As anti-Asian rhetoric intensifies and One Nation rallies its supporters, the death of Melbourne grocer Van Viet Truong raises urgent questions about racism, political scapegoating and the society Australia is becoming. (more…)
Category: Racism
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University racism definitions won’t dismantle racism
The government’s push for universities to adopt racism definitions risks turning anti-racism into compliance policy while leaving structural racism untouched and constraining speech on Palestine.
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The government cannot ask Muslims not to compare
The government created a legitimate comparison when it appointed envoys for Islamophobia and antisemitism, and Muslim communities are entitled to ask whether both responses reflect equal protection. (more…)
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The two stories I tell taxi drivers
Treating everyone the same doesn’t necessarily add up to fairness or national unity. What makes a difference is finding the best way to overcome disadvantage. (more…)
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The myth they sell and the values they betray
In the second of a two-part series, Robin Brown and Nick Bogiatzis show how it is the politicians most loudly claiming to defend “Western values” who are among the most dedicated to undermining them. (more…)
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Multiculturalism is the middle ground Australia needs
In the first of a two-part series, Robin Brown and Nick Bogiatzis argue that the moral values claimed as Western are common human values – and deeply present in the world’s oldest continuing culture. (more…)
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How the Royal Commission should define antisemitism
Drawn from his submission to the Royal Commission, Gareth Evans argues for a definition of antisemitism that protects Jewish Australians without suppressing legitimate criticism of Israel. (more…)
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Beyond taking sides
What a letter from Accra can teach Australia about prejudice and why our convictions must be accompanied by curiosity. (more…)
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The World Cup asks what we mean by “we” – Message from the (acting) Editor
The World Cup is compromised, commercialised and often grotesque – but it can still show us something true about belonging, about multicultural Australia and the complexity of loving something, while refusing to look away from its failures. (more…)
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The World Cup press conference is an ideological checkpoint
Footballers from the Global South are having to face questions about their countries’ politics – questions European and US players don’t get.
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When Hanson starts fishing in multicultural waters
Pauline Hanson’s politics is finding new resonance because it turns real pressures over housing, services, tax and insecurity into a familiar politics of exclusion, offering some migrant-background voters the dangerous comfort of a place near the gate. (more…)
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Pauline’s poisonous politics – Message from the Editor
A little while after Pauline Hanson graduated from Ipswich City Council politics to take the Queensland seat of Oxley, I ran into her in a Canberra pub. This isn’t as unlikely as it sounds. Journalists and politicians often drink together, or at least in close proximity to each other, and in the late 1990s Canberra had so few drinking holes that collisions were inevitable.
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The questions Hanson was not made to answer
Pauline Hanson’s National Press Club address gave the media a chance to test One Nation’s claims on racism, public broadcasting, nuclear power, AUKUS, defence spending and foreign policy – but too many of the hardest questions went unasked. (more…)
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Victoria: the police state
The Victorian Government relies too heavily on policing as the default solution to every social issue and is granting the police unchecked powers. (more…)
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The chilling effect of recent legislation
Freedom of speech and assembly is being curbed by legislation designed to address hate speech. What does this mean for the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement? (more…)
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Compassion does not end at the front gate – Message from the Editor
Like many I was revolted by the video of Itamar Ben-Gvir taunting and humiliating courageous international citizens determined to get supplies to Palestine. If you haven’t seen it, the video shows the Israeli Minister humiliating Gaza flotilla activists, who are shown kneeling in rows, heads bowed, hands cable-tied behind their backs.
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Taking back the Southern Cross
Once a symbol of unity, equality and democratic rights, the Eureka flag is increasingly being appropriated by extremist groups seeking to legitimise racism and exclusion. Reclaiming its precious original meaning may now require protecting it from misuse.
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A beautiful mosaic: celebrating multicultural Australia
Multicultural Australia has enriched the nation’s cultural life, creativity and global standing. These achievements deserve recognition and defence at a time of growing hostility to migration.
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Of social cohesion, belonging and the Australian flag
Until recently, “social cohesion” was a term rarely uttered by Australian politicians. Then suddenly, it was everywhere – in press conferences, speeches and ministerial statements. But what does it actually mean? (more…)
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It’s time for another reforming and agitating attorney-general
Just last month Australia celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Whitlam Government’s Racial Discrimination Act (1975), without much fanfare it has to be said. (more…)
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Ignoring the impact of racism undermines effective policymaking
We have heard about a variety of urgent issues during the federal election campaign in the past few weeks and months, from cost of living, immigration, crime and health to housing and energy policies, but one of the topics that have received no attention — indeed never appeared high on the political agenda — is how to address racism. (more…)
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Message from the editor-in-chief: Genocide is not newsworthy in The Australian
Our mainstream media have manufactured public consent to the genocide.The Australian has become a parody of a newspaper. (more…)
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New report reveals Islamophobia in Australia reaching crisis levels
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Australia’s hard culture and Great Replacement Theory
Racism has always been at the core of Australia’s hard culture. A hard culture is one which entrenches meanings of exclusiveness (or uniqueness), resistance to change, hostility towards outsiders, and acceptance of the status quo as normal. Any deviance from the status quo is seen as perverse, undermining “respectable” cultural beliefs. (more…)
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Demonisation of the Palestine movement fuels anti-Muslim and Arab racism
The spate of anti-Muslim racist attacks around the country are being fuelled by the anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian policies of mainstream politicians. Political attempts to undermine the Palestine movement and bipartisan support for Israel’s genocide are causing this. (more…)
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Dualism? Or unequivocal condemnation of evil?
Wars, like that being waged currently by the Zionist terrorist government of Netanyahu are the destructive and mindless outworking of dualism; about winners and losers. (more…)
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Who is missing from the conversation?
We need to stop putting all our eggs in the ‘anti-racism strategy basket’ and start to recognise that a more holistic approach where everyone across the population can see themselves as benefitting from the initiatives is the future to reducing discrimination for all, writes Anthea Hancocks.
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Exposing social cohesion’s innate racism
In the wake of the deliberately lit fire in a synagogue in Melbourne on Friday 6th of December much has happened. It’s been categorised as a terrorist act, the Commonwealth government has established an anti-Semitism task force, claims of anti-Semitism have increased and, at press conferences, senior lawmakers and enforcers have called for restraint. (more…)
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Misleading reports on antisemitic incidents by ECAJ
It is very unfortunate that the new Executive Council of Australian Jewry Report, Anti-Jewish Incidents in Australia 2024 is marred by fundamental flaws, accidental or otherwise. This problem is in line with other reports emerging from the pro-Israel lobby, reports that get considerable media coverage. (more…)
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20,000 members of the American Nazi Party once rallied in Madison Square Garden. Could it happen again?
On October 10, The Atlantic premiered ‘A Night at the Garden‘, an unsettling seven minutes and five seconds long video made of film footage that American documentary filmmaker Marshall Curry had accidentally found. (more…)