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Bread and circuses, bread and roses
The royal family is an institutional codification of your worthlessness. No matter how you slice and dice it, an aristocracy, by definition, rests on the brute fact that they are royal and you are common, and that, therefore, their DNA entitles them to privileges and honours from which you will always and forever be excluded. The rest of the anti-democratic trappings (the innate sexism, the official sectarianism, etc) flows, more or less inexorably, from the unbridgeable chasm between a hereditary nobility and any form of democratic governance. ... read more
Written by Jeff Sparrow on 29-04-2011, 11 user comments
Alison Croggon, columnist
Beginning with issue 202, Alison Croggon is writing a regular column for Overland, one dedicated to books – our ideas of them and our relationships to them. Here's the first. Enjoy.
‘Some people will tell you that none of these things happened. They’ll say they were just a dream that the three of us shared. But they did happen.’
– Heaven Eyes, David AlmondI have two vivid childhood memories of things that can’t be true. They both date from before I was four years old.
The first is of seeing a witch fly out of my ear. I was lying in bed listening to the thump of blood in my head. I remember that I was irritated by the noise, which was keeping me awake, and that I became convinced that it was the sound of footsteps in my ear canal. Then a tiny witch flew out of my ear on a broomstick and circled above my head.
The second memory is of being up late enough to see the stars. What I saw was miraculous – huge orbs of blue and red and yellow and green, blazing in a black expanse. The next time I saw the night sky, maybe a couple of years later, I nearly cried with disappointment: the pale blue points of light I saw then were wan travesties of the glories I remembered.
Obviously, neither of these things can have actually occurred: they belong in the world of dreams, and might indeed be memories of dreams. Nevertheless, they were real to me. They have the concrete quality of other memories – playing with the family dog, the taste of sour milk I drank once by accident, the resistance and release of a rusty nail piercing my foot as I trod on it – that family lore confirms actually did happen.
Written by Editorial team on 29-04-2011, No comments
Looking for a Meanland blogger or two
The current Meanland blogger is hanging up her spurs so that cutting-edge collaboration between Overland and Meanjin is looking for a blogger. Well, actually, two bloggers.
We’re holding a competition to find two bloggers to write fortnightly for the Meanland project. The winners will receive a one-off prize of $200, and be paid $75 per week to blog and tweet. One runner-up will receive $100 and have their entry published online.
Meanland, ‘reading in a time of change’, is dedicated to looking at the ‘what’ and increasingly the ‘how’ of the digital revolution and its impact on publishing. Issues we’ve covered include: the collapse of the distinction between readers and writers as more people become involved in creating content; the cultural and political impact of the unparalleled monopolies emerging in the digital landscape; and the psychological consequences of reading and writing online. ... read more
Written by Editorial team on 28-04-2011, 14 user comments
The income quarantine scam
Income quarantining has become part of life for welfare recipients in the NT. Originally it was part of the Federal Intervention, rolled out by Howard and his pet bulldog Mal Brough in 2007. Its aim was to prevent welfare money being spent on alcohol and cigarettes, rather than food, and on preventing ‘humbugging’ (demands for money from family members). It worked by quarantining 50 percent of a person’s welfare payment into a barter card, which could only be used at selected shops.
There were complaints and protests about the intervention and the notion of welfare quarantining to no effect. Soon stories began to circulate: a local community shop, where the profits went back into the community forced to close down because it couldn’t become an authorised barter card business. Indigenous people having to charter light planes, or get a taxi hundreds of kilometres, simply to shop. People arriving at checkouts with a trolley full of food only to find the barter card system had failed and they couldn’t buy anything, meaning days stuck in town trying to sort it out. The film NT Intervention: Katherine highlights just some of these issues. ... read more
Written by Rohan Wightman on 28-04-2011, 8 user comments
Goldstone’s bias
Richard Goldstone’s recent op ed in the Washington Post has caused a flood of discussion of what we call the Goldstone Report. I think there are three issues relating to the report and its current fallout worth considering. In this post, I will address the bias of Goldstone and the report. In the next, I will address the issue of ‘intentionality’ addressed in Goldstone’s op ed, and in the third I will address the issues raised by the Goldstone Report that weren’t addressed in his op ed. ... read more
Written by Michael Brull on 27-04-2011, 1 user comment
International writings: Aaron Bady on the moral fabric of the American state
Californian writer and academic Aaron Bady continues our series of regular cross-posts from international writers or journals with similar political or aesthetic sensibilities to Overland. See more of Aaron Bady's work at zunguzungu, where this piece was originally published.
Ignorance and the moral fabric of the American state ... read more
Written by Editorial team on 22-04-2011, No comments
Violent injury: just ‘part of the game’?
‘This is a barbaric game, this game is not for the weak. You play football, you understand that.’ Former gridiron player Marshall Faulk is blunt in his assessment of the violence involved in American football.
This year, for the first time, AFL players are banned from returning to the field if they are diagnosed with a concussion. The rule was rushed in three days before the season opener and it didn’t impress players like Carlton captain Chris Judd who rebuffed, ‘You'll just never get anyone concussed anymore.’ He’s probably right – players may get concussed, but the new rule will be a disincentive for doctors to diagnose it. The rule isn’t accompanied by any guidelines for diagnosis or independent doctors’ rules to keep team physicians accountable. But nonetheless, it’s clear the AFL felt it had to do something. ... read more
Written by Rebecca Leeks on 21-04-2011, 4 user comments
Our hunger for translated literature
‘We live in a world,’ Chip Rolley declares on the welcome page of the Sydney Writers’ Festival, ‘that is ultimately understood only through language.’ Let’s bracket the objections of mystics (for whom language is an obstruction, not a key) and sceptics (who would question our assumption that we can understand the world to any meaningful degree, let along ultimately). We need not go the whole Derridean hog and claim that ‘there is nothing outside the text’ to recognise the central role of language in how we construct the world, both metaphorically (how we conceive of it) and literally (how we shape it). ... read more
Written by Joshua Mostafa on 20-04-2011, 27 user comments
Naomi Klein, John Berger et al: An open letter to Marrickville Council
Below is an open letter to the Marrickville Council (via Antony Loewenstein) from prominent international academics, writers and artists who support the council’s BDS position. Marrickville Council is voting on the boycott again today.
Dear Marrickvile councilors,
We the undersigned would firstly like to congratulate the Marrickville Council in Sydney’s Inner West, Australia for their courageous motion (dated December 14, 2010) in support of the Palestinian-led global movement of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel until it complies with international law. The BDS campaign is deeply inspired by the South African anti-apartheid boycott and divestment campaign for freedom and equality. We understand the Marrickville councilors have come under immense pressure to reverse their decision. After concerted political attacks laden with misinformation about BDS and its alleged costs to the council, a vote is being held on Tuesday April 19 to attempt a reversal. As supporters of universal principles of human rights, we are writing today to appeal to all Marrickville councilors to uphold their principled motion in support of BDS.
Written by Editorial team on 19-04-2011, 9 user comments
Joe Hildebrand: right-wing spambot
Back in the day, it was considered desirable to offer arguments about people you had political disagreements with. You know, factually grounded premises, logically sound conclusions, that type of thing.
However, if you produce content for Murdoch, there’s a much easier way to win arguments. Fabrication.
Take the case of Joe Hildebrand. He’s a hilarious columnist for the Daily Telegraph. I swear, when you read his articles, you’ll find it hard to stop laughing. You’ll laugh until it hurts. Really.
For example, take this particularly pain-inducing article. Here Joe tells of his move to Marrickville, which is a bit of a concern because ‘I happen to look a bit like a “kike”.’ And apparently his kind aren’t welcome in Marrickville. There is a picture – Marrickville, Jew-free since 2003. I mean, it’s not, but who cares, right? ... read more
Written by Michael Brull on 18-04-2011, 13 user comments
Helen Dinmore interview
Adelaide writer Helen Dinmore takes time from her PhD in Creative Writing at the University of Adelaide to chat with Overland about her short story ‘Unplugged’.
How did you come to write the story – was there a catalyst? As a short-story writer, what kind of thing inspires you?
This story came out of some research I was doing into the New Puritan literary manifesto of 2000. The New Puritans proposed a kind of neorealism that struck me as a rather hollow, technique-focused reaction to postmodernism. It prompted me to wonder whether it’s useful to imagine that a return to straight realism would offer access to an available authenticity or objective truth. Once you’re unplugged, can you really go back into the Matrix? ... read more
Written by Clare Strahan on 15-04-2011, 1 user comment
CAL Connections: homophobia and the law
Hopefully, many people will have already seen information relating to Overland’s Connections initiative, an attempt to foster greater cultural diversity in the journal through a series of essays by emerging writers from marginalised backgrounds. With support from CAL’s Cultural fund, each of the journal’s next seven editions will feature a major political essay developed in conjunction with the project’s contributing editor. Final essays will be 3500–4000 words and can address any subject that the participant feels relevant. Successful essayists will be paid $1500.
You can read more about getting involved elsewhere on the site.
In the interim, though, Overland 202 contains the first essay in the series: David Donaldson′s account of lingering homophobia in the criminal code. ... read more
Written by Editorial team on 14-04-2011, 1 user comment
Grief, stolen children and SIEV 221
The controversy over the burial of the dead of SIEV 221 still seems to have the aura of an event that everyone agrees not to speak of ever again. Some things in life, Scott Morrison’s outrage at the SIEV 221 funerals being one of them, are just too creepy to keep talking about. For a moment it seemed as though Morrison had weirded out most of the country with his astounding statements. Even the media, never shy of a lurid headline, struggled with that one. ... read more
Written by Stephen Wright on 13-04-2011, 9 user comments
Bombing Libya
I am probably not the only person on the Left unsure of the correct response to the no-fly zone imposed on Libya. I know many people very strongly oppose it. Among these is As’ad AbuKhalil, who I do not always agree with, but always consider very carefully. In the other camp of supporters of the attack include Juan Cole and Gilbert Achcar, who are also academic specialists on the Middle East. Juan Cole, however, supported the war on Afghanistan, and typically has more faith in US foreign policy than I do.
I think part of the problem may be in how the issue has been framed. A no-fly zone sounds much less problematic than a call for the West to bomb another Muslim country. No one can fail to notice this comes after open support for the Tunisian dictator until he got on the plane, slightly less brazen support for Mubarak until he resigned (which one presumes will shift to support for the military), and now support for the Saudi Arabian invasion of Bahrain, and repression in Morocco (which is cruelly occupying Western Sahara), Bahrain and Yemen. It is hard for anyone to credit Western intervention in Libya to democratic values, because the double standard is so obvious. ... read more
Written by Michael Brull on 12-04-2011, 5 user comments
International writings: Stephen Henighan on Berlin and bohemia
Stephen Henighan continues our series of regular cross-posts from international writers or journals with similar political or aesthetic sensibilities to Overland.
Stephen Henighan is a celebrated writer of non-fiction, novels and short stories. He was born in Hamburg, Germany to an English mother and a father whose parents were Scots-Irish immigrants to New York. His parents met in Yemen, and by the age of nine Stephen had lived in seven houses in four countries. The remainder of his upbringing took place on a farm in Eastern Ontario. He earned an MA in English literature and creative writing from Concordia University in Montreal, and a PhD in Spanish American literature from the University of Oxford. Stephen has lived, worked and travelled in many countries. He currently teaches Spanish American literature at the University of Guelph, Ontario.
His most recent book, A Grave in the air, is a collection of recent short stories. Visit Stephen online at stephenhenighan.com.
This piece was originally published in Geist.
Written by Editorial team on 11-04-2011, No comments
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