World Cup organisers FIFA and its corporate sponsors market their products to the members of the LGBTI community by presenting themselves as allies and advocates for their struggles. But this is questioned by its holding of the 2018 World Cup in Russia and giving the rights to the 2022 event to Qatar.
Culture
Many Australians have probably never heard some of these Australian languages before Yothu Yindi, Gurrumul, Shellie Morris and others brought them to broader ears. But they are the languages of this continent: they grew up with this land, evolved with it, and have much to tell us about its histories, ecologies and peoples.
The Fare Network (Football Against Racism in Europe) is an organisation that tracks racism and homophobia in the football (soccer) world. For the 2018 World Cup in Russia, they set up a series of “diversity houses” for the LGBTQI community and people of colour.
Now in St Petersburg, they have been evicted from the building they were leasing for these safe spaces. Other tenants are also reportedly under instruction not to offer subleases, leaving only the brutal symbolism of a diversity house shuttered.
Since it was first mooted in 2010, the Adani Carmichael Coal and Rail project in Queensland’s Galilee Basin has proven controversial. It has faced a series of legal challenges by environment groups and Traditional Owners, as well as campaigns by activists calling on financial institutions to divest from the fossil fuel industry. The starting date has been rescheduled several times as the viability of the project has been called into question and potential finance proves elusive.
It is timely then, at this impasse, that two new books are released documenting the story so far and canvassing possible outcomes.
Climate and Capitalism editor Ian Angus takes a look at a series of new books of interest for ecosocialists.
The Killing Season: A History of the Indonesian Massacres, 1965-66
By Geoffrey B Robinson
Princeton University Press, 2018
429 pages
From October 1965 to mid-1966, one of the worst mass killings of the 20th century took place in Indonesia. Anywhere between 500,000 and more than 1 million people associated with the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) were estimated to have been killed and more than 1 million others jailed, some for more than 3 decades, in an anti-leftist purge led by the Indonesian military.
Two new documentaries that screened at the recent Sydney Film Festival shine a light, in contrasting but powerful styles, on an important, yet often neglected story in the refugee narrative — why people seek asylum.
US chef and author Anthony Bourdain, who tragically passed away on June 8, demanded that we consider the humanity of so many who were wrongly portrayed by the rest of the media, writes John Nichols.
As the 2018 World Cup frenzy starts to take over the news cycle, it is crucial to highlight examples of how the sport has brought people together. Michael Blosser writes that one example is the case of Celtic FC and Palestine, with the Glasgow-based club showing consistent solidarity with the Palestinian struggle.
The question asked by many isn’t whether the Palestinian cause is worthy of support — it clear is — but why Celtic and its fans have so consistently offered support while many others haven’t.
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