terrorism poster remix


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The other day, I stumbled across one of those creepy national security posters – coincidentally, it was at a bus stop outside the Maribyrnong Detention Centre, thus uniting two of the abiding images of the Howard years in one horrid flashback. I can’t find a decent size reproduction of the image but you’ll probably know it: lines of dialogue from neighbourhood finks reporting their acquaintances to the terror hotline, all shaped into a map of Australia. ‘It’s not normal for him to have visitors at this hour’ — that kind of thing. Anyway, someone in Britain had a similar reaction to the same sort of campaign there, and has created a website that allows you to recaption the poster appropriately. Hence the image above.

Jeff Sparrow

Jeff Sparrow is a writer, editor, broadcaster and Walkley award-winning journalist. He is a former columnist for Guardian Australia, a former Breakfaster at radio station 3RRR, and a past editor of Overland. His most recent book is a collaboration with Sam Wallman called Twelve Rules for Strife (Scribe). He works at the Centre for Advancing Journalism at the University of Melbourne.

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