unhear Some people collect stamps; I collect podcasts.

inwards: that is, to analyse how you are feeling, to reflect back on your own experiences. Podcasts for me are just a way to look outwards, to access other people’s experiences and emotions. There is also no way I would have made the number of friends I have if I couldn’t impress them with my fun facts.

I do it because there are so many magical, exquisite and quirky experiences and facts that are just floating around, waiting to be listened to. In today’s society, I think it is easy to always look

This is not really a podcast review section. Instead, these are snapshots: snapshots of all the podcasts or podcast series I have liked and stuck with me over the last few years.

The Soul of an Octopus

History of the vibrator/

John Hull on sight

The humble elevator/

and insight

Text: Xiao Lin King

High big eyes are like paintings of past Hindu gods and goddesses serene and unknowing.’

Athena, Giant pacific octopus Age: 2 ½ As a society, we connect more to certain animals: dogs and cats being the most obvious examples. This is a podcast about the relationship between Sy Montgomery the Naturalist and Athena the octopus. Athena turns red with excitement when she sees Montgomery through the water, under her touch she turns white, the colour of a calm octopus. It is rare that you will hear anyone speak as passionately and with as much wonder about octopuses (yes, it is octopuses and not octopi) as Montgomery, and it is infectious. Did you know that an octopus has three hearts?

And a brain that is wrapped around its throat? They are a species so different to humans and yet there can still be a ‘meeting of the minds’ between an octopus and a human.

Accessed on: Late Night Live, ABC RN, Presenter: Phillip Adams

Mexican Gardens Did you know that the vibrator was one of the first appliances to be electrified and was invented so doctors could relieve women of hysteria?

There is a section on Phillip Adams’ website In Bed with Phillip called ‘Curiosities.’ This is where these three podcasts have been selected from, and they are exactly that: curiosities.

From these podcasts, you will learn facts that you may think are not very useful but will stick to you and weave their way into your conversations for the rest of your life. Many times have I used the fun fact about the origins of the vibrator to stimulate a conversation. In 1869, George Taylor invented a steam-powered vibrator called ‘The Manipulator.’ When I see people in lifts pressing the close button furiously, I like to tell them the majority of lifts only have the close button to give the panel some symmetry and people a sense of control. It doesn’t work. Additionally, some studies have linked the elevators to the development of claustrophobia. Also, did you know that in Mexico, where places are overtaken by jungle, there is a city of concrete flowers four stories high?

Accessed on: Late Night Live, ABC RN, Presenter: Phillip Adams

‘Blindness is a mental thing, for the first few years I was not a blind person, I was a sighted person who couldn’t see.’

John Hull went blind over a period of 35 years. In describing this transition, he provides access to the world of the blind that one cannot imagine through simply closing their eyes. Hull is famous for coining the term ‘deep blindness’ – that is, not only when you do not have sight, but when you also do not have any memory of sight. In the first few years of his blindness, he has a ‘sighted’ man’s memory. With time memories fade and he describes the terrible sense of loss that overwhelms him when he realises that not only have the faces of his loved ones deteriorated in his memory but so had that of his own face. This is a not a sympathetic podcast. It is an incredibly specific, yet comprehensive description of how the world changes when you lose sight.

It is pragmatic and at the same time a deeply profound description, one that pushes and reveals the limitations of a visually abled person’s imagination.

Accessed on: Late Night Live, ABC RN, Presenter: Phillip Adams

Welcome to Night Vale Welcome to Night Vale ‘There is a thin line between weird and beautiful, and that line is covered in jellyfish. Welcome to Night Vale.’

Twice a month, a community update for the town of Night Vale is released.

This is no normal town. In this place dogs are not allowed in the dog park, the Sheriff’s secret police warn of an ominous glow cloud and there is a man with a tan jacket and deerskin suitcase that pops up all over town but has no other distinguishable features. A bizarre town, yet the cool and collected voice of community radio host Cecil tends to lull you into accepting everything that is happening as semi-normal. That is until the podcast ends and you have a little think about what you are spending your time listening to – similar to when you wake up from a dream and realise it did not actually make sense at all. Why should we listen to fake news over real news? Because it is much more fun and has some pretty wacky weather report music. Additionally, it is quite possible that you might wake up from it with an unclear sense of what reality is.

Welcome to Night Vale: Written by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor. Narrated

by Cecil Baldwin. Music by Disparition.

Week Semester1,2,2017 2016 Week10, 9, Semester

13 33

Culture // arts

No, Art is not for ‘Everyone’

Text: Judy Kuo Artwork: Nicole Tan

other hand, we have government initiatives which aim to promote the multiculturalism of a community through community-made art. Community artists are usually not paid and not permanently exhibited, so how can any of us seriously say that they are given the status of ‘real art’? This kind of ‘offer’ for ethnic minorities to be temporarily and marginally part of the arts culture of their community is often at the expense of their own labour, time, and the commodification of their own cultures for consumption.

Judy Kuo is a Chinese-Australian from Melbourne studying Honours in Sociology.

Follow Nicole Tan on Instagram @nicolethetan

For starters, I know nothing about art, so diving head first into an honours project on the social and political nature of art spaces probably wasn’t the most sensible idea.

Nevertheless, I am interested in ‘the gallery’ as an environment and a space that can give rise to community, and how these art spaces represent and engage with people of colour – especially in Australia. And as a sociology and philosophy wanker, I am extra critical of the way in which artistic discourses and practices around its consumption are shaped by inherently classist, racist and sexist ideas.

Firstly, art in the modern world is all about money, precisely because its denial of money has traditionally defined it.

The market value of art is based on the notion that art is only good if it is freed from the shackles of economic need and market forces. The very fact that it is distinguished from the world of necessity and poverty gives the justification for its (sometimes absurd) value. In distinguishing itself from the market, it solidifies its worth within the market. The appreciation and consumption of art also assumes the availability of leisure time among its viewers.

On the flip side, the glorification of the starving artist is just the other side of the transcendental coin, depicting the virtuous and benevolent artist sacrificing their bodily needs for the intellectual pursuit of their artistic genius, only to be tragically consumed by such needs. With its white walls and windowless-ness shielding its treasures from the world of poor people and unskilled labour, the

It seems to me to be merely a gestural and cursory ‘welcome’ of people of colour into the ‘art world’.

Untitled conventional way we contextualise art harbours an underlying repulsion from the noise of the rabble. These are the hallmark indicators of privilege so prevalent in other aspects of life.

So let’s do away with the idea that art (as we know it now) is made for everyone.

Firstly, this is disregarding the financial barriers to accessing galleries (there is absolutely no free parking on King Edward Terrace, by the way). But, the way that rich, old, ‘white’ people go around mm-ing and ah-ing at some ancient Chinese artefact in the ‘Asian Art’ section of the NGA – followed by a stream of vague terminology and historical trivia apparently relevant to the artwork – can be surprisingly uncomfortable even for a Chinese-Australian like myself.

Perhaps I am being cynical now, but the right to understand the art of my own heritage becomes a conquest for the Western intellect that is eventually used to educate me.

With the example of the ‘Versailles: Treasures from the Palace’ exhibition at the NGA, charging $25 entry for students, the gallery becomes the domain of the aristocrat or the tourist, consuming a collection of rare and expensive

things just because they were rare and expensive things owned by aristocrats.

The appropriate reaction towards such an exhibition is the affirmation of its value and therefore a performance of class.

The line between rare and valuable artefacts and important artworks has never been clear, but the perpetuation of intellectual, economic, and social superiority seems to continue to be an inherent project of the art gallery.

And yet, I am guilty of my own type of elitism, as I have just implied that the things in the Versailles exhibition are not ‘real art’ – but what is real art anyway?

‘Real art’ is, I think, an even more dangerous idea, when the ‘realness’ of non-European art is subjected to a Euro-centric logic of justification and value. At what point does non-European art or art made by people of colour become ‘white’ enough to be recognised as art? To what extent are Western art worlds actually capable of valuing what it cannot comprehend? What would this comprehension look like?

On the one hand, we have the tiny Chinese contemporary art exhibition banished to the NGA basement with no signs directing people to it, and on the

How can people of colour be audiences of art without their heritage and background becoming neutralised by the ‘whiteness’ of the discourses that define art and our experience of art? Even when it comes to the art by people of colour, how can its perceived authenticity be severed from the colonial notions of the noble savage?

Look, I don’t know. I love art as much as I hate the unequal social contexts in which ‘art’ as we know it is made possible. I suppose that is why I bothered to dedicate a whole year to studying it.

Here, I think I’ve reached a bit of a deadend in my thesis – I don’t know how we can imagine art in a new way so that art in our context doesn’t carry its imperialistic baggage. So that art is open to new subjects and new audiences, so that art is open to a new kind of ‘public’ and so that art institutions affirm a genuine respect for things that operate under an unfamiliar mode of meaning.

5, Vol. 672, 2016 Week Issue 10, Semester

Culture // arts 15

34

Onstage vs. Backstage: Theatre Contenders Text: Synan Chohan

In many of my shallow conversations with strangers, I am often asked how I can possibly devote my free time to doing something as difficult as acting. Always, I reply with the truth: that acting is one of the easiest aspects of theatre.

That’s not to say that I’m good at it, I’m certainly not. But in terms of organising an entire production, being an actor is by far the most rewarding role. Not only do you get shit tonnes of praise at the end of a successful show, but everyone remembers what you did in your role that was so remarkable and thought-provoking.

Sometimes I’m so well recognised that I’m occasionally recognised by a member of the public while buying hummus from Dickson Woolies.

In my opinion, a good actor needs three key characteristics: dedication, creativity and guts. I, however, only have

dedication. You need to be willing to do whatever the director wants, whenever and however they want. Or at least have that mentality. Most of the time, you’ll have a director who wants to work with you rather than control every aspect of your performance. Depending on your role, you can expect to attend between one and four rehearsals a week over a period of two to four months. On top of that, you hold the responsibility of learning your lines as fast as possible.

To satisfy the director and more importantly yourself, you must be willing to dedicate yourself to your character/s and put as much effort in as you’re hoping to get out.

Creativity is a trait you can naturally improve. Although the word immediately reminds me of all the essays where I struggled to write, it is also one of the easier characteristics to fulfil. All creativity means is that you, as an actor, are trying and willing to try things differently and add something unique to your performance and the entire production.

The beauty of it is that you improve by

simply pushing yourself out of your comfort zone. Years will pass before you realise how much more creative you’ve become compared to when you started.

Guts are the key driving characteristic behind every thespian’s performance.

In every performance, there’s always a chance that you will mess up a line or that something could go wrong, and often something does. You need to have guts to be able to accept the risks and continue to perform. This doesn’t mean that you can’t be afraid, you just have to hide it when you’re on stage.

Once, when I was performing in a school’s production of Grease as Eugene, I was given a loose pair of blue pants along with some hideous pink suspenders that were too small for me as part of my costume. It was a recipe for disaster, because what ended up happening was that everyone could see my ‘bulge’ through the pants. But I didn’t back down from my performance or awkwardly cover myself up on stage.

I accepted the fact and continued with

an amazing performance that made my teachers proud. In hindsight, I should have handled this wardrobe malfunction earlier, but like I said: guts and determination rule in theatre.

The number of times I’ve been backstage regretting why it is that I decided to act as a hobby, or anxious about whether the months of preparation have been enough is shocking for someone who participates in plays and productions regularly. But it’s all a part of any actor’s performance. We learn to put aside our fears and worries to entertain the people in our community. That’s the main reason I do all of this. To entertain.

But also the praise and fame from each performance. That’s always good as well.

The mind ever so frazzled in the sunshine and light, alm an n ola in th imn o th a k.

Photography and poem: Meenas Shaugy

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Week 9, Semester 1, 2017

Issue 5, Vol. 67

Culture // Reviews

36

The Missing Ghost: A Review of Ghost in the Shell

Text: Anonymous

Other things I still don’t understand

The author has an appreciation for good anime, like Psycho-Pass.

Perhaps the most exciting thing on my non-existent anime calendar of the year is the release of the new Ghost in the Shell (GITS) movie. Unless you live under a rock, you would have heard of the controversy surrounding casting Scarlett Johansson as Major Motoko Kusanagi – giving a white woman a role as an ethnically-ambiguous-but-presumably-Japanese cyborg. Some blogs attributed the movie’s poor reception to this controversy. However, after seeing the film, I think that Scarlett Johansson is least of the movie’s problems. Rather, the storytelling is the bigger problem as it fails to capture the original anime’s core concepts.

Who is ‘Major’?

Within the source material, GITS tells the story of Public Security Section 9, a fictional counter-cyberterrorism organisation that closely works with the Diet (Japanese Parliament) in the mid-21st century Japan. Major Motoko Kusanagi (‘Major’) is a full cyborg except for her brain and spinal cord. Although she is the first of the kind, she takes on the appearance of a generic, mass-produced model.

To this day, I still struggle to understand the casting controversy. It is true that this anime is set in futuristic Japan, a racially homogenous country. However, anime is a fluid medium. Although most stories are set in Japan, the characters do not have to be ethnically Japanese. Major’s background is deliberately vague in the original films – her partial backstory is revealed only in Stand Alone Complex. Even then, her ethnicity is not exactly mentioned. Thus, every director of this franchise designed her appearance differently. Major’s ethnicity should not be the sole focus of the casting process.

Major in the Film I have no problem with Scarlett Johansson as Major; to be honest, I think she gave a fairly convincing portrayal. However, my complaint lies with how Major was characterised in this adaptation.

In the original film, Major is a strong, intelligent female protagonist who is dedicated to her work. While she does frequently ponder over individuality, existence, consciousness and various philosophical points, she rarely let those question take precedence over her role.

In essence, she is the ultimate leader and fighter. However, in this adaptation, we start off with a fearless leader who quickly transforms into a mess midway through the film. From that point onwards, she is guided by her sense for revenge. Personally, I think Togusa, who is known to be the most emotional person in Section 9, had more confidence and was more suave than Major.

Rather than having a strong female lead, we ended up with a wayward character.

The Discourse The development of Major reveals an underlying problem with this adaptation. Her main motive for the second half of the film is to uncover her origins and take revenge on HANKA Robotics, who designed and developed her shell as a prototype. The main reason being HANKA abducted her and her friends to experiment on and then used her as

a military weapon. The central conflict is between corporation and individuals – typical Hollywood-style. When Major finally reconciles with her past, she is suddenly empowered to find her resolution. There is a strong underlying message that having individuality is empowering.

This is a clear departure from the original franchise. Originally, Major has no past to rely on, as her past information is rarely, if ever, presented. Since Major is connected to the cybernet, her memories, actions and individuality can be altered, and this leads to many philosophical questions. The most prominent of which: if your emotion, knowledge, capabilities can be altered or manipulated, how can you be sure that you are real?

The source materials delve into this, in great depth, presenting and analysing the relevant discourses.

It’s fine to diverge from source materials. However, the divergence here is quite problematic. The genre of cyberpunk films embraces the advent of technology; nevertheless, it is clear that this film rejects this idea. Since so much of the discourse in GITS is based on the premise of widespread acceptance of cyberization and the advent of cybernet, this new adaptation essentially destroys any potential for discussing the nature of humanity, artificial intelligence, memory, consciousness and reality. In the end, the message is typically Hollywood, promoting the western idea of the importance of individualism and the evils of the giant corporation. This is a significant departure from the more nuanced exploration of individualism, consciousness, identity, artificial intelligence and so forth in the original franchise.

I found it strange that Chief Aramaki is the only person who speaks Japanese in the film. Even if everyone can quickly translate Japanese with their cyberbrain, is it necessary to have only one person speaking Japanese?

Furthermore, why is the studio so insistent on giving the Major a backstory?

From what I understand, Major’s parents died. In the original franchise, her backstory is never the focus; rather, her work with Section 9 is the main focus.

Finally, I do not understand why the many philosophical discourses have been left out. While it’s not everyone’s piece of cake, the original film gave the audience sufficient viewpoints to allow them to form their own opinion. The TV-series made the discourse comprehensible through the adorable Tachikoma machines (quirky killing machines and budding philosophers). Rupert Saunders could have easily picked and focused on any of those discourses within the original franchise. Instead, Saunders took the visuals, characters and some plots of the original film, gratuitously slapped on a very strong, but Hollywood, message of individualism and called it Ghost in the Shell. The visuals may be stunning, but, GITS’ central themes – i.e. the ‘ghost’ – is missing from its extravagant shell.

Conclusion and Final Verdict The new Ghost in the Shell adaptation is a visually stunning movie. However, it betrayed the essence of GITS. Instead of starting an interesting conversation about the future of technology, this movie sells the typical Hollywood message about individualism. I found it rather disappointing, but at least there won’t be a sequel to be more disappointed in.

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Week 9, Semester 1, 2017

Culture // Reviews

Review: Shanghai Dumpling Cafe Text: Diana Tung

I’ve been hesitant to try out the several Chinese restaurants around campus for two main reasons: I was worried I might be disappointed, or worse still, that I would find a place I would really love.

Unfortunately for my wallet, I think I’ve managed the latter.

On a recent Friday evening, a large group of friends and I dined at the Shanghai Dumpling Cafe, which is conveniently open until 9.30pm all week. To minimise logistics, a few friends and I ordered for the rest of the group, picking out a selection of dumplings and vegetable dishes while trying to accommodate requests: no pork, and one serving of chilli oil soup wonton. Amidst the busy chatter of the restaurant and our increasing hunger, we finally cobbled together our order for the very patient and helpful waiters.

Although the restaurant was completely packed, our dishes arrived with impressive speed. We couldn’t help but eye the steamers full of dumplings, as they were being bussed around, and once ours arrived, the excitement was palpable. The best thing about eating as a group at a place like Shanghai Dumpling Cafe is that you get the opportunity to sample a wide range of dishes. Among the 14 of us, we shared steamed prawn, beef, and chicken dumplings, chilli oil soup wonton, stir fried green vegetables with garlic, Shanghai tofu with mushrooms, and chilli eggplant.

Dumplings look deceptively easy to

make, and now that they’re churned out at dizzying speeds to meet voracious demand I’m not convinced that the people making them get the credit they deserve. Too much liquid in the meat mixture? The dumplings fall apart. Poor technique in pinching the ends of the wrapper together? The dumplings fall apart. Steamed too long? You guessed it, the dumplings stick to the parchment paper when the diner tries to peel them off and, consequently, fall apart, spilling their juices.

Good dumplings can’t be frozen either; they have to be made fresh on the day or the wrapper gets hard, and the seasoned diner can tell right away. All the dumplings at Shanghai Dumpling Cafe were impeccably made, and very fresh. The crunchy prawns were enveloped in soft translucent wrappers with just the right amount of pull. After I popped the first in my mouth, I immediately regretted that we had only ordered one steamer.

A small complaint would be the rice. It

didn’t come as the soft, fluffy yet distinct grains you’d hope for at a restaurant. Instead, it was clumpy in parts, like it was from the end of a batch. Nevertheless, the dishes were sufficiently delectable that this felt easily forgivable.

One trick I’ve discovered to ordering for large groups in Chinese restaurants is to order a few dishes less than the number of people, and rice for about a third. We demolished everything, everyone seemed happy, and the ridiculously cheap bill came out to just under $10 per person. I was full but not stuffed, and still able to bike uphill to get home – a successful dining experience, in my book.

Issue Vol. 67 66 Issue12, 5, Vol.

Culture // life and style

10 38

‘Bhai, don’t Stress.

Just give them the Nuggets.’

Text: Reza Mazumder

For the majority of her childhood and ‘So, with recent ISIS terrorisms in this country, what is your opinion on Western military attacks on the Assad regime?’

Before I opened the drive-thru window, I noticed his eyes look at my face before trailing down to my name tag, which read ‘Reza’. From the look on his face, I guess he figured my name – often identified as Iranian – meant I was either from some Middle Eastern country, like Syria, where the Assad regime is.

I’m not.

I was born in Bangladesh. I had moved to Australia before I was one. My family became citizens soon after immigrating.

Bangladeshi-Australian is what I suppose you would refer to me as.

I could have said a lot of things to him.

‘Excuse me, but I have another car at the speaker. If I could just get you to tap your card on the EFTPOS machine, your meal will be ready at the next window.’

That’s how I usually replied. That’s how most of us replied while working overnight shifts at your favourite fast food destination after a Thursday night out in Civic. You probably go there for your midnight cheeseburger, or perhaps some nuggets.

Our management was largely from Bangladesh, India and Pakistan. They had taken on the endearing practice of referring to their crew – who came from all over the world – as ‘Bhai’, meaning

brother. Our overnight crew, however, was majorly staffed by South Asians.

Foreign accents could be heard at the cash register and in the kitchen, which a lot of people took as an invitation to whip out their beloved slurs; ‘S*nd n*gger,’ ‘Terrorist c*nt.’

The first time I witnessed people – who I wish I didn’t recognise – speaking to a manager in a purposely slow pace, unnecessarily enunciating their syllables, and at one point mimicking his accent: I made sure I was the one to give them their food. When I did, I looked at them straight with dead-shot clear eyes, giving them a tight-lipped smile with my head tilted so far to one side it felt like would almost snap off my body.

‘Have a wonderful night.’

My managers were better at it than me.

They smiled with gentle eyes and engaged customers in friendly conversation, often making their patrons laugh and giggle. They maintained tones of warmth in response to people’s barks of racism.

When a delirious and dangerous man would waltz into the restaurant and act as a nuisance to other customers, I’d watch my manager take him by the collar and drag him outside before locking the door behind him. The man, at least two times my manager’s size, would all the while be yelling at him with: ‘Where are you fucking from? You don’t belong here.’

Strength is more than size.

When a group of old white men in drive-thru sped off in the safety of their car after saying, ‘Look here young Lady, this a Christian world we live in, not

your Muslim faith you’re indoctrinated with’, to one of my co-workers, I asked her why she even bothered to take their money. She laughed and said: ‘It’s fine.

They’re just silly. They have no effect on me.’

away at work and lament to my mother about how he needed to refer a case of workplace racial abuse to his boss. At the time, he said to me: ‘Don’t give a care about them. They are a joke for their behaviour, you just work.’

Strength is more than gender.

This is what I’d done the first time I’d witnessed people make fun of my managers’ accents. I’d given them the service requested as a way to challenge their hate.

When I was asked by customers in the drive-thru, ‘Are you a boy or a girl?’, and told, ‘You must be a fag,’ because of my androgynous face, my managers would refuse to serve them. ‘There’s nothing wrong with who you are. Anyone who takes an issue to you, you tell me and I’ll deal with it,’ said one manager. To this day, it’s mostly brown Muslim men who willingly put themselves in harm’s way to protect me from queer*phobia. A lot of people say they’ll ‘be there for me’ but it’s usually my Bhaiyas that’ll run to my side when I’m in need of help. A peculiar reality considering the way Muslim men’s attitudes towards queer* people and women are stereotyped.

Strength is more than religion.

A lot of my older immigrant colleagues had Engineering, Computer Science and Finance degrees but couldn’t land a degree-specific job. They never once complained to me about it. They just worked and patted me on the back when I did a bad job of sweeping the kitchen floors.

I had many nice conversations with taxi drivers who arrived with passengers screaming profanities and vomiting in the car. Some frequenters would recognise me and say, ‘Good evening Bhai.’

Sometimes they sighed, and I smiled back with a similar feeling.

I often thought back to the times my father would come home after his weeks

The same night I was asked about the Assad regime, I had a customer who had a rough night; he had no shoes on and smelled like Goon. He’d screamed at me: ‘I ordered two boxes of nuggets, you should be able to count, aren’t you Asian?’ He’d forgotten that his card kept declining if he ordered two, so he’d paid for one. I’d felt someone place another 6-pack box of nuggets in my hand. From offside, and under breath, I heard: ‘Don’t stress Bhai, just give him the nuggets.’

And I knew Bhai was right there, standing beside me.

Week 9, Semester 1, 2017

39

Culture // life and style

‘Black’ Hair

Text: Annabelle Nshuti and Aditi Razdan Annabelle Nshuti is a second year Science student who’d love for all of you to come to Ethnocultural Week.

Aditi Razdan is a third year Asian Studies/Law student who came on board to create, solicit for and edit this edition.

For the majority of her childhood and adolescence, Annabelle grew up in Mali, West Africa, and was therefore in a homogenous environment – amongst people who, although different ethnically, had similar hair textures and experiences to her. Because of this, ‘I never felt pressure or experienced oppression because of my hair. I did, however, see and experience the influence of Westernisation creeping into mainstream Malian and West African cosmetic culture’.

The prominent method was hair relaxing, which is using a ‘lotion or cream that makes the hair easier to straighten and manage’. It reduces the curl by breaking down the hair strand and chemically altering the texture. She would regularly relax and braid her hair, as it was more convenient to at the time.

The word convenience here is loaded, it implies there is an ‘inconvenient truth’ about ‘Black hair’, that it doesn’t fit the expectation of dominant beauty ideals. Before colonisation and Western hegemony, Black peoples and cultures retained the same hair texture, minus the modern day relaxation tools. How is this? Was it not inconvenient then?

We suspect the ‘unruly’ and ‘unkempt’ perception of natural ‘Black’ hair came later, a result of values and beauty standards imposed by an intertwined history of slavery, western dominance, cultural baggage and 20th and 21st-century technological advancements. These catapulted images of western (see:

white) standards of beauty onto every TV screen – including those owned by People of Colour. It has become so internalised that for a lot of Black communities in western countries, relaxation is a necessary part of the daily, weekly and monthly routine.

One reason why Black hair isn’t easily dealt with, especially for Africans, is because of the management. As Annabelle explains: ‘Our hair is naturally dry and curly, and because it doesn’t retain moisture we, therefore, must follow a strict, daily routine that involves undertaking a complex healthy hair care routine. It’s basically a university degree in hair. I’m not lying; it’s pretty damn hard!’ That’s why everyone’s experience with hair is so different, and why most keep relaxing or braiding their hair; because the alternative requires commitment, dedication, time and enthusiasm.

As Annabelle remembers, moving back to Canberra five years ago, ‘my experience was very much the same as it was in Mali, but I became more aware of the issue that is “hair politics”’. Her hair was dying because of the constant misuse and inexperience she had in dealing with hair, and it wasn’t until two years ago that Annabelle decided to go completely natural: no relaxing or nasty chemicals to be used. Let us explain why this decision is of great significance and strength.

Western culture discriminates on all aspects that make a person ‘Black,’ and unfortunately, our hair is negatively targeted. It’s seen as savage, untamed, untidy and rough, and has impacted on people’s social and professional lives. In a US– centric context, which inevitably affects the global context and perception, Black hair comes with a history of trauma and mistreatment. The ‘pen’ test was used to see who’s hair was not ‘Black’ enough to hold a pen in it, and as such these slaves were seen as worthy of comparatively better treatment.

In pop culture and mass media outlets, ‘embracing your roots’ is a theme with

natural hair. India Arie’s 2006 ‘I Am Not My Hair’ – ‘you can shave it off like a South African beauty; or get in on lock like Bob Marley; you can rock it straight like Oprah Winfrey’ – encourages diversity amongst Black communities. Beyoncé’s ‘Lemonade’ is a seminal artistic creation, especially in African-American and Black culture, and her film illustrates the roots that African-Americans still have in Africa, and how reconciliation between both cultures can occur.

But unfortunately, wearing one’s hair in its natural state is still a subversive, political act. Even though it is also simply a practical decision to make, the very choice is inherently political.

Recently, at a school in Melbourne, two students of South Sudanese descent were removed from school and asked to take out their braids, because it didn’t fit the ‘uniform’ policy. This all too common sentiment about what is ‘neat’ and ‘appropriate’ is a guise for what is ‘western’ and un-Black, arising from a misunderstanding of the politics of Black hair, as well as the practicalities of maintenance without chemical relaxation. After the ensuing furore, the school’s Principal relented, making an ‘exception’ for these girls. It seems that even after the pressure, there was no true understanding of the connotations of ‘neatness’, still placing these girls’ hair in an ‘exceptional’ or ‘other’ category, rather than accepting them as part of the diversity that is hair.

The incident in Melbourne mirrored another at a school in Pretoria, South Africa, a majority Black country. This just shows how pervasive western narratives of ‘neatness’ and ‘uniformity’ are – words that are constantly used in controversies like this, describing something far more pernicious. We will leave you to guess what that is.

On the other hand, there is this growing movement in music and festival culture, as well as ‘high fashion’ culture to wear cornrows and afros. In these cases, it is ‘edgy’ for the non-Black wearer, rather than ‘untidy’ as considered by some.

Maybe this is normalising Black hair

styles, but also, maybe it is unfair that it only happened at the point at which non-Black people accepted it.

But still, Annabelle is beyond enthusiastic that the Black hair movement is present and promoting discussion, and she hasn’t personally experienced a significant or daily amount of oppression or pressure that comes with it. It doesn’t bother her when someone touches her hair, but that definitely isn’t the same for someone else – ‘I don’t want to speak on behalf of others’. It has definitely been a qualm for Black women, in particular, having their relaxed or natural hair exclaimed over and touched as if they are free for all or an object for someone’s viewing and pleasure.

What this movement needs, as most do, is support and encouragement from within and outside; from and for people of colour. Annabelle believes that ‘the fact that Black people feel that we can now take control and have power over our hair is excellent; whether it’s by relaxing, braiding, or shaving all of your hair off’. It’s personal and shaped by your own experiences, and all you need to do is continue on your journey. So, don’t worry about ‘neatness’, just grab your silk nightcap and deep conditioner if you’d like to join Annabelle.

It may be a political or practical act. You decide.

Culture // life and style

Issue 5, Vol. 67

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At the Crossroads of Identity and Faith Text: Jonathan Tjandra Jonathan Tjandra is the Branch Officer for Faith and Religions for the ANU Students’ Association Clubs’ Council and blogs for politechs.com.au.

This piece is a representation of personal experience and is not affiliated in any way with the Association.

The most obvious and important realities are often the ones we find hardest to see or talk about. An important reality to discuss is the effect of invisible forces on the way we live, and how the structures of society affect our individual experiences and identity. I would like to share some reflections on the tensions within one’s identity. There are some aspects of my own identity which I have made obvious. For example, I am a straight male Australian of Chinese-Indonesian descent. What is less clear is how my faith plays into it, as there have been very few intersectional discussions focussing on identity and faith.

On one level, it is rather trivial. I could simply say, ‘Hello, my name is Jonathan.

I was born in Perth, my parents are from Indonesia, and by the way, I’m a Christian.’ However, Christianity is not generally seen as an identity in the way that being Asian is, or being male. It is perhaps self-identifying, as my experience is undoubtedly shaped by it.

How does my faith interact with my identity? Being a Christian in Australia does not denote a particular ethnicity, in the way that being a Muslim might (or even a Coptic Christian in Egypt). It does signify membership in what theologians call the universal Body of Christ, which constitutes not only an identification with the institution of the Church but the identification with Christ through our faith. As Christians can be found in almost every culture and ethnicity, I identify with both a community which transcends borders and languages.

One issue I struggle with is how I can justify identifying with a tradition which historically has been complicit in the oppression of minorities? The various churches claimed a moral high ground and failed the responsibility required of them: to seek justice for the oppressed, to show kindness to the weak, and to walk humbly with the Lord. To this, I can only reflect that every human institution has been involved in the oppression of minorities. All this says is that human beings have a great capacity

to do evil, and the power that comes with these institutions invariably corrupts the individual. The issue ultimately boils down to an inequality of power.

While there are many other claims to my identity, I can confidently say that my identity is anchored, sure and steadfast, in the Christian faith. The example of Christ completely subverts all power structures: ‘who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in human likeness.’ I believe Jesus did not come to entrench the power of institutions, the government or the rich, but to empower the weak, the poor, the sick, the sinners of the world. It is true that because of my race, I have faced discrimination, but it is through my identity in Christ that has empowered me to achieve everything I have done.

Identity politics asks the right questions but does not provide the answers. In my experience, it fosters divisions and leads to a race to the bottom – a race to prove a particular group is the most oppressed, or to assert their rights over any other group. I am similarly cautious about the language of rights, as it is often used as a blunt instrument without space for complexity. If it is true that one subculture cannot understand the experiences of another group, there is no clear ranking of rights, and where the rights of

various groups conflict, something must give way. Certainly, there exist rights to which every human being is entitled, but each right has a limit. My right to freedom of movement ends when the courts have judged my imprisonment is better for society than my freedom.

As a Christian, liberty is limited by love.

In the early church, the eating of meat sacrificed to idols was a divisive cultural issue. For some, it amounted to idol worship (and thus blasphemous), but for others, an idol holds no actual power and so eating sacrificial meat was amoral. In the First Letter to the Corinthians, Paul writes, ‘[T]ake care that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak.’

Paul’s was writing to the latter group to reinforce the unity of the church: don’t exercise your right to eat sacrificial food if it means your friends will have to go against their conscience. The right to exercise one’s liberties is limited by the love we should have for the people whom it affects.

The tension between cultural identity and faith is another issue I have struggled with. A few years ago, my grandfather passed away and was given a traditional Chinese funeral, which among other things, includes rituals and prayers to traditional Chinese deities.

These rituals are in direct conflict with my identity as a Christian, so how do I

manage my rights and beliefs in the context of showing love and respect to my extended family?

This is the truest expression of loving thy neighbour: we should be willing to lay down our rights and give up the things we love so that others can be empowered. Furthermore, we should be willing to bear each other’s burdens, especially to take up the cause against injustice.

The identity quandary is partially resolved in Paul’s Letter to the Galatians: ‘There is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.’

The identity of a Christian is founded solely upon being children of God, with all its connotations of immaturity, growth, belonging and so on. Our identity is not founded upon relationships between people, but rather the relationship with God, and in expressing that relationship through working for the common good.

In Australia, where Christians form a majority, this means taking up the cause of minorities in times of harassment and oppression, even if it means giving up our own rights or opening ourselves up to marginalisation. I pray we would have the strength to look beyond our differences and to humbly consider not only our own interests but the interests of others above ourselves.

Week 9, Semester 1, 2017 Issue 12, Vol. 66

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discover // environment 4

Climate Change: Why we Fail to Act Text: Rosie Heselev and Lydia Kim

The general concern is there. When we hear about environmental degradation in the news or another YouTube campaign video, most of us do furrow our brows in concern. Yet we are quick to forget about the issues and tend to carry on with our usual lives.

But why? If it’s something that genuinely concerns our current and future well-being, should we not be organising to deal with these environmental tragedies?

The problem is that, though most people do care, environmental concerns are not their top priority nor are they something we feel we can affect. We are, at the end of the day, apathetic and disillusioned.

So where does this attitude come from?

We’re numb We are constantly inundated with information regarding climate change that we have developed compassion fatigue.

Reading about greenhouse gases, pollution or melting icecaps may once have had an impact on our consciences, now the words have lost their ability to penetrate. No matter how much we hear, we tend to skim over its importance or not read it all together. But now more than ever is the time to listen and respond to words regarding the environment. Scientists are calling the next four years the last chance to protect the Earth from runaway climate change. Unfortunately, it may be that we only start to listen when the events get more dangerous and catastrophic. With the ever-dramatic increase in natural disasters circulating the news, what will it take for a new set of environmental words that hit home?

What horrific events will it take for the public to firstly read and then actually respond? By then it will be too late.

We feel useless As the scope of the problem feels beyond our control, we tend to become

apathetic. We resort to thinking that individuals cannot make a significant enough change. We rationalise that the changes we make in time, money and energy to reduce our carbon footprint will be ineffective on a global scale. It’s the classic collective action problem, whereby we feel useless without wider scale integration and collaboration.

Hence, we simply give up reflecting on our own behaviour, as it is seemingly beyond our reach to organise as individual global citizens. Additionally, individual actions are unseen by others, and hence we feel alone in their application, without a sense of creating any change.

Maybe, therefore, if we were able to view practices by others, it could induce us to adopt similar ones and feel part of a wider collective community towards change.

Economics Adapting an environmentally-respectful lifestyle in our capitalist economic system is not easy, but it is not impossible. Culturally, we are obsessed with money-making. We are conditioned to equate profit to happiness and equate success with being busy. Many attempt to excuse themselves from environmental action by justifying it with their lack of time. This is made harder as anything time-saving is usually environmentally detrimental, such as pre-cut mushrooms in that handy plastic bucket at Woolworths. This is not to say that we cannot reach away from this – capitalist systems enable the efficient creation of resources, including environmental products such as beeswax plastic and electric cars for example. We just have to commit to making those extra changes and reassess our priorities. What is more important: the future of the planet or a few more minutes to scroll on Facebook?

But economic practices goes beyond individual consumerism, whereby profit underpins our corporate systems. Corporations seeking profit and responding to the monetary desires of shareholders have little incentive to ensure sometimes costly environmentally friendly practices or reduce output. Indeed, as capitalism is hedged on growth, on producing more and more, it is arguably incompatible with environmental sustainability. However, while we are within this

system, we can use it to influence a shift towards environmental practices. Consumer sovereignty means we have the ability to influence and direct the market. If we instil a culture of shopping locally, ethically and placing pressure on corporate practices coupled with regulation, corporations may respond.

Politics Politics too is short-sighted, and as such, environmentally irresponsible.

Politicians have one main goal: to be elected. It is in their personal interest to promote short-term wealth-generating policies, even though the repercussions affect mainly future generations.

Abbott’s election promise to repeal the carbon tax in 2014 is one such example.

To them, inter-generational theft is forgivable as long as it generates profit for current voters. Cooperating on international issues like climate change is hence not a priority. It is our duty, especially as members of capitalist democracies, to better educate ourselves and push governments and corporations to make the right changes. After all, there is no economy on a dead planet.

It’s out of mind, out of sight The tragic truth is that developing nations will suffer the most due to the apathetic consumerist culture of the West. Those countries with the lowest per-capita emissions will be affected the worst, such as sub-Saharan Africa from desertification or low-lying nations such as Bangladesh. Bangladesh contributes just 0.4 tonnes per capita of greenhouse gases yearly, contrasting with the US’ 17 tonnes. Yet rising sea levels has compromised food, water and health security, as well as their land and infrastructure, with many relocating to the capital from coastal areas. Exacerbating the problem, developing countries do not have the resources to cope or adapt to climate change destruction, further entrenching the divide between developed and developing nations. With the problems concentrated outside the West’s sphere, yet a product of Western development and

lifestyle, how do we induce reaction? Is it the ease of othering those different and away from ourselves, that we feel apathetic to their plight?

This is additionally present in the plight of climate refugees. Climate refugees are those that are forced to flee their no-longer-inhabitable homes due to severe ecological impacts, whether natural disasters or rising sea levels. Over 26 million people per year have been displaced from their homes by natural disasters, equivalent to one person being displaced every second. Currently, the universal criteria that decides who is and isn’t a refugee is confined to ‘someone who has been forced to flee his or her country because of persecution, war, or violence.’

There is a serious awareness problem regarding climate refugees, and we are institutionally unprepared to respond to the impending crisis that will overshadow the Syrian refugee problem ten-fold.

What forces must we employ to push our corporate civilisations towards being more respectful of the environment and the human consequences? If environmental concerns are inconsequential, will our politicians respond to prevent an influx of climate refugees? The answer is unclear, but mankind seems incapable of prioritising anything but their own quality of life. Unfortunately, it seems the change that we need in developed nations will only take place once the problems become personal, by which time it will be too late. What we need are preventative measures, not mere responsive measures. And this can only be done once the global population understands the real implications of each of their actions and decide to restructure their ways of living.

discover // environment

Issue 5, Vol. 67

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A Misguided Path in Resourcing a Sustainable Future Text: Matthew Teh

Australia’s economic wealth is very much based on its mining heritage: we revel in our ‘golden soil and wealth for toil.’ Mining contributes around eight per cent to Australia’s GDP and around 60 per cent of exports. It seems, then, that the Queensland Government grant of the Carmichael mining lease to Indian company Adani accords with our national pedigree to harness the bounties of the land. This has been met with significant criticism by numerous interest groups and is currently facing legal challenges. Nevertheless, the damaging nature of the Carmichael Mine must not be confused with the position of Australian mining in general. Instead, mining can and should be shifted to focus on delivering alternative energy resources, and can play a pivotal role in mapping the social, economic and environmental requirements of a sustainable future.

The Adani Carmichael Mine has socially significant and environmentally irreversible impacts. Thermal coal will be mined from shallow deposits in the Galilee Basin in central Queensland, transported by rail to the Central Queensland coast for shipment to Indian plants to generate electricity for up to 100 million people. These processes would include a proposed dredging of the Great Barrier Reef for shipping, extensive use of groundwater aquifers and development of railway lines for transportation, negatively impacting landowners. More broadly, the coal mined at Carmichael will have a discernible impact in exacerbating anthropogenic climate change.

Additionally, there is the problem of furtive corporate activity. Adani has previously engaged in questionable business practices, including inflating employment claims as well as the poor environmental record of key figures in Adani’s international business operations.

Adani’s claim of 10,000 predicted direct and indirect jobs from the Carmichael Mine was rejected in the Land and Environment Court of Queensland which, instead, accepted the figure of 1,464. Key figures in Adani’s international business operations also have poor environmental track records.

For the decision-makers involved, however, the Carmichael Mine meets the ‘jobs and growth’ economic narrative.

The Queensland and Federal Governments both advocate the economic benefits and jobs that the mine will bring.

Therefore, the question remains on how to maintain economic responsibility and a foundation for sustainability, while addressing sustainability concerns themselves.

It is a truism that energy remains a necessity for 21st-century human society.

In 2015, 86 percent of Australia’s electricity was generated from fossil fuels, whilst renewable energy makes up the remaining 14 percent. Hence, there needs to be a shift in the energy equation away from fossil fuels towards renewables. Seemingly a paradox, to build renewable energy infrastructure to replace fossil fuels, mining is necessary. From the cement used to build a hydroelectric dam to the materials used for wind turbines and solar power technology, mining is central. And while a completely renewable and sustainable future remains the ideal, there is no energy resource which produces ‘zero emissions’. All resources require input in infrastructure construction, and all require resource extraction in some capacity. Importantly, however, while the creation of infrastructure may release emissions, in the generation of energy, renewable methods produce little – if any – greenhouse gases. This contrasts with coal mining, whereby the extraction is the least omitting process while burning of fuel is the greater contributor to climate change.

This shift in this mining conception is also economically responsible.

Many of the minerals required for renewable energy generation are found as by-products of current base metal mining practices, and increasing economic viability and demand will require increased mining of these resources. According to the Climate Council, both business as usual and 50 per cent dominance occupancy of renewable-derived electricity generation by 2030 is est i mat-

ed to generate thousands of jobs. Critical to this is the transition for employees in fossil fuel mining to that of other industries and to aspects of mining which recognise the longevity and overall sustainability of the resources being extracted.

Decision-makers wishing to ensure the future prospects of Australia’s mining industry must look to technology and resources which better meet the sustainability picture. This includes a recognition that mining does have an inevitable role in contributing to social and environmental development and to which the practice of mining must be tailored.

The notion of ‘jobs and growth’ should not be used so cowardly whereby decision-makers embrace the past which, in turn, is destructive for the future. The continuation of the disregard for landholder rights and environmentalism in the Carmichael Mine is a backwards step in Australia’s need to unearth a sustainable future in which mining has an undeniable role. The key to the sustainability equation is something antithetical to Carmichael. That is, is conducting mining in a way which is openly communicative and which does not threaten World Heritage Sites nor the future of our planet. Mining can and should value the environmental cause, landholder rights and avoid dubious corporate subterfuge.

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discover // business and economics

The Grand Emergence of Africa Text: Victor Sukeerth Munagala

In movies, TV shows, books and just about any medium of entertainment we consume, Africa is often reduced to an image of this one giant hut with sick people in it. However – surprise, surprise – many parts of the continent are, in fact, rapidly growing, and we’ll see them as well-developed, bustling economies within our lifetimes. Many of these nations are often over-looked or simply unseen, yet some astute investors have taken advantage of this and decided to invest in places with bright futures to secure bounds of profit. Let’s dissect just two of the many countries that are experiencing this change, and examine what fuels their growth.

Let’s begin with Ethiopia, where the headquarters of both the African Union (AU) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) reside. This is considered as the region from which modern humans set out to explore the world; our birthplace. It’s also the place where the consumption of coffee began. You can thank them for a lot. Ethiopia has many achievements to boast about, including one of the highest GDP growth rates in the world, reaching approximately 10 per cent. There are a variety of initiatives the country has taken to ensure success in its plan to overhaul the country into an economic hub for all of Africa. It wishes to become the core location for light manufacturing on the continent, as well as planning to grow its export of coffee and other agricultural products. Furthermore, they have decided to expand their tourism output. A wise move, considering the country’s tremendous tourist locations such as ‘Lalibela’: a town famous for its giant churches, carved into the rock of the landscape.

Ethiopia has advantagsectors, but in add i -

es in many

tion to this the government is in the process of privatising many of the stateowned enterprises to attract foreign investment and make a proper move towards a market economy as opposed to their current mixed economy with a large public sector. Rationalising their government regulation has helped them significantly in this effort to build their economy. Despite these recent improvements, Ethiopia is still one of the poorest countries in the world and is plagued with famine and disease. Not only that but as racial divisions come to light after years of systemic exclusion and subordination of the Oromo, they have come out to lead protests against the government. Whether they will be granted the rights they deserve, is to be seen, but it has finally opened up lines of communication about their ethnic oppression.

Ultimately there is still hope for Ethiopia and while it may be riddled with corruption, environmental issues, concerns with regards to ethnic divisions and so much more to be addressed, their future looks still to be promising.

Now to Kenya, one of Africa’s largest and promising economies – a nation which has proven itself in the past decade and continues to grow at a rapid pace. Not only impressing with fast development, Kenya has set out on a path written down by what’s called ‘Vision 2030’ which calls for a ‘low carbon climate resilient development pathway’ to ensure a focus on eco-friendly growth. The country’s economy can be broken down into many successful sectors, but the major ones are that of agriculture, tourism and services. Having such rich diversity of flora and fauna has given them a substantial advantage to other tourist destinations, as people from around the world come to explore their ecosystems and interact with native animals. Tourism has impacted the country in many ways: for example, it has enhanced water supply to remote areas,

improved public cleanliness and broadened their global outlook. However, Kenya does have a large banking sector as well, and a growing telecommunications area. Moreover, if you ever visit Nairobi, you’ll see many hypermarket chains and expansive shopping malls (much better than Canberra Centre, to be honest). Following the service sector, of course, is their significant agricultural sector with major exports of coffee and flowers. Kenyan tea is also a fantastic product that is universally enjoyed.

Combining these sources of growth, Kenya is progressing quickly. Despite not having as high GDP growth as other developing nations, it is doing quite well for itself. However, the country is also held back by corruption and division amongst ethnicities. There are many challenges that lie ahead, yet with the help of countries that both surround it and allies such as India and China, they have been able to overcome a lot of it.

There are five fundamental changes taking place which allow for growth to occur in these countries after years of uncertainty and many disasters. To begin with, governments are becoming increasingly democratic and accountable, and more sensible economic policies are being adopted. Globally, the end of the debt crisis has been influential, alongside significant changes with the international community itself. There has been more domestic innovation and increased opportunities for business and political accountability, and finally a new generation of well-educated pol-

icymakers, activists, and business leaders – all leading to this rise in growth.

These emerging nations still face multifarious challenges, and their growth is still quite young and somewhat fragile.

They continue to realise the potential of women’s empowerment, which has so far maximised the speed and sustainability of this growth. They show us that, in spite of being considered destitute places of failure, they can turn everything around and climb out of poverty.

These countries are showing that despite everything that has challenged them, they have the ability to secure peace, increase prosperity and ultimately reward their citizens with great futures.

Discovery

Issue 5, Vol. 67

instagram @ugyeats

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Sport

The Cultural Politics of Yoga Text: Dr. Shameem Black Dr Shameem Black is a Fellow in the School of Culture, History and Language at the ANU, where her research focuses on the literary and cultural studies of contemporary India and its diaspora.

Image: Chiraag Bhakta (*Pardon My Hindi): Yoga: The Art of Transformation #WhitePeopleDoingYoga

Yoga seems to be everywhere these days.

You can study in the tradition of B.K.S. Iyengar, take a class paid for by your corporate boss, or do postures with goats.

What was once seen as a demanding practice for Indian ascetics has now become a great global industry of branded studios, bright pink props, and hipster websites. Something has changed in the course of a century, and it’s not just the increased number of people saluting the sun. Through the major transformation of this cultural practice, we can watch new ideas of ‘India’ taking shape.

For much of the early 20th century, India was seen by both Westerners and Indians as a uniquely spiritual land. For some in the British colonial administration, stereotypes about the fundamental otherworldliness of India justified why the British should run it. Yet this stereotype was also sometimes upheld by Indians themselves. For some 20th-century intellectuals, spiritual power offered a way for India to look strong even when it was politically weak. Yoga – seen as a spiritual discipline as well as a postural practice – became one new face of this claim to power.

Yoga helped to perpetuate a fantasy of ‘India’ that spoke to anxieties in the modern West. By the 1960s and 1970s, a steady stream of Westerners came to India in search of an alternative to industrial modernity. Many of them sought in yoga a connection to an ancient tradition that seemed conspicuously missing in their own countries. The actual postural practice they learned from Indian masters, as a wealth of recent scholarship has begun to show, reflected a complex mix of Indian meditative techniques, Indian and Western physical culture, and 20th-century experimentation. Yoga appeared quintessentially ‘Indian’ in a stereotypical sense as an emblem of ancient spirituality. But it was also ‘Indian’ in a less stereotypical way – a testament to Indian traditions of cosmopolitan exchange and curiosity.

By the late 1990s and 2000s, yoga began to lose some of its intimate connections

to the idea of ‘India’. In places like the United States, 20th-century yoga was often taught by elite Indians who found ways to enter the country in an era when most Indians were excluded under racist immigration laws. Their students – who were usually non-Indian – became the next generation of mass yoga teachers who brought the practice into cultural spaces often dominated by Westerners.

Though some studios sought to honour lineages of yoga leading back to India, and others hoped to trade on longstanding images of Indian spirituality, many others saw more money to be made by evading and even conspicuously rejecting connections to a supposedly foreign India. I’m willing to bet that at the ANU, more people have heard of Lululemon, where you can buy yoga pants, than of Krishnamacharya, who set in motion many of the practices popular today.

The rise of this multibillion-dollar global industry, coupled with a diminishing sense that yoga has anything to do with India, has given the Indian government pause. In 2014, the Indian government made international headlines for its ministry of yoga. Since then, the Indian government has embarked on a high-profile campaign to reassociate ‘yoga’ with ‘India’. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has become known for his personal practice of the tradition, for his successful bid for a United National

International Day of Yoga, and for his discussions of yoga with world leaders.

While yoga is promoted by the state because there is good money to be made and spiritual tourism is widely promoted in India, it is also compelling because it neatly encapsulates one broader self-image that the 21st Indian state wants to project. Yoga can be presented as both ancient and fresh, Indian and global, sacred and secular. It is this flexibility that makes it an appealing face for a New India. Through yoga, India can present itself as both powerful and peaceful – and in doing so, it can deflect attention from its histories of violence.

At the same time, yoga is coming to articulate new assertions of self and power for many modern Indians. Inside India’s borders, yoga has also grown in popularity. It has deepened its links to rightwing Hindu nationalism, to growing spiritual entrepreneurialism, and to the lifestyle aspirations of the expanding middle class. Some of the yoga taught in Indian urban centres has recirculated via Western norms, so that studios promise the cache of New York or Los Angeles. Narratives of yoga as a 5,000year old practice (a date often contested by scholars) afford nationalist thrills, allowing Indians to claim pride in their heritage.

Yet the place where yoga has proved most vexing is in the Indian diaspora. Many Indians in the diaspora, who have lived through eras when their culture was belittled, now look with some scepticism at yoga’s growing popularity.

When there were costs to be paid for practising visible elements of Indian culture, the diaspora paid them. Now, when there are benefits to be had – whether economic benefits, political benefits, or the benefits of cool – the diaspora often feel bypassed. Watching large Western corporations profit from the popularity of yoga frequently generates some unease. Diasporic artists, such as *Pardon My Hindi, have used yoga to critique the ways in which Indian cultural practices can be commodified for benefits that largely flow to non-Indians. Here, yoga has become an emblem of Indian loss, estrangement, and even anger.

It seems that there is a yoga out there for everyone. You can even find yoga for people who say they don’t do yoga.

In this uncanny flexibility, we can see how part of yoga’s appeal is not just in its promise of a better body or spirit. It is in its promise of a new identity. Through the changing faces of yoga, we can witness many of the aspirations and anxieties surrounding India and its peoples.

3 Sport

Week 10, Semester 2, 2016 Issue 5, Vol. 67

Why Brown Girls Love Beckham Text: Kanika Kirpalani

In Australia, girls are faced with a major sporting decision in primary school: netball or soccer?

Although I don’t have any proof of this, I have a sneaking suspicion that young Indian girls around the globe started playing soccer because of the movie Bend it Like Beckham. At least, I did.

If you’ve never watched Bend it Like Beckham, let me tell you just how fantastic this movie is. Set in the UK, Jess, an Indian girl in her teens, starts playing soccer with a local team, even though her parents disapprove. Despite the objections of her traditional Punjabi family, Jess continues and goes on to play soccer professionally.

At the tender age of seven, this movie had a huge impact on me, and led to me playing soccer for a good 10 years. From primary school right to co-captaining one of my school’s teams in grade 12, soccer has always been my sport. I’ve always loved the fast pace of the game and relying on my teammates to pull through a tough match. Despite the bi-weekly 6am fitness, training in the heat and rain, I relished every moment I got to play soccer. Although I’ve only realised this as an adult, my lifelong love of soccer comes from my parents putting up with me watching Bend it Like Beckham every month for almost three years.

My parents were never against me playing sports, far from it, they used to bring the frozen oranges to most matches. My family was not super traditional, I mean we loved Diwali but who doesn’t? Yet I totally identified with Jess’ struggles. It could be that Jess ate chapattis and ladoos, it could be that she had an accent that was different from her parents’, and

it could be that I thought she kind of looked like me.

As a born and bred Aussie kid, I wasn’t familiar with anything resembling Bollywood. Jess was probably the first person I saw who looked like me on any screen. Even though I was envious that she had a name that could be shortened to a Western-sounding nickname, I admired Jess because she was just as British as she was Indian. Bend it Like Beckham is so brilliant because it tackles identity issues that most first-generation kids face.

At a young age, it’s a little confusing to conceptualise having a culture which is different from most of your friends.

You have values and beliefs that are different, yet you’re not really sure why – it’s just what Mum says.

For me, Bend it Like Beckham made it okay to look different and think a little differently, most importantly it was probably the first time I started to be proud of my culture.

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Text: Neerja Thirunavukarasu

My little brothers ADHD medication?

Speed? No, just pure ambition … and some No-Doz.

At the ANU, group assignments are considered especially heinous. In LAWS2204, the unfortunate students who take part in these vicious assignments are members of the Thursday 7pm tutorial group. These are their stories.

Beatrice Mc Lena Dunham: I’m Beatrice and if I’m going to be completely honest with you, I am not looking forward to this group assignment.

I make it known that I’m from a really poor area in inner-west Sydney (Newtown) and that even though I went to Pimbleberry’s Private Secondary College for High Achieving Girls I had to commute 20 minutes by train each day.

It was so debilitating – there are only so many podcasts you can listen to.

My goal in life is to work at an ordinary Community Legal Centre in a low SES area. Okay. My real goal is to be a top-tier human rights lawyer who gets

Ernie Finglesnacker: My name is Ernie, I’m an HD student. No one HIRACs like me, no one. Group assignments are the bane of my existence. Aspiration: junior partner by 25, Prime Minister by 39, retired High Court judge by 70. I work seven hours a day at the PMC and do nine hours of study a night. They say I’m crazy, they say I’m on drugs. Steroids?

Vox Pop: Yay or Nay to an Ethnocultural Woroni?

Text: Jasmine Mahogany-Eaglenest

Because some found it upsetting to be excluded from this Woroni edition, we walked around campus and interviewed students to give them the opportunity to engage with ethnocultural issues and air their opinions on print. *** Hi I’m Robert. My great grandmother was like Armenian, or German or something so I’m not even fully white. I just hate that people play the ethnic card all the time? Like I’m super ugly so I can empathise with the barrier to entry because I’ve had to deal with that. I’ve still got a really good part time job and excellent grades though so I’m just wondering, at what point do you start taking responsibility for yourself? That’s just my opinion.

– Robert (19) *** Hi I’m Sarah, I love quinoa and I do pilates five days a week at a studio owned by my boyfriend’s brother. He’s actually so hot, we’re hooking up after classes but, actually don’t print that …

What was the question again? Oh yeah, ethnic people? Yeah, I’ve got heaps of ethnic friends, so I’m definitely not a racist. My best friend is Greek and for Easter I went to her church, she’s kind of mad because I got drunk before the

persecuted for standing up for what she believes in, but first I just need to find a country which persecutes middle class white women.

Scott Greengoat: Hey I’m Scott … am I in the right tute right now? My childhood dream is to learn the 11 secret herbs and spices but my other goal is to meet Macaulay Culkin … I dunno why, just for a quality meme. Usually I’m just chillin, skatin, shreddin, getting cooked.

But when the ladz are gone I throw my fake joint in the trash, close my Rick and Morty tab to open Echo 360, scavenge a study booth in Chifley and get down to it. You can’t pass law being a full-time stoner, but you can’t have friends being a full-time nerd. It’s a hard life.

Yeah the Irish were slaves too, and black people in America always dominate the conversation about that. I’m an equalist so I don’t understand why we must play the ‘who’s more oppressed card,’ like I have problems too and they’re really, really big ones! You wouldn’t get it. Argh whatever.

– James (18) *** My great grandmother was foreign so I’m like 1/16 Spanish. When I was eight I only did one flamenco class, but my mum said it’s clear that I have natural rhythm. The next class I tripped over and sprained both wrists though so I didn’t want to go after that. Anyway, I feel like I have a super strong connection to my background, I learnt Spanish in primary school, Ola! Also, I went to Barca for a week for schoolies which was neat. We all got drunk and broke into a local church! I just find it super embarrassing though when Spanish people come to Australia and like talk to me in Spanish, like you left your country for a reason, please learn the language!

Whatever.

– Jessica (22)

Sasha Ragesnfnwjvbncnvjwwdj: Hi I’m Sasha and I’m friggin STRESSED. I have fiv assignments due in three days, four department meetings in four hours and three committee meetings ALL AT THE SAME TIME. Do you know how big my diary is???? It’s the size of your friggin Constitutional Law Textbook. I am constantly five minutes away from a mental breakdown. Do you think I have time for this group assignment?

NO FRIGGIN WAY. Oh, and if you’re confused about my last name I’m Sri Lankan but if you’re white and are easily confused, it’s okay to call me Indian. I DON’T HAVE TIME TO WASTE CORRECTING YOU. * These characters are entirely non-fictional. You know who you are.

Sudoku: Sebastian Rossi

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service and started doing Buddhist prayers over the top of priest. Well, it was my interpretation of Buddhist chant but like, spirituality is really personal.

Anyway, I’m sorry but Greek just isn’t my religion and she should respect that, and it’s kinda not my fault I found a good opportunity to open my third eye.

She’s a bitch anyway.

– Sarah (21) ***

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Week 3, Semester 1, 2017

ANUSA SIGNALS SUPPORT FOR STUDENT TAKEOVER PLANS AT THE CO-OP Text: Jasper Lindell

The SRC has signalled its support for a student-led campaign to force the board of the Co-Op to resign, after students were prevented from voting at the recent annual general meeting.

The Co-Op, which was established by students in the 1950s to provide more affordable textbooks, has been taken down a more corporate route since the 1990s.

At the AGM in Wyong, NSW on 31 March an attempt by a group of students, mainly made up of members of the University of Sydney SRC, to oust the board of directors was foiled by the Co-Op’s national secretary, Talal Yassine, who declared dozens of proxy votes invalid.

The general secretary of the University of Sydney’s SRC, Daniel Ergas, moved a motion at the meeting to vacate the board and reduce the Co-Op board members’ remuneration from $330,000 to $0.

Yassine did not provide a reason for why the students’ proxies were invalid.

The ANU SRC passed a motion on 19 April calling on the Co-Op board to resign.

‘We call upon the Co-Op board to step down, because they’re a bunch of shady bastards,’ general representative Harry Needham said, speaking in favour of the motion.

The secretary, Yassine, is a rising Labor Right operative. The board has at times featured people employed by Crescent Wealth, Yassine’s investment bank, and other Labor figures.

No university students currently sit on the Co-Op’s board.

Co-op members say the organisation has actively sought to prevent rank and file members from participating in the governance of the organisation. They say holding the poorly advertised AGM on the Central Coast, in a location difficult for most students to travel to, was an example of this active attempt to avoid accountability from members.

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A senior Co-Op employee told the ABC in March that management had worked to distance the membership base to maintain control.

‘They want no engagement, no opposition, they just want to be able to ram things through and protect the status quo. There’s no interest in accountability and engagement with members,’ they said on condition of anonymity.

The Co-Op, which has more than two million members and turns over $150 million annually, recorded a loss of $1.4 million in 2016 and $3.7 million in 2015.

The textbook retailer, which has a store located in Union Court, enjoys a virtual monopoly on the sale of textbooks to Australian university students.

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TWENTY ANU EXPERTS ANALYSE TRUMP’S FIRST 100 DAYS Text: Bronte McHeny

‘The Asia Pacific is home to two-thirds of the world’s population, two-thirds of the global economy, and provides twothirds of all global economic growth.

Academics from the College of Asia and the Pacific have launched a series of essays and videos that evaluate the first 100 days of Donald Trump’s presidency.

‘It is also the region that hosts six of the world’s nine nuclear states, and four of those have the fastest growing stockpiles and the most unpredictable nuclear doctrines’, Wesley wrote.

The publication, titled The Trump Administration’s First 100 Days: What Should Asia Do?, is comprised of essays written by 20 ANU experts, with accompanying videos.

In addition to looking at the 100 days Trump has already spent in office, the authors also look to the future. They do not hold back from making predictions about how the region may react.

The collection was launched at a National Press Club address last Wednesday, where three of the authors – Professor Michael Wesley, Dr Jane Golley and Professor Warwick McKibbin – spoke about their findings.

‘Trump provides China the space and legitimacy to double down on its bid for regional leadership.

‘Once Xi Jinping has this year’s National People’s Congress out of the way, expect a hyper-energised diplomatic campaign Dean of the College of Asia and the by China,’ wrote Wesley.

Pacific Michael Wesley introduced the collection, writing: ‘The 100-day According to the vice-chancellor, Brian mark is traditionally used to assess Schmidt, the collection is ‘a terrific demona new administration’s progress in stration of how our expertise can contribute advancing its policy agenda. With to the public debate and how ANU research Trump, that’s impossible. helps us understand the impact of global politics on Australia and the region.’

‘It’s more appropriate to ask whether at the 100-day mark the Trump The collection marks the beginning of conadministration is any closer to actually tinued political analysis of the Trump era having a policy agenda.’ from the College of Asia and the Pacific.

The 100 days of unpredictability surrounding Trump’s foreign policy is most significant for the Asia-Pacific region, Wesley said.

‘You can be guaranteed that ANU’s College of Asia and the Pacific will continue to be an unparalleled resource for interpreting the region’s big questions and trends,’ Wesley said.

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Issue 2, Vol. 67

ANU ART HIGHLIGHTS GO ON DISPLAY Text: Jasper Lindell Photography: Dillon Vibes

An exhibition showcasing highlights from the ANU’s art collection acquired over the past decade has gone on display at the Drill Hall Gallery.

The ANU’s $34 million art collection is made up of more than 2,500 works and is usually found in corners and corridors all across campus, the director of the Drill Hall Gallery, Terence Maloon, said.

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BURGMANN TAKES HOME BNO WIN Burgmann College won the Big Night Out – the Interhall Arts Committee’s annual band competition – last Thursday evening, 27 April.

Despite the cold, there was a large turnout of residential and nonresidential students, enjoying the music and food on offer. From openers Ursula Hall to closers Burton and Garran Hall, a wide range of genres was performed.

Performers kept the crowd enthusiastic through ska and gospel numbers, hip hop and well-known pop songs.

‘We have chosen 100 treasures from the ANU art collection to celebrate some of the great works of art acquired over the past 10 years, and to acknowledge the generous gifts from our benefactors,’ Maloon said in a statement.

‘This is not a collection like any other in Australia’s museums. It is unique to the ANU and its community.’

Burgmann College’s act featured memorable clarinet and saxophone solos. Burgmann College hosted the competition.

The exhibition features both the work of noted Australian artists, including modernist Tony Tuckson, and former graduate students of the School of Art.

Griffin Hall came second, also with a strong brass section, with Fenner Hall rounding out third place.

The collection has drawn heavily on donations from Professor John Altman, the Gascoigne family and others, and features paintings, ceramics, glass, etchings and photographs.

The people’s choice award is yet to be announced. Results from the night contribute points to the Interhall Arts Shield. – Isabella Ostini

The exhibition runs until 18 June at the Drill Hall Gallery, Kingsley St, Acton.

CLUB LIME MAKES LIFETIME COMMITMENT TO STUDENTS Text: Bronte McHenry

The recreation centre in the Union Court redevelopment will offer a competitive lifetime membership rate to ANU students and alumni.

The Group Operations Manager at The Club Group, Sean Hodges, has confirmed that the group’s proposal for tender ‘allowed for a lifetime rate for all current and past ANU students.’

Hodges, however, could not confirm what the rate would be, but insisted that students and alumni would be satisfied with the figure.

‘The rate will certainly be competitive with that of ANU Sport,’ he said.

The rate will be a figure between $399 and $1170 – the current yearly membership rates at Club Lime for high school students and adults respectively.

Hodges is confident that the ANU Sport facilities and the new recreation centre operated by Club Lime will work well together.

The commercial demographic is crucial to the success of the recreation centre as students will use the facilities less in the summer holidays.

‘A lot of people look at a gym, and think they are all the same – but gyms are different.

Club Lime’s CISAC location, which is located 400 metres from the University of Canberra’s Student Village and has similar facilities to those that will be in the recreation centre, attracts more than one million visits a year.

‘We will be targeting a different kind of market than is typically using ANU Sport. We will offer a novice and entry-level gymnasium for people who haven’t been to the gym before.’

Hodges contends that the recreation centre will be welcoming for those who might be put off by the experienced gym-goers that regularly use the ANU Sport facilities.

The recreation centre will also aim to cater for the broader Canberra community.

‘We’re hoping to bring in broader community members and corporates from the city area during lunch time,’ Hodges said.

Hodges anticipates the recreation centre will employ around 80 staff members within the first one to 18 months – he indicated that many of these will be ANU students.

‘That is the plan … We will be working with the ANU community to provide training and get students skills and qualifications.

‘We will work with students, develop them, develop them for employment,’ Hodges told Woroni.

ANU Sport have demonstrated a similar commitment to employing ANU students over the past year.

POISON MUSHROOM WARNING ISSUED The ANU has reminded students and staff not to pick or eat any wild mushrooms growing on campus or in the Canberra-region, as cooler wet weather is set to provide perfect conditions for Death Cap mushrooms.

Death Cap mushrooms look similar to store-bought mushrooms, but have light-coloured gills – ranging from pale grey to white – underneath.

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Week 3, Semester 1, 2017

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AUSTRALIAN-MADE CUBESATS GO INTO ORBIT

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As the CubeSats spiral through the thermosphere, they will measure the temperature and density of molecules and charged particles, relaying back to Earth simultaneous data from various points in the thermosphere.

The first Australian-made satellites launched since 2002 have been jointly The CubeSats’ mission will last eight to developed by the ANU, the University 12 months, after which the satellites will of New South Wales and the Universi- burn up as they fall closer to Earth. ty of Sydney.

The ANU was responsible for power, Three tiny CubeSats were launched communication and control compothis month from Cape Canaveral, nents of INSPIRE-2.

Florida. They are part of the European Union-led QB50 program, through Professor Christine Charles of the ANU which 50 miniature satellites are being Research School of Physics and Endeveloped and deployed to research gineering’s Space Plasma Power and the lower layers of Earth’s atmosphere. Propulsion Division designed a plasma wind tunnel to test specialised instruThe satellites are each built from cubes ments, with the ANU’s Advanced Inonly 10 centimetres a side. strumentation and Technology Centre also providing testing facilities for the INSPIRE-2, the satellite with which satellites. the ANU has been most involved, consists of two of these cubes, and weighs As the CubeSats begin transmitting about 2 kilograms. data back to Earth, the ANU’s Ground Station Blue Wren will be one of three Little research has been done into ground stations receiving this inforthe lower thermosphere, where the mation, alongside those in Sydney and CubeSats will be operating. Both ter- Strasbourg, France. restrial and space weather events affect this part of the atmosphere, mak- With the Earth’s atmosphere becoming it a turbulent zone for satellites to ing increasingly congested, developoperate. ments in miniaturised satellites are

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being embraced in what is coming to be known as a ‘low-cost space race’. Miniature satellites are also small enough to be launched along with larger payloads, piggybacking into space. This combination of size and low cost is increasing access for students to both the

development of, and data from, satellite missions.

The CubeSat launch marks an Australian commitment to developing capabilities in this emerging area of space research.

‘SCIENCE FOR ALL’ THE CALL OF CANBERRA’S MARCH FOR SCIENCE Text: Isabella Ostini

The Canberra March for Science, one of 600 rallies held in 54 countries, drew more than 1000 participants outside Parliament House on Earth Day, 22 April.

‘Good, publicly-funded science is in the public interest,’ he said, ‘We have to make sure the planet gets back on the habitable path.’

Steffen worked for the Australian Government Climate Commission until it was abolished in 2013, but continues his work as Councillor with the Climate Council, the citizen-funded organisation that replaced the Climate CommisThose at the rally called for federal sion. commitment to publicly accessible and well-communicated scientific research, Professor Emily Banks, from the Nascience education, evidence-based poli- tional Centre for Epidemiology and cy making and stable investment in sci- Population Health at ANU, agreed that ence. science should seek to help everyone, especially disadvantaged communities, The march’s organisers described their pointing out the vital place modern hopes for the march as ‘to use this as a medicine held in benefiting people all starting point to take a stand for science over the world. in politics, and to encourage scientists to be more active participants in represent- ‘Those who seek to undermine science ing the results of their research.’ also take it for granted,’ she said, pointing out that they would expect reliable The gathering included students, teach- antibiotics if they fell ill, and listing the ers and researchers, as well as commu- kind of colourful cures that were all peonity members of all ages. Despite the di- ple could rely on before scientific develverse attendance, the group was united opments in medicine. by concern at the increasing dismissiveness politicians around the world appear Other guest speakers looked to their to be showing to the practice and result- own fields of interest to illustrate the ing evidence of science. powerful impacts of science, as well as their goals for the future.

Professor Will Steffen, formerly of the ANU’s Fenner School of Environment Karlie Noon, who is currently studying and Society, noted that there is an in- a Masters of Astronomy at ANU, spoke creasing focus on science that brings on the connection between first naquick economic gain, but argued that tions’ and western systems of scientific this ought not to be the case. knowledge. A Kamilaroi woman from

attended toted placards inviting participants to ask them about their field, the march had a celebratory atmosphere, feeling as much like a science fair as a protest.

‘There is no point listening to politicians who do not understand this link [to the land],’ she said.

‘It’s good to see the turnout, to see people get their nerd on,’ Anna Zovaro, an ANU PhD student, told Woroni.

Geoff McNamara, a well-recognised science teacher and the force behind the creation of the McNamara-Saunders Astronomical Teaching Telescope (MSATT) at Mount Stromlo Observatory, looked to the next generation.

There was a strong ANU contingent, not just in the guest speakers, but also the marchers.

Speaking to Woroni, McNamara stressed science’s importance in education.

‘We need to stop regarding science as just another subject, and regard it as critical for kids,’ McNamara said, pointing out that although inspiring the next generation of researchers was important, science literacy was necessary for everyone’s day-to-day lives in the modern environment.

The march fulfilled its aim to be a family-friendly gathering, with many young families joining in. Many scientists who

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Tamworth, she shared her dream of a logical, peaceful world brought about by western science respectfully engaging with first nations’ wisdom and connection to the land.

‘Science literacy shields us from misinformation,’ he said, before noting that having a scientifically literate population that thinks critically, demands evidence and accepts findings when they come requires more than good science communication.

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Trent Kelly, an ANU alumnus who now works as a forensic scientist, told Woroni he attended because of his concern about the decline in critical thinking and increase in shortcuts and short-term solutions in the current political environment.

He said that in the often-competitive field of science ‘it’s good to see people championing a unity of purpose.’

Many more than STEM students turned out to march in support of better federal backing for science.

‘I love the idea that it’s not just science people who actually came,’ PhD student Estee Tee explained, ‘they realise we’re all in this together.’

As well as endorsing the march’s goals, Tee attended to support McNamara, who was her high school science teacher.

‘He’s the reason I’m in science,’ she said.

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NATIONAL ATTENTION FOR EAGLE ROCK CONTROVERSY Text: Josie Ganko

The community response prompted Jones to publish a follow up piece in the 17 April issue of Woroni, where she outlined the community and college’s response to her article, and the subsequent Burton & Garran Hall’s internal politics changes made to the tradition. made national news last week, as Emily Jones’ Woroni piece on the ‘Eagle Rock’ Jones explicitly listed the changes that the tradition was picked up by national me- B&G Members Association had agreed dia. to, including: banning the practice of the men encircling women during the ‘Eagle In October 2016 Woroni published a Rock’; the introduction of a warning bepiece, written by Jones, outlining her dis- fore the playing of the song to allows stucomfort over an incident at a B&G mixer. dents who did not want to participate to leave the floor; and the decision that the Jones described the ‘tradition’ where the song will no longer be played at mixers, playing of Daddy Cool’s 1971 hit song external venues or during formal events.

‘Eagle Rock’ signalled for men to drop their pants and encourage women to re- Jones expressed her satisfaction with the move their tops.

B&G Member’s Association’s response, stating that the changes would ‘be an imThe ritual also included women being ‘en- portant step towards making residents circled’ by male participants, ‘effectively feel safer at B&G.’ leaving [the] women trapped in the circle’.

However, in the days following the pubThe article prompted a range of debate lication of the response piece, the story and discussion, where the responses var- was picked up by Fairfax media, which ied from protest from supporters of the ran stories in The Canberra Times and ‘tradition’, to encouragement from mem- The Sydney Morning Herald with the bers of the community who also felt un- misleading headline ‘ANU College bans comfortable with and objectified by the song to stop male students dropping ritual. their pants’.

PROTEST IN THE NAME OF THE GODS Text: Jasper Lindell

The Gods Cafe and Bar will stage a protest on Wednesday against their ‘forced closure’, after negotiations with the ANU to determine the popular cafe’s future in the Union Court redevelopment faltered last month.

While the future of the cafe remains in the hands of lawyers, a petition to save the business collected more than 200 signatures last week as management and staff seek to bolster support for the cafe’s future.

Harry Cohen, who has worked at the cafe for four months and is helping lead the protest movement, said that the protest and the petition will show ANUSA, PARSA and the University’s administration how many people support the cafe.

ANUSA declined to comment to the cafe’s management about the protest or the petition because the ANUSA president, James Connolly, sits on the vendor selection committee for the pop-up village.

But Cohen said that it would be ‘neglectful’ for student associations to ignore the visible support the student body has shown for the business, which has a three decade history on campus.

‘They can’t ignore this, these are real students, who come here, who show that they care about this situation, they care about us and they want us to stay.

The story quickly spread that B&G were calling to ban the playing of the song entirely. Outlandish headlines included The Daily Mail’s ‘Fun police want to BAN male university students from dropping their pants every time cult classic “Eagle Rock” is played’, which was followed by claims of ‘PC gone mad’ and that a ban would be ‘un-Australian’.

The widespread reporting on the issue lead Jones’ to respond once again, with a piece published in The Guardian explaining how the experiences she shared in the article had been used to feed ‘the outrage industry’.

Jones wrote that the point of her article was to bring light to the objectification of women in university Colleges and that the ‘much needed conversation about this serious problem has now been stif led, with media outlets choosing to focus on the “banning” of a song instead of discussing the real issues at hand.’

Furthermore, B&G Member’s Association President Anya Bonan clarified in a Facebook post to B&G

residents that the playing of the song had not been banned, and that they had simply ‘implemented changes to remedy the problems those concerns identified’.

Bonan said that the tradition needed to be altered, as a practice that made ‘people feel uncomfortable and unsettled’ was not consistent with ‘culture and community’ at B&G. In a statement to the media, the ANU confirmed that they supported B&G’s decision to make adjustments to the tradition, and clarified that there was no University wide ban on the song as some media outlets had suggested.

‘The University at all times strives to provide a safe, supportive and caring environment free from all forms of unwanted sexual attention.

It provides training on responding to sexual assault and support to key staff and to senior residents of Halls, Lodges and residential Colleges.’

These statements are in line with the ANU’s pledge to make the campus a safe place for women.

DRAKE SOCIETY AFFILIATES TO PROMOTE STUDENT ‘ADORATION’ OF RAPPER

‘If student associations ignore this it would be neglectful. I don’t think they would be serving the students or the campus, doing what they’re meant to do,’ Cohen said.

Text: Jasper Lindell

Woroni revealed on 17 April that the ANU had issued the business with a notice terminating the license under a clause allowing for the contract to be broken if the premises were needed for a ‘higher university use’.

‘This accusation discredits the time and hard work our team put into the More Life launch event and over 200 people who attended that event.

The ANU Drake Appreciation Society has affiliated with the Clubs Council after a meeting last week saw their application approved by a vote on the floor.

‘Our affiliation was a democratic process and if societies like us seek affiliation in the future it should reflect on their ability to contribute to student life,’ she said.

Jaye Min, managing director of the cafe, bought the business in November 2013 for $470,000 having been reassured by the University that there was a license option which would extend until 2023.

In December 2015, $125,000 worth of renovations were approved by the ANU. With the closure of the business imminent, Min stands to be out of pocket with no suggestion of compensation from the ANU for terminating the license early.

Cohen rejected the ANU’s portrayal of The Gods as ‘stubborn, not wanting to negotiate or accept the pop-up deal.’

Cohen said that some of the larger vendors on campus could probably survive in the pop-up and redeveloped Union Court, but that the small business model of the Gods would not.

‘We could move to the pop-up, but would have to close within a month or so anyway,’ he said.

The protest will take place from 12pm in Union Court on Wednesday, 3 May.

The president of the society, Kiran Qayyum, told the meeting that, if affiliated, the society would continue to ‘provide a platform for students at the Australian National University to meet and connect in mutual admiration’ of the Canadian rapper and actor.

Unsubstantiated reports have emerged that the Drake Appreciation Society is now feuding with the ANU Lettuce Society after they voted against the Drake Appreciation Society’s motion to affiliate.

Qayyum said that the society has more ‘Where to next? Looking for revenge. than 300 members, and that their first event had around 200 attendees.

‘To our haters, if you’re reading this it’s too late,’ Qayyum said.

In speaking to the motion, she said that the society had received numerous men- Other clubs which successfully affilitions on the ‘auspicious’ Facebook page ated at the Clubs Council meeting inANU Crushes 2.0, where users had said clude the Filmmakers Collaborative, they found their ‘soulmates’ at the Drake the Chinese Business Collaborative, the Society’s launch event.

Internet Culture Club, the Italian Club and the PNG Canberra Students AssoHowever, some have questioned whether ciation. the successful motion will open up Clubs Council affiliation as an opportunity for The most contentious motions were funding to flow to more so-called ‘joke’ those for the Intercultural Dialogue societies.

Association and the Southeast Asia Society to affiliate with the ANUSA Clubs Only four delegates to the Council voted Council. against the motion, with nine abstentions.

Despite both motions passing, concerns Qayyum told Woroni in a statement that were raised on the floor that the groups the Drake Appreciation Society was ‘not a had similar aims to groups which aljoke society.’ ready exist and are affiliated.

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Week 3, Semester 1, 2017

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INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS AND ACADEMICS FACE UNCERTAIN FUTURE AFTER CHANGES TO 457 VISAS Text: Max Koslowski

As of September 30, 2016, there were 95,757 workers in Australia holding a primary 457 visa, and 76,430 individuals holding a secondary visa, who are members of the primary holder’s family.

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In a Au Rob Un alre sha Schmidt told The Australian that the ANU’s capacity to employ academics ‘would be of paramount concern’.

‘My hope is that the status quo – where academics can move freely in and out of Australia – should be maintained. We But with the government’s changes, would be very concerned if we were reannounced in a Facebook post last week, stricted in hiring academics from abroad this system will be split up into a two- based on any criteria,’ he said. and four-year visa. The two-year visa would only be available to a shortlist of ANU has around 240 staff currently on jobs, and would not permit residency at 457 visas. Under the changes, no one its conclusion, while the four-year visa who is currently under the program will program would enable highly skilled have their visa changed – the policy only migrants to seek permanent residency, applies to skilled foreign workers who pending an English language test and a apply in the future. background criminal check.

But this is still enough to fuel uncertainThe announcement has been hit with ty in the tertiary education sector. Probacklash, particularly in the tertiary fessor Peter Hoj, the chair of the Group education sector. of Eight, a group of Australia’s leading universities, said: ‘At face value the new The ANU vice-chancellor, Brian technical arrangements for the tempoSchmidt, was one of the first to hit rary skills shortage visas and employer back. Having arrived in Australia from sponsored permanent skilled visas may Harvard after finishing his PhD in 1994, make maintaining Australia’s internaSchmidt would only have received a tional advantage more difficult.’ two-year visa under the new system, which would not have given him enough ‘More broadly, the mere suggestion of time to conduct his award winning work the government clamping down on acin astrophysics. ademic mobility into Australia could

deter potential academic recruits to Australia. This is particularly a concern at a time when there are opportunities for recruitment from the US and the UK and initiatives under ways such as the recently announced Go8-India taskforce tasked with developing PhD and researched mobility between Australia and India,’ he said.

Henry Sherrel, a researcher at ANU’s Crawford School of Public Policy, further argued that this would disadvantage Australia when it came to its international academic competitiveness.

‘Removing the ability for many migrants to become permanent residents after spending a period of time in Australia will make it harder for employers and other organisations like universities to attract global talent.

‘Both “chief executive” and “university lecturer/research fellow” will be restricted to the Short-Term Skilled Occupation List. This means they are eligible for a two-year visa, able to be renewed once, but ineligible for the common permanent employersponsored visa, the Employer Nomination Scheme.

‘Imagine being the chairperson of a Big Four bank or major law firm and not being able to offer potential chief executive officers a five-year contract due to visa restrictions?

Innovation is difficult when universities are unable to hire the best people in the field, as higher education research is truly a global labour market,’ Mr Sherrel said.

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Across the 39 major Australian tertiary institutions, over 2000 employees will be affected by this policy change. Among their numbers is Dr Erin Vaughn, who moved to Canberra from the US last year to undertake research at ANU. Both her and her husband are on primary 457 visas for scientific research jobs.

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Speaking to the ABC last week, Dr Vaughn said: ‘A crackdown on 457 visas terrifies me, frankly … I’m not sure how it’s going to affect my family and I’m not sure how it’s going to affect my future job prospects.’

‘I think that it can do nothing but harm universities and the researchers here in Australia.’

KIWI STUDENTS HANDED STUDENT LOAN SHORT STRAW Text: Bella Dimattina

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The Turnbull government’s recent axing of the 457 visa category has left international students and academics facing uncertainty about their ability to attain citizenship in Australia in the future.

The 457 visa program allowed businesses to employ foreign workers for a period of up to four years, in skilled jobs, when there was deemed a shortage of Australian workers. The visas came with a lot of special provisions: the numbers were uncapped, the recipients could travel to and from Australia without limit, and they could bring their families with them.

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However those Kiwis who make the first jump to citizenship by obtaining permanent residency will lose access to these loans. They are now stuck in The federal government has created limbo after the immigration changes, an unusual situation for New Zealand announced on 20 April, which require university students studying in permanent residency for four years.

Australia, following their significant changes to the 457 visa program Many New Zealanders apply for perannounced before Anzac day. manent residency for their children in the years prior to university, to New regulations require potential ensure they will always have access citizens to spend four years as to student loans. These children are permanent residents before applying now barred from HECS HELP for up for citizenship. to four years as they meet the new stringent requirements.

Long-term New Zealand residents have had access to HECS HELP loans One mother told The Guardian she since January 2016. This affected had done just that for her two eldest some 2,600 students. children – one aged 17.

‘I have been sobbing all morning,’ Maria Dunn said. ‘Now the children will not qualify because we are doing the right thing and going for citizenship.

‘It has left my family feeling at any moment the government can change their minds and that’s that. There is no security.’

‘As a k iw i who has been liv ing here for t he past 16 years and still unable to gain citizenship due to Howard ’s 2001 law changes, Austra lia rea lly needs to pick up t heir act.’

The ironic loophole in regards to student fees reflects changes under the Turnbull government to broadly restrict immigration on the one hand, and improve trans-Tasman relations on the other.

A new scheme, to be i n place f rom 1 Ju ne, w i l l fast-t rack cit izenship to New Z ea la nders who haven’t yet applied for residenc y. T hey w i l l st i l l be subjec t to new ‘Aust ra lia n Va lues’ a nd Eng lish la ng uage tests.

Trans-tasman relations were especially impacted by 2001 changes which limited the rights of migrating New Zealanders, such as ANU student Holly Halford-Smith.

Halford-Smith summed up the sentiment of many Kiwis, saying: ‘For a country that was founded on immigration, I think it’s really doing all Australians a disservice.’

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News

Issue 2, Vol. 67

UNIVERSITIES AUSTRALIA CONDEMN BUDGET CUTS Text: Hugh McClure

With just a fortnight until the Turnbull Government hands down its first budget since being reelected, the peak body representing Australian universities has come out swinging at the Federal Government’s f lagged $3.7 billion cuts to university funding.

In a media statement, the Universities Australia chief executive, Belinda Robson, said: ‘Enough is enough.

Universities and their students have already done more than their fair share of Budget repair’.

Robson’s comments came on the back of a report issued by Universities Australia, which argued that universities do not have capacity to absorb further cuts. ‘In this context, it is difficult to justify further cuts that would affect student affordability and put at risk the quality of education and research on which Australia’s prosperity depends’, Robson said.

The report was released just one week after the ANU announced further budget cuts to the School of Culture, Language and History, revealing 15 jobs were in the firing line.

The cuts to the School ref lect a worrying trend in the effects of continued budget squeezes on University operations. Of substantial concern to academics contacted by the media is the ANU’s continued downscaling of expensive, but key strategic subjects, such as Asian Languages, which the ANU has long had a niche in teaching.

In her statement, Robson outlined her analysis had revealed that universities have footed much of the budget repair bill, suffering over $3.9 billion in cuts since 2011.

This view was shared by an ANU spokesman, who told Woroni: ‘Universities and students have made a major contribution to the task of Budget repair over the past five years’.

‘We believe that ongoing government support for education and research is a crucial investment for Australia,’ the spokesman said.

The cuts have already had a significant impact on student wellbeing since 2011, including the key areas of equitable access to university and curriculum breadth, something which particularly concerned federal member for Canberra, Gai Brodtmann.

Brodtmann told Woroni that she had concerns for student equity following the cuts. ‘Ripping funding away from higher education is ripping opportunities away from the future leaders of our country’.

Brodtmann said that students have had to shoulder a disproportionate amount of the budget repair bill.

‘It’s unfair on those students who want to get the most out of their study, that the Turnbull Government is delivering cuts to universities and slapping the students with higher fees,’ she said.

The report outlined that $1.41 billion of the funding cuts had come from student start up scholarships, which form a key pillar in achieving student equity by providing students with a loan to help cover the costs of starting university.

Brodtmann said that continual cuts to university funding was having a disproportionately negative burden on lower SES students. ‘[Under the Labor Government of 2007 - 2013], more than 36,000 extra students from low income families were able to get into university. The government should not look at programs like these as a black hole in the budget, but as an investment in our future,’ Brodtmann told Woroni.

This sentiment was echoed by Jillian Molloy, an ANU student and NUS Welfare Officer. ‘Consecutive years of budget cuts to higher education and welfare sectors have made the university experience even more difficult and inaccessible for students,’ Molloy told Woroni.

Molloy expressed her fears that flagged measures in this year’s budget, including a proposed lowering of the earnings threshold at which students pay back their HECS debt to $42,000, ‘will only add to the stress that students currently face.’ She added that continued cuts to higher education and welfare are ‘locking out more and more students.’

The analysis also revealed that funding has risen by less than one per cent per year from 2009 to 2015 in real terms, with indexed budget cuts from 2018 meaning that funding increases will cease to rise at all.

The report comes after a January submission by Universities Australia which outlined that there was ‘no defensible case’ to further cut university funding, given the heavy lifting that the sector has endured.

The education minister, Simon Birmingham, remained tight-lipped about potential changes to university funding in the May 9 Budget, however, reports outline that a proposed 20 per cent cut to university course funding has been abandoned.

Interviewed on Sky News, Senator Birmingham revealed his view that ‘universities would have to live within the budget settings’.

The Group of Eight chief executive, Vicki Thomson, echoed Ms Robson’s sentiments: ‘It’s true that universities are free at the point of entry, but we want to make sure students have the best opportunities while they’re there, and funding cuts put that at risk.’

FEE RISE FLAGGED FOR FEDERAL BUDGET Text: Jasper Lindell

Instead of the Abbott-era funding cut of 20 per cent, universities are set to face an annual efficiency dividend.

Students will face higher university fees under a proposal set to be included in next week ’s federal budget.

Vice-cha ncel lors will meet i n C a n b e r r a o n Mo n d ay f o r a br i e f i n g a b o u t t h e pr o p o s a l , w h i c h w o u l d e n d t h e t h r e e -y e a r p e r i o d o f f u n d i n g u n c e r t a i nt y t h e h i g h e r- e du c a t i o n s e c t o r h a s faced.

Student fees would rise by at least 25 per cent, students would be lugged with a loan fee before starting their studies, while the salary threshold for student loans would be lowered, The Weekend Australian reported on Saturday.

T h e pr e s i d e nt o f t h e N a t i o n a l Un i o n o f S t u d e nt s , S o p h i e Jo h n s t o n , c o n d e m n e d t h e m o v e o n Tw i t t e r, d e s c r i bi n g t h e pr o p o s a l a s a n ‘a g e n d a a g a i n s t v u lnerable Au s t r a l i a n s this b u d g e t s e a s o n .’

‘We defeated dereg[ulation] in 2014 and we will defeat any attacks in 2017,’ Johnston tweeted on Saturday.

The education minister, Simon Birmingham, will speak at the National Press Club on Thursday to defend the proposal, The Weekend Australian report said.

A 2014 Budget proposal that would have deregulated university fees and cut federal government funding by 20 per cent never passed the Senate.

The federal government has sought to reduce the impact of student loans on the Budget, as student numbers have grown from 800,000 in 2009 to 1.1 million last year.

4

NEW EDUCATION OFFICER ELECTED The SRC elected Robyn Lewis as the new ANUSA education officer, after Jessy Wu resigned last month.

Lewis said that she has first-hand experience with the issues that rural and low-SES students face.

‘I will ensure the student body is consulted thoroughly,’ she said.

NEW CASS & CAP REPS Ria Pflaum, a former editor-in-chief of Woroni, has been appointed as a College of Arts and Social Sciences representative, while Mitch Cylne will serve as a College of Asia Pacific represtative.

The president of ANUSA, James Conolly, said that Pflaum’s previous experience in team environments, including at Woroni, made her well suited to the role.

‘Ria has a strong understanding of the College and an interest in advocacy for smaller schools within the College, including the School of Music,’ Connolly told the College Representative Council meeting where the appointments were announced.

‘Mitch was a candidate in the election previously which shows a commitment and ongoing interest in the role,’ Connolly said. has resigned as the ANUSA education officer.

ANU TO HOST NOWSA CONFERENCE The ANU is set to hose the Netwoen of Women Students Australia conference in July.

Held annually at a different university, women and non-binary people meet to talk about feminism, issues faced by women and non-binary people, share skills and network.

The conference runs from 16 to 22 July.

3

Week 3, Semester 1, 2017

News

POLICE POISED TO DISRUPT CAMPUS DRUG NETWORK Text: Jasper Lindell and Aleyn Silva

Students who take recreational drugs are understood to be on high alert, after a residential student was questioned by police on Friday afternoon in relation to buying drugs on campus.

It is believed police have been building a case for around three months, tracking the transaction records of students who have purchased marijuana on campus, to break up a campus-wide network of marijuana and study-drug dealing.

understood to rely on loose, informal connections between student dealers who operate on campus.

A source familiar with the drug network on campus said they had been told not to ‘joke about weed anymore.’

‘No one can smoke weed right now on campus because it’s not safe,’ they were told.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the source said that police had a ‘huge’ list of everyone who had purchased weed since the beginning of semester.

Selling marijuana is often seen as an easy way to make money, but in recent The network, which permeates days the usual volume of supply has through campus halls and colleges, is decreased.

‘Everyday someone who is a bit daring enough wants to be a drug dealer – and of course money comes into this,’ the source said.

They said: ‘The problem is not the weed but the other drugs that come into play. They’re not just buying weed, they’re buying other drugs as well. Weed is relatively harmless, but other drugs aren’t. It’s just a shame to see good kids doing party drugs.’

The ACT Police media unit were unable to confirm before deadline whether police had attended campus on Friday.

against prohibited drugs are broken.

‘The Hall will be responsive to the needs of residents with drug related problems through appropriate support and referral mechanisms,’ the 2016 Residential Handbook says.

Colleges may expel residents found to be engaged in illegal drug related activity.

Woroni has decided not to name the college where the student who was questioned by police lives to protect their identity.

Know more?

Email news@woroni.com.au

ANU halls of residence consider it a ‘serious matter’ when the ACT laws

UNIVERSITY SEXUAL ASSAULT SURVEY RELEASE DATE MOVED Text: Josie Ganko

‘Honestly, it’s as though they didn’t think at all about the impact of the release on the survivor community or students in general,’ she said.

The Australian Human Rights Commission is facing criticism again, after consultation with concerned student leaders saw the release date for the university sexual assault survey results quickly changed.

Funnell acknowledged the positive change of date, but continued to emphasise her disappointment with the AHRC’s treatment of the students involved in the survey.

The HRC have announced that the results of the survey will now be released on 1 August, which falls during week 2 of semester 2 at ANU. However the date initially proposed was 31 May – a date which coincides with many of the semester 1 exam periods at a number of universities.

The ANUSA women’s officer, Holly Zhang, said that the decision to move the date was at the advice of the NUS and the women’s officers of various universities.

‘We wanted to ensure that the student’s assessment stress, especially survivors of sexual assault, wasn’t impacted or exacerbated by the release of the report and the media interest that will coincide,’ she said.

Furthermore, Zhang thought the date change was important to ensure it was at a time when ‘most students were on campus, and were able to find support in the community and had access to the services that may be required including counselling.’

End Rape on Campus advocate Nina Funnell has been a vocal critic of the Human Right’s Commission’s actions surrounding the survey.

‘While it’s good that the date will now move, it’s disappointing that the needs of survivors have again been treated as an afterthought in the process, and it was only once survivors, students and the NUS advocated that the AHRC agreed to consult and then change the date,’ she said.

In the statement announcing the new date, Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins acknowledged the role of the NUS and other voices in the changing of the release date.

‘Based on this advice, we are releasing the report at a time when most students are on campus to ensure that those who need support can access services through their universities,’ she said.

Commissioner Jenkins said ‘the robust and accurate data will provide a strong basis for universities to take action to prevent and respond to sexual assault and sexual harassment more effectively.

‘The information we have gathered will allow us to make strong findings and clear recommendations to universities.’

The survey, a collaboration between Universities Australia and the Australian Human Rights Commission, saw a representative

sample of students from all 39 Australian universities share their experiences with sexual assault and harassment. The survey asks respondents to explain in detail their experiences of sexual harassment or assault, signify whether they reported any incidents and the response they received upon doing so, and finally any recommendations or thoughts they may wish to share on the matter.

The survey has been plagued with criticism and controversy from its outset, namely the AHRC’s decision not to publish individual university’s results, and their initial stance which didn’t involve any formal recommendations being made in the report.

Universities involved, including the ANU, have elected to release their individual results in conjunction with the survey results on 1 August.

The ANU has been supportive of the initiative throughout its duration, with the vice-chancellor, Brian Schmidt, releasing a statement encouraging participation.

‘I encourage anyone who is not selected to participate in the survey to make a submission. The survey will provide us with data to help improve our policies, procedures and support services,’ he said.

Additionally, the ANUSA Women’s Department is planning to run a campaign to coincide with the release However, both issues were swiftly of the report, as well as the statistics of resolved. the ANU’s instances of sexual assault.

The campaign will highlight student The criticism regarding the lack responses, and provide a platform for of recommendations was quickly calls for change. clarified by Jenkins who confirmed that the report will make a series Women’s Officer Zhang plans to of recommendations for action and develop policy including student reform. feedback in response to the survey results, and outlined her commitment In regards to the university’s ‘to act in the best interest and be individual survey results, while the informed by survivors of sexual AHRC did not alter its stance, all 39 assault.’

News

HOLOCAUST DENIERS TARGET ANU WITH PAMPHLET DROP Text: Max Koslowski

Material disputing the Holocaust has been found across the ANU over the past week, as the material has been found on campuses around Australia in the past week.

Issue 2, Vol. 67

‘A holocaust film just released in Australia, would have us believe that in a court case in 2000 proved the official version of the Holocaust. Did it really?’ the material asks.

Flyers were slipped in between the windscreen wipers and the windshields of cars in residential college carparks, and other cars on the west side of campus.

An eyewitness described the distributor of the material as wearing large, silver headphones, and a high-necked fleece jacket.

He was approximately 50 years of age, they said.

Last Thursday, these same leaflets were found on a noticeboard outside the School of Art. Several hundred of the posters were found at the University of Canberra campus in Bruce last week.

The leaflets were also distributed at the University of Melbourne, Monash University and the University of Sydney.

A video published on the Fascist Free USyd Facebook page last Wednesday recorded an altercation with one of the distributors The leaflets and posters, which contest of these leaflets. what they deem the ‘official version’ of the Holocaust, are distributed by the At first the distributor challenged the vidChemtrails Geelong group and were also eomaker to use their ‘brains instead of just found at the University of Canberra. being emotive about it’, to which the videomaker responded: ‘This is fucking bigotry.’

The posters and flyers refer to the recently released film Denial, a dramatised ac- Later, around a dozen students surroundcount of the the high-profile libel case ed the man, who at points chanted ‘Fuck brought by the author and Holocaust off Nazi, fuck off’ and said, ‘This is what is denier David Irving against Deborah going to happen to you literally every time Lipstadt. you step on campus.’

We acknowledge the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people, who are the traditional owners of the land on which Woroni is written, edited, printed and distributed.

Within the section disputing the Holocaust, the authors host a lengthy blog that challenges the decision of the famous Nuremberg Trials, as well as blaming the ‘emotional manipulation’ of Hollywood, and the ‘international Jewry’, for the prevalence of Holocaust narratives today. The latest update to the blog, dated as January of this year, iterates the argument that was printed onto the leaflets.

We would also like to acknowledge that this land which we enefit from occupying – was stolen, and that sovereignty was never ceded. Within this ongoing echo of colonialism we commit, as writers and editors, to amplify the voices and stories of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people at our university.

Similar flyers were distributed in a separate incident at ANU last year.

The Australian Union of Jewish Students hit back at the leaflets, writing in a Facebook post: ‘AUJS is profoundly concerned that these leaflets are part of the increasing normalisation of antisemitism on Australian campuses with growing reports of Jewish students facing abuse simply because of their identity.’

The president of the ANU Students’ Society, James Connolly, said that the material was ‘inherently intolerant.’

‘ANU as a university is committed to being inclusive to people of all faiths,’ he said.

A spokesperson for ANU said ‘the vice-chancellor has made it clear that the distribution of derogatory and inappropriate material is completely unacceptable … ANU Security removed the fliers, and is reviewing CCTV footage to identify the perpetrators’.

Text: Bella Dimattina

While one letter from the professor of history John N Molony attempted to defend Qazi and chastise The Canberra Times for its conflation of Qazi’s statement, most condemned the article.

Such robust condemnation of intolerance as a basis for, or tenet of, political debate at the ANU is to be commended. Particularly so in light of the wider context.

The ANU has recently been plagued by literature surrounding the doctoring of history. Holocaust denial pamphlets have been distributed to cars around campus, in an unusually blatant act of antisemitism.

Chris Duke, then director of continuing education at the ANU, led the charge in distancing his faculty from the visiting professor. A H Johns, dean of the faculty of Asian studies, followed suit.

From October 2000 to April 2002 there were four separate attacks on Jewish centres of worship in Canberra. Each time petrol bombs or Molotov cocktails were thrown at the centres, causing damage to the exterior. The Executive Council of Australian Jewry lists them each year in their Report on Antisemitism in Australia under ‘serious anti semitic attacks since 1990’.

There is a long history of letters being used to propagate and combat antisemitic attitudes on campus, particularly in times of high political tension in Israel.

In September 1978 The Canberra Times ran an article under the headline ‘Jews threat to whole world.’

The headline was taken from a quote by interviewee and visiting Professor Qazi.

Ben Sakker Kelly and supporters frequently used Woroni as a means to combat the antisemitism seen on campus, in the midst of more recent early-2000s political tensions on the role of Israel in the Middle East.

In a 2005 interview in his capacity as head of the ANU Jewish Students Society, Kelly recounted being told the Jewish community had been ‘bathing in the blood of Hitler for 50 years’. He also described instances of more casual antisemitism in The article was the subject of a series politics tutorials, where tutors ‘conceded’ of Letters to the Editor by several that Jews controlled the American econdistinguished ANU academics. omy and elections.

Acknowledgement of Country

The organisers of the leaflet drops, Chemtrails Geelong, have a website that propagates a mix of views. The authors condemn the ‘flagrant promoting of homosexualism’, calls psychiatry a ‘fraud’, but also supports a 100 per cent shift to renewable energy.

ANTISEMITISM HAS LONG HISTORY ON CAMPUS

A 1981 Letter to the Editor at Woroni also denounced anti-Jewish sentiment. Ezra Gitner recounted a Student Association election where ‘one candidate was an obHowever this is not the first ject of general mirth and hilarity for no antisemitic act to occur on ANU better reason that he was a Jew’. He said: campus, and certainly not the first to ‘I hope that I have made at least some of occur in Canberra. those responsible feel a little ashamed’.

2

However the incidents received little reporting from Canberran news outlets. Both the first and most recent attacks elicited short articles from The Canberra Times, but little else.

The Holocaust denial material found in 2017 and 2016 is unfortunately not an unusual addition to the list of antisemitic attacks intertwined with the history of the ANU – antisemitism is not a stranger to ANU’s history.

Also present in discourse, however, is strong condemnation of such beliefs and a reinforcement that no political attitude should allow for intolerance.

We pay our respects to Elders past, present and future.

We will honour the diversity of their stories and stand by their right to recognition.

Board of Editors

Editor in Chief: Bronte McHenry Managing Editor: Kat Carrington Deputy EiC/Radio Editor: Finn Pedersen Content Editor: Lauretta Flack News Editor: Jasper Lindell Radio Editor: Oscar Jolly TV Editor: Kanika Kirpalani Art Editor: Joanne Leong

staff and Sub-Editors

Admin Assistant: Arun Murali Financial Controller: Brendan Greenwood Business Development: Fred Weber Marketing: Mark Manantan Social Media: Laura Mendoza Garcia Instagram: Tony Gu Event Guide: Mehar Chawla Comment: James Atkinson Comment: Nick Wyche International: Nathalie Rosales Cheng Features: Amanda Dheerasekara Multilingual: Rosalind Moran Arts: Phoebe Hamra Reviews: Alex Green Life & Style: Georgia Leak Environment: Grace Dudley Science: Jenny Tinston Business & Economics: Victor Sukeerth Munagala Sport: Ollie Brown Creative Writing: Nadia Kim Creative Writing: Emilie Morscheck Satire & Humour: Eleanor Armstrong News: Bella Dimattina News: Lorane Gaborit News: Josie Ganko News: Hugh McClure News: Aleyn Silva News: Max Koslowski News: Isabella Ostini Distributor and Radio Presenter Liason: Loretta Lackner adio echnical fficer Will Fletcher Music: Cosmo White Social Media: Poppy Perry-Evans Events & Sports: Stephanie David Art: Rowan Everard Art: Tom Campbell Design: Katie Ward Design: Julia Hammer Television Manager: Bremer Sharp Camera Operator: Shasha Ma Reporter: Casley Rowan Reporter: Jemimah Cooper Reporter: Linda Chen Photography: Dillon Vibes Photography: Chloe Tredea Photography: Marwan Elhassan Photography: Christine Song

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Woroni Issue 5, Vol. 67 . Week 9, Semester 1, 2017

MEN’S NETWORK AFFILIATES WITH ANUSA CLUBS COUNCIL Text: Jasper Lindell

SMALL STEP FOR MEN’S NETWORK

The ANU Men’s Network became an affiliated club at the Clubs Council meeting last Thursday, where the group stressed there were ‘no plans’ for launching a campaign to form a Men’s Department within the ANU Students’ Association.

The group, which has its origins in a controversial social media incident where private posts were allegedly shared without the consent of those who wrote them, will now be able to apply for ANUSA funding to host events on campus.

The president of the ANU Men’s Network, Sebastian Rossi, distributed fact sheets at the meeting, which outlined the group’s aims and distanced the group from suggestions that affiliation would be the thin edge of the wedge towards establishing a Men’s Department.

The vice-president of the group, Nick Blood, who spoke for the motion, said that the executive was ‘very inclusive, very supportive’.

‘We have a really diverse executive, including women,’ he said.

Blood said that the group was not autonomous and was intended to provide support, and also responded to fears the group would provide a space for expressing misogynistic ideas.

‘I can understand the concerns, I can understand the anxieties, but this is just a group – and it’s not a support network for men – it’s about male gender-related issues,’ he told the Council.

The objectives of the Network are to ‘promote and foster discussion of male gender-related issues’ and ‘create the space for members to seek support in a confidential and non-judgemental environment’, the group’s fact sheet read.

The group has 33 formally registered members and more than 350 members of a Facebook discussion group, and will now seek to hold fundraising event with Menslink, an organisation which supports men in the ACT and southern NSW. The motion for the group to affiliate passed with five votes against and 10 abstentions. No one spoke against the

motion.

The president of the ANU Circle for Gender Equity, Jody McPhee, spoke in favour of the motion, arguing that the Men’s Network was a ‘really important thing to have on campus’.

McPhee said that the Circle for Gender Equity was planning a collaborative event with the Men’s Network for next semester.

‘I think it’s really important that we do affiliate this club so that moving forward we can have these events, especially with Menslink and other clubs like the Circle for Gender Equity,’ she said.

Blood told Woroni after the meeting that he would now focus on the ‘back end’ of the ANU Men’s Network, writing policy and focusing on administration.

The last time a motion was put to the Clubs Council for the Men’s Network to affiliate, it was not passed due to a high number of abstentions. A similar motion was on the agenda for the previous meeting, but could not be voted on after quorum was lost.

MEN’S DEPARTMENT

Concerns have been raised that allowing the Men’s Network to affiliate with the Clubs Council would be a ‘slippery slope’ towards the establishment of a Men’s Department.

The group, created in May 2016, first called itself the ANU Men’s Department before quickly changing the name to the Men’s Collective.

But the ANU Men’s Network has been at great pains to reiterate that this is not currently on the agenda, and that such a policy would be subject to a decision of its executive. The current executive unanimously voted against launching such a campaign.

Speaking to Woroni Blood said that while he ‘used to think that we needed’ a Men’s Department he no longer feels that way.

‘It was only by discussing the issue with other people – not just Men’s Network execs, but other people in the Men’s Network, also just people in general – did I realise that the functions of a department are primarily support and advocacy. We can do both of those things as a student club. There’s no need for us to become a department.

‘Men, particularly for being men, aren’t being marginalised to the extent where I think you can justify it,’ he said.

NETWORK’S ORIGINS

The Men’s Network’s Facebook page was originally called the ANU Men’s Department and was formed in response to allegations that the ANU Women’s Department’s closed, autonomous Facebook group was being used to bully members of Stalkerspace.

Screenshots were leaked in violation of that group’s policy and were posted to Stalkerspace, which raised questions of free speech.

One person familiar with the incident said that the original Men’s Department Facebook group was created to get back at the Women’s Department, and that it ‘was never originally intended to be about men’s mental health, abuse or anything.’

But President Rossi rejected that view, saying that he wanted to create something which would ‘serve a similar purpose’ as the Women’s Department. ‘A lot of people think it was a dig at them, if anything it was to imitate and reflect them,’ he said. ‘[The Women’s Department] had a good system going and I wanted to try and replicate that for men to a degree,’ Rossi told Woroni.

Rossi said that the events which led to the group’s formation were a ‘catalyst’.

‘I realised that men need a space … to be able to express and talk about men’s issues, because in truth a lot of the time … you try to express men’s issues and although they’re technically correct you’ll get attacked, you don’t feel safe.’

The group has been seeking affiliation since its formation in 2016.

In the previous attempt to become affiliated a large number of abstentions saw the motion fail.

‘Last time round I think there concerns that weren’t adequately put to bed about ties to MRA [Men’s Rights Activism], our tolerance on it, our stance on it, our official policies regarding it. I think that speaks credit to the process itself,’ Blood told Woroni after the group affiliated last week.

Rossi said there had been a ‘conscious effort’ to improve the public image of the Men’s Network.

‘Public representation is important,’ he said.

FUTURE COLLABORATIONS

The ANU women’s officer, Holly Zhang, said she was ‘keen’ to collaborate with the Men’s Network and ensure its Facebook group operated in a safe manner that minimised the risk of vicarious trauma and pointed people towards professional avenues for support.

Zhang said she was not interested in holding ‘onto the past too much’, and said the present group has ‘very good intentions.’

‘I’m happy to collaborate and work with the Men’s Network,’ Zhang said, with a view to ‘improving the social media landscape in terms of bad things that happen in the world because of the patriarchy.’

The Men’s Network is currently planning a collaborative event for next semester which will see them team up with the Circle for Gender Equity to raise money for local charity Menslink.