A History of Now
Asian Dub Foundation
www.asiandubfoundation.com
The artwork for A History of Now, the new album from Asian Dub Foundation (ADF), is a set of iPhone apps.
But instead of Apple’s tame applications, the band of British-born Indian genre benders have invented their own parodies.
A typical one, named “Instigator”, features a burning bottle and the instruction: “Stuck for a weapon while protesting against government cuts? Let ‘Instigator’ turn your phone into an instant Molotov cocktail!”
Mat Ward
When a Billion Chinese Jump — How China Will Save the World, or Destroy It
By Jonathan Watts
Faber & Faber, 2010
485 pages, $32.95
http://site.whenabillionchinesejump.com/
When Jonathan Watts was a child growing up in England, he used to pray that all the people in China would not jump at once, lest they send the earth spinning off its axis.
About 250 protesters gathered outside Redfern Community Centre on January 26 to listen to Aboriginal leaders speak out against the Northern Territory intervention and ongoing attacks on Aboriginal self-determination.
The event was organised by the Stop the Intervention Collective Sydney (STICS).
Speakers included Valerie Martin Napaljarra, based in Kalkaringi in the Northern Territory; Greens councillor Irene Doutney; and Graham Merritt of STICS.
The Rise of the Green Left: Inside the Worldwide Ecosocialist Movement
By Derek Wall
Pluto Press, 190 pages, paperback
www.plutobooks.com/display.asp?K=9780745330365&
Review by Mat Ward
As the threat of climate catastrophe looms ever larger, Derek Wall has written what he calls "an explicit call to non-violent arms".
King Brown Country: The Betrayal of Papunya
by Russell Skelton
260 pages
Allen & Unwin
$35
REVIEW BY MAT WARD
The Northern Territory community of Papunya is known worldwide for its Aboriginal art. But this book by Melbourne Age reporter Russell Skelton paints a very different picture of it.
Papunya, says Skelton, is "a metaphor for all that has gone wrong with Indigenous policy since the 1970s". He says former prime minister Gough Whitlam's policy of self-determination for Aboriginal communities in the 1970s was "unworkable and unsustainable".
Secret Affairs: Britain's Collusion with Radical Islam
By Mark Curtis
352 pages (pb), Serpent's Tail, 2010.
In Tony Blair's new memoir, A Journey, the former British prime minister says one of his biggest regrets is introducing the Freedom of Information Act, because journalists have used it “as a weapon”.
When US director Danny Schechter’s 2006 film In Debt We Trust predicted a huge financial crisis was coming, he was laughed at. It turned out he was right.
His latest film, Plunder: The Crime of Our Time shows how the crisis was created by Wall Street bankers breaking the law to manipulate the markets — and suggests a bigger crisis is on the way.
Whoops! Why Everyone Owes Everyone & No One Can Pay
By John Lanchester
224 pages
Penguin, Allen Lane
Review by Mat Ward
If you don't know the difference between a credit default swap (CDS), a collateralised debt obligation (CDO) and a cheese sandwich, this highly readable book could help you in a painless, entertaining way.
Its author, John Lanchester, grew up in 1960s Hong Kong. He says the contrasts of obscene wealth and crushing poverty were “like a lab test in free-market capitalism”.
Review by Mat Ward
Fit to Print: Misrepresenting the Middle East
By Joris Luyendijk
Scribe Publications, 250 pages, $29.95
If you've ever felt like shaking your fist in anger at some of the reporting that comes out of the Middle East, this very honest book by a disillusioned Middle East correspondent will make you shake your head in wonder.
Joris Luyendijk says he had no journalistic experience when he was hired by a newspaper in his native Netherlands to report on the Middle East. He was taken on solely because he could speak Arabic.
Trans-Continental Hustle
Gogol Bordello
Colombia/ DMZ
Review by Mat Ward
Gogol Bordello have always said their aim is to smuggle Roma music into mainstream Western society.
Their latest album, produced by former Beastie Boys DJ-turned-super-producer Rick Rubin, might just do that.
The US-based band, whose music combines elements of traditional Romani music with punk rock, is largely made up of Eastern European Roma immigrants who understand the long-standing persecution of their people.
New World of Indigenous Resistance
By Noam Chomsky and voices from North, South, and Central America
City Lights Open Media, 2010, 300 pages
Review by Mat Ward
This book bills itself as a “virtual hemispheric conversation” and claims to be the first book of its kind.
It is certainly an eye-opener.
Raft
By Howard Goldenberg
Hybrid Publishers, 2009
225 pages, $29.95 (pb)
When it comes to closing the gap between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal health, Howard Goldenberg's new book, Raft, could be just what the doctor ordered.
Goldenberg is a Melbourne-based medic who also works as a locum, stepping in for doctors in some of Australia's farthest-flung communities. Raft is his account of those experiences.
Listening to Grasshoppers: Field Notes on Democracy
By Arundhati Roy
Penguin, 2009
256 pages, $30
Two hundred and fifty people marched from Sydney Town Hall to the New South Wales state Labor conference at Darling Harbour on Saturday November 14 to protest against plans for new coal power stations at Bayswater, near Muswellbrook in the Hunter Valley, and Mt Piper, near Lithgow.
Protesters chanted "No more coal power, green jobs now".
Waste: uncovering the global food scandalBy Tristram StuartPenguin, 2009496 pages, $25 (pb)
When I arrived in Australia as a new immigrant in August 2008, I had no job and little money. I'd read about freegans — people who live on thrown-away food — so decided to try my luck.
Waste: uncovering the global food scandalBy Tristram StuartPenguin, 2009496 pages, $25 (pb)
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