Overland 254 is the first in a set of four special editions dedicated to commemorating 70 years of Overland. This issue also launches a new design and format by Common Room Editions, inspired by Overland’s trove of radical literature spanning from 1954 to today. Andrew Brooks and Astrid Lorange consider the asymmetrical responses to two events: the wearing of keffiyehs by three cast members during the Sydney Theatre Company’s production of Anton Chekov’s The Seagull, and, on the same day in the US, the shooting of three Palestinian men wearing keffiyehs. Jeff Sparrow uncovers the Sydney Herald’s legacy of Terra Nullius, and Daniel Lopez writes on Marx, Meredith and the festival as an inversion of modern life.
Mohammad Asif Rahimi, a 28-year-old from Afghanistan, belongs to the Hazara community, the third largest and most oppressed ethnicity in the world. Asif graduated from high school and studied political science in Kabul city. He speaks four languages. Due to security concerns and persecution, he had to leave Afghanistan and seek asylum in Indonesia through UNHCR. He is currently living in Balikpapan detention centre.
He has been in detention and deprived of all basic rights since late 2014.
