A cancelled venue for a UN rapporteur’s appearance highlights how universities are increasingly restricting debate about Israel and Palestine under pressure over antisemitism.
Henry Reynolds
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Settler colonialism: what it can tell you about the Israel/Palestine conflict
In spite of a last minute venue cancellation by Adelaide University, a sold-out Adelaide crowd heard from Chris Sidoti, Francesca Albanese, Henry Reynolds and Lana Tatour on lessons and links for Australia on settler colonialism and the Israel/Palestine conflict.
The event was hosted by Association for the Promotion of International Law (APIL).
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Cultural “cohesion” becomes censorship, and a festival falls apart
Adelaide Writer’s Week was derailed after the withdrawal of an invited speaker, triggering mass author withdrawals and a board resignation. The episode raises hard questions about free speech, institutional courage, and the politics of Israel and Gaza in Australia’s cultural life.
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Readying the north for war
Few Australians realise that the tropical north occupies more than 40% of our land mass while holding only 5% of the population. But governments — colonial, state and national — have speculated about its destiny since the middle of the 19th century. (more…)
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Australia’s decolonisation runs aground
When asked last week whether his government was still intending to reach for the goal of an Australian republic Prime Minister Albanese declared that he would not be progressing the cause while he was in office. (more…)
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The Segal report and the universities
The Segal report presented to Prime Minister Albanese on Thursday, 10 July, represents an unprecedented challenge to Australia’s 39 public universities – to their autonomy, their independence and to their reputation both here and internationally. (more…)
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Antisemitism in Australia: a ‘pathology in our society’
There was much to read in the papers last Monday, the 7th of July. Three stories caught my attention. (more…)
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Hugh White and our post-American future
In his new Quarterly Essay, Hard New World, Hugh White delivers a devastating attack on Australia’s current defence policies. (more…)
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Conflation and controversy over antisemitism definition
Antisemitism did not spring up here as suddenly and as localised as a field of mushrooms. It is, above all, a by-product of Israel’s endless onslaught on the people of Gaza which one and all can watch as a daily horror show. (more…)
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A defining moment for the future of Palestine
A United Nations conference in New York between 17 and 20 June will be a defining moment for the future of Palestinian statehood and the endlessly debated, but never resolved, policy known as the two-state solution. (more…)
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Voice rejection sends Australia backwards
It was a dramatic return to the political stage! With the election underway, indigenous activist Noel Pearson broke a self-imposed silence which he had kept for 18 months since the failure of the referendum on the voice to parliament. (more…)
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Endless onslaught: Would Israel’s Mordechai be attacked as ‘antisemitic’ in Australia?
Haaretz, Israel’s oldest and most widely known newspaper, has just published a long, roughly 8,000 word feature article, about the work of Lee Mordechai, the Associate Professor of History at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He has compiled on line a massive report entitled “Bearing Witness to the Israel-Gaza War.” (more…)
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The foundation stones of reconciliation, truth telling postponed again
The failure of last year’s referendum still troubles the country. The focus on the Voice to Parliament took attention away from the far more consequential question of truth telling, while paradoxically displaying how much it is still needed. (more…)
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Northern militarisation overlooking Indigenous rights: Prof Henry Reynolds, History, University of Tasmania
Indigenous Australians have extensive land rights across Northern Australia where large scale militarisation is being undertaken, raising questions about processes of consultation and underlying Indigenous rights endorsed by Australia under international treaty arrangements. (more…)
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Antisemitism and our universities
In today’s papers the Education Minister Jason Clare announced the decision to appoint a new National Student Ombudsman who will combat anti-Semitism at Australia Universities. He explained that Jewish students “don’t feel safe at university” and that it was obvious that antisemitism was a serious problem at tertiary institutions. (more…)
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The military Americanisation of Northern Australia
The headline in the Weekend Australian said it all: NT Bases Key to American War Plans. Republican Congressman Michael McCaul, the Chair of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, told The Australian, after a ten day visit to Australia that our geography offered key advantages to the US “as it sought to deter Chinese aggression”. Indeed, the north would become “the central base of operations in the Indo-Pacific to counter the threat.’ Defence Minister Marles added his voice to the crusade explaining that after AUSMIN talks in the US last week that America’s military was now “operating in Australia across land, sea, air, cyber and space”. This all followed the commitment earlier in the year to spend $18 billion in the coming decade on upgrading defence bases across the north. (more…)
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Political capitulation, moral failure
Anthony Albanese’s recent visit to the Gama Festival will certainly be memorable but not in ways that he will necessarily appreciate. It displayed, in a manner for all to see, his government’s final renunciation of the Uluru Statement From The Heart of 2017 and the attendant process of reconciliation. (more…)
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A dissident challenge to the West’s narrative control
Pearls and Irritations has been a source of enlightenment since its foundation in 2013. It has progressively increased in importance. (more…)
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Last chance for the War Memorial
The Frontier Wars were fought in every part of the vast Australian continent from the 1790’s to the 1920’s. How could they be overlooked in local or even in global history? The ownership and control of a continental landmass was at stake. First Nations’ warriors bled and died on, and for, their own country. Why would we want to overlook them? (more…)
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Another royal tour: should we expect a formal apology to our First Nations?
The announcement last week of an impending Royal Tour provokes many considerations. Both international and domestic developments need to be taken into account. The global reconsideration of the legacy of centuries of European imperialism, of slavery, indigenous dispossession and economic exploitation represents the latest manifestation of the long process of de-colonisation. As a consequence Britain, along with much of the West, is losing both intellectual hegemony and moral authority. They will be hard to retrieve.
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Don’t mention the “G” word
“It’s not the word I would use”… As Western Australian Senator Fatima Payman breaks party ranks to condemn the Gazan genocide, Defence Minister Richard Marles, in defiance of the International Court of Justice and United Nations, is attempting to shield Israel and deter MPs from using the term ‘genocide’ . (more…)
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The West believes antisemitism is a more egregious problem than genocide
The loss of Western authority as a result of Israel’s genocidal attack on Gaza has merely sped up changes already underway for a generation. (more…)
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Australia’s brutal “Rules-Based International Order” is on full display in Gaza
America’s seamless support for Israel’s pitiless onslaught on Gaza has both astounded and angered the world. War crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide have accumulated as the destruction and death have continued. The hypocrisy of the West as a whole is publicly on display on a daily basis. The Western media has performed as poorly as governments and has lost the respect of the world. Once gone it may never be recovered. How can Australia, for instance, expect to be taken seriously when we go forth in our customary manner chiding other countries for their human rights record? (more…)
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Australia’s three wars
In a lead article last week in The Sydney Morning Herald the political and international editor Peter Hartcher declared that Australia was ’connected to three wars’, but only one of them would be measured in decades. He was referring to the conflict in Gaza and the war in Ukraine both of which ‘affect Australia’s security’. How this was so was nowhere explained. But it is the third war which was ‘a direct threat to our sovereignty and liberty.’ Here he was pointing to ‘the Chinese Communist Party’s war to dominate the Indo-Pacific and, ultimately, the world.’ This ’unconventional war’, he declared, had been ‘underway for over a decade already’ and would continue long into the future. (more…)
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Racism: The unstated Australian agenda?
In the wake of the failed Voice referendum several topics are still attracting contentious debate. How significant was racism for the no case? Does the decisive defeat suggest that Australia remains chained to its heritage of White Australia? Many people think so. (more…)
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What happened to Indigenous Rights? The world will judge Australia harshly
The prolonged debate about the Voice to Parliament was dominated by the question about what rights should be accorded to our First Nations communities. It was, without doubt, the most potent argument advanced by proponents of the no case. By enshrining the Voice in the constitution, it was said, Aborigines and Islanders were to be given special rights not available to other Australians. It was, therefore, unfair and discriminatory and divided the nation. What is more it encouraged indigenous separatism which threatened national unity. (more…)
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This country has witnessed a counter-revolution against First Nations rights
The turn of events we have seen in the defeat of the Voice referendum is what appears to be a successful counter-revolution in Australia steered by the right wing think-tanks and the Murdoch press. The arguments which were mobilised in opposition to the Voice to Parliament has transported the nation back 60 years to Paul Hasluck’s era of assimilation. This should be seen as no less shocking than had the Australian people this year voted to re-introduce the discredited White Australia Policy. (more…)
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Pearls and Irritations: A dissident challenge to the West’s narrative control
Pearls and Irritations has been a source of enlightenment since its foundation in 2013. It has progressively increased in importance. (more…)
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Will a “shocking hurdle” defeat the Yes vote?
In a lead article published on the front page of The Saturday Paper on the 30th of September Rick Morton discussed the people who were planning to vote against the Voice. He remarked that focus groups conducted late last year revealed what he called ‘a shocking hurdle’ blocking the path of the yes vote. Almost a third ‘of all participants believed First Nations people had been treated fairly. Not just now, but since invasion.’ (more…)
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Assimilation re-emerges
In her recent address to the National Press Club, Jacinta Price resuscitated the seventy years old policy of assimilation constructed by Minister for Territories Paul Hasluck. (more…)