A Spy in the Archives
By Sheila Fitzpatrick
Melbourne University Press, 2013
346 pages, $32.99 (pb)
When Sydney University Professor Sheila Fitzpatrick was doing some crafty archival sleuthing as a British PhD student in the late 1960s in Moscow, it was not unexpected that any state guardians might suspect a female spy at work.
Fitzpatrick could see some justification. “Any suspicious archives director who thought I was trying to find out the secrets of Narkompros was dead right”, she notes in Spy in the Archives.
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"Understanding the history of the CPA [Communist Party of Australia], and labour history more generally, is vital for activists here and now who want to change the world,” Sarah Gregson, labour historian and unionist from the University of NSW, told a book launch at the Resistance Centre on May 6.
“We generally face similar issues now as then.”
A three-day photo exhibition at Fremantle's Victoria Hall brought the human rights crisis gripping Sri Lanka to a wider audience.
"Sri Lankan Genocide 2009" exhibits images taken by various photographers documenting the months before and after the massacre of more than 40,000 Tamil civilians by the Sri Lankan Army in May 2009.
It is amazing, really, what with money being so tight these days, that there are people who seem to think we should be entitled to access a government minister for free!
It is a wonder anyone is upset that Treasurer Joe Hockey has been revealed selling meetings to businesses when he has made it perfectly clear time and time again: the age of entitlement is over!
This was a speech given to a Refugee Action Coalition forum in Sydney on May 5.
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I am in Year 11 at a school in Sydney’s inner-west, and like many other high school students, I care about refugee and queer rights, as well as for the rights of women, the rights of Aboriginal Australians and the environment. I am also an activist for all of these things.
From what I've seen, many students support refugee rights and I've found few people my age who oppose them. But I've got into many stupid arguments about refugees with older people.
Front Line Action on Coal released this statement on May 10.
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Fifteen protesters from the Maules Creek coalmine blockade have taken their campaign to the other end of the coal chain, stopping a coal train in Newcastle on May 10.
Protesters approached the stopped train as it entered the Kooragang Island coal terminals from where Whitehaven Coal intend to ship coal mined at Maules Creek.
A protester suspended herself from the railway bridge, blocking access for the train.
Large numbers of police officers are expected to try to break up a blockade site in Bentley, near Lismore, where the community is opposing gas drilling by Metgasco in NSW's Northern Rivers. It is possible police will begin to move protesters as early as May 19.
Hundreds of people are camping at the site to prevent trucks carrying drilling equipment from gaining access to the site. They warn that up to 7000 people will gather to defend the campsite from police.
The fifth anniversary of the end Sri Lanka's civil war will be marked on May 18. In 2009, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), who fought for nearly 30 years for an independent Tamil homeland in the north and east of the island, were defeated.
In the final days of the conflict, tens of thousands of Tamil civilians were killed in a horrific aerial, naval and land artillery bombardment carried out by the Sri Lankan armed forces.
New documentary film Radical Wollongong, produced by Green Left TV, will premiere in Wollongong May 18, followed by screenings in other cities and regional centres.
The film features activists who took part in Wollongong's radical history of strikes and community rallies, from miners’ struggles to Aboriginal justice and environmental protection.
Co-producer John Rainford writes about Wollongong's transition from making steel to looking after the environment.
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Hundreds gathered on May 6 to fill Adelaide's Tandanya National Indigenous Cultural Institute for the forum “An Aboriginal Perspective on Inequality, the Intervention, Racism and Struggle”.
It was jointly organised by the South Australian Aboriginal Coalition for Social Justice, SIMPLA (Stop Income Management in Playford) and the Socialist Alliance. It explored a cross-section of the most pressing issues facing Aboriginal people in Australia, such as racism, the Northern Territory intervention, inequality, the need for struggle and youth activism.
Iranian asylum seeker and aspiring architect Reza Berati was beaten to death inside the Manus Island detention camp more than two months ago, during what former employees of the detention centre described as “inevitable bloodshed”.
Now, the five witnesses who say they can identify those who allegedly kicked, punched and beat the 23-year-old until he succumbed to massive head injuries, have been receiving death threats from local security guards.
The Coalition government plans to speed up the push to privatise remaining federal and state public assets in a massive program to help fund new infrastructure projects — mainly road developments — media sources reveal.
ABC radio's AM reported on May 8 that "an infrastructure package worth about $10 billion will be at the centre of the Abbott government's first budget.
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