R&R: A Novel
By Mark Dapin
Viking, 2015, 287 pp, $32.99
Mark Dapin is a rising star of Australian writing, having first made his mark as a journalist with a string of newspapers. He is a knock-about sort of working-class bloke, who brushed up against the British socialist movement before migrating, a bit of a boxer as well as a writer.
Interviewing the light welterweight world champion Kostya Tszyu for the Sydney Morning Herald, Dapin famously persuaded Tszyu to let him spar with him in the ring. Tszyu didn’t muck about, breaking three of Dapin’s ribs.
Racism
On the weekend of July 18 and 19 there was another round of right-wing Reclaim Australia (RA) protests.
The stated aim of RA and its offshoot, the United Patriots Front (UPF), was to defend what they call “Australian values” from the threat of “Islamicisation”.
REGIONAL QUEENSLAND
Come to a National Peace Convergence over July 5 to July 12. Protest Talisman Sabre joint military exercises between US and Australian troops at Shoalwater Bay. Visit Peace Convergence 2015 on Facebook.
MELBOURNE
Come to a rally: Fight the fines on the jobless on Wednesday July 1 at 1pm. The unemployed can be fined for failing to attend a job search appointment with their Employment Service Provider. Max Employment, 470 Collins St. Organised by Australian Unemployment Union.
The domestic act of terror at a historic African-American Church in South Carolina has quickly been branded as a “hate crime” by US officials, and the white man who perpetrated it is described as a “troubled” person who was otherwise “sweet and quiet”.
This is a predictable media narrative has to many for whom the racist and white supremacist motives behind the killing are transparent.
If you listen to most Western politicians you could be forgiven for thinking that refugees are a pesky annoyance, greedy “economic refugees” from the Third World illegitimately trying to break into this wealthy country.
Their now monotonously routine scapegoating of refugees for the pain and insecurity that more and more people feel, even in the richest countries in the world, translates into plain abuse out there in the public.
The Socialist Alliance stands in full solidarity with the burgeoning movement against the forced closure of remote Aboriginal communities in WA.
This movement can win and if it does it will be a victory for all working people in Australia.
Without any consultation, the federal government announced in September that they would cut funding that, for more than 40 years, had been provided to support these communities. The state government, equally contemptuous in their lack of consultation, then announced that up to 150 communities would have to close.
The Justice Department’s investigation of the Ferguson Police Department has uncovered an array of racially discriminatory practices that were commonplace in the St Louis, Missouri, suburb, Jack Holmes wrote at TheDailybeast.com on March 3.
Holmes said: “Along with systemic issues, a pattern of personal racial bias among members of law enforcement was uncovered, perhaps best evidenced by a number of racist emails released with the report.”
LA cops shoot dead homeless man
Los Angeles police fatally shot a man on March 1 in a confrontation that was caught on video, TeleSUR English reported on March 2.
The shocking footage shows several officers struggling with a man in an area known for its homeless population. The struggle continued once the man was on the ground and several shots were fired.
Independent media organisation Your World News published the following open letter to the United Nations on August 21.
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August 21, 2014
Dr. Ivan Šimonović
760 United Nations Plaza,
New York, New York 10017,
Ebola victims women
United States
Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights, United Nations
Dear Dr. Šimonović,
Many local residents in Victorian regional city Bendigo were shocked when right-wing groups from outside of Bendigo began mobilising residents against the proposal for the city’s first mosque.
The mosque is planned to be built on underdeveloped industrial land in East Bendigo. It is to include a prayer centre, a cafe and a sports centre which would be available for the general community to use.
A heated council meeting on June 18 approved the mosque plans by a vote of 7 to 2. However, opponents say they will appeal to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT).
The Show Will Go On
Mau Power
Coming soon
www.maupower.com
Mau Power's new album takes listeners through the big changes in his life - and the first of those came when he was jailed. "In 2001, I got incarcerated," the Torres Strait Islands rapper tells Green Left Weekly. "And that time I was in lock-up for nine months."
Mau Power, also known as Patrick Mau, was put away for grievous bodily harm after a street fight in the southern Queensland country town of Toowoomba.
Hip Hop, White Supremacy & Capitalism: Why Corporations Infiltrated RAP Music
Solomon Comissiong
Released November 2013
www.solomoncomissiong.com
The politics in early hip-hop music inspired Solomon Comissiong to become an activist, author, lecturer and film-maker. Green Left Weekly's Mat Ward spoke to him about his work, which uses rap music as a tool to educate and organise.
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