My weekly Guardian column: I rarely feel proud to be Australian. Perhaps it’s a personal distaste for any form of nationalism, or my long-held belief that human rights abuses increasingly define our nation as brutal, petty and racist. It’s hard to feel pride when we… lock up children in Pacific detention camps… and incarcerate indigenous men at… record…
Showing all posts tagged Australia
What #MarchinMay showed about community spirit
The hugely successful #MarchinMay rallies were held last weekend across Australia, calling on equal access to health, education and a fair go. I spoke at the Sydney rally. Here’s a wonderful video of the event, by Italian film-maker Claudio Accheri and Peta Ding, and shows the vibrancy of the day: MARCH IN MAY from LittleShoulderProd…
Why there are growing corporate attacks on public broadcasting
My weekly Guardian column: The war on public broadcasters by corporate media is currently enjoying a resurgence. Britain’s Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre has long loathed the BBC, accusing it of supporting “cultural marxism”. In a… 2007 lecture, he said the organisation attempted to undermine “the values of conservatism, with a small ”˜c’, which, I would…
My #MarchinMay speech to thousands in Sydney
Yesterday thousands of Australians marched around the country to reject the extremism of Tony Abbott’s government. I was asked to speak in Sydney to a crowd of around 10,000 people (some great photos by Jaroslaw L Gasiorek here). This video features 15 minutes of highlights (I appear at 7.24): A slightly expanded version of my…
Little scrutiny of mining companies in Greenland
My weekly Guardian column: This is a story about an Australian company you’ve never heard of, operating in a nation that rarely enters the global media: Greenland. It’s a story about the intense search for energy sources in a world that’s… moving away… from the dirtiest fossil fuels. Aleqa Hammond, the prime minister of Greenland, is the…
On the importance of Twitter as an author and journalist
For the upcoming Sydney Writer’s Festival (I’m speaking at three events) I was interviewed by the Sydney Morning Herald on my use of Twitter: Antony Loewenstein… @antloewenstein Journalist and author:My Israel Question,… The Blogging Revolution I joined Twitter in 2009 because I’m a news junkie and I was interested in finding information on a new medium. It…
Alternative Law Journal reviews Profits of Doom
The following review by Kate Galloway appears in the Alternative Law Journal: Antony Loewenstein; Melbourne University Press, 2013; 261 pages; $32.99 (paperback) In this extensively researched book, journalist Antony Loewenstein takes the reader on a world tour. From the remotest parts of Australia — at the Curtin Immigration Detention Centre, Christmas Island and James Price…
Fighting the far-right is a duty for us all
My weekly Guardian column: It was a pitiful sight. In Brisbane last Friday, the far-right Australia First party… announced… that it would rally on the streets in solidarity with Greece’s neo-Nazi aligned political organisation, Golden Dawn.… In the end, less than 10 supporters arrived and faced off with around 200 unionists and members of the Antifa group shouting…
We know too little about US drone attacks
My weekly Guardian column: The news that the US had killed two Australian “militants” in a drone strike was… announced… in mid-April.… Christopher Havard… and “Muslim bin John”, who… also held… New Zealand citizenship, were allegedly killed by a CIA-led airstrike in eastern Yemen in November last year. Readers were given little concrete information, apart from a “counter-terrorism source” who claimed…
Thank you Zionist lobby for helping grow BDS profile
Interesting article in yesterday’s Australian explaining how typically ham-fisted, bullying and clueless media attacks by the Israel lobby is helping to draw public attention to the rise of boycotts against Israel. No kidding: A Jewish association has branded the racial discrimination case against University of Sydney’s Jake Lynch counter-productive, saying it has only raised the…