By Hsin-Yi Lo. This article is part of our February 2013 focus on Religion and Human Rights. Article 18, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in […]
By Sienna Merope This Saturday, Sydney will celebrate a dazzling spectacle: the annual Mardi Gras parade. Since its beginnings as a protest march in 1978, the Mardi Gras has been a symbol of the fight against oppression, a celebration of diversity and a platform to raise the visibility and acceptance of the LGBTQI community. However, […]
By Dr Jason Taliadoros. This article is part of our February 2013 focus on Religion and Human Rights. To readers of this journal, and perhaps for most people, the terms “human rights” and “religion” on the one hand and “human rights” and “pre-modernity” on the other, could be described as oxymorons rather than as companions. I would […]
By Mohamad Tabbaa. This article is part of our February 2013 focus on Religion and Human Rights. “Why do Muslims hate freedom of speech?” This question is becoming increasingly common in many parts of the world, and has been raised recently in Australia in regards to the anti-Muslim film of 2012. It is now again […]
By Maya Borom. In 1865 the very fabric of American society was being pulled apart by civil war. The southern states had seceded from the Union and formed the Confederate States of the South in protest against President Abraham Lincoln’s proposed 13th Amendment to the US Constitution that would abolish slavery. Vicious fighting and enormous […]
By Maya Borom. On 2 May 2011 United States Navy Seals transgressed into Pakistani territory and successfully assassinated Al-Qaeda’s spiritual leader, and the most wanted man in the world, Osama Bin Laden. The operation and its outcome was the realisation of a decade of what can be aptly described as global terrorist hunting that stretched […]
By Sonia Nair. A corpus of 27 highly eclectic accounts that expound upon the themes of migration, dispossession, racial oppression, hybrid identities and the fluid concept of home, Joyful Strains: Making Australia Home chronicles the incredibly important migrant experiences that have come to underline the fabric of Australia’s multicultural society. As editors Kent MacCarter and […]
By Meleesha Bardolia. This piece is part of our December 2012 and January 2013 focus on Asylum Seekers. People are sitting on the edge of Victoria Street, hunching over, legs angling apart. Saving their threads from psychedelic splatters of tandoori and dollops of tzatziki, Melbournians perch outside the Queen Victoria Night Market and feast. Entering the corridor […]
By Les Wicks. This poem is part of our December 2012 and January 2013 focus on Asylum Seekers. This one is or is called a witch perhaps. So she disappears, her only trick. Why travel? No home, (an inflexible, judged word – foolhardy for any to claim) but she was there a tough demountable equivalent. Some […]
By Jessica Szwarcbord. In the beginning of the post-9/11 era it seemed that no one could stop the United States from aggressively retaliating in any way it wished. A freight train blasting through a new landscape, sculpted by the uncertainty and terror of the catastrophic plane-into-building event that has become a ‘where-were-you-when?’ moment in all […]
By Shae Courtney and Andrew Williams. This article is part of our December 2012 and January 2013 focus on Asylum Seekers. ‘Asylum Seekers’ Constributions’ by Shae Courtney (Right Now) ‘Response’ by Andrew Williams (Refugee Council of Australia) Asylum Seekers’ Contributions By Shae Courtney. The generosity bestowed upon asylum seekers by the Commonwealth contains some caveats; perhaps, most […]
Earlier this year, five deaf writers presented Through Deaf Eyes at the Melbourne Writers Festival, a unique performance featuring deaf writers telling their stories in Auslan. Developed and directed by the deaf community, this groundbreaking work turns the tables and challenges the conventions, as Auslan interpreters translate this beautifully expressive language back to the audience. […]
