Woroni Edition Four 2020

WO R O NI TION U L O V RE TION I D E

WORONI TEAM CONTENT

Lily Pang George Owens Aditi Dubey Juliette Brown Tilda Njoo Tara Finlay Nicholas Mezo Katie Sproule Campbell Edmonds Queenie Ung-Lam Eammon Gumley

ART

Eliza Williams Alice Dunkley Emily O’Neill Maddy Brown Bonnie Burns Milly Yates

NEWS

Charlotte Ward Elena Couper Ronan Skyring Isobel Lavers Giselle Laszok Sasha Personeni

RADIO

Sam Neave Elijah Lazarus Bec-Donald-Wilson Jacinta Chen Rishi Dhakshinamoorthy Tom Stephens Louis Festa Fergus Sherwood Madelene Watson Niamh McCool

TV

Liam Taylor Vy Tsan Christian Reeves Tanya Babbar Clara Ho Lucy Bruck Gautham Venkitaramamoorthy

1.

CONTENTS 4 NEWS 5 Interview with ANUSA Social Officer 7 CAMPUS 8 This is an Outpouring. An Open Letter to the Education Minister 11 Case Against the Education Officer 14 Three Things You Won’t Hear About in the Upcoming ANUSA Election 16 ANU’s Pledge to International Students is Needed Now More Than Ever 18 COMMENT 19 The Law on Trial 21 Pegging a Petrodollar 23 The Biggest Threat 25 The Post-COVID Economy 26 Why The US Dollar is a Beast 29 Not Your Usual Revolutions: A Review of Behind the Lines 2019 31 Science Needs a Language Revolution 33 An Open Letter to Those Uncomfortable with Their Privilege

Cover Art - Sian Williams

35 CULTURE 36 Take Back Your Social Media 37 Drinking, or Rather, Cleansing from the Fountain of Youth 39 “It Girl” - A Personal Revolution 41 The Modern Day Woman 42 Language is a Revolution 44 A Revolution in Greeting Affairs 45 Ethics and Exhibitions 47 Tweeting Tyrants versus Instagram Poets 49 CREATIVE 50 the deluge of the end 54 The Man in the Mist 56 Bega 57 Reconstruction 58 Depop Drama 59 Herbert Franklin 61 Doorways to Revolution 62 Unconventional Oration 63 The Little Red Ebook

Divider Pages - Bonnie Burns

2.

A Note From The Editor Welcome to Edition Four of Woroni for 2020!

As a nod to the immense social and political change brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement, we chose to spend this edition investigating themes of revolution. The transformation occurring within ourselves, our social and political structures, and the world around us is significant. It is nothing short of revolution, in all its shapes and forms.

As a new semester comes upon us, I would like to welcome Rachel Chopping, Sian Williams, Bernadette Callaghan and Matthew Donlan onto the Woroni board. I especially want to congratulate Rachel (the new Content Editor) and Sian (the new Art Editor) on the amazing effort they have put in to get this edition out. I am so thrilled with the quality of work that they and their teams have maintained during this challenging time. To students reading this edition, it is an important time to think critically about the way we want our future to look and we hope that you find this edition both thought-provoking and entertaining.

Enjoy!

Isobel Lindsay-Geyer

3.

Rachel Chopping Content Editor Isobel Lindsay-Geyer Editor in Chief

Sian Williams Art Editor Matthew Donlan TV Editor Bernie Callaghan Radio Editor

Nick Richardson Managing Editor

Josie Ganko Deputy Editor in Chief

EDITORS Grace Sixsmith News Editor

4.

ARTWORK: Alice Dunkley

An Interview with ANUSA Social Officer

By Grace Sixsmith In the midst of second waves, constantly changing regulations and the threat of another lockdown period, ANUSA Social Officer Sophie Jaggar has planned Bush Week 2020. In a discussion with Woroni, Jaggar outlined the issues she has faced while planning, and what’s different this year.

Woroni: What have been the main challenges in planning the 2020 Bush Week?

Sophie Jaggar: “The main challenges in organising Bush Week have just been around the COVID restrictions and how they interact with social events. All of our events are online due to the restrictions and I believe it is difficult to create successful events due to things like Zoom fatigue of students and the general strain of being socially distanced for so long.

Planning is difficult due to the changing nature of the COVID situation and the different restrictions, meaning we are trying to plan for as many different situations as possible, to try and make sure that the most ideal event for students is held.”

W: Is Bush Week projected to use all its funding?

SJ: “Currently Bush Week is projected to not use all its funding, however hopefully the left-over funding will either be used to help students through grants or will go towards social events later in the semester if they are possible.”

Bush Week was allocated $20,000 in the 2020 SSAF bid.

W: What’s happening with the Bush Week Directors? I remember in SRC 3 or 4 you mentioned that you were not planning to hire any. Has this made your job harder in organising? Have any other members of the SRC stepped in to help out?

SJ: “That is correct – I have not hired any Bush Week directors. This has made my job slightly harder due to an increased workload, but overall due to the current circumstances I do not think this has made my job harder, especially given that managing my team would be harder when our office is working from home. The exec have been a great help and I know that the SRC are always willing to help out where necessary.”

W: How will Bush Week work to ensure that students commencing in Sem 2 will feel included in the ANU community?

SJ: “We have events in place to introduce people to the key social foundations of ANUSA – clubs and departments. We also have plans for some online social events for students to be able to get involved in that way. Ultimately, we are limited in the way that we are able to make students feel comfortable in this community, but we are trying the best we can with the hope that we will be able to do more later in the semester.”

5.

6.

7.

7.

8.

This is an Outpouring: An Open Letter to the Education Minister

By Queenie Ung-Lam and Esther Suckling

To Dan Tehan, the Education Minister, You have deemed it permissible to increase the student contribution for the humanities by 113%. That is why we find ourselves here, rallying our anger and thoughts into these words. We ask that you stop and listen.

In congratulating yourself for benefiting 60% of young people entering universities, you are failing to include the remaining 40%. As a representative in our Federal Government, you have a duty to 100% of students who choose to enter tertiary education.

A 113% hike in fees actively disadvantages future students by enforcing a monetary blockade to their desired education. You are signalling to past, present and future arts students that their degrees do not hold value, that employment opportunities for arts graduates will be dismal, and that young Australians should reconsider their pathways.

You reinforce a state of psychological turbulence. You tell the 40% of university applicants that their degree is of lesser value to society and therefore they must pay this

difference from their own pockets.

COVID-19 has been an incredibly taxing period for all. A myriad of studies highlight the concerning effects of isolation on mental health, particularly amongst young people.

Rather than kicking young Australians while they’re down, you need to support and enable them to excel in the areas that they are passionate about, not those that you have deemed valid.

You are fixated on the economic value of jobs.

In multiple government releases, you have asserted that this decision is vital to Australia’s economic recovery from COVID-19. The assumption that Arts degrees and economic growth are incompatible is flawed and wholly unsubstantiated. As a 2019 Graduate Outcomes survey reveals, Arts students are more likely to get jobs than Maths and Science graduates. This study shows that three years after graduation, 91.1% Arts graduates were employed compared to 90.1% of Science and Maths graduates. Three years out, Arts graduates were on average earning $70,300 to the $68,900 of their counterparts with Maths and Science degrees.

9.

You refer repetitively to a toolkit of skills, asserting that the fee changes will “provide our young Australians with the skills they need for the jobs of the future”. Here you imply that the skills taught in Arts degrees are not those of the future. Yet an analysis of your own government’s publication of the ten attributes that employers of the future will be demanding throws these statements into serious doubt.

Amongst these skills are creativity, originality and initiative, analytical thinking, complex problem-solving and emotional intelligence.

These skills form the backbone of Arts degrees.

These are the skills which prepare students for a future where technological advances, shifting knowledge landscapes and globalisation ground work spaces within endless uncertainty and fluctuation. Moreover, these skills are transferable between professions and industries. As a 2018 Deloitte Access Economic report reveals, transferable skills are the key to the future, where Australians are projected to have 17 different employers, and five to seven career changes over their lifetimes. What future workplaces demand, Arts students will supply.

Evidently, the rhetoric around this new policy has been purely framed in economic terms.

Yet in making this argument, you forget that tertiary education centers around the flow of knowledge. With your suggestions and its consequences, this flow has been hardened, an economic transaction now replacing the once fluid interactions between a university and its students.

You yourself must know and cherish the role of the Arts, having studied this degree at Melbourne University and later pursuing further studies in foreign affairs and trade. Without it, any understanding of the worldis rudimentary and obsolete, a testament to humanity’s devolution, not its evolution. But you seem to have forgotten its intrinsic value to our society beyond a monetary figure.

Let us remind you.

Driving, walking or biking to university and work, we listen to the news, audiobooks, music and podcasts. We engage with global and diverse voices, listening to their thoughts and absorbing new information which shapes our understanding of an ever-shifting cultural, political and social landscape. In snatches of free time, we devour books and avidly consume shows. These are physical and digital channels of the Arts that have been a vital component of getting millions through lockdown periods across the nation.

We sit in tutorials, or more recently, tune in over Zoom, to debate with and listen to our fellow students. Together we navigate the cavernous intersections of politics, economics, international affairs, defence, all ensconced within an ever important subtext of gender, class and race.

During Parliament Q&A or watching the 7:30pm news, the knowledge grounded within our Arts degrees helps to explain the complex and changeable power dynamics of parliament — of the seats that you hold and of the trust that our society places within you.

Raising our signs during a protest, joining thousands in a social movement, we question this power that you have been gifted. It is only through the Arts that we can challenge failing institutions and policies, resulting in a better understanding and connection to all the diverse individuals who call this place home.

Sitting across from culturally and linguistically unique people, whether it be in a restaurant, library table, family dining room or Zoom tutorial, the Arts underpins the basic empathy and understanding we need to honour

10. ARTWORK: Milly Yates Australia’s multicultural society.

Travelling overseas to our neighbouring countries, the interconnections and relationships that we study in our Arts degree are key to building long-lasting and genuine connections to our neighbors in the IndoPacific, and to cement Australia’s role as a global leader in this region.

The Arts enables us to question the mundane, the everyday, the norms taken for granted within society. It informs and nourishes. That is why we exist within a functioning society today.

It ultimately encompasses all foundations and functions of our society; history, culture, politics, the fine arts and this, we argue, should be accessible to all. Not just the few.

A future where 40%of students risk losing this accessibility is no future at all.

We ask you to propose policy that seeks to unite rather than fracture our society.

We ask you to propose policy that recognises the value of an education in the humanities. An education that fills the demand for transferable workplace skills and supplies our society with vital channels of criticism, debate and empathy.

We ask you to propose policy that looks beyond an economic lens, beyond a vision of universities as generators of productivity and money. We ask you to acknowledge that Arts degrees exist not only in terms of economic transactions, but within thought and cultural economies.

We ask you to propose policy that listens to our criticisms, absorbs our demands, and addresses our deep-seated concerns.

Sincerely, Two Arts students studying at the ANU and Melbourne University

ARTWORK: Maddy Brown

The Case Against the Education Officer

By Henri Vickers

Lo and behold, another ANUSA election season approaches! And through my crystal ball, I guess it will be another unfulfilling year on the political front, and on the serious issues which face students and young people.

Increases to the cost of university degrees will leave graduates finishing in more debt.

Universities will likely cut classes and support for students as the government continues to withhold financial support to the tertiary education section. Most students (and I feel deeply for those graduating at the moment) are staring down the barrel of the first recession of their life.

However, there are more long-term issues, not resulting from the present COVID-19 crisis.

Sadly, despite being solidly within the remit of the Education Officer, it seems succeeding officers have had little success in making a

difference to students’ lives. The Education Officer is one of the few paid roles of the Students’ Association, but it’s probably the hardest. It’s explicitly political, unlike the administrative work of President, VP, Treasurer or General Secretary, or the self-evident role of Social Officer. As such, the role’s tasks are unclear and are largely down to the priorities of whoever is elected to the position. There’s certainly no “given” day-to-day work: whereas other executive members can look back at previous officers and know where they fit into the Association’s functions, the Education Officer must invent their role from scratch nearly every year. The only consistent factor seems to be acting as a quasi-gatekeeper for the funds of the Education Committee, and to be a constant target of abuse from Socialist Alternative.

11.

12.

As such, it’s unsurprising that officers over the past two and a half years haven’t been able to make much difference. There have been good people – who I’ve both agreed and disagreed with on various political issues – in the role over that period. But I think I can comfortably say that none have really been able to figure out what they need to do. It’s a shame given the reasonable stipend the Officer receives that the Association has little to show from their work.

In an ideal world, what could an Education Officer do? There is much that falls outside the identity-based departments that are theoretically universal problems for ANU students. An effective Officer could fight wage theft on campus: they could dedicate their paid hours to building relationships with workplace leaders at ANU’s various dodgy hospitality operators, as well as with ANU Council members. On-campus hospo workers need real change in their workplaces, and to university policies that regulate small business’ access to the campus. They could organise hall residents, building a network that spanned every floor of every residence to stand up against increases in rent.

They could organise mass mobilisations at the ACT Legislative Assembly, collecting signatures and coordinating media, to secure free public transport for university students.

Of course, many of the challenges facing students are bigger than one university or one jurisdiction; they’re national issues. But an effective Education Officer would coordinate with campaigns run by the National Union of Students (assuming we had an effective national body, which is the topic for another rant) to mobilise students and pressure crossbenchers into opposing the legislative usurpation of student rights and welfare.

These possibilities are largely closed as soon as we enter election season by a number of

factors. First, the candidates for Education Officer are not seasoned political organisers.

They’re not even lightly salted, they’re raw recruits, with energy and exuberance but with no skills. Everyone has to start their political journey somewhere but wandering into a paid role without an apprenticeship with a veteran organiser, or even a basic how-to guide, seems like a recipe for failure. If you don’t know what a structured organising conversation is, or who the political heavyweights in the ACT are – Members of the Legislative Assembly whose hands are on the levers of political power – you’re going to have a hard time of making a difference at all.

This is compounded by the utter lack of institutional knowledge, or even a basic programme of work for new Officers, left to re-invent their role from square one every year.

They also end up spending a disproportionate amount of their time dealing with the endless shrieks of Socialist Alternative, a group so adept at preventing productive political discussion or work from taking place that one might be led to believe the urban legend that they were invented by ASIO in order to disrupt and divide the Left. ANUSA’s reliance on ANU for setting its funding each year adds to their woes: how are you to meaningfully challenge an institution when they hold the pursestrings?

But perhaps the most fundamental problem for prospective Officers is the student body. If they take up the role as an organiser, as they should, understanding their function as serving and politically activating students, they will suddenly realise that ANU is a hive of overprivileged, grammar-school-educated born-torules with little need for tribunes or advocates.

ANU’s student population is one of the most socio-economically advantaged in the country, drawing largely from Canberran and cashedup-enough-to-move-here kids of ProfessionalManagerial Class background.

13.

That isn’t universal of course, but it’s dominant.

How are they supposed to be the social agents of change, when they’re more likely to form Australia’s future diplomatic corps through the DFAT grad program? As a graduate of an international school myself, I’m speaking about my own tribe in some sense, but it takes one to know one and I know that Sydney North-Shore immigrants to the ACT aren’t the collective social actor of progressive change.

The various oppressions faced by students of diverse identities are already represented in our departments, further pointing to the Education Officer’s irrelevance.

The one potential saving grace would be an Education Officer who looked beyond campus and saw this hub of intellectuals and knowledge generation as a launching pad for political change in the wider world. But this is misguided: the 1968-era New Left had a vision of universities as ‘Red Bases’ that would be the launching pad for socialist intellectuals leading the workers to revolution. It turned out to be the desperate gasp of a dying Left that had abandoned the shopfloor organising and labour movement strength needed for any meaningful social reform to come about.

What does that mean for us then? We’ll have another year of political impotence from ANUSA. We’ll be told by candidates the need for “accessible activism”, when what we really need is “effective activism”, or really any

activism at all. The most successful political action of the past couple of years by ANU students was “Do Better ANU.” That campaign made some gains around access to pastoral care, particularly important for feminist activists pushing the university to take sexual assault and harassment seriously. The main wins however, largely benefited the economically comfortable inhabitants of ANU’s on-campus residences. Outside that, ANU activists’ political campaigning has little to show.

This election season, rather than be provided with real demands and candidates with a strategy to win them, we’ll be battered up with aphorisms and spin, cloaked in the language of identity politics or simply meaningless drivel.

Small-l liberals will masquerade as leftists, the word “progressive” will be said more times than you can poke a stick at, and we’ll all stare down the barrel of our first recession and increasingly limited prospects, overshadowed by climate doom.

I feel bad ending this on a cynical note, so here’s a short alternative: if you’re political, get out of student politics. Let ANUSA do its core work of service provision through student assistance, legal aid and an occasional voice at the table. Get active in a political party, or a trade union, or a community campaign instead. Organise the disorganised, organise the exploited and the oppressed. Don’t waste your valuable time.

14.

Three Things You Won’t Hear About During the ANUSA Election

By Dominic Harvey-Taylor With student elections rapidly approaching and tickets spruiking expression-of-interest forms (just as long as you don’t express interest in the roles they’ve already filled), now is as good a time as any to point out three things you are unlikely to hear candidates talking about during the upcoming ANUSA elections.

1.

The SSAF Bid and the ANUSA budget ANUSA derives its funding primarily through bidding alongside other groups for a pool of money collected through the Student Services and Amenities Fee (SSAF) that most students pay each semester (currently $154 per semester). Due to the compounding factors of COVID-19, caps on student enrolment, an increase in the number of bidders and the downward trend in funding over the last three years, it is almost certain that next year’s SSAF allocation will be significantly reduced and ANUSA will see more budget cuts.

Last year’s cuts saw reductions in Clubs Council’s funding despite record growth, with no funding allocated to training or Clubs Ball. Cuts to ANUSA’s budget also resulted in the

ARTWORK: Maddy Brown 15.

BKSS being open for reduced hours (prior to COVID), and cuts to several ANUSA committees and projects. While ANUSA is almost certain to receive even less funding next year, ANUSA staff, including paid student representatives are currently required by ANUSA’s enterprise bargaining agreement to receive a 2% increase in pay each year.

Figuring out how ANUSA can continue to provide the same level of services and support to students, or even expand its operations while salaries increase indefinitely, and overall funding decreases is a thorny puzzle.

One solution may be to diversify revenue streams. PARSA, for example, has set up a bicycle shop in Kambri, and also has taken over the assets from the ANU Union when it wound up last year. Whether such an approach is viable for ANUSA remains to be seen.

Unfortunately, while ‘diversifying revenue’ may be a tagline used by candidates in the upcoming election, students are unlikely to see any substantive business proposals before polls close in Week 5.

2.

The Governance Review In 2018, ANUSA hired an external consultant to review the governance arrangements of ANUSA. This year the external consultants’ recommendations have been circulated to student reps, with a working group convened to discuss how to respond to suggestions.

These include fundamentally restructuring ANUSA through changing the number of elected student representatives, changing up the roles of and duties of student reps as well as redesigning the relationship between the Clubs Council and ANUSA. Recommendations such as removing Department Officers (e.g. the Women’s Officer) from the SRC or halving the number of College representatives are unlikely to be implemented.

However, a change more likely on the cards, could be the addition of a new Clubs Officer to the executive as a paid representative of the Association.

Such a change would also fundamentally

change the culture of the Association and the logistics of how big events like O-Week get organised, not to mention it would also significantly add to budgetary concerns raised above.

The public consultation for the governance review is set to precede the election period by a couple of weeks with ANUSA’s OGM in Semester2 being the key forum to pass any substantive changes to the ANUSA Constitution.

Despite the scope for significant structural change in the short lead up to the election, there is likely to be little discussion by candidates on their views regarding the review.

3.

Political Alignment You will not find any candidates or tickets openly stating that they are aligned with a political party. Regardless of whether a ticket is receiving campaign funding from the Liberal Students Club, an ANU Labor Club, the Socialist Alternative, or the Greens, political alignment will not be obvious to any student when reading the name of a ticket (e.g.

Remoisturise ANUSA!) or looking at the ballot.

The exception to this is if the ticket is affiliated with Nick Xenophon, in which case their campaign will be short-lived, but extremely humorous.

Similarly, if a ticket is primarily organised by members of a political faction, or is planning to send representatives to the National Union of Students specifically to bolster the voting power of a particular faction at NatCon, it is rare for such groups to make such arrangements obvious to a casual observer of a tickets campaign.

To be fair, no candidates will explicitly conceal their links to political groups if pressed.

However if you don’t ask, they are unlikely to tell.

Dominic Harvey-Taylor is a former ANUSA College Representative and unsuccessfully ran on the ticket Refresh ANUSA in 2018.

16.

The ANU’s Pledge Towards International Students is Needed Now More Than Ever

By Hazel Ang

The Morrison government has recently announced they are encouraging more domestic student enrolments through an extensive reshuffle and increase of HECS fees. This modification was made in order to ‘guide students to the required occupations’ and make up for the loss of the large income from international enrolment. Once again, the government has only taken the financial gain of international students into consideration.

Education services are Australia’s fourthlargest export. Various student bodies have been lobbying for the government to provide financial support to international students, to no avail. Instead, universities have had to take it up to their own hands to provide some form of financial support for international students.

According to Times Higher Education, the ANU has consistently ranked as the most ‘international’ university in Australia, based on the number of international enrolments and its global reputation. It is now more than ever that the ANU needs to lead by example.

As the front -running Australian university, it should be providing adequate support to the international students’ community; regardless if they are doing distance-learning in their

home country or are currently roughing it out in Australia.

It is commendable that ANU has been providing financial support for accommodation needs to international students ever since the travel ban to China has been in place. However, more needs to be done. International students need to know that ANU has got their back and will do whatever it takes to provide the necessary support to ensure they have the best educational experience, regardless if it is done off-shore or on-campus.

The ANU should firstly identify that on-campus and offshore international students are likely to be facing two different forms of complex issues. On-campus students are likely to feel extra isolated and homesick since going home to their home country may not be an option.

Even for students who have the option to return home, it remains difficult as only as 350 international students will be selected for the ANU-UC Pilot Program, where a chartered flight will bring students back to Canberra in time for Semester 2. At this moment, what is clear is that international travel to and from Australia is likely to be banned until 2021.

ARTWORK: Alice Dunkley This means that many international students who are currently living in Australia are unlikely to see their family and friends for at least another six months. This will inevitably increase levels of homesickness, which will lead to other risk factors, such as social isolation and depressive episodes. Therefore, the University needs to pay extra attention to international students who are currently in Australia, in order to ensure that they have a wide social network and protective factors to get them through this isolating time.

This could mean increasing pastoral support in residences and providing more opportunities for international and domestic students to network and form friendships. The ANU needs to acknowledge international students’ hardship and provide more opportunities for international students to develop a sense of belonging. These steps are easier said than done an requires extensive communication between ANU and the wider international students’ community. Consultations need to be done in order to understand their specific needs and genuine commitment needs to be pledged by the University. Apart from the on-campus international community, ANU also needs to strategise and find a way to reach out to off-campus international students.

They are a tricky group to understand as offcampus international students are likely to have established a strong social network prior to the pandemic, but equally vulnerable to social isolation due to the lack of supervisory support.

Yet international students who are currently in their home country should not be forgotten either. The ANU has successfully moved into online learning in Semester 1 relatively quickly. The University provided the first group of affected international students, Chinese students, the option to defer their studies or enrol in long-distance learning. Prior to the COVID-19 situation, ANU has generally preferred in-person learning and online learning is often not an option for international students, due to visa requirements. It is natural

for students to be doubtful of the quality of teaching that ANU can provide online. The ANU needs to quickly adapt to the feedback from Semester 1 and find effective ways to add value to the learning that offshore students can access.

Plenty of students have requested that the University reduce its hefty fees as students are potentially learning and gaining less from long-distance teaching. Based on the current financial climate at the ANU, it is improbable to expect the University to reduce school fees as it may lead to more complicated problems in future. The ANU needs to find a quick and effective way to convince their offshore international students that their $20,000 per semester fees are still worth paying for. This could mean tweaking courses to be interesting and engaging online, with fair and effective assessment methods. This also means that the University needs to avoid having anxietyinducing exams that are worth 80%, simply due to logistical issues to implement an assessment mid-term. This will also mean that course convenors need to be more creative than ever in finding ways to make their courses and assessments value-for-money.

These are not easy adjustments to make.

Particularly due to the short time frame involved. However, if ANU wishes to continue being the most ‘international’ university in Australia and maintain its stellar reputation amongst international students, sincere and effective commitments need to be made now more than ever. I believe that ANU does care for its students and is trying to make the best of the situation. However, in this frustrating situation that the world is caught up in right now, it is extremely easy for us to assume the worst. ANU needs to play its cards right and convince their current and prospective international students that they do care, and they are not simply ‘cash cows’ to keep the University in the green.

17.

18.

ARTWORK: Emily O’Neill

The Law on Trial

By Tian Kaelin Content Warning: Violence, Racism

Before 2020 began, DEFUND THE POLICE was largely considered a statement too radical to grace the stages of public discourse. After all, no one alive today can remember a time without law enforcement and prison. We take the police for granted because we’ve been taught that this system is the only way to protect us from ourselves. The ongoing international Black Lives Matter movement, however, is proving that for racial minorities, especially Black people, the police more readily shoot than serve. The movement calls for an exposure of the police’s systematic flaws that may only be remedied by a complete deconstruction of the institution.

The switch has been flicked, the white fluorescents turned on, and law enforcement has been forced to take its seat in the interrogation room. How do you explain the police’s institutionalised racism? Why are officers so seldomly punished for cases of brutality? What purpose does this corrupt system serve in today’s communities? These questions, previously lurking in the shadowy corners of ‘radical’ politics, have been illuminated. Audiences who might have automatically dismissed the idea of police abolition (defunding’s parent ideology, and one closely linked in aim) are beginning to realise this trick of the light may have more substance

than initially believed.

Discussions of defunding and abolition are not new. For decades, activists have asked: why do we accept the human rights abuses – assault, degradation of human life – that blatantly occur at the hands of police, disproportionately to minorities? Certainly, vigorous and harsh policing is as expected in our society as high school and supermarkets and considered by many to be just as necessary. Advocates for police abolition, however, question the necessity of such systems in our current setting.

American activists such as Angela Davis and Ruth Wilson Gilmore have written extensively on the haunting evolution of the modern police force from the patrols who hunted down the criminals of the 18th and 19th century – escaped slaves. If we’ve abolished slavery, why do we still rely on a similar system of policing?

Abolitionists believe today’s law enforcement has been allowed to accumulate more power than our social setting should allow, that it serves not only as a first responder but also as judge, jury and – in all too many cases – executioner.

At this point it might be worth clarifying that abolitionists and defunding advocates aren’t just erratically waving flashlights in people’s eyes calling for Purge-esque anarchy.

19.

20.

The abolition movement recognises the necessity of a force to apprehend actively dangerous people. However, they identify the institution that has repeatedly killed unarmed or detained people as severely flawed.

They understand these flaws as being inherent to its very structure, and therefore the only way to address them is by complete dismantlement. Over-weaponisation and unreliable punishment systems have been cited as the primary enablers of police violence. If defunded, law enforcement would need to rely on peaceful de-escalation tactics as opposed to suppressive weapons. Police abolitionists support this reconstruction, a process that can only be effectively kick-started by reducing the funds, and therefore the power, that permits the police to commit acts of brutality.

Although yet to receive the same international scrutiny as the United States, Australia is far from innocent of police violence. Prejudices present against Indigenous Australians and racial profiling in the Australian police force often lead to escalation when interacting with Indigenous Australians, resulting in a detention rate disproportionately affecting this group.

Indigenous Australians are one of the most incarcerated demographics in the world, making up 27% of Australian inmates while comprising only 2% of the national population in 2018. Debbie Kilroy, a lawyer working for and with incarcerated women, wrote: “Prisons have ravaged Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families and communities...

Pipelined from out-of-home ‘care’ to youth prisons to homelessness, poverty and adult prisons, women and girls are trapped in a cycle of government failure.”

The inability of the Australian government and police to understand and address the underlying causes of crime in Indigenous communities – systematic racism, generational health and poverty issues – means incarceration rates continue to grow, and with them, rates of state-sanctioned violence against Indigenous Australians. Since the 1991

Royal Commission into Indigenous deaths in custody, over 430 Indigenous people have died while imprisoned. No officers or prison staff have been convicted for these deaths.

The current Black Lives Matter movement is ensuring that these injustices no longer have a dark corner to hide in. Increasingly, the idea of police as inalienable is being questioned.

The anger of marginalised groups targeted by the police has become too potent for gradual reformist policies to be widely satisfactory. Who do these policies benefit? More importantly: who don’t they benefit? For example, mandatory bodycam usage is a consequential policy – it requires the brutality to already have occurred for the footage to be useful, at which point someone’s parent, sibling or child has lost their life. Policies aimed at gradual reformation are often treatment of symptoms, not prevention of the problem embedded in the very origin of the police. It is the latter that the abolitionist and defunding movement is aimed at.

DEFUND THE POLICE calls for governments to stop financing a broken system and redirect funds into community education, social services, drug and mental health rehabilitation, and to cease incarceration for nonviolent crimes such as unpaid fines. Police abolition proposes replacing a large percentage of police officers with health and social workers more capable of recognising and mitigating the underlying causes of a triple zero call. For these changes to occur, abolitionists propose we must 1) reveal police crimes through movements like Black Lives Matter, and 2) reduce the power of the current outdated institution, a process that starts with defunding.

Thrust under the interrogative fluorescents, the structural flaws of law enforcement become clearer each day. The institutional failure to serve and protect marginalised groups can no longer be ignored. The police claim to be the purveyors of justice, but for their own crimes, abolition may be the only punishment severe enough.

ARTWORK: Milly Yates

Pegging a Petrodollar

By Lachlan Holt Joke 1 A young boy walks into his father’s office.

“Can I have some money to buy a bitcoin?”

His father looks up from his newspaper. “How much?” “$10.” “$45? Do I look like I have $204? Where am I going to get $13?”

The joke is that Bitcoin’s prices fluctuate a lot…

I’ll wait for the raucous guffawing to die down.

But as funny as that side-splitter was, to people that must deal with exchange rates for a living, this is serious business. Let’s say you sold onesies for cats that have their owner’s face on them… you know… to really hammer home the loneliness… and you tried to sell these yourself, pricing them in each country’s native currency.

Joke 2 A young boy walks into his father’s office.

“Can I have some money?”

His father looks up from his newspaper.

“How much?” “$67 Arubian Florins.” “$113 New Israeli Shekels? Do I look like I have $38 Costa Rican Colons? Where am I going to get $4 Polish Zloty?”

A good joke is worth repeating.

So, if you’re trading one product all around the world, it’s prohibitively difficult to figure out how much to charge. It’d be a lot easier if you just used one currency. Thankfully, almost everyone trades in US dollars.

Joke 3 A young boy walks into his father’s office.

“Can I have some money?” His father looks up from his newspaper.

“How much?” “$10.” “$10.02? Do I look like I have $9.99? Where am I going to get $10.01?”

The joke’s still a hit.

“But wait,” some of the more pedantic of you readers cry, “there is still some change each time.” Right you are. There would still be a difference in exchange rates between your currency and the US dollar.

21.

22.

There isn’t a huge difference, but with the scale of sales of Cutesie CatsieTM, discrepancies in price add up to a lot of money. The solution?

Peg your currency to the dollar. This means that your currency is always worth the exact same number of dollars.

Joke 4 A young boy walks into his father’s office.

“Can I have some money?”

His father looks up from his newspaper. “How much?” “$10.” “$10? Do I look like I have $10? Where am I going to get $10?”

You get the idea.

This is exactly what petrocurrencies do. A country with a petrocurrency is just a currency that’s main export is oil. Bubbling Crude. Texas Tea. None of this extra virgin garbage. These nations rely so heavily on the price of oil, that they peg themselves to the US dollar in order to keep it stable. Places like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates all follow this method.

This is good for trade, but it does mean you are very dependent on oil prices going up.

As Venezuela can tell you, when oil prices are good, they are very very good and when they are bad, they are horrid. This would be like finding out your cat onesie is knitted out of lavender. If you already knew cats were allergic to lavender, you know too much about cats.

In good times, these countries make more money than they know what to do with, and in bad , they starve. Let me stand on my biodegradable hippy soapbox and point out that oil is not a renewable resource. Eventually, oil wells dry up. To these Petrocurrencies, this is what you would call, a bit of a bummer.

So how do you fix this?

Well let’s say that after you had to discontinue Cutesie CatsieTM, you had millions of dollars in sales, but no way of getting any more. Would you:

A) Blow it all on a drunken bender in Vegas with cocaine and women?

B) Invest the money in shares like the kind of sweater-wearing cretin that reads the financial section of a newspaper and really enjoys chess?

If you picked B, congratulations, you’re thinking like a petrocurrency giant. When a country gets so much money so quickly that it doesn’t know what to do with it, rather than throw a rager, it invests the cash into a sovereign wealth fund. This is sometimes known as Petrodollar recycling, but the scientific term is ‘a big ol’ pile of stocks, bonds and assets.’ When the money from the oil runs out, these countries can use the dividends they make off the sovereign wealth fund to pay for government services.

This means that Kuwait, with its sovereign wealth fund of 650 billion, Saudi Arabia with 900 billion and the UAE with its fund of 1.35 trillion, seem to own just about 1 percent of everything on the planet. It also makes these oil producers some of the world’s leaders in the funding of renewable energies. Doesn’t that just mess with your moral picture of climate change?

Joke 5 A young boy walks into his father’s office.

“Can I have some money?”

His father looks up from his newspaper. “How much?”

The child’s phone pings.

“Wait, never mind. My amazon stock just paid me a couple thousand in dividends.”

The child walks out of the room.

The father, being nothing but a facilitation device for this joke, continues to read his paper, trapped in an endless purgatory, waiting for a punchline that never comes.

He is not needed anymore.

His life lacks all meaning.

The point of all this was to teach you a bit about currency pegs, sovereign wealth funds and how some countries with no resources can still make money, but I promise you that the only thing you will remember is that terrible joke.

ARTWORK: Maddy Brown 23.

The Biggest Threat

By Mai Greenall

In political science, the quickest way to create change is, by definition, a revolution. The details surrounding how political revolutions in our history have unfolded are largely glossed over. It’s often easier to view revolutions as suddenly occurring events perpetrated by a few radicals who were able to sway the populous into taking arms against a governing faction with a charismatic call to action and a promise of emancipation. History demonstrates a different reality. A perpetual cycle of perceived democracy crumbling into tyranny. A revolving door of actors performing the same play.

The American War of Independence provides a great example. It was a war waged in reaction

to the imposition of British control and a King who made decisions based on his whims and personal gain. During the birth of the new nation, documents such as the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were purportedly created based on the principle that, as Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence, “… All men are created equal, and they are endowed… with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and happiness”. The irony of this? The intentions of the Founding Fathers guaranteed that the United States of America would never be a true democracy. Thomas Jefferson, along with many other founding fathers, owned and abused slaves.

24.

The sheer existence of a system like the Electoral College proves that true representation of the people’s will was never important, but rather the opinion of a select elite who deemed that they knew far better than the people beneath them. Their opinion on who was the head of State was merely a suggestion.

In this, the United States takes the form of an aristocracy, in the Platonic sense, rather than the democracy it markets itself to be. When our current democratic systems were built, they never intended to represent people of colour, women, LGBTQI+ people, equality, liberty and happiness, they established a regime to consolidate the power of the ruling class of the time - wealthy white men who owned property. This was, and is, not a matter of systemic immaturity. Rather, it demonstrates the architecture of supremacy and oppression synonymous with oligarchy and, ultimately, tyranny. The citizens of the United States gave their power to a system that ultimately had the same fundamental shortcomings that they fought against. The evening performance of the matinee play.

Both of these systems are underpinned by two beliefs: Firstly, that someone has an inherent and divine right to rule over others, and secondly that every person who is anointed or seeks out this power has the collective’s best interest at heart. Addressing the first principle, governing with a belief that you are free, entitled and justified to act however you choose because you have a divine right to do so is a complete disregard of the responsibility the collective has to the true principle of liberty and fraternity - that we must act upon our free will responsibly, without impeding on others freedoms and lives. When we give away our power to others because of this impractical ideal, we fundamentally betray the ideals of true liberty and free will. Secondly, it’s impossible to guarantee the integrity of those who sit in positions of divine rule.

The architecture of the systems that they are manipulating has no true foundation of fraternity to support accountability.

A true revolution is the oligarch’s biggest threat. Our current perception of revolution is that it’s the consequence of a cycle of greed, oppression and mistrust created by the agency of supremacy, festering until we are driven to find relief from the discomfort of our failing society. We revolt against a lack of vision that prevents society from valuing every member’s contribution, and against those who are more concerned with the illusion of power and how to maintain it. History shows us that no matter how many times we enter the phase of democracy, there is clear evidence that the architecture still contains a tyrannical platform that can be reactivated.

And so, thousands of years of this cycle has given rise to an ingrained mindset, submitting to the architecture of divine rule.

The architects cleverly design the structure to continually feed a narrative that any form of revolution is a bad thing. By maintaining this negative focus on revolution, it’s easy to distract us from the existential threat we pose to the cycle of tyranny. We are taught to hyperfixate on the gruesome, often state-sponsored violence of some revolutions and blame the oppressed for the suffering they endured. Our media and other corrupted systems constantly keep our focus on the fear/comfort paradigm, discouraging contemplation and a challenging of higher authority. Our current world events afford us another opportunity to break the cycle.

So, what could a true revolution look and feel like? Is a true revolution a step in the evolution of humanity? Is it completely deconstructing systems that enforce tyranny and unequivocally renouncing them? Once we have dismantled these corrupted systems, we must address our complicity and acceptance of them. We need to take time to conduct an in-depth postmortem to understand exactly why it failed us.

Only then can we start to rebuild with integrity, empowering a diverse group of people that truly represent us, and equally empowering all citizens to embrace a new movement that embodies liberty and fraternity. We can break the cycle and evolve if we choose to. In fact, we must.

ARTWORK: Alice Dunkley

The Post-COVID Economy

By Marlow Meares For the first time in most university students’ lifetimes, Australia is in recession. But this is not an ordinary recession. It is a recession that I think will change our society for the better.

When we hear of the current state of the economy, the phrase “this is the worst recession since the Great Depression” is often used. So, what happened in the Great Depression and what did the economy look like after it?

Unemployment in 1929 reached up to 30 percent. The government of the United States responded to the depression in a way that is unimaginable now. Based upon the

economic thinking of the time, the government pursued cuts of 20 percent to spending and 10 percent to wages in the name of ‘balancing the budget’. This was well intended but only worsened the economic environment.

Whilst the Great Depression was occurring, a Cambridge mathematician-turned-economist known as John Maynard Keynes wrote of a Keynes’ theory was not adopted in the Great Depression, but ten years later when another crisis shook the globe, World War II, his theories were welcomed by policy makers across the world. new way of approaching economic crises.

25.

28.

Keynes thought that when the economy enters a recession, governments should spend more money than they earn, creating a budget deficit.

In Australia we pursued a policy that was known as Full Employment , where the government facilitated a job for anyone who was willing to work. There was massive stimulus to welfare, housing, electricity generation and manufacturing after the war. And this was all done based on Keynesian theories.

Fast forward to a decade ago when the Global Financial Crisis threatened the livelihoods of Australians. Our policy makers continued this near century-old Keynesian method. The Labor Government injected billions of dollars into the economy, saving Australia from recession whilst creating a budget deficit.

Since that deficit was created, it has been the mission of both sides of politics to ‘balance the budget’ and deliver a surplus. At the 2019 election, the Liberals based their campaign off delivering a surplus in 2020 whilst Labor promised an even bigger surplus than the Liberals.

However, no one could predict COVID-19.

Instead of delivering the first surplus since 2008, this year the government is going to create the largest budget deficit in history.

The deficit is predicted to be upwards of $200 billion whilst debt will exceed $1 trillion.

These are financial figures which are incomprehensible. And something is going to have to change in our management of the economy. Right now, I am taught in my economics major that governments should achieve a budget surplus and then pay down debt. Australia won’t achieve a budget surplus whilst I’m at university and it will take at least 20 years of budget surpluses to pay back the $1 trillion of debt. I will be nearing retirement before Australia can achieve what I’m told is ‘good economic management’.

So what needs to change? Like Keynes did in the 1930s, there are already economists now thinking of new ways to approach budget management. And whatever new approach is adopted, it needs to consider that budget deficits must be continued in the long run.

The only way you can create a budget surplus, especially in the post-COVID economic environment, is if governments tax more than they spend. There are only two ways to achieve this: 1. Spending stays the same whilst taxes are increased 2. Spending is cut whilst taxes stay the same When unemployment is above 10 percent and the economy is in the worst recession since the Great Depression, doing any of those two things in the name of a ‘balanced budget’ would only spiral us into a deeper recession. It is what occurred in the Great Depression and we’re still learning from it a century later. But we need to do more than just learn from the mistakes of the past. We need to respond to the issues that pervade our current economy.

Wage growth was stagnant even before the crisis. That needs to change. The workforce was increasingly casualised before the crisis.

That needs to change. The climate was not at the forefront of economic policies before the crisis. That needs to change. And marginalised groups in society had not achieved economic equality before the crisis. That too needs to change.

When we can acknowledge that budget deficits are now going to be integral in our postCOVID economy, and when we acknowledge that there are systemic barriers in the economy, we can progress the economic management of Australia to a more inclusive economy that promotes sustainable growth.

This is the worst recession since the Great Depression. And this is a horrific economic environment to be living in. But it is also a moment which will change the future of our world. Let’s hope that change is for the better.

26.

Why the US Dollar is a Beast Author: Lachlan Holt

Imagine a marathon. Each country’s currency is a contestant. Most are far behind, stopping to catch their breath and grab a quick smoko break. Some have broken away into their own little pack.

Chariots of Fire and Australia is running like they just stole something… which they probably did. There’s only one problem… they’re both 4-foot-tall and their little legs can only run so fast.

Sweden’s Krona and Switzerland Franc’s are chugging along, sticking to the centre of the group to conserve energy, and keeping hydrated.

Zimbabwe’s dollar decided to start juicing to get an edge… and ran into a brick wall.

Great Britain’s Pound, on the other hand, is powering ahead confidently, if only they could stop dropping hurdles in front of themselves to trip over.

The European Union’s Euro evidently got the wrong memo and have taped all their legs together. Now they’re too busy bickering about who isn’t running fast enough to actually run.

Canada’s running like they just watched

Japan’s Yen was surging ahead of the competition and some even thought it was leading, but a while ago it blew a hamstring and has been limping along ever since.

Russia’s Rubel is a hulking behemoth of a man… with the little baby legs of Australia.

Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin weren’t invited to the race and are at home furiously sprinting on a treadmill and live streaming their results.

ARTWORK: Alice Dunkley And finally, the Malaysian Ringgit… is irrelevant but admit it, that’s a cool name for a currency.

That leaves the two main contenders: America’s Dollar and China’s Renminbi, also known as the Yuan.

China actually can run faster than it currently is, and many think it should. Maybe it will in the future, who knows. But for now, China has a side bet going and will make more money if it’s not in the lead, so whenever they start to pick up speed, they jam a fork into their thigh.

Now, I didn’t mention it before but America is hosting this marathon. Unbeknownst to the other runners, America pooled together all the fees that the other countries paid to enter the race and has paid Usain Bolt to run for them.

As you can imagine, this slapdash group of miscreants don’t stand a chance against Bolt.

So, when it comes time to bet on the race, every punter with cash in their pockets puts their chips on America.

This is important so I will say it again. Since everyone expects Bolt to win, everyone bets on Bolt.

This is even if America (Bolt) messes up. Even if falters, no one is banking on Bolt being overtaken by the likes of baby legs Rubel.

There are two other factors to this race that makes it weird. Clearly its originator was a big Keanu Reeves fan because the track is rigged to explode if everyone drops below 50 mph.

Effectively, all currencies can’t be worth $0 all at the same time. The second factor comes from the Hunger Games movies... Do you remember that scene where popular contestants are given care packages from the viewers at home to help them survive, teaching children the importance of being popular and the value of match fixing?

Well, the economy is like that.

You see, everyone has a lot of money riding on

Usain Bolt winning. Not only the viewers, but the other runners have bet that Bolt will win. So much so that the reward for winning the race is less than winning the bet on Bolt.

So if Bolt trips up (from a national financial meltdown) or leads all the runners down the wrong path (like a global financial crisis), there is always someone desperate enough to not lose their bet that they will strap a rocket to Bolt’s back (in the form of Quantitative Easing and the buying of US Bonds).

If instead Bolt decides he wants to slow down (and we’ve all seen him do it before), the rest of the runners might slow down to match him, ending up in the world’s dorkiest power walk.

It might not seem like it, but most currencies don’t want Bolt to lose.

Much like China hobbling themselves and keeping their economy undervalued, countries would rather have a high-valued US dollar to help with trade.

This leads to its own problem (the Triffin Dilemma) but that’s an issue for another metaphor.

This is starting to get confusing. For now, all that matters is that when things are good, people bet on the US dollar and when things are bad… people bet on the US dollar.

So, if you’ve wondered, amidst COVID and skyhigh healthcare debts and student loan debts, how the American Economy can be doing so well, just picture Usain Bolt with a rocket so big it would make Kim Jong Un blush. Just don’t Google it.

27.

ARTWORK: Eliza Williams

Not Your Usual Revolutions: A Review of Behind the Lines 2019

By Nick Mezo “Australian history is boring and dull and largely irrelevant to the trajectory of the future of the world.”

So wrote Chris Rice on The Age’s website in 2012.

His comment was in response to the revelation that Australian history would not be a stand-alone Year 11 or 12 subject in the national curriculum.

“The big questions, the genocides, the conquests, the revolutions, the things shaping the world aren’t happening in Australia,” Rice continued.

Rice’s view is shared by many. A thread on Reddit debating whether Australia’s history only consists of “bogans with beards” offers much excitement.

One historian concedes: “our students often leave school feeling that Australia’s history is boring and dry as dust”.

29.

30.

Rice is correct that Australia has never experienced a political revolution. Yet, as a current exhibition at the Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House affirms, Australian history is hardly mundane.

The exhibition in question – Behind the Lines – catalogues some of 2019’s “best political cartoons”. Although its purview is restricted to one year, the exhibition is a reminder that Australia confronts many challenges. From the Murray Darling Basin Royal Commission report in January, to bushfire responses in December, the exhibition chronicles a turbulent year.

Behind the Lines is frequently playful. One sketch that looks like it could feature in a children’s book features ‘actifishts’ – sea creatures aligning to spell out ‘REEF NOT COAL’. ‘Stop Adani’ reads a sign in the corner, held by a clownfish.

The rest of the exhibition is both joyful and sombre. One cartoon mourns former Nationals Leader and Deputy Prime Minister Tim Fischer, who supported Prime Minister John Howard’s gun control measures against the opposition of much of his party’s rural base. Arriving at the gates of heaven, a dishevelled Fischer is greeted by Saint Peter. “Ah, Mister Fischer!!

There’s heaps more room up here than we expected … thanks to your courage on gun law reform”.

For those bored with Australia’s lack of revolutions, Behind the Lines provides an answer. Australia is undergoing revolutions all the time. What is more, we have many left to go.

Let’s start with the first of my takeaways.

Although rooted in 2019, many of the displays in Behind the Lines engage with Australia’s past. Some cartoons comment on the hardwon abolishment of Uluru’s tourist climbs.

Others comment on constitutional recognition of First Nations Australians. Those sketches emphasise that history is anything but boring for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Indeed, if a revolution is “a forcible overthrow of a government or social order”, I argue it’s

difficult not to characterise the dispossession of First Nations peoples this way.

What’s more, Behind the Lines reminds us that Australian revolutions are ongoing. A series of cartoons on the environment, political representation and refugees challenges Australians to do better. The exhibition’s lengthiest cartoon mourns the recent extinction of an Australian rodent due to climate change.

Our ongoing destruction of species are surely “forcible overthrows,” and thus sinister revolutions, to nature.

Behind the Lines is not perfect. The exhibition’s framing as a rock tour through 2019 does not add much value and frequently feels forced.

A friendly greeter dressed as a mid-century reporter, stationed at the exhibition’s opening, reminds visitors of the importance of satire.

That is an important message, but there is surely a better way of conveying it.

Still, Behind the Lines is an entertaining, thought-provoking way to spend one’s afternoon. It also dovetails well into a second exhibition on Australian journalism, which delivers something absent from Behind the Lines: a look at those behind publications. A more mentally taxing exhibition, one might prefer to tour the latter first. Both activities are free.

Behind the Lines is also a needed reminder that the Australian story is full of pain and triumphs. This country is more interesting than a land of “bogans and beards”. What is more, our contributions to that story matter. Every day, all around us, the ‘Australian revolutions’ continue.

Details and bookings for Behind the Lines 2019 can be found on the Museum’s website.

ARTWORK: Emily O’Neill

Science Needs a Language Revolution

By Andy Yin Content Warning: Racism

Throughout history, revolutions in science and technology have changed the way we look at the world and the way we live. Though initially drastic or controversial, many changes become commonplace in time. The language used in STEM is no exception.

Changes in scientific language are often motivated by political reasons. The metric system, now standard in the sciences, was introduced after the French Revolution as part of reforms to clear away the remnants of the monarchical ancien régime.

A change that didn’t catch on was the French Republican calendar, stripped of religious and royalist references and including months like Pluviôse (parts of January and February) and Thermidor (parts of July and August).

31.

32.

In more recent years, there has been a drive to replace the scientific and technical terminology with lingering racist connotations. In quantum computing, some scientists have urged the replacement of ‘quantum supremacy’ – meaning a future stage where quantum computers outperform conventional computers – with ‘quantum advantage’. In computer science, ‘master’ and ‘slave’, referring to an original database and a copy, have been replaced in many places by ‘primary’ and ‘replica’.

The past few months have also seen name changes to institutions named after racists.

The Watson School of Biological Sciences was renamed in early July , removing the name of James Watson, the Nobel laureate known for a 1953 paper that posited DNA’s double helix structure. The School’s parent institution, where Watson had once served as director, had previously cut ties with him due to comments about race, genetics, and intelligence in a 2019 documentary, American Masters: Decoding Watson. Meanwhile, University College London is considering renaming buildings named after statisticians Francis Galton and Karl Pearson, both well-known proponents of eugenics.

A scroll through the huge Wikipedia article, List of name changes due to the George Floyd protests is enough to see how many institutions are making changes. While some may be driven by the Black Lives Matter movement to make a lasting difference, many will satisfy their consciences by only repainting a sign or using ‘find and replace’ on a website.

For example, GitHub, the largest code hosting platform in the world, announced this June that it would discontinue the user of ‘master’ , less than a year after it renewed a $200,000 software contract with ICE, the US agency responsible for inhumane mass detentions of migrants.

The contract led to protests and numerous resignations by GitHub staff. While the removal of a single offensive term is arguably a step towards justice, GitHub’s attempted activism

is almost imperceptible in light of these wrongdoings.

Yet even the smallest note of anti-racist action faces vehement resistance from a significant number. A Change.org petition (whose creator did not make their name public) against GitHub retiring the phrase ‘master’ has gained over 3000 signatures. The time spent on making this petition and arguing against such a minor change overweighs by far the small amount of time GitHub spent on making it.

Reactions like this are a disheartening sign to marginalised groups in STEM that more important, systematic changes will only face fiercer resistance.

Nevertheless, there is cause for hope – this year’s surge of anti-racist action has not ignored STEM. A week after an incident in Central Park on May 25, where a dog owner called the police on Black birdwatcher Christian Cooper for asking her to leash her dog, a group of scientists organised an online event called Black Birders Week. It celebrated Black naturalists and challenged the discrimination and even danger faced by Black people who explore the outdoors. On June 10, the ShutDownSTEM initiative called for STEM professionals to stop work for a day and spend time planning to combat racism in their institutions.

These initiatives are riding a wave of heightened support for anti-racist activism in STEM, but it’s not clear how long this wave will last. It’s also not clear how many institutions will settle for changing racist language or how many will push for structural change. Although it’s not a revolution of new technology or scientific methods, we are living through a revolution in STEM, and it will take a concerted effort to ensure that the changes are in more than name.

ARTWORK: Milly Yates

An Open Letter to Those Uncomfortable with Their Privilege

By Aditi Dubey

My first instinct is to tell you to shut the fuck up and move to the side so that people with a better understanding of the world can get things done. But I won’t do that. It probably wouldn’t be helpful and it would push you even further away from understanding things that are very important to understand. Instead, I’m just going to try to explain things, as nicely as I can, and hope that you will listen.

So, you’ve been told that you have privilege.

Maybe you’re a man, or white, or straight, or cis-gender, or all of those things. You staunchly disagree with the people who tell you have privilege. I get it. I understand why you do that. I have an immense amount of privilege.

In Australia, I am a woman of colour, not really someone who’s at the top of the pyramid.

However, back home in India, everyone is a person of colour so I don’t really face any disadvantages on that front. I’m a woman and we don’t have it great in India, but I am privileged in many other ways. India’s economic divide is very wide. I’m lucky enough to be on the better side of it. Caste discrimination is alive and well and I have the privilege of being

upper caste. I was educated in a school that taught in English. I was able to go to university and get a Bachelor’s degree. I was even able to come to Australia to get a Master’s degree.

These are all signs of privilege.

My experience might not be a familiar one to those of you who grew up in Australia or other countries. India has its own complex social issues which do not exist in the same way in Australia. Despite the obvious differences, I think my experience is, in fact, quite relevant even to a foreign country. Many deeply rooted inequalities exist in Australia. I am not here to teach you about them– there are many resources through which you can gain a deeper understanding of how those of certain races, genders, sexual orientations and religious backgrounds suffer greatly in this country. I am here to show you how those of us with privilege should deal with it. The instinctual response is to reject it, and to go up in arms against those who point out our privilege. We must do better than that. I hope this article can help you see that.

33.

34.

Let’s go back to the word I mentioned earlier: ‘suffer’. I think that the notion of suffering is at the root of the discomfort with privilege.

Everyone thinks that they suffer. For many people, the notion of privilege directly contradicts the notion of suffering because to them, one cannot be privileged if they have suffered. Now, while it’s true that all people suffer in some way in their lifetime, not everyone suffers in the same way or for the same reasons. A lot of suffering is linked directly to a person’s identity (their gender, race, caste, sexual orientation, etc.). Those who are privileged in these respects may still suffer, but their suffering is not a direct result of who they are.

The world is made up of systems and institutions that we’re all a part of, whether we like it or not. These systems are built in ways that disadvantage certain types of people. This is not my opinion. This is a fact. Look at the statistics for wealth distribution, distribution of political power, incarceration rates and education levels for any country. You will see clear disparities. This is not a coincidence, nor is it some kind of genetic flaw. No person is born inherently less intelligent or more prone to crime or less inclined to hold positions of leadership and power. These discrepancies are created by systems. Many of us benefit from them while many others suffer. That is what privilege is. A white man can be extremely poor and have an immense amount of suffering in his life, but his struggle is not a result of his whiteness. However, black people in the United States or Aboriginal people in Australia deal with poverty and injustice that has been passed down through generations and is embedded in the system. That is the difference.

Not being a part of a minority or underprivileged community gives you advantages in ways that you don’t even realise.

None of us want to admit that we’ve been freely handed anything. We all want to feel like we deserve everything we have. But for many of us, that is simply not the case, and

it is crucial to understand that. For example, my family members were proud of me when I got accepted to ANU. Many of them said that it was because I did so well at university and because I did so many other things like learning foreign languages and volunteering.

I did do those things. I did try my hardest to get good grades and learn as much as I could.

But I was given opportunities. I was given the opportunity to go to a university, to attend private language schools, to spend my time volunteering instead of working because I already had money. This is what I want to make absolutely clear – saying that you have privilege is not saying that you haven’t worked hard, it’s saying that you were given opportunities in places where a lot of others faced obstacles.

You might have a good job and that could be because you worked for it, but it could also be, at least in part, because the employer saw a white male name on the resume.

So, what does this mean? That you have to spend your whole life apologetic for your privilege and start viewing the world around you in terms of structures of inequality and injustice? Well, yes.

I have tried to be nice and sugarcoat things as much as I can. But there are some bitter pills that just need to be swallowed. The world is full of inequality. Some of us are given advantages just because we had the good fortune of being born a certain way. We have to recognise our privilege. And more importantly, we have to want to give it up. We are given a certain position because of our privilege. It’s our responsibility to bring others up to our level.

We have a voice, but we need to lower ours and amplify the voices of those who have been silenced for so long. We have to stop thinking about ourselves. So many things are just not about us. The world is big and complex and diverse. We must see it for what it is, not just what it is for us.

35.

36. ARTWORK: Maddy Brown There’s a buzz on my phone, and my workout app unapologetically dings ‘You’ve been missing for a while, start again this week?’

It’s been two weeks since I touched that app, and I sure as hell can’t be bothered to start now. But, by the will of guilt (and guilt alone) I plug in my ear phones and kick on with Spotify’s greatest playlist: ‘motivational speeches’. Ten minutes later I am reborn, convinced that one more push up forms the building block of a ninja warrior.

I’ve tried this a million times and the mindset lasts for less than an hour. Soon enough, I find myself lying on the ground, and a Will Smithsounding guy whispers over an Avengers backtrack, ‘you are what you consume.’ He’s not talking about food, and boy does he have a point.

You want a lasting mindset? Cut out the crap.

Social media is a wonderful thing, but without the right approach it’ll rub your soul down raw and leave you with TikTok trends and an intimate knowledge of the perfect pose. What I learned in that workout was that if that is what you consume, then that is what you’ll grow. And in ten years, you’ll take a sobering look at your harvest.

Take Back Your Social Media

By Brianna King Mindless consumption is the basis of media platforms. It’s why companies invest heavily in social media advertising, and why our cookies mean so much to them. They make millions because we don’t even think about it. While their perspective is ever-expanding, ours is shrinking to the size of a screen that fits ever so neatly in our pockets. It’s an open cut datamine

and we are the product.

But the power of social media lies in the fact we can actively construct our mindset. We have the choice when it comes to who we follow and engage with. Once you select those things, once you actively turn your mind towards them, we take back the power. All that’s left is to scroll, read, and grow.

So here it is, my list for Instagram’s seeds of greatness.

• Need sanity? Try following Jay Shetty to help keep your mind in check (or other accounts that actively reinforce your values) • We live in a polar world. Stay informed and follow a range of news providers (go global, find competing opinions so you can sift out fake news, search for truth and use logic and reason to find it) • If there’s a page that puts you down with unhealthy comparison, virtually burn it with an unfollow (if you’re aggressive, block away) • Think about which friends grow your mindset or cut it down. Keep contact, but in a loving way feel free to mute them on Instagram (mmhmm put yourself first and your future self will thank you) • Think of where you want to be in five or ten years, then go follow people or accounts in that position (soon it won’t be an abstract interest, you’ll be able to ramble for hours on topic) There are 95 million Instagram posts every day.

Every single day. If we don’t sift through it, we are at the mercy of its content. This content can steal time towards our development, or it can foster it.

My explore page is currently filled with dancing teenagers, memes ‘we can all relate to’ and the right way to style a slip dress. In ten years I’ll be 32, and I hope those are the last things on my mind. Now I’m just waiting for my explore page to change, and my knowledge to build.

Maybe the first step isn’t subconscious, but very soon it will be. Keep your gaze pointed ahead and invest in yourself - it’s about time we take back control.

ARTWORK: Milly Yates

Drinking, or Rather, Cleansing from the Fountain of Youth

By Zoe Mitchell

Self-care. That hyphenated word which carries with it both an ethereal desirability, and involuntary eye roll. Or maybe that’s just me.

If this pandemic has taught us anything, it’s to wash our hands. Yet perhaps the health professionals aren’t the only ones telling us to clean up our act. If you follow any influencer, news outlet or friend who participates in a pyramid scheme, you’ll find nearly everyone’s been subliminally marketing for us to wash our face.

Being a fiend for the fashion industry, my social media has been inundated with information

such as ‘take time out’, ‘don’t beat yourself up for feeling burnt out’ and ‘now is a time to reset’. And what do all these articles suggest as a cure-all for my pandemic blues? My career crisis? My creativity rut? A facemask, of course.

In times of global crisis, people search for what brings us together and seek to identify which industries sink or swim. And in 2020, the traumatic spread of COVID-19 has given a 10-point booster to the already accelerated rise of glycolic acid, cleansers, toners, Dr. Barbara Sturm, and The Ordinary. If you can’t find the link between any of those terms, first of all, lucky you. Secondly, I’m talking about skincare.

37.

38.

Skincare is the dark horse of the beauty industry. However, it hasn’t arisen out of nowhere. I myself am not a skincare fanatic, to which my friends and family probably say thank God. I do not need another expensive hobby.

at 50 than she did at 40. On social media, the old-guard of fashion influencers are drawing suspicion for their strategic shifts from selling clothing to becoming ‘family influencers’ as they reach the ominous 30.

Admittedly, I have been to Mecca and asked one of the makeup artists to tell me about the philosophy behind Drunk Elephant. To be honest, if she hadn’t sounded so hesitant to answer my request, I probably would have caved and bought something.

Additionally, one cannot write an article about skincare and anti-ageing without mentioning the Kardashian-Jenner effect. The rise of famous plastic surgeons such as Dr Simon Ourian, who the Kardashian clan have openly praised as responsible for their fillers and injections, has normalised the attainability of idealised supermodel perfection with the right equipment and bank balance. There is a whole subset of Instagram where women flaunt their Bratz Doll-esque beauty, with perfect skin, plump lips and larger-than-life eyes. Lil Miquela, a CGI Instagram influencer, has 2.4 million followers, representing the transition of beauty engineered by a computer for mass consumption and comparison. For months, many debated whether Lil Miquela was real or a robot, and if that isn’t ironic, I don’t know what is.

Watching the skincare trend grow and flourish with everyone stuck at home has been interesting. It seems like a natural addition to complement our evolving expectations of beauty. The selling point of skincare as a preventative measure correlates with the increasing notoriety of cosmetic surgery and Facetune, inspired by the Instagram age.

Skincare’s drive for plump skin and a radiant glow is not new. It has always been used as a tool to seemingly reverse ageing with mystical combinations of chemicals to make you look 10 years younger. It’s more that, in 2020, it has a new customer.

Skincare has evolved from a product used in a last-ditch effort to attempt to slow the onset of wrinkled skin and sun damage into a holy grail for beauty gurus in their twenties seeking to erase the idea of ageing altogether from consideration. In the Instagram age, youth is the selling point, with filters intended to give us skin as smooth and soft as a baby, doe-eyed features or a sun-kissed glow. By contrast, ageing filters are a comedic standpoint designed to share with followers and send on to friends, because how outrageous that our skin appears wrinkled?! Imagine looking like that?

Contemporary popular culture encourages our predispositions towards youth valorisation.

Countless clickbait Facebook posts praise celebrities such as Jennifer Lopez for her antiageing formula which makes her look younger

I’m not trying to discount skincare rituals or the self-care phenomenon by any means.

There is definitely something to be said for taking time out, and slowing down. But what I personally, and the rest of the world it seems, is increasingly realising, is that health is wealth.

Emily Oberg of Sporty and Rich, despite her other controversies, was clearly onto something when she delivered that marketing punch. I don’t think anyone is denying that a 45-minute skincare routine is a luxury. However, tying it with concepts of self-care as a marketing strategy becomes increasingly hedonistic, as well as damaging, veering closer and closer to that cyborg beauty standard we increasingly crave.

Next time I’m in need of some self-care, maybe I’ll revisit Uglies by Scott Westerfeld.

Something tells me it might resonate differently now.

39.

The “It Girl”: A Personal Revolution

By Victoria Nguyen It feels overused, the constant expression that “this is a crazy time”. Due to the escalation of COVID-19 cases in Australia, we saw the closure of the ANU Campus, the transition to online learning and the ban on all nonessential travel. This pandemic has affected every single one of us and the long-term ramifications of this epidemic are yet to present themselves fully.

On a personal note, the recession, lockdown isolation and uncertainty surrounding this semester has been extremely hard hitting.

Before a new year begins, I always spend time trying to visualise the year ahead. My imagined

version of 2020 and the unfortunate reality stark contrasts of one another. A week before leaving, my exchange program was cancelled and the numerous housing applications, scholarship grants and course approvals I had gathered meticulously for the past year became instantly redundant. Exchange was to be an experience that would challenge my identity and push me far outside my realm of familiarity. Though I did not go on exchange, this semester has been truly formative in a way that I did not anticipate. Without the constant barrage of social events, I was forced to spend more time alone, reflecting on my thoughts.

40.

I believe there is the blurring of lines between who you truly are as a person, who your friends know you to be and how you want to present yourself and move through this world.

I’ve always thought of this in terms of a Venn diagram, where some elements overlap while others stand independent.

When I think about how I wanted to be perceived by others I picture that girl. You know the one. She is smart, talented and independent. She balances work, gets straight HD’s, gyms 4 times a week and is at every party.

Not just that though. She moves through this world gracefully and with ease.

It’s a strange exercise to map out the type of person you strive to be. Many elements of my “ideal” are simply residuals of where I place value and the characteristics of people close to me that I hold in high esteem. While I do not believe there is any fault with presenting oneself in this manner or wanting to, I do believe it can incur a missed opportunity. I do not want to be a part of a culture in which women are expected to dilute our successes and perpetuate the idea that our achievements are easy. Our achievements reflect our time and hard work. Freely expressing the energy poured into our projects allows others to appreciate the result, and recognising the difficulties we faced along the way in no way diminishes the achievement. In fact, I would argue that the opposite is true. My favourite autobiographies are those in which a person can rise above circumstance and personal difficulties. The most insightful interviews I have seen are those in which a person has achieved something unique, has been challenged or funnelled their energy fervently and deeply into an area they are passionate about.

I found this semester exceedingly difficult.

It was challenging and isolating. For the first time, I felt as though I lacked motivation and

purpose. What helped me was seeing the many open and honest discussions about mental health during the pandemic. Within my personal friendship groups, I gained comfort through commonality and the vulnerability of my friends; not the constant highlight reels on social media or the purposeful omission of their struggles.

Growing up in the digital age, social media is so heavily integrated within our lives, it feels inescapable. It is our voice; it allows us to interact and share our lives with others, revisit old memories and stay informed with current events. While social media is a useful and familiar extension of our daily lives, the idealised and carefully curated posts which saturate our news feeds are not an accurate depiction of reality and can distort our image of normalcy. Moving forward, I challenge myself to be just as willing to share my difficulties as I am my successes and to be more intentional of how I do or do not choose to use my social media platforms. I recognise the power of my voice and my actions and the effect they can have on others. While I don’t owe the world this, I am so thankful for the strong women in my life who have revolutionised my definition of an “It Girl”. I want to take every opportunity to portray the best, honest and cohesive version of myself to others, as they have done for me.

ARTWORK: Eliza Williams

The Modern Day Woman By: Queenie Ung-Lam There’s a new revolution, a loud evolution that I saw Born of confusion and quiet collusion of which mostly I’ve known A modern day woman with a weak constitution, ‘cause I’ve got Monsters still under my bed that I could never fight off - Lana Del Rey

My parents recently heard these lyrics and were thoroughly unimpressed. ‘What revolution?’ they asked, ‘If you are confused how can you start a revolution? Why would you want to start one? Are these the confused and illogical thoughts that cloud the minds of the young?’

My parents were children of the 50s and 60s, teenagers of the 70s and adults from the 80s.

They were born in the same decade when the Chinese Communist Revolution painted the lives of many red. They ran streets as barefooted and laughing children that the Communist Party of Vietnam would later claim as communal land. This would be the beginnings of a supposedly revolutionary societal structure from which they would later flee as teenagers. They celebrated the fall of the Berlin Wall with the birth of their first daughter, the end of a revolution spanning decades, the war that was, but never was.

Their histories are stamped with the notion of revolution, it is not just a concept, a word to be used lightly in pop music lyrics, but a life experience, one whose imprint continues to mark their daily.

Even with this knowledge, my relationship to the word revolution differs completely to theirs, losing the ‘proceed with caution’ sign that my parents believe inherent to its definition. I don’t see red when I hear the word revolution.

The sound of gunshots is missing, drowned out by Lana’s smoky voice and student protesters. When institutional walls within our

society crack, I cheer, toasting tequila shots in downstairs Moose. My parents’ past lives are smoke-like to me, losing their ability to tangibly affect my own thoughts on revolutions. How have history and lived experience lost the ability to influence my present?

ANU might have something to do with it. Our campus is peppered with posters where the word revolution is attached to climate rallies, political protests and general student activism.

It’s in our song lyrics, Buzzfeed articles, social media posts. It inspires visions of change, spearheaded by us, the youth, of movement where we tear down institutions which are outdated and re-instate a new order. We are reckless with the word, tossing it around, confused by its meaning, starry-eyed by the promise of change that it inspires. It is the promise of something new and shiny, more politically correct, more intersectional, more futuristic, more modern, more forward thinking.

Change. Action. More. Protest. Youth Power.

More. Change.

I have attached meaning and vision to a word until it resembles nothing at all, clouded by convoluted, contradictory and careless thoughts. They are right, my parents. I am confused.

Welcome, Lana says, to being a modern day woman with a weak constitution.

41.

42.

Language is a Revolution

By Hannah Maree

In times of revolution, language is a weapon with more power than any gun or sword.

Language has always played a profound role both as a vehicle to drive social change as well as an object that, when altered, is symbolic of new beginnings. To understand the implications of censorship on 21st century social movements and recognise the importance of access to language, it may be time to take a history lesson on two of history’s most notable revolutions.

the Revolution, such as Henri Gregoire, to both standardise the French language and make it a compulsory component of education. Words that had once not existed such as la patrie, la nation, le peuple, la fraternité and le citoyen – the homeland, the nation, the people, the fraternity and the citizen – now formed essential parts of the people’s vocabularies.

These abstract concepts, which once could never have been imagined by the people, now had words attached to them.

During the French Revolution, the fragmented nature of France’s regional dialects was considered a counterrevolutionary barrier. It limited the extent to which the laws and rights of the new republic could be understood by the population. This compelled the leaders of

Mao Zedong is well-known for his engineering of language to ignite revolutionary forces as well as to further strengthen his cult of personality during China’s Communist Revolution.

ARTWORK: Emily O’Neill He was known for changing the meaning of ancient philosophical texts to indirectly allude to new ideas in an enigmatic and indirect language style. The defining product of Mao’s way with words was the Little Red Book, a carefully collated collection of quotations encapsulating Mao’s philosophy. This was a book intended to be consumed by as many citizens as possible, thereby diffusing revolutionary discourse into the vernacular, and by extension the minds of the broader population. The Chinese Communist Party simplified Chinese characters from their previously complex, traditional forms as a means of improving literacy rates. Increasing access to literacy facilitated a broader reach of communication to drive revolution and brought an end to literacy being a symbol of privilege and aristocracy.

Regardless of whether it was for better or worse, leaders in these two revolutions recognised that by manipulating and increasing access to language they could alter the distribution of power. Once people share a common language, they gain the ability to communicate and can thereby relate to each other and recognise their similarities. How can a group of people recognise that they are being oppressed under the same system if they cannot communicate with each other?

In the dystopia portrayed by George Orwell in 1984, the totalitarian regime Ingsoc purges the English language to restrict citizens’ freedom of thought and thereby their ability to criticise the oppressive regime. Without the language to question the status quo, citizens have no power to change it. Language has evolved significantly since the days of Gregoire and Mao, but the lesson remains the same. If the internet is the soapbox of 21st century social movements, and hashtags are the language used to mobilise the masses, we must be wary of digital authoritarianism and censorship.

We can already see how language is being impacted in Hong Kong under the recently

implemented national security law. Hong Kong authorities now have the power to block platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp. Just as the lack of a common language created difficulties in the early stages of the French Revolution, a lack of common internet platforms that transcend state borders prevents global exchanges of ideas and information and thereby people’s ability to implement meaningful social change.

Authorities in Hong Kong have also taken measures to ban anti-government slogans as a means of silencing protestors. However, Hong Kongers have been able to utilise the idiomrich Cantonese language to work around this and express their dissent. For example, the traditional Chinese characters “ ”, meaning “Hong Kong” are extremely similar to the characters “ ”, meaning “banana”. Whilst the slogan “seize back Hong Kong” has been banned, protestors have replaced it with the slogan “seize back banana”. People’s desire to communicate and promote the idea of a democratic future for Hong Kong has caused significant political weight to be placed on a phrase that once would have sounded bizarre.

It seems that the Chinese Communist Party now finds themselves doing all they can to suppress the same tactics of dissent that they once relied on to cultivate revolution over seventy years ago.

History’s revolutions tell us that language is a powerful weapon. Those who seek to maintain their power will therefore do all they can to ensure that they have control over it. However, when there is a profound hunger for social change, those seeking to drive change will find creative ways of taking the weapon of language back into their own hands.

43.

44. ARTWORK: Milly Yates It’s time to say goodbye to the handshake.

Addressing the press after Victoria’s second surge of cases, the Prime Minister declared that handshakes are out of the question for “a very long time”. Researchers and medical officials have impressed on us the danger of ubiquitous handshaking in a pandemic. It has become clear that a revolution in greeting affairs is in order.

Handshakes are so ingrained within our culture that departure from the practice may very well be the hardest behavioural aspect of the crisis. Handshakes have defined historical relationships and sealed some of humanity’s biggest deals. It’s no surprise that leaders have been unable to end the practice of the handshake six months into the pandemic.

The versatility of the handshake will be sorely missed. From greeting an old friend to ending a particularly important business meeting, the handshake was useful in many situations. Alas, the handshake was also useful as a vehicle of transmission in a time of uncontrolled viral spread. This is not the first pandemic the handshaking world has had to deal with, and I wonder whether this is the first time that authorities have targeted the handshake.

Alternatively, the handshake could be just as resilient as the very virus it currently helps to transmit.

As the handshake becomes outdated and dangerous, the time is now for a radical shift towards alternate forms of greeting. I have compiled a quick list of global alternatives to the handshaking of yesteryear.

First on the list is the Japanese bow or ‘ojigi’.

This practice originates in Japan and consists of a slight tilting of the body downwards at the waist. I have been told that it is important to keep a straight back during the bow, as a bent back could be a sign of lethargy and disrespect to the recipient. I imagine this is a similar experience to receiving a limp/floppy handshake from an unfriendly colleague.

Performed at the recommended foot-anda-half distance, the Japanese bow is refined and meets the hygienic requirements of a COVID-19 beating greeting.

Second on the list is the fist-bump. Aside from the issue that it doesn’t avoid the skin to skin contact that has killed the handshake, I object to it on grounds of absurdity. I can only cringe at the prospect of a world characterised by deals sealed with the fist-bumping of the global elite. It would be as if Tony Hawk had suddenly become the President of the United States, although I understand that this would be a relief for many.

A Revolution in Greeting Affairs

By Eammon Gumley This brings us to my last suggestion, which comes from South Asia. In a similar way that the handshake formed into a near worldwide practice, the ‘namaste’ has the respectfulness and sophistication of a firm handshake whilst lacking the viral potential. Current users of the greeting are Narendra Modi (see Indian Prime Minister) and Prince Charles (see repudiated Emperor of India). Long the culturally appropriated symbol of yoga instructors (and the Crown Prince), the ‘namaste’ is a solid competitor for the zeitgeist of the postpandemic world.

The struggle to replace the handshake will be a long and arduous task. The practice that started as a demonstration that one was unarmed has evolved to become the currency of professionalism. The handshake has served us well but was ultimately too intimate for its own good. It will be missed.

Vale the handshake

ARTWORK: Maddy Brown 45.

The Ethics of Exhibiting

By Vy Tsan

In 1969, the Guerrilla Art Action Group (GAAG) drenched themselves in bull’s blood and laid in the lobby of the Museum of Metropolitan Art to protest the Vietnam War. Today, we are left to wonder why Toche and Hendricks chose to protest at the MOMA, an art museum, rather than a government office or a university. This is because the museum should be viewed as an archive, acknowledging the political power it has to legitimise and immortalise certain objects deemed to be valuable enough to have to be passed onto next generations. Art museums serve as institutions which not only legitimise canons in art, but also validate our collective memory. Monopoly of this authority by privileged groups has too often resulted in the delegitimisation of artworks by women,

First Nations artists and those of diverse ethnic backgrounds. This erases important narratives from our history.

To exhibit an object in any museum is to make a value judgement, placing it above others of its kind to form an archive. That is, a place in which historical records are stored and possibly made available to the public for generations to come. Art museums serve this purpose by preserving and collecting artworks which are in turn are deemed as priceless artefacts.

But in developing an archive, we must establish what is archivable through the process of curatorship.

46.

Like how we curate the photos that sit on the fridge or make up the grid of our Instagrams, art curatorship is a process which subjectively preserves the legacy of subjects and their creators. Artworks that are omitted may be more significant than those that are included.

They reveal how the curator has the authority to select what will be committed to public memory through preservation and praise.

MoMA’s acquisition of the canonical collection of modern art, using Alfred H. Barr Jr.’s standard of ‘critical historical importance’, invites criticism. Notable were the absences of works by Modern artists such as Lucian Freud and David Hockney before its renovation in 2004, not to mention the continued lack of representation for female and ethnically diverse artists.

When walking through galleries, women are more often the subject of artworks rather than the creator. The Guerilla Girls were forced to ask whether women have to be naked to get into the Met. Museum. Their 1989 screenprint revealed that women made up less than 5% of artists in the Modern Art Sections in 1989, yet 85% of nudes were female. These institutional exclusions are an issue echoed throughout art history.

Similarly, people of colour are also often given secondary status in exhibition, as demonstrated by MoMa’s placement of CubanChinese artist Wilfredo Lam’s The Jungle. Critic John Yau notes how it lingers in the coat room hallway rather than being exhibited in the main galleries with his Modern counterparts, Picasso or Cézanne. Segregation in art has been coined by Marci Tucker as the ‘art-apartheid’ system, most often seen in the exhibition of works by Indigenous artists. Nuanced by the oxymoronic phrase “separate but equal”, permanent collections of Indigneous works are often exhibited separately from other works of the same movement period or style. Curators argue that this is due to the fact that the works are too distinct to inhabit the same space as their non-Indigenous counterparts, however,

this perpetuates the notion that Indigneous artists create in a socio-political vacuum that is isolated from global culture. These issues are all a result of conscious curatorship when constructing exhibition and exhibition spaces, reflecting the power art institutions have in giving voice to who constructs historical narratives.

In rehabilitating our cultural institutions, we must first seek to understand the archivist before critiquing the archive.The authority that art museums have to legitimise cultural narratives cannot be used to contest and reshape socio-political values until that power is vested in those with different stories to tell.

In 2010, forty-three artists signed an open letter to the Guggenheim prohibiting the museum from exhibiting their works, followed by the Gulf Labor Coalition’s publication of this letter which formalised the boycotting of the museum as “no one should be asked to exhibit … in a building that has been constructed and maintained on the backs of exploited employees”. This shut down the construction of the Guggenheim in Abu Dhabi which exploited many immigrant workers in the UAE, ignoring living wages, poor working conditions and worker representation. We must ask ourselves: how beautiful can an object of dubious acquisition sitting in a museum funded by an oil corporation be? The ethics of exhibiting should be guided by social responsiveness and a duty to seek truth. It ends with representation for all the narratives that weave our social fabric, but starts with reforming and democratising the institutions that are stitching together our history.

The archive serves as a mirror for cultural and socio-cultural reflection. We have a social need to identify with the past and its creators, regardless of the fact that it better reflects the values of those who control its narrative. Art museums form a bridge between past, present and future contexts - and with that great power comes great responsibility.

ARTWORK: Eliza Williams

Tweeting Tyrants vs.

Instagram Poets: Will Poetry be a 21st Century Vehicle for Change?

By Juliette Brown You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I’ll rise.

- Maya Angelou

However, as WH Auden implies in his poem ‘Epitaph on a Tyrant’, traditional political speeches and rhetoric are also forms of ‘poetry’, which can be used to both manipulate and oppress:

History is an anthology of great poems.

Consider Walt Whitman’s spirited espousals of democracy or Maya Angelou and Sylvia Plath’s rumbling, fiery words that exploded and expanded the feminist space. Poetry is inherently political. The form lends itself to the use of visceral imagery. These can be mimetic of the memories of trauma and allow poets to convey the shared struggles of communities; to include and implicate. Take the punchy, fragmented and whirlwind imagery in Aracelis Girmay’s poem, ‘You Are Who I Love’:

Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after, And the poetry he invented was easy to understand; He knew human folly like the back of his hand, And was greatly interested in armies and fleets; When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter, And when he cried the little children died in the streets.

You are who I love, behind the library desk, leaving who might kill you, crying with the love songs, polishing your shoes, lighting the candles, getting through the first day despite the whisperers sniping fail fail fail Exploring racial injustice, Girmay seeks to ‘promote compassion’ with her poems. Poetic metre and rhythm also build passion and momentum. Poems easily become rallying calls, protest chants and war cries. Furthermore, spoken-word poetry allows individuals and groups to reclaim agency within the public sphere (‘The only power I recognize is the God breath in me, and all of its femininity’ - Ikysha jones, York BLM movement).

Remind you of anyone? (Epitaph on Trump?) This notion also recalls the Chinese Government’s imagery-laden rhetoric, arguably employed to obfuscate policy and control Chinese and Hong Kong Nationals.

The National People’s Congress Standing Committee’s reports on Hong Kong have likened full democracy to ‘too much chemotherapy’ that would ‘kill the patient’, in the hopes of dissuading calls for democratic reform. Poetic imagery can stagnate and obscure just as much as it can galvanise and elicit empathy.

So, how will this poetic duality manifest in the 2020s? Will poetry stoke or quell political movements? The traditional narrative of the impoverished poet going up against the Man™ in the streets, in the newspapers and in their leather-bound notebooks is no longer as pertinent as it once was.

47.

48.

Instagram poets are taking over the medium, spreading messages of hope and love and wielding their graphically-designed pens against the disseminated soundbites of politicians. Famous Instagram poets to follow include Rupi Kaur, Nikita Gill, Cleo Wade, Lang Leav, Atticus, Rachel Ricketts, Brian Bilston, Wilson Oryema and Nayyirah Waheed. The former half of the list usually explore themes of love and femininity, whilst the latter half explore more political issues.

Instagram poetry is positioned to be more impactful than ever. As other commentators have noted (such as Laura Byager in Mashable), Instagram poetry does not have to conform to traditional rules of metre and form, nor be restricted by traditional publishing methods, both of which can reinforce systemic barriers against minority poets. It’s more spontaneous and flexible, conducive to multi-medium representations that can heighten emotive effects. Instagram poetry can be shared instantly and widely, quilting the collective memories and identities of global communities, and spurring on social movements. One such poem that springs to mind is Kitty O’Meara’s poem ‘And the People Stayed Home’. It circulated during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and promoted solidarity in a time of ambivalence: And the people stayed home. And read books, and listened and rested...And the people healed.

Instagram poetry also tends to be shorter than traditional verse, making it ‘scrollable’.

This has both pros and cons. It makes it more accessible for those who would be unwilling to read lengthy poems. It adds to its political strength, as Instagram poets necessarily contribute to a wider pastiche of voices, rather than being oligarchical. Poetic dialogue under a given hashtag is likely to be nuanced – comprised of new and old poems, transplanted and reworked, and of poems in different languages and dialects. For example, the BLM hashtag raised up the voices of BIPOC poets from Australia to the Netherlands,

exploring the different issues faced by different ethnicities.

One the other hand, short Instagram poems may be less effective at evoking empathy than traditional poetry, which is relevant for political movements. You cannot sink as deeply into the memories and experiences of a writer; oneliners cannot whip you up into the flurrying breezes of democracy like ‘Leaves of Grass’ or down into the eerie depths of Hell like ‘Dante’s Inferno’.

Another (potential) problem with Instagram poetry is that it’s surprisingly commercialised.

For example, Rupi Kaur has 4 million Instagram followers and is on the Forbes 30 under 30 list.

Her debut book milk & honey has sold over 3.5 million copies and many Insta-poets are following in her successful footsteps. Though this is undoubtedly promising for the posterity of the art form, the commercialisation of poetry means that successful poets will no longer be rebellious foils to the ‘system’, but rather implicated within it. Instagram has transformed poets from starving artists into brunching business-people. Voicing radical ideas is less appealing when they are unlikely to attract sponsored collabs. The idea of ‘selling out’ is by no means new, but it’s notwithstanding a real possibility for insta-poets, and this may imperil the future political instrumentalism of the poetic form.

Overall, poetry’s place within the accoutrement of the future revolutionary is uncertain – it has the power to catapult colourful and diverse memories and opinions into the public sphere, feeding social movements. However, this will likely depend upon whether the new generation of Instagram poets will dare to travel what Robert Frost famously called ‘the road less taken’ and whether this will ‘make all the difference’.

Australian/New Zealand Instagram poetry Instagram accounts to follow: @laniyuk @tapurangajournal @blackfulla_bookclub

49.

50.

the deluge of the end

By Indy Shead The words never escaped from your lips but I knew it was the end.

For I only had one more breath in me, until I cut the cord.

You pushed me too far, you hurt me too much, and when the finale did unfold I could only sigh in relief.

I wanted to give us a chance to run from my head, because in my heart I still had faith in you.

Yet time moves slow, and this week you have broken every faith I had, every piece of love I held, every memory, every hope, every idea that you were better.

Now I agree with them all the voices of the those who love me who respect me who want the best for me who care about me and you are not one of those voices.

ARTWORK: Alice Dunkley

You said you wanted to be truthful that you were feeling guilty for lying to me for pretending that you loved me for a month when your feelings had died like my trust in you.

And I am not mad that you fell out of love a common occurrence that’s no one’s fault but the way your words fell the lack of them the inconsistency of them the pain embedded within ready to rip open my flesh and carve out my heart now that was your fault.

For weeks you hadn’t loved me but you told me you did.

And your words destroyed me emptied me left me curled over on the bathroom floor crying lacking understanding confused and unknowing when the pain of being betrayed of losing faith and trust would subside.

You told me you were there to support me but then when life gets real you run for the hills.

You told me you didn’t care enough about me that talking to me was just part of your routine.

51.

52.

You lied for months.

You hid the signs.

And then didn’t have the guts to pull the trigger.

You pushed me away, told me something was wrong then went missing for days kept me guessing with snippets of incoherent texts, morsels which I was forced to dissect and question again and again.

I trusted you and you broke it.

I loved you and you made my heart bleed.

When I needed your support you weren’t there.

And the reason you lied to protect me because I don’t take things well because I’m emotional because my parents just split so you decided that avoiding me, that making me worry about our relationship, that making me second guess everything, that lying to me,

53.

that running and hiding like the coward you are was the solution.

You made me cry you made me feel nauseous every time you messaged because I was scared because I was worried of what you would say because deep down I knew I was about to be hurt.

And when you didn’t message at all I wasn’t surprised.

But then when you said goodbye a weight disappeared.

I can finally breathe and the air has never tasted so sweet.

The deluge of relief soaked me to the bone.

They say you have to kiss a few frogs to find your prince but you are just a tadpole and I don’t need saving.

54..

The Man in the Mist

By A. Banfield-Powell

Away from the battle I fled in great haste, Fearing for my life and the weight of my sin.

The scent of death in my mouth I did taste, And wonder of the coffin they’d bury me in.

When at once I did notice, my surrounds, A fearful and decrepit place quite rotten.

A swamp, once a grave yard, peppered with mounds, Holding the bones of the dead long forgotten.

Behind piled tomb stones I made myself masked, My pursuers clothed in the pale moon’s light.

Gleefully talking of what had been tasked, Lusting like beasts for the next savage fight.

They searched as an owl may search for its prey, Keen eyes on tenterhooks for alien presence.

Upon them time seemed not to weigh, Determined they were to vouchsafe my penance.

When at last my hunters found My corner of this most ghastly hell, I shivered in darkness near burial mound, With a stench of fear they surely did smell.

I closed my eyes and waited still, For death’s final, unending hold.

To pay my unearthly debt and bill, The price to be my immortal soul.

But death’s cold touch, I did not embrace, In this world of gloom and mist I remained.

Huddled in fear in that foul place, As if to my tomb I were already chained.

When all at once I realised, A stillness in the cold night air.

As though my chasers were paralysed, The wolves no longer sought the hare.

ARTWORK: Eliza Williams They stood stock still and statuesque, Mannequins in a department store.

Frozen there, they seemed grotesque, Not an inch they moved, not one, no more.

With them fixed in place, I arose from pray, Wondering at their current condition.

Forgetting not for a moment they, Composed my deadly opposition.

Realisation now filled me with dread, I knew I was no longer alone.

Slowly I turned and looked ahead, To see him sitting upon tombed stone.

The man near spectral in the mist, Smoking from rolled tobacco paper.

Resting his cheek upon his fist, With a gaze that did not stir nor falter.

“From where have you come?” he asked me with ease, Startled as I was at the breaking of this hush.

Thinking what could I say, his question to appease, And of what did this strange presence discuss.

“I have run from a battle. But, to whom am I speaking?”

I asked in earnest but with fear in my voice.

“I have many names, all of them quite unforgiving, Mephistopheles, Lucifer, I leave you the choice.”

Could it be that before me stood the father of lies, The fallen angel cast from heaven, I meet?

The one all religious texts do despise, Given license to roam with unheavenly feet?

“What do you want?” I asked with composure, Assuming this, of course, was some kind of a hoax.

“What could Satan gain from this sort of exposure?”

An answer from him I surely would coax.

“Exposure? What tripe!” He said with a smile, “This sort of thing is merely routine.

You simply haven’t seen me at work for a while, The job is quite real, just vastly unseen.”

“What do you want of me, evil creature you are?

Although I extend you great thanks for halting my foes, Why, pray tell, this tremendous seminar?

A well needed holiday from the abyss, I suppose?”

His face became solemn and his eyes grew blood red.

He stood from his spot and put hat into hand.

Revealing curved ram’s horns that grew from his head, As any shadow of doubt from my mind did disband.

55.

“If you stay your course and do nothing to change, Your memory will be damned to the dark and decrepit.

This fate awaits all cowards who will not exchange, Their dishonour in the face of the hell they inherit.”

I now saw the grave upon which he stood, The tombstone crumbled and decayed by the ages.

Through the tangled weeds and overgrown wood, I sought the engraving, heedless of dangers.

I scrambled and clawed at the wretched vines, Great in number and woven so thick.

Why had this grave among so many shrines, Gone neglected by all in a way so horrific?

There at the last, the name stood revealed, The greatest shock I ever have witnessed.

The name that was hidden, now unconcealed, Was none but my own as true meaning surfaced.

“The penance you’ll pay for the way you behave, The woe of your acts and deeds so unworthy, Is written as plain as the name on this grave, If you do nothing to avert such causality.”

These were the words of this agent of fate, The one who fell from such glory on high.

Seeing to it that I not repeat his mistake, All regret and compunction I did damnify.

I saw now what this spirit sought to show, My life sprawled out like some great atlas.

Filled with cowardice and paved with sorrow, With no direction but further on into darkness.

“From this moment on, my life will be changed, A coward and deserter no more!” I did cry.

“No regret shall I hold lest I be deranged, My immortal soul, I will make you deny.”

Again my angel smiled, a smirk of satisfaction, Replaced his hat and set forth into the mist.

Had he expected from me such violent reaction?

Or truly condemned my soul to his list?

It was now that I woke, on the eve of a storm, The battle I fled, returned to me anew.

Better to face my demons on fields of red, Than the mists that from foul cemetery blew.

Gathering sense and with courage new-found, I go to whatever fate awaits a soul such as I. Whether toward damnation or restfulness bound, My mistakes fall to none but me to justify.

56. ARTWORK: Emily O’Neill

Bega

By Phoebe Lupton

The hills are alive, not with the sound of music, but with the sound of silence

solitude

softness Inside.

As I walk, I breathe in deep, clear country air massaging my soul, telling my heart, ‘You are safe here.’

Though all my life I haven’t felt safe.

There’s too much conflict chaos corruption

to live at ease, look at the trees without worrying they’ll fall down.

There are two worlds: one of darkness, one of light.

Here, my life is light as the Sun, keeping me warm, making me glow.

I wonder if here children grow taller and stronger.

The longer I stay, the more I keep asking.

I know there’s something in this water what made me better without medicine.

And I can say without a doubt,

‘This is what Heaven looks like.’

ARTWORK: Milly Yates

Reconstruction

Belinda’s eyes met their reflection in the TV’s dimly lit glass. Her irises, normally blue, were turned black by the bodies of the people on the screen. From this angle, her eyes formed neat little almond shapes. Pleased, she looked around the room. She watched to see if anyone else had noticed how nice her eyes looked today. She tended to collect the approving gaze of others. Compliments were kept, and insults swallowed by an intentional amnesia.

She didn’t like to think of herself through a critic’s eye. She disliked the sting. The other women in the waiting room were too occupied watching their own reflections to be jealous of Belinda’s.

By Tilda Njoo

Suddenly conscious of her voyeurism, Belinda’s eyes narrowed as they turned back to the muted TV. She watched images of figures as they were thrown against the ground. Their bodies were superimposed against the white sterility of the waiting room. A closeup showed paramedics covering the face of a man in a stretcher. His nose was cracked open, turned blue. Belinda covered her own nose selfconsciously, not wanting to see it until after the operation. She considered it too bony. It lacked the plump vitality that it held in her youth. She saw tiny people running down across the TV screen, their arms held up in surrender. How pretty her freckles looked against the clouds of smoke rising from the edge of the frame.

The synthetic red light coming from the screen fell a few centimetres short of Belinda’s face. It was soaked up by the waiting room’s fluorescence before it could land and stain her skin. Belinda watched. Her appointment wasn’t for another half hour, but she’d always appreciated punctuality. She wore her promptness like a badge. She searched the TV screen, looking for the time. Frustrated, she saw that the four little black numbers on the corner of the screen blended into the footage behind them and became unreadable. She glared at the footage of painted cardboard and raised fists, willing them to go away.

She needed to know the time in order to determine how long she had left sitting stiff against the hard backed chair. The waiting

57.

room was starting to turn oppressive. Belinda was beginning to notice that her skin sagged in contrast to the sharp angles of the other women’s faces. She pushed her hand upwards across her face, remembering how her nephew had thought that she was the same age as her older sister. The television blurred and unblurred as her eyes slid in and out of focus.

Her fingers gripped the inside of her palms.

She wished that she could know the time. She was good with time. Better than most people she knew. Suddenly, the screen cleared and her breathing began to slow again as she focused on counting down the minutes.

Twenty seven minutes until the appointment.

Belinda continued to watch. The bright lights on the screen were a happy distraction from the empty buzz of the waiting room. Headlines traversed the bottom of the screen. Belinda saw the word ‘death’ and the word ‘brutality’ and the word ‘George.’ The last word, she rolled around in her mouth. It tasted bitter.

She’d known a George once. Anxiety ticked behind her eyes. She remembered a man, a ring, a cloth-covered coffin. She remembered when her eyes searched for more than just their own reflection. The man had taught her that if she watched a person for long enough, their face would start to tell stories.

Belinda furrowed her brow and this time didn’t worry about the frown lines it would cause. Her fingers uncurled themselves from the inside of her palms. They reached again towards her face. This time, her fingers traced their way over curves and ridges. They met wrinkles and eyelashes and remembered that the man had felt them before her. The waiting room dimmed. Belinda looked upwards, meeting eyes on the screen. These eyes were young.

These eyes were hurting. Through tears, they looked pleadingly at Belinda. Belinda looked back. The girl called her name.

“Belinda?” A nurse asked.

Belinda pulled away from the screen. What a pretty nose that girl had, she thought, before following the nurse into the surgery room.

58. ——————————- Monday - 2:24pm

DEPOP DRAMA

By Cole Johnson

——————————- Monday - 3:31pm

hey! I’m thinking about buying your turtleneck. do you know what brand it is?

Those cords fit even better in person đ&#x;˜‰đ&#x;˜‰ Hi! I actually made that piece myself. stop it you!! ty for the turtleneck tho and the human contact

đ&#x;˜ąđ&#x;˜ą đ&#x;˜ąđ&#x;˜ą đ&#x;˜ąđ&#x;˜ą mind. blown. do you make a lot of the stuff on your page?

Thank you đ&#x;˜Šđ&#x;˜Š đ&#x;˜Šđ&#x;˜Š And, yeah, pretty much everything actually. It’s kind of my main hustle atm.

I was wondering actually nvm

——————————- Monday – 11:47pm miss rona?

Do you wanna hang properly some time? *nods with excitement*

Yep. ouch. well, you must get this a lot, but your style‌ *chefs kiss*

Hahahaha Does midday tomorrow work? One of the Pearl St cafes?

Takes one to know one. Those cord pants in your second row‌

you bet đ&#x;˜ đ&#x;˜

when he likes your cords‌ I’m blushing!

đ&#x;˜ đ&#x;˜

——————————- Tuesday – 6:26pm

Not to mention that incredible model. Where’d you find him??

I had a really good time today I- đ&#x;’€đ&#x;’€ that’s me

Me too đ&#x;˜Šđ&#x;˜Š it’s just so hard to meet cool people esp at the moment sometimes I think esp for me? you have such great energy

đ&#x;¤Ąđ&#x;¤Ą đ&#x;¤Ąđ&#x;¤Ą đ&#x;¤Ąđ&#x;¤Ą I hope I haven’t scared you off buying my turtleneck.

and a pre cool face too đ&#x;˜?đ&#x;˜?

the opposite. placing my order as we speak

basically I just felt really lucky today đ&#x;˜ đ&#x;˜

Great! I’m heading to the post office in an hour. the Pearl St one? sorry – that was weird

——————————- Wednesday – 10:12pm sorry if I came on too strong yesterday

I just saw your location on your profile, and I live really near that post office and I thought I could maybe just meet you there

——————————- Friday – 9:54pm

no worries if you don’t do that

No, you’re really sweet. It was great meeting you. I just think we might be better off as friends.

——————————- Monday - 3:10pm

——————————- Today

So sorry! I totally missed these messages. I’m here now if you wanted to pop over.

Are those cords still for sale? is that ok?

I don’t mind at all đ&#x;˜Šđ&#x;˜Š omw

ARTWORK: Maddy Brown 59.

Herbert Franklin

By Matt Gazy

It’s 3am, and I’ve decided to go for a stroll. It’s a really nice night. I got these cool new kickers that I’ve been wanting to wear all damn day, but I was too busy listening to this cool dude.

His name is Yellow Days. He’s neat. As a matter of fact, I’m listening to him right now, as I walk; in my new kickers. Is there anything in the entire world better than new kickers? Maybe dancing in my new kickers.

I brought my dog Stanley here too. He’s old.

I think he’d be a hundred if he was a human, so I treat him how I’d imagine treating a grandparent: I forgive him when he poops himself. Our walks are quite slow. He smells like a fossil, but I love him. He’s got plenty of things wrong with him – he’s a bit blind – and a bit deaf –but he still enjoys his treats - and when

I dance with him. I once made a promise to Stanley that when he dies, I’ll die too. I’m not so sure I’ll do that now that I have these new kickers, but we’ll see. I hope he’s not scared of dying.

I rarely feel confident, but right now; at 3am in my brand new kickers, I feel like a king. Of course, nothing matters, not in my world. It shouldn’t in yours either, but that’s just my opinion, and that’s okay if you think you’re important. I don’t think I’m important, I’m average at most things, but damn, these new kickers are really sweet, so I guess I’m good at buying new kickers? Have you ever bought new kickers and just stared at them for hours? No? Just me?

60.

It’s upsetting knowing people are asleep right now – they can’t see me looking and feeling cool and all. Worst of all…they can’t see Stanley! I suppose they’re lucky they can’t smell him. They’re dreaming about some envisioned reality, like maybe heaven - or hell. I’m Herbert Franklin, I think it’s a kinda neat name, like my kickers and Yellow Days; at 3am, super neat.

I haven’t met another Herbert, or Franklin for that matter. I do know a Frank; he’s a janitor, but he’s nice. I once talked to him about fishing.

“Hi Donald! So you’re the source of those delicious scented onions!” Donald smiles, and offers me some onions. I gladly accept.

“Those are really good fried onions, Donald,” I say. “Hey, have you ever listened to “Yellow Days?”

Donald, with onions still in-and-out of his mouth replies, “Yeah, isn’t he the one that sounds like Ray Charles?”

“Yeah, Ray Charles is pretty neat, huh?”

I’m not too fond of fishing, but he told me he once caught a Loch Ness monster. I think he was joking, because he was laughing, but I think he might’ve been laughing at how cool it would have felt to catch a Loch Ness monster.

The air is cold, but in a pleasant way – it’s that pre-winter air that’s sharp but not so cold that I really notice it. I hate feeling like pants aren’t enough, that’s when it’s too cold for me. Luckily, I’m just wearing boxers and my legs are feeling fine. I’ve always wondered how girls don’t get cold without leg-hair, and then I think how hot Stanley must be. I also wonder how he puts up with the smell of fossil. Onions would be better.

I do like the night-time though, the moon brings out a kind of feeling in me, one that the sun just can’t compete with.

I can smell frying onions. I don’t think Stanley can, I’m not so sure Stanley knows what’s going on. I don’t know who would be frying onions at 3am in the morning - while I’m wearing my new kickers - but hey, I think it’s neat that someone might fry onions at this hour. It’s tempting to go in and have some fried onions, but I’m okay with knowing that someone out there is enjoying some. I might go in later, at 4am or so, and ask if I can have some.

“Herbert!” I hear. Oh wow, someone else is here at 3am. This is cool. I can show them my new kickers. I turn around. It’s Donald, he’s 2 feet tall and is holding fried onions.

“Yeah.”

I eat onions with Donald until 3:32. I even give Stanley some. The air feels warmer, but I think maybe that’s just the fried onions giving off a fiery aura around us.

“Do you like my new kickers, Donald?” Donald silently nods, then looks down at his bare feet.

He looks upset. Maybe I should give him my kickers. Dang, I just got them, but he gave me his fried onions, and they were pretty neat, so I unlace my new kickers, and offer them.

“Try them on, I don’t know if they’ll fit though.”

“I can’t accept them…” Donald says, as he accepts them. Somehow, they seem to fit his little feet.

“Thanks, Herbert, I won’t forget this,” Donald says, with a smile befitting of my new kickers.

As we continue to eat onions, I decide to ask if he’d like to listen to Yellow Days with me. He politely declines.

At 4am, I walk home in my socks. The ground feels pretty solid under me and Stanley and I are OK. I might give him a wash when we get home.

ARTWORK: Alice Dunkley Society always seems to be on the brink of revolution. Historically, the forefront of these movements has often been centred in the enthusiastic and idealistic visions of university students, eager to feel they have ignited real change. So how can ANU students create the momentum of their own revolution? Or a least a student discounted version?

Methods such as protesting, petition drafting and giving unsolicited lectures on ANU confessions are all within the arsenal of the average student. However, I propose a far more radical, cost effective and campus-wide revolution. The solution is simple: the fitting of revolving doors.

Once installed, we can create countless revolutions per day.

Doorways to Revolution

By Sissi Scott-Hickie

Consider if one was tired of chivalry and the daily posturing of the patriarchy? Problem solved. There is nothing that screams gender equality more than a revolving door. No-one stands aside to let others pass. Everyone is equally confused about when is the right time to enter. Without the etiquette of male-dominated entrances, institutionalised sexism will be swiftly shown the door.

Anxious that our world could soon be depleted of natural resources and our atmosphere polluted with greenhouse gases? One could lobby endlessly for decisive political action. Alternatively, revolving doors immediately reduce the drafts and heat lost to the surroundings, lowering heating and cooling costs in buildings.

These savings leave the University’s pockets full and keep your green guilt at bay! Not to

mention the benefits to recycling. An old idea would simply take another turn, before being welcomed in as new.

The possibilities are endless. Removing straight-sliding doors in favour of the fluid motions of revolving doors would surely confront homophobia. For minority groups discrimination would be ended. Glass ceilings could be recycled into glass doors, demolishing institutionalised barriers at every turn. Even on such issues as social distancing, revolving doors prevent unnecessary social interactions.

Whatever revolution you would like to see, this multidimensional doorway can be spun to suit your cause!

I admit there may be doubts about the real change instigated by these mini-revolutions.

You may ask whether this can really be described as progress rather than just spinning in meaningless circles. Has a self-congratulatory fervour left us too dizzy to see the core issue?

Are we focusing on the finishings rather than reconstructing the foundations?

I see this as nonsense. Imagine how much more efficient the French Revolution would have been with revolving doors. Storming the Bastille would have been a breeze. As a bonus they could be used as a guillotine in a pinch.

Think of the speed with which the Cultural Revolution could have taken place. Surely there’s nothing better to block the power and influence of older generations than a high velocity spinning door!

Despite all this, there does lie an undeniable possibility that with these doors, like with any revolution, there’s every chance you might just end up right back where you started.

61.

62. ARTWORK: Emily O’Neill It’s a turn of events that will no doubt revolutionise speechwriting for years to come. Danny Roberts, aged nine, has taken out the top prize in the North Canberra Public Speaking Awards: Primary School Division, without turning to the MerriamWebster’s Dictionary. When asked about this bold decision, Roberts stated that he simply didn’t feel as if the terms “journey” or “destination” needed explaining.

His competitors clearly did not feel the same, with four out of six of them opting for the classic opener.

Danny’s parents were excited about him taking the gold, with one witness claiming that they actually stood up and clapped politely when he won.

“We’re just so proud of him,” commented Mum, Seher. “Danny’s always been a bit slow. It’s good to know he can string a sentence together.” Danny’s older sister, Maya, refused to attend the event or comment on his win on the grounds that, “it’s not that impressive anyway.” Maya’s lukewarm reception may be a result of lingering humiliation regarding her failed entry into the competition three years earlier, with the teenager only receiving a participation ribbon.

Unconventional Oration

By Katie Sproule

The next round of competition will be Canberra-wide. The topic has yet to be announced, but thrilling rumours suggest that it may be ‘Peer Pressure…For Good?’ or ‘Cyberbullying: Why It’s Bad.’ Further updates will be posted soon, including confirmation of which church hall the exciting event will take place in and if the entry donation is gold-coin.

Other notable moments from the day included one attendee mixing up her palm cards and improvising the last half of her speech in tears. Another sang three lines of Katy Perry’s smash hit ‘Roar’ to close her oration. Audiences remain unsure if this musical interlude worked for or against the contestant, though all agree that it was definitely memorable.

ARTWORK: Eliza Williams

The Little Red eBook

By Campbell Edmonds

How would you explain revolution to a child?

The word has several meanings and nebulous connotations. A good way to begin would be visual imagery. Young children typically struggle with figurative explanations, and older children are notoriously superficial. School history textbooks often contain depictions such as the storming of the Winter Palace or the Reichstag Fire. This is presumably because the infamously capitalist educational publishing industry understands the preferences of schoolchildren.

They want to see violence, blood, impassioned speeches, fire, dishevelled mobs, and - above all - drama.

Australia’s own history of revolution is comparatively sparse, and its legacy rather more symbolic than substantial. The blazing white Southern Cross flag of the Eureka

Stockade is a vivid symbol recalling one such moment in our history. It’s no wonder that it is a favourite topic to be briefly mentioned and immediately forgotten in school classrooms: it birthed a cool flag. How is that event explained to children? From what I recall from my school history classes, it had something to do with angry Irishmen. That seems to be a recurring theme of British imperial history. But do our children actually understand it, and what the Stockade meant for our democracy? Few of us could identify that the Stockade was a pivotal moment in the fight for suffrage and workers’ rights, but I daresay many more would associate it with binge drinking No Voters on Australia Day. Incidentally, Americans have a similar proclivity to celebrate the flags of rebel movements, though their rebel flag of choice is probably a tad more morally dubious.

63.

64.

Important as the Eureka Stockade was for democracy and the labour movement in Australia, it overshadows the colourfully named Rum Rebellion in our school curricula.

The only successful coup d’etat in Australian history, the Rum Rebellion saw the New South Wales Corp, military arm of the nascent colony, overthrow and banish the notorious Governor William Bligh. Assuming the alliterative name is insufficient to inspire a cursory Wikipedia search, the gist of the Rum Rebellion was that Bligh, already famous for having been thrown off a ship, was forced by a corrupt state institution to leave Sydney on a ship for disrupting the equally infamous John MacArthur’s illegal merchant monopoly in New South Wales. It is a testament to the failings of our education system that the two critical lessons of the Rum Rebellion are lost on our schoolchildren: firstly, that there is a long history of capitalist corruption in our country; secondly, that Australians do terrible things when deprived of cheap alcohol.

It is a shame that our children miss such important lessons from history. They are rather more inclined to focus on the flashy elements of history. As it happens, this inclination is not limited to children. One has to only read a cinema programme or briefly scroll through their streaming app of choice to observe how history has been commodified by Hollywood executives who command small armies of underpaid writers and filming crews from their golden palaces on the cliffs of Malibu.

The greedy elites of Hollywood need only lift a finger, and every television screen in your vicinity will blaze with increasingly expensive reenactments of D-Day or episodic portrayals of the sex lives of British monarchs.

Is this what we want? One rarely sees productions of the struggles of coal miners, or hospital workers, or of oppressed women and minorities, or of the working classes. It’s all glitz and gore - we instead are bombarded with steady streams of works glamourising the lives of royals and aristocrats. We all know what

Marie Antoinette supposedly remarked upon learning that her impoverished subjects had no bread to eat - but what did those starving French peasants cry in their dying breaths? We don’t know, and we certainly won’t learn from a star-studded Netflix show. The silencing of lower classes is sickening, and cannot be seen as anything else but plutocratic propaganda.

The threat to future generations is twofold. The media hides the iniquities of history from our children, and it is conspicuously clear that our education system is failing in its presentation of the brave actions of revolutionaries. The media’s deleterious effect on the education system is palpable: not only do our schools marginalise the voices of the struggling working classes, they cannot even conduct Year 12 examinations without poisoning the innocent minds of our children with blatant revisionism. Even while I was at school, the bourgeois institution which conducts Victoria’s VCE examinations shamelessly included an altered version of Nikolai Kochergin’s Storming of the Winter Palace in the 2012 History of Revolutions final exam. The alteration made to Kochergin’s illustration was the insertion of a 100-foot tall mechatronic battle robot.

A call to action has emerged. The quality of education in Australia is unacceptable. Our young students are not being taught about the oppression of the landowners. They are not being taught about the excesses of the clergy and aristocracy. They are not being taught about the potential for a utopia, free of the shackles of class and wealth. They are being taught about robots.

The truth is clear. We must re-educate our children.

CONTRIBUTE Words to: Rachel@Woroni.com.au Art to: Sian@Woroni.com.au

W We would like to acknowledge the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people, who are the traditional custodians of the land on which Woroni is created. We pay respects to Elders past, present and emerging. We acknowledge that the name Woroni was taken from the Wadi Wadi Nation without permission, and we are striving to do better for future reconciliation.